 I am the third daughter born only one year after my sister so every one called me a mistake-baby. My mother was very strict and would punish me and I was the youngest so I was not able to shout back or get angry and when mother beat me if I cry I would get more beating so I had a lot of suppressed anger and sadness. My father was loving and I liked my father very much. When I was 7 years old I was raped by the cleaner in our school. I was playing when I fell down and sprained my leg I could not walk so one of my teachers asked him to pick me up and take me to the first aid room till my mother would come to take me home, when he took me to the first aid room he put me on the table and started taking out my uniform I kept pushing his hand but I was having so much pain in my leg i could not get up then he came over me. I started to find it difficult to breath he scratched me on my thighs and back till I opened up then he entered me, the pain was so much I could not fight back any more I simply lay flat I was bleeding. My mother took me to the doctor I would not let the doctor to touch me suddenly I don't know what happened to me after that when I got up I had so much pain I could not sit or stand for few days. The peon had torn my vagina and I had 2 stitches my mother did not take any action as I had 2 sisters elder to me and she did not want the family name to be spoilt, she also warned me not to tell any one. After this incident I slowly recovered but there was a lot of fear pain and sadness I could not sleep at night. In the middle of the night I would get up shivering and would find it difficult to breathe, I did not like to be alone I was not interested to go back to school but I was forced to go. I found it difficult to walk and did not like to play. I would talk only to my best friend X in the same class. I was very poor in studies and I liked to be at home. As I grew up this same fear came back when I had my first period. I was bleeding for 8 days and would get up in the middle of the night with fear and feel breathless and start sweating this went on for about a year then my periods became normal. I completed my 10th and when I was in the 12th I lost my father whom I loved so much at this same time my mother was paralyzed and we had lot of financial problems at home. So I had to stop my studies and I got a job in the garment Industry.
 I worked for about a year. I was 18years old when I started working in the company opposite to where I was working the owner's son wanted to talk to me and go out with me but I was in love with my school best friend so I was not interested. I would talk to and help only a 10 year old boy who bought tea for us. One day when I was coming to work he had caught this 10 year old boy and with his friends was beating him with a nylon rope. I can still get this image before me of the marks on his body and face. I got in between and stopped it but the boy did not let me to touch him because he was beaten up because of me. This was also a fearful shock for me and I felt very sad. Always I have this fear in me to get close to people and touch them because I feel some pain will come to them. I could never drink tea or coffee after that the owners son would force fully come and pay for my food or sit at the same table where I would sit so I left the job and started taking classes at home for tailoring and drawing but my sisters would tease me and say she is born at home so she is always at home and I was always trying to prove my self so I started looking for a job but this time I was alone as my best friend had left for London. I was 21 years old I went for an interview and the boss asked me about my family back ground and then if I had work experience he told me I can come to work from the next day then he took me to the sampling department where I would be working I found no one was there so when I asked him he said that they had gone for pooja and would be back in 10 min so I got in. When I entered he closed the door and I was so frighten as he took off his shirt I tried to open the door but it was locked he then came close to me pushed me to the wall. I tried to kick and hit him but he caught my left leg and pulled me down he twisted and hit it on the ground. As I sat down on the ground he pulled my leg again and kicked me on the lower abdomen. I was then flat on the ground the pain was so much then he tied my hands with cloth and came over me and bit me on the breast and entered me I could not take any more pain. I soon fell unconscious when I came back to consciousness. I was with out any clothes. He had taken away my dress. I started begging for my dress then he once again came over me and I could not move with the pain I was again unconscious then. After regaining my consciousness I got up dressed up then I dragged my self to the door. He put me in to his car and dropped me near the sea shore I sat there for a long time and then went home I felt l would be put out by my sisters at home. So I did not say at home. I said I fell down from the moving bus I took treatment only for my leg. My ankle was cracked and knee joints were opened, tendons fully damaged. It was very pain full and swelling was so much I also suffered for a long time with the bite on my breast. I was so shy to go to the doctor so I treated my self after this I was so sad and BROKEN. I wanted to kill my self, I tried two times to kill my self but each time my mother's face was always before me. So I kept my self back I now had to make my self to understand that I have to say good bye to which was so hard for me and that I could not get married. After about one and a half month I realized that I am not getting periods and I went through a lot of tension of becoming pregnant and then I took a medicine of some herbs made at home. This poison was in me for 24 hours before coming out I felt the burning in side me and after every thing was flushed out then I could not walk or sit down there was so much pain there was also discharge from my breast which was so pain full because of the bite. I went through a lot of anger and guilt feelings after this for having destroyed a life I was not able to forgive my self I had to leave X and it was pain full for both of us. This added to my fear, whoever I come close to always has to suffer because of me !
When I was 22 I was again raped by my distant relation. He hit my face on the wall and broke my teeth, it was so pain full he also entered me from the back which was so pain full I was not able to fight back as he touched me I was shivering and could not move. After all this, it took about a year for me to recover but I was SAD and BROKEN without any hope.
EXPERIENCE OF INNER FREEDOM RETREAT AT BELGAUM
As I started the retreat Fr. Vijayanand, S.J. kept saying about getting in to silence and to come to the feeling level. I found it easy to get to the feeling level as I am a artist and poet I learnt art from my father from the age of 6 he taught me to feel and paint to know the color by touch even if my eyes were closed.
As I started working on the first attack I felt when I shared with some one from my mind I could only say I had so much of pain, so much of fear, so much of sadness but could not express exactly how much the body felt but as I worked on going through the incident with body and mind my feelings simply came up which I did not know was so fresh in my mind as it had happened yesterday. At one time I felt as if it happened a few hour back images, fear, pain and sadness was so much negatively stored in my mind which made me feel always DIRTY and LOW as I went through a lot of fear and pain I spent the whole night in pain but after repeating again and again I gained power over these feelings. At first I felt that the fear was out of me then sadness then only the pain left me. But one thing was a question for me when it happened to me years back I was first free from pain then traces of sadness and fear still remained. I also had so many questions in me why did this happen to me, why did he do this to me why did God let it happen to me but I could not get in touch with anger.
