Chapter Sixteen“We are all one.”
“Will you tell me a little about your childhood, briefly.” This is a question I have asked so many clients. It’s not that I need to hear all the details, but I want to get a general pattern of where they are coming from. If they have problems now, the patterns that created them began a long time ago.
When I was a little girl of 18 months, I experienced my parents divorcing. I don’t remember that as being so bad. What I do remember with horror is when my mother went to work as a live-in domestic and boarded me out. The story goes that I cried nonstop for three weeks. The people taking care of me couldn’t handle that, and my mother was forced to take me back and make other arrangements. How she managed as a single parent brings my admiration today. Then, however, all I knew and cared about was that I was not getting all the loving attention I once had.
I have never been able to determine if my mother loved my step-father or whether she just married him in order to provide a home for us. But it was not a good move. This man had been brought up in Europe in a heavy Germanic home with much brutality, and he had never learned any other way to manage a family. My mother became pregnant with my sister, and then the 1930s Depression descended upon us, and we found ourselves stuck in a home of violence. I was five years old.
To add to the scenario, it was just about this time that a neighbor, an old wino, as I remember it, raped me. The doctor’s examination is still vivid in my mind, as was the court case in which I was the star witness. The man was sentenced to 15 years in prison. I was told repeatedly that, “It was your fault,” so I spent many years fearing that when he was released he would come and get me for being so terrible as to put him in jail.
Most of my childhood was spent enduring both physical and sexual abuse, with a lot of hard labor thrown in. My self-image became lower and lower, and few things seemed to go right for me. I began to express this pattern in the outside world.
There was an incident in the fourth grade that was so typical of what my life was like. We were having a party at school one day, and there were several cakes to share. Most of the children in this school except for me were from comfortable middle-class families. I was poorly dressed, with a funny bowl haircut, high-topped black shoes, and I smelled from the raw garlic I had to eat every day to “keep the worms away.” We never had cake. We couldn’t afford it. There was an old neighbor woman who gave me ten cents every week, and a dollar on my birthday and at Christmas. The ten cents went into the family budget, and the dollar bought my underwear for the year at the dime store.
So, this day we were having the party at school, and there was so much cake that, as they were cutting it, some of the kids who could have cake almost every day were getting two or three pieces. When the teacher finally got around to me (and of course I was last), there was no cake left. Not one piece.
I see clearly now that it was my “already confirmed belief” that I was worthless and did not DESERVE anything that put me at the end of the line with no cake. It was MY pattern. THEY were only being a mirror for my beliefs.
When I was 15, I could not take the sexual abuse any longer, and I ran away from home and from school. The job I found as a waitress in a diner seemed so much easier than the heavy yard work I had to do at home.
Being starved for love and affection and having the lowest of self-esteem, I willingly gave my body to whoever was kind to me; and just after my 16th birthday, I gave birth to a baby girl. I felt it was impossible to keep her; however, I was able to find her a good, loving home. I found a childless couple who longed for a baby. I lived in their home for the last four months, and when I went to the hospital, I had the child in their name.
Under such circumstances, I never experienced the joys of motherhood, only the loss and guilt and shame. Then it was only a shameful time to get over with as soon as possible. I only remember her big toes, which were unusual, like mine. If we ever meet, I will know for sure if I see her toes. I left when the child was five days old.
I immediately went back home and said to my mother who had continued to be a victim, “Come on, you don’t have to take this any longer. I’m getting you out of here.” She came with me, leaving my ten-year-old sister, who had always been Daddy’s darling, to stay with her father.
After helping my mother get a job as a domestic in a small hotel and settling her into an apartment where she was free and comfortable, I felt my obligations were over. I left for Chicago with a girl-friend to stay a month—and did not return for over 30 years.
In those early days, the violence I experienced as a child, combined with the sense of worthlessness I developed along the way, attracted men into my life who mistreated me and often beat me. I could have spent the rest of my life berating men, and I probably would still be having the same experiences. Gradually, however, through positive work experiences, my self-esteem grew, and those kind of men began to leave my life. They no longer fit my old pattern of unconsciously believing I deserved abuse. I do not condone their behavior, but if it were not “my pattern,” they would not have been attracted to me. Now, a man who abuses women does not even know I exist. Our patterns no longer attract.
After a few years in Chicago doing rather menial work, I went to New York and was fortunate enough to become a high-fashion model. Yet, even modeling for the big designers did not help my self-esteem very much. It only gave me more ways to find fault with myself. I refused to recognize my own beauty.
I was in the fashion industry for many years. I met and married a wonderful, educated English gentleman. We traveled the world, met royalty, and even had dinner at the White House. Though I was a model and had a wonderful husband, my self-esteem still remained low until years later when I began the inner work.
One day after 14 years of marriage, my husband announced his desire to marry another, just when I was beginning to believe that good things can last. Yes, I was crushed. But time passes, and I lived on. I could feel my life changing, and a numerologist one spring confirmed it by telling me that in the fall a small event would occur that would change my life.
