Home from Shalom Mountain

This past week I attended a Sexuality and Spirituality retreat at Shalom Mountain, a place of emotional and spiritual healing in the Catskill Mountains of NY. (Please google it and check it out.) Now, I hadn't selected this retreat to attend. It selected me. I was planning on attending the Women's Festival there the weekend before (a decision I made spontaneously while biking to CrossFit one morning of the week before). Then on the day I was to leave, I got a call from the Shalom inviting me to attend because they needed more women for this retreat and offering it to me at a reduced rate. One quick call to my sister-in-law (a long time Shalomer) and she convinced me I would benefit from this work. So, not one to pass up the opportunity for an experience or an adventure, I said yes. Not know what I was getting into!

During the Women's Festival, I kept hearing "the best retreat on the mountain" over and over again, from women. So I was beginning to get anticipatory. Now I'm not going to go in to details about this retreat, surprise is part of the experience I believe, but I do want to say that all the right people were there to bring to me awareness of a sexual trauma issue that I thought had no longer ramifications. I became aware that when I was molested as a young girl by my gramma's brother and told her of it, she told me to just stay close to her. Nothing more was said about it in my presence and my parents were never informed of the incident. I discovered this weekend that that incident formulated a pattern I've exhibited the rest of my life: silence when threatened by anyone (sexual or otherwise), hiding behind my grandmother's skirt for fear of being injured. Hide. Run away. Do not confront. Do not say No. Do not address the issue.

This weekend I painfully addressed an injurer with the support of my sisters and the understanding of my brothers, and my family group standing at my back. Big step. Growth is very painful. But the initial outcome of speaking my truth and not wanting or allowing the injurer to speak was a division of the group, a disconnect that I was unwilling and unable to mend. "Jagged edges" one attending called it. I had used all my strength and all my voice in speaking up. I had nothing left to protect myself from his words. There was nothing he could say that would make what he did okay for me. NOTHING. And I didn't want to honor him with allowing him the honor of speaking to me. As emotions in the group rose, I wanted to run and hide. What had my speaking up caused? Look at this pain on this group of people that I love. And yet, to take care of myself first, I had to stay strong in my belief that he not speak to me. To allow that would have been a co-dependent action on my part, another issue I wrestle with. The retreat leaders were even divided and in their own pain. But in the talent of Shalom, they were able to let us end the process right there and allow time and the universe to decide what needed to happen next in this process. Speaking one's truth is soooo scary and I won't always have the support that I had that night. But I intend never to be quiet again. If someone injures me, I will protect myself. I will say no, you cannot do that to me. And I will do it in my womanly power, not from the scared little girl.

Let me also say that the following morning I went from fear of this man to compassion which I was able to express only after knowing that the issue would not be dropped or swept under the rug, but picked up by a sister and processed off the mountain. I could put my sword and armor down and begin my healing because she was taking up my battle for me. Thank you, sister!

Growth, painful and necessary.