Sexual Abuse is Spiritually Devastating

calmbeachwpThe recent revelations by the dozens of women about having been drugged and sexually assaulted at the hands of the so-called ‘iconic family man’, Bill Cosby, brings to mind the plight of the thousands of children around the world who have been sexually assaulted by Roman Catholic priests. Because of my own experience at the hands of a middle-aged priest when I was a child, this ongoing saga of sexual exploitation of women rings especially loud and clear.

For the now dozens of women who have accused Mr. Cosby of these abhorrent acts, there has since been no peace in their lives. They all relate how they had lived with the pain of their experience, due to the way they had been lured into the sole company of the perpetrator then drugged into unconsciousness, so that he could have his way with them. However, they were either afraid to tell anyone because they were afraid no one would believe them or, as many of them have stated, even their friends, family or bosses never believed them when they did speak up because their stories seemed so incredible.  We should all be outraged at the behavior of this sexual predator and collectively defrock Mr. Cosby of his celebrity status as these women seek legal recourse after the Statute of Limitation has passed for a criminal proceeding.

When I listen to all of these women’s stories about being drugged and raped by a prominent celebrity, their intense emotions of anger and betrayal bring back the terror of my own experience when I was only 10 years old. I had been ‘drugged’ into the belief system of the RC church and then lured into a situation where I was alone with a 40ish revered man. I was raped by an angry priest for making prank phone calls in the church basement while I was teaching catechism (tenets of the faith) to younger children who were attending the village public school.

Just as most of those women had had aspirations of furthering their acting careers in trusting Mr. Cosby, innocent young children like me have been placed in the hands of sexual perverts in the hopes of gaining spiritual favor through the RC church. We thought it was a privilege to be asked by such prominent people in our lives to spend time with them. We were sadly mistaken.

Stormy Sky

Even though it’s difficult to listen those adult victims talk about their nightmarish lives after their sexual assaults, children have much more difficulty dealing with the aftermath of such a breach of trust. From my own experience, I know how difficult it has been to overcome the enormous emotional pain and suffering. I understand their helplessness in not being believed, yet I had been threatened with the destruction of my entire family if I dared tell anyone what the priest had done to me. That was a massive responsibility, so I kept the event a secret until I couldn’t handle it anymore.

Thanks to the actions of the judge that unsealed Mr. Cosby’s 2005 deposition, I sincerely hope that the information now coming forward will vindicate these women and lead to some much needed healing, as their stories become believable in the court of public opinion. Rather than simply dismiss their stories, we all need to listen to women and children when they claim they’ve been sexually abused, because the vast majority of us don’t make up such sorrowful stories on a whim or to gain attention.

Relaxing SunsetLike these women I was a strong enough person to persevere through a hellish 20 years after the rape, but I was also a very spiritual person who had seen through the façade of religion and kept searching for an approach to spirituality that wasn’t tied to any organization or institution. It was only when I met my mentor that I was able to once again connect with my spiritual self and regain my dignity.

If you’re an abuse survivor, and the Statute of Limitation in your location has already passed, in order to start healing at all levels, you can:

  1. Forgive yourself. You’ve done nothing wrong. Don’t feel like you ever have to forgive the despicable brute that abused you.
  1. Love yourself. Start accepting yourself for who you are. Recognize and nurture your inner beauty.
  1. Practice calmness. Unchecked anxiety is detrimental to your physical health. Relax through regular exercise and quiet time in nature.
  1. Start self-healing by looking after yourself. Eat healthy and get proper sleep. Refrain from self-medicating through the use of drugs and alcohol. Find someone and/or a professional you trust to talk to about the abuse and allow their counsel as constructive, rather than critical.
  1. Start working with your spirit by actively bringing in the pure white Light* and using it to remove the negativity you feel mentally, emotionally and physically. Do your best to refuse the spiritual negativity that has accumulated from all the ongoing negativity you’ve experienced. I specialize in removing latent spiritual negativity and can help in this area.

