Love Box

I just got a great email from a survivor I met at the last college I spoke at. Here's what she said:

OH and I took your advice about loving yourself more. I made a shoebox and decorated it, it is now the LOVE box. It sounds silly but every day or multiple times a day I write a little note about something I did that was fun, or something i liked about myself. Just today I wrote down something I said that was witty.

Now that is cool! I love the LOVE BOX! Make one for yourself.

Drum for Life

I just met Christine Stevens from UpBeat Drum Circles and thought you would love her. For those of you dealing with the holiday headaches and heartaches check out her healing drum kit!

We should bring a few of those to the Army of Angels Conference in March! I'll add a video of this shortly but wanted to give you her site so you could check her out. She is going to Iraq in April for the 3rd time to do a healing drum circle. Wow.

The Angela Shelton Foundation

The Angela Shelton Foundation was given to me for my birthday 5 years ago by a man who loved me dearly and wanted to see my name and work live on past my death. After all my work with non profits and witnessing the chaos that comes with them, I let the foundation sit until it became clear what it should work on to fulfill my mission of inspiring and empowering all survivors to heal and lead joyful lives. I didn't want to reinvent the wheel or create more unnecessary paperwork. Now that I am out of the darkness of facing, healing, and dealing with a painful past and moving beyond pain, beyond forgiveness and boldly into a joyful productive life - things have become very clear and all the right people seem to show up at the most perfect moment too!

Now the Angela Shelton Foundation is taking over The Survivor Manual! The board members have discussed it and agreed that expanding my brain child of sharing all information about healing through the manual is imperative. So the Manual will be expanding soon to include many more valuable avenues to healing and joy.

The other major thing that helped me the most has been my magical house on the hill. It has been a sanctuary for me during the most difficult and the most joyous of times. Many people have come here to have catharsis, to purge, to heal and to rejoice. As I move forward in my life with my new projects and literally move up the hill, I am working on donating my house to the foundation so it can continue to be an artist-in-residence and healing center. That is awesome!

The Survivor Manual is now run by the Angela Shelton Foundation. You can write off your donations! The Survivor Manual is FREE but if you found any of the information, videos, or resources helpful please help this project continue by sending your support:

The Courage to Heal

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http://www.ellenbass.com/

http://angelashelton.com/

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Army of Angels Conference - March 2009

Get tickets to the first annual Army of Angels Conference this coming March!

My new play will be performed as well as the amazing one-woman-show "TOTALLY Kimleigh!"
Check out Kimleigh at http://www.totallykimleigh.com/

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

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

Mary Lemons

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This is the social worker who saved me when I was 8. She is now a healer. I did an amazing session with her and I also got to meet one of her healing horses.

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Stop Abusing Yourself and Dance!

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Tonight in Seattle!

March 19th: Annual Rosie the Riveter Slam & Featured Performer Dorothy Lemoult

Open Mic, Featured Performer and the Annual Rosie the Riveter Slam:The 3rd Annual Rosie Slam is open to Women Only in honor of National Women’s History Month.
Email info@seattlepoetryslam.org for more info.
When screenwriter Angela Shelton set out to make a documentary country interviewing other women who shared her name, she was shocked to find that 70% had been victims of rape, childhood sexual assault and/or domestic violence. This surprising journey also led Angela to confront her own abusive past. The multi-award winning documentary that culminated has started a grassroots movement of survivors and humanitarian organizations around the world who are breaking the silence about the epidemic of abuse. Angela has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show, 48 Hours Investigates and an exclusive version of “Searching for Angela Shelton” aired on Lifetime TV in April 2006.
As part of a call to action for a healing revolution, actor and director and playwright Dorothy Lemoult will lead an all female cast in bringing several of Angela Shelton’s monologues to life as our feature for the evening.

WEDNESDAY MARCH 19TH AT TOST in Seattle!

Come out and support one of the Angels!

The 30 Day Finding Angela Shelton Journey!

Check out this amazing letter I received! It is from the 30 Day Finding Angela Shelton Journey. WOW!

Hi Angela Shelton.

What a ride! Today was my Day 30 on your Angela Shelton Journey. I can only begin to tell you how emotional the last 37 days have been for me. So many tears and emotions that some days I just couldn't click on the day's Journey email, and had to wait a day or two.

Thank you thank you thank you. Your program is truly inspired and a blessing from all that is good and loving and healing in the universe. Your messages are right-on, and your videos so intense, funny, and personal. I have learned SO much and still have work to do, but a shift in my healing has definitely taken place.

