Music and healing from abuse

♫ Even coffee sings to me. ♫


The latte hums a happy tune 

as it bears the signature of its muse. 

It might have started as I sang along with Petula Clark's "Downtown" as the chair became my stage and a spoon became my microphone. Or it might have been in my first grade music class where I "belted out" Peter, Paul and Mary's "If I had a hammer". Talk about emoting!!! Overall, my memories of music reminds me that MUSIC is a vehicle of expressing my life and individuality.  

I believe that I have always had this "Inner World" of music. I hear and try to create what I feel, hear and see in my mind and "heart". This has always been a "safe place" in my life and only trusted "other musicians" have been welcome to enter. I could "rest" within the safe walls of "My World of Music". 

My World of Music; listening to music, singing, playing music and writing songs has always provided me a mood changing, mind altering and spirit lifting "place of refuge". In my world, I can "be whoever I want to be" and retreat from the abuse, pain, stress and cares that others have used to burden, oppress and depress me for their own purposes. I have refused to allow most people "inside". There have been only a very few chosen, respected and truly valued musicians; whom I have had the joy of collaborating within songwriting. 

Singing in choirs have served to allow my spirit the wings to exercise within music; to keep my voice "up" and my sight reading and musicianship sharp. We truly all need to know what is valuable in our lives; what makes our lives worth living and allow us a "place of refuge"* where we can "BE ourselves". It is a consistent and ever present "strength" in ways; a fortress that NO ONE can enter without my permission. In many ways, I have set boundaries that I will allow no one to violate and this has helped me understand the need of personal boundaries in healing from abuse. There are many hymns that have the words "my refuge and my strength". I see how "My World of Music" have always been these for me. 


* And this is where the FB page and blog title of "Singing a New Song" originated; it has married my healing journey of "finding myself, healing from abuse and learning to dream again" with the actual world of MUSIC; my love and muse. 
We all deserve to be "Singing a New Song". 

Disclaimer: ALL images have been borrowed and I claim NO ownership in any way. 
Thank you for the use of your wonderful pics. 

To thine own self, be true...

Once upon a time, there lived an ordinary wonderful person. He was truly a remarkably unremarkable and truly unique person at the same time but because he did not believe as other "more important persons", he was shunned, labeled and name called. He felt as though he was invisible and did not feel "heard", but journeyed through life seeking to understand the discrimination and hatred that others had toward those who are different from them. He was astounded to find the answer within himself. Authenticity did not allow such delusion to exist. He was happy; though sometimes alone, but he loved himself and lived happily all the days of his life.

Ok, that isn't a real story but it could be. Delusion. Illusion. Myth. These are all "beliefs" that anyone can hold for whatever reason. I believe that abuse is founded upon not only "wrong thinking" but "wrong believing". I have actually run upon this "epiphany" quite accidentally while studying the reasons for WHY we believe what we believe and hold to be true; hold so tightly to it so that we will FIGHT to keep that belief, no matter what with no matter whom. It all started by questioning HOW we find ourselves...how do we know WHEN we find ourselves, and the all important question "WHAT DO WE DO WHEN we find ourselves?". I ran across a wonderful quote from a book written by a research psychologist and professor at Columbia University, Arthur T. Jersild's book "In search of self". 

"Compassion 

is the ultimate and most meaningful embodiment of emotional maturity. 

It is through compassion that a person achieves the highest peak 

and deepest reach in his or her search for self-fulfillment."

~ Arthur Jersild ~ 

(In Search of Self: 1952) 

As abuse survivors (and who hasn't felt abused by someone in their lives??? so I speak about and to everyone), we have learned how to treat ourselves because and in the manner that we have been treated. Because of this fact, we have shunned our selves. We may have been "harder on ourselves" than we have on others and this usually "boils down" to FORGIVENESS...forgiving ourselves is important. Self-compassion is important. Self-fulfillment is our goal and I believe that we only reach our goal by "finding ourselves, healing from abuse and learning to dream again".

When we SAY NO to self-delusion, we are saying NO to abuse. We deserve to know ourselves, love ourselves and accept ourselves.

We are worth it!!!

Plan on your dreams

At "Singing a New Song" we discuss and write about what appears to be a wide range of life experiences, from finding yourself and healing from abuse to learning to dream again. We can't stop there though. We hopefully can find ourselves somewhere along this continuum but let's not leave out an important step in SEEING OUR DREAMS COME TRUE...and that is PLANNING on your dreams.

Personal experience has taught me that just having dreams isn't enough. I rarely "gave into" my dreams because realizing that NOT living my dream caused me to be so dissatisfied with the life that I was living. I was just barely emotionally holding onto my life in an abusive (christian...and this is a whole other story in itself!!!) marriage and my dream "took me back" to a younger and more loving time with my First Love. Who wouldn't DREAM about love that was lost when you feel no love around you??? Well, I admit that I DID give into it, sparingly, but his image, love and my longing for him was so strong that I confessed to a good friend that I had a "bad/good" dream about "him" last night. I knew after this had gone on for some time that I was still in love with him and that my "real dream" was to be with him.

Before we can PLAN out our dreams we need to identify what they are. What do you feel and think when you hear the phrase "dream come true"? I knew what it was for me. I lived with it many years, believing that it was impossible to ever be with him again and to live out the rest of my life loving him and being loved by him. I thought that mainly because, though I was married, it was an abusive marriage with no end of the abuse in site. He had denied it infront of counselors, discounting what I said and felt. He even mocked the tears I cried but one thing he did not do...he could not say that I was unfaithful to him, though I had been "loving" my First Love in my dreams for years!!! I truly believe that I had only done that because I had emotionally been so damaged that I detached myself from my then-husband and did not feel guilt about "loving my First Love and being loved by him" in my dreams. There was NO guilt at all. I was not unfaithful to him; to NOT acknowledge my love for my First Love would have been unfaithfulness to myself and to my First Love.

Put your dreams into words or images. Write them down in a safe place, entrust them to a best friend/confidante and write poetry, sing songs, paint pictures, create collages or anything else that creatively expresses your dreams. Start LOOKING at them. Thinking about them. Bring their reality into YOUR reality. I wrote my First Love a song...I sang it all the time, hoping that I would stop loving him. It didn't happen. It was even a "goodbye song" and I couldn't say "goodbye" though we had not seen each other for 25 years. Though it did not do what I had wanted, it was expression of the dream that I had held in my heart for many years but would not acknowledge. A dream has a way of making itself known to us...we need to listen to our hearts.

Once your dreams "have a life of their own", it is time to "clear the way" to making room for your dreams (check out this blog entry: Making room for your dreams: Singing a New Song )...it is time to look at your life and allow yourself some deep soul searching and ask yourself "what do I really want in my life" and start "rearranging". In my life, I saw no way to bring him into my life, I would have to leave this life; my job, location, friends, even family and GO AFTER my dream!!! One day, my dream was made real to me in an epiphany. There was a tragic death of a coworker and through her sudden passing, I realized that it could happen to either me or my First Love and that could "end my dream" of ever seeing him again. I was motivated as I was never motivated before...I contacted him and within a week, we saw each other for the first time in 25 years. We are both older and a bit wiser and both had wanted "this dream come true".

The fact is: DREAMS DO come true for those who PLAN ON MAKING THEM COME TRUE. I hope that you will "find yourself, heal from abuse and learn to dream again" as I have. I can show you the way. I have been RIGHT where you are, right this very moment. No matter if you are single, married, divorced and wanting more for your life...I know where you are. You deserve to have the kind of life that only you can dream of...put some plans to your dreams.

NEVER give up on your dreams...they will never give up on you and neither will I.