As I started working on the second attack I was able to get in to the feelings but it was so much pain and fear that I felt like that there is no end to this pain and I wanted to give up. I lost hope that these feelings would change. But father with his loving and caring presence each day encouraged me with my suffering. Each morning he would come with a sweet smile. Some times I felt why dose he not understand that I have already experienced so much of pain and why again but again he would leave me in pain and fear and go away in these movements I had only my fear, my pain, my sadness with me saying to me that I am and I can only be my best friend! After 3 days of suffering I felt the pain the sadness the fear was no more. Some thing I did not want to look at or think of because it had no power over me. It has become a part of me. I was also not able to look at my body and I hated my self because of what had happened to me but now there is an inner joy that my body was with me in all that happened to me and it knows only me best I have just started looking at God's creation with wonder of me as I am. I had a lot of desire to kill my self after the incident so I stopped eating and drinking and was completely socked in the feeling, could not come out of it. I was so frightened when father touched my cheeks but it was this loving touch that brought me from death to life. Once when I was in severe pain I simply could not see father I thought that daddy had come back to life these experiences helped me to know that god still loves me. No matter what has happened to me and my fear to accept touch in the beginning was only because of my un willingness to accept God's presence with me in this way my fear, pain, sadness soon became the best part of my life here also I feit the same way first sadness then last pain left me.
I now started working on the 3rd attack and I felt it was easy to get to the feelings as I was confident that I could over come it. I felt the most painful part was difficult for me to gain power over the tragedy but as I worked I felt that why should I feel powerless this is a part of my inner self so pain and fear, sadness could no longer hold me. This created a lot of interest for life in me to discover what life beyond this is. As I write today I feel a ray of hope in my life and when I look past to these 3 attacks I feel the more pain and fear and sadness the more deeply did life take me. The more struggles in life I had to go through the more I learnt and discovered the realities of life the down to earth of being only human and just a woman. Then I started working on anger which had between myself and others. Though it still takes time to be check, I do believe that in the future I would have enough capacity to have sincere communication. In the retreat I felt myself like a silkworm which wrapped itself with many layers and finally broke through from it. It was sort of re-birth This kind of experience is very special for me! I deeply thank for Father's help with a compassionate heart during the retreat. It helped me to walk out of the valley of negative experiences.
Besides, I thank for other retreatants' presence and our togetherness. Except the sadness about my family, I also worked on some wound experiences with others and my physical condition and so on. I experienced the journey of being liberated from bondage, turning into light from darkness, turning into joy from sorrow and turning into peace from restlessness. I treasure this precious encounter. It opened the door towards God for me. How splendid God's love is!
I came on the retreat apparently because of a depression. I am an artist aged 55 years old. I am a single lay woman. I lived in India from age of 24 to 36. Since 2003 I have been coming to India regularly. In 2006 I got a one year visa. The trigger for the crisis was that the person who had written an invitation refused to renew it. This meant that I would have to return to UK and live in my mother’s holiday house as I do not have a house of my own. Although my mother was not living in this house all the time she came regularly for visits. My relationship with her was very stressful.
She feels she cannot understand or appreciate my interests and way of life. She behaves in a very dominating way and expects me to do many practical works. She very rarely expresses appreciation and more often finds fault. I thought that this irritation was caused because I was born eighteen months after my oldest brother died at the age of three. I had read a lot about the “replacement child”. I thought she wanted me to be a boy to replace the dead one. This perception turned out to be inaccurate.
After the refusal of the visa letter I developed a terrible cough. It was so loud that one night the neighbours were woken up and came to see what was happening. I could not breathe. I am renting a room from someone who has done the Inner Freedom Retreat. She suggested I try some of the exercises for going into my negatives. I found this gave me some relief. I decided to go on an eight day retreat. I found this helpful. However the short time meant that I jumped to some conclusions that on the longer retreat turned out to be wrong. Between the two retreats I went to U.K. and met my mother. On my return I immediately went to Belgaum.
I came without booking my return ticket. This allowed me to extend the time from 30 days to 6 weeks. This was very helpful. The focus of the retreat was the relationship with my mother. As soon as I started to work on my angry feelings the cough gradually faded away. After this Fr. Vijay asked me to enter into my feelings of love and dependence on my mother. Here I got a lot of constipation. The most difficult and finally most liberating part of the retreat was this sudden switch between these opposite feelings. I thought that by being physically thousands of miles from my mother and by living by a very different set of values that I had separated myself from her. It was a world changing shock to discover that in reality I am dependent on her as if I were still a tiny child.
I can write this sentence so easily – but entering these feelings was very hard. I felt it was impossible to jump from hate to love. I felt like running away from the place. I got as far as the road. But then I reflected that my life is in a mess. So even though it seemed so irrational and I felt incapable, I gave it a try. After a lot of fruitless effort one evening after supper I decided to walk up and down in my room in the dark. I looked for a candle but could not find one. I was too lazy to go and search for one. Somehow the darkness helped me and at last I got into the experience of being adored by mother and enjoying it. I hugged a pillow and imagined my mother kissing me. I got into the feelings of total involvement with my mother. She was delighted to have a girl baby after two boys.
Then in the fantasy of her appreciation an unexpected memory came up. She started to say “You are to be my mother. You must never have your own children. She I will be your child.” She had lost her mother when she was aged three years old, coincidentally the same age that my first brother died. My second name is my grandma’s. I felt totally upset. I howled and vomited. I had always told myself that I was unmarried because I wanted to dedicate myself to art. While it is a visible reality that on the whole it is very difficult for women to combine a family with a full time career, this experience shocked me. Another aspect that I worked on was how my mother had wanted me to cut short the grief and failure that she felt about losing the first child.
A large part of my depression was a feeling of failure. To be successful as an artist is of course very difficult. However I began to understand why my mother feels so disappointed of me. None of her unconscious wishes have been fulfilled. On my side the effect has been an inability to live the images of life and freedom presented to me in my pictures. In each place I’ve lived I have parasitically joined myself on to some other person’s vision. Then I have got into a quarrel and left the place. I have not been able to assert myself and to live my life, my vision.
