Then, in April of 2004, I was having a new computer installed when someone said to me that I could find any one that I wanted to on "this thing," so I punched in "Paul Ferrini" and wow there he was and he was offering a workshop in Vermont in late September. I signed up and paid for it that very day!
     Ironically, I traveled to my first Ferrini retreat on the mountaintop in Vermont just as my beloved Florida was to experience Hurricane Jean. Although I avoided the outer hurricane, I was about to experience an inner one. During that powerful weekend in Vermont, I was to get a little glimpse of my authentic self and this wounded little kid who for fifty some years has been running my life.
     Over the years I had looked to one "empowerment group" after another. However my deep childhood wounds were not able to be safely exposed. In Vermont, for the first time, the hard protective shell softened and the hurt little girl began to let herself be seen. This happened not just for me, but for many of the very brave men and women attending the retreat. At the end, Paul offered on-going group support by telephone and he also offered to work with some of us one on one. I jumped at the opportunity to open the heavy locked door and take a look at the scariest part of me.

Uncovering the Wound

     As I look back on that six months of weekly spiritual counseling with Paul, I see that the wound starts early in life and then simply deepens and becomes increasingly inaccessible over the years. The real trick is to uncover the core safely and oh so very gently. That is what I began to do on Thursday mornings at 8:00 AM, week by week, for the next six months.
     My deep root of shame and unworthiness started as a small child. In my early years, there was a certain amount of adoration from two older sisters (15 and 13 years older) and a mild fondness and tolerance from a brother 10 years older. Although I lived in the country, I had a dog and cats and sometimes other critters to play with, but I did long for girlfriends instead of dolls for playmates.
     Later on, the marriages of my two beautiful sisters left me feeling abandoned and vulnerable to a Mother who was loving and gentle one moment and raging, and threatening the next. Today we would call her "manic depressive."
By age 6, I was ready and anxious to get to school and so excited I could not stand it. I remember the special clothes and great anticipation because I was going to make FRIENDS.
     However, my first week of school was to become a slow descent into hell. After a two-mile bike ride, I arrived at school wearing my pretty, new clothes. I was in a classroom with 5 grades. My name was printed on the top right corner of my desk. One day at the end of the first week, my young teacher was giving a music lesson and I noticed the girl ahead of me drawing circles around her name. It looked very nice, so I doodled circles around mine too.
     Well "Miss Crazy" saw me and over she came. She told me to stand up in front of the class and slapped my hand. I was shamed and embarrassed in front of all the new friends that I so wanted to make.
     My teacher was as hard on me as my mother. It seems I went from one unbalanced woman to another. Anyway, I didn't think I wanted to go back to school. I was ready to be a 6year old "dropout."
     Towards the end of the month I finally made a friend, the daughter of the country doctor, and she lived in a house about half way to mine. One day on the way home she invited me to stop and play at her house. I said "Oh yes" and when her mother asked if my mother knew where I was I said that "yes she does." Well, of course, my mother had no idea where I was, but somehow she found me, pulled me out of that house, and gave me a really good thrashing in front of my new friends. I was so humiliated that I wished that I was dead.
     I almost got that wish because I was so fearful of being hurt that when it came time for the needles for childhood diseases somehow I lied my way out of them and spent the better part of the next 6 months sick in bed. Eventually, my parents moved the family into the city and I went to another school but the damage was done. I received my first report card only to see the word FAILED.
     As a teenager I felt stupid, ugly, full of self loathing and unworthiness. When I was seventeen and living off and on at home, my Mother and I had a terrific fight. For some reason she thought I was a tramp and I was hurt and angry. I had no boyfriend, but I did have a mad crush on a married guitar player, so I called him and purposefully went out and became immediately pregnant.
     Now I know it is all in divine order, but try telling this to people who are about to become grandparents to an illegitimate child in 1963. So I went to a neighboring convent where the nuns were kind and the girls were wonderful. Believe it or not, it was like being at a girl's school and, four months later, I had a very sweet baby boy. Two lovely student nurses would sneak him in so that I could hold him, but when they told me they couldn't do it anymore I checked out of there in a hurry. I was to told to pretend it didn't happen. There was to be no regrets, no grieving, no baby! I was to put my high heels on and go back to work.
     That was late October and by December life was no better living back with Mom and Dad. I had to figure how to get out and stay out. I saw that my older sisters were left pretty much alone to live their lives once they got married and so that was my direction. Now all I needed was a husband and he turned out to be the baby's father's best friend. I did not know him well but I felt confident that I could help him get off probation if he could get me out of the house and away from what I believed to be insane parenting. I married only weeks after knowing this young man, but I would stay out of the marriage bed until I would get comfortable. One year later - New Years Eve - Jordan Adolphine Fleming was to be born into a family of 2 very emotionally unbalanced young adults.
     My mother was so angry that she did not want anything to do with me and she and my father hated my husband because he was lazy and a drifter. So I had no money, job or support and my handsome husband did not appear to be able to take care of his family. My older sister Ellen invited me to spend a few days with her. I loved her dearly so I went out to her home and watched how wonderful and motherly she was with my baby. I remember wondering how come I didn't look or feel like a Mother. It was the natural process to be married and have a baby, but why didn't it feel right to me?
     As my husband could not be trusted or depended upon, I was the one working and leaving my baby with my Mother. My husband had a violent temper and if he was around we would get into physical fights. This was not good for either one of us. According to my Mother I couldn't do anything right, so one night I said "enough" and I felt the greatest thing I could do for this child who deserved so much better was to turn her over to my very willing sister. I guess one might say I abandoned her but I knew that Ellen would love her dearly and she did for nine months . Then 35 year old Ellen was rushed to the hospital while 3 heart specialists and her husband stood helplessly and watched her die.
     This was a tragic loss of my dear sister but also the loving dependable care of my baby . So I tried to take on Motherhood again. I knew it would be tough, but I did not think there was any other solution. Well apparently there was, but it was a solution that would give me the greatest pain and guilt for the rest of my life!
     Three weeks later my beautiful 18 month old baby girl was to drown under a walking bridge that broke while my younger sister was pushing her in a buggy on the way to the park!
     I was devastated. I was convinced more than ever before that my mother was right. I WAS A TOTAL FAILURE. My father seemed to be of the same opinion. Indeed, he told me just before the funeral that I had no right to grieve. For years, I believed him, at least until I began reading Paul's work.

