ShareWIK.com

As a coach, I am often reminding my clients to celebrate their successes.  If they don’t take time to consider how far they’ve come, they will constantly be grasping for something bigger and better and will never feel happy or content.

But sometimes, I admittedly forget to follow my own advice. I reach a goal, or I experience an internal shift in attitude, and I don’t notice. Or I think “ho-hum, whatever, time to move onto the next thing.

Case in point. About a month ago, I received an email from a staff member at the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center (http://www.clevelandrapecrisis.org/), who was looking for survivors of rape and sexual abuse willing to be interviewed by a TV station. The station wanted to interview them  about how they were being “triggered” by the graphic media coverage of Anthony Sowell (http://www.cleveland.com/anthony-sowell/), who is accused of the murders of 11 women and allegedly raping and attempting to kill a number of others.

Part of the point of the TV segment was to let survivors know that they can reach out to the Rape Crisis Center for help; they don’t have to go it alone.

As a survivor of rape and child sexual abuse, I volunteer to talk to the media if an appropriate topic comes up, as a way to give back to an organization that has helped me transform my life.

But when this opportunity came up, I immediately ruled myself out. I actually heard myself say “Nope, that doesn’t apply to me,” and promptly hit the delete button, sending the message into the trash bin.

In my mind, it didn’t apply to me, because while I was following the Anthony Sowell trial, I wasn’t being triggered. Did I have strong feelings about what I was hearing about how those poor women had been brutally raped and killed? Absolutely. But it was nothing like what I would have experienced many years ago, when I was in the early stages of healing from the sexual violence and abuse that I’d experienced as a young child. Back then, reading graphic descriptions about rape or murder or any kind of violence would have shaken me to the core, causing flashbacks and body memories and nightmares and literally making me sick.

In fact, there was a time when I shuttered myself from anything that smacked of violence –  sexual or otherwise – because I simply couldn’t bear to witness it.

But today while I admittedly don’t seek out violence on TV, in movies or on the news, I don’t avoid it either. I may cover my eyes during a particularly gruesome scene, but I no longer need to bolt from the theater or stay away all together.

Now that’s progress! But instead of celebrating my growth and saying to myself isn’t it great that I’m no longer triggered by violence like this, I was very ho hum when that message from the Rape Crisis Center arrived in my mailbox.

It wasn’t until weeks later – when I was reading another article in The Cleveland Plain Dealer about Anthony Sowell’s trial – that I began to notice this internal shift inside. I don’t remember what caused me to become aware it, but something clicked. Suddenly I realized that I was reading this article and feeling not exactly fine, but grounded enough to endure the gruesome descriptions of what had happened to these poor women. It was a change that had undoubtedly occurred slowly over the years as a result of all the healing I’d done.

Maybe my story isn’t dramatic enough for the 11 o’clock news. Maybe it isn’t what news is made of, but for me, it was a huge headline. It’s a story of courage and strength and healing, and ultimately, a story of acceptance and forgiveness. Mine is a journey that continues today, because while I’m miles away from where I was years ago, there is still more healing to be done.

Taking time to look at how far I’ve come, makes me grateful for all the people and organizations that have helped me along the way and for all the miracles born out of faith.

I tell you all of this because I know that sometimes, when we’re in the middle of a healing journey, it is difficult to see that we are actually making headway. So I am here to remind you that wherever you are on your journey, whether you’re healing from rape or child sexual abuse, or going through a grueling divorce, that you ARE making progress, and that you WILL transcend whatever you are facing.

Ellen Brown is a certified professional coach, based in Cleveland, OH, and a regular columnist on ShareWIK.com.  Visit her website at http://ellen-brown.com. 

For more Ellen Brown columns, click  here.

©2011 ShareWIK Media Group, LLC