Emma’s
Story:
a journey to self-love
by
Emma
SMASHWORDS EDITION
* * * * * *
PUBLISHED BY:
Zingdad on Smashwords
Emma’s Story: a journey to self-love
Copyright © 2010 by Emma
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Cover design and fractal artwork “Open Your Heart” by kind courtesy of Zingdad
Copyright (c) 2010 Zingdad
* * * * * *
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword
Introduction
But, which story should I tell?
The fall from Grace
A fairy tale
A brief personal history
The birth of perfectionism
The tyranny of food
My darkest hours
The anatomy of self-abuse
A recovering addict
Moving from self-loathing to self-love
Relinquishing control
A partnership between the body and soul
Divine intervention, yet again!
Learning to trust
Vegetarianism
The future?
Creating my own reality
The ascension path
A bold vision
Appendix: Additional material
1. A symbol of my intent
2. Overcoming perfectionism
3. My greatest contribution
4. Falling in love with my body
5. Consumerism vs spirituality
6. Standards of feminine beauty
* * * * * *
FOREWORD
Is this book for you?
Do you struggle with poor self-esteem?
Are you battling an eating disorder or other self-destructive behaviour?
Do you wish to connect with the Divine and find/create meaning in your life?
…then, this book is definitely for you.
Who am I?
You may call me Emma. I have chosen this pseudonym because it means, “whole” or “Universal”. This name seemed quite apt to me, as this book chronicles my personal journey toward wholeness and connection with Universal “Oneness” or the Divine within. In time perhaps I may find the courage to use my own identity in future writings, but, for now, I still prefer to protect my real identity.
I am an ordinary person with a history of believing myself to be far less than who I truly am, as most (if not all) of us do. I have struggled with a very poor self-esteem my whole life and have, as a result, engaged in very self-destructive behaviour, including suffering from a severe eating disorder for 13 years of my life. My lack of trust, love and belief in myself has severely hindered my spiritual and emotional growth, my joy in living, and my ability to connect with others and with myself.
It has been a long journey for me back towards Self (and self-love); a journey I am still engaged in every single day. In this short book, I describe my journey back to Self in the hope that it may provide you with inspiration, hope or simply the knowledge that you are not alone.
During my journey I have realised that my growing love of Self has led me to a growing awareness and understanding of my own Divinity - the God within. It occurred to me that Self Love may be a route back to God, a route back to connection with All That Is, and hence the idea for this book was born.
My motivation for writing this book?
This book is my gift of love to the world. I make my story freely available in this format to all who would wish to read it and it is your choice (where available) to download it free of charge or to pay an amount that feels like an equal exchange of energy for you. You may also choose to share your own story, as a means of stretching out a helping hand to others. It would bring me great joy to know that my little book had been the catalyst for healing, sharing and an increase of love and connection in the world.
This book is one way for me to create meaning out of my own darkest hours. Perhaps it may assist others who are suffering in the grips of an eating disorder or any other self-loathing behaviour. It may lead you to understand that, even in your darkest hour, you are not alone. I have come to realise that we can never be alone, for we are always and in All Ways connected to God and All That Is. We may choose to believe that we alone and it is always our right to do so. But when we are ready to open our hearts and minds to the truth within, we will know that each of us truly is a perfect expression of Divine Love, eternally connected to God.
I know that my darkest hour was my greatest gift, both to myself and now, hopefully, to you. What will you do with your darkest hour? The choice is yours.
Why Self-Love?
Often people think that it is bad to love yourself, as in “He really loves himself!” used in a derogatory or insulting way. But I can guarantee you that if you don’t love, respect and cherish yourself; you will be unable to express love to anyone or anything else. It starts with seeing yourself as you truly are which is:
“A perfect expression of divine love”
Once you can clearly see your own magnificence, the God within, then you become free to love the rest of creation and to understand that there is no separation between you and me; we are in fact, one-and-the-same. If I hurt you, I hurt myself. If I destroy the planet, I destroy myself. We are all inter-connected. You can never be alone, lost, fearful and disconnected, unless you choose to be so.
Not convinced? Well, why don’t you read my story? Perhaps something will resonate for you. Perhaps not. Either way, what do you have to lose?
* * * * * *
INTRODUCTION
In this book I would like to share my historical, and ongoing, personal journey towards finding self-love. I have experienced what it is to loathe and despise myself and to inflict abuse on myself, using the weapon of food. I suffered from bulimia and anorexia for 13 years and I have travelled a journey spanning many years to reach my current position of self-love. I am nowhere near the end of my journey yet. There are still black days when I don’t feel loving of myself at all. And then there are times during which I feel sad or lonely or unfulfilled. But everyday I am improving. I am starting to see the glimmer of God-light in myself. I am starting to feel connected to the All and to realize that I am never alone; I am ALWAYS and in ALL WAYS in the presence of God, in the presence of the Divine within.
