Archive for My Healing Story
The Day I Opened The Door To Love
Posted by: | CommentsToday, August 2, is my spiritual birthday. The day I was born into a new family, a new life. And Love.
Every year, God reminds me of the exact date. I would forget otherwise. It wasn’t important to anyone else.
But Jesus reminds me it’s very important to Him.
So, it was 50-plus years ago, on a steamy August night, apparently on the 2nd, that I was feeling very low. I was 15 years old. Depressed, I now realize. All this confusion, all this loneliness, all these feelings, no one to talk to, no one who understood.
I tried talking to my older brother. What a desperate move that was. He was the last person in the world who would understand his highly sensitive sister. He was just as practiced as I was in suppressing feelings. I don’t think I ever had an important conversation with him in my life, then or after.
I don’t remember what was going on with my friends, but there was a feeling of being forsaken. I didn’t know what to do with myself.
So I walked up the street and sat on the curb in the steamy Connecticut night. Just sat there.
And then something happened. Suddenly I thought about Jesus.
I had a friend at that time, dear Debbie Drury (now Nelson), who was always telling me about Jesus. I thought she was a freak. But to be quite honest, she had a joy I ached for. Though I ridiculed her, and even ripped up one of those “God has a wonderful plan for your life” tracts in front of her, deep down I wished I had that joy.
Sitting on that curb on that lonely night, I remembered a dream I’d had.
In the dream I was with my family, camping. It was night, and I was lost in the woods. I wandered around until I saw a wooden bench, and a light, like a street light, in a clearing. (How symbolic dreams are!) Someone was sitting on the bench. A man.
Somehow I felt he was safe. He beckoned to me to sit beside him, and asked what was on my mind. I found myself pouring out my heart to him.
He listened, nodding, seeming as if he totally understood me. Then he got up, I got up, and he hugged me.
Oh, the peace I felt in that embrace! Oh, my, I’ve never felt such peace since, except for another similar dream I had decades later.
I longed for that peace. I searched for that peace since the dream. I knew it would only come from a relationship. In my teenage immature foolishness, I thought it would come from a boyfriend or husband someday.
But sitting on that curb that August 2 night, it suddenly all came together. The relationship I ached for was with the Lord of Life and Love, and He was waiting for me. He was there, sitting on the curb next to me, as He was in the dream on that wooden bench in the woods.
And I understood it all, all that Debbie had told me, and I opened the door of my heart, and asked Him in.
Life has never been the same since.
Oh, I’m still healing from my childhood traumas. But I have to tell you: God has been healing me all along, at a pace He knows is doable for me.
I’ve written before about how, when you hit the 60s or even before, the strategies you’ve used to cope seem to suddenly stop working. Perhaps that’s because by then, you may have accumulated enough resilience to face those traumas you’ve pushed down all your life.
So for the past several years, God has gently led me to understand more and more about the traumas of my early life, the patterns that served well then but are a detriment now, and what to do about them.
He had led me to The Healing Codes at just the right time. Those prior years of healing helped me when I had to settle my mother’s estate and Pandora’s box was opened. The family dynamics were so clear.
Against that backdrop, the hand of grace that had led me in different directions stood out in bold relief.
Grace had enabled me to make different choices than other family members. My life looks drastically different than it would have had I not opened the door to Love all those decades ago. You have only to look at my other family members’ lives, who did not turn to grace but followed the predictable paths of unhealed trauma results, to know that “’twas grace that led me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.”
I want to honor that grace, and to witness to the One who asked me to write this, the One relationship that has always been the model of what relationships can and should be.
Because of Him, I was able to marry a good man with whom I’ve lived for 45 years; rear two wonderful children who, despite the deficits of our parenting, are leading happy, stable, productive lives.
I’m part of a few wonderful communities, I’ve had a fulfilling career with different twists and turns, and now I’m in my wisdom years, facing a new journey with its unique challenges.
I know I’m not alone on that path, and that makes all the difference.
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me” (Revelation 3:20).
Have you heard His knock? Have you ever opened the door? Are you dining with him every day?
