CHAPTER 1
What Am I Here to Do?
I have always asked myself "where did I come from, where am I to go, what am I to do?" This is common to most people. I am a born intuitive. I often feel things before they happen. I have been able to see and feel auras around people and read them.
I never quite fit into my age group at school either. I started school a year early but it seemed to further tell me that I have always been in a different time zone of life. I even wondered if I came from a different planet like Superman! These feelings are common in teenagers but I felt like this when I was still very small, two to three years old. My maternal Grandmother knew it too. This story will explain where these feelings came from and where they have led me in my life.
Do some of us come with more knowledge on board in our psyche than others? How do the various connections with others change us and who we are? Why do some of us feel like we just don't belong anywhere or to anybody from childhood on through adulthood? How does an adopted child "feel" there is something else and someone else they belong to without anyone telling them they were adopted? What lessons are for others to teach us and what lessons are for us to find on our own? We are really the same but with different lessons to learn and missions to fulfill. Some are said to be "old souls" having been through various life's lessons at different times.
I can see where the lessons I have learned had to come to me the way they did and through the people they came from as well. My spirit and spirituality needed the things that I experienced even though some were very painful. I wanted and needed to learn forgiveness. I needed to know what a blessing forgiveness of others would bring to me. I needed to know love and how to love. I knew very early on that I was a teacher.
My whole life experience has prepared me for the adopted and foster children I was to have in the future. My presence in their lives has changed their lives and has added another dimension to my own life in the process. I needed to go through a variety of experiences early in my life to intuitively understand the needs of these children. I needed to see how the choices of others would shape the lives of young children for a lifetime.
I am a psychologist and a minister. I have my own experiences which I will share in this book. This and all other conclusions are left to the reader. I am an expert on my own experiences and life. I have had many teachers. My first teachers were what I used to think of as negative for the most part. I will share my own insight into what I learned from these experiences in the end.
I have learned much in writing this book. I can see where pebbles and ripples in my life have taught me the lessons I need to learn. I needed to look at the ripples from others and of my own creation, and see my spirit rather than the shell of the physical body I have been living in. These lessons will add up and make sense to everyone in their own time and own life. Ideally these lessons will tell us what our passion or mission is in life and how to fulfill it.
I personally believe we all know what our passion or mission is when we see it and feel it. I believe we know in our heart and soul when we have learned our lessons and are ready to move on in our eternal journey. I have always been drawn to very wise older people who have related this message to me in many kind gentle and loving ways. This lesson has indeed been a blessing to me. They leave this life peacefully and easily with their life and lessons completed. Others leave with heavy hearts and unspoken regrets. Their passing seems lonely. This too is a lesson for those of us who are not in this transition period yet.
It is with great pleasure and some tears too, I share my life in these pages for those who are asking themselves what their life means to them and others. I send my blessings to all who read these pages.
Dad never tired of telling me that it was 70 degrees the day before I was born. My feet were "clubbed" at birth which means they were turned inward. They were taped in the upright position at birth. I was put in light casts at my first doctor's visit. My condition is inherited, as I would find out and put together later in my life.
In many cases, clubbed feet is the first sign of a form of Muscular Dystrophy called CMT, so named for the three doctors who isolated the mutated gene that caused it and the inheritance factor found through the study of families who have passed it down. The doctor's surnames were Charcot, Marie, and Tooth. I was later to be diagnosed with the Muscular Dystrophy (CMT) at 39 years old after my 8th broken ankle and 35-40 sprained ankles over the course of my life. In some cases clubbed feet are from other issues while in the uterus. Crowding of the fetus is one. The Muscular Dystrophy diagnoses can be made by research into the family medical history and medical tests. CMT is inherited, while crowding in the uterus is not. In my case, the foot condition is present in my maternal line therefore her father's line. It went undiagnosed as Muscular Dystrophy. It has Up until this diagnoses, my injuries were blamed on my obese condition. A family history was never even considered. Other family members on her side of the family also had many sprained and broken ankles. I was not obese until I was three to four years old yet I was born with the clubbed feet. Others weren't obese in those days but some turned and sprained their ankles and later broke them too due to this inherited gene mutation.
