Tag: freedom

Categories
fixing healing

Wounded or Broken?

Walk by river at St Asaph taken by myself August 2022

I am blaming The Naked Pastor for bringing my attention to the difference between saying you are broken to that of saying you are wounded from a trauma. He says, and I think I agree, that if I am broken then I need fixing but if I am wounded then I am ok but have parts of me that need to be healed.

Here’s a quote from David’s last newsletter and a link to the cartoon relating to it:

When you set out to ‘fix’ yourself, you end up changing the person you are and causing extra hurt and extra trauma. 

But when you change your mindset to one of healing, you begin to realize that you were never broken and that you never needed fixing at all. 

David Hayward The Best Healing Cartoon

I’ve just done a Biblegateway search of the words “broken” and “healed”. Broken only applies with something physical, like bread or bones, or branches of unbelief. But Jesus does loads of healing and if fact Peter says of Jesus:

“He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.”

1 Peter 2:24

And Isaiah says, when foretelling of Jesus

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.

Isaiah 53:5

Not broken but wounds. And for transgression read “all the things we’ve done wrong, had done wrong to us, our traumas, hurts, fears, physical, emotional and spiritual.”

Yet last night I was at a meeting where the host, who was the pastor of the church where the meeting was happening, said that the church was for broken people and that he was the most broken of them all. See now I don’t think that’s a great boast. Why would I want to be part of something that seems to be proud that people are attending and being led by someone who is more of a mess than they are. What I love about QEC is that not only does it help me to be healed of my hurts, fears and traumas, but also gives me tools that I can then do this for myself. I don’t need to keep seeing my therapist to go over stuff. I have been healed, set free. Oh yes it does sneak up and bite me often but I know how to recognise it and deal with it.

I am slowly growing towards being the person I am meant to be. As Naked Pastor says we aren’t broken and needing put back together as if there is something wrong with us but we are hurting and wounded and need healing. And this is what the Bible tells me Jesus died for and yet why is this church, and others, saying that it is ok to be broken and to want to stay that way?

I am so grateful that when I met with God I was in a total mess and got filled with a great reassurance that I was loved unconditionally just as I was. Yes I have gone on to be fixed but have learned that it is about being healed not fixed. I am not broken and don’t need fixing. I am awesome as I am but need to be healed so the real me can get out into the world. And I am learning to do this with a mix of Jesus, Holy Spirit, God, some great friends who like me as I am, and also [and I know I keep publicising it but it is awesome] with the help and support of QEC and the tools that come with it.

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Categories
Me Too truth

The Truth Will Set You Free

A view to the Llyn Peninsular taken on a day out with my daughter July 2022

I cried when I heard the result of the RoevWade outcome. How could a country that calls itself civilised take such a backward step? Not only is it saying that women cannot choose but that it is saying women are not able to choose. Then I hear our government saying that abortion doesn’t need to be on The Bill of Rights! Again a major step backwards.

There is that big argument that the child that is aborted could grow up to change the world. Well what if they don’t? What if the child that does not get aborted is brought up in a household on a low income with many different partners in the mother’s life? What if the child is brought up and hated because of what the mother could not do? One cannot talk of “what ifs” when one does not talk about choice.

Did you know it is only recently that Christians believe a person did not become a living being until God breathed life into them at that moment of birth

“I think we know that prior to the Lord putting breath of life into Adam he had a heart, he had a brain with vessels, and these vessels and heart were filled with blood just as the vessels and heart of a fetus are filled with blood. However, Adam did not become a living soul until after the Lord breathed into him the breath of life.

—Robert L. Pettus Jr., MD, As I See Sex Through the Bible, 1973

And “Rabbis have long written that the soul enters the body at birth, with the first breath. For breath is the gift of life from the one who created us. From the God who is both our origin and our destination.”

–

I know medical science can now keep a baby alive from very early in gestation. I have had friends who have been blessed by this new technology. But that was their choice and that choice has effected their lives since.