If you have, and you would like to deepen that relationship with Immanuel, I invite you to check out the Immanuel Connection call. We meet on the first Tuesday of the month, virtually, at 11:30 a.m. Central time. If that time doesn’t suit you, email me (diane at healingcodescoaching.com) and we’ll see what we can do. There is a recording, but the live call is really where the action is.
Surrender
Posted by: | CommentsThe other day, these words popped into my mind, unbidden: “Just because something was good, doesn’t mean it was meant to last forever.”
I’m chewing on that one now, as a way to help me come to grips with letting go of what I used to love.
I’m not one to embrace change readily. I don’t rearrange the furniture in my house, I grouse to myself every time I have to update some piece of software (which, as you know, happens daily for many of us).
Yet the world marches on with changes in everything: technology, our bodies, relationships, the world scene. Uncertainty reigns.
Some people love change. They tell me it keeps life exciting. No doubt. I do like variety . . . as long as I can choose it, I realize. But most of the changes feel foisted upon us, and at least for this sensitive person, it sometimes seems all I can do to keep up, let alone initiate good changes myself.
Yet we do have a choice about our response to change: we can either fight it or embrace it, or at least accept it.
As I’ve tried to find my footing in the face of change and letting go, have been pondering a certain passage from the Bible:
“So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.” (Genesis 32:24)
Photo by Jason Pofahl
What struck me was that “a man” (whom commentators say was Jesus in what they call an Old Testament theophony) came and wrestled with Jacob. Jacob didn’t wrestle with him, God wrestled with Jacob. All night. Jacob stood his ground, until the man puts his hip socket out of joint and ended the wrestling match. Jacob had no choice then but to surrender.
I heard an interview recently with renowned trauma expert Gabor Maté, who confessed that he has never been able to surrender to any spiritual source as many have who then report a sense of peace. I too have trouble surrendering.
I wonder if in this season of my life God is actually “wrestling” with me, trying to get me to surrender certain expectations and let Him have His way.
I just learned there is a kind of therapy called Acceptance and Commitment therapy. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a form of psychotherapy that helps individuals manage difficult thoughts and feelings by accepting them rather than struggling against them, and by committing to actions that align with their personal values.
It’s a mindfulness-based approach that aims to increase psychological flexibility, allowing people to live more meaningful lives despite dealing with unpleasant emotions and experiences. Instead of trying to eliminate or control negative thoughts and feelings, as some therapies do, ACT focuses on accepting them, while also committing to actions aligned with one’s values.
I think my “Wonderful Counselor” (one of the names of Jesus in the book of Isaiah) is wanting to use ACT on me! But he’s doing it in such a gentle, patient way. Slowly helping me first to see, then to feel, accept, some difficult emotions and experiences.
He’s been working on it with me for years, starting in 2007 when I first started doing The Healing Codes. I sense He’s not bothered in the least that it’s taking me so long.
The Healing Codes certainly paved the way. You might say it laid down the road to healing, removing trees and rocks and even perhaps building a bridge. Creating the pathway to inner healing.
But a method wasn’t all that was needed. While my years with The Healing Codes helped tremendously, circumstances kept hitting like increasingly more ferocious storms that knocked down more trees and created barriers and even damaged the bridge.
So, more clearing and rebuilding had to take place.
Along the way, I discovered that I needed more than a clear path and a roadmap. I needed a Guide who, like the GPS that could see more than I could at any given moment, knew where the further blocks were and could guide me through the detours.
That Guide is God, of course. It is Immanuel, the God who is with me every moment. The God who can break into my mind at odd moments and tell me things like, “Just because something was good, doesn’t mean it was meant to last forever” to nudge me to let go.
The God who will mysteriously show up and wrestle with me, all night if need be, and “put my hip out of joint” if need be, to help me cling to him after letting go of The Thing.
Endings are difficult. Grief is unpleasant. Letting go is often painful. Surrendering is scary.
But if we finally do let go, allow the ending, allow the hip to be put out of joint, what we will probably find is the One we cling to is perfectly able to fulfill every single promise He’s given.
What we might find is peace.