I thought I would share with you my Day 22 drawing of what joy would look like to me. This was done with markers on a file folder. I certainly wouldn't have felt this without your program, and the assignment gave me this light-hearted image of joy. I have kept it up where I see it many times each day, and it makes me smile every time, and lifts those old vibes up.

I will also share my Day 26 Mission Statement:

I am a beautiful entity, a divine spark of God who is on this planet to learn to love and to play and love and have fun. I pray to be a fountain of love to the world and to be a bright loving light to myself and therefore to others. I am joyous Jaye who exited the blame game.

Thank you for your work, from deep in my heart to you, and so much more than I can say right now.

Jaye

Survivor Manual TV!

Now we have a place where the videos pertaining to Survivor Manual are collected!
Survivor Manual TV!

Watch the video called Healing the Human Spirit and the one about Sam MacArthur. Those are awesome!

Rape Anniversary Reaction Transformation

As I watered my lavender plant yesterday, it occured to me: I will be 30 years old next year. Holy you-know-what, Batman! Musings begin swirling away, I think of all the fantastic things I have seen and experienced in almost 30 years on this planet. Lucky for me, I grew up surrounded by horses and dogs. I met and married my soul mate at 20. We made two gorgeous babies together. We have traveled, uncovered one another’s passions and dreams, and discovered a depth of emotion and spirit together and as individuals I can hardly verbalize. I have created beautiful art; paintings, collages, cards. The ultimate for me, for us, is the artful creation of blessed togetherness: a healthy family. This family is a far cry from my early experience.

This February is the 19 year anniversary of the rape I survived. I was 10 years old when I was kidnapped, taken to a motel in New Orleans, and raped in every way one can be, for three days. I was already being abused by my father, my rapist, since age 3. This was the culmination of his sexual and emotional abuse of me, his only daughter. As I ponder, I think to myself, What drove me internally to not only survive, but want to thrive? What moved me toward that thriving after such trauma? I inhale the scent of my pretty lavender plant, I realize I am just beginning to answer that.

After a person is traumatized at a particular time, the fallout tends to rain heaviest on that day from then on, therefore it is known as an “anniversary reaction”. In other words, anniversary reactions are a re-triggering or re-experiencing of a traumatic event that occurs because of a time cue. We tend to be “triggered’ automatically on these days. A trigger can be anything from a smell, to the time cue being the date of the event, the texture of the carpet you happen to be walking on, or the weather. Thriving can seem impossible during these storms. I have had many issues to contend with, anxiety, post traumatic stress, panic, what I say to myself in my head.

What amazes me most as I write this is that the further away from this experience I get time wise, the more I am able to comprehend the horror of it, and the more magnified my thriving becomes. There is something about a bigger and bigger chunk of time in the space between me and the rape that enables me to look directly at it. To feel more fully than ever the horror at a safe distance of 19 years away is very healing. It is as if the distance propagates a more (w)holistic viewpoint. Wholeness is my journey, my destination, and my purpose. Something within me has always known wholeness. Something within me recognized wholeness early on, that is why I believe I was able to see it in and feel it to begin with. I recognized it because it was already in me. Continuing to create a whole, soulful, healthy marriage and family is essential to me.

My father told me he loved me all the time, I think he believes he does. For years I searched through the ashes of his actions for some sliver of love. I made excuses for him, I felt sorry for him, I longed for him. What I longed for was an illusion, for he would have to be a completely different individual to be what I longed for. I learned that based on truth, love can not exist within rape. My father and his “love” are myths, myths I chased for many years. Myths that helped me survive childhood without going insane from grief, myths that led me into abusive relationships and adolescent drug use. I thought love was possession, that I needed to be possessed, owned, that love was vehemently staking claim unto me. All things my father did. I clung to those myths all the while knowing my heart of hearts they were not real.

Deep in my consciousness I knew, I could not be fooled, the truth was rooted too deeply, this was not love! Aristotelian philosophy has a word for this vital force that was directing me toward self-fulfillment, self love, actualization of my divine potential; entelechy. Entelechy is a particular type of motivation, a need for self-determination, and an inner strength directing life and growth to become all one is capable of being. It is the need to actualize one's beliefs. It is having a personal vision and being able to actualize that vision from within.
Jean Houston wrote:
"Entelechy is all about the possibilities encoded in each of us. For example it is the entelechy of an acorn to be an oak tree, of a baby to be a grown-up, of a popcorn kernel to be a fully popped entity, and of you and me to be God only knows what…" [Jean Houston, THE HERO AND THE GODDESS: THE ODYSSEY AS MYSTERY AND INITIATION, Ballantine Books, 1992, p. 62.]


