We are coming into our own in the timing we need. For each of us it will be different, but for each of us, it will also be perfect.
Sonja Derian
It's with great joy that I say that my life has been divinely perfect. There were reasons for my many struggles, and the timing was perfect. The same can be claimed for my multiple successes. Wherever I was, whoever I was with, was heaven sent. Perhaps this sounds simplistic, but believing this gives me great comfort. I know I can count on my life unfolding in the same divine manner over the course of my remaining years.
I don't think I am the sole recipient of this perfect unfolding. The same holds true for us all. I'm convinced of it. We meet those people we need to meet. We teach those individuals who need what we can share. And we learn from the teachers who have lessons that are meant specifically for our ears. Like the scene in a beautiful tapestry, we each add a thread that must be present for the picture to be complete.
It soothes me to know that I myself sought out the many difficult experiences I have had in order to gain access to their underlying lesson. Additionally, it comforts me to know that my interactions, every single one of them, were necessary for my development and the development of contemporaries I met along the way. We were always in the right place at the right time, exchanging the right information. Hallelujah!
It makes all the difference in the world to feel certain of this as I look over my past and prepare for my future. The abuse I experienced as a young girl taught me forgiveness in a profound way. The abandonment issues that I stumbled over for decades allowed my mother and I to bond in an entirely unexpected, but truly special way, a way I couldn't have imagined and one that gave both of us freedom from the prison we had constructed. My fear of never measuring up pushed me to strive for goals that frightened me while also inspiring me. So much about my life escapes explanation, except to say that God was always doing for me what I couldn't have done by myself alone.
God is the motivator, the executor, and the way-shower. We follow. We listen. We learn. Then we teach others.
Every person I interviewed had experiences that were unique in certain respects and yet similar to many of the threads in others' lives. One thing was certain: every person was on a path of experiences that stretched them in new directions while also affirming them in familiar ways that offered comfort. Being assured, as everyone eventually was, that whatever came their way was divinely intentional brought relief. Knowing that we are on God's radar screen keeps the wolves away.
It took some convincing to talk Marilyn into believing she had ever been on God's radar screen, however. The insanity in her home, evident in her dad's behavior, a man with a Ph.D. in psychiatry, had rocked her world to its core. “Why,” was her awful and constant question. Of course, I had no sure answer, but suggested that her experiences in a household where mental illness dominated could help others to trust that they, too, could survive a home life that seemed bent on the destruction of every person in the family. Marilyn was living proof that survival was always possible, and even likely, if the awful family secrets were shared. In their very sharing, they became smaller, more manageable. And definitely survivable.
Marilyn's journey had many detours before she reached a destination that felt peaceful, but she never quit walking. She said she felt pulled to trust in each next step, again and again. Her constant refrain at the end of every sharing at a meeting was, “And I'll keep coming back.” I was well aware that she understood, in a profound way, as did so many of us, that our own sanity, our own well-being, was tied to our commitment to show up, again and again. To show others that life, in the worst of times, could be made better.
We are strengthened every time we show others, by example, that nothing can destroy our resolve to survive but our own unwillingness.
I observed Marilyn leading by example, touching many who still tried to make sense of home situations that nearly matched the trauma and insanity that occurred behind her family's closed doors. Those of us who have survived and finally thrived as the result of living in a dysfunctional family understand, intuitively, how to help others move through the hidden land mines, even when they have come to feel almost normal. Marilyn's family was still as sick and troubled as it had been when she was a child. Nothing had really changed there. But she had changed. No longer was she held hostage by a dynamic that was intended to cripple her and her siblings, as well as her mother. Her sense of humor, her perseverance, and her ability to detach but not shun were remarkable and highly developed traits. And perhaps most of all, she had embraced kindness without having been shown very much of it in her family of origin.
Marilyn's experiences, in so many regards, matched those of a number of my interviewees, who shared so many of her strengths in spades. I'd like to focus on Janet again because she took people under her wing much like Marilyn did. She was able to do this because she kept no secrets—everyone was allowed to know her story fully, and thus she frequently drew the neediest people seeking help. They could see in her an honesty, a grateful willingness to forgive the awfulness of the past, and a freedom from judgment that was attractive and sought by many.
We begin to see that those loving qualities that are missing in our homes can be sought and found and embraced in other settings. Healing can begin anywhere.
