Casual Abuse

Message from a dream during October Super-Full Moon

It’s not unusual for me to wake up with a message in my night dreaming. The October moon stirred me to hear “pay attention to the casual abuse.”

What I know from my coaching career and my own experience is that ‘Who We Think We Are Creates the map of our life.’  As a young woman I saw myself navigating my small rowboat on a large pond where I could see land all around me.

As a maturing adult with a husband and three children living life surrounded by church and community support, I saw myself driving a ski boat through gentle waves on a large lake, carefree and in a bubble of naivete.

When the man-made lake became unnavigable because of draught, I found myself dry-docked and wondered how this happened. Only everything changed.

I noticed what I now recognize as casual abuse. I had been living like the proverbial frog in a pot of warming water, comfortable yet unaware of my environment. I began to conjure up some curiosity and became curiouser and curiouser.  How had I not been able to notice the signals? Fake lakes built for recreational use surrounded by new home developments by people who understood the risk of unsustainable conditions but knowing it would be long enough to make money.  Never mind the fact that the lack of safe drinking water could be a consequence of local planning rules.

Looking back, I can see what one form of casual abuse looked like in my unobserved reality. Something eventually sparked in me sensing the danger of an eruption like the internal boiling inside a volcano. At first, I tried to hold down my intuition deep inside my gut awareness with a sense that if I let it leak out my life would be blown to bits.

But after three abdominal surgeries I accepted my intuitive gut-brain was literally communicating with me. “Let go!” I realized that control was unattainable. My exploration of self-trust took me on a winding road of multiple-choice points.

If I had not been trusting myself, who was I believing and following? Why? I set out to do some truth-busting. First, how could I learn to discern what was true or untrue? How could I be true to myself? I had internalized values of subordination and intellectual conformity without any awareness. I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

An informative step was to investigate comparative religions. Fundamentalist values had coopted my belief system. Concluding several values exercises, I consciously chose my top five: Unity, Inclusivity, Freedom, Creativity, Authenticity.  This allowed me to have a baseline for my searching. Now I needed a different mode of transportation. Maybe a hot-air balloon?

What happened next is a continuing story. I will continue diving into murky waters to gain more understanding of casual abuse. If any of this resonates, let me know. We’re in this together.