I found my gift and I’m ready to share it with you!
“Mom, I’m here, I have arrived!” - That's what I would text my mom usually when I came ‘home’ - she would come outside and greet me happily - giving me hugs so tight I couldn’t breath.
We often say we have arrived when we feel we are somewhere where we feel like we are settled.
We don’t want to move - we don’t want change - we just want to relax, put our feet up and cuddle in.
While I’m writing this, there is this warm feeling of ‘home’ within me. I’m looking at my husband and at my kids and my body gets all warm and shiny from the inside. I feel an aliveness that was not accessible for the most part of my life. I’m relaxing into it and while I can almost feel how my whole body and my nervous system relax, I also vividly remember the darkness.
I remember 4 1/2 half years ago - I was in a very dark place. My mom had just taken her life, I was 12 weeks pregnant with our second child, and I was completely lost. I couldn’t believe that was happening to me. After all that I’ve already been to? I was so angry at God. Most people have to deal with one traumatic life event. “God what the F*** do you want from me??”
I grew up in Germany, in a very unstable family system. My mom did her best, I know she loved me deeply. Unfortunately, her best was not what I needed. A lot of different men came into my mom's life and because of that also in mine. Some were okay, some were abusive to her, and some were abusive to me.
My dad was on the other side of Germany - and he was one of the most gentle and kindest people that I ever met, until today. I never wanted to tell him what was going on at home. He was my safe place. When I was with him I could forget what was happening at ‘home’. When I was 18 years old, I moved across the country to live with him, and it was one of the best and most life changing decisions that I had ever made. For the next 12 months, I thought I had arrived, I thought I had found my place. But then, my dad passed away! And I was all alone. I remember the moment I got the phone call…I broke down on the bathroom floor, crying, begging him to take me with him. I didn’t want to live without him. I didn’t want to live life alone.
Eventually I got up. I started writing, which was incredibly healing for me, and my children’s book character Claus Cloud was born.
Fastforwarding to 2018: After my mom committed suicide - someone told me, “you’ll see, something good will come out of it”. In this moment I thought F*** Y*** But I was too polite or too scared to say these harsh words to his face. He was right though.
I started my training to become an emotional counselor at Didi Hirsch - a suicide prevention hotline.
Through a lot of healing modalities I was able to understand that actually everything that has happened, my childhood, the passing of my dad, the passing of my mom, so many obstacles in so many other areas of my life, all of it had just happened for me.
I had to go into the darkness to find the greatest Light: my gift. I’m forever grateful for my amazing therapist, who helped me, together with my husband, to find the way back out of the darkness, so I can share it with you.
My gift is that I know the darkness and its ever changing form. I know the way out of it. I know how to hold space in it. I’ve been there so many times and still sometimes it tries to get me. I will never say I’m ‘over it’ but I have arrived at a certain destination where I can surely say I’m safe and happy. I know I learned enough and it’s time to share my passion, my aliveness, my heart and love with the world and with you.
Life is a journey after all, and even though I feel I have arrived, I continue to learn, through books and mentors and teachers and life itself. I’m excited to see what else it has in store for me.
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