I also had two major surgeries to correct "trick" knees in my lifetime that would dislocate with a great deal of pain. This started happening in the fourth grade. My right leg was angled out to the right by 10% from the knee down which caused further misalignment in my walking gait. These conditions are also inherited. Since these mutations are recessive genes, each pregnancy has a 50/50 chance of displaying the genes and carrying them to the next generation. My own diagnosis has been hard for others to cope with because it is inherited, work with or rise above.
My parents were young and inexperienced in much of life. It didn't occur to them that this condition could have been inherited.
I always favored my aunt in looks and personality. She was always looking for spirituality anywhere she could find it. She asked all kinds of questions, went to church looking for the answers. She and my grandmother loved gospel music and the messages that were in the Daily Word from Unity Church. I remember these cute little books on my grandfather's bed stand. I wasn't old enough to read yet when I noticed them. I could tell Grandpa had turned them to certain pages for inspiration each day. Those cute little books provide inspiration daily for my husband and me now. They are the Daily Word by the Unity Church.
I have always had a special attachment to my Aunt Millie. She was always loving and accepting of me. She never spoke in an angry voice or with angry words to me or around me. I never heard her criticize anyone. I noticed this from my earliest memories. I wanted to be just like her. I have memories as far back as 2 years old. This is not the case with most people. I was told that I was as much as 10 years older mentally and spiritually than I was in chronological age. I indeed am somehow 10 years "older" in my spirit than most children are spiritually. This would make me more like 12 years old having these very clear memories at 2 years old. I do know that I am here to see, observe, remember, survive, and thrive.
Millie to most people was the mature one of the family, always thinking ahead. She was always truthful about the circumstances at home. She was well "checked in" mentally and emotionally and wanted to answer any question I had on my mind. She was a hard worker. Millie was thought to be the less intelligent of the sisters and homely and not worth as much in the family. This was to be proven otherwise in years to come. I idolized her and hung on her every word. She mothered me throughout her life.
My maternal grandmother was carrying a burden into adulthood with her. She had a normal childhood for the time. Work was hard and facilities in life were much more difficult in the early 1900's than most children now experience. Running water and flush toilets were non-existent. Streams and out houses were the reality then. Poverty was the norm for many families. She was married in 1925 to my birth grandfather. They were pregnant at the time with a son who drowned at 15 years old. Being pregnant before marriage was a sin in those days that was to be kept secret. The Great Depression of 1929 was coming upon them. Extremely hard work for very little pay was the norm as well. Grandma was born to a coal mining family and married a coal miner. Everything in life was built around the coal mining towns built by the mine owners along with the company stores that supplied their daily needs.
I learned many lessons about giving, forgiving, and being a friend from my grandmother. She used to bake cookies and carefully put them on plates for me to deliver to the neighbors. I was proud to do so and experience the smiles they brought to her neighbors.
* * *
I was molested at 2 ½ years old by a family member. My grandparents' love and Millie's love carried me through those tender years.
As a molested child, my disassociation came by visualizing myself inside the wall. I was protected by the framing and sheetrock on either side of the wall. No one would bother to tear a wall down to get to me. I wasn't "visible" to anyone. I could hear everything that was being done to me. I could observe it from my vantage point in the wall but I could cut myself off from the actual physical and psychological feelings that were going on in me and around me. The pains and the smells of the action were with me and making "anchor memories" but not for those moments that I was "in the wall". I could mentally come out of the wall when my molester left the room.
Nothing was said about this molestation so it was buried by family secrets. It was an "anchor moment" for me. It changed me from an innocent two year old to one who stuffed food to keep from talking and to satisfy the strange feeling in my stomach. I became obese very quickly.
Secrets Exposed
Secrets are like puzzle pieces. They eventually become exposed and fit somewhere in the larger picture.
