"I am a f*cking miracle"
Pam's story reminds us that every trauma carries with it some gift, some blessing, and some lesson
After 20 years of working in the culinary arts world, the time came around 2013 when I needed a depth charge in my livelihood.
Even though I was madly in love with exploring the nuances of soups, stews, stocks, and sauces with my chefling students, a whole other level of alchemical wisdom was longing to break through in my teaching.
I had been a client of an EFT Tapping practitioner for a few years by this time, and my best thought about how to pivot my career went like this:
"Gee, let’s see—I’m already a chef, and I love Tapping, so maybe I can become an EFT practitioner myself and help people figure out what to eat."
As if it were that simple.
When I first hung my shingle and began seeing clients, I thought my practice would be one continuous regurge of food advice:
Plan your meals.
Steer clear of refined carbs.
Add spices to improve your digestion.
What my culinary path didn’t prepare me for was the iceberg of trauma that lurks beneath the tip of nearly every woman’s distorted eating behaviors.
When Pam first came to work with me in 2018, she was flooded with grief following a seven-year parade of losses, starting with her father’s sudden departure from home in a body bag and culminating in her husband’s futile attempt to rescue their dog from a freak self-strangulation.
Her food habits foundered in the tidal wave of heartache. “I think I have lost joy in eating and don't pay attention to how much or when I'm full,” she wrote in her initial questionnaire.
For two years we focused on metabolizing Pam’s immense sorrow. As she regained emotional traction, her eating behaviors came naturally into balance.
Then one day, as the world spiraled into lockdown madness, Pam, a technology teacher in a Colorado Springs elementary school, was watching an in-service training video on how to recognize signs of child abuse in students.
Pam curiously noticed how much the little blonde girl looked like her….
A dormant volcano erupted when buried memories of her brother’s abuse violently surfaced.
For those with no reference point to such an experience, when the human psyche is blindsided by such memories, the world as one knows it shatters in an instant.
Trust in the simplest truths becomes questionable.
I recognized Pam’s distress through my own memories of my grandfather's abuse emerging for me in my twenties.
There were moments I’d stare at the ceiling, puzzling if there really was a ceiling above me. I’d look at the floor and think, is this a floor beneath my feet?
Cognitive dissonance explodes around the contradictions often inherent in the abusive relationship.
How, for example, can a child’s mind comprehend Grandpop sexually molesting her one moment and making her favorite breakfast the next?
It took Pam years to untangle the complex incongruities of the visible and not-so-visible wounds she endured at the hands of Brother Randy.
With searing honesty, Pam recounted her story to the women who attended my in-person retreat last month.
I offer it to you here with her generous permission:
What story do my bones tell?
The bruises. The burns.
There is no longer a mark on my skin from them. The only remnant of bruising and burning is the mark on my soul.
I would cry, but there was no comfort in crying. I would scream, but my screams had no voice to reach the ears that could change my fate.
My fate-changers were there, at the ready. They would have brought an army to help me. But help me were the two words I could never say.
What I would say is: I fell off the slide. I burned my hand on the stove. I cut myself on broken glass. The bookcase fell on me.
The lies came easy, and they were endless. I can recall every detail of the emergency room of my youth. The injuries of my body told the story I was never able to voice.
The story started with a sixteen-year-old mother who hid her pregnancy.
It wasn’t his fault.
She starved herself and wore tight clothes to hide the baby bump.
It wasn’t his fault.
When her parents found out, they were angry.
It wasn’t his fault.
She was angry.
It wasn’t his fault.
Doctors told my parents they couldn’t have kids, but I defied those odds. My parents adopted Randy, but the damage was done.
It wasn’t his fault.
My family knew, but I would not tell. They tried to get me to talk, but I would not speak.
The truth is … I loved him.
It wasn’t his fault.
