I’m sharing a testimonial from the TTC meeting with Julie’s group this week. For context, this is my 2nd TTC. I have been studying ACIM for 8 years but only seriously since I started TTC. I know that of the 7 keys, the 3 that I have the most resistance to are emotional vulnerability, honesty and trust. I had been experiencing over the past few weeks some extended periods of blissful inner peace. In the external world many things are changing for the better. But it’s still a wild pendulum ride, and the pendulum likes to get stuck on the fear side for far longer than the blissful peace side – though I am grateful that it’s even swinging because I realise now that I had spent all my life – before TTC – locked on the fear side and there was no swinging at all – just paralysis. I noticed I was doing things when I was in the blissful, peaceful state that ensured separation (the desire to get rid of peace).
One example was drinking too much wine… Yay separation!! I came to the TTC meeting with a shocking hangover after the day before I had been offered my dream job. Julie nudged me to share. She sensed something about my disposition that day and asked me if I wanted to share, so I shared about the mythical-me story that likes drinking too much alcohol and how insane this is, and I know it’s insane but it’s so automatic. This led to a discussion and sharing in the group about self-sabotage and unworthiness.
Everyone’s shares, words and thoughts just really hit the mark for me. I felt a shift in the meeting as the group shared and offered support, and it continued throughout the day and beyond. I had been trying to forgive this destructive habit for a very long time – 35 years – and nothing seemed to move it. Someone in our group said something about family and the story of self-sabotage running in it, and all of a sudden, the penny just dropped; I realised I had been trying to forgive myself because I thought it was a personal problem and only affected me. Unlike my sister, my dad and grandmother, who were all chronic alcoholics and died from their addictions, I was a high functioning closet binge drinker who could hide it from my family and children as best I could. Of course, this wasn’t true and only added to my guilt and shame and silent misery. I finally realised this story isn’t personal, and it wasn’t just about forgiving myself – there was a Brother I wasn’t forgiving; my dad.
Dad passed away about 2.5 years ago and I believed when he passed, I had forgiven him for the intensely depressing, humiliating, chaotic, abusive parts of my childhood as a child of an unapologetic, unhealed alcoholic. I was finally able to see that I had not forgiven him at all – all I had done was pass through the various different forms of ego’s forgiveness to destroy.
In my teens and early adulthood, when I first started bingeing, it took the form of our shared sinfulness. We were both unworthy. When I had children and stopped drinking for a long time, the ego’s gracious lordliness decreed that I was the better person and he the baser one. Then, as my children got older, a bitter divorce and financial distress, it was bargaining – I will forgive you if you help me pay my bills, and if you will hate my ex-husband as much as I do. Then, as my dad was dying from his addiction, and I had forgiven my ex-husband, and I was well into studying the course, the forgiving martyr arrived.
An ACIM teacher once said that only children can be victims. They went on to say that adults have to be accountable for what happened in their childhood – it is yours now to heal – but the ego only heard that children can be victims, and it didn’t want to let go of this right to its victimhood. My childhood was horrific – fuel for the martyr. I silently accepted the bitterness and hurt without emotion – the last bastion of the ego had been holding tight. I asked the Holy Spirit to look at this with me. I just so happened to be on Lesson 212 and listening to Nouk’s commentary about the abuse she experienced at the age of 8 and how she realised she had asked for it and put it there – Bingo! My Dad held the golden key. I meditated for a long time with the intention to forgive my dad and feel unconditional love for him. I achieved it – a feeling of spontaneous joy and unconditional love for him allowed me to feel this for myself. I can’t explain the sense of peace and joy I feel now. I had put so much hate and resentment there for him that I didn’t want to see it in me, and I am still peeling back the layers. But the desire to hold onto it isn’t there anymore.
So many miracles have transpired from this, and I just want to extend my gratitude to the Holy Spirit and my TTC family for gently leading me to this healing place and giving me the strength to face these intensely uncomfortable feelings and forgive them. To my TTC group – never underestimate the power of your shares. I keep thinking about them and how they helped unravel one of the greatest blocks to the awareness of love’s presence for me – my dad. Forgiving him has brought up hundreds of abusers and abusive situations in my past that I can forgive so easily now. Back to the 7 keys. I have never in my life felt safe to tell about this insane habit I had – I hid it until the TTC enabled me to express my emotional vulnerability, honesty and trust that I would not be judged. Thank you with all my heart, thank you.
Suzie