I have just read a great article by Nadia Bolz-Weber entitled Stories>Opinions [basically our stories are greater than someone’s opinions] In it she tells her own story of her own abortion, which is very similar to mine, except that she did have a partner with her and friends supporting her. For me, I was in an odd place, sleeping around and did not know who had fathered my child. I was, like Nadia, on a low income and also not in a place to have a child. [I once told this story in a Christian youth group and got cross questioned by the young people, which actually was great because it made me think about what I had done, and I know I did the right thing at that moment in time] Would I have been a good mother then? Who knows. But I chose not to be a mother then.

Later I got my life a bit more sorted and have since had two amazing children. Children that actually I would not have had if I had not aborted the earlier one. Strange that. As someone in my writing group once told me “each choice we make determines where we are today.”

Jon Kuhrt wrote a blog piece a while back on Francis Spufford’s book “Perpetual Light”, which is a story about the children that died in a WWII bomb on a Woolworth’s in London, and what their lives would have been like if they had lived. This got me thinking about what my life would have been like if my first child had lived. I don’t know but I know it would be very different and I know I would not have the children I have now, or the husband I have now, or the life I have now. It would have been different.

When people say about the life of the aborted child they never seem to talk about the life of the mother who has that child, or the father who has to decide what he will do. Also too often the mother is seen as the enemy, as a bad person, who isn’t really thinking properly. I do not know of anyone who did not think through their decisions carefully and how it would impact them and their unborn child. It is not a decision to be taken lightly. But then I did not take it lightly to keep my next two babies. But having an abortion is a taboo subject very rarely talked about in Christian circles openly. Why is that? God knows what I’ve done and still thinks I am amazing. I know this because my first God encounter was of being covered in what felt like a warm, visceral glittery substance and being told I was loved just as I was – unmarried mum who’d had an abortion. I’m not sure what my church would have thought of me if they’d known. I wonder if I will now be asked to stop helping with the youth group that I volunteer at now?

Please can we stop being ashamed of what we’ve done. Please can we start being open about every part of our lives and not just keep God for the clean and tidy bits and pieces. God is the God of the whole of my life – the good and the bad, the times I’ve got it right and the times I’ve got it wrong – and I am loved by God no matter what. That is totally amazing.

And now let us stand together and support those who have had an abortion, who are thinking of having abortions, and also those who think the whole this is an anathema. We are all made in the image of God no matter what we’ve done or what we think. And are loved because of and in spite of all that.

Categories
Castle Security trust

Castles!

A castle in Gwynedd, North Wales, photographed on my husband's birthday in June 2018. Taken by Diane Woodrow
Dolbadarn Castle. Taken by myself June 2018

Last night I had two dreams with castles in them. I have looked up what “dreaming about castles” means and there are many different interpretations. Then I journaled around and about castles for myself.

I’ve had a few things going on recently that have left me a bit insecure and I think that might have been the reason for the dream. I want something safe and secure – for myself and my loved ones. But being a medieval historian as well as a writer I know that castles aren’t as secure as one would like. It is a perceived security not a real one.

A castle could be besieged; wall dug beneath and weaken or surrounded and wait for the occupants to stare or throw in contaminated meat and poison the occupants. Castles weren’t as safe as one would have liked them to be.

So I wonder whether sometimes we try to build things like castles – boundaries, walls, barricades – in our hearts, lives, work, relationships – to try to keep out the things we perceive to be bad and keep in the order of things we perceive to be good. And it is our order we can contain within our castle walls – when not being besieged. But all we are doing is exerting our control because of our fear and lack of trust in ourselves, others, the Universe, God. But all of these things need lots of maintenance and effort. And all can be destroyed.

Even though I think in my heart I want to build strong castle walls to keep myself safe and to exert my control on the things I know, even though it looks strong that it is in fact fragile. Instead I need to be in the open, be free to the changes of the seasons, trust in those around me, trust in God/the Universe, let go of fear.