Incest and rape made me think I surely had no future in this world, in my body, in my self. Yet, there was a tiny seedling I held in my heart. A spark lived even as my father raped me, and it was one of wanting, a vision of a vibrant future, filled with laughing children, stars and color, hearts that loved, hearts that mended, safe hands. This propelled me along fiercely, I never let it go. I came close a few times, but I did not let go. No matter what he took from me, what my mind and spirit held he could never take.


I am still healing, unfolding, dilating, birthing myself into wholeness. It is a process. He did what he did for years, culminating in this act of ultimate violence and betrayal, yet all the while I held on to my visions; bluebirds atop picket fences, mother and father in love, children who knew in the depths of their being that Mommy and Daddy are in love not only with them, but with one another. Children nurtured profoundly, and ferociously protected as a natural extension of our bond.

In this month of love, I may have a rape anniversary reaction, or a few, but I know what I know. I see what happened to me, not as if it were happening to someone else, but me, a child. A little girl biting a red stuffed worm bent over a bed in a dirty motel. It is real. It happened. That was me. That IS me. I also know that a father can not rape his daughter and love her too. He could not steal my entelechy, my innate light.

The day I saw my future husband, that divine spark lit up in total recognition, it was as if we both saw into a mirror for the first time, “Oh my God, I look into you, and you reflect to me my beauty and you look into me and I show you your own.” It was magnetic, it was absolute. It was visionary. Mere potential becoming actuality. It was the first time my healthy self took over completely. Day by day, we actualize more love, the ever beautiful unfolding of human love. That is the path love, reflecting a person’s true divine potential and loving them into actualizing it. In spite of being raped, the prevailing theme at this time is this divine love. If that isn't worth celebrating, I don't know what is.

Survivor Manual TV!

I added a tab to the TV page for "Survivor Manual".

There is a video up there of me doing a healing technique with Todd Brazee that is pretty awesome. It may make you cry though, so be warned. It is 25 min long.

Watch it on the Angela Shelton TV tab under "Survivor Manual".

Think You've Had a Bad Day?

I've considered myself to have had a more challenging....well, lets just say rough start to the new year. Now don't worry---The Joy Campaign has been both a great kick in the pants, and a wonderful medicine for trying times. For that I am truly thankful. But the "message" I received this morning was unexpected jolt to reality.

I was pushing my shopping cart down the aisle at the Grocery Market down the street from my home. Most have probably been in the situation I was in themselves at one point. Where you aere making calculations in your head if you can afford everything in your basket, and what you can convince yourself you don't really want or need so you can put it back.

Then on the opposite end of the aisle from me, I saw her. A woman and her young daughter, probably about nine years old. Maybe because I am wired as a human, and that's what we do---or for some other more spiritual reason, I glanced at the woman's face. A fresh and painful looking bruise over her left eye.

Now, I believe it's the victim-mentality that lives in nearly all of us (and if it isn't now, it used to!) that has this dialouge with the logic in your head:

"Well, that doesn't mean she was beat up! She could have been smacked in the face by a door, or maybe has been in an automobile accident."

It was when I eavesdropped on the chatter of the child to her mother, that "its not what it looks like" idea was evicted.

"...When we get away from [Joe] and get our new apartment.."

Saying here that my heart sank just sounds poetic. I wish there was some way I could prove in my writing that my heart truly sank. Of course I fought the natural rescuer tendency in myself to want to approach her and say,

"Ma'am do you need help? Are you okay?

As Angela has shared, by and large we can't "rescue" people. Often it gets messy and people end up feeling violated, even though they so desperately wanted out of the desperate situation they were in in the first place. So, for natural "helpers" and "healers" like myself, it's a discipline in impulse control.

But we can allow our hearts to be broken for the pain of others. For many of us, this isn't far away from the same pain we felt at one point. We can be voices and speak for those that aren't strong enough yet to break their silence.

And when we think we are having a bad day, or "how will I ever get out of this mess?" Realize as I did, that in my case no one has beaten me today, yesterday or this month. I wasn't raped last night in my own bed. I don't have to walk around in public with the badge of others violence against me on my face. Almost more of an insult to my personhood that the first thing people will see of me is "victim".

Countless numbers of men and women woke up this morning not being able to claim that. It is sad that it seems to be a privilege to be a human being and not be victimized or abused. But sometimes that knowledge is the start that is needed to dig out of the pit of despair and that things will never change.

So, I know the next time I get caught in the negativity of a bad day, I am going to remember that anonymous woman and her child in the grocery store.

Break the Silence. Live Joyfully, Love Yourself, Love Others.

