Sharon Critchfield Most people are no stranger to trauma, whether it be suffering abuse as a child or adult, the death of a loved one, living through a natural disaster or witnessing the aftermaths of a violent act. I am not a stranger to trauma either. I lived through my childhood years being scared to death due to the sexual abuse I suffered at the hands of a close family member. Shortly after graduating from college, my roommate disappeared and was later found shot to death in a field buried in a garbage sack. My husband and I, by the grace of God, lived through the death of our baby girl and an illness that left our other baby girl in critical condition until she had life-saving surgery. I was with my mom preparing for her trip home from the hospital when she died. Her death was the result of a botched procedure at the hospital that caused a blood clot. You might wonder how a person could heal when life seems to always have a curve ball waiting to throw. I told you all of that to tell you this. I am now the happiest I have ever been in my life! It must be said that at the time that each of these life changing events was occurring, I was in survival mode. I lived day by day through coping mechanisms that I concocted to get me to the next day. It was much later in my life that I began to heal and forgive. Happiness was actually a by-product of the healing and forgiveness I had worked so hard to achieve. Healing takes place in the soul. My life experiences along with my very strict evangelical church upbringing led me to intense study, which in turn led me to develop some simple spiritual truths. I believe I am not the only one experiencing an awakening in our world today. Many are questioning the way life has always gone with a knowingness that there is more. Some are dissatisfied with their jobs because they have an inner sense of knowing their life has a purpose and they want to find out what it is. I am more than honored to be part of this growing awareness. As I was trying to figure out why these bad things happened to me, a good Christian girl who was literally known as a “goody two shoes” in school, I came up with some great answers. Finally, after many years of searching and asking, I came to believe some basic truths about our lives here on earth. First of all, we are children of God. Everyone knows this but have you ever stopped to think about the implications of being a child of such power? It means, that as God’s children, we have that power within us as well. We are divine and all powerful. We are souls here on earth having an experience in a physical body. This experience is but a blip on the radar of an existence that knows no time or space. We must reclaim our true identities as divine by birthright. I wonder what would happen if every person in the world were to treat others they meet as divine children of God? Certainly we would not mistreat them. We might even be on our best behavior. The next big truth I came to believe was that we are all here on earth to learn lessons. Earth is our classroom. We are here to learn lessons that we can only learn while in this physical body. Many of our lessons come hard and fast. Many involve abandonment, abuse, neglect, fear, death and guilt. The whole question of why bad things happen to good people has been answered. Life has to be so uncomfortable for us in order for us to pay enough attention to change it. I personally believe that some people come here with the sole purpose of helping others to heal from past lifetimes of being the victim. These people actually come to sacrifice themselves for others to heal. I chose to believe this about the family member that abused me as a child. It took a lot of the emotion out of the situation. Once you can remove the victim from the abuser and the emotion tied to it, real healing can take place. I could finally see where I had the power to end the karmic cycle of victimization I had been in for far too long and I chose to view that as a blessing. It also helped when forgiveness became part of the healing process. Since we are all here to learn our specific lessons, we alone are responsible for the energy we bring to it. We are not responsible for anyone else’s journey, only ours. We can help others on their journey, but it is ultimately up to them how they handle the curveballs. When I considered that my abuser was learning his own lesson, it humanized the situation for me. It was part of my human experience. I may not have been able to prevent the abuse but I sure could stop him from continuing to hold all the power. Realizing and taking back your own power is perhaps the single most important thing you can do to heal. It is empowering to you! I confronted him when I was 16 years old and told him he was sick and I would help him get the right doctors that could help him get better. He looked at me like he couldn’t believe what I had just said, but that was the day the abuse stopped. I took back my power and make no mistake, abuse is a power game. You might wonder how it is possible for a person to say with deep conviction that they are now happy, even after all of the trauma. It is my belief that these basic spiritual truths have been the cornerstone of my spiritual journey for a long time now. I just get it and many people are starting to get it too. By that I mean that happiness is a choice we all make for ourselves. God wants us to be happy. It is actually our natural state of being if you think about it. We are really happy when we are with God back “home.” It is only when we get in a physical body that lessons have to be learned and we lose the happiness we came in with as babies. If happiness is a choice, can we just make the decision to be happy? Sure, but that is easier said than done. I tried many things in my quest to find happiness. I recited the affirmation, I choose to be happy, over and over again until it became embedded in my subconscious. I began to believe I did have the power and responsibility to design my life anyway I wanted it. I made a list of all the things that made me happy and made sure to do at least one thing on that list every day. Happiness became within reach as I focused on those things happening around me that I could react to with either fear or love. I began to notice synchronicities in my day and small blessings that I had never noticed because my mind was so busy being angry, hurt, resentful, guilty or full of grief. I made room in my head for happiness and when I did, my life changed. As my outlook became more positive, more positive things came to me. That is the Law of Attraction at work. Just like you would not want your children to be angry or hurt, God does not want that for us either. The beauty of it is that everyone has this same power and responsibility. It is our birthright. If I can do it, anyone can. It is as simple as making a choice. I found the ultimate gift! I found power in forgiveness, freedom in healing and happiness in choosing to not be defined by my experiences, but instead by my choice to live happily in the now. Sharon tells more of her journey in her book, Waking Up to Heal. It can be found on her website, sharoncritchfield.com or Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Google Play and Kobobooks. She writes a weekly blog which appears on her website along with her own copyrighted invention of affirmation beads and her original affirmation lists. She is a Reiki Master and offers distance Reiki along with an ebook on Reiki for those who are new to the healing modality. She is a retired elementary school teacher and lives with her husband of 35 years and their two dogs in central Texas. You can connect with her on her Facebook page, Waking up to Heal or on Twitter. She loves to receive comments from readers! |
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