9: Finding Clarity in Chaos
Reading time: 6 minutes
Hey there! This short chapter marks the end of Part One, Digging Through the Rubble. After releasing this backstory, I’ve discovered ways to condense the litany of trauma while keeping the story intact, so this first section will undergo change in the coming months. Thanks for hanging in there with me!
Part Two, Mother Earth and Me, marks a profound before and after. We will embark on a journey into the unseen realms of the natural world, where I discovered a fundamental connection between human beings and the benevolent forces of nature that exist beyond our everyday awareness. Join me as I encounter plant spirits, star beings, and ancestors who taught me how to reframe the past and conjure something new and extraordinary.
To access the episode list and preceding chapters, please START HERE.
“Healing generational trauma takes courage and strength. It’s common for dysfunctional families to deny their abuse. They silence victims and dump toxic shame onto them. Complicit families keep abuse alive from generation to generation, until one brave survivor boldly ends the cycle of abuse.” ~ Dana Arcuri, Soul Rescue
WHILE I WAS at The Meadows, the treatment center I entered after the violence that occurred outside of Taos, my therapist reminded me how fortunate I was to be alive, not merely because of violence but because engrained survival stress and unhealthy protective patterns were dictating how I met my needs. With his help, I reexamined experiences involving my father's anger, my mother's helplessness, my tumultuous teenage years, and my time in foster care. Delving into my past, I began comprehending how my early experiences had influenced my adult relationships and decision-making. In addition, I gained insight into personal and energetic boundaries, which had never been on my radar before.
"Boundaries, Marnie. Remember your boundaries," he said as I climbed into my boyfriend's truck.
AFTER THE DIVORCE, my boyfriend's passion and attentiveness fueled a profound attraction, and his support for my sensitivities and intuition was incredibly appealing. The relationship began with tenderness and promise. We gardened, cooked, read, entertained, hiked, and danced together, and our intimate moments were beautiful.
As the years went by and our lives became more intertwined, we became increasingly financially and emotionally dependent on each other. Looking back, I can now see many warning signs that I overlooked. But at that time, I was still seeking safety by taking care of and managing the emotional well-being of others, as I had done in my childhood. When my boyfriend's passionate nature morphed into a turbulent storm of gaslighting, blaming, and shaming and eventually escalated into emotional, sexual, and physical violence, I was in so deep I barely saw it coming.
When we traveled to Panama for three weeks, he got angry when I refused his sexual advances one evening. He took my passport, hired a small fishing boat, and left me on a small, remote island in the province of Bocas del Toro. Three days later, I found him at the airport along with my passport, waiting for our flight home as if nothing had happened.
For one of his birthdays, I hired a Thai massage therapist to come to the house to give him a two-hour massage. Then, I surprised him with an overnight adventure to a local mountain resort where I had rented a cabin with a hot tub. We shared an evening of lovemaking, a long soak, a lobster dinner, and karaoke. Back at the cabin, he wanted more sex, but I wanted nothing more than to curl up in a soft bed.
Glaring down at me, he shouted, "You are the most selfish person I know! I am sick of your unwillingness to do what I want."
The more poorly he behaved, the harder I tried. Like many survivors of domestic abuse, I didn't leave the relationship right away. I did my best to protect my kids from his behavior, and I trained myself to notice how I felt in response to his actions and how I was perpetuating the chaos I needed to change. Looking back, I can see how he struggled with being bisexual in a heterosexual relationship, as well as dealing with uncontrollable urges and destructive behavior related to sex addiction. At the time, I was blind to this. I only knew that I was never enough for him.
ON A QUEST to understand myself, I studied under Marshall Rosenberg, a psychologist and the founder of Nonviolent Communication (NVC). Marshall taught a system of separating observations from personal value judgments, taking responsibility for our feelings, and connecting emotions and unmet needs. In addition, I used Love and Logic, an approach that fosters loving connections between parents and children, allowing kids to experience natural consequences and develop healthy decision-making skills, to provide a foundation for my approach to parenting.
While leading a local NVC practice group, I discovered the unmet needs behind my feelings and the feelings of others. I learned that the codependent thinking of putting others first to get my needs met was misguided. I would never be as important to another as I am to myself, and only I could provide the love, attention, and care I needed. I understood this conceptually, but changing my response to the engrained patterns would take many more years.
That same year, I traveled alone to Sweden for a two-week intensive to walk on hot coals and become certified as a firewalking instructor. A reviving connection to the earth and her elements in northern Europe encouraged me to confront my limiting thoughts. I returned home empowered and gave voice to my newfound courage by painting a brilliantly colored watercolor, a self-portrait of a woman walking through flames and tossing stars into the sky.
Eventually, my boyfriend mortgaged thirty-five thousand dollars on our home’s equity without my permission and went to Arizona to record an album. Months later, when that didn’t work out, he went to Thailand to find himself. I was left with the mortgage and remodeling expenses when I wasn’t making nearly enough money.
A few months later, after my boyfriend spent all the money he took from our equity, he returned to Hamilton and called me from a friend’s house, “Hey, I’m ready to come home.”
“This is no longer your home. I don’t want you here,” I said.
According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, it takes an average of seven attempts to leave an abusive partner. My belief that finding love and belonging with another was worth all the cost was a deep-rooted cognitive error.
It was finally over.
IN THE YEARS to come, I guided hundreds of people across hot coals to face their limiting beliefs. I continued studying psychology, relationships, and parenting through books and workshops and participated in cognitive behavioral therapy. I deepened my understanding of how my upbringing shaped, impacted, and influenced the bonds I developed with others and the circumstances of my adult life.
However, unresolved trauma controlled my internal narrative from behind the scenes, and I continued to attract unhealthy relationships and respond to life with old patterns and behaviors.
Something was missing, and I had a long road ahead of me.
NEXT: Part 2: Mother Earth and Me
Chapter 10: Embracing Change - Smoke, Wind, and Whitebark Pine
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