My name is Mary Kaye Manning. I am 68 years old and have a 43 year employment history as a social worker/ therapist. I have a Master's of Education degree from the University of Wisconsin. I am a community activist, writer and a student of Buddhism.
My childhood contained multiple losses including the deaths of my parents at birth and age 6. I was the subject of a custody dispute and after the deaths of my grandparents felt abandoned, unloved and very much alone. My friends from boarding school and college tell me they perceived me as poised, confident and intelligent. How strange, since under my mask I felt cut off, dumb, guilty, and unsure of myself.
I felt I was the root cause of my family leaving me.
Two marriages and divorces later led me to therapy as I attempted to deal with the events of my life. Nothing was resolved as I grew less and less in touch with my inner feelings. Over 30 years I met with dozens of therapists and still life was unmanageable. My caretaking reached epidemic proportions as I focused on everyone but myself. My children were caught in two parenting games I did called emotional distancing or what our family referred to as "smother-mother". Depression, overweight and medical problems began to occur and were compounded as real life, as I called it, continued to happen to me.
I began to give up and felt that I was collapsing inward. Joy and happiness eluded me.
I began to notice a series of ads for an evening at the Co-op with Sandy Levey-Lunden as the presenter. The text said something about clearing troubled relationships and somehow that sounded like something that might benefit me. I went, carefully selecting a chair farthest from Sandy. I liked what Sandy had to say but carefully put all my ego energy into crafting reasons I could not attend, which would of course guarantee that I could remain emotionally cut off, "orphaned", victimized by outside forces and cut off from the peace that I had been pursuing all of my life.
The Power of Clearing certification course allowed me to finally express myself and to experience relief from my grief and losses. I was able to reconnect with myself in innocence and without my mask. To be supported and cared for during this emotional process helped me to realize there was hope for my life and for others who would open themselves to the clearing and healing. My heart and spirit have opened. I feel a miracle has happened in my life. The best part is that my daughter was with me in the course and that we are making the journey together not as conflicted females but as the soul mates we were meant to be.
Guillaume Apollinaire wrote “Come to the edge, he said. They said: We are afraid. Come to the edge, he said. They came. He pushed them and they flew.”
Sandy, Thank you for the flight.
Mary
May 2007