Signs showed up early that things were not right. Maybe we can try harder. Maybe we can find just the right doctor, just the right therapist, just the right … Maybe, just maybe, tomorrow would be different. Maybe we can change the course that has been set in motion.
The name they give it now is psychopath or sociopath. He was given a bunch of labels, but I didn’t know names or labels.
I only knew by the look in his eyes what kind of day it was going to be for me. I knew how to hide. I knew how to run. I knew how to check out of my life and into a glorious fantasy world.
Maybe the look would be softer. Maybe, just maybe, he would be the brother I loved.
Because he could be kind, he could be caring, he could be the best brother anyone could ask for … until he wasn’t.
They all knew, but I would not tell that Randy locked me in a trunk for hours. They tried to get me to talk, but I would not tell of the pencil lead in my bologna sandwich, the cuts from glass, the burns where he held my hand to the burner.
The truth is … I loved him.
They all knew, but I would not tell. He threatened to kill my dog if I told. They tried to get me to talk, but I would not speak.
The truth is … I loved him.
But they knew, and they gathered evidence, collected paperwork, noted the hospital visits, filed the pictures he drew of all the ways he was going to kill me.
One day it all changed.
They took all of the evidence to someone who cared and said, We need to save our son. I know now looking at these files, that what they were really saying was, We need to save our daughter.
My parents spent the rest of their days making it right for me. My mother became my biggest ally, my closest friend, and my staunchest supporter. She was a force to be reckoned with, and we joined hands and produced magic together.
Randy was in and out of my life for many years. I was with him close to the moment of his last breath, and my sister-in-law and I sat in the kitchen while waiting for the coroner and played the song “Bittersweet” by Big Head Todd and the Monsters.
It was bittersweet indeed. We loved and hated who he was. We knew the pain he could cause. We knew his immense capacity to love.
What story do my bones tell? The bruises. The burns. There is no longer a mark on my skin from them. The only remnant of bruising and burning is the mark on my soul.
When I am conflicted I build a story that says only a monster could love a monster. Only a monster could not say the words help me. By not asking for help you condoned.
When I am not conflicted I know that I am a survivor. I did what I had to do to live in this world and protect all of the people I loved.
It was not my fault.
One of the signs of healing trauma, I often say to my students, is that the recollection of it no longer causes your jaw to clench or your throat to close up.
It has no more pull on you than the sneakers under your bed.
Through lots of EFT Tapping, along with Jungian dream analysis, psychedelic therapy, breath work, and meditation practice, Pam recalibrated her nervous system bit by bit and unraveled the impact of Randy’s actions on her behavior in present time.
She reclaimed her soul from the decision she made that setting boundaries was dangerous.
She began regarding her body as an ally rather than a traitor and treating it accordingly.
Listen as she describes a particularly intense moment when she succumbed to a binge—then reversed it and reframed it as a stepping stone to healing:
Every trauma, I also like to say, carries within it some gift, some lesson, and some blessing.
Pam has embraced this truth in spades:
“Today I see myself as a fucking miracle. There will be struggles and times of darkness ahead, but I have survived struggles and left profound times of darkness behind.
I would not have been able to stand up time and time again if it weren't for the people around me that continued to support me. They (you) inspire me every day.
I also inspire myself, in the sense that even in the darkest of times I always believed in magic, mystery and fairy tails. I never stopped believing that there was a life waiting for me that didn't have to be so hard.
My large and beautiful imagination continued to dream. My dreams are creating a life ahead, and it feels very exciting to be me.”
Feeling inspired to dive deeper into your own healing journey?
Sign up for a free 45-minute Illumination Call with me.
This opportunity to connect with me will take us deeper into your vision of healing, uncover the obstacles holding you back, and outline your next steps. You'll leave the call feeling lighter, freer, and ready to implement your new discoveries.
"The ultimate act of self compassion is to stop hiding myself from myself." Pam
Amen to this!
Thank you for sharing this story and for your important work of leading fellow humans through the fire 🔥🙏 💕