19 minute read
My Truth is Stranger than Fiction
The true story of one woman’s journey through domestic violence and beyond.
When regular columnist Freya offered to share her journey through domestic violence (DV), the story opened up doorways to other times and experiences that could never be dreamed up.
This is a very abridged version of that story; a bonus episode of the full story will be available via the Supernal Website/Podcast page. The content of this story may be confronting in its subject matter to some readers, but is invaluable in its insight and overall is a very powerful, emotional and engaging story that is, as the title suggests, a true story stranger than fiction.
With trepidation, I placed my head in the Crystal Dreaming mandala. There is no way forward without going back.
Terrifying cellular memory threatened to overwhelm. “Nooooo!” The ominous black wormhole loomed, I was being drawn into it. ‘Run!’ screamed through me. I did not, my soul would no longer tolerate this abuse.
Now it’s time to clear this repeat pattern of DV in my life, once and for all.
The Beginning: Childhood
I was sensitive to ‘energy’. It was ‘normal’ to me, to see, hear and know things. My family described me as having an overactive imagination and ‘away with the fairies’. Years of this misguided imprinting wore me down, I began to believe it was true, which started a self-abuse pattern. To numb my senses, I abused substances and self-harmed. Nothing worked - by 13, I was suicidal.
I was plagued by a recurring dream - chased by a predatory man, meaning me serious harm. I thought a lot about it, concluding, the way to meet tyranny is with love - not a ‘normal’ child’s response. My family was not ‘functional’.
My nurse mum was 22 years younger than dad. She left nursing to become a full-time homemaker. She showed love by making food and doing acts of service. She was not affectionate towards me; no-one in my home ever said, “I love you.”
Dad, an accountant, was money focused. His first marriage failed, due to his cheating wife. Traumatised by this, he became obsessive, trying to prevent this from repeating; he insanely called and tracked mum’s every move. Threatening to burn her Uni study books if she went back there. She didn’t! Mum also has no sense of time, amplifying dads fear.
Dad was four when his father died, thereafter raised by his grandmother while his mother worked. His attitude, ‘Children should be seen and not heard’ was the polar opposite to mum. All of their beliefs were opposite. He was old-school, 48yo when I was born.
Mum told me she and dad had a fight, which lead to him punching her. She hit him back, throwing a solid 1970s green-glass ashtray through his precious colour TV. He never raised his fist to her again.
Mum didn’t tolerate the physical abuse, yet allowed mental, emotional and financial abuses, deciding it’s better to stay for the children’s sake. She became withdrawn. There was no love, tenderness or intimacy, only constant power struggles. I was the go-between, attempting to fix everything with my brother, like dad, suffering life-threatening asthma and allergies from birth, adding more stress to the scenario.
The neurosis created by dad was so controlling, mum became obsessivecompulsive and deceitful. She hid purchases because dad controlled life through money - even budgeting her tampons.
I was four when Dad was involved in a severe collision. His lung crushed and leg broken, he was on oxygen 24-hours a day, my childhood was utterly destroyed. I took solace in nature, as animals are easy to communicate with. They don’t complicate matters, whereas humans do!
Starved of affection, understanding and dealing with her OCD, mum’s energy was focused on the fulltime job of caring for my dad and brother - life was a nightmare.
Aged 12, to get my mother’s attention, I manifested whooping-cough, then asthma. When I complained, my mother’s response was, “Don’t be ridiculous, you’re not nearly unwell enough.” I thought, ‘I feel terrible – I’m over this.’ Deciding not to have asthma or allergies anymore, they went away. Depressed and suicidal - I fostered another plan.
Fast Forward
My boyfriend and I moved in together; my parents were unimpressed. My boyfriend’s father was a severe lecher. I told my boyfriend, he couldn’t deal with it, so I decided to find another boyfriend.
I saw ‘him’ standing on the balcony, looking out over the neighbourhood, wearing a black leather jacket, blue bonds singlet and jeans. Dark skin, black wavy hair and curls. Magnetised, I struck up a conversation. At his friend’s apartment, we smoked a joint. Lip locked and stoned, I thought it would be a great idea to
At 15 years, I created a fight with mum, pushing buttons until she said, “Get out, go on pack your bags, leave.” Success! I had my leave pass. leave with this man, whom I had no clue about. We left and shared each other’s woeful stories. We decided it was a good idea to stay together. He was 33, although he looked in his 20s. I was 15, nearly 16. I’d betrayed and broken my boyfriend’s heart. No one knew where I was. My parents, already distressed, now freaked out.