In case you have forgotten, Janet, like Marilyn, was abused but not by a dad. Rather it was an older brother, an act he admitted to and her parents denied in spite of his confession, making the insanity of the household even harder to grapple with. Janet was able to forgive her brother because he said he was sorry, but she struggled to forgive her parents. Their insistence that her experiences were made up made her feel unimportant, unloved, and unvalued. It took a herculean effort for her to learn to love and value herself, but she got there, and only because she was surrounded by people in the rooms who expressed unconditional love, day in and day out. Their love finally permeated her walls.
Unfortunately, while still trying to recover from her family of origin's denial of her experiences, Janet married a man who was narcissistic as well as paranoid, and the recovery she was gradually claiming in regard to her family was nearly wiped out by the experiences she had with her husband. Every behavior she was devoted to developing, in the hopes of perfecting it in time, was put to the test. Again and again. He was sick to the core. And he tried to make her sick too. Fortunately, she was bound and determined to keep moving forward, and with the encouragement of her many friends, she got the courage to leave him.
Our strengths seem to multiply when we exercise them, one by one.
It wasn't easy to escape. In fact it was harrowing at times. He stalked her and she chose to carry a non-lethal weapon. He pleaded; she changed the door locks. He followed her; she got a different car. He moved into her neighborhood. She changed every route she drove. Throughout the entire time, she held him up to the light, praying that he would find peace. He was not going to hold her hostage, ever again. Of this she was sure. Because she had learned so much in the rooms, she was able to free him from her judgment, and take responsibility for her actions, not his.
When it came to detachment, perhaps the most freeing of all the gifts we ultimately get when we let go of our dysfunctional family of origin, Janet had more work to do. That's one of the qualities we all have to practice, each day anew. If we could do it once, for all time, we'd not seek the support we keep going to meetings to get. It's my supposition that that's how it's meant to be. We are needed in the fellowship. For all time—not just until we get a little bit better. We are needed there for all of the folks who show up after our arrival. What a sad world this would be if the rooms were empty.
Janet learned from watching, and she got a mentor who listened, another quality we hone as the result of never being heard in our unhealthy families. Her “teacher” said, over and over, let go of him, his memory, his behavior, his past, and yours too. His presence in your life taught you all you ever needed to learn. He was there for a reason but that chapter is now closed. Janet glommed on to that explanation and inched forward. Baby steps at first. Detachment was freedom. She knew that. She also could see that her work was unending for the time being. Her friends surrounded her and practiced with her the very same traits she was trying to master. Both the imitation and the modeling of these traits for one another made living all that much easier.
The perfection in our journey cannot be seen except with hindsight.
Janet served as a great role model for many. As I related before, one of her favorite phrases, offered on behalf of anyone who troubled her, was “Bless his heart.” And she meant it. It changed her mindset in the moment and always left a lingering good feeling with others. I know that I, for one, always experienced a shift in my perception when I heard it. Janet didn't say it in a flip way. She meant it. She firmly believed that we are all capable of getting off track, and getting a nudge from the God of one's understanding can always help us change direction.
I watched a number of our mutual friends and colleagues have a change of heart when Janet was around. We all know how the bad moods of others can interfere with our good moods, if we aren't careful; the same can be true of good moods. Someone's positive mood can rub off. And in this way, Janet helped many. The overall change from who she had been because of her unhealthy family and unhealthy marriage, to who she was becoming, was a sharp contrast and one that fortunately showed others how absolutely possible change was. It began with a decision and was followed by action. Then practice made the change take hold.
No bad experience in our life has to be the only experience that forms who we are for all time.
One of the people who practiced new behavior with a vengeance was Sheri. Dysfunction never looked more devastating; her story ranked among the toughest of all. In every arm of the family going back many generations, alcoholism and many other forms of dysfunction caused nearly total destruction. And that's not the worst part of it. There was not a single person in her family tree who ever sought help! Because she was lucky enough to have a counselor suggest Al-Anon because of her troubled marriage, Sheri got a new lease on life. She got to break the family pattern. She wasn't able to change any one else, of course, but she changed herself.
No one else has to change for us to get a new lease on our “perfect” life.
Sheri was a role model like none other. She understood detachment in such a clear way. She lived it. And others could see it in her actions. She demonstrated kindness by never taking umbrage at what another person might say or do. She excused their acts of unkindness as owing to fear or ignorance. (Even if they might have meant them that way.) She was the embodiment of surrender. And to the pleasure of all who knew her, she never failed to listen lovingly and intently to your every word. None of these qualities had been hers before entering the fellowship, she said. She was as bent on vengeance as the next wounded soul. But she was patient, a good student, and a willing modeler of the new behaviors that carried her old self away.
