By Elisa Novick
With a current theme on this blog being the revealing and healing of abuse, I am moved to speak of it. Abuse can be subtle or gross and can be perpetrated unwittingly or with malice. The revolving door between victimhood and perpetrator is easy to traverse. None of us is completely free of either role.
Frankly, I don’t like the word “abuse.” It sounds so, well, abusive. It gets bandied about by some as a bludgeon. The victim who feels defensive goes on the offensive, becoming a bully. Nevertheless, in acknowledging the crimes in our history, we must be willing to witness and call out what we see.
One of the challenges I have as a healer in assisting my clients in navigating their way through a healing process to a good life, a magnificent, joyful life, is how to receive what I hear. My job is not only to facilitate process, but also to hold the Light and be a conduit for the transmutative power of Spirit.
When I work with someone, I do my best to maintain loving neutrality, trusting that the person has everything they need inside of them to heal. I have learned that the circumstances of our lives are tailor-made (i.e., spiritually arranged) to accomplish whatever we came into this life to learn or strengthen or balance out.
But I am not superhuman, nor is my family history free from these issues. I hear excruciatingly painful stories. I’ve had moments of horror when I hear what people do to each other, especially to children who worship the adults in their lives as gods and have no recourse or escape.
In those moments, my inner mother lion would like nothing more than to go back and stop the perpetration, with deadly force if necessary. But that gets us nowhere, even if it were possible.