DYM: The Heart Remembers What the Mind Forgets

If I could tell you everything that I have learned so far
Then you could be
One step ahead
Of all the painful memories still running thru my head


Last night, I reminisced about experiences I hadn’t thought about in over twenty years. Fleeting emotions ran through my Spirit – shame, sadness, anger, disappointment. My shame doesn’t come from the abuse – it comes from all of the wrong choices I made as a result of the abuse. But what was I to do as I matured into a young woman? By the time I was sixteen, I’d been sexually assaulted three times and molested by a babysitter. 

One thing I know for sure is that when you’ve experienced trauma, you find ways to cope. One of my tactics was to compartmentalize the pain. It helped me get through some of the most challenging years of my childhood. 

My innocence was gone. My rose-colored glasses shattered. My Spirit fell asleep. I functioned in a spiritual twilight throughout my high school and college years – partially awake but mostly asleep to the painful memories running through my head.

Bouts of screaming and crying were the norm, as were drug abuse, promiscuity, and suicide attempts. I did almost anything to maintain my sanity. To keep my thoughts at bay. To keep myself from feeling the immense pain that crawled under my skin and strangled my heart. I didn’t sleep well. I didn’t eat much. I wasn’t kind to my body.

But today, I’m fully awake. I know that I could have made different choices but where would they have led me? What would my path be? Would I still live in the love and light that I bask in today? Would I have the same family? The same lifestyle? The same strong beliefs?

I’ll never know and I think that’s the beauty of life. I can’t spend my time thinking about what I could have or should have done because I’ll never know the outcome. I can only focus on where I am and where I’m going.


And so . . . the lesson today is not the lesson I thought I’d be sharing in this post. But nevertheless, here it is – live in the moment. Be present. Decide what you want your life to be and deal with what’s holding you back – now. 

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