If I do this I can be free to run in open meadows not trapped within castle walls. It may seem more scary out there but in fact, if I can trust then I can be free

Down on the Abergwyngregan coastal path. Photographed by Diane Woodrow
Categories
Alignment boundaries healing

No More Boundaries

A wall sheltering a shingle beach with rocks and seaweed on it, looking across to Anglesey with t he tide out. Taken by Diane Woodrow
Abergwyngregyn nature reserve taken by myself on 19th January 2022 at 9.15am

During my QEC session we talk a lot about not having boundaries but being in alignment to the world around you and your energy. I’ve been pondering a lot about it because it is counterintuitive to a lot of what one gets taught. How often have we all heard about “having clear boundaries” or even about “having boundaries that are flexible“. I attended a lovely workshop once around looking at boundaries – a fallen down fence, a brick wall and a wall with a gate in it, with the wall with the gate in it being what we should aim for. All sounded really good. Then I get this spanner in the works and because I trust so much else of what I’m doing through QEC I have to work this through.

As you can see from the wall above when a storm comes, or when it isn’t cared for, it falls and the sea rushes in. This is what we’re encouraged not to do – not to let the sea cascade in because …. because we could come to harm. So we spend a lot of energy working on those walls, even making sure the gate is in the right place and is well maintained. But alignment is a totally different thing.

I had gone through a bit of an issue with someone I was working with where I felt out of alignment with them and felt I was not getting the justice I deserved. Whilst pondering around this I was also doing some meditation around focusing on Jesus and the Cross and Healing what came to me was that “healing is once the pain has gone and the wound is clean” But how does that happen?

What I realised was that to get that healing I had been coming at it from a “your will be done” but wanting God’s will to actually match up with mine. So it was much more “my will be done. This has caused me thinking about my boundaries and what I wanted rather than what would being peace in my world.

As I let God/The Universe take over my niggles and need for my justice I felt myself calming, felt myself coming into alignment with God/The Universe’s peace for me. And that is the only word I can use to describe it – “peace“. I would say I got “healed of needing to know the bigger picture”.

So I may not look to the cross every time I feel discombobulated by something but I will learn to relax into alignment with a bigger will than my own. Once I can do that then there is no need for boundaries; no need to know what comes next; no need to even know why. There is peace. There is freedom. There is trust.

I know this will be an on going thing because I have been brought up for too long thinking I’m only safe if I’m behind a boundary but in fact I am safer when I am aligned to God/The Universe’s bigger picture and trusting God has it covered.

Categories
Blown by the Spirit freelancing

Blown By The Spirit

a canal towpath, barges on the canal, trees picking up the early morning sunshine. Taken by Diane Woodrow
Bradford on Avon canal at sunrise August 2021 taken by myself

There was a phrase that I heard many times when I first committed to walking out the Christian faith which was about being “blown by the Holy Spirit”. The way it was taught was that God would send the Holy Spirit which would take us wherever God wanted. In my thinking that meant to other countries, off on mission, etc, etc. But now, as I progress in this journey, I wonder if it is much more an internal things – that I need to let God’s Holy Spirit guide me in my thinking, my ways of doing things, and just the general day to day.

Each moment of my day I should be “blown by the Spirit” [and I wish I could find the actual bible verses that this is from] not just in the big things of life. In fact I do now wonder if too often many of us have missed out on the ordinary because we have been waiting for the extraordinary.

This came to me the other morning as I was pondering about things for this new year. I wanted to be true to my Freelance calling. So, as I do each morning, after doing yoga with the cat [who is often more enthusiastic than I am about it], I sat calmly on my mat and held my work projects in my open hands, along with the rest of the year. I gave up these projects, and all future ones, to God/to the Universe to do with as they willed, and without thinking asked God to blow them as the Spirit willed.

Oh my word! It was the most releasing of experiences. Suddenly I was freed from any burden of them. Suddenly I was free of having to “get them right” and was able to just let them go, to sit lightly with them.

There have been one or two issues with them since that day and at times I have forgotten that I’ve given them to be “blown by the Spirit”. But each time I remember that these projects aren’t mine to hold tightly but are gifts to use my talents in executing I am able to let them be “blown by the Spirit”.