Since coming out of the retreat I feel various aspects of my life are beginning to change. Two weeks after the retreat I led a workshop on “Gender and Ecology using Masks and Music”. This had been scheduled much before going on the retreat. I felt a lot of ease and enjoyment in taking a leadership role. I felt supported by the institution where it was held by the professor in charge of the students. Previously I have often felt paranoid about taking a leadership role. I felt I was being undermined by the people I was working with or the institution. I now feel that unknown to myself, I have been carrying all he negative feelings of my mother and projecting them into the environment around me. Well, I have to yet to see if this positive leadership experience was a one off fluke or whether the changes in myself can enable me to function like this in other situations.
Another area of change that I feel is in the positive images in my pictures. Previously I had the ability to make these images but my life was far from matching up to the images. I feel that following the discipline of not doing my sad art work on the retreat very helpful. The gift of expression through art can also be a defense against experiencing the feeling
After coming out of the retreat I did feel the need to make pictures of my dead grandmother and older brother in relationship initially to my mother and myself. After getting this outside me I moved on to my relation to these dead ancestors. The pictures followed in a visual way the process of the retreat. I began to realize that I was unnecessarily carrying these ancestors who themselves were quite happy. I found a poem by Rainer Maria that struck me in a new way although I have read it many times earlier.
“In the end, those who were carried off early no longer need us:
they are weaned on earth’s sorrows and joys, as gently as children
outgrow the soft breasts of their mothers. But we who do need
such great mysteries, we for whom grief is so often
the source of our spirit’s growth-: could we exist without them?
Duino Elergies 1 Translated from German by Stephen Mitchell (Vintage International, N.Y. 1989)
Yet now I feel that in fact I do not need to use my time thinking about my grandma or my brother. Now that I have felt as far as possible how their deaths affected my mother and myself I can let them go. In the series of pictures the one that makes the most impression on me is the one where I meet myself carrying an empty coffin. It reminds me of the story where Jesus heals the bent woman.
I have also noticed that when I receive a letter from my mother I do not react emotionally. I am beginning to see that she is quite separate from me. However I still have a lot of work to do in my reactions to certain people, especially powerful men. I can understand now that my emotional reactions follow similar patterns to the relationship with my mother. I feel upset when they seem to feel threatened and negative towards my creativity and power yet I am still hanging on their approval and affection. When the negative feelings come up now I admit them to myself. I find if I spend time with the feelings they gradually subside.
During my sixteen years back in U.K. I did seven years of weekly psychotherapy. I found this illuminating and helpful. I also made the 30 days Ignatian Spiritual Exercises in Wales in 2005. The Inner Freedom retreat uses many insights from western psychology. It is very striking that the work is done in a Christian retreat centre where there is a contemplative atmosphere and the exercises are also done there. In the West I have seen Buddists who make a connection between spirituality and psychology. A good example is Core Process Psychology at Karuna Institute, Devon, U.K. I have not come across it with Christians. It was a privilege to be able to focus on my inner blocks and patterns in an uninterrupted manner. This is not to say that the restrictions of staying in the room and keeping silent were all that easy. However I feel that this discipline plus the directions by Fr Vijay enabled me to dive deep into myself.
At present I feel very focused and energized. I am looking forward to the coming year to see how I react to the situations as they arise. I am eager to see where I just go back into my old habits and where I can already perceive a change. As stated above when I do get upset, hurt and angry, I now try to give time to feeling my feelings. My whole focus now is in living my life. The more I disentangle my self from other’s expectations, especially those of my inner mother, the more I can feel free and able to contribute my art and creativity. I will also be looking out for where I use my art as defense against living my life.
Another poem by Rilke sums up my experience of the retreat.
……………………………….”Let my joyfully streaming face
make me more radiant, let my hidden weeping arise
and blossom. How dear you will be then you nights
of anguish. Why didn’t I kneel more deeply to accept you,
Inconsolable sisters, and, surrendering, lose myself
in your loosened hair. How we squander our hours of pain.
How we gaze beyond them into the bitter duration
to see if they have an end. Though they are really
our winter-enduring foliage, our dark evergreen,
one season in our inner year-, not only a season
in time-, but a place and settlement, foundation and soil and home.”
Duino Elergy 10- details as above.
Before I made the one month inner freedom retreat with Fr Vijayanand, I was a depressed and frustrated person who was struggling to exist.
I am an extremely talented and capable person, but I could never believe in myself. I was holding on to a parental rejection which I experienced at the age of three and as a result t could not feel the love, care and support that I received from my parents, family and friends. I felt no one loved me, no one cared for me and I was alone in the world. I never had the courage to express myself verbally or non-verbally and as a result I had done an excellent job at suppressing my feelings – both negative and positive. I always looked happy and contented and so no one knew what was happening inside me. In short I was a human being with a heart of stone.
My father is a alcoholic and I have been too ashamed to acknowledge his presence in my life. We also used to have a lot of fights and arguments. He was a very strict person & as a child I was scared of him & consequently scared of all persons in authority. I felt daddy didn’t love me & I was craving for his love and affection. An I worked on my feelings of rejection I began to experience a lot of sadness and a tremendous amount of guilt which almost tore my heart apart, because it was only now at the age of 32. That I realized how blind I had been to the tremendous amount of love daddy has been showering on me over the years, while all along I had disowned daddy as I was convinced that he didn’t love me.
I also realized that we as a family had disowned daddy, because he was a embarrassment to us and this resulted in daddy being a very lonely person, rejected by the family. I was now determined to be reconciled with daddy and also to make him feel loved and accepted by us, his family again.
As soon as I got back home after the retreat, for the first time in my life I sat and spoke to daddy. I told him about the rejection I experienced as a child, how scared I was of him and also how ashamed I was of him, because I couldn’t accept the fact that my daddy could be an alcoholic. I apologized for all the disrespect and the fights that we have had & asked for his forgiveness. After receiving daddy’s forgiveness I reassured him that I will always be there for him. This has resulted in a new bonding relationship between my dad and I.
