Don’t Be A Victim Of Abuse or Anything Else….Speak Up & Break Your Silence

When my husband hit me (again), I was afraid to press charges, and because he told me it would ruin his life. Just like the #Time people of the year, when you speak up and break your silence, it gives your suffering a voice. Don’t be afraid. Speak up. https://t.co/qFUGQmo76Z pic.twitter.com/GA3WIY6vMj

— Edie Summers (@ediesummers) December 6, 2017

When my husband gave me a black eye, I was afraid to speak up and tell the police officer what happened. Years later, when my husband hit me with such a force as to knock me across the room, I was afraid to press charges, and because he told me it would ruin his life. Just like the #Time people of the year, when you speak up and break your silence, it gives your suffering a voice. I have survived a few things in my life including chronic illness and domestic violence. You can move from surviving to thriving when you give your suffering a voice. Don’t suffer in silence. Speak up. What makes you thrive, even in the face of great odds? What makes you come alive? http://bit.ly/2nyLfbL

Excerpts from my book, The Memory of Health

Journal Entry/1994 – The Terrifying Healing

I come from a dark forest, a deep, dark fairytale.  I don’t know where the path is that leads me out of the forest.  I am in the maze: the terrifying and exhilarating landscape of healing.  I only hope I emerge on the other side a happy, healthy heroine.

I ask myself this question often: Where is this place I come from and journey to? Sometimes it seems I am forever going in circles.  Maybe this is what I’m meant to do: travel, spiral in or outwards depending on what’s required of me: the journey with no real destination, but one that finds hope, gains ground, and finds some peace and healing along the way. 

I heal because I have to.  It is my solitary responsibility to bring myself to the world as whole and as full of courage as possible.  There is a quote by Gaston Bacheland that says “What is the source of our first suffering?  It lies in the fact that we hesitated to speak.  It was born in the moment when we accumulated silent things within us.” (as cited in Metzger, 2009).

Let me tell you about my silence.  It is difficult, because what is silent in me is what defines me.  The deep spaces I side-step around, don’t tell anyone about … these silent spaces haunt me.  Yet in these spaces I have found my voice.  It tells me to get off the main road, follow those blue highways, and see where they wish to lead me…

I was reading about archetypes and I read something about the wounded healer that resonates with me.  Deena Metzger says the wound is one means by which we reach compassion.  I can see that, how illness is really such fertile ground for spiritual growth.

Illness is a fire that has burned away my identity.  In the aftermath, I have begun to write and find my true voice.  I write to heal myself, to experience my inexorable pain perhaps through the eyes of the heroine who walks the unknown path toward the dawn…

Metzger says stories heal us because we become whole through them, “[and that] all suffering is bearable if it is seen as part of a story.” So here is where I am, suffering in such a way that only makes me wish to grow stronger.  Suffering no longer in silence, but in story

The Memory of Health is a meditation and conversation on well-being. What makes you thrive, even in the face of great odds? What makes you come alive? At the age of 22, Edie developed chronic fatigue after having surgery for a ski accident. While physical therapy was helpful, she had to seek alternative treatment to regain full use of her knee. In the course of seeking answers to her health challenges, she discovered the power of mindful living.

Learn more about my book here:  http://bit.ly/2x1jRZf