The Pounding of My Heart....

Some may think that I didn't struggle for long, because I escaped so quickly.  What is not understood in that single story is that I have been trying to escape in my mind for 20 years.  They are in my thought, over my shoulder, and in the shadows of my mind.  I was not a hero, there was no grand exit just an escape to 20 years or so of silence.  My heart pounded as I fled China and it didn't stop till I found sanctuary in relationships of healing in peer support.  Healing surrounded by other fleeing something inside too.
My story of escape became surreal and in the crevices of my mind, always hiding from them inside.  Hiding my story until age 43, when I made a video on my trauma story that I never published.  Hearing the videographers exclaim I was a survivor of human trafficking changed something.  This gave a name for what happened to me.  Now that I have found a whole group of survivors, I hope that they will accept me.  My moments of captivity were so few compared to the suffering of others and compared to the suffering of the women I left behind to escape.
As I try to connect with a new group of peers.  I know one thing, peer support has always been there for me and always will be.  It is my career, my life, my connection to sanctuary.  Without this sanctuary, I wouldn't have my family today because I never would have been able to trust on this level.  May this new group of peers in my life only deepen my trust in the earth's people.

The Mighty Pen.

Writing is quite an adventurous endeavor.  I enjoy writing about life and sharing my experiences.  There is something very powerful about putting thoughts on paper.  Seeing the pictures of the people memorializing the life of the Parisian cartoonist brings tears to me eyes.  There is something so powerful about raising a pen.  This is one reason I am so happy my son has learned to draw and write despite all odds, because I want him to be able to express himself in many forms.  There is something powerful about a real pen on paper.  I have several cartoons I have created as a release to share how I feel about some absurdity of life, but I am not brave enough to share them.  I realize their power and keep them close to my heart in fond memory of the time.  The images assisted me in expressing my feelings that were beyond what I could express in ordinary language.

Working in government, I have learned the art of what to say and what not to say.  This is a delicate dance of sharing the issues while being positive.  People that have worked in government a long time can sound very strange at times, having lived this way for so long.  I value the role I have, because it calls on me to infuse a little reality into what can be a vacuum at times.  Though these are often internal conversations.  I also admire the non-profit organizations ability to infuse a little more reality.  What I admire the most, is the might of the pen of the ordinary citizen that makes a stand.  One pen can give pause to a whole system.  People may not realize the great power they hold.

As people with behavioral health conditions, often we turn inward with our feelings and thoughts.  There seems to be few avenues of expression at times where the lens of analysis doesn't reduce our statements to a diagnosis, but this can be a feeling we impose on ourselves.  We can own our art as part of our stories and we can own our writing as powerful expressions of meaning and purpose.  We can do more than doodle and journal our feelings, we can change the world.  Express yourself!

Welcoming Myself into Being

This blog entry is about healing from the ice of trauma, so you may want to read or not depending where you are on the spectrum of readiness and support from others on this journey.  I have begun reading a book by Levine on Trauma.  It talks about the freeze response involved in your body after trauma and ushering your body back into being.  The exercise in the book seemed to difficult for me.  So, I made up my own.  I often get frozen by my thoughts, feelings, sensations and just muddle through.  Today I did something different.  I welcomed my body, feelings, thoughts, sensations, and people around me at the gym into being in my mind.  This may not be the greatest place for such an exercise, because there are so many distractions.  Also if something painful enters your mind then you may not be in the right place to deal effectively with that at the gym.  My gym is really friendly and I wanted to challenge myself.  So I started a conversation with myself while on the elliptical machine.  Some sensation arose and I welcomed it by saying, "Welcome tension in my back, welcome chest, welcome hips, welcome heart rate rising, welcome feet, welcome man walking by."  I was working out next to my husband and I had this memory of meeting him and salsa dancing with him.  It was an amazing meditation on being in the moment that I hope I can continue.  I usually work out in a sweatsuit hoody to give me extra comfort, but I'm so in my body I feel I might be able to let it go next time.  This beautiful moment was interrupted by a minor family emergency.  I have hope of living this way and wanted to share. Being in the moment is powerful and life giving!