My story
Suicide has been a personal issue for me since I was around five years old.
When I was nine, my family went to a movie where all the people that killed themselves were tortured in the afterlife for eternity. This had a big affect on me as while I had a lot of pain, being tortured in hell for eternity seemed worse.
I never actually tried to kill myself. I can remember contemplating it and having my chosen method ready to go, but not following through. At the time my biggest fear was that I would fail and not die. The image I had was me in the hospital and being asked "why?" and the thought of somebody asking me "why?" terrified me.
By the time I was sixteen I was really unhappy, I had some physical injuries that caused me ongoing pain and chronic sinus infections that left me run down and worn out. By the time I was 18 I was seriously pondering that maybe the movie was wrong about being tortured for eternity, and as I was really unhappy it couldn't be worse than what I was experiencing. I knew what I was living was something I wasn't prepared to do for too much longer. I remember thinking that maybe getting stomach cancer would work as I wouldn't be tortured for eternity; I would get out of life and no one would be mad at me for dying from cancer.
In December of my 18th year, my parents offered to send me to a personal growth retreat and I accepted. During the 5 days there I got rid of 80% of my illness symptoms, cried for the first time in years, and got a little better at deciding what I wanted.
I returned to Winnipeg and decided I was quitting first year university. I got a job working nights at a gas bar. It was a terrible job. I lasted a little over a month. I had decided to return to PD Seminars (now called Haven) to take a 26 day personal growth workshop called Phase 1. While I waited to go back to Gabriola Island in British Columbia, I landed a job at Bargain Harold's and and loved it! I worked there until it was time to go.
It was spring when I returned to Gabriola for Phase 1. Phase 1 was a lot like the 5 day workshop, just more days and people. They were either more unhappy or more committed to sorting out their lives to be willing to pay for 26 days of 3 group sessions a day. I thought I was getting a lot out of the program but was voted one of the people getting the least from the program by quite a few people. They were so wrong!
I ended up staying to take Phase 2 which started right after Phase 1 ended and was also 26 days long.
During my time there, three critical things happened for me. I decided I wanted to live and that if I was going to be here on this planet, I might as well have a great life, not just one of getting by. I learned the tools I needed to release the emotional pain from inside my body. I also noticed that when I did important things I made sure I was sober and I thought about how important my life was. I decided that my life was important and I wanted to be present in it as much as possible. So I quit drinking. I had started drinking when I was 12 and by high school it was my primary weekend recreational activity.
My time at Haven saved my life. I really was committed to living and really worked to stay on the side of life. I constantly had to reaffirm that choice as I had a lot of emotional pain that kept surfacing and if I didn't deal with it promptly I would start to numb out and have accidents. I had a very thin line between being in life and the path to less than life, which I had spent so much time in. I couldn't allow myself to be half alive any longer.
As I worked through my pain over the coming years(It was my primary focus for quite a few years) I gained more space and with that my diligence to stay open and fully in life would fade a little until it was in my face in some way. At that point, I would deal with what I needed to.
It wasn't until almost 20 years after my first visit to the Haven that I encountered Family Constellation work. I loved it, and it resonated deeply. I joined a training with Francesca Mason Boring and discovered it was the most natural easy process for me. The training with Fran was all experiential and I experienced work that released and resolved some huge and deep stuff for me. I also was exposed to the theory that people were pulled to suicide for a reason.
Bert Hellinger who developed Family Constellation work had found that the majority of the people who he worked with over the 25 years he was developing his Family Constellation work were pulled to suicide for reasons that were deeply subconscious.
It wasn't until a few years later that I found and resolved the subconscious reasons I had been so drawn to death most of my life. Once these were dealt with my need to die dissipated. The energy behind the pull to suicide for me pretty much disappeared once the roots had been resolved.
Earlier in my life even though I had chosen life, it hadn't stopped my thoughts of dying, I had simply accepted them and consciously made the choice to live over and over. Now I am in life in ways I have never been able to before.
I have experienced joy and amazement in life and my heart is open more than ever before. While it had been getting better for a long time, this is a whole and much better level I have been gifted and claimed.
