Freedom that Heals
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 at 3:00AM 
Contributed by Irene Watson, MA
Freedom is something most of us strive to attain. But, firstly healing must occur in our lives before we can move forward in attaining the freedom we so desire. I wrote The Sitting Swing: Finding Wisdom to Know the Difference so those that choose to read my book, can heal their own lives, regardless of how shattered they feel they are.
Not knowing where to start I just started writing. I started in a chronological order and reflecting on my life from birth. I am gifted with a memory that goes back as early as 2 years old. My experiences are very vivid and clear. (And, confirmed by my mother.) As I started writing a lot of “stuff” came up for me; mostly memories of the emotional, and sometimes physical, abuse I received growing up. But, I kept on writing, and writing, and writing…. It was very cathartic for me. And, I got a lot of aha moments.
Even though I had already been at the recovery center in Quebec and was able to deal with much of the trauma I experienced, re-visiting the experiences seemed to solidify and allow me to even move more forward in my life than I had before. The 28-days in the recovery center is what saved my life and gave me the understanding of why I behaved as I did, and why I accumulated the addictions I did. Of course, the experience at the center had to be part of my story. It shows how I rebelled against anything they were telling me as well as finally “getting it.” It was my turning point.
However, The Sitting Swing: Finding Wisdom to Know the Difference isn’t just about my story. Although many readers express paralleling their lives to mine, there is more for them. The book is full of explanations of the “why” we behave as we do, “why” we act and react the way we do, and there is a lot about finding our spiritual self – the authentic place we all have. In the end, it shows how we can re-write the life scripts that have been passed down for generations. We no longer need to be prisoners of someone else’s beliefs and thoughts, we can actually create our own lives. That’s the bottom-line message of the book. And, it works, because I know – I’ve been there.
Irene Watson, MA, is author of The Sitting Swing: Finding Wisdom to Know the Difference, and co-editor of The Story that Must Be Told: True Tales of Transformation, and Authors Access: 30 Success Secrets for Authors and Publishers. She is a workshop leader, managing editor of Reader Views, and president of a non-profit Higher Power Foundation. Irene lives next to Barton Creek in Austin, TX, with her husband Robert.
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Reader Comments (1)
Let Go
To let go does not mean to stop caring, it means I can’t do it for someone else.
To let go is not to cut myself off, it’s the realization I can’t control another.
To let go is not to enable, but to allow learning from natural consequences.
To let go is to admit powerlessness, which means the outcome is not in my hands.
To let go is not to try and change or blame another, it’s to make the most of myself.
To let go is not to care for, but to care about.
To let go is not to fix, but to be supportive.
To let go is not to judge, but to allow another to be a human being.
To let go is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcomes, but to allow others to effect their destinies.
To let go is not to be protective, it’s to permit another to face reality.
To let go is not to deny, but to accept.
To let go is not to nag, scold or argue, but instead to search out my own shortcomings and correct them.
To let go is not to adjust everything to my desires, but to take each day as it comes, and cherish myself in it.
To let go is not to regulate or criticize anybody, but to try to become all I dream I can be.
To let go is not to regret the past, but to grow and live for the future.
To let go is to fear less and love more
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