I say “probably” and “might,” because, in all truth, I’m still wrestling. I’m not sure I’m surrendered. I’m still not clear what all I need to let go of, or how to do it. So I start with baby steps, letting go of tangible things like physical and digital clutter.
I seek to notice, with nonjudgmental curiosity, the thoughts that are like sticks and stones on my path to healing. Mental and emotional clutter are way more challenging to see than the physical.
Ahead of me on this path is my Guide, doing the heavy lifting of clearing the way ahead, and looking back at me often to encourage me and beckon me on. He tells me that letting go means sometimes glancing behind me at where I’ve been, but never turning back.
Sometimes He just comes alongside and holds my hand as we walk. Sometimes He suggests we sit down and rest awhile, or listen to music, or read a book together.
And sometimes He just holds me while I cry, patting my back and telling me it’s all right to cry, and He’s glad to be with me no matter how I feel. Something my little wounded inner children need to hear and take in.
Photo by Rachel McDermott
He’s telling me now, “Healing is not a destination in this life, but it is a path. And I am with you all the way, until you do reach the final Destination, your heavenly Home. You’ll never ‘arrive’ in this life, so just relax and enjoy the journey with Me. There are many delights along the way, and you will be able to see them more clearly, and see more of them, the further you journey with Me.”
In faith, I cling to that as I limp on. Perhaps I have surrendered after all.
P.S. After I wrote this, it became clear what I need to surrender: expectations.
How I Got Through A Huge Healing/Trauma Response
Posted by: | CommentsLast week, I attended three days of an online business retreat that I thought, at the time, was fantastic.
I experienced transformation. I got ideas. I connected with people.
And it threw me into a massive 4-day healing response.
It was, apparently, too much, too fast.
Photo by Marc-Olivier Jodoin on Unsplash
The next day after the retreat, I was the usual Sunday tired.
On Monday, however, I was in pain. More stress hit when I had to drive my husband to a dental appointment in the teeming rain, where I couldn’t see in front of me and I was flanked by trucks also navigating construction barrels on the two highways I traversed.
Tuesday the pain got worse. It seemed to move all around my body. (I learned from a trauma expert that this can be a sign of trauma—trapped energy stored in the body.) I slept poorly that night.
Wednesday I could barely move, I was so tired and in pain. I rescheduled a client appointment–something I think I’ve only done two or three times in the past 13 years of coaching. (I’m nothing if not dependable!)
Hidden Stressors-Part Two
Posted by: | CommentsIn a previous post I wrote about how my symptoms were beginning to flare, and how I prayed and got some insights into why.
The first was that I wasn’t honoring my sensitive nature enough, i.e. that I have the inborn trait of Sensory Processing Sensitivity: a nervous system that’s more finely tuned than 80% of the population. That makes me a Highly Sensitive Person.
The second insight was related to the first, but with more of an emphasis on recovery: Your nervous system needs to recover from the traumas you’ve been through.
I have known for a while now that Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN) characterized my past, ever since I came across Dr. Jonice Webb’s excellent books, Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect and Running on Empty No More: Transform Your Relationships with Your Partner, Your Parents and Your Children. (You can take the CEN questionnaire on my Free Tools page.)
I believed that I had overcome it all by now, between The Healing Codes and some therapy.
However, when my mother died and I had to deal with settling her estate with a co-executor (sister-in-law), I saw just what my family of origin really was like. A plethora of traumas revealed themselves—though a few years ago, I wouldn’t have thought of them as traumas.
That’s the thing—what our nervous system interprets as trauma might not be what our adult minds interpret as trauma. Read More→
Why Your Issues Might Not Even Really Be Yours
Posted by: | CommentsI was speaking to a client the other day, and she brought up the question of past lives.
I wrote about that, here. I do not believe in past lives, but I do think that it’s possible that people can access generational memories, which I believe are stored in the information energy pattern in the DNA that gets passed down.
There is more and more scientific knowledge to back this up. My favorite experiment is about how mice exposed to cherry blossom scent while being shocked passed down the fear to subsequent generations. You can read about that from any of the articles here.
