Editor's Note: Rhonda Britten (Author of “Fearless Loving” & “Fearless Living”) will be our guest LIVE on Conscious Life Awakened Speaker Series (CLASS) this Tuesday, January 27 at 5 pm PST. Sign up for the free series here.
By Rhonda Britten | Huffington Post
After my recovery from my mother's murder, I have always known I wanted to do something to honor her. Sure, I get that, in some ways, my whole life has honored her. I would agree. I have lived, on some level, healing the legacy of my mother and father's pain/abuse/betrayal (all of that and more).
This week, something special happened. Something radically wonderful. In truth, a dream come true. The other night I was the voice of honor for Linda's Voice, a nonprofit foundation created by three daughters (yes, I am the middle of three girls myself) who lost their mother to murder at the hands of their stepfather.
After 25 years of staying silent with their pain, last December Kelley, Amanda and Summer Whitis confronted their stepfather in prison (he lived; their mother died). Amanda, the middle daughter (just like me), called me before that fateful day asking for support, advice, maybe even a little permission.
One of my dear mentors, Marianne Williamson, had sent this amazingly beautiful, albeit fragile, woman to me so I could help guide her through the second-most difficult day of her life. I was beyond honored. And talking to Amanda about how she should support herself, what she might ask, anticipating what he will say (and not say) healed me, too.
When you give of yourself in a true, real way, I don't think you can stop another layer of pain from scabbing and closing up for good. Working with her through her worries and fears reminded me how far I had come (I could be with her pain) and how, for so many years, I had been afraid to confront my own father. He was dead, after all. But that didn't keep my need to do it from going away. Fourteen years after his death, I did confront him, in a way I will never forget. It was the turning point in my life.
That night started off the same as usual. I couldn't sleep. I was 28 years old, freshly sober, and once again terrified to go to bed because I knew what lay waiting for me. My father, once again, would chase me through the woods, putting bullet holes in my back and sides and front. He never stopped once he started shooting.
This is the way it had gone for 14 years… night after night, my father would lie in wait until I shut off the light, closed my eyes and there he would be. Smiling. Waiting. Knowing there would be no escape. He was bigger and stronger and could outrun me, so each morning I woke up the same: exhausted, depleted and never fully believing that I could get out of bed with so many big giant gaping holes torn right through me. I could literally feel them. Some mornings I swear I could put my finger, my whole hand sometimes, from one side of my body to another.
It only got worse when I got sober. At least when I was drunk, I would have a mini-stroke informally called a blackout. What made me an alcoholic was, those blackouts didn't stop me from drinking… they made me drink more. Each one a brief yet welcome relief from trying to outrun my father as I lived my own terrifying version of ‘Groundhog Day,' my father murdering me night after night after night.
But this night would be different for one reason. I couldn't take it anymore. Now that I was sober, I felt everything. I felt my hopelessness, my anxiety, my worry, my guilt. I felt every single feeling.
And I could feel him. Right there in my closet. Just waiting. But now there was no drink for me to dull my senses. And no man, either, to distract me. When you drink for a living, you attract drinkers, and when I quit drinking, my boyfriend of two years was gone, too.
Within one month of getting sober, I lost my boyfriend, was hit by a car and couldn't work as a waitress because I had stitches running down my entire face and my jaw was practically wired shut. But those are all stories for another time.
This particular night I was exhausted and lonely and, dare I say, angry. With my father in the closet, but my body desperately needing sleep, I had to make him go away. But how?
Read the rest of the story at Huffington Post…
Rhonda Britten is an Emmy Award-winner, repeat Oprah guest, and TEDx speaker who has devoted her life to helping you master the fears that hold you back. She's a pioneer among the next generation of transformational leaders who has changed lives in over 600 episodes of reality television, is the author of four bestsellers including her worldwide hit “Fearless Living” that has been translated into over 15 languages, and is the Founder of the Fearless Living Institute. Her work comes from having had to pull herself out of a spiral of addictions and suicidal tendencies that arose after she witnessed the horrific murder-suicide of her parents at the tender age of 14. Her simple yet life-altering method, called Fearless Living, takes you from living in a world of scarcity, doubt and FEAR into one where you are consciously and purposefully creating your life from a position of strength, passion and self-love.
Sign up for her free talk now.