I was a person who could be exploited and manipulated very easily, because I didn’t have the courage to express myself, while at the same time I was craving for love & appreciation. As a result I was getting angry and frustrated, but I couldn’t help myself as I wasn’t aware of what I was doing. I was so busy pleasing people, especially my family, that I had stopped living my own life. I was getting depressed and lonely and life didn’t have meaning any more.
I went through painful and tough struggle as I worked on my feelings of rejection, betrayed, regret, disappointment and anger for allowing myself to be manipulated and exploited. It took me more than 6 days to burn up all the anger that was in me. Fr. Vijay gave me a big sack, which I kicked, hit, jumped on and kicked around and, then I finally killed my family. I then went to the chapel, forgave and accepted them and 1 experienced a deep inner peace. After this the very same sack which I had kicked with so much of anger, I began to hug with an outpouring of love and thanked God for my parents and family. I now began to feel and experience the love of my family in a more intimate and meaningful way.
I was born again with a new life – a life full of feelings!
Two years ago I came to this 3-day retreat thinking it was an ordinary Ignatian retreat, then Fr Vijayanand told us to go back through our life history and reexperience the painful events we had passed through, I thought I could do this rapidly, as I had already done it through various retreats, general confessions, T.A. experience, etc. Indeed I had passed through many particularly painful events and situations, but ten years before, I had a wonderful experience at a Charismatic retreat, an experience of thorough forgiveness for each and all those who had made me suffer. Since that, I had met occasionally all of them and had renewed normal relationships with all. I had forgotten and was never thinking of all these past events. Anyhow on Father's advice, I went through it all again, within 4 or 5 days, I felt that all these ancient wounds were dried-up scars, so I spent the rest of the retreat on prayer.
This year I came back for "a month of prayer" in the beautiful X.T.C. setting. But Fr Vijay advised me to return again to my past life-history and relive all the painful feelings of past events. By God's grace I was able to go very deep within myself and I discovered that, if on the conscious level everything had been forgiven, settled, had forgotten, in the unconscious a bout of horrible feelings were coming up, feelings of hatred, despair and brokenness, such as I had never experienced on the conscious level. The old feelings of resentment and bitterness consciously experienced at the time of the events, had sunk deep roots into the unconscious, without my being aware of it. They had grown like a tree from a simple seed, in evil and in intensity, hidden from me, in deep hidden recesses of the unconscious. I worked up on all of them, according to the simple method proposed by Fr Vijay. It took me 2 weeks of hard work and struggle to feel absolutely free of all of them, there were but dry scars in the unconscious as it had been on the conscious Ievel years before. Spontaneously I felt a new love emerge from the depth of my heart for all those who had made me suffer, therefore a new loving forgiveness, and I felt free and full of peace.
Through this retreat, I realised that, unaware of it, the painful hurts and feelings we daily experience and forget, sink down to the unconscious, deeply and powerfully, and poison our depth. I see now how necessary it is, to daily reject all the negative feelings we happen to experience, without delay and without giving them the chance to grow with such evil and intensity, in our unconscious depth.
Going attentively through my life-history, I could also see how three painful incidents in my early childhood, had so powerfully yet unconsciously- invaded the depth of my being with strong negative feelings, so that my relationship with God as Father, had been very much affected with feelings of rejection and sadness or revolt, of fear and withdrawal. My whole life had been but the playing and replaying of the same feelings, in different ages and situations. I have now a great awareness of myself, especially of these strong negative feelings so influential through my life-history. I have also experienced this method to get free of them and allow love to win over. This retreat has been a hard, but deep and very profitable experience, of awareness, purification and inner freedom.
I am very happy for doing this retreat directed by Fr Vijay. For me this chance was God's providence. During this INNNER FREEDOM retreat I experienced many healings and within me I feel very happy and peaceful. This retreat helps a person be liberated from all kinds of negativities.
Glacoma Healed:My eye specialists were wondering how I was suffering from Glacoma. My eyes were so bad, I could not read more than a little time could not look at TV, any bright lights and had to use eye drops very often. This was the condition when I attended your inner freedom retreat. I was very happy to have got healed from this sickness during the retreat by working on my negativities very specially on one particular fear. After coming to Singapore doing my Theology studies, my new doctor said it is better to check up once a month. So on 20th May I went again for checking, the doctor mentioned that my eyes are in good condition even balanced at both sides. Now I do not need to make appointments within these three months, he suggested to se him in September. So, is it a good news? Thank you very much really, Thanks to our great God.
Dear Fr. Vijay
Greetings from the US. (She is an American Maryknoller, scripture Professor in a Catholic University and a retreat director). I am enjoying my home leave in the US. I went for a medical check up and was told to reduce the dosage for B.P. considerably. We three who had done your INNER FREEDOM RETREAT have had several good conversations about the same and sharing of our experiences. I have been practicing all you taught us during the retreat and know that this is making a big difference. May be one of these days I will be off the medication completely. A good news for that I have introduced your method into my retreat direction. Since it has you helped me a lot I am looking eagerly for another chance to join your retreat for a second time.
I am Doctor working as a teacher and consultant is a PhysioTherapy college. I would like to share briefly my experience during the retreat at Belgaum under guidance of Fr. VijayAnand, and the impact it had on my life.
I was diagnosed as having a very mild cervical spondylosis a few months ago when suffered from pain in the neck and shoulders. During the month of April and May I developed spasms of the neck muscles on the left side. These spasms made me very scared. It was triggered off on two separate occasions. The first was when I purchased come mushroom on the roadside and cooked and ate it along with my family I suddenly panicked that it might have been poisonous. The second was when I had to take an Inj. TT when I poked myself I panicked whether I had withdrawn the barrel to make sure that it was in the muscle. Which otherwise could enter the blood stream.
Following them two instances the spasms became very frequent and due to fear and stress the neck muscle and shoulders were stiff. And I found it difficult to do my usual daily work. Together with this I became restless, had burning sensations over both the upper and lower limbs, and palpitation.