There is such a freedom in that and I am seeing as well as a peace coming from that, also doors opening.

Categories
creativity freedom

Freelancing

Cherry tree with autumnal leaves with moody grey sky in background. Photographed by Diane Woodrow
View from my study before Storm Arwen passed by. Photographed by myself

I am very privileged to be able to be a freelance writer and facilitator of writing groups. And as you will see at the bottom of this post being FREE means “enjoying personal rights or liberty, as a person who is not in slavery:” and LANCE means a weapon for charging in and then piercing.

As you know I’ve been doing lots of inner healing with QEC and other methods. I have also been reading various blog posts. A lot of what I read talks about how when one has been set free from those things that hold us back we will have more energy, be able to be busier, to take on more work and make more money. Well …. I am not sure that’s what the word should mean.

It is a bit like Radio 4 program I listened to last week in which the person was saying how the world “entrepreneur” is being used wrongly – and of how it is used to talk about the “entrepreneur” being a person who is busy, busy and make lots of money. As though having lots of money is the be all and end all of life.

Ok I am lucky that I am comfortably off, have a nice house, a husband who earns a living, etc ,etc. But I have also known a life as a single mum when I have been on benefits and I think it is from there that I have learned that having money isn’t what it is all about.

As I have dealt with more and more things that have held me back from “being me” so I have stopped worrying about my business. And once I stopped worrying, and also only accepting work that fitted in with me and who I am – which has meant having to let go of a couple of things that didn’t fit who I am – I have had work coming my way. But also have had time to be creative.

When I was worrying about my business and pursing work I was not free. I was not directional. Now I am free to be who I am meant to be within my work, my home, my family. I am not in slavery to money, to other people’s expectations, to the have tos of life. I also have a direction – which has meant I can create stories, websites, blogs, writing groups, a booklet for a project – freely and when it works for me to do.

I am feel that since the latest round of QEC that I have stepped out of the slavery of wanting to “be someone” and am free to be who I am which is a warrior pointed in a set direction to encourage others to love creative writing for the sake of writing.

I feel very safe and free with the way my life is and how I walk out what I am doing with being me

adjective – enjoying personal rights or liberty, as a person who is not in slavery.

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/free

noun – a long wooden shaft used by knights and cavalry soliders. Verb – to pierce with a lance.

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/lancing
Categories
True freedom writing

What do you write like when no one is looking?

barefeet with shoes placed next to the feet underneath a table. This photo is used on Barefoot At The Kitchen Table writing groups https://aspirationaladventure.com/writing-workshops/

“Dance like nobody’s watching; love like you’ve never been hurt. Sing like nobody’s listening; live like it’s heaven on earth.” -Mark Twain


https://www.scrapbook.com/quotes/doc/27505.html

As a writer, not a dancer or a singer. I am going to steal this quote and give it a tweak – “Write like no one will read it, Write like you’ve never been badly criticised/lost your confidence/felt like it’s a waste of time, Write like it’s heaven on earth”

I am a writer who runs writing groups and writing projects. I spend a lot of my time writing. Some of which you can read on the pages of “My Writing”, other bits you can find here on my blog page. I also do all the exercises I set my writing groups. But I got to thinking – how do I write when I know no one will read it? Not as in journaling but just writing a story for myself.

I know we all talk of the first draft not being perfect, or of those exercises we do in writing group being rough. And I don’t want to aim for perfection and be criticising my work as I go because that would make it static and lose the flow. It was more a question of how do I write when I’m just writing for fun.

I am part of a group of writers who used to meet regularly in Frome but then who met online over lockdown and now are a hybrid of in person and online, which is great for me because I’m now living in North Wales. I find meeting with this group very beneficial, so much so that I pay a bit extra to be able to be virtually in their writing room during the week as well as the monthly Sunday gatherings.

