ANONYMOUS STRANGER
by Kathleen Hoy Foley
Many years ago, so many that it’s now considered the Stone Ages, Woman’s Day magazine ran a special deal too enticing to ignore. For a nominal fee and a few words scribbled on plain white paper, a renowned expert would analyze readers’ handwriting and provide a comprehensive report on many aspects of their life. Financial, personal, professional, character traits, love—all the usual subjects, that as part of the human race, we’re forever curious about.
Maybe, just maybe this anonymous stranger with his honed, interpretative skill would erase all my emotional pain with his analysis and insight, and along with it predict my future, which of course was going to be sunny and wonderful because that is the answer I was looking for. Back then I believed in miracles, the kind where all it took to heal inner darkness was fervent praying of the rosary and a strike or two of benevolent lightning. So much for fantasy. Maybe a handwriting guy was the answer.
Turns out, Handwriting Guy was my answer…but not in the way I thought. Handwriting Guy gave me the answer: of where to look, of where to begin. Right there on the printout in front of me sat a conspicuous sign pointing directly to the path that would lead me to healing. It was a flashing light. A neon road sign. It may as well have been jumping up and down and calling, “Over here! Over here!” But I didn’t hear. I didn’t see. Decades passed. Still I didn’t hear. Still I didn’t see.
Amid the generalities in my report, two words stood out—actually screamed out: tyrannical upbringing. My reaction was visceral: What the hell was this crazy guy talking about? There was no tyrant in my young life. Handwriting Guy was wrong. Very wrong. Absolutely wrong. I wasted my money.
Had I not been blocked by something I did not understand, I could have seen that my rigid emotional response—my noble denial—to Handwriting Guy’s conclusion was in truth a sign, a very, very big signal that something important was hiding in plain sight. What I was so viscerally, yet so casually dismissing was the exact issue I needed to explore. But it was the Stone Age and I just wanted to be dazzled and permanently healed. My heart pain had nothing to do with any tyrant. Just give me the light already…
Handwriting Guy was correct. There most certainly was a tyrant in my upbringing. It took writing Woman In Hiding for me to see. That tyrant—my stepfather—with his tyrannical, abusive behavior toward me and my brothers shaped and set the course for my entire life. The echoes of his treatment still to this day test my sense of balance and wholeness.
My tyrannical upbringing was the beginning of a force field of fear and chaos, where terror and pain fused into a type of survival that calls for a little girl to tiptoe about and squeeze into hidden corners. Praying for invisibility. But never finding it. If I was ever to experience any kind of true wholeness, true resolution of emotional pain, then I needed to begin with understanding my tyrannical upbringing. Handwriting Guy, an anonymous stranger in an article in an insignificant magazine that touted the wonders of meatloaf and drugstore face creams, saw this and reported it back to me.
It is not that Handwriting Guy was some kind of weird mystic gifted with magical powers. The energy of abuse and pain surrounded me. Anyone familiar with how energy works would be able to intuit and read this. Handwriting Guy was a healer, offering his practiced skill so that others might see. And all those years later, I did see. Seeing led to understanding. Understanding led to knowledge, which led to emotional freedom.
Those two words--tyrannical upbringing—were a light, a place to begin. A place to start clearing. I was so quick to dismiss what now is so obvious. Handwriting Guy’s message was that benevolent strike of lightning I was searching for. Only it didn’t offer the instant healing, as I hoped it would. But it led me to my path. And when I was ready, the guiding words of that anonymous stranger were still there.
That’s the way of healing energy. When you’re ready, healers show up. Or…you finally notice them. A healer could be an anonymous stranger with the exact words you need to hear, or maybe the exact touch you need to feel, or the exact surroundings you need to begin the “journey of your life.” That’s the beauty of energy healing. It comes from anywhere.
Namaste.
by Kathleen Hoy Foley
Many years ago, so many that it’s now considered the Stone Ages, Woman’s Day magazine ran a special deal too enticing to ignore. For a nominal fee and a few words scribbled on plain white paper, a renowned expert would analyze readers’ handwriting and provide a comprehensive report on many aspects of their life. Financial, personal, professional, character traits, love—all the usual subjects, that as part of the human race, we’re forever curious about.
Maybe, just maybe this anonymous stranger with his honed, interpretative skill would erase all my emotional pain with his analysis and insight, and along with it predict my future, which of course was going to be sunny and wonderful because that is the answer I was looking for. Back then I believed in miracles, the kind where all it took to heal inner darkness was fervent praying of the rosary and a strike or two of benevolent lightning. So much for fantasy. Maybe a handwriting guy was the answer.
Turns out, Handwriting Guy was my answer…but not in the way I thought. Handwriting Guy gave me the answer: of where to look, of where to begin. Right there on the printout in front of me sat a conspicuous sign pointing directly to the path that would lead me to healing. It was a flashing light. A neon road sign. It may as well have been jumping up and down and calling, “Over here! Over here!” But I didn’t hear. I didn’t see. Decades passed. Still I didn’t hear. Still I didn’t see.
Amid the generalities in my report, two words stood out—actually screamed out: tyrannical upbringing. My reaction was visceral: What the hell was this crazy guy talking about? There was no tyrant in my young life. Handwriting Guy was wrong. Very wrong. Absolutely wrong. I wasted my money.
Had I not been blocked by something I did not understand, I could have seen that my rigid emotional response—my noble denial—to Handwriting Guy’s conclusion was in truth a sign, a very, very big signal that something important was hiding in plain sight. What I was so viscerally, yet so casually dismissing was the exact issue I needed to explore. But it was the Stone Age and I just wanted to be dazzled and permanently healed. My heart pain had nothing to do with any tyrant. Just give me the light already…
Handwriting Guy was correct. There most certainly was a tyrant in my upbringing. It took writing Woman In Hiding for me to see. That tyrant—my stepfather—with his tyrannical, abusive behavior toward me and my brothers shaped and set the course for my entire life. The echoes of his treatment still to this day test my sense of balance and wholeness.
My tyrannical upbringing was the beginning of a force field of fear and chaos, where terror and pain fused into a type of survival that calls for a little girl to tiptoe about and squeeze into hidden corners. Praying for invisibility. But never finding it. If I was ever to experience any kind of true wholeness, true resolution of emotional pain, then I needed to begin with understanding my tyrannical upbringing. Handwriting Guy, an anonymous stranger in an article in an insignificant magazine that touted the wonders of meatloaf and drugstore face creams, saw this and reported it back to me.
It is not that Handwriting Guy was some kind of weird mystic gifted with magical powers. The energy of abuse and pain surrounded me. Anyone familiar with how energy works would be able to intuit and read this. Handwriting Guy was a healer, offering his practiced skill so that others might see. And all those years later, I did see. Seeing led to understanding. Understanding led to knowledge, which led to emotional freedom.
Those two words--tyrannical upbringing—were a light, a place to begin. A place to start clearing. I was so quick to dismiss what now is so obvious. Handwriting Guy’s message was that benevolent strike of lightning I was searching for. Only it didn’t offer the instant healing, as I hoped it would. But it led me to my path. And when I was ready, the guiding words of that anonymous stranger were still there.
That’s the way of healing energy. When you’re ready, healers show up. Or…you finally notice them. A healer could be an anonymous stranger with the exact words you need to hear, or maybe the exact touch you need to feel, or the exact surroundings you need to begin the “journey of your life.” That’s the beauty of energy healing. It comes from anywhere.
Namaste.
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