Sheri embodied resilience—her journey was not easy. Even after years in the fellowship, she was faced with a level of dissension in her family that could well have destroyed another person. She simply walked through or around the dissension and moved on. As I already said, she understood detachment to a tee. And her demonstration of it, along with her explanation of it, made her a truly sought after teacher and mentor. I watched her from afar on many occasions as she approached people who were hurting, offering to be a guide, a friend, a sponsor. She never let anyone walk away unaided if she could offer a helping hand. And she never doubted that her past was perfect, making her present perfect too.
Sheri didn't possess any of these traits when she came to the fellowship. None of them. But she had an uncanny understanding that she had been sent in order to bring others along. She knew it and I knew it too as soon as we sat down to talk. Her very presence in my life confirmed what I had already come to believe: there are no accidents. We meet who we need to meet. We learn what we need to learn and we teach what we need to teach to those who have been divinely selected to be our students. Praise be to God!
Everyone has a plan that is already unfolding. If they are heading toward you, be ready. You need them.
Sheri taught each one of us the value of trusting in the process. She showed each one of us how to live with faith. And she practiced her many lessons for all of us to see and grow from. That's the payoff from being in the rooms of the fellowship with others who, like you, are trying to escape the destruction of a family that is haunted by or still living in the midst of dysfunction, as Sheri's was. For her, this was life or death. We cheered her efforts to make every day a good one, for her and for us.
I haven't referred to Dawn for a while but the success of her journey deserves our attention. Like Sheri and Valerie, Dawn's family of origin was so devastated by the disease of alcoholism (and many other ism's and abuses too), that I doubt I myself could have survived if we had traded homes as children. She was resilient even before she knew what that word meant. She was able to laugh and had an extremely wry sense of humor. Her heart was huge and full of love for anyone who needed it. And she had to practice acceptance from morning until night because of all the turmoil and disease in her family, her friends, and her community, the reservation.
Dawn kept her nose to the grindstone. She had been taught to believe that her creator was always waiting to serve her needs, and she wanted to trust that. Even though she had felt abandoned as a child, she knew he had always been there. She simply couldn't always feel His presence. When we first talked, she was struggling to believe that her journey, in every aspect, was divinely charted. It's hard for any of us to understand that the experience of sexual and physical abuse could be in any way valuable in childhood, but we have to come to terms with it if we want to know peace. I explain it this way, to myself and others: it's not that the abuse itself is valuable, but rather that through it we are given a valuable chance to learn about the human condition and then teach others in the decades following. I have to take it on faith that my experiences as a child were useful because I have been able to share them with other women, sharing, in particular, the good stuff about forgiveness that I might not have learned in such a profound way from any other experience.
I very simply believe that every step of my journey was perfect. I believe the same is true of Dawn's. Of Sheri's. Of Janet's and Valerie's too. In fact, there is not a man or woman I spoke with who didn't have the journey that was right for them. My heart knows this. My mind believes this. And I'm grateful to have come to this place of acceptance.
We have met by design. You have met everyone on your path by design as well. Your journey into tomorrow is part of your truth. Believe this, and peace will be yours.
In closing this chapter, I'd like to briefly turn to Allison once again. She told me she was certain that her struggle in her family of origin, including their alcoholism, was the preparation she needed to face and then survive the devastating cancer she got at a time when her marriage was rocky and her children were small. She knew that since she had survived her family and her disease, she had the strength to survive the cancer diagnosis too. Her crippled body, even today, is her badge of survival. It didn't destroy her. It made her stronger. It allows all of us to see that the worst that befalls us can be used as a stepping stool to more growth, more faith, more acceptance.
We came here not knowing what for. We learn why while we are here. What better information can there be?
Before moving into the final chapter of concluding thoughts, let's review what this chapter drove home:
God is the motivator, the executor, the way-shower. We follow. We listen. We learn. Then we teach others.
We are strengthened every time we show others, by example, that nothing can destroy our resolve to survive but our unwillingness.
We begin to see that those loving qualities that are missing in our homes can be sought and found and embraced in other settings. Healing can begin anywhere.
Our strengths seem to multiply when we exercise them, one by one.
The perfection in our journey cannot be seen except with hindsight. We can, however, choose to believe it while it's taking place.
No bad experience in our life has to be the only experience that forms who we are for all time.
No one else has to change for us to get a new lease on our “perfect” life.
Everyone has a plan that is already unfolding. If they are heading toward you, be ready. You need them.
We have met by design. You have met everyone on your path by design as well. Your journey into tomorrow is part of your truth. Believe this and peace will be yours.
Accepting that we are reading this because it's part of our necessary assignment brings comfort, I hope. I am comforted by believing it has been my assignment to write it.