It’s not bragging if it’s really true

Introducing a heart warming new category for our blog.

I REALLY love bragging on people – it’s a cross between loving them up, appreciating the heck out of them and helping them to soak up the small and big wonders of their progress.  

Today we’re introducing the “It’s not bragging if it’s true” segment to ALL our dear readers. We used to have it for the Fast Track students and I miss the yumminess of it now we’ve opened up our monthly seminars to everyone.

My first brag on someone is a doozy.

I’ve been working with K off and on for about 3 years on a serious medical condition that requires on-going medication that required constant evaluation and re-balancing of her hormones. Here’s her story.

At 8 years old she watched her mother bucked off a horse and killed in front of her.  Her father died in the same year.  Her grandparents tried to manage the three kids but it was more than they could handle and the children were split apart among aunts and uncles.  

She comes from a religious family and religion has played a central role throughout her life.  After the death of each parent, more than one well-meaning person said to her variations of “God needed your mother/father.”  It was incomprehensible to her, that God would take both of her parents when he had everything. How incredibly selfish when she was just a child, and her parents were all she had.   She’s talked about the long term pain those remarks caused to her relationship with God.

She’s also gotten mentally and emotionally stronger and stronger as she understood the effect on her body of these traumas that resulted in this serious health condition.

We finished an on-line clinic a few weeks back and she posted for us last week about how she was led to a series of books and insights about religion and patriarchy.  She wrote: 

“Do you remember the study that they did about the black children with the dolls? There was a white doll and a black doll and when they asked which doll was prettier, which doll was smarter, etc., the black children picked the white doll. Because they never saw themselves represented in TV, ads, billboards, government, leadership, they always felt that they were less-than because of the color of their skin. It was clear to them that there was no path to reaching wholeness. Their perception was that nothing could change the fact that they would always be inferior. This is the way I have seen myself my whole life. I could never measure up; I could never be “worthy”, because everyone I saw who was “worthy” was male. Male clergy at every level. God and Christ both male. People mentioned in the scriptures are almost exclusively male.”

I’m pulling out excerpts that she’s happy to share with you, that will help you share the appreciation of this beautiful breakthrough with us.

“I have been letting all of this soak in as to what that means in terms of my current religion. Our church has always believed in a Mother in Heaven, but it is never talked about. As I began studying it more, there is really a lot more there than I had ever known. On Mother’s Day, I happened to listen to our church meeting (we listen on Zoom) and our local leader talked about Mother in Heaven during his talk. We let him know that his talk had touched us, and he ended up stopping by our house a few days later to ask us our thoughts about it. He was very much in agreement with the lack of press Mother in Heaven has gotten in the church, which was very reassuring.”

It often takes days to process big ahaa moments, as we integrate them into our brain neural pathways and our bodies.  A few days later K wrote:

“The whole Mother in Heaven thing, has been a big change place for me. I know that some churches believe in a Father in Heaven, and isn’t a Mother in Heaven or a Heavenly Mother, an obvious corollary to that?

I realized that I have never had a place of safety in my life that I can remember. My parents died within a year of each other when I was eight. We lived with my grandparents for a few years, and then my brother went to live with one aunt and uncle’s family, my sister and I with another (although far enough apart that we did not live there at the same time. They were all very good people, but it just never quite felt like ‘home’. 

It seems crazy all these years later, that I still had not found a ‘safe’ place to be. I have never felt safe with God, or religion in general. The idea of Mother in Heaven feels like a safe place for me. I think the feeling is different, because it is not transactional. I don’t have the feeling that she is going to “bless” me with anything, but more that she is someone who hears me and cares about me. (I have not felt that God cares about me, only that he cares about others.) 

I do not pray to her. I just talk to her as if she is right there next to me. It is more intimate and more connected.  When I am feeling lost, I imagine myself laying in the palm of her hand, like a newborn might be held. It feels like a place where I can let go of all my stress, fears, shame ,… anything that is weighing me down or holding me back. A place of complete safety and pure love.

It brings me peace.”

My heart went out to this 8 year old girl who’s found a feeling of safety and peace for the first time in her 60’s.  

Have you heard of the butterfly effect?  

“It used to be thought that the events that changed the world were things like big bombs, maniac politicians, huge earthquakes, or vast population movements, but it has now been realized that this is a very old-fashioned view held by people totally out of touch with modern thought. The things that change the world, according to Chaos theory, are the tiny things. A butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazonian jungle, and subsequently a storm ravages half of Europe.” — from Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

I’m thinking that we’ll put those butterfly wings to a better effect.  You might like to join me as I sit, flap my butterfly wings with K and ripple out the expansive appreciation of that feeling of safety and peace out into the world.

This gorgeous artwork “Amy and Solo” was created by Catherine Clark Dowden Artwork.  You’ll find her on Facebook here.