So some of our stuff may not even be ours, or it wasn’t ours originally, but because we were born with the “filter” of that passed-down trauma, we might start to interpret our own experiences through that lens. Thus the issue then becomes our own. And that may be why the generations rarely evolve and get better; they more usually devolve from the accumulation of sins and these negative patterns and “programming.”
Unless someone breaks the pattern.
That someone can be you.
If you have a background that is less than ideal in any way (who doesn’t?), remember you can break the cycle. You always have the ability to choose. You can break free from any negative family pattern and create a whole new pattern.
You do that by healing yourself.
How do I know this to be true? Because my life proves it.
I didn’t know, until I went through the 17-month ordeal of attempting to settle my mother’s estate as co-executor, just how negative and damaging the family patterns were. Oh, I could see how the patterns have shown up in my siblings’ families, but I escaped it, right? I employed what one of my counselors called “the geographic solution”–I moved away 1000 miles right after college, and rarely looked back.
I made different choices in life than my siblings and my parents. And I have managed, by God’s grace (I do not say that lightly at all), to have stayed married to a wonderful man for 42 years; reared two children who are leading productive lives (despite what they inherited from their parents—more on that later); and enjoyed a wonderful, interesting and productive career.
Settling the estate, however, brought me face to face with what has not yet healed.
I am so very thankful that, before my mother died in November 2020, I had already developed additional tools, beyond The Healing Codes, that helped me not only stay relatively healthy despite the stress, but to also recognize and heal the hidden wounds that were uncovered.
And, beyond healing, to transform and become aligned with my divine design. To have an inner knowing that I am on the right path for me, and a peace that as I walk Next Clear Step by Next Clear Step, exactly the right things will unfold for me to live out my unique purpose in life.
If this stirs something in your soul . . . if you long to heal from past patterns and align with your divine design so that you can also experience that sense of peace, purpose, and fulfillment, I invite you to check out my new Align with Your Divine Design program and fill out a Clarity Questionnaire. Then we’ll hop on a call to see if either of these programs is a fit.
Next time, I’ll show you how to pass on your healing to others. It starts with you committing to your own healing and transformation.
Impossible Relationship Blocks
Posted by: | CommentsHave you ever been in a relationship in which you want to love the other person, but you and they are coming from such different places, that all you can do is set a firm boundary and try not to get sucked in to all the drama or manipulation or dysfunction?
In such a relationship, often the other person wants something from you, and will resort to all sorts of manipulation tactics to get it. Some examples might be:
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guilt-tripping and attempting to pull you into the Dreaded Drama Triangle by trying to make you the rescuer or perpetrator of their victimhood
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gaslighting, where they ignore, distort or twist your words, actions or intentions to something other than you meant
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playing on and exploiting your generous or compassionate nature, knowing that you want to think of yourself in these ways so will do what they want to keep up your image of yourself.
Having dealt with a few of these relationships in my life has been an interesting experience. (By the way, as I’ve healed and Aligned more and more with my Divine Design, there have been fewer such relationships in my life. That can be true for you, too.)
Photo by Brands&People on Unsplash
In these unhealthy relationships, I saw all my “buttons” that were being pushed, and that awareness was actually a gift. It was an invitation to more transformation and growth. Self-awareness led to consciously healing the issues, with more of a sense of freedom and personal empowerment as a result.
I want to say a special word to you if you were born with the trait of High Sensitivity. (If you’re not sure, go here to find out more and take the quiz.)
We who are Highly Sensitive seem prone to attracting dysfunctional people. I think there might be some kind of invisible energetic radar that certain people like narcissists and predators pick up on. They can somehow sense the kind-hearted, generous people who will give anyone the shirt off their back.
It was so very helpful for me to become aware of this dynamic. It has led to a lot of discomfort, since I’m not used to being as “hard-nosed” as I’ve had to be in dealing with these kinds of relationships. I’ve had to contend with guilt, judgment (from the other person who knows this is one of my buttons, as well as myself), and the cognitive dissonance of having to “turn off” some of my best traits (like compassion) when I recognized the other person’s attempts to exploit them.