This is simply my story and is not meant to be a self-help manual in any way. The route I found back to Self and to self-love may not work for everyone. I would certainly advocate seeking professional assistance if you are struggling in the steely grip of any eating disorder or other form of self-loathing or self-destructive behaviour.
I hold the truth for no one but myself. Each person must find her own way back to Self, but sometimes we can allow ourselves to receive a little encouragement or inspiration along the way. It also helps to know that you are not alone. When I was in the grips of my deepest guilt, shame and fear, I craved connection, human touch, a few encouraging words. It would have made all the difference in the world to me. However, I was so locked into my personal hell of self-disgust that I could find no way to reach out and ask for help.
Perhaps my story can make some small difference to you? Perhaps it can give you the courage to allow yourself to reach out and connect with others?
For women in particular
Another reason for writing this story is that I have met so many beautiful, talented, amazing women who think of themselves as fat, ugly or unacceptable in so many different ways. I have also always been particularly passionate about helping women to discover self-love and thereby make their acquaintance with the Goddess within. As a woman in business I have experienced the self-doubt, the anxiety, the constant need to prove myself far beyond what my male colleagues feel compelled to do. I believe however, that often the “glass ceiling” we experience in business and in life is placed there by our own self-limiting beliefs and our lack of self-esteem. So, if my story can assist you to discover your Divine spark, whether you are a homemaker, a businesswoman, an entrepreneur, a teacher or simply a seeker of the truth, then I will feel it to have been a worthwhile endeavour.
I would love for my story to be the starting point of creating a platform for women to start sharing our experiences and our realities and helping each other to gain self-respect and self-esteem. I would love women to share their stories and help each other instead of competing and keeping each other down. In my experience the oppressed are often the very worst oppressors. Finding self-love means that you can no longer be threatened in any way by another’s success. In fact, we must celebrate each other’s growth, as it means an ever-increasing expansion of light in this world, which is so desperately needed.
For everyone
Initially I conceived of this book as a means of empowering women. Now I realize that I should not limit the impact to only half of the population; the other half can also benefit! So, I share my story in the hope that something I say may inspire a means of you finding your way back to yourself, whoever you may be.
I would love for you to fall in love with yourself and with your life and practice self-love and self-acceptance as a means of finding your true nature, which leads you inexorably back to God. Each person finding his or her way back to Self and God, increases the light quotient in this system. I cannot think of a worthier cause!
My story
I started out writing this story as a means of closing a chapter in my life so that I could move on with creating my wonderful new reality. I was standing on the threshold of a new way of being. I had been through so much to get there and I thought that perhaps this would be the final catharsis. Many people had told me to simply move on with my life and to stop wallowing in the memories of what things were like in the “bad old days”. But somehow I felt compelled to write this story before I could move on. I had no clear idea of whether I would publish my story; it was simply a way of exorcising the past. I decided to simply write and trust the process and what would emerge from the process.
Now I realize that writing this story was just the beginning and that this story is not a chapter in my life that I can, or indeed must, close off. It is an integral part of who I am. I have discovered that the weakest, most vulnerable, so-called “ugliest” parts of myself are my greatest gift to the Universe. If I can own, love and finally, integrate, those seemingly least loveable parts of myself, I free myself forever from guilt and shame and I become a truly sovereign being, fully capable of creating my own chosen reality. This is an astonishing discovery, for I had always kept my weaknesses carefully hidden away and presented only what I thought were the very best, strongest and most “admirable” parts of myself. Now I discover that the very best of me, my greatest gift to the world, is that which I most despised in the past!
Before I started writing my story, I wrote a list of all my fears associated with the writing process. I share these so as to give an inkling of my state of mind at the start:
My fears in writing this story:
1. It’s going to be too painful to revisit the past
2. It’s going to be a waste of time
3. It won’t be good enough
4. People will be totally disinterested in reading my story
5. Who will want to listen to a highly advantaged and talented person whining about the effects of poor self-esteem on her life?
Divine intervention
These fears could have incapacitated me and prevented me from ever sharing my story with anyone. However, fortunately I received some Divine intervention to “prod” me in the direction of writing this story. I had been visiting a qualified psychologist and hypnotherapist to assist me in dealing with some of the issues from my childhood that were still impacting on my optimal functioning in the world. During one of my hypnotherapy sessions, I experienced immense, repeating energy surges through my body when I “received” the information that I was to write and share my story. There was such a feeling of “This is it! This is what I am supposed to do! Take note.” I truly believe that I was somehow guided by a higher entity to do this. I could no longer ignore the message. This story HAD to be written!