Sexual abuse offends us at the highest level of our being and can potentially fracture our spiritual connection irreparably. Apart from the mental, emotional and social healing process, there is still a lot of spiritual work to do to emerge from the nightmare.

the pure white ‘Light’, a universal source that is comprised of essentially pure positive energy

I welcome and value your input ~ Please feel free to comment!

I work across distance to extend my higher-level knowledge to you, wherever you are in the world! Learn how great life is when you work with a positively oriented spirit!

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I Forgive Myself!

fbheartstarlike1The importance of self-forgiveness for survivors of childhood sexual abuse

Someone commented the other day that the hardest thing for her to do was to forgive herself.  For those of us that were sexually abused as children, we bear the detrimental memories of those incomprehensible moments into adulthood.  The negative memories and emotions build inside until they begin to manifest in ways that cause emotional, mental and physical illness.  When I learned how to stop the momentum of the shame and guilt caused by early abuse events, I eventually emerged as the healthy balanced person I am today.

When I was really young, I really didn’t even understand what was happening to me, or that it was anything unusual, because I believe that I had been conditioned from a very early age to accept sexual abuse as a normal occurrence. After trying to report to my mother what had happened to me on one occasion and wasn’t believed, then being threatened into silence another time, I quickly learned that I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone.  I continued to keep all of it a secret.

By the time I reached puberty, I was being molested by people close to me.  I was so shy that I had trouble expressing any romantic interests with boys my own age, so I never had any meaningful relationships.  When I had what I thought was my first sexual encounter at age 16, I was humiliated when the 21-year-old man practically laughed out loud because I had told him that I was a virgin.  After that incident I was accosted and raped by several older teenagers.  What I never realized throughout any of this was that all this was happening because I had been abused as a young child.  It just never connected.  I never knew how to fight back to stop the abuse and was still afraid to tell others, for fear of not being believed or being ostracized for being a victim.

Soon after these events, I moved away to try and start a new life.  Within me was the inkling of knowledge that I would one day find harmony in my life.  But there seemed to be no way to stop the pattern of abuse that I had accepted.  By my mid-20’s I had become a battered woman as my life kept spiraling downward.  When I reached a crisis point, I finally looked for and found help from someone who made me look at myself in a whole new perspective.

At that point I was in a similar position as the lady that prompted me to post this today.  Years ago, when it was suggested that I should forgive myself, it seemed almost impossible.  My approach was to review the different aspects of how the abuse had affected me.  I realized that I felt great shame, loss of dignity and very little self-esteem.  My shyness and lack of confidence had prevented me from having meaningful relationships.  Somehow, I even felt guilty because I had allowed the abuse to continue until it was life threatening.   I had to reconcile with myself in order to remove those destructive emotional memories from my being.

In order to begin to forgive myself, I had to acknowledge that I was unique, that I had purpose and that I was worthy of happiness.  And I had to believe it.  Then I could forgive myself for having accepted the abuse, even though I really couldn’t have prevented it as a very young child.  The best way for me to fight back against that breach of my free will was to believe that I could become the person that I truly am inside, and to eliminate the fear, guilt and other negative emotions that lingered from the abuse events and their aftermath.

Once I was able to accept myself as I was at that moment, it began a ripple effect.  I was then able to forgive myself, and that enabled me to start loving myself.  That’s when I accepted that I could interact with my spirit (soul) and started to work with it.  I have regained my dignity and, when I look in the mirror, I see my inner beauty reflected back.

I still continue to forgive myself whenever I think, react or behave in ways that trouble me, in order to create a fresh starting point that allows me to once again move forward in a positive direction.

Find out how to get started working with your spirit by visiting my website at OnlyPositiveKnowledge.com !

I welcome and value your input~Please feel free to comment! 

*Light: The pure white light of the universe; purely positive energy; not associated with any one religion or deity; I work spiritually with people from every background from around the globe