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If forgiveness actually worked, It Would Be Obvious

4/7/2022

 
​If forgiveness actually worked,
It Would Be Obvious
 
By khf
 
Recently a victim of childhood sexual abuse revealed to me that she had “forgiven” the sexual brutalizer who also happened to be a close relative. And here is where the forgiveness protocol reveals itself as a universal lie.
 
She had taken ill, her body, mind and spirit weakened by fever and chills. In those moments of diminishment and vulnerability, the brutalizer’s shadow crawled in bed beside her dragging with him vivid, tormenting flashbacks of the violence he inflicted upon her all those years ago. Once again she was the helpless child—the brutalizer that she had “forgiven,” once more all powerful. The forgiveness doctrine exposed as no more than propaganda scribbled like graffiti across a derelict billboard. Meaningless words that offered no protection against the onslaught of her waking nightmares when she was in dire need.
 
Understanding trauma is to understand how energy works. Energy flows forward toward the horizon. That is always its purpose—to flow, to seek harmony.  Of course, energy can be blocked. Obstructed. Forced backward. Misused. But in its natural, uncorrupted state, energy flows freely into balance.
 
Energetic properties—undisputable spiritual characteristics of nature—eternally bind the principle of forgiveness to the resonance of truth. And that truth must be present, be absolute and self-evident within the individual. Forgiveness is resolution of harm, an evolution of consciousness. Forgiveness of abuse cannot be granted—that power does not lie with the victim of abuse or anyone else. The abuser must align with their own truth. Forgiveness, if it is to be, travels energetically from the victimizer to the victim. Not the other way around.
 
Forgiveness always requires action from the victimizer. It is the spiritual responsibility of the victimizer to acknowledge and accept liability for the abuse they perpetrated. The victimizer must embody deep contrition and demonstrate profound understanding of the consequences suffered by their victim. The victimizer must establish necessary behavior congruent with sincerity and compassion. And also must develop the courage and self-control to bear the entire burden of their abusive actions without further imposing their needs and will on their victim by begging for forgiveness. The likelihood of this occurring is slim to none.
 
No victim of violence is set free through the enforcement of the forgiveness myth. Force has no spiritual value, no evolutionary purpose. And yet, it is imposed on victims of violence as the path to freedom. If forgiveness actually worked, it would be obvious.
 
When you think of the person who so brutally violated you—when you say their name, when you hear their name—do you experience the wave and glow of peace surging throughout your body? All the way through to your mind and spirit? Does the radiance of freedom inspire your day?
 
I listened to her speaking about “forgiving” him of the violence against her little girl body. I listened as she recited the doctrine--the script—of forgiveness. I heard the tone of her voice, its volume. I listened to the words she chose to tell her story. I felt the abuser’s presence inside her middle aged body. It was painful. I wanted to cry.
 
When we, as victims of violence, dispense with the fantasy of forgiveness as the path to freedom, a brand new life opens up for us. A life brimming with possibilities. Personal empowerment. Creativity. And opportunities for profound understanding that draws our hearts toward the healing power of self love. We create our own freedom.

Saying the Words

4/7/2022

 
Saying the Words
by khf
 
Some years ago when I was writing my first book, Women In Hiding, and before I embraced my mediumship, I reached an impasse of such shame I was unsure if I could continue on. Because to continue absolutely meant I had to inch my way through a passage so dark, just the thought of it suffocated me with scalding dread.
 
The sexual predator, in a public act of sexual bravado and sinister, bragging mummers, claimed his authority over and possession of his prey, me—a frightened, traumatized young girl—his victim. It was an incident of such unspeakable public humiliation that the details instantly burrowed inside my body and took up permanent residence as raw, hemorrhaging shame.
 
I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t say the words. They would have to remain buried safely out of sight, away from malicious prying eyes and the pointing fingers of strangers who were literally standing in line waiting for the opportunity to attack. It was all ugly.
 
I sat there with my fingers hovering above the keyboard and asked the air; the universe; the spooky little things that lived in the sky or heaven; the invisible impetus that encouraged this book in the first place: “Do you really want me to say this?” I expected a resounding rebuke. At the very least an accusatory silence where I would hang my head in more shame and go about living my life with the trailing depression that shaped it.
 
“If you don’t say the words, nothing will change,” was the immediate response.
 
So I said the words. Wrote in detail…agonizing detail. Words that possessed power. Blunt truth. Words that connected deeply to the incident, to its lasting legacy of personal trauma. Words that mined the pain. The disgrace. Surgical words. Words that cleaned the wound. Excised it of poison. Words that left an open wound that I did not think would ever, ever heal. Words that I wanted to take back and re-bury. Words I was terrified of. And here I had set them free. And I did not know what they would do. Though I was pretty sure that they would torture me.
 