Well this Sunday I had booked into write for the morning and felt I “ought to” be ploughing through my collection of short stories of the backstories of some of the women in some of the Mabinogion tales. But I wasn’t wanting to go down the angsty route that I had allowed these women to do down. So I had a choice – either make their lives less angst or write something else. I didn’t want to change their lives as most days I like where they are, so in the end I used one the wild writing prompts we’d started the session with and wrote about how this guy had become a male stripper and exploring his relationships. I will not do anything with this tale but realised that I was “writing as if no one will read it”. I found it fun and very releasing. I can also see how it could help with me how I construct short stories. But that wasn’t the point. I was just writing.

When I allowed myself to move into that place of “writing as if no one will read it” and letting go of all the guilt, negativity, criticism, inner voice telling me I was wasting my morning, and allowed myself to feel like it was “heaven on earth” I took my character on a great journey. Him and I had fun together and enjoyed our Sunday morning. He is now filed away with other unfinished pieces in my “Cloud”.

I still write well, keeping an bit of an eye on spelling – thank you Mr Redline Spellchecker. And I try my best with punctuation – though I have to say that is not my strong point. I blame the fact that I went to school at that time when punctuation was not taught. I’m still never 100% sure what an adjective is!!! 🙂

Also I realised that heaven won’t be heaven for me if I can’t write. If/when I get to heaven I want to hang out by the river of life, under those healing trees, with my A5 hardback notebook and the best pen ever, and write what I can see, what I feel, make up stories about the people I can see around me. But then if I feel like that then why do I not write all the time now? Have heaven on earth now? Because of feelings of “having to” produce something, use my time “wisely”, be “productive”, etc etc. But actually writing is my love, my big passion. I think via my written words.

For instance yesterday I had a Youthshedz meeting and the person I was meeting was late so I got out my notebook and pen and the plan for the next couple of months of the project flowed out of my pen.

So I am going to write more, for no other reason than to write. I’m going to enjoy hanging out with my characters whether others get to meet them or not. Yes I will still take pieces to competition or publication level but all the time I will hold on to the joy that I am going to “write like no one is watching … write like it’s heaven on earth.”

Challenge – how do you write when no one is looking? When maybe no one will ever read it? Or do you struggle with thoughts that there must be a reason why you are writing?

Categories
blessing QEC

Blessing not Processing

Picture of a honeysuckle bush close to a barbed wire fence with trees the other side taken by Diane Woodrow
Taken by me on Sunday 5th September 2021

I seem to have blog a lot and then stopped for a week or so. The reason for stopping is that we have had a busy time with family and friends, which has been lovely but the introvert in me has got tired from it. But something struck me through it all – I could moan and grumble about not having time at to myself [cursing] or I could see what was going on a a blessing.

In Moses’s last soliloquy to the Israelites he says that they must choose between blessing or cursing. Often I have seen this, and maybe been taught this, that it is about the way I behave, but over the past couple of weeks I have started to see it as being about the way I think. As with the QEC way it is how you think that determines the energy you give off. From the energy you give off comes the way the atmosphere around you is and from there how you can affect those around you.

So instead of seeing those who stayed with us as hard work and an inconvenience I saw them as a blessing to my world. And the interesting things was not only was the atmosphere nice but also they were a blessing to me. Yes I was tired by having people around but wasn’t stressed with it. I understood the why I was tired and so made sure I took myself to my bed to read alone early enough in the evening, and found time to “unfolded” in the mornings alone. But I had a great time

It also seemed to happen that things were said that wouldn’t normally be said, conversations that had needed to be said were said in a gentle atmosphere and no one fell out. Yes these conversations were emotional, some of which because they had been bottled up for a long time but they didn’t come out like they had burst from a fizzy bottle but came out gently and well-poured.

The above picture is taken one morning when I was able to get out on my own with my dog and got to write some poetry, which was well needed. But again it was a blessing not a “having to get away”.

I came back tired but refreshed and also came back blessed. I have accepted how I felt at some of the times through what was said, triggers that happened, but instead of processing I was able to turn them into blessings which actually I feel is one step further on than even stopping looking through the garbage.