I’ve had to initiate some uncomfortable conversations in which I confronted the person with truths they didn’t want to hear, and who would then berate me to others for it.
And I’ve had to remind myself a lot of the wonderful 12 words I think God gave me awhile ago to deal with my guilt over not rescuing people from their own folly: “You must allow others the dignity of living with their choices.”
I’m also grateful for such painful relationship experiences because I think they help me understand perhaps a bit of what God might feel toward us, his children.
God longs for a close relationship with us. Too often, our distorted thinking and attempts to make him be what we want him to be, rather than who he truly is, make a relationship impossible. Yes, God can do anything. But he won’t do this: he won’t violate our free will. He himself allows each of us “the dignity of living with our choices.”
Even if that choice is to live in eternity without him.
I guess God prizes freedom that much.
(Do we?)
If you too would like to transform some old negative patterns and Align with Your Divine DesignTM , check out my coaching at HealingCodesCoaching.com.
The Inspiring Story Behind The Healing Code Book
Posted by: | CommentsEvery Labor Day weekend it hits me: If what happened on that weekend in 2007 hadn’t happened . . .
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you wouldn’t be reading this blog.
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The Healing Code book might never have been published.
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you and thousands, perhaps millions of others might never have heard of The Healing Codes.
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and thousands and thousands of people may not have been healed.
What transpired on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, 2007 set off a chain reaction that led to all these things . . . and more.
It showed me how seemingly terrible incidents can lead to much good.
So what happened back in 2007 on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend? Read More→
What 43 Hours Without Power Showed Me . . .
Posted by: | Comments
This week we lost power for almost 2 days.
CC BY-NC by sjrankin
The outside temperature was 90°F/33°C, with a dew point of 73°F. (I have learned that the dew point is a better indicator of humidity than “relative humidity,” and anything over 60°F is uncomfortable. I haven’t seen a dew point much higher than 73°F here, so this was nearly unbearable.)
On top of that, the night before the power loss, our kitchen faucet handle was about to break off. I called at least eight potential handymen (before we lost power). Only two got back to me. One said he could come the next day to fix it at 5pm, but then texted me at that time saying he couldn’t make it after all. At 5pm the faucet handle broke off completely. Two and a half hours later, with a lot of dishes to be washed from dinner, the power went out.
It reminded me of the children’s story I used to read to my kids: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst.
For us, it was two days.
I can’t honestly say it was all terrible, horrible, or no good, though. Very bad, yes. But here’s how God helped me, and what I discovered about alignment, intuition and, surprisingly, electricity and sleep.
Hunting for the Graces
Because of what I had learned about how gratitude fosters resilience, I kept looking for things to be grateful for.
First: the storms that knocked down trees and power lines did not dump a lot of rain. With the power out, the sump pump would not have worked. Had it rained heavily, the basement could have flooded. That potential disaster did not happen, despite the storms that hit both nights our power was out.
Second: A handyman came that first morning after we went dark. He installed the new faucet my husband bought the night before. He did it in the dark kitchen, with a flashlight (bless his heart!). He left his phone and a screwdriver behind because it was so dark he couldn’t see that he’d set it down. Soon enough, we had a functional kitchen, which lessened the stress a little.
Third: A neighbor said we could put our frozen food in his freezer.
Fourth: We have a gas stove, so I could cook.
Intuition
As soon as we lost power, I went up to shut down the computer correctly. I have a BackUp Universal Power Source that is a surge protector and a battery backup. It allows your computer and peripherals to keep going in a power failure until you can shut it down properly.
Here’s where the intuition part comes in. Read More→
When God Flips the Switch
Posted by: | CommentsThe voicemail was less than two minutes long. It was intended to hurt and to arouse guilt and fear.
For a few hours, it succeeded. In that time I felt, thought, and prayed my way through it all.
Then God stepped in and “flipped the switch,” giving me the miracle of several shifts in perspective.
(I wrote before about how we can deliberately “flip the switch” from positive to negative. But sometimes we need God to do it, because we don’t know how or we’re too upset to remember to do it. That’s the time to pray and ask God to open your eyes to a different way of seeing.) Read More→
