{"id":8443,"date":"2024-05-19T19:13:08","date_gmt":"2024-05-19T23:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=8443"},"modified":"2024-05-19T19:13:08","modified_gmt":"2024-05-19T23:13:08","slug":"i-am-not-a-bad-person-bad-things-happened-to-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=8443","title":{"rendered":"“I am Not a Bad Person, Bad Things Happened to Me”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am so tired and so discouraged.\u00a0<\/span>Set the timer for 15 minutes to meditate.\u00a0 <\/span>Immediately my heart started to hurt.\u00a0 <\/span>Instead of trying to make it go away, I offered it as prayer.\u00a0 <\/span>The first time I\u2019ve been able to do that.\u00a0 <\/span>I know my pain is about the earth, global warming, wars, and my exhaustion.<\/p>\n

While walking Mocha I looked for evidence of Spirit.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cWhere is spirit in this?\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>Flowers, color, beauty, no problem.\u00a0 <\/span>What about wilting flowers, dirty sidewalks?\u00a0 <\/span>I found it confusing.\u00a0 <\/span>Intellectually I believe that spirit is in everything. But I have no experience of spirit in everything. I remember the time I was driving on the highway through country and felt how much I loved the trees. And then I felt love coming back from the trees. That’s as close as I’ve ever been to feeling spirit in the world.<\/p>\n

Intense session with Erica.\u00a0 Trying to get in touch with my heart.\u00a0<\/span>Putting my hand on my heart, paying attention to sensation, making sounds and feeling the vibration.\u00a0 <\/span>Then I started feeling really hopeless, and finally I got angry.\u00a0 <\/span>The anger felt good! I’m not choosing to be helpless, I am truly wounded, damaged by things that happened to me.<\/p>\n

Realizing the extent to which my life has been ruined: by early trauma<\/a>, by Mother\u2019s mis-representation<\/a>, by the social distancing<\/a> required by COVID.\u00a0 <\/span>It looks like I will never \u201chave a life.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>I don\u2019t think I\u2019ll even be able to do Sacred Sites<\/a> again, which is one of the meaningful things I love to do.\u00a0 <\/span>It looks like I\u2019ll just keep stumbling on, doing my best to feed myself and take care of Mocha.<\/p>\n

I typed up the talk with Erica.\u00a0 <\/span>It was amazing that I went from feeling a complete failure to seeing that it wasn\u2019t a choice I was making.\u00a0I wasn’t choosing to be helpless,\u00a0<\/span>I was damaged, wounded.\u00a0 <\/span>I worked so hard to heal, and I healed a lot, but somehow COVID, and the social distancing, triggered my early trauma and so far I haven\u2019t been able to recover.\u00a0 <\/span>There\u2019s also been the health stuff, my body breaking down: thyroid collapsing<\/a>, bursitis<\/a>, cancer<\/a>, inability to sleep<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I think about how my life was ruined by trauma, lies, and COVID.\u00a0 <\/span>But I\u2019m not the only one.\u00a0 <\/span>Even here at Kendal there are people whose lives have been ruined by things they had no power over, and certainly in the greater population outside.\u00a0 <\/span>I remember something I once saw, a workshop for prisoners.\u00a0 <\/span>The leader had them stand in a big circle and then asked them to take a step forward if they had a parent who was an addict, and again, a step if their family was poor, and so on.\u00a0 <\/span>It began to be obvious that the people who were prisoners, were there because they had so many counts against them.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

I also remember taking a test about how much you had going for you and how much against.\u00a0 <\/span>For me: I grew up in a wealthy family, against me: my parents were alcoholics, for me: I got a good education, against me: I was traumatized in infancy…\u00a0 <\/span>According to them I had more things against me than for me.\u00a0 <\/span>In which case I actually did well with my life.<\/p>\n

The title, “I am Not a Bad Person, Bad Things Happened to Me,” is what I say at the end of Journey Into Courage, as I throw my razor blade into the garbage can. But I think it’s taken me this long to get the truth of that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am so tired and so discouraged.\u00a0Set the timer for 15 minutes to meditate.\u00a0 Immediately my heart started to hurt.\u00a0 Instead of trying to make it go away, I offered it as prayer.\u00a0 The first time I\u2019ve been able to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,14,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-present-day","category-spirit","category-trauma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8443\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}