Categories
being me crone witch

‘Witch’ tweets reflect society’s fear of older women, says Mary Beard

An old oak tree at Aber Falls taken by Diane Woodrow

In an article from February 2021 the academic and broadcaster Mary Beard says how she is frequently branded a witch, which she believes is to discredit her and older women generally because people are fearful of them. I think she’s right. People are fearful of older women because of the confidence they exude.

As I have mentioned in May I turned 60 and I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. All menopausal issues have gone. I feel like I have enough energy now. I am bold enough to say when I’m tired and take myself to bed. No one is going to ask me what I’m going to do with my life because it is too late for me to start a career. I don’t even care now that I did not have a career because I like where I am in life.

It probably helps that I do have a good life with enough money, a good house, children who are settled enough. In fact I have realised as I write this that I have reached the “enough” stage of my life. I’ve got rid of some of the issues that held me back through some expert QEC counselling so that helps too. I don’t feel like I have to say I am “x years young.” I want to say “f*** it why didn’t any tell me being 60 was so good”. But then are we afraid to say that reaching that last 1/4-1/3 of our lives is good?

In Caitlin Moran’s boo, More Than a Woman, she asks that question why didn’t anyone say what being a woman is like? Why shroud womanhood in mystery? I have to say menopause would have been less of a trial if other women had been more open about what they’d been through.

I think that the “witch” accusations and the “not being told it could be this good” come from that fear of having someone about that sees life as “enough”. It is threatening. It needs to be halted. In some cultures there is talk of “the crone” but I wonder if that is just halcyon days, rose-tinted glasses, and actually never was. When one looks at the way older women were treated through the centuries it is appalling. Thank goodness no one does burn us at the stake after calling us witches.

I will ponder the quote from Mary Beard as I rejoice in being 60, in my health, in my confidence, in my freedom, while it lasts.

Categories
2020 accepting being me Bible blessing Books choice christian Exodus freedom God heart trust Trust God untamed

I Am Who I Am

I have been reading this book, Untamed by Glennon Doyle, in the afternoons after walking the dog. The subject matter is brilliant – about hearing with your heart what you want to do and not pleasing people. Actually just this morning it made me decide to write this instead of doing an online Welsh class. My heart said “get this written” but it was interesting explaining to my husband why I was doing one thing and not the other how I started to not trust my heart. But despite it being an amazing book I think Glennon could have made her points in half the time and still had an excellent book. It does go on reiterating the same point a wee bit

But the bit that will stay with me is the end chapter which reads like a poem. Glennon has taken that passage from the Bible when Moses asks God “Who shall I tell the people you are?” and God answers “I am who I am” [Exodus 3:13-14], and from that writes a list of quesions as to whether she’s happy, sad, straight, gay, Christian, heretic, good, bad, believer, doubter, etc, etc. And she answers with “I am, I am, I am”.

It made me wonder if God never meant “I am” to be sacred but was just saying “I am who I am”, as in I am a conundrum of all difference, full of love and yet I do get anger, totally involved and yet sometimes distant, in each situation I will be who I will be. If “I am” is not a holy phrase but just God saying they’ll turn up as they will in a given situation surely that also releases me to follow my heart for each situation?

I am who I am. Today I am a writer who has so much stuff in my head that is tumbling out that I need time to get it out. Other days I don’t want to write a word. I am funny and crazy but also deeply serious. I like people but only in small amounts and get my energy from being alone. I like to plan but can’t stand it when those plans get to tight. I have roles like mother, wife, friend, but none of those should define me.

I believe, after reading this last chapter in Untamed that God spoke those words and Moses, or whoever wrote down Exodus, recorded those words to release us and not to keep us afraid. It was to show both the conundrum of God and the conundrum of ourselves. We should be free then to release God to be all God will be at any given moment and release God from having to confrom to a formula. But also we should be able to release ourselves from shouds and oughts and whatevers, or even “but last time I did x then y”. I am who I am gives me the freedom to be who I am whenever and wherever I am.

I am who I am gives me freedom to listen to my heart at that moment, and also means that I can trust God to listen to their heart at that moment in time. No formlua. No explaination. Freedom!