So, in conclusion
This is definitely not a pretty story but it does have a happy ending, an ending that I am daily creating to become ever more magnificent. It has been extremely painful to dig through old memories of feeling utterly alone, disconnected, despairing and hateful. I have felt extremely vulnerable in writing this and deciding to share it on such a public forum. However, if reading my story helps even one other person to empower herself and find self-love, then it will have been worth it. Perhaps there is some way that my experience could resonate with you. Perhaps it might make you feel less alone, less desperate, to know that there is someone who really understands. Perhaps it could be helpful to know that it actually is possible to cross the chasm of despair and find ongoing growth and learning on the other side?
So I tell my story in the hope of bringing a little light, a little love, a little understanding. Perhaps for you… probably for me…
I stand on the threshold of contributing my most magnificent and loving self to this world. This story is somehow my first step toward doing that.
* * * * * *
BUT, WHICH STORY SHOULD I TELL?
The first thing I asked myself was, “What story am I supposed to write?” The story of my childhood? The story of losing myself and the long road to finding myself again? The story of how I overcame (and how I am still overcoming every day) my self-loathing and my eating disorder? The latter is a very difficult and a very ugly story to tell. I had been told that our emotions are a sure-fire indication of where we need to focus our attentions. If that was the case, then I realized that the emotions I felt when thinking about my eating disorder indicated that this needed to be the focus of my story.
I overcame my fears by reminding myself that I had a special story to tell and that I was the only one who could tell it, from my unique perspective on the world. I realized that my story was valuable, just as all stories are, as my learning and growth forges a new and totally unique path to the Divine, which then becomes instantly available to all others. How then can I not share this story with others?
So, what are the basic tenets of this story?
1. We are all spiritual beings having a human experience
2. We chose to be incarnated into this lifetime in order to learn about ourselves by expressing not-self
3. By going through this experience we gain a whole host of learnings and we constantly refine and re-define who and what we are by exploring what we are not.
4. But the illusion is extremely compelling (it has to be – otherwise it would simply be ineffective).
So, this is the story of how a divine creator being can gradually lose its connection and knowledge of self and fall and fall until it hits the deepest, darkest night of the soul; a place of complete self-loathing and despair, and feel utterly alone and insignificant.
It is the story of how one individual slowly and gradually turned an ocean liner of fear around on an ocean of despair and set a course for home.
It is a story of multiplying light and acceleration toward Self and God.
* * * * * *
THE FALL FROM GRACE
How is it that again-and-again we hear that people were themselves the most when they were children? Is it because children are much closer to their pre-incarnational selves and more in touch with who they really are? Is growing up more about unlearning than about learning who we really are? Perhaps, just as a growing human embryo recaptures all the stages of evolution of the human animal, a growing child recaptures all the stages of spiritual evolution, from self knowledge and self love, through all the steps of individuation and maximum separation from Self and God, followed by a gradual relearning until it reaches again the point of comprehension of its true Divine nature and oneness with God?
How does a self-contained and confident child become a fearful, self-loathing adult? How is it possible to become so very disconnected from yourself? And how does one find your way back to Self? These are themes I will be exploring in the next few pages.
As a child I felt confident and powerful and very sure of my connection to the Divinity within. The fall, when it occurred, was extremely painful. I have written a little fairy tale to illustrate my experiences, and perhaps yours…
* * * * * *
A FAIRY TALE
Once upon a time there was a little girl who could fly. She could also breathe water, take nourishment from the air and thrive and sustain herself in flames. She was the commander of the elements, at home in her body, clothed in confidence, in touch with her immortality, powerful and in control. There was no need for arrogance or false pride – she knew she was perfection.
Of course she was no more so than any of us, born perfect and complete into this wondrous place. But, through some cosmic omission, some worldly oversight, or even perhaps due to her own self absorption and introversion, she was able to maintain this awareness way beyond the point at which most children are persuaded of their worthlessness and their neediness and initiated into fear. The fear that courses through their bodies and anchors them firmly to this earth.
Although this little girl could do many wonderful things, her very favourite thing to do in the whole wide world was to fly. She would push away from the earth with her toes and break through an invisible, shimmering membrane, which separated mundane reality from a magical, wondrous world where anything could happen. She would dive and swoop, flap her arms and whoop, just for the fun of it. She would turn cartwheels in the air and fly up to the highest eagle eyries to visit the little chicks and down to the depths of the ocean to gaze in wonderment at the amazing life forms that inhabited those strange places. She was untouchable, powerful, light as a breeze; she was freedom.
