Post #7 – Women’s Memoirs, Writing and Healing – Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler
Finding Healing through Writing
We invite you to send us your story of how writing has been a form of healing for you. Some find healing through journaling. Others find healing through writing their memoir. Perhaps there are other ways that writing has been healing for you. Just email between 200-600 words (or longer if you contact us first) to: Matilda (at) WomensMemoirs (dot) com. We are interested in publishing your thoughts on writing and healing on this website — either with your name or anonymously, your choice. Today’s story comes from Pamila Jo Florea.
CONTRACT WITH MYSELF
Pamila Jo Florea
A CONTRACT – that’s what they called it at the personal growth workshop I attended. Personal growth, my eye. I was angry, bitter, jealous, vengeful – everything except loving. And now this? A contract on how I want to live my life? How I wanted to live my life was just to survive. It wasn’t rocket science, people. I needed to just get through the day!
I adored my sister, and she avoided me. My father’s gun, pointed at me, haunted me years later. My dreams were filed under “unimportant” in The Scheme of Things. And everybody pissed me off.
The facilitator gave several instructions for the writing of the contract. First, answer the following question: When you are living your life at the top of your game, what exactly are you doing, what does your life look like? Yeah, yeah. It was the rules that caught my attention.
Rules for Writing a Contract:
1. Must be positive.
2. Must be active and in the present tense.
3. Must be one sentence. Usually it will have two clauses – cause and effect – what do you want and how do you get it?
I scoffed but followed through. I was nothing if not a follow-througher.
Fast forward twelve years. That contract at first was merely another way to play with words, something that had been my personal art for many years. Since then, however, that little sentence has been a source of inspiration, guidance, and courage. My higher, most holy, most honorable self put these words on a 3 x 5 card:
By caring for myself, negotiating and maintaining loving boundaries, and consciously accepting others, I am making healthy choices and weaving the tapestry of my life.
Those simple words have led me to make peace about my father, divorce my toxic sister, take salsa dance classes, curtail correcting and judging others, learn to cook, and follow my dreams of traveling.
Yes, I fall down. No I don’t follow the contract exactly or every day. But like the onion, I peel off layer by layer to find the essential me. I’m no longer the scared person desperate to be accepted. I have found a community filled with love, each person following their own contracts – like little bubbles above their heads – and most importantly I’ve found my own voice of wisdom. My contract reminds me every day – this is what love looks like.
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