Dear Jane,

I got your message and yes, it is okay to be angry. You live in hell, of course you can be angry. There are many in your situation being held in prison by their family - literally. I spoke to another one of them online. But it was her dad poising as her - soooo creepy. He revealed himself pretty early on that it was really him. He's so dumb that he didn't even realize that I figured out I was talking to him and not his daughter. Creep. When you think about it, it makes sense that he was on there pretending to by his young girl and talking to her friends. Gross. Yet another way to control the one you are abusing and get your rocks off talking to their friends! Perps have all kinds of ways to stop an escape. They watch your every move.

You have to be smarter than them.

When your own family abuses you many times (like yourself) you made an agreement that in order to survive you were going to split. The problem is that you can forget that you made that agreement and have a really hard time putting all the pieces of yourself back together. You are not crazy. You abusers are crazy and they try to make you think you are crazy.

As far as getting out goes, you have to save money. It is very good that you got a job. I suggest you have them pay you through paypal and start a new account that no one knows about - don't use the account you already have that they know about! Hide and save your money even if you have to open a safety deposit box somewhere.

Express your anger away from them. Practice sports. Learn to fight. If you express yourself around them they will only put down the fortress walls quicker and heavier. You've got to think ninja-style and be smarter than them in order to escape. You and I both know that if you stay he will get your pregnant and then rape your children. That is the cold hard fact.



Jane History:
http://survivormanual.blogspot.com/2007/11/dear-jane.html
http://survivormanual.blogspot.com/2007/12/is-it-okay-to-express-myself-and-get.html
If you were following my old blog on angelashelton.com/weblog - this is the girl who we tried to save. http://www.angelashelton.com/weblog/2007/03/16/the-past-two-weeks/
I call her Jane now instead of Katie. So when you see Dear Jane, I am talking to her as well as a few just like her. There are many in this situation - just take the roof off of family courts nationwide and you will find a boatload of horror!

Fighting for Jessica

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I thought many of you may like to see this. This is a story I know well and an example of how you can move on, fight, and take back your Light. Check out her bat!

Fight for Jessica.

New & Improved Survivor Books Reading List

We have a New and Improved Survivor Reading List. Angela and I discussed how the 'Manual' was starting to look a bit cluttered (and I know I have enough of that in my own life, right?). So, I've stream-lined the process where you wont have to keep scrolling through the page to find the Book resources you want. You can check it out here! It's also makes it easier to purchase, let your local bookseller know you are interested in ordering, and to read reviews of the books that may interest you on the journey of healing

We may continue to prune and tidy up with other areas and categories in a similar way as well.

Keep on being your amazing selves and living JOYFUL lives!

What is Art Therapy and Why is it important to work with an Art Therapist?

What I know about art:
art is fun
art can be messy
art surprises
art tells a story
art can keep a secret
art is curious
art is poignant
art saves lives
What is Art Therapy and why is it important to work with an Art Therapist?
Art therapy is making art with a person who is educated about how art and your psyche relate. Working with a real Art Therapist (there is a master’s degree and nationally recognized credential for this field!) makes a difference. Because art making is so powerfully transformative huge shifts can come very quickly. It is important to know how to contain big feelings as they come up.
You might not know that some materials could be triggering to those of us that are carrying scary memories. [For example, while using clay can be a grounding experience, using red or brown clay could be retraumatizing for a person that has been abused around blood or feces. White or gray clay would make a better choice if you are using clay.]

Some of us need containment, yes, but some of us are so numbed out and our feelings are so shut down that we need help to become MORE expressive.
Q. If I don’t even know what I’m feeling, how can art help me?
A. Some materials can stimulate your creative juices and bring up your energy. With art therapy you might find dreams changing. You might become more aware of your surroundings. You might find your relationship with yourself and your past changing. As you gain more control in your art you may find you gain more control in your life, too.

A good Art Therapist will know what materials and interventions are appropriate for you as you work together.

My personal philosophy about art making is this: I believe that we are all made of the same creative stuff that created the universe. Therefore, when you stimulate creativity in one area of your life (making art, dancing, writing a poem, knitting, etc.) other parts of your creativity are also stimulated. When we do something creative we begin to heal in thousands of unseen ways because we are tapping into that original creative source from which we are made.

There is much more information about Art Therapy out there. Here are some links:
www.arttherapy.org (I regret their “Art Therapist locator” page is not working at the moment)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jY4s-3UEjg

You may have guessed by now that I am an Art Therapist myself. I live and work in Ann Arbor, MI. Here is my URL: www.artistrees.com Contact me if you have questions!
-All the best,
Susan Boyes, ATR-BC, LMHC
Registered Art Therapist, Board Certified
Licensed Mental Health Counselor