I consulted a very good Neurosurgeon. After a thorough examination and tests like MRI, stress test and thyroid functions test. All the reports were normal and he clearly told me that I did not have cervical spondylosis. He asked me to go elsewhere for a relaxation, and prescribed medicines temporarily.
It was then that I realized that I had to be relieved of stress, which had mounted up especially in the last few years after my only brother died suddenly and I had to assume the responsibility of my family. Although I did well externally I had not got reconciled to the fact that my brother was no more this was a great suffering. I knew that I would be relieved if I could accept my brother's death together with other fears and worries. I was praying for light when my friend visited me and recommend. Fr. Vijayanand. That was how I reached Belgaum
Since the retreat was already began and I had just about 16-17 days, the working out sessions began on the same night. It is a tough process and at times very painful. But the relief is great. As I started working out on all the important experiences like sorrow, fear guilt and hate. I could see the extent of impact this has had on my subconscious and hence on me. I managed to walk out on most of the major issues by the time I returned home.
Thanks to Fr. Vijay for his gentleness and firmness, which helped me through, this entire process. To make out one incident - this was connected with my neck pain when I cut a few branches of the coconut tree with a sorrowful thought that my brother was no more to do such jobs for us. I was made to work on it for about 4 hours after which my neck and shoulders were totally relaxed and remain so till now.
Is about 2 ½ months after the retreat, I still work out on the negativities as it comes up. Most of the major ones are gone only the minor ones are left. With this I have a much better quality of life. And I have a true insight of what I really am and why I behave in the way if behave.
Many of my other aches and pains have disappeared like the occasional migraine, some throats and coIds, dysmenorrhoea, vertigo etc, with the help of Fr. Vijayanand I have been able to cure myself of all these illnesses. As he often puts it in Christ words.
As I experienced, this retreat is different from others. It is special in its nature. It is unique for an experience, because, I feel, of the whole approach to human beings. For me it remains unique and very special, and if given an opportunity, I would come to do it again. In fact it is an experience worth having, for all religious persons, even those who think they are free, efficient, enthusiastic, and energetic in life.
WHY DO I THINK SO? WHAT DID I EXPERIENCE IN ONE MONTH?
- First of all, the emphasis is not so much on God, or divine truths, nor on the doctrinal teachings of the church on religious life and prayer, but on ME, MYSELF, MY LIFE EXPERIENCES, particularly my negative FEELINGS, which possess a revelatory power. These feelings are truthful and even disconcerting.
- This retreat took me back to my past - my life history, with all its ups and downs, all the painful experiences of sadness, anger, fear. which like the main trunk of a tree, hold out a whole lot of other negative feelings like guilt, anxiety, jealousy, hatred, unforgiveness, etc.
- Being an experienced religious for over 32 years, I knew intellectually pretty well, that I am product of these painful experiences - wounds, hurts, injuries to my sensitivities, to my hopes, to my dignity and success, they manifest the truth about myself, they form facets of the precious totality of my life. Yet. I do not want to feel the pain of an argument with a friend, the sense of rejection and loneliness. I resist the very thought of my failures, my jealousy or pride.
- I knew that all these painfilled feelings are submerged, pushed down to the subconscious/unconscious levels, so much so, I am hardly aware of them though I am seriously hampered and affected by them all along. I am blinded, blocked and prevented from being FREE, HEALTHY, HAPPY and ENERGETIC in life.
- Over the years I adjusted myself to many convenient techniques, defense mechantams to shield myself from the effects of these negative feelings, for survival in a society/religious community, never to be spotted out as inferior, inefficient, frightful, sad, angry etc. My appearance and even personality took on a different tone and colour, with attitudes and characteristics that somehow appealed to others.
- I know that basically prayer is an offering of myself to God and experiencing intimacy, communion, peace, joy, etc., in his presence, but in reality, I made it a matter of offering my good feelings - my success, virtues, goodness - all what I believe to be worthy of the creator, Including my longing for God, all my egoistic plans hopes. THIS IDEA HAD TO BE CHANGED.
- What I do not offer to God in prayer really weaken my gift and life. My sadness, my anger and my fears were all shelved off from the daily self-offering at the Eucharist.
- During this retreat I took the opportunity to look at my life with all that took place, the positives and negatives which shaped me
- the memories of pain and hurts, wounds and scars. I listed all my negative feelings, from the time I could recall them to the present day. I began to open myself to the possibility of feeling, experiencing, reliving them with all the intensity of those times and days.
- I had many such feelings, the vast majority of them appeared to be part of the religious formation and centered around few persons who did influence my initial formation and also hold the realms of authority, who could definitely affect my future life and mission as a religious.
Frankly speaking the Inner Freedom Retreat has incredibly and completely changed me this February, a non-christian, completely. It keeps influencing my life until now. The process of attending this retreat is exactly like what a Chinese wise man said "face it, accept it, deal with it, let it go".
We are often told to forget unpleasant happenings and I did consider it as my top principle of life attitude. I used to avoid touching my painful past history. On the first day of the retreat, the Father and the Sister Chow came to my room to question me some questions. My tears came out. I could feel their sincere concerns to help me to solve my problems. So I was trying to open my heart to believe that this method can help me. In the past years I put on mask on my face and looked like a strong person. In fact, I am lack of sense security and trust in others. There was no true happiness in my heart. I realize that my heart has got sick!
In my childhood, at my age of 5, my father was an alcoholic and was used to lie on somewhere outside. Because of this, my parents were fighting all the time. The domestic violence often happened. Therefore my mother went to the temple to pray more often and did not come home and look after her children. Their quarrel made lots of noise and made me feel nervous and afraid. She would beat me when I could not sleep and annoyed her. I used to cry under the blanket on the bed. There was a long period of time I was alone at home in the evening. Nobody was around until 8 or 9 O'clock p.m So I was in fear of ghosts and felt very lonely.
Now I am 31 years old and deeply realize that my childhood and teenager's experience, unpleasant memory often emerged in my mind. I have been longing to have a warm family life, because I was growing up in the family lack of love and filled with fear. So in my retreat I dealt with my negative feelings in this period of time, namely: sadness. I was very grateful to the Father and the Sister who were willing to help me and accompany on this journey. Gradually I entered the tunnel of my deep memory.