It was so small that I didn’t notice it until several months later. Quite by chance, I had gone to a meeting at the Church of Religious Science in New York City. While their message was new to me, something within me said, “Pay attention,” and so I did. I not only went to the Sunday services, but I began to take their weekly classes. The beauty and fashion world was losing its interest to me. How many years could I remain concerned with my waist measurement or the shape of my eyebrows? From a high school dropout who never studied anything, I now became a voracious student, devouring everything I could lay my hands on that pertained to metaphysics and healing.
The Church of Religious Science became a new home for me. Even though most of my life was going on as usual, this new course of study began to take up more and more of my time. The next thing I knew, it was three years later, and I was eligible to apply to become one of the Church’s licensed practitioners. I passed the test, and that’s where I began, as a church counselor, many years ago.
It was a small beginning. During this time I became a Transcendental Meditator. My church was not giving the Ministerial Training Program for another year, so I decided to do something special for myself. I went to college for six months—MIU, Maharishi International University—in Fairfield, Iowa.
It was the perfect place for me at that time. In the freshman year, every Monday morning we began a new subject, things I had only heard of, such as biology, chemistry, and even the theory of relativity. Every Saturday morning there was a test. Sunday was free, and Monday morning we began anew.
There were none of the distractions so typical of my life in New York City. After dinner we all went to our rooms to study. I was the oldest kid on campus and loved every moment of it. No smoking, drinking, or drugs were allowed, and we meditated four times a day. The day I left, I thought I would collapse from the cigarette smoke in the airport.
Back to New York I went to resume my life. Soon I began taking the Ministerial Training Program. I became very active in the church and in its social activities. I began speaking at their noon meetings and seeing clients. This quickly blossomed into a full-time career. Out of the work I was doing, I was inspired to put together the little book Heal Your Body, which began as a simple list of metaphysical causations for physical illnesses in the body. I began to lecture and travel and hold small classes.
Then one day I was diagnosed as having cancer.
With my background of being raped at five and having been a battered child, it was no wonder I manifested cancer in the vaginal area.
Like anyone else who has just been told they have cancer, I went into total panic. Yet because of all my work with clients, I knew that mental healing worked, and here I was being given a chance to prove it to myself. After all, I had written the book on mental patterns, and I knew cancer was a dis-ease of deep resentment that has been held for a long time until it literally eats away at the body. I had been refusing to be willing to dissolve all the anger and resentment at “them” over my childhood. There was no time to waste; I had a lot of work to do.
The word incurable, which is so frightening to so many people, means to me that this particular condition cannot be cured by any outer means and that we must go within to find the cure. If I had an operation to get rid of the cancer and did not clear the mental pattern that created it, then the doctors would just keep cutting Louise until there was no more Louise to cut. I didn’t like that idea.
If I had the operation to remove the cancerous growth and also cleared the mental pattern that was causing the cancer, then it would not return. If cancer or any other illness returns, I do not believe it is because they did not “get it all out,” but rather that the patient has made no mental change. He or she just recreates the same illness, perhaps in a different part of the body.
I also believe that if I could clear the mental pattern that created this cancer, then I would not even need the operation. So I bargained for time, and the doctors grudgingly gave me three months when I said I did not have the money.
I immediately took responsibility for my own healing. I read and investigated everything I could find on alternative ways to assist my healing process.
I went to several health food stores and bought every book they had on the subject of cancer. I went to the library and did more reading. I checked out foot reflexology and colon therapy and thought they both would be beneficial to me. I seemed to be led to exactly the right people. After reading about foot reflexology, I wanted to find a practitioner. I attended a lecture, and while I usually sat in the front row, this night I was compelled to sit in the back. Within a minute, a man came and sat beside me and—guess what? He was a foot reflexologist who visited the home. He came to me three times a week for two months and was a great help.
I knew I also had to love myself a great deal more than I was. There was little love expressed in my childhood, and no one had made it okay for me to feel good about myself. I had adopted “their” attitudes of continually picking on and criticizing me, which had become second nature.
I had come to the realization through my work with the Church that it was okay and even essential for me to love and approve of myself. Yet I kept putting it off—rather like the diet you will always start tomorrow. But I could no longer put it off. At first it was very difficult for me to do things like stand in front of the mirror and say things like, “Louise, I love you. I really love you.” However, as I persisted, I found that several situations came up in my life where in the past I would have berated myself, and now, because of the mirror exercise and other work, I was not doing so. I was making some progress.
I knew I had to clear the patterns of resentment I had been holding since childhood. It was imperative for me to let go of the blame.
Yes, I had had a very difficult childhood with a lot of abuse—mental, physical, and sexual. But that was many years ago, and it was no excuse for the way I was treating myself now. I was literally eating my body with cancerous growth because I had not forgiven.
It was time for me to go beyond the incidents themselves and to begin to UNDERSTAND what types of experiences could have created people who would treat a child that way.
