I've had this book sitting on my shelf for years. I've always wanted to read it but life just kept getting in the way. I'm grateful it was made into a movie that I watched this weekend. As a woman who channels spirit, it really resonated with me. The themes of judgement and punishment expecially hit home. Now, if you haven't seen the movie and want to, let me stop you right here. SPOILER ALERT: I will touch on a few things that could ruin the movie/book for you. JUDGEMENT As I mentioned in my story, I predominantly channel children in spirit. As I watched the father struggle with the unbearable pain of losing his daughter who was abducted and murdered by a mysterious man, I was overcome with empathy for the father character, as I am when I speak with parents of children who have passed on. To carry the pain of losing a child and still find joy in life is a remarkable feat. The father, who was not finding joy in the beginning of the movie, was not only dealing with the loss of his daughter, he was grappling with his own past. He endured a physically and emotionally abusive father and struggled with choices he made to help free himself and his mother from his abusive father's attacks. He carried the pain of his childhood, as one would, and it became the foundation for his judgmental outlook on life. In the story, it took a near death experience and encounter with God (in a number of forms) for him to realize that he had to find a way to let go of the pain that was consuming him. To understand his father was also abused as a child, and likely his father before him. It was a cycle of abuse spanning decades and it shaped how he judged others and their actions. Not necessarily seeing his father as a small child who was also abused. I have found in my work that we are being guided to release the pain we accumulate and carry and in the process, live more from our hearts than our heads. I can attest to this having gone through letting go of the anger I had towards my relative who raped me when I was a child. I now see that he was abused, and his father before him, and so on and so on. Living in a state of pain and judgement is literally robbing yourself of your own joy. Don't get me wrong, it's a hard process with many ups and downs but one that is oh-so-worth-it in the end. PUNISHMENT In the movie, the father questions if his daughter's abduction and murder were in essence "karma" for what he did to hurt and kill his father as a child. The movie does a great job of explaining that life doesn't work that way, a message I've received over and over again as a medium. With that said, there is no promise of a life without pain. We are, afterall, literally learning to love and grow here in Earth School, so pain is a natural part of our evolution. The point God makes in the movie is that she cannot stop things like that from happening because they aren't of God or of the light. They are born from evil and darkness and not one of us is immune to evil energy. I believe this to be true, as well. In my work as a medium, I have encountered energies that are so dark I was literally quaking in my boots. Energies that attach themselves to people who are open to letting them in. This doesn't mean the people who are letting them in are BAD people. They could be so severely wounded from trauma in life that they don't realize they are literally hosting these energies. We live in a dual reality--good and evil, light and dark. It's just they way it is. And we all have a dark side which is part of being human. It takes great courage and a lot of faith in the energy of love to forgive and understand those who are operating primarily from a place of dark and maybe they do not even realize it. For those on the receiving end of the darkness, this is where intuition and faith come in. This is where each one of us has the choice to see the bigger picture. To trust the quiet voice inside. To understand why we are even here in the first place—to learn to love ourselves unconditionally. I highly recommend the movie and/or the book! I believe we each have our own "Shack" moments in life where we have a choice to move forward operating from a place of love...or not. I hope as we evolve as a society, we continue to choose love more often.