Healing and Forgiveness

Not many human beings know the depth of my pain or self-condemnation. I have lived for many years on a hidden away cross, punishing myself in secret. Yes, on the surface, I learned to survive. You might even say that I have been very successful. I have had a great career as a real estate agent. I am loved and appreciated by many friends and colleagues.
But, inside of me, a gaping wound was festering and crying out for healing.
     It was that wound that I invited Paul to witness with me. "Promise me," I told him before committing to counseling, "that you will not judge me. I could not bear that!" He promised and, for the next six months, he held a gentle space for me while I began to look at my reactive behaviors and see how they kept me on the cross.
     In the process, I came face to face with the hurt little girl who felt she was bad and could do nothing right. I took her up in my arms and held her with compassion. I asked Jordan for her forgiveness. I cried an ocean of tears.
     Gradually, my shell of denial began to crack open. Paul kept holding the space. He challenged me to tell my story at retreats and to open myself to greater healing. That was terrifying to me. I was so afraid of being judged and rejected by others. But I kept walking through all the doors.
     Once during a church service at a retreat in Florida, one of my fellow mastery students took me into her arms and held me as a mother holds her child. I began to sob. I could not stop. Years of stored away pain and self judgment began to release.
     The other hurricane had arrived and its winds and waves were fierce.
It was not easy, I have to tell you. Every time I allowed myself to become visible and vulnerable to my friends and spiritual family, I wanted to run away. Sometimes I would disappear for weeks. Sometimes, I'd be gone for months. But Paul's arms and the arms of my spiritual community continued to reach out to me. No matter how scared I got, no matter how triggered, no matter how much pain and unworthiness surfaced, I always found my way back.
     "Welcome back," Inez, they would tell me. "We love you and we so missed you." And again, the tears would come, but this time they were tears of joy, because I knew that for the first time in my life I had been accepted for the person I am, wounds and all. For the first time in my life, love was offered to me without conditions, and I could not push it away.
     No, I am not totally healed. I still find ways to punish myself and to run away. But I know in my heart of hearts that I am not bad. I am not a failure. I know that the little girl did the best she could. And so did the teenager.
     Of course, I do realize that I have made choices and I have had to live with the consequences of those choices. If I had to do it again, I honestly don't think I would make the same choices.
     I have learned my lessons, you might say, "the hard way." That, I guess, is one of the reasons that we are here: to learn from our mistakes.
     Paul likes to call me THE MOTHER. It is hard for me to hear that, because I have felt like such a failure as a mother. But I know why he calls me that.
     To heal, I have had to become a Mommy to myself. I have had to learn to wrap my arms around myself and hold myself gently. Today, because I am learning to stop beating myself up, I can show up for all of the wounded and abandoned children out there, because I was one of them. In my own way, I know their pain. And I also know the pain of the parent who abandons a child, because I am one of them too.
     This, I suppose, is what Paul means when he says that the wound and the gift run hand in hand. Where I have hurt most is where I must heal, and that too is where I discover my gift and learn to give it to the world.
As I said before, my healing process continues. I now deeply and profoundly know that healing is a lifetime journey. I have to keep showing up for it every day.
     I am grateful to have found a spiritual work and a spiritual community that helps me to keep showing up.