I came into this world with a very developed sense of right and wrong and just "knowing" things as if they already happened. This can be a problem for a child. This problem can continue through adulthood. The Universal knowledge of life is here for any of us to tap into at any time. Sometimes that "God energy" taps into us to forewarn us of danger ahead. The "family secrets" can't stay hidden for long. Factoids slip out until someone starts adding them up to make the story complete. I was that "someone" from the very beginning of my reasoning ability, at the age of two.
I became acutely aware of stresses in the family. The effects of unemployment, emotional situations that became extreme and seemingly with no answers in sight were obvious to me at very early ages. I was given responsibilities for my younger siblings when I was only 2 and 3 years older than they were. I don't remember ever really having a childhood except with my grandparents and Millie, who taught me many motherly things. I learned to treat everything in life the same way Millie taught me to work a jigsaw puzzle. First take the known facts of a problem and form the edge of the puzzle. Then look for all of the common elements the same as taking all the pieces of the puzzle that are the same color and put them in separate piles. Then find the common color matches on the known edge (frame) of the puzzle. Then start working the common colors around until they start fitting together and into the edge of the puzzle. Before long, the picture or answer to the situation begins to appear. The picture on the puzzle or the answer to one of life's situation begins to come together faster and more logical. What needs to be done next comes to us faster and faster until the last piece is in place. Satisfaction and growth are the results.
All children depend on their parents to tell them the truth and guide them through all of the circumstances that appear in life. The parents are the first moral compass a child has in life. Lies can change who the child is and who they will become. The relationship between parents and child is forever damaged when the truth is withheld. Truth will slip out during conversations around the child throughout their life. The truth will indeed surface.
In my case, I always wanted to know the answers to hundreds of questions. I found falsehoods in the things some adults around me expressed. I learned so very much from Sunday school lessons and my grandparents' teachings about truth as early as three. I applied those things in all that I did or heard. I don't ever remember being what others think is a typical child. The adult world was much more fascinating to me. I hung on to every word and action of those around me. I enjoyed jigsaw puzzles. To me, life was nothing more than a jig-saw puzzle to be worked at every opportunity.
The atmosphere and feelings were so very different when I was with my grandparents and Millie. Millie was 31 before she married and left home, therefore, I was with her and my grandparents as often as possible. I belonged with her.
I spent a great deal of time with my grandparents who would come and get me for two weeks at a time. It was Heavenly at my grandparents' home. I was free to be a child. There were books there. I learned such fascinating things at their house. I felt safe there. I wasn't intentionally "a brat" at home. I was frustrated a lot at home. The "reward" of being with my grandparents' was nice!
For many years into adulthood, I had nightmares involving an anchor memory. They were triggered by an event in my adult life. I had nightmares about ants crawling in a line. Their heads would get very big to the point of bursting open with white stuff coming out. This was the sum total of the nightmare. The meaning was uncovered in psychotherapy later in life after what felt to me to be an emotional breakdown. My therapist called it a breakthrough. It took me years to see his point and the difference between the two. I never did feel comfortable around certain people. I had developed onboard radar from my experience of being molested at a very young age. I became thin and with a mindset toward anorexia in high school. I was hyper aware of looks that felt sexual too and made me very uncomfortable. I was not looking for sexual attention but only approval since I had been obese all of my life after the molestation very early in life and stuffing the emotions at every opportunity.
A child will relate an anchor moment to something they can associate with and control in their life. Ants are familiar to a very young child. Ants are small enough to be controlled unlike the adult who had done the molesting. This nightmare may have been the only way I could cope with the reality of the act. I still wanted to trust adults but my intuition was highly developed so every adult didn't get my trust. Some adults never were trust worthy as a child or now. The anchor moment became my protector.
My dreams otherwise have always been in strict reality and nothing like the dreams of most people. Mine are precognitive which has helped me "see around corners" and know what is coming down the track in front of me. Yes, I see it has resulted in the development of my own psychic abilities.
Precognitive dreams are those that give us messages about something yet to happen. Most of us have worked something out in our dreams and had a recognized situation later in our waking hours as if we have been here and done that before, a de'javu situation.
Some of us are blessed with remembering our dreams and getting many details for our guidance in our waking life. A major life fulfilling dream of mine will be explained later in this writing.