We moved in together, beginning my 4-year relationship with a wifebeater. The honeymoon phase passed swiftly. Like my father, only worse, he was twisted in ways beyond my comprehension. I lived in a state of terror!
With a firearms license and semi-automatic rifle, he explained his intent to track down his ex. She’d left taking their newborn to her mother’s place, far away. With a frightening internalised rage, he planned to blow up the apartment of his ex’s mother, after taking the child. He would make explosives - he had it all planned. This was
his final straw, having lost three children to ex-partners. He was beyond dangerous, with the training of an Army Boarding School, where his childhood trauma was amplified.
The class system was in full effect when he was a child. Being the darkest child earned his mother’s disdain. She denied he was hers and illegitimate, born before his mother’s marriage to his step-father. Never knowing his father and loathing his mother, they moved to Australia.
His siblings transitioned well, but he looked Aboriginal. Australia was rather a racist place in the sixties, so he was outcast. He was stoned regularly walking to school. Together with the ethos of sorting out disagreements in the boxing-ring in school, this created his violent disposition.
He had no respect for women. He threatened that if I tried to leave him, he would shoot me and bury me under a building site.
Enraged, he would drag me to one, scaring me senseless. He threatened my family’s lives and those of his ex and her mother.
I stayed in this relationship, I didn’t want to be responsible for any deaths. I resolved that if I could love him, everything would be okay.
With a high sex-drive, I was forced multiple times daily to satisfy him. My free-will was never considered. I pretended to enjoy it to save a beating, which backfired - the fetishes became more twisted. Unspeakable things!
My head was always sore to touch and, with the occasionally visible bruising from daily beatings, I had become expert at playing the silly female; it was easy to pass off - my life depended on it. I loved this man. During my childhood, I had been a rescuer - I loved my parents. I believed I needed to fix everything for everyone!
He was insanely jealous; I was not allowed to look at or talk to men. If he witnessed this, I was up for a beating, then twisted sex. I wasn’t allowed alcohol, ever! I dressed like a tomboy, wearing jeans and shirts. In private, I was a doll for him to dress and redress at his pleasure. The resistance beaten out of me, I accepted it was my choice to stay. To survive, I disassociated. Unending death threats - completely powerless, I believed everything he said.
Now 18, Centrelink forced me to get a job. This was my first time in the world in nearly four years. Work was two kilometres from home, so I cycled. Coming home, a vehicle hit me from behind. I flew over the handlebars, face-planted seriously grazing my body. Stunned, I dragged myself up to see the car who’d hit me speed off when they realised I wasn’t dead. Gobsmacked, I walked home.
At first he actually seemed concerned about my wellbeing, but an hour later, he started. I could scarcely believe it; he was going to beat me now too. At that moment, I snapped out of delusion. Realising, he simply didn’t care. I couldn’t take this anymore! If he went down this path then I was out, I would leave and live, or die trying.
He couldn’t help himself. I said, “I’ve been hit by a car, leave me alone.” I walked away, I was no longer a willing victim. He tried to grab me, and I dodged him. Furious, he lunged at me, I let my body drop, pulling him off balance, he fell. “ F*#%ing bitch!” He drew his fist back and punched my eye. I felt every cell rupture. The look on his face - shock. This is a coward’s worst nightmare. This could not be explained away or hidden
under clothes and hair. The expression of horror was unmistakable. He polarised, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it.”
With more selfdetermination than I had felt in years and seeing my eye, blood-red in a mirror, I said, “You will never touch me again!”
His mood swung wildly, despondent, threatening to kill himself, then polarising, threatening to kill me. I told him, “Go ahead! If you’re going to do it, just do it.” Days blurred as I devised my exit. I had been cut off from anyone I’d ever known, except my parents. Over the next week, things were strained. Resolved to leave, come what may, one thought that kept going through my mind was how grateful I was not to be bound to him by a child.