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I’ve been a lifelong Joni Mitchell fan. For those who know me, it’s easy to see why. She appeals to my inner hippie. One song in particular—Both Sides Now—has always been a favorite but I’ll admit younger Kiersten didn’t quite get the full meaning of the song. I truly get it now. Or, at least, why the lyrics burrowed deep into my soul for eternity. As I watched Sara Barielles' beautiful rendition of Both Sides Now during the Oscar’s ‘In Memoriam’ last night, tears welled but not for obvious reasons. As a child and a young adult, I looked at life as Joni did: Rows and floes of angel hair And ice cream castles in the air And feather canyons everywhere I've looked at clouds that way I had no idea that life could look so different. What I once thought was black and white wasn’t really that way at all. The more I lived, the more I would come to understand that I don’t fully understand. I recently wrote to my abuser. I told him I know what he did and how it shaped my entire life. It took three years, from the time I first started having flashbacks, to feel ready to put pen to paper. Much to my surprise, writing the letter was easy. Taking direction from my soul, my fingers tapped away furiously on the keyboard. I felt strong. I knew it was time. But there was a moment I realized that both sides of me—little Kiersten and adult Kiersten—aren’t fully integrated. As I was sealing the envelope to put in the mail, tears welled in my eyes. The thing is, I didn’t realize I was crying. It was as if it wasn’t me. I was surprised by the trail of salty tears down my cheeks. I quickly realized it was Little Kiersten who was crying—a release after all these years. Maybe now, I’ll start to fully connect with her again. Maybe she feels vindicated. I don’t really know yet. Looking at life from this side now, I am truly grateful for the healing and growth I’ve experienced over the past three years. And I’m proud that I didn’t let the revelations of my life break me. I feel now, they are just part of the tapestry of who I am. But now old friends are acting strange They shake their heads, they say I've changed Well something's lost, but something's gained In living every day I've looked at life from both sides now From win and lose and still somehow It's life's illusions I recall I really don't know life at all I really don’t know life at all, or the reasons we endure what we do in our human experiences. What I do know is I am grateful to feel open to not knowing or understanding everything. Just carrying on one day at a time without all of the answers and most importantly, becoming whole for the first time in my life. I’m living both sides, now. One of the hardest parts about being a childhood sexual abuse survivor is trusting memories and/or repressed memories. Doubt enters the mind quite a bit, especially in the beginning as memories/flashbacks bubble up. For me, discovering and trusting intuition coupled with assistance from other spiritual and mental health professionals helped reinforce that what I was coming to grips with was not "just in my head."
Part of my healing journey has involved really tapping into my own intuition and learning to recognize how to differentiate intuition from ego. I am going to share a few tips I've learned along the way but please know, everything surrounding intuition is very individual. I believe intuition is like a road map for life, if we learned to get quiet and listen. Intuition is subtle. I've learned over the years that my ego mind is much louder than my intuition. When I get an idea that I know is truly stemming from my intuition, a calming feeling comes over me. And the thought/idea will keep coming up over and over, but in a quiet way. My ego mind is much more of a bully and more impulsive. And typically, if i get an idea out of nowhere and there's a sense of urgency and fear around it, I'll know to sit back and wait. If the thought comes back to me in a very calm way, without fear, i'll know it's something I need to pay attention to and act on when I feel the time is right. Ex. When I was coming up with the idea for Mod Mom Furniture, everyone thought I was nuts. I had no carpentry experience and zero design know-how, yet the idea to start my own furniture company kept pushing me forward and it wasn't panicked. Sure, I was nervous, but deep in my gut, I felt very calm about it. I was excited and felt in my soul, it was something I was being guided to do. Intuition can produce physical sensations. Sometimes when I'm ignoring the more subtle intuitive thoughts, my body will get my attention. I will feel chills/goosebumps. Sometimes, I'll even feel muscle spasms in different parts of my body. For example, when I start to feel twitching in my knees, it's typically because I'm resisting moving forward in some area of my life. I felt this intensely before I came out with my childhood sexual abuse story. And the minute I published my post, the twitching completely went away. More commonly, we all know the "kick in the gut" feeling and how it literally feels like a heavy punch to the upper stomach. From my studies on the energy systems of the body, that area corresponds with our power center so when you go through something that strips you of your personal power, your body responds physically. Seeing is believing. Everyone is intuitive but some are more inclined to pick up intuitive information in heightened ways. Most highly sensitive people live in this category and many don't understand what is happening to them. For me, when I started to fully tap into my intuitive side, I was seeing things out of the corner of my eye and questioning my sanity. Ultimately, it was the help of other intuitive healers and spiritual counsel that helped me understand I wasn't going crazy, I was just opening up more to what was always there. Learning to pay attention to signs helped me learn to trust my intuition. A few signs you may notice are....
Other great resources for learning more about intuition: 10 Things Highly Intuitive People Do Differently How to Recognize True Intuition Recognizing Your Body's Intuitions About Vibes |
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