It really does get better.
When I was nine, my family went to a movie where all the people that killed themselves were tortured in the afterlife for eternity. This had a big affect on me as while I had a lot of pain, being tortured in hell for eternity seemed worse.
I never actually tried to kill myself. I can remember contemplating it and having my chosen method ready to go, but not following through. At the time my biggest fear was that I would fail and not die. The image I had was me in the hospital and being asked "why?" and the thought of somebody asking me "why?" terrified me.
By the time I was sixteen I was really unhappy, I had some physical injuries that caused me ongoing pain and chronic sinus infections that left me run down and worn out. By the time I was 18 I was seriously pondering that maybe the movie was wrong about being tortured for eternity, and as I was really unhappy it couldn't be worse than what I was experiencing. I knew what I was living was something I wasn't prepared to do for too much longer. I remember thinking that maybe getting stomach cancer would work as I wouldn't be tortured for eternity; I would get out of life and no one would be mad at me for dying from cancer.
In December of my 18th year, my parents offered to send me to a personal growth retreat and I accepted. During the 5 days there I got rid of 80% of my illness symptoms, cried for the first time in years, and got a little better at deciding what I wanted.
I returned to Winnipeg and decided I was quitting first year university. I got a job working nights at a gas bar. It was a terrible job. I lasted a little over a month. I had decided to return to PD Seminars (now called Haven) to take a 26 day personal growth workshop called Phase 1. While I waited to go back to Gabriola Island in British Columbia, I landed a job at Bargain Harold's and and loved it! I worked there until it was time to go.
It was spring when I returned to Gabriola for Phase 1. Phase 1 was a lot like the 5 day workshop, just more days and people. They were either more unhappy or more committed to sorting out their lives to be willing to pay for 26 days of 3 group sessions a day. I thought I was getting a lot out of the program but was voted one of the people getting the least from the program by quite a few people. They were so wrong!
I ended up staying to take Phase 2 which started right after Phase 1 ended and was also 26 days long.
During my time there, three critical things happened for me. I decided I wanted to live and that if I was going to be here on this planet, I might as well have a great life, not just one of getting by. I learned the tools I needed to release the emotional pain from inside my body. I also noticed that when I did important things I made sure I was sober and I thought about how important my life was. I decided that my life was important and I wanted to be present in it as much as possible. So I quit drinking. I had started drinking when I was 12 and by high school it was my primary weekend recreational activity.
My time at Haven saved my life. I really was committed to living and really worked to stay on the side of life. I constantly had to reaffirm that choice as I had a lot of emotional pain that kept surfacing and if I didn't deal with it promptly I would start to numb out and have accidents. I had a very thin line between being in life and the path to less than life, which I had spent so much time in. I couldn't allow myself to be half alive any longer.
As I worked through my pain over the coming years(It was my primary focus for quite a few years) I gained more space and with that my diligence to stay open and fully in life would fade a little until it was in my face in some way. At that point, I would deal with what I needed to.
It wasn't until almost 20 years after my first visit to the Haven that I encountered Family Constellation work. I loved it, and it resonated deeply. I joined a training with Francesca Mason Boring and discovered it was the most natural easy process for me. The training with Fran was all experiential and I experienced work that released and resolved some huge and deep stuff for me. I also was exposed to the theory that people were pulled to suicide for a reason.
Bert Hellinger who developed Family Constellation work had found that the majority of the people who he worked with over the 25 years he was developing his Family Constellation work were pulled to suicide for reasons that were deeply subconscious.
It wasn't until a few years later that I found and resolved the subconscious reasons I had been so drawn to death most of my life. Once these were dealt with my need to die dissipated. The energy behind the pull to suicide for me pretty much disappeared once the roots had been resolved.
Earlier in my life even though I had chosen life, it hadn't stopped my thoughts of dying, I had simply accepted them and consciously made the choice to live over and over. Now I am in life in ways I have never been able to before.
I have experienced joy and amazement in life and my heart is open more than ever before. While it had been getting better for a long time, this is a whole and much better level I have been gifted and claimed.
It really does get better.
