How to tell my Phoenix story without graphics?

I will do my best to paint pictures with words. Scary, enlightening, luxuriously rich in spiritual support, my “phoenix journey” has led me to a strange new landscape as a newly self-loving person.

Maybe you will relate to the feeling of being disconnected from your old life and not quite centered in your new one? I hope that my sharing will comfort you and help me gain perspective. I just heard the cry of a hawk as I write this! That sound tells me that a message is coming. For me or for you? Let’s continue and things will unfold as they will.

The Phoenix Journey

The legend of the Phoenix is a resurrection story, a magical bird, which self-destructed in a burst of flame, only to be born anew, more powerful than ever.

A little hesitant to step fully into the current grace of freedom to be authentic, I hang back a bit today and let the feelings pass through my soul. I am loved. Protected, safe and alive. Uncertain. Curious.

Where am I in the transformation and resurrection process? Where are you?

Some days I feel burnt to a crisp-not “toast of the town!” But through the blessing of horses and prayer my life has shifted and continues to move to a place of peace.

Hard to believe this is me-the girl who was afraid to leave her toxic family, despite incest, betrayal and narcissistic abuse. I was the same age as Christ, when He resurrected (33), before I had the courage to begin my journey by finally leaving home. Realizing that I had no control over my parents’ alcoholism was a start.

Their dependence on me left me feeling unsure of myself, incapable of self-care and carrying their burdens for them. In fact, I was the strong one and that strength is a blessing.

The Phoenix Journey: On The Incredible Power of Starting Over No Matter What

What really changed my life was passion. He was tall, dark, handsome and graceful. He had a huge heart and had fallen on hard times, looking skinny and nervous. He was impatient with me, shaking his head when I tried to control him and rejecting others who tried to befriend him. He and I had a lot in common.

Phoenix had four legs and was 15 years old, a broken thoroughbred race horse saved from slaughter by the owners of the barn where I had begun taking horseback riding lessons. He changed my life because I love him and fully committed myself to his presence in my life for the long run.

It was Love with a capital “L” as I had loved horses from the time I was an infant and toddler-about the age that my father molested me. My rocking horse, my stick horse, my Breyer horse statues all led me to a different world-a National Velvet place of freedom and the power to jump hurdles.

Phoenix was with me through the miscarriage of my twins, Conor and Cassie, conceived with a man who was using me after his shattered marriage. He was with me when I learned my hard-won Condominium was worthless after an economic shift and that my job was gone too.

No work, no home, no children, and no dream of marriage to this man I loved. My parents were drinking heavily again and my brother rejected my pleas for emotional support. My friend who shared the cost of Phoenix’s board had stopped paying her part unbeknownst to me. He was being evicted from his barn.

What saved me was that I moved with my horse to a rented rural farmhouse, where Phoenix lived in the shed behind the house. All of a sudden, my child hood dreams of living on a farm with my horse came true. In the midst of my life being burnt to a crisp, a new life began.

The new life was truer to my real self, comforting in a very real way and beautiful. I lived on a flower farm with greenhouses of beautiful plants each spring. Flowers are my other passion.

As fate would have it, after some time we needed to move on and I bought my own home, converting the carriage shed into a two-stall barn for Phoenix and a companion. We named it Phoenix Hill Farm.

Now I am not renting someone else’s farm, I have my own farm. For the past 18 years I have worked to restore the house and barn, slowly and miraculously paying much higher expenses for the gift of a lovely home –the one that feels like home to me. There are special flowers here too!

Resurrection. Phoenix rising from the ashes. What is your resurrection story? In what ways has your life healed as you become your true self?

The old has to fall away, because it’s not a true match for your soul purpose and does not fit your beautiful self.

As I look back, I see the situation that almost broke me led to a new start. Now I am facing a similar transition. I have to acknowledge that the brother I idolized was sexually inappropriate with me too. That the neighbors and I are here deliberately to teach each other the lesson of forgiveness, and that I am spiritually protected at all times.

That gratitude is the only appropriate response when our lives fall apart…because it is part of a renewal process. That my work as an Equine Specialist is shifting and I don’t know what that looks like yet.

Each step brings us closer to ourselves. For me it is hard to love my inner gawky, seventh grade geek who loved Simon and Garfunkel’s song “I am a Rock.” A rock feels no pain and an island never cries. Not true.

Be still and be led. Go ahead and cry. Love that awkward “tween,” colicky baby or shaky adult inside. Know that it will become clear and that the Phoenix journey has room for more than one resurrection.

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