As she grew, so did the membrane separating this world from the magical world lift higher and higher. She needed to take a running leap before she could break through to claim her rightful place. Then one day, try as she would, she found that her fingers could not quite reach that magical barrier. It hung there, tantalizingly close, a few millimetres from her fingertips but the Earth held onto her legs when she jumped and it was no use. She made one last, almighty effort to break through, but fell to the Earth with a nauseating thud, which sent spasms of icy fear through her soul. Her body suddenly felt heavy and clumsy and, with a cold, steely fist clenching her heart, she realized that her flying days were over, for good. Her heart started pumping grey nothingness through her organs and slowly the magic ebbed out with every heartbeat. The lights went out and she slipped into merciful oblivion.
She dreamed of glorious, weightless flight, but when she awoke, she looked down at herself and found that her former magical self had vanished – she was trapped inside a rock. She looked in the mirror and saw a heavy, ugly, stone zombie looking back at her. She looked away briefly and then quickly looked again and this time she caught the briefest glimpse of herself trapped behind the zombie’s eyes like a fairy princess locked away in a tower guarded by an evil monster. But then, just as quickly, the image was gone and the girl was left caged in her prison of stone, utterly alone, bereft and disconnected.
In the days, weeks and months that followed she dragged herself through the business of each moment, always desperately hoping, wishing that the magic might return to her life. She felt as if a shimmering, mystical veil had been ripped from her eyes and she saw the world in all its stark ugliness, its dreariness, and its meaninglessness. It was only at night, in her dreams, that she once more returned to that magical place, which had been her reality in her previous life. The cruelty of waking from her sleep and realizing every day, anew, that the magic was gone for good, was almost more than she could bear.
She lost her confidence, her power, her belief in her abilities and she became an automaton, a zombie, going through the motions of her life. However, gradually she learnt to cope with this unaccustomed, terrible new world and, being an intelligent and resourceful young woman, she started to discover ways of becoming successful in this place. Later on, she decided to try and make the best of the world she now inhabited. She would start the day full of good intentions. Rested after a good night of flying in her dreams, she would decide to make this a day of positive change. This would be the day she would finally master this place. But by the end of the day she was defeated; it was like building a bridge of straw over a raging torrent. Gradually the memory of the perfection of her former life faded, but she was never really happy. And so our young protagonist grew into a woman.
Do you see her standing there – that beautiful face, that toned, slim body, that air of confidence and control? Surely this is the kind of woman who could conquer the world, the kind of woman that men wish to possess and other women wish to become? Surely she will make a difference in the world, realize her dreams, and allow us to believe in the possibility of magic? She appears to be suffused with magical fairy dust and we all try to get close to her, to touch her, to be near her, hoping that some of it will blow off onto us and allow us a glimpse, a taste of her perfect, golden reality. But something in her eyes makes us look again. It is as if a slight breeze has blown aside a veil, which we now realize is simply the flimsiest shadow of a memory, in which she is clothed. Underneath is a terrible emptiness, a deep slimy, dark, and cold void of terror. Be careful, or you will be sucked in and there is no escape – it will siphon off your soul and leave you as an empty husk in the wastelands that she inhabits.
One day the young woman decided to put an end to her misery. She decided that there was no way out of this ugly place other than to end it all. She desperately sought the relief of oblivion. However, at the very final moment of her life, an Angel appeared to her and stayed her hand before she could take that final, irrevocable step. The Angel told her that ending her life would not put an end to her suffering at all. It would simply mean that she would have to return and do it all over again! He told her that the point of this life is not to escape it. The point is to fully experience what you are not in order to discover who you truly are.
The young woman shook her head uncomprehendingly, but the Angel told her that this life is about falling through the veil of forgetfulness. It is about an illusion that allows you to believe that you are flawed, weak, and a victim. This life is also about finding yourself in the valley of forgetfulness, creating yourself anew from the darkest, lowest point in your life. It is about realizing that you are not a victim, but truly the Divine Creator of your own reality. At this, the young woman shook her head again in disbelief, but the Angel told her that she would come to understand this in due course.
The Angel said that this “Earth School” is a very tough school and that it takes great courage to graduate. However, the “Graduates” are highly sought after when they finally depart this place and all knowledge is once again available to them. They will go on to make immense contributions to the All and be a force for great good. The young woman slowly started to see a glimmer of hope, the faintest possibility that perhaps there was a meaning to all this, perhaps there was a way out of this place that did not require ending it all.
Then the Angel gave her some magical words that she could use to banish the darkness, whenever it started to gather around her. He told her that there would be a long, hard road ahead of her and that it would be very difficult at times. There would be days when she would again be tempted to give up; there would be times when the load would simply be too heavy to carry. But the Angel reminded her that she was far, far stronger than she could possibly know and that she would keep going, because she had been to the darkest place and now she would turn around and start walking towards the light.