Sara Schroeder
My heart was pounding so loudly. I could feel it in my ears. The whoosh sound of blood pumping through my breaking heart. My spirit is splitting into a million tiny pieces, at the surrealness of being spanked with a wooden paddle in the Pastor/ Principal’s office, by his wife, while another teacher looks on.
They asked if I looked ahead in my work book. I said “Yes.” Before I can explain it was to figure out the algebra problem since we worked on our own and no teacher knew the answer, I was told to put my hands on the desk in front of me. It seemed a strange request, but I leaned forward to reach the desk and that’s when the first blow hit my backside. The sting of it was worse than the sting of tears that started forming in my eyes. Then the second and third blows came. Mid swing of the fourth blow, I turned and it grazed my hip.
I was filled with such fear, I truly believed the blows would have kept coming, if I hadn’t yelled “STOP!”
My fight or flight response had awakened and stepped up to fight.
I should’ve lied, I tell myself. The truth is suppose to set you free. It didn’t work for me though. Until now.
It took three weeks for the black and blue marks to heal. And it took thirty-four years to find peace and to regain my personal power once again.
What I didn’t know then, was that experience altered how I responded to people whenever they wanted my opinion, or my thoughts.
I told my family and friends what they needed to hear from me in order for them to be happy, secure or feel safe. I never thought being beat as a 16-year-old girl would be such a turning point in my life.
I wrestled and prayed about why I was such a people pleaser for so many years. All that time believing I was unworthy of love, peace or contentment. I became afraid to ever be punished again for speaking up for myself, so I never did.
It didn’t matter what the truth was, or what my explanation was. I lost the power to just be me. A huge part of myself was lost that day, beaten down along with my pride and self worth. I was stripped of my own thoughts, my own true opinion or feelings.
It was replaced by “yes” when the answer should of been “No” and “No” when I really wanted to say “yes.”
When presented with an opportunity to attend a writing workshop, I heard my intuition loud and clear. It was time to write the shameful story I had been carrying around with me for too long.
I thought I had buried the memory so deep, that it could never hurt me again.
It wasn’t until this writing workshop I attended that I finally had the nerve to face that old ugly truth and process it and let it go. I had to look deep within myself, and painfully accept the tears that flowed down my face, reliving every moment of that day. I cried for my sixteen year old self,
The past two years, since turning fifty, I found myself on a very spiritual journey and awakening. The most amazing thing I have learned is the answers I search for are already inside myself.
Have I done this alone? No. I have had help from a handful of amazing women who I manifested into my life at just the right time.
I wanted to embrace my 16-year-old self and help her heal from the embarrassment my fifty-year-old self was still holding on to. It still choked me.
Women tend to believe negative things we hear more than the positive. Or maybe we didn’t hear anything positive growing up. A lot of women age 50 and above were taught that it was their place to tend to the home, husband, children and even church before thinking about ourselves.
I believe we all have a story inside our soul, of loss, suffering or pain, that is stopping our personal growth just as my story was blocking mine.
I have been emotionally set free, empowered and shown my worthiness through the healing and revealing of this story.
I am now walking in my life purpose of helping others to heal by intuitively finding what is blocking them from being who they were born to be, and from doing what they are here on earth to accomplish.
I have found meditation, writing, prayer and talking about what my pain caused, has helped me heal.
My story was part of a bigger plan for my life. Your story is also.