I felt strongly about playing with the Spirit@Work® Card – Empathy – for a few more days. I like the way it is showing up in my life, and especially in the way that it is affecting my writing. I’ve chosen to wait to draw the next card.
I’ve realized that all I’ve been writing about on this blog site has been the Spirit@Work® Cards that I’ve been drawing. I have neglected to write about The Castle Principles® which have been my guiding force in what I will refer to as the backbone of my Higher Ground Leadership Practicum, and the writing of the first draft of the book Footprints On My Soul. I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to take a moment to look at how they have supported me on this journey.
The Castle Principles® are comprised of the following – Courage, Authenticity, Service, Truthfulness, Love, and Effectiveness.
Courage – It will take a tremendous amount of courage to write the book Footprints On My Soul and to blog about the experience.
It has, at times, been really hard to write about my childhood. It amazed me over and over again how much my body felt and reacted the same way it did as a child. Just writing the words were hard to do, especially in the beginning. I was scared to put everything to words. I suspect that most of it had to do with continually being told as a child that if I told anyone I would be punished for being bad. Not wanting to be punished is part of the fabric of who I am.
Authenticity – I want my Soul and the person I have become to be felt throughout the book, and by the readers of my blog.
I struggled with this one. I was having a hard enough time just trying to write about what happened, let alone bring the adult me into it. Probably because I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about everything that happened. It’s still unfolding for me and I suspect that authenticity is going to really come into play as I move into the editing stage of the book.
Service – To inspire the readers to see that peacefulness, kindness, and respectfulness are possible regardless of the situation.
I feel I have managed to stay true to this intention. It has also grown to more than this. I often found myself wondering about the abusers in my life; whether they felt remorse; confessed their sins on Sundays; asked their God for forgiveness; and whether they tried to change who they were. This unexpected consideration will hopefully be noticeable to the reader. The main support for myself with this part was that I didn’t want to become my abusers. Remaining peaceful, kind, and respectful are important to me.
Truthfulness – To accept and share my truth of living a traumatic childhood and how it affected me as an adult.
Another challenging one for me. Some of the things I experienced were at the hands of pedophiles. I grappled with how much to tell. Should I express every detail of what they did to me, or leave it to the imagination of the reader. If I left it to the imagination of the reader then it would no longer be my truth. It would become what they thought was my truth. If a pedophile happened to read my book, would the detail bring out compassion in them causing them to take a serious look at what they might be doing to the people they abuse? (That would be a beautiful gift!) Or, would it excite them and have the opposite result?
At this point I have not really been able to bring how my childhood has affected me as an adult. I’m not sure if it will come out in the editing stage, or if I will choose to omit it completely. I have considered that a possible second book might be The Writing of Footprints On My Soul. It has really affected me and I’ve grown because of it. I think one of the main reasons is that I did it with The Castle Principles® and the Spirit@Work® Cards. I know it wouldn’t have been the same book if I didn’t include the writing of the first draft as a part of my Higher Ground Leadership Practicum.
Love – To remember to always love myself throughout this journey and to believe that I am worthy of love.
That was actually a fairly difficult intention to put to words, and I felt that I would be able to accomplish it. It was actually harder to practice than it was to write. As I was writing I often wondered how I managed to come through my childhood at all. In a way I didn’t. It’s hard to love yourself when it feels like no one else in the world does. If your own family doesn’t appear to love you, how can you possibly be worthy of love? If you’re not worthy of love, then you can’t love yourself either. It goes without saying that if you can’t love yourself, then you certainly are not capable of allowing anyone else to love you. Writing my memories have brought all of those feelings to the surface.
Effectiveness – To embark on this journey daily and to realize and accept that there will be days when it will be difficult.
Whew! I had no idea what I was really getting myself into! Quite the expectation with this one!
I have somehow managed to spend time daily with this practicum. (As I write this, I’m on day 80 of the 100 day challenge portion of it.) An intent accomplished that I can embrace as being successful.
Difficult is not necessarily the word that comes to mind for most of the days. There were days when writing the book were extremely emotionally painful. I have yet been able to write about one of the incidences that caused an incredible amount of fear in me at the time … I don’t feel I’m strong enough yet to experience it again. There are still a couple of other ones that I’m really resisting writing about. There were almost no days when writing wasn’t difficult to some degree. For the most part, it has become easier with each passing day.
As I consider everything I’ve accomplished and experienced for the past 80 days I’m almost saddened at the thought of almost being finished this Practicum. I know that I won’t really be finished. After the first draft will be the editing stage. I can’t imagine doing that without continuing with these practices. This new way of living will remain with me for the rest of my life. It truly is a gentler, kinder way of living and is perfect for me.
Higher Ground Leadership Principles®, The Spirit@Work Cards®, and the Castle Principles® are registered trademarks of the Secretan Center.