Keeping the Dream

This past Wednesday, I took my little girl to the American Music Theatre in Lancaster, PA and was thrilled to watch the performance of an original musical production, The Revue. I’m not sure which was more fun…watching the performance or watching my daughter’s face as it registered delight and awe.

One of the things that really was impressed upon me, other than the obvious fine talent throughout the show, was the power of a live performance. It really made me appreciate just how powerful the artist really is, what she or he can do, how deeply they can reach through barriers and go straight for the heart.

There’s just something magical about live performance that can’t be replicated in a video or recording. I appreciate both those mediums, but I think that we, as a culture, really miss out on something when we limit ourselves to television or dvd’s.

I don’t know if people get out to experience live theatre or live music as much anymore, but it’s really an incredible experience that you shouldn’t miss. What we see on T.V. is just such a small tip of the vast talent and incredible source of creativity and gifted artistry that exists in our country. I listened to the singers, the musicians and watched the dancers give their all, and thought that what separated these people from those in the limelight is marketing and big bucks…certainly not talent.

But I’m grateful they sing, they dance and play, because people like me get the opportunity to enter into a world we would not have otherwise on our own. I’m so used to being the artist, the creator and performer, that it was such a blessing to receive as I did Wednesday, and get another perspective of just how incredibly powerful and healing the arts can be.

Demian,
~DreamSinger

This is an article written by Andrew Vachss, an attorney who only respresents children, published in Parade Magazine, August 28, 1994. He is probably one of the strongest voices for children. His writings are impeccable, straight to the point, and powerful.

There isn’t much to add, but to say read “You Carry the Cure in Your Own Heart“.

Demian,
~DreamSinger

I know your heart is breaking. Something terrible happened to you. Perhaps it’s happening still.

I understand. I thought that I would always carry this with me too - somehow I’d be forever tainted no matter how much healing I did, for how could I ever not have had the childhood I had?

Still, something inside of me rebelled. Something inside that cried, “I want to know what it’s like to live without the shadow of my past!”

I wanted to know what it was to fly! I didn’t want to go through life limping, grateful at least I was no longer sitting in the dust. I wanted more. I wanted to soar! I want to experience the fullness and richness of life as if I had never been abused!

That was 17 years ago.

Inspired by this thought that I could somehow rise above and “quantum leap” myself from the past, I set out on a healing path and when I experienced healing, I proclaimed I was no longer an incest victim. I believed the past was dead and I was now defined by my future.

But years later, my reality forced me to see that many of the choices and decisions, the life that I had created and my responses to it, were made out of the very past I said was over.

I had failed, or so I thought, and I fell into the deepest depression.

But you know what? Spirit never gives up even when we do, and one afternoon, while ruefully contemplating the limp I so obviously still had in my walk, a gentle and compassionate voice whispered, “You know…it doesn’t matter if you have a limp when you fly.”

It doesn’t matter.

When you are airborne, you are just as beautiful, just as graceful as any other. It doesn’t matter if your take off is elegant or awkward. Just fly!

“But how can I fly with my past”, you ask, “this pain, these wounds so old, so fresh?”

You can fly when you realize the past, itself, doesn’t matter. It’s your relationship with the past that matters.

You can have the most horrific past. If it motivates you to stretch and grow, to become more aware, then in its relationship to you, in its function, it’s a healthy past - a terrible experience, but a healthy past.

You can have the perfect childhood, but if seduces you into trying to recapture it, eating up your life energy, robbing you of the present moment, in its relationship with you, in its function, it’s a dysfunctional past - a pleasant experience but a dysfunctional past.

Your relationship with the past determines whether that past is healthy in your life or not - not the reality or the nature of the past, itself. And that relationship is determined in the present moment.

How can you fly? How can you not?

I finally realize that you don’t fly when you can live as if you had never been abused. You fly when you realize it doesn’t matter if you had. Because it’s no miracle to fly after all you’ve been through - it’s your destiny.

The miracle is in the healing and changes that do occur when you accept yourself - all that you are and everything leading up to who you are, with unconditional compassion.

Your wings are a gift from the Spirit of Life; no one can touch them - and no one can make you use them.

Choose then. Spread your wings and let the wind, the breath of Spirit send you soaring. Right where you are, as you are - Fly!

Demian,
~DreamSinger

While I believe in support groups, and the wonderful opportunities they provide, I want to stress the importance of discerning and exercising caution in seeking help through the internet, because anyone can set up shop.

Anyone. Anyone from incompetent people to toxic people to predators.

It’s so easy to place a few initials after your name or to hang out your shingle in front of your virtual office or assume a persona. And even if they are who they say they are and do have a degree, there are diploma mills for virtually every topic, and for schools that are out there, not all are equal.

Even those who manage to go through reputable schools may not necessarily be great healers or therapists, or even good ones. They may simply be people who have the ability to do the course work.

Unfortunately, I’ve seen a number of on-line support communities that actually became quite abusive in themselves. This usually happens with a moderator who gets carried away with their administrative duties and the ability to wield power over the board, like censoring, editing posts and banning, or an aggressive poster no one wants to face down.

In a support group, you will find some of the most vulnerable people, which sometimes leads to others taking advantage of that.

The important thing is to be careful about how much information about yourself you give away. If you become a member of an on-line support group, be very careful about doing anything more intimate, including private emails, away from that community.

Respect the boundaries that you have decided and set up ahead of time, which means decide on them before you participate.

If you choose to participate, remember to not give your power away, even if you feel you have none. You do! It’s a matter of reclaiming it.

Learn, explore, consider, but NEVER substitute another person’s voice for your own. No matter how much you are hurting or how dysfunctional you think you are, the bottom line is, you are responsible for your own self and you know yourself best.