Writing Woman In Hiding was not cathartic. I did not see how it could be. For years after writing it I wanted to go back into hiding. Return to the safety of a blanket over my head. Return to crying in private and smiling in public. Just like I’d always done since early childhood.
 
But what began as a futile effort to articulate the inexpressible became an act of courage on my own behalf. Gave foundation and structure to that which I had no understanding. The words—as tough and excruciating as they were—forged a path into a light that I did not know existed. I can only call it freedom.
 
If you don’t say the words, nothing will change. I said the words and everything changed. ​

Trauma’s Infinite Stranglehold

4/7/2022

 
Trauma’s Infinite Stranglehold
 
k.h. Foley
  
In the waning weeks of my mother’s physical life, I was sitting next to her on the sofa in her tiny, neat-as-a-pin apartment, talking softly, tenderly to her. She was frail and calm. A departure from the mother I knew who always carried a match in one hand and a stick of dynamite in the other. On this day, there was no hint of feral anger. No blast of antagonism to repulse me away. Dementia had stolen all of her protection. Had left her features velvety smooth. Her heart defenseless.
 
My mother had been sexually brutalized many, many times during her life. No human— no child—can withstand such harm. It is not possible. When anyone forces their energy into another, whether it is physical, psychological, emotional, religious, verbal, it is an assault. Assault causes injury. Injury creates pain. Pain unresolved expands into trauma. The powerful, powerful force that is trauma becomes lodged in our body, in our emotions. And does not let go.
 
It was always a bad-luck day when, as a child, I found myself trapped alone in the family sedan with my stepfather. He was an angry man. And his children were his target. As soon as the key hit the ignition, he would start: excoriating, humiliating and generally berating me for faults real or imagined. Leaving no flaw of mine unexposed. Firing contempt straight into my young heart. I didn’t know that he was force-feeding me hatred and lies. I thought it was truth.
 
My mother with her sublime bakery skills, her intuitive understanding of color and balance in her sewing craft work, and her sensitivity to creative energy, had “the touch” for transcendent artistry. But over the years, she became isolated in the pain that had solidified into the living, breathing entity of trauma. And that trauma turned insurmountable as she aged. Creativity became more and more of an emotional challenge as trauma and its vicious lies robbed her of any joy.
​
Sitting so close to her on that sofa that day, her eyes clinging to mine, I longed to return to her the beauty she had offered this world, despite the crippling anguish of her personal despair—trauma, that highly skilled enemy combatant, had never, not once, left her side.
 
As I was waxing poetic over her impressive artistry and her creative accomplishments, describing her as a true artist, and lamenting the fact that she never had the opportunity to flourish, she bowed her head and whispered, I never had the opportunity. I never did. She was in that moment defenseless against kindness. And broke down into heaving, convulsing sobs. Guttural, feral cries breaking through the wall of imposed silence. Gurgling up from a bottomless pit of bleeding wounds. Wounds she’d kept buried for a lifetime, now exposed.
 
In those moments, witnessing my elderly mother in such intense agony, I was terrified that I was actually killing her with kindness. And that is the legacy of trauma—its ultimate, infinite stranglehold on a haunted heart. Where love is refused entry. Where love becomes the deepest cut of all.

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    About the Author

    In the provocative spirit of Matilda Joslyn Gage, Gloria Anzaldua, and Mary Daly, Kathleen Hoy Foley expands and deepens the voice of female experience.

    Raw. Uncompromising. Compassionate. Deliberately antagonistic. Kathleen writes to awaken the courage within the reader.


    TO THE SURVIVOR
    If you are a person who was victimized as a child or as an adult, I am so very sorry you ever had to suffer at the hands of a predator. 

    I am sorry you were abused, sorry no one protected you, sorry you have felt so alone, sorry you have been so afraid then and in the now. I am so sorry for the loss of your innocence. 

    You were and are entitled to you life. And you had a right to inherit your own body. And no matter what you did or what you think you failed to do you are not to blame. Sexual abuse is never a victim's choice. Sexual abuse is something that was done to your body not something you wanted. 

    This is an excerpt from: 

    http://web.archive.org/web/20130101063123/http://true-perspective.org 

    Kathleen and I encourage you to visit this site for perspective on your ordeal. Live happy and whole. Claim you power! 

    You are your own authority.

    Question Everything.  Including social, religious & political authorities

    Learn to listen and respond to your intuition.  It is never wrong.

    Learn to be impolite.  It must be part of your defense system.

    Nothing is unspeakable.

    Stare truth in the eye and speak it.

    You name abuse.  Listen to your body.  It will tell you.  It is never wrong. 

    Stare abuse in the eye and speak it.

    Stare abusers in the eye and name them.

    Use your voice.  Use your words. 

    BE LOUD.  Violence against girls, boys, women and men hides in the silent shadows.

    Know that you are powerful.

    KNOW THAT YOUR VOICE IS POWERFUL.   USE IT.



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