My Healing Heart

My Healing Heart is the simple, true story of my search for God and love. My quest began early in life, catalyzed by a painful childhood marked by sexual and emotional abuse. In these pages I share my trials, tribulations, and joys of a lifelong search for love and truth. It is my story, but it is also your story. Even if you did not come from a dysfunctional family, you grew up in a chaotic and out-of-balance world. Most likely, you were not taught how to love unconditionally, or how to express that love toward yourself and others. As part of that, you did not learn how to set appropriate boundaries. You learned to doubt yourself and to give your power to other people. If, like me, you did suffer from abuse or some other form of betrayal, no one taught you how to make sense of what happened. No one showed you how to heal. No one gave you a map of how to communicate your feelings without harming yourself or others in the process. Telling my story was not easy, in part because it is hard to talk about negativity like abuse when you grew up conditioned to keep such things secret. My life story is much more than abuse, of course. However, you cannot understand the longing I developed for love and wholeness without knowing about the piece that served as my initial catalyst. As you read my story, you will understand how my search for truth led me on a journey across several continents. In tandem with this, my inner journey led to rich studies of ancient mystics and wisdom holders. I studied the philosophies and teachings of such respected spiritual masters as Edgar Cayce. Often known as the sleeping prophet because of intuitive readings he offered when in deep trance, Cayce was the catalyst for my spiritual path of discovery. Through years of studying and applying his teachings, I was able to heal my heart. During the process of this healing, my life unfolded in ordinary and sometimes not so ordinary ways. My professional life involved a twenty-six-year career with the US Foreign Service. This satisfying work enabled me to travel all over the world, and to observe many people of diverse cultures. I discovered how similar people really are across the world. In these pages, you will experience some of what I learned as I worked in such places as Turkey, Colombia, Austria, and Pakistan. During my foreign assignments, I fell in and out of love, and as part of those relationships continued to grow beyond the confines of my early life. As an example, on assignment in Pakistan, I adopted a baby just three hours old. I was totally unprepared for the challenge I found, being an American and adopting a child in a Muslim country. Challenges like this added to my early-life traumas, becoming the fuel to seek answers that can only be found outside mundane teachings. I reached out to wisdom from others who had bridged the ordinary with the spiritual. Cayce became a key role model. Seeing the benefits of Cayce’s wisdom in both my own life and others, I eventually formed study groups based on Cayce’s teachings. Becoming a role model and teacher myself did not stop me from learning and being challenged. I discovered that a natural part of being human is that life continues to bring opportunities to grow. My story illustrates a few of the more difficult challenges in my adult life. One of these—the biggest of my life—occurred after I retired from the US Foreign Service and moved to Chile. I had expected to be able to enjoy a simple retirement at the seaside, and to do all of my favorite things with the gift of free time. What happened next turned my life upside down, forcing me to develop additional strength and inner resources. In these next pages, you will learn about how I dealt with this challenge, while also hearing my lifelong story of growth. You will find here a resource for overcoming your own obstacles. You will have no doubt that your heart can also be healed. Visit me at www.MyHealingHeartBook.com.