Do consider, in good faith, other people’s perceptions and suggestions, but don’t let someone tell you you’re in denial if you don’t follow them. It’s better to keep your power and make mistakes, than to give up your power and let someone else make all the “right” choices for you.

A true healer is never verbally abusive…Not even for your own good! Proceed slowly, pay attention to your instinct, and if it doesn’t feel right, leave. If someone is offended you are questioning them, they are NOT the right person for you! This goes for both on-line and off-line help.

Also, remember, people are at various stages in their healing. It’s powerful to bond with others who have similar experiences, but don’t think just because they were abused, they’d never abuse you. Periodically reminding yourself of that can help you to deal with unhealthy dynamics of other people or situations, while keeping you mindful of your own.

With that in mind, follow your heart and explore the resources that are out there. Keep an open mind, let yourself learn and grow, but remember that just because you found it on the Net, doesn’t make it so. You take the final responsibility for your experience.

Keeping the Dream,
Demian,
~DreamSinger

At 4:16 p.m., this afternoon, after I had published this post, I received a newsletter concerning the same topic of credibility from another blog. Though it doesn’t relate specifically to support groups, I thought Jim Edwards article made some good points about information found on blogs, and is worth being mindful of when exploring the vast resources found on the internet.

On the healing journey it’s important to get feedback and different perspectives. When we’re in pain, it’s easy to get tunnel vision, and miss the larger picture it takes detachment to see.

But we can go too far in that direction, as well, where we not only look to other people’s views, but give them greater value or sole value over our own. Instead of looking to someone, therapist or friend, to help us gain clarity so that we can find our own answers, we look to them to give us the answer or make those decisions for us.

It’s comforting and natural to look to those who have experience, either personal or through training, especially when you’re in a crisis. When you’re in pain, it’s scary. A lot of times you can feel confused, disoriented, stunned, and it’s practically life-saving to receive encouragement and the assurance that you’re going to be all right.

Well, you are going to be all right, but the bottom line is it’s your healing journey - yours. Not anybody else’s, no matter how educated, well-versed or experienced someone may appear to be.

I’m sharing my healing journey, in part, because I’ve been helped most by other women sharing theirs. We don’t have very much respect for the wisdom of women - clinical observations and controlled studies or academic research have usurped the authority of our elders and their stories. But it’s been other women, their experiences and wisdom that comes from living, and not therapy or academia that has done more for my healing than anything else.

I’m not against therapists, and in fact, some of the most eye opening, life-changing books I have ever read have been authored by them, but when you come right down to it, I have yet to find anything that has educated me more or given me greater inspiration to embrace my own healing than the incredibly courageous and vulnerable postings I have come across in various internet communities from “regular people” - both those asking for help and those offering it.

Some experts are taught by life, schooled through awareness, and tutored by the tenacity to seek answers and create meaning. They may or may not have formal training, elsewhere, but they are a rich, living, breathing resource that we ought not overlook or discount.

Keeping the Dream,
Demian,
~DreamSinger

At five or six, I remember dancing alone in our living room to the music of Swan Lake. Against my parents’ wishes I would sneak across a major highway behind our house and stand inside an adobe bus stop for long periods of time, just for the pure joy of hearing my voice bounce off the walls.

Music was a part of my being and essential to my survival. It was like the air I breathed. The cells of my very existence could not exist without it. I sang and danced whenever I could, but those things eventually faded into the past.

Our home was like a dark vacuum that swallowed up any evidence of life. It was dull, quiet and almost tomb-like. I don’t remember any sunlit rooms radiating the sights and sounds of living. Even when we watched a comedy show, once my dad bragged he could watch something funny without laughing, we followed in his stead. It was unthinkable to do otherwise.

For a number of terrible reasons the freedom to speak, to express one’s true self was forbidden.

There could be no true self. Incest, psychological and emotional abuse were part of our home life, and as they never could be acknowledged, never mind addressed, neither could the parts of ourselves that suffered.

Silence became the rule. Mom was always sick, so we had to be quiet - no singing, no laughing, not even crying - especially crying. My world was a series of gray.

When my parents discovered through 6th grade chorus that I could perform and shine as a soloist, I was granted a conditional reprieve. My father became my vocal coach. He told me what to sing and how to sing. He gloried in the accomplishments of his precocious daughter and his fine mentorship, and never passed up an opportunity to let me perform the songs or poetry I wrote in honor of him.

I felt special during that time…like I had some value.

One night - I was 12 years old - my voice cracked and gave out in a performance…(continued on page 2)

Pages: 1 2

I just posted an article about “Choices” at my relational aggression blog.

It’s a topic relevant to the healing journey. Not just concerning relational aggression, but within any context that brings us pain or challenges us.

Demian,
~DreamSinger

Greetings! I finally did it.

Sometimes, convenience isn’t always so convenient. At my webhost, they offered a new feature for instantly installing a number of software onto your site. Which is great, except when I used it and tried some features on this blog, I wound up totally deleting my blog! I tried several different things, all with the same result.

So, I finally installed wordpress manually, and voila! No problem.

I’m reminded that things often unfold like this in life. A shortcut isn’t such a shortcut and cutting corners sometimes means cutting ourselves.

I will be moving articles posted on my other blog at typepad, Voices of Healing, here. I’d like to try to consolidate things, as well as publish writings I have archived over the years, and my newer writings. I’m also looking forward to inviting guest authors.

It’s been a long night working out bugs and getting this blog running. I look forward to sharing and exchanging ideas with you soon.

Until then, sweet dreams…

Demian,
~DreamSinger