As my dog looked up from our morning cuddle and saw her shadow, I felt the Universe give me a gift of insight. This is what it feels like to carry trauma memories… dark images skirting around the edges of your sunshine.
She barked at the scary shadow interrupting a soft place in her day. Those of us who have known a time of feeling utterly powerless when our life felt endangered want to bark at those memories. We shy away, deny, and run toward busy, wanting to ignore the darkness of our experience. But, as any sunny moment will remind you, the shadows are still there. The fear remains until we turn toward the memories of our trauma, walk into them, and merge our experience with our current SELF.
That was the message when I had the honor of sharing an evening with a group of women who came to learn more about dissociated trauma memory. Some were there to understand or support others. A few had noticed phantoms of the past slipping into their days. Still others had begun turning toward their experience to heal. From different paths, we had come together through “Spirit Unbroken: Abby’s Story.”
Whether Abby’s story felt like a life raft, turbulent white waters, or a novel that “explained dissociation better than anything”, we were all moved forward in our journeys of self-empowerment. And, I believe, we saved another child because we were willing to talk about something that can only thrive in secrecy.
