I’ve often wondered about the missing piece in the jigsaw of my life. It’s frustrating to see all those pieces so beautifully laid out, all making perfect sense….yet there’s that one piece missing from the puzzle.
Last night I found it.
I’d love to say it was easy. I’d love to say, “If you do this and this, you too will find your missing piece”. But I’d be lying if I did.
Finding it wasn’t easy.
It was that shadow that flitted out of the corner of my eye, hinting that it was there, yet always disappearing before I could focus on it and get it in my grasp.
The only way I could find it was by letting down my guard and looking where I thought it wasn’t. I walked into a loving trap set by Spirit, and there it was waiting for me.
In my last blog The Tuning Fork, I shared about how I had helped my friend when we were on a recent visit to Sri Lanka. What I didn’t share was that the more I helped her, the more I inadvertently helped myself.
After that one hairy night on the plane, we found sustenance in sharing (as friends do). We started talking about our past, about our hopes and fears, our joys and our sorrows.
I thought I was doing this to help her. But little did I know that my own gift lay buried here, just waiting to be uncovered.
It wasn’t there on my first step, or my second, or my third, or even my fourth or fifth. But it was there lying in wait, biding its time until I would walk into the trap that Spirit had set.
We all have an Achilles heel.
Mine is work. I’ve always known it. I throw myself into my projects with a passion. My passion is the air that ignites that flame, but then that flame becomes a bushfire that gains so much momentum that it threatens to consume me.
My light is my darkness. What makes me so powerful and inspirational is also my deepest addiction.
I’ve always wondered what’s underneath this. Am I just wired this way, to live life to the fullest? As Gary Young (the Founder of Young Living Essential Oils) used to say, “If you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much room.”
So I always live on the edge. I pride myself on how effectively I can cram 48 hours into 24 and still stay (relatively) sane. But the question has always been there….is this my nature, or is this my wound playing out?
Last night I got my answer.
A little thread appeared as I was sharing with my friend. When I followed it, it took me down a deep and dark emotional hole.
“I’m going to go now,” I said to her in tears. “I need some space to cry and really feel this.”
In that moment I thought I’d found the end point. But as I followed my inner child even deeper down memory lane, I saw something I’ve never seen before.
I saw the moment that “I” got snuffed out. And it wasn’t by a big bad ogre or a devastating world event. I got snuffed out by ME!!!
I reached such a point of hopelessness that I died to myself, and a Zombie took my place.
Those of you who know my heart will think I’ve gone insane. How can this inspiring, beautiful, heart-filled woman possibly describe herself as a Zombie. You’ll understand when you read what happened….
It all started when I was 6.
My Mum was a scientist, so she bought me a toy stethoscope to inspire my love of science and medicine. Well, it did work in some strange sort of way. I do have a deep love of quantum health and holistic healing and plant wisdom and “God’s medicine”.
But at the time, I did what any curious young girl would do – I took my stethoscope, and I played doctors and nurses with my best friend. We explored each other’s feminine form, to discover that we both looked very similar “down there”.
Some parents would see this exploration as a natural part of a child’s development. But that wasn’t the case for me.
I idolised my father, and he idolised me…..until this day. When my friend told her father what we’d been up to, and her father told my father, a solar eclipse happened in my life.
I don’t have any recollection of what my father said or did. What I do know is that he was Dutch and strict and extremely uncomfortable around the topic of sexuality. How he managed to have me is still a mystery!
That day changed everything.
My father’s reaction to my six year old child’s sexual exploration made him so uncomfortable, he pulled away from me and never, ever came back.
A month later, I ran away from home. The police were called, and the whole neighbourhood was out looking for me. Finally I was found curled in a ball, hiding behind our back yard incinerator.
Being such a “good” girl, this behaviour of running away was completely out of character for me. While the memories of that month have disappeared down a black hole, my actions speak to how unwanted and unloved I felt.
But that was only one incident. It was the first.
After that, my whole childhood went blank for 6 years. I have intermittent memories of happy moments, and very little else until I was a teenager.
Recently, I’ve discovered feelings for someone. It’s taken me by surprise. I’ve been single for so long, I wasn’t really expecting this. It’s been a joy as well as a great teacher. As I witness my inner world being impacted by this outer connection that is still in its chrysalis stage, I’m starting to piece together more memories from my childhood.
After my father pulled away, I didn’t understand that this was a “forever” thing. For the next two years I would wait for him to come home and spend some loving time with me. After all, he used to love having me on his knee and cuddling me, and that was always my happy place. But that all stopped. He would promise me some time, then work would take priority. He’d sit at his desk after dinner, and work until long after I was in bed.
He was physically present, but emotionally absent.
Then one day, I snuffed out.
After waiting and waiting for my father’s love to return, I had this moment when I decided that there was no other choice.
As I watched my little child reach that point of irrepressible sorrow and hopelessness, she decided that the only way to live in this world was to give up that bright spark that was me, and to become like “everyone else” - which in that moment was what my father was modelling to me, ie. someone who toiled and worked with no end, who could detach so effectively from the world around that he became an emotion-less Zombie, where only work priorities mattered.
I’ve often wondered how I can become so absorbed in my projects that I start with such genuine passion, yet then reach a tipping point where I completely disconnect from my own needs and become like an unstoppable robot.
Yes, it has allowed me to achieve so many amazing things. Yet as I witness the crushing truth of what happened to my little girl, I see that when that tipping point happens, that’s the moment when I abandon her. Work has become my Master instead of my passion.
She asks nothing more than my time and my love, but in that moment I forget how to give it to her.
And in case you are wondering how this all gets solved, I can only answer “One day at a time”. When truth finally finds us, we can’t swerve away from it.
I know now that the path ahead is to reconnect with my little girl, to find out what she loves to do, to listen to her and to give her the love she always wanted and deserved, and more….and to do that in the ways she loves to receive.
She didn’t get this from her father, but she can receive this from me. Every step I take with her will heal her. Now, finally, I see….
