Child Sexual Abuse Survey

This is a survey on Child Sexual Abuse being conducted by a doctoral student at the University from which I am an alumnus. I was hoping that some of you might be willing to participate in the online survey to help this student with her dissertation research, or can pass it on to folks that would be willing to help. Just think of if you were working on a study or a project, wouldn't you want others to help you out with your research?!

Please participate in a short survey related to perceptions of alleged
child sexual abuse. Participation in this research is strictly
anonymous, as your IP address will not even be recorded. Your
participation would only require about 10 minutes of your time and it
would be greatly valued and appreciated.

If you wish to participate please click on the following link, or cut
and paste it in your internet browser. This link will take you directly
to the survey.
https://www.psychdata.com/s.asp?SID=125120
Or, if you prefer, you can go to his website, http://www.psychdata.com/,
and enter this number, 125120, in the space provided that reads "Go to
Survey #."

Sword of Trauma

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These images are part of my new event - Removing the Sword of Trauma. You can contact my mom at events@angelashelton.com or joann@angelashelton.com to bring me to your community.

I love this program!

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How Acupuncture Can Help Survivors

Hello everyone!
My name is Krisztina Samu and I'm a student of Oriental Medicine on the Big Island of Hawaii. I've prepared a video interview for this blog that I hope you find helpful.

How Acupuncture Can Help Survivors

Oriental Medicine was so amazing in helping me and many others I know in regaining balance and harmony in our bodies and emotions that I've decided to study it and get the message out about how it can be particularly helpful in cases of trauma.

My website is still in the works, but you can email me from the website
Project AcuHope and keep checking back for more juicy, helpful info!
Many blessings to you all!
Krisztina

To All The Big People Out There

I just received this from a Goddess who wanted me to share this with you:

To All The Big People Out There

This is to all the big people out there -- like me. The fat people -- like me. We who say, "as soon as I lose some weight, I will .................... (insert anything here)."

Stop waiting! Being [insert your label] should not preclude your living life. It's an excuse. I've used it over and over again for years. Doesn't mean I don't want to address it -- just means I will no longer use my weight as a crutch. At the beginning of Angela's personal journey, she was still smoking.

I'm done. Goodbye Fat Excuse! Thanks for the use, but I am letting you go.

I was thinking the same ole same old the other day: "I'm too fat; they'll laugh at me; they'll think I'm not healing because I haven't lost weight, etc. " And then had a new thought:

"How many other big/fat people are out there thinking the same thing?"

I would look at Angela Shelton and think it was easier for her. She's so pretty. She's so thin. She's an actress. Everything probably comes easier to her. People will be able to hear her because she's thin.

How presumptive! How dismissive! How arrogant! (I forgive me.)

Well, I bet there are as many "Me's" as there are Angela Shelton's. How many other women are waiting for someone like them to speak up? I was. And then I thought: "Well, why not me? What if I'm the fat Angela Shelton?" (okay, that cracked me up...but I digress).

AM I KIDDING? ME?!

Sure! Why not me? Be the change I want to see. I want to see big/fat people taking a stand, too. Speaking out. Being large warrior goddesses! Why not?

As I learned over and over again on my "Angela Journey," it just takes one person speaking up and speaking the truth for one other person to hear it, identify with it, and to begin speaking their truth. (think of the 70s Breck Shampoo commercial: she told two friends and she told two friends and so on and so on and so on...)

If right now, you are hearing all your "rotes" (those voices inside that beat you down), STOP THEM. Say this out loud or in your head:

I am worth healing.
I am worth loving.
I am worth being loved.
I love me.
SQUISH! (really. Say squish -- it's the best word in the world!)

Drink them in. Try them on for size. Roll them around on your tongue or in your mind. Feel their power. Believe in the possibility that they are truth. I believe you are worth it!

Recently, for the first time in my 43 years, I was able to look myself in the eyes in the mirror (YES THE MIRROR), and say "Squish! I love you, Diana." The kicker? I believed it.

(pause to reflect. drink. try. roll. feel. believe. smile)

I found something important enough to push me over the edge. What a way to put it, but that's it. I went over the edge of surviving into living. Oh yeah, it's a little scary. It's quite a bit uncomfortable for the time being -- but I LIKE it!

I put myself out there. The world didn't end. The sky didn't fall. No one "got" me. My skin didn't burn off. I did not explode. I did not collapse from the weight of what happened. The blackness did not consume me. I did not disappear or disintegrate. I did not turn into red hot rage.

I triumphed! I am now out there in the world, and I am okay. I am fat. I am alive. I have possibilities.

I
AM
A
BIG OL'
WARRIOR
GODDESS!

(**disclaimer. you may find that once you start speaking the truth and feeling your feelings, food doesn't hold the same power. food doesn't temporarily fill whatever if it did before. in fact, speaking your truth and sharing your story may eventually be the best diet in the world. imagine that. believe the possibility.)


Thank you Diana and continue the healing!

Musings From a Blissed Out Mind

I just want to write. I love life. Sounds cliche. I really mean this. Even when I am having a bad, shitty day, I still love being here. Especially with my boys and husband, upon whom I look with deep reverence each day.
It's not what happens to us so much that determines our outcomes, it is what we choose to make of it. What meaning will we ascribe to our suffering? Existential grief is real. From a woman in the Sudan clinging to her naked bloodied baby she prays will not starve, to men fighting in wars to which no one will ever understand the horrors of, to the child who is raped by her father, what matters is not what we think our experience should BE, but what we make it FOR. Too often we can get caught in the no man's land of WHY? Why God, why? Many of us have been there, after all, what we have endured is crazy and horrible and nearly unspeakable. We feel we are or have lead a life that can not be listened to, that no one wants to hear it. Well, I have people who do and have and will continue to want to hear "it". I have found I can cry WHy and still move forward and transcend. It's all about transcendence. Choosing people to be in my life who are not deniers is essential for me.
My husband is one. He gets inside my pain. He is there. It is real. He feels it. I believe his tears and his breaths and his eyes when he is in that pain with me. He feels me. I have 2 best girls who absolutely feel with me, as I do them. I love my family of choice. They know what love really is. It is a blessing we all deserve. I wish this love for all. I do not know why whatever notion of God allows bad things to happen, or why some believe it's karma, or why it happened to me. Or you. I just know I am giving it meaning. I am speaking it. I am living inside of my truth. I am as Rainer Maria Rilke put it, "Living the questions." That is my meaning, to keep learning, to keep asking why it happened to ME...Not just WHY? Or WHY me? But, why ME???..what am I hear to do, especially with child sexual rape? I will work to continue finding out. I hope to serve others in healing and speaking and creating. I am also here to live a joyful, blissed out life. I am happy, deeply, profoundly happy, and that is my underlying feeling about life, regardless of the stuff that goes on in one's life.....the things we humans go through...and for survivors that includes PTSD, complex emotions, needs and rights. If we are experiencing flashbacks, nightmares, self doubt, self persecution and paranoia, whatever it is, we are here to be bound indelibly to the light that is within us. We are here to en-joy love, life, nature, god, whatever we conceive him or her to be, we are here to manifest our birthright to abundance and clarity, our right to safety and a life lived in harmony. Namaste. S