When I started feeling my negatives, I felt very painful. It brought me back to my childhood memory and re-experience my negative feelings again. I heard my parent quarreling, and felt terribly helpless, I was scared and could not stop crying. It made me feel headache, heart-pain and abdomen ache. They were natural reaction of my body because of my great pains. The sad feeling was burnt up for few days. I felt no tears any more when I repeated dealing with sadness. This is such a mystery for me! There was no sorrow left in my heart now. I found myself able to "let it go". Finally I have no hatred towards my father and mother and could accept the reality in my life, namely: they had hurt me and did not look after me properly.
Due to my fear in childhood and loneliness in teenagers, there was a shadow in my heart which made me become a thorny plant. Until I grew up, there was no closeness at all between myself and my family. Even in my relationship with others, I was worried that others will hurt me at any time. It made me remain in hostility with them and isolate myself with them. During the retreat I worked on this unpleasant experience in the process of my growth. Then I found there is change within me and felt my life lighter. The world seemed different to me. My past memory did not stifle me any more I felt able to breathe the fresh air freely. My negative feelings did not come to disturb me or block the good part of myself. I re-found there is love in me and I was slaved by my negative feelings for 30 years. I was its slave and controlled by it in the past. Now I feel myself liberated and relaxed. For me, life is not a burden any more. Now I will have a brand new start towards my future life.
Meanwhile my relationship with my family has been improving in these days Little by little I open myself, accept others and forgive those who had hurt me. It brings forth positive interaction
I am very happy to share my Inner Freedom retreat experience with Fr. Vijay . Earlier I had joined a social work organization. I was very happy with the organization, and the organization too appreciated my work. I was thinking then, that I would be working there for my life time . One day I was told to leave the institute, because the management had seen some traces of “psychiatric disorder” in me. It was a terrible blow and a huge shock to me. In my heart, I had committed myself to that institute for life time, yet I had to leave. It meant only death, and death for me. As a consequence, I had gone through immense and intense pain, and the wound it caused was very deep. In retreat Fr. Vijay asked me to go through the process. As I was narrating some rejection, felt by me, I could sense the fear gripping me at that moment like something real, tangible and material. When I mentioned the same to Fr. Vijay he asked me to find out what had shocked me, and to look within me if there could be any guilt feeling.
Many times in the recent years I had been feeling that my entire life looked like only failure, nothing except failure on all the fronts. This realization had frightened me, and I had tried to ignore or push aside these feelings. Now here in retreat, as per the instructions I went back into the past.
After 10th Std. I had decided to take science and later to go into research in geology. On the spur of the moment I offered myself to stay with my sister in her city to look after my nephew, her son, as I had realized my sister wouldn't care much for her own son. She was too involved with her own self to care for anyone around. Thus I took commerce and continued my education in that city. My 11th std. results were not very good. My father was disappointed with my low marks . This was a shock to me and it created an immense guilt feeling in me, for I had adored my father all my life and I always wanted to make him happy but had ended in a failure. I had made a sort of resolution in my mind - never to go back to my native place till I had achieved considerable success in my academic career. My sister's nature was very menacing , she was never satisfied no matter what I did for her. All the time she was busy attending to her own needs. My nephew and I existed in her world only as her pastime. This had troubled me a lot. At home she was cruel and selfish in her dealings with my father, other sister and other members of the family. During my 12th Std exam I didn't look at my time table properly and I reached the exam hall only after the paper for that subject was over. This was another terrible blow to me. I knew only I was responsible for this disaster, this was my mistake I deserved punishment. I refused to take my father's money for further education. I took up a part time job because I wanted to take care of my nephew. I didn't want him to go through the mental torture I had gone through in my childhood.
This same sister had lost her husband after six years of her marriage. Her elder son was four, and the younger son was just six months old. So my mother went to her place to be with her. We were still young. My brother was four years older than me, another brother was two years older than him. This elder brother of mine though born with extreme handsome face and beautiful complexion was crippled in the brain. his brain had grown only to the level of five year old child. People called him mad and this too hurt me very deeply within. My father's job demanded his absence from house for days. So we three siblings were left to fend for ourselves. Life was not very easy. Whenever I came home from school, I saw our house door was , my mother was not there to welcome me home. I hated to see that lock on the door, and who was there behind the locked door? My brother , who was not sane. We kept him locked because it was not safe to go out unattended. This was another painful memory of my life. And life with my sister was not at all pleasant.
While narrating this I accidently mentioned something of my disturbed past. Actually I had thought , it was not necessary here as I had taken considerable help from some good counsellors, I felt fully assured that this part of my life was fully settled. And the counsellors too had warned me saying that I should not be going on sharing it with anyone as the issue is sufficiently dealt with. Accordingly I had told Father that I didn't want to work on it. But Fr. Vijay encouraged me to go into past-connected feelings and find out if there were any unsettled feelings, so that it could help me a great deal. It would give me a sense of new freedom. He had given me the testimonies of similar experiences. Though I was still very confused and was quite unwilling to enter into the experience of my love affair with a young man and the resulting abortion therewith, I decided to enter into this same experience so that if any negative aspect of it was still troubling me there, I could be freed from it.
This young man had entered our life as a sympathizer in our life. That is the life of my nephew and mine. We both were victims of my sister’s whims and changing moods. In the beginning it was only a plain friendship with that man at intellectual level. Though I had decided and had quite made up my mind to dedicating my life to a social cause, I ended up being infatuated with him. I was so obsessed by my desire to be one with him, that I wanted a child exactly like him. Thinking that we were definitely going to marry one day I gave into his desire of physical intimacy. But when I informed him about the conception his reactions were just the opposite of what I had expected. He was quite cool, he laughed at me, and started making fun of me. He said he was not sure if the child was his, and that I was not a virgin when we came together. Now in my alarm I told my parents everything. Though all the time I didn’t want to hide about our relationship earlier, this man had stopped me from informing them about our affair. They were reluctant to accept this thing but I insisted that I wanted to marry him. Since he was from our relations, this man agreed into marrying me because of the pressure from my family just for the sake of biding the time. But in private he kept on telling me that I was a fallen woman. I was not at all worth marrying.