With the help of a good therapist, I expressed all the old, bottled-up anger by beating pillows and howling with rage. This made me feel cleaner. Then I began to piece together the scraps of stories my parents had told me of their own childhoods. I started to see a larger picture of their lives. With my growing understanding, and from an adult viewpoint, I began to have compassion for their pain; and the blame slowly began to dissolve.
In addition, I hunted for a good nutritionist to help me cleanse and detoxify my body from all the junky foods I had eaten over the years. I learned that junky foods accumulate and create a toxic body. Junky thoughts accumulate and create toxic conditions in the mind. I was given a very strict diet with lots of green vegetables and not much else. I even had colonics three times a week for the first month.
I did not have an operation—however, as a result of all the thorough mental and physical cleansing, six months after my diagnosis I was able to get the medical profession to agree with what I already knew—that I no longer had even a trace of cancer! Now I knew from personal experience that DIS-EASE CAN BE HEALED, IF WE ARE WILLING TO CHANGE THE WAY WE THINK AND BELIEVE AND ACT!
Sometimes what seems to be a big tragedy turns out to become the greatest good in our lives. I learned so much from that experience, and I came to value life in a new way. I began to look at what was really important to me, and I made a decision finally to leave the treeless city of New York and its extreme weather. Some of my clients insisted they would “die” if I left them, and I assured them I would be back twice a year to check on their progress, and telephones can reach everywhere. So I closed my business and took a leisurely train trip to California, deciding to use Los Angeles as a starting point.
Even though I had been born here many years before, I knew almost no one anymore except for my mother and sister, who both now lived on the outskirts about an hour away. We have never been a close family nor an open one, but still I was unpleasantly surprised to learn that my mother had been blind for a few years, and no one had bothered to tell me. My sister was too “busyish” to see me, so I let her be and began to set up my new life.
My little book Heal Your Body opened many doors for me. I began to go to every New Age type of meeting I could find. I would introduce myself, and when appropriate, give out a copy of the little book. For the first six months, I went to the beach a lot, knowing that when I became busy, there would be less time for such leisurely pursuits. Slowly, the clients appeared. I was asked to speak here and there, and things began to come together as Los Angeles welcomed me. Within a couple of years, I was able to move into a lovely home.
My new lifestyle in Los Angeles was a large jump in consciousness from my early upbringing. Things were going smoothly, indeed. How swiftly our lives can change completely.
One night I received a phone call from my sister, the first call in two years. She told me that our mother, now 90, blind, and almost deaf, had fallen and broken her back. In one moment my mother went from being a strong, independent woman to being a helpless child in pain.
She broke her back and also broke open the wall of secrecy around my sister. Finally, we were all beginning to communicate. I discovered that my sister also had a severe back problem that impaired her sitting and walking and which was very painful. She suffered in silence, and though she looked anorexic, her husband did not know she was ill.
After spending a month in the hospital, my mother was ready to go home. But in no way could she take care of herself, so she came to live with me.
Though trusting in the process of life, I did not know how I could handle it all, so I said to God, “Okay, I will take care of her, but you have to give me help, and you have to provide the money!”
It was quite an adjustment for both of us. She arrived on a Saturday; and the following Friday, I had to go to San Francisco for four days. I could not leave her alone, and I had to go. I said, “God, you handle this. I have to have the right person to help us before I leave.”
On the following Thursday, the perfect person had “appeared,” and moved in to organize my home for my mother and me. It was another confirmation of one of my basic beliefs: “Whatever I need to know is revealed to me, and whatever I need comes to me in Divine right order.”
I realized it was lesson time for me once again. Here was an opportunity to clean up a lot of that garbage from childhood.
My mother had not been able to protect me when I was a child; however, I could and would take care of her now. Between my mother and my sister, a new whole adventure began.
To give my sister the help she asked for presented another challenge. I learned that when I had rescued my mother so many years ago, my stepfather then turned his rage and pain against my sister, and it was her turn to be brutalized.
I realized that what started out to be a physical problem was then greatly exaggerated by fear and tension, plus the belief that no one could help her. So here was Louise, not wanting to be a rescuer and yet wanting to give her sister an opportunity to choose wellness at this point in her life.
Slowly the unraveling began, and now, today, it’s still going on. We progress step by step as I provide an atmosphere of safety while we explore various avenues of healing.
My mother,* on the other hand, responds very well. She exercises as best she can four times a day. Her body gets stronger and more flexible. I took her to get a hearing aid, and she became more interested in life. In spite of her Christian Science beliefs, I persuaded her to have a cataract removed from one eye. What a joy for her to begin to see again and for us to see the world through her eyes. She is so pleased to read again.
My mother and I began to find time to sit and talk to each other in ways we had never done before. A new understanding developed between us. Today, we both become freer as we cry and laugh and hug together. Sometimes she pushes my buttons, which only tells me there is something further for me to clear.
*My mother left the planet peacefully several years ago. I miss her and love her. We completed all we could together, and now we are both free.