Before I left, we spoke. “You are angry with your mother for abandoning you. You have taken this out on every woman you have been with.” There was more said. “It’s not that I don’t love you, I cannot trust you. You need counselling, I cannot do that for you.” He broke down, crying, “You’re right.”
“I’m leaving, there’s nothing you can do to prevent this.” This was true as, although I feared for my life, I had surrendered to the possibility of death.
Fast Forward
I escaped, although living in fear of his retribution. He called my parents’ home and threatened us. I moved to keep my family safe. He disappeared, though I always watched over my shoulder, hearing his voice – “I’ll kill you!”
Years Pass
I had a major awakening because I’d relentlessly sought the answers within myself. Answers to all of those questions I’d been asking – “Why me? What is going on in this world?”
I was outside my apartment and the sky looked strange. The hour before dusk, the colours and hue, the cloud formations, all of it, surreal. I couldn’t put my finger on why.
The moon was full, high in the sky. The wind blew clouds across it - I yearned to see its beauty, then suddenly I could, clear as day, as though the clouds weren’t there at all.
I pinched myself, nothing changed. I realised that I could move through the moon. Extra odd and felt it too! Years later, I discovered that the moon is known in ancient mystery schools as a gateway between dimensions/worlds. I practised going through and back, repeatedly. I had an epiphany at age 23! My life’s experiences suddenly made sense. The pain and suffering created by suppressing the truth of who I am, made-way for the opportunity of what I was now experiencing. Wild things happened from that moment onward.
One day, while sitting in my lounge room, my consciousness turned to something uncomfortable within. In that moment a being descended, vast beyond measure. Encircling me with its wings, it telepathed, “Your father is going to die.” Internally screaming, No, I’m not ready!”
This Archangel, infinitely compassionate, telepathed, “You have six months.” And gave me a choice of two courses of action. I chose the path where I took responsibility for my dharma and karma. The Archangel expressed to me how I would help him with his passing, then my brother and others and this would be a part of my life’s greater work. After that visit, I moved nearer to my parents’ home.
My father died that year. I returned to my studies. Nine months after dad, my brother committed suicide. I managed my grief, and mum’s will to die with work and study, somehow attaining two awards, drawing top of my graduate class.
One morning I arose knowing I would no longer live in fear. I listed my phone number publicly. One week later came a phone call! I was ready to face him and leave our relationship in the past. He asked to see me, saying, “You remember you said to get counselling. The next step in my recovery is to meet, if you are willing.”
We set a time and place for that evening. I knew it was important to reward his inner work and to get closure. I rang a close friend who agreed to be my safeperson. We met. It was strange to see him again, youthful as ever. We spoke, it was almost like talking to an old friend. He got down to business and was visibly pained – I felt compassion.
He said, “I’m so sorry for everything that I put you through. I wonder if there is any way you could find it in your heart to forgive me?”
“Yes, of course, actually, I forgave you a long time ago.”
Wide-eyed, tears on his cheeks, he said, “But how? How can you forgive me? The things I did...” “If I held a grudge in my heart, it would only cause me pain. Like drinking poison and expecting you to die.”
We made peace and agreed not to see each other again. I thought, I’m free - finally, I’m free.
Flash forward to 2006
Called by Spirit, I moved to the Daintree Rainforest because I had been in a poor relationship with a man for some time. Apparently, I hadn’t learned my lesson about ‘rescuing’ properly yet.
One day I became so frustrated with his refusal to be cheerful or positive about anything, I lost my mastery and flipped over the coffee table. In that single motion, I had moved from victim to perpetrator, the epitome of that which I despised. I knew I had some inner work to do. I slept. Awoken by a hand, stroking my back. “Come now, it’s time to move to the Daintree,” a woman’s voice said.
My psychic awareness amplified in the peaceful ancient Daintree Rainforest; full of wildlife - I made friends with them all. Again I dreamed - a man chasing me. He meant me harm. Terrified, I flew out of my body and went straight to the door – locked, he loomed behind me! Realising I was dreaming, I woke up. There over me in the air I could see the man who’d been chasing me in my dreams since childhood! Fear surged, I called my angels; their loving protection filled the room.
A long adventure-story short, I received an energyhealing from an Indigenous Shaman in the Daintree, followed by another from Parvati in NSW. This cleared some past-life connection to the spirit from my dreams. These experiences led me to Raym, of the Crystal Dreaming modality.
Eventually, I left NSW, moving back to WA to open a Harmony Centre, which... didn’t go according to plan!
Freya’s story will continue in next month’s issue of Supernal Magazine.
If you are interested to hear more before then, you can listen to the podcast episode on the Supernal Website.
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Masculine Vs Feminine Beautiful Duality
Jane Offer
Many of us older folk will have been brought up with the idea of inherent qualities that are exclusively male or female. We were raised with marked gender concepts in what was acceptable as normal childhood development; toys were assessed by gender, as were the choices of school subjects. I badly wanted a train set but was told that ‘only boys played with trains’.
There are many views on the sources of this thinking, including the belief in the oppression of women over the centuries being its primary purpose. However, while this may be so in many cases, it is also based in a misinterpretation that this is a purely physical agenda when, in fact, personal power is not gender-related.
As a child, I was told many stories by my grandmother Violet of the struggle of the Suffragettes to gain equal rights within a maledominated society. And that was the point, equal rights and not a desire to reverse dominate. Violet was born in 1895 in the UK and, at 23, she saw the right to vote granted for women over 30 years old. She continued to be staunchly committed to equal rights all her life, especially in the 1960s, the period of my teenage years. Violet was a businesswoman, property owner, entrepreneur and an inspiration. She used masculine principles to forge her way, was completely
non-maternal yet very feminine in her appearance. In this day and age, she would have been a fearless business force, very much entrenched in the use of her masculine energy.
In the 21 st century, we now understand much more about the duality of our being; that we all hold both masculine and feminine energy. We know the value and purpose of both, in that the masculine principle is related to aspects of analytical thinking, reasoning, strength and action, while the feminine is related to compassion, nurturing, receptivity, empathy and the emotional approach to a situation. We are also aware that we can no longer suppress either side of our nature, realising that any sense of conflict or loss of power is generated from an imbalance of these two elements. This difference of approach was clearly shown in the interview with both Jacinda Ardern and Scott Morrison following the eruption of the White Island volcano in New Zealand.
The critical factor to remember is that this energy alignment is not a competition – neither is more important than another, each holding a powerful place in our evolvement. For example, we need the masculine aspects to
develop action strategies, to play chess, to cut down a tree or to research for a science project. We need the receptivity of new ideas, the creative ability to produce beautiful artwork, to speak with compassion and encouragement to a person that is hurting, through the nurturing nature of the feminine. When we can balance this within, we have a much larger toolkit to employ in our daily life.
At this point, we can avoid apportioning blame and looking to override the power of another. We can balance our energy, enabling us to stand strong in our power. It’s a common suggestion that when a child is bullied, enrol them into a martial arts class. This is not to develop aggression or the ability to defend themselves physically, it is to align their energy and to stand tall. When this is in place, it shows itself outwardly in their whole demeanour; the way they stand, their attitude of calm inner strength and confidence.
So how can we do this for ourselves? As the male/ female balance is about energy, then it makes sense to explore an energy-based approach. Here are three suggestions to try out.
Meditation gives our mind a space of peace where
we can achieve a calm state and tap into our inner strength. Allow yourself just a little personal time – say 20 minutes a day. Either sit in a quiet space or go for a walk in nature and focus on the activity without letting your mind wander.
Do not bottle up your feelings. When we do this, it acts like a pressure valve which ultimately will blow. If you cannot speak about it, write it down. Allow your true feelings to flow onto the paper and, when you have finished, burn it. This is your take on the situation and others may not understand or go into denial, adding to your frustration. Burning is a cleansing and separation from your energy.
Life is in constant change so, rather than reacting to the stress, take a moment to view each situation holistically. Assess the approach that will bring the optimum result. Does it require the masculine approach of strategic thinking, or does it need to be the feminine principle of nurture and creative resolution? Either way, try to resist the normal human reaction of feardriven anger.
Soul Mastery is taught by Jane Offer and offers valuable insights into creating masculine and feminine balance.