I realized in my heart that he just didn’t want to have anything to do with me. I ceased to be anyone in his life. Another thing I had realized was that the only person he loved in the world was he himself and no one else. So I decided not to force him into marriage with me, because love is love only when it is left free. I told him he was free to go wherever he wanted. I would leave my family, go to any unknown place and bring up my child. I didn’t want to hurt my family further. With this he was quite alarmed, he changed his earlier stance . He started playing another tune saying he loved me but he was utterly helpless because of his family. And if I keep the baby it would ruin him and his career totally. As a result his life would end up in drinking and drug addiction. I still was madly in love with him, thinking that somehow I would be able to save the baby I gave consent for abortion. Once the baby was gone again he started saying that no man in his proper senses would marry me, and he was not a Mahatma to accept a person like me as a wife. He needed to marry a decent woman.” Of course he needed me”, he said. I realized something very horrible here , I had read stories of women who had helped their husbands into raping young girls. I had gone to the extreme evil in my madness for this man. Now I didn’t want to degrade myself further. Whatever precious in me I had already lost. I had killed my own child, I was literally left with nothing in my life. This man wanted to keep me as his mistress. Just at that moment I decided to end our relationship for good. Keeping aside his hand coldly away from my hand I told him, from that time onwards, he should not meet me or talk to me and that he should depart from my house and life altogether. He went away, wrote letters but I never answered. I never ever uttered his name nor did I anytime enquire about him. It was over for me .(So I thought) I turned back to my own life. It was empty, one evil had gone out of my life I didn’t want any other evil to occupy my heart. Thoughts of revenge on him came to my mind. I wanted to call him deceptively and bang his head on the wall till he died, I could not bring myself to do that. I kept myself busy with reading, I went back to my native place to look out for a job. My family members asked me if I wanted to marry, I refused saying, I wanted to work for orphans, and I would find my own way to live further life. I happened to join a ocial work organization. I was happy there till the time of my departure from there.
Though I was very much unwilling and frightened to go through the same feelings again, when I did enter into my feeling I was shocked to see various feelings there. I felt the pain of losing one’s own baby, the humiliation, fear, anxiety , frustration, sadness, anger and the loss. Yes! All these feelings were there with the same intensity, nothing had gone out of my system. I knew I had supperessed lot of feelings because it was not right for an unwed mother to express such feelings. Father made me go through these feelings again and again till they became neutral. Though the little remnant lingers still, I know I will be able to get myself freed from all the emotion one day. I realized all through these years I was carrying this baggage . I was simply stuck in my past. I never realized it, never became aware of it. And I used to often wonder why was I feeling sad when there was no reason apparently. Now I know these were the feelings of my painful past like a festering wound troubling me all the time. I had mentioned about the recurring dreams that were disturbing me . In one of the dreams, I was travelling on a bus and the bus wouldn’t move further or I would miss the bus, I would wake up feeling a loss. In the retreat I realized it was my own sense of failure and loss. Another dream would show my parents coming home and would go out for a while. I would wait for them till I realized that they were dead .The retreat made me aware that I had not accepted my parent’s death. It was only in the retreat I became aware how painful were the memories of my invalid brother. Most of the time I had thought that becoming aware of our feelings was healing in itself. It was not. I had to go through the healing process for it. This retreat gave me deeper understanding of myself and the freedom and healing I needed.In a sort of a dream I had seen a cat wanting to be tied with a rope.When I reflected, I knew it was me who did not want to go through same feelings again. It is there I had decided, that I would work as per the instructions given , not because Fr. had asked me but because I wanted my inner freedom very much. I never knew that my dreams were connected directly with my feelings.
It is not that I am completely freed from the memories of past. Only after 20 years I sensed in this retreat that I was still attached to this organization where I worked and made myelf miserable feeling rejected and hurt. Another shocking realization was to no that the person who had ruined me through his deception and had degraded me to the lowest limit was stiil there in my heart. With the help I received in the retreat I learnt to accept my painful past together with all its evil . I learnt to accept my own sinfulness and failure The memories and ourselves. Life was not very easy. Whenever I came home from school, I saw our house door was , my mother was not there to welcome me home. I hated to see that lock on the door, and who was there behind the locked door? My brother , who was not sane. We kept him locked because it was not safe to go out unattended. This was another painful memory of my life. And life with my sister was not at all pleasant.
While narrating this I accidently mentioned something of my disturbed past. Actually I had thought , it was not necessary here as I had taken considerable help from some good counsellors, I felt fully assured that this part of my life was fully settled. And the counsellors too had warned me saying that I should not be going on sharing it with anyone as the issue is sufficiently dealt with. Accordingly I had told Father that I didn't want to work on it. But Fr. Vijay encouraged me to go into past-connected feelings and find out if there were any unsettled feelings, so that it could help me a great deal. It would give me a sense of new freedom. He had given me the testimonies of similar experiences. Though I was still very confused and was quite unwilling to enter into the experience of my love affair with a young man and the resulting abortion therewith, I decided to enter into this same experience so that if any negative aspect of it was still troubling me there, I could be freed from it.
This young man had entered our life as a sympathizer in our life. That is the life of my nephew and mine. We both were victims of my sister’s whims and changing moods. In the beginning it was only a plain friendship with that man at intellectual level. Though I had decided and had quite made up my mind to dedicating my life to a social cause, I ended up being infatuated with him. I was so obsessed by my desire to be one with him, that I wanted a child exactly like him. Thinking that we were definitely going to marry one day I gave into his desire of physical intimacy. But when I informed him about the conception his reactions were just the opposite of what I had expected. He was quite cool, he laughed at me, and started making fun of me. He said he was not sure if the child was his, and that I was not a virgin when we came together. Now in my alarm I told my parents everything. Though all the time I didn’t want to hide about our relationship earlier, this man had stopped me from informing them about our affair. They were reluctant to accept this thing but I insisted that I wanted to marry him. Since he was from our relations, this man agreed into marrying me because of the pressure from my family just for the sake of biding the time. But in private he kept on telling me that I was a fallen woman. I was not at all worth marrying.
I realized in my heart that he just didn’t want to have anything to do with me. I ceased to be anyone in his life. Another thing I had realized was that the only person he loved in the world was he himself and no one else. So I decided not to force him into marriage with me, because love is love only when it is left free. I told him he was free to go wherever he wanted. I would leave my family, go to any unknown place and bring up my child. I didn’t want to hurt my family further. With this he was quite alarmed, he changed his earlier stance . He started playing another tune saying he loved me but he was utterly helpless because of his family. And if I keep the baby it would ruin him and his career totally. As a result his life would end up in drinking and drug addiction. I still was madly in love with him, thinking that somehow I would be able to save the baby I gave consent for abortion. Once the baby was gone again he started saying that no man in his proper senses would marry me, and he was not a Mahatma to accept a person like me as a wife. He needed to marry a decent woman.” Of course he needed me”, he said. I realized something very horrible here , I had read stories of women who had helped their husbands into raping young girls. I had gone to the extreme evil in my madness for this man. Now I didn’t want to degrade myself further. Whatever precious in me I had already lost. I had killed my own child, I was literally left with nothing in my life. This man wanted to keep me as his mistress. Just at that moment I decided to end our relationship for good. Keeping aside his hand coldly away from my hand I told him, from that time onwards, he should not meet me or talk to me and that he should depart from my house and life altogether. He went away, wrote letters but I never answered. I never ever uttered his name nor did I anytime enquire about him. It was over for me .(So I thought) I turned back to my own life. It was empty, one evil had gone out of my life I didn’t want any other evil to occupy my heart. Thoughts of revenge on him came to my mind. I wanted to call him deceptively and bang his head on the wall till he died, I could not bring myself to do that. I kept myself busy with reading, I went back to my native place to look out for a job. My family members asked me if I wanted to marry, I refused saying, I wanted to work for orphans, and I would find my own way to live further life. I happened to join a ocial work organization. I was happy there till the time of my departure from there.
Though I was very much unwilling and frightened to go through the same feelings again, when I did enter into my feeling I was shocked to see various feelings there. I felt the pain of losing one’s own baby, the humiliation, fear, anxiety , frustration, sadness, anger and the loss. Yes! All these feelings were there with the same intensity, nothing had gone out of my system. I knew I had supperessed lot of feelings because it was not right for an unwed mother to express such feelings. Father made me go through these feelings again and again till they became neutral. Though the little remnant lingers still, I know I will be able to get myself freed from all the emotion one day. I realized all through these years I was carrying this baggage . I was simply stuck in my past. I never realized it, never became aware of it. And I used to often wonder why was I feeling sad when there was no reason apparently. Now I know these were the feelings of my painful past like a festering wound troubling me all the time. I had mentioned about the recurring dreams that were disturbing me . In one of the dreams, I was travelling on a bus and the bus wouldn’t move further or I would miss the bus, I would wake up feeling a loss. In the retreat I realized it was my own sense of failure and loss. Another dream would show my parents coming home and would go out for a while. I would wait for them till I realized that they were dead .The retreat made me aware that I had not accepted my parent’s death. It was only in the retreat I became aware how painful were the memories of my invalid brother. Most of the time I had thought that becoming aware of our feelings was healing in itself. It was not. I had to go through the healing process for it. This retreat gave me deeper understanding of myself and the freedom and healing I needed.In a sort of a dream I had seen a cat wanting to be tied with a rope.When I reflected, I knew it was me who did not want to go through same feelings again. It is there I had decided, that I would work as per the instructions given , not because Fr. had asked me but because I wanted my inner freedom very much. I never knew that my dreams were connected directly with my feelings.
It is not that I am completely freed from the memories of past. Only after 20 years I sensed in this retreat that I was still attached to this organization where I worked and made myelf miserable feeling rejected and hurt. Another shocking realization was to no that the person who had ruined me through his deception and had degraded me to the lowest limit was stiil there in my heart. With the help I received in the retreat I learnt to accept my painful past together with all its evil . I learnt to accept my own sinfulness and failure The memories and feelings of the past have not disappeared totally , they still surface, but they have lost their poison to harm me again.
It was when Fr. Vijay asked me if I could ask God to bless that man. My instant cry was, No! never. It was an intense struggle for me to forgive the man who had sought my total destruction. And yet I worked hard to bring my elf to forgive thi man not becaue he needed my forgivene, but only becaue I neede my happiness which was free from any hurt or guilt feeling. I learnt in the retreat , I needed it for my healing. It is not like confession where we think once we confess the matter is closed. In reality years we struggle with our hurt or guilt feelings. All these years I was moving around in the world with a feeling that I was hiding my past from the world. Now I unders tood that I was hiding it from myelf as if to deny that such thing happened in my life. I had a sense of ugliness about my own body. I see myelf as a new person cleansed from all the negative feeling of the pas t. Though I forgave this man still I could not say ,’ Bless him Lord’. But after the retreat I was asked the same question again, I knew I choked inside I couldn’t answer. But finally I said , ‘ Yes Lord bless him.’ I sensed a new lease of life entering into me.
As I was praying one day before the Blessed Sacrament , I came to the awareness which shocked me doubly that deep within I have not been able to detach myself from this wicked and pervert man! Without this retreat I would not have been to realize this truth in my life- the difference between the conscious and the subconscious mind. Now with great joy I can say it was worth slogging . I will continue my struggle to detach myself totally and completely from him and gain independence with my God’s help.
Now I look at my life not as a burden to be carried. But a hope that will be realized day by day with the grace of the Lord. I feel happy and joyful. My body movements are light and totally devoid of any pain. I have become very active. All the people who are close to me have noticed this change in me, and express their joy of seeing a pleasant change in me. I too join my hand in gratitude and say , yes it is the Lord who has written the last chapter of the book of Tobit in me.
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I AM A VICTIM OF THREE RAPES: