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The tears that flowed at Duone Castle, Scotland

Present-day;

At Kincardine by Duone, Scotland my four times great grandparents John Junkine and Johanna Stewart Graham were married on the 16th Nov 1816. Whilst one of many great grandparents I have traced, this particular marriage took my attention. Why? Because of the place. Duone, Scotland.

Duone Castle, Duone, Scotland 2019 – Libby Kinna

8 months prior;

Duone Castle has a commanding presence. Sitting majestically atop a small rise it dominates the skyline. I arrived here late in the afternoon as part of a one-day Outlander tour. Yes, I am a bonafide Outlander tragic. For those fellow Outlander fans, Duone Castle was the filming location for Castle Leoch. If you aren’t an Outlander tragic, this castle was also the filming location for Game of Thrones Winterfell (in the pilot) and used in one of the Monty Python movies.  

I digress. Having undertaken the audio tour within the Castle, I found myself standing outside now taking in the surrounds. The wind was chilly and what was left of the sun was setting, the day was coming to a close. My gaze wandered attempting to take it all in. To the right of the Castle, my eyes came upon an opening. The explorer in me wanted to follow the path. The little girl within me was frightened, fearful of being told off for going where she shouldn’t. There was no sign to indicate I could or couldn’t follow the track. I had time. Others were still inside the castle. Like the girls at Hanging Rock, something pulled me towards the opening. Even if I wanted to stay still I couldn’t. My legs had their agenda. They were at the whimsy of a force that I couldn’t see yet could feel. Hesitantly I took the first few steps and started up the small incline. Trees framed the castle to the right. The path went along the wall of the castle. I couldn’t see what was on the other side. It didn’t matter. I was being called by the land. I followed.

My heartbeat increased. My palms were sweaty. I felt excited and scared simultaneously.  

My pace quickened. The closer I got to the top I could hear water. Yet I couldn’t see. As I reached the top and walked through the opening, I saw a river to the right. It was barely visible through the trees and was a far drop from where I stood. One false step and I would be tumbling down into the river. This river swept alongside the perimeter of this Castle on a hill. It was moving quickly. It had an energy of its own. In rhythm, the winds swept through the trees. The sounds enticing. The wind through the trees, the sound of the icy cold water currents making music. Music that my heart connected to.   

“The trees that spoke”, perimeter of Duone Castle, Scotland 2019 – Libby Kinna

Whilst the path continued further alongside the Castle, I didn’t move. I stood transfixed. Taking it all in. My heart rate increasing, my arms sweaty. I became aware of my emotions. Something was stirring within me, deep out of sight. Like a train coming through the tunnel, these emotions roared towards me. I closed my eyes in an attempt to block the noise and feelings. It was no use. I was at its mercy. A part of me yelled “Move, get out of here,” but I couldn’t. I was engulfed. Tears began trickling down my cheeks. Like waves crashing the shore, emotions of grief, of loss a rage and anger tossed me. Tears continued to fall. What the hell was happening? I had not been here before. Logically this made no sense whatsoever “get a grip” I told myself. It was pointless. I was at its mercy. Whatever drew me towards the small opening wanted me here, now. To feel this, to release. I surrendered to my experience and allowed the tears to flow without trying to work it all out.  

As quickly as this began , it stopped. The wind ceased. The trees became still. The river became calmer. Their dance, their music had slowed. Calm surrounded me. My breath returned to its normal pace and air entered my lungs. I became aware of myself within the surroundings once more. I was completely alone. No one or nothing was in sight. My legs were heavy and planted firmly in place. How long had I been here? What just happened? I allowed the questions to move through my mind. Knowing answers would not come. It was pointless. I sat down and felt the coolness of the grass on my legs and buttocks. This took the heat out of my body. As much as I wanted to get up and run away. I knew something had occurred, a transformation, a release or recognition of what was. Something had happened at this place not to me as Libby, but along the time line. There was a recognising beyond the physicalness of self. I had made myself available, I placed myself here and the opening presented. Healing had begun, transformation occurring. What was locked up was now released.

As I carefully made my way back around to the front of the Castle I stood and looked back. Was this a portal? A path to another time? Logically it doesn’t make sense yet the experience was real and profound.

Duone, the place, the River was now firmly entrenched in me. I knew I had to research this place further. What had happened historically? What went on in this castle that could have left such an imprint of grief and loss? Were my ancestors connected to this land? I was curious and the exploration would continue.

Whilst part of the Outlander tour, I didn’t realise that my casual visit to the Castle would result in such a profound experience.

On my return to Australia, I tagged Duone as a place to explore further. One day casually reviewing ancestry tips I was going ‘down the rabbit hole’ with my fourth great grandparents. As you do, you open tips and see what they reveal. Most times they are insignificant. Yet this day, Duone was looking straight back at me through the search records. I squealed with delight when I saw they were married here. I had connected the place and my profound experience with my ancestors. It wasn’t just some random experience. Two of the dots connected.

In regards to the grief I felt, I discovered that the Castle was used as a Jacobite prison and a dower house for widowed Queens. One can only imagine the sense of grief that was imprinted on the land from its previous use.

Current day;

Doune Castle (pronounced ‘doon’)

  • The castle is sited on a wooded bend where the Ardoch Burn flows into the River Teith. 
  • It lies 8 miles north-west of Stirling, where the Teith flows into the River Forth.
  • 14th-century courtyard castle
  • Built for the Regent Albany
  • Substitutes for the fictional Castle Leoch in Outlander was used in the pilot series of Game of Thrones (Winterfell) and in Monty Python
  • Later was a royal residence, dower house for widowed queens and a Jacobite prison

https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/ShowUserReviews-g1010312-d286657-r673914610-Doune_Castle-Doune_Stirling_Scotland.html

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The ancestral view from Stirling Castle, Scotland

Stirling Castle, Scotland 2019 – Libby Kinna

Stirling Castle sits high atop Castle Esplanade in Stirling, Scotland overlooking surrounding lands as far as one can see. Its commanding presence indicative of its historical imprint in Scotland. From here you can see the National Wallace Monument on the edge of the Ochil Hills. Towards the north-east, you can view the mountain peaks of the Loch Lomond & Trossachs National Park. Simply stunning. Rendering one feeling quite small in a land of grandeur and natural beauty.

I arrived here one cold windy blistering March day, part of a one day tour through Loch Lomond with our end destination Stirling Castle. Towards the end of our time at the Castle, quite late in the afternoon, I found myself resting at the back of my tour bus. Having spent a couple of hours exploring the Castle and soaking up its stories of Scotland’s Renaissance Kings and Queens, I was weary. My head full of Robert the Bruce, King Edward, William Wallace, Queen Mary of Scots and Bonnie Prince Charlie.

The inclement weather taking its toll, the warmth of the bus was enticing. As I started to settle in and wait for my fellow travellers to return my tour guide turned to me and said. “Weren’t you the one who mentioned your ancestors came from Clackmannanshire?” Yes, I replied. Earlier that day I struck up a conversation with him. Explaining that part of my reason for being in Scotland was to explore my ancestral lands. I rattled off some towns, foreign to me, only as names appearing on ancestry.com. A friendly guy who paid attention to his guests. He remembered our brief chat. “Well come with me”. Putting my coat and beanie back on I stumbled out of the bus. The blustery winds shook out any weariness. He walked me over to the edge of the car park. “There” here said pointing towards the base of the mountains, “There, that is the land where your ancestors lived.” It was so far away I couldn’t see detail, yet I saw where. Where they lived and worked.

To some, it was a speck on the sprawling landscape to me though, a weary wanderer from Oz, a seeker of connection… it was gold. I hadn’t come ‘here’ on this tour with this expectation. I was merely spending a day exploring a loch and a castle. Never did I expect to be shown, to see and to feel the land of my ancestors. I stood transfixed and he continued to share with me about the type of life they would have had and experienced. I was given an insight into them. Who they were and why they would have left. It was deeply profound. Whilst the trip was loosely ancestral focussed I didn’t have the fortitude to arrange to hire a car and exploring small Scottish villages on my own. However, it wasn’t needed. I was here, I was seeing and I was learning.

It felt full circle.

Stirling Castle view to Clackmannanshire, Scotland 2019 – Libby Kinna

In the late 1850s my great grandparents 3 times removed left Scotland. Embarking on a journey many Scots had taken to a land far, far away. A land so foreign nothing they were prepared for.

They left perhaps seeking a better life. One can only imagine how different my life would have been if they had travelled to the Americas instead. They left in an attempt to improve.

Their choices gave me the life I have now. It provided me with freedom. Freedom that resulted in me travelling here to Scotland. Their land, my land. They didn’t get to return. I have done that for them and with them. I felt this strongly standing on this hilltop at Stirling Castle. As the winds continued to howl and a slight drizzle of rain moved through, a tear trickled down my cheek. A tear of gratitude and belonging.

No longer was Scotland just another tourist destination. Something happened at that moment. It was my home too. Through the DNA pumping through this body, there was a recognition and remembrance of those that came before me.
My tour guide sensing this internal shift, left me to be. To be with them, to be with me.

This is the magic of ancestral travel.

I didn’t set out looking for this place. Yet the land found me. It drew me towards it. It wasn’t planned or expected. Yet it found me. Pulled etherically.

I stood as long as I could. Until the others had returned to the tour bus. Until I was called. It was time to leave the car park at Stirling Castle. I had arrived a tourist. I was becoming an explorer. I was connecting to place in a way previously unknown. My journey had only now begun.

Interested in finding out more? These sites are worth a visit:

https://www.yourstirling.com/clackmannanshire/

https://www.visitscotland.com/destinations-maps/stirling/

https://www.stirlingcastle.scot/

I highly recommend the 1-day Loch Lomond and Stirling Castle tour with Rabbie’s Tour Company. https://www.rabbies.com/en/scotland-tours/from-edinburgh/day-tours/loch-lomond-national-park-stirling-castle-day-tour . I am not receiving any financial incentive to say this.

#enlightenedtraveller #ancestraltraveller #ancestry

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Travelling with an open mind and heart – be present

No two journeys are ever the same.   Yet how many of us return to a particular place seeking to re-experience what we once did?   We all have a favourite place to travel back to, a reminder of precious moments that left us feeling connected and enlivened.   Experiences such as a great dinner in a restaurant, the view from a mountain top or sunset at a beach, walking through a forest, taking in the sights of a historic town or sporting event.  

These experiences leave such a mark that we yearn to return, to re-experience the delight and re-activation of our senses.  Its imprint can be so strong that we make that moment mean something. This place becomes a symbol of that moment. Regardless of what it was, there is a part of you that identifies that place and moment as special; it is an anchor of happiness, of joy.   

The imprint of this can be so strong that when we seek to re-experience happiness, we can go looking for that once more.  It can become a longing, a yearning for something that was. This doesn’t even need to be related to travel. Even a local restaurant, or going to the football, a social gathering can have the same impact.  It is the association of place with experience.  

For me that place is Melbourne.  It is home. The place I was born, lived for over 40 years and have raised my young family within.  Living interstate now for just on ten years, I still need to travel ‘home’ to Melbourne, usually once or twice a year.  As I say to many I need my ‘Melbourne fix’. You don’t realise the energy of a city until you no longer live within it.   There is something about your home city, a physical connection to land and place that engenders a sense of belonging.  

I love watching my footy team play at the MCG, going to the Theatre, visiting the National Gallery, shopping, eating and walking along some of my favourite streets and parks.  

Chapel St, South Yarra is a place I associate with fun times and warm hearted memories.  It is a lively street full of cafes, boutique shops, trams bustling along, people immersing themselves in life, Channel 10, apartment buildings…. the list goes on.  It wasn’t a place I lived in when I was in Melbourne, but as a tourist it is a fab place to base yourself. This recent trip was my fourth and I was keen to eat cake at my favourite patisserie, browse the shops (that I don’t have access to in Perth) and soak up the atmosphere.  Super excited once more for these experiences. 

On this most recent trip, when I started to walk up Chapel St it was different.    My favourite cake shop was gone, the clothing boutique I loved had closed, many shops were ‘for let’ and a huge apartment block had been developed completely changing the landscape of the street.  It was such a disorienting experience. Everything I was looking for, that I associated with joy was gone. My expectations weren’t being met. I felt deflated and sad for what was and no longer is. It became just another street.  

The same can occur when you return home to visit family.  We can take a snapshot of our time together and put it in a photo frame etched in our mind.  We can assume that when we go back that we are all the same, that we can pick up from where the photo was taken.  It is not often the case though. People change. You change. The place changes. Attempting to reinvent or assuming it is the same can be naive.  It can be confronting.  

“But places change; they go on without you…For the truth is that you can never simply “go back”, to home or to anywhere else.  When you get “there” the place will have moved on just as you yourself will have changed”

A Thin Place: a narratives of space and place, Celtic spirituality and meaning’ Laura Beres


I have had a similar experience travelling to Central Australia.  I first travelled to Uluru in the mid 2000’s. My husband and I took our three kids there twice, once in a campervan ( yes we drove from Melbourne to Central Australia with three kids in a campervan! ) the other in a motorhome (not much better actually!) .  Exploring this land with my family was special, introducing them to our Indigneous culture, watching a sunrise at Uluru and walking the valley at Kata Tjuta. It did have a profound effect on me. The imprint is so strong that I returned there on two other occasions on my own; once in 2011 and again in 2012.  These journeys were different. As I should have expected them to be because I was on my own.   

Uluru from sunset viewing area at Yulara, Northern Territory 2010 Libby Kinna

Uluru became a symbol of vastness, expansiveness and stillness.  Something I experience ‘there’ but often nowhere else. It is a deeply spiritual place and the connection to land seeps up through the souls of your feet and into your bloodstream.  You become one with all that is. There is no separateness. This was a feeling I didn’t always have in a city. Uluru became a place I thought I needed to be ‘in’ to feel this way.  

Six years later I returned to this magical place, alone, with fond memories and seeking.  Not sure what for but I was returning looking for something I previously had. When I arrived, nothing happened.  The ‘wow’ didn’t occur. The tears didn’t trickle out of my eye and my breath didn’t get taken away. Uluru was there with its incredible strong and steady presence and the domes of Kata Tjuta still embraced me in her warmth.  Yet it wasn’t the same as before. Clearly I was looking for something ‘that was’. I was yearning for a past experience in the present moment. Once more I was shown that time moves, change is the constant and experiences can not be re-created.  

Which brings me to presentness.  What my recent experiences travelling back to Melbourne and Central Australia have shown was the beauty of being in the moment.  Accepting that this moment is the only one. You need to fully immerse yourself in it. Because you don’t know what will come next.  It is accepting that you will change, the place itself may not physically change (in its structure) but it changes in its own unique way.  The trees change, animals evolve and the landscape adapts. The wind will be different, the heat of the sun is more intense, the air is different, there are new native flowers blooming, the scent of the gum tree unique, the she oak trees aged …  it all changes. So fully immerse yourself in where you are now. Take it in deeply to your heart core and relish every miniscule of it.  

Looking for what was, creates expectations. 

Expectations, if not fulfilled lead to disappointment.  It also strips you from the wondrous gift of being fully present in the moment and to what is offered there and then. Spending time seeking for what was, denies what is.  

Travel with an open mind and heart.  

#enlightenedtraveller #melbourne #richmond #centralaustralia

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Planning your Scottish Ancestral pilgrimage

Glencoe, Scotland 2019. Image by Libby Kinna.

Scotland may be small geographically yet it is rich in offering for your ancestral pilgrimage. Don’t be fooled into thinking a few hours driving and a couple of visits to small villages and your ancestral journey is done!

This land is ancient and seeped with historical offerings. Whilst our Scottish ancestors initially immigrated here in the 1800’s their stories go back hundreds of years. Many left through an ‘assisted passage’ scheme with dreams of establishing a new, abundant and healthy life.

Here are some sites you can start exploring BEFORE you leave Australia.

Planning your Scottish ancestral journey

https://www.scottishtouristmaps.co.uk/

https://visitscotland.com

https://www.historicenvironment.scot/visit-a-place

www.getoutside.ordnancesurvey.o.uk 

Finding your Scottish Ancestors

www.ancestry.com

www.familysearch.org 

www.wikitree.com www.geni.com

www.findmypast.co.uk

http://www.nls.uk/family-history/starting-research

https://forebears.io/scotland/

www.historicenvironment.scot

www.nationaltrust.org.uk

www.nts.org.uk (National Trust Scotland)

Family History Federation  www.ffhs.org.uk

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Tools to help plan and record your ancestral journey

Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash

Genealogy researching and tracking takes an enormous amount of time and resources.

Finding the best way for you to capture and plan your ancestral searching can also take time.

I have found the following software apps very helpful:

www.ancestry.com  to get the process going

www.evernote.com to collate and gather information, you can tag family names, places, generations, can import data, compile resources, 

www.trello.com to schedule and plan research projects and travel journeys

Free genealogy templates 

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How to use writing to know yourself better

Writers write for many reasons and in many ways. 

I use writing as a process of self-awareness and self-discovery. 

What do I mean by ‘writing for process’? 

  • It is free flow unfiltered writing 
  • It is simply writing what is within you, your thoughts, emotions and voices
  • It is a journey deeper into self
  • Its allowing the thoughts in your head to be written down unfettered
  • It is simply getting everything that is circling and thrashing within to come out
  • It is about writing to reveal
  • It is writing to become aware of what is going on within me that maybe getting in the way
  • It is writing through ones heart, not head.  So that the way becomes clearer and is less interfered with my human needs and limitations.
  • It is writing as a channel for the best version of self to come forth
  • It is writing to become aware of the next steps to take

It is a way of:

  • Connecting with who I am
  • Of Understanding me better and what makes me tick
  • coming fact to face with my own falsities
  • Revealing parts of me that have been unconscious

It is where there is:

  • No set destination
  • No pre-determined outcome
  • No parameters
  • No timeframe
  • No formatting or editing 
  • No right or wrong 
  • No spelling correction 

My head gets so full.  Thoughts thrashing around.  Which way is up? Sometimes I don’t know.  I feel engulfed by my emotions and feelings.  Where am I in all of this?  So much internal noise.  It keeps me stuck constrained blocked and confused. 

Where am ‘I’ in all of this? How do I find ‘me’ in amongst the distraction?  I know the space I seek.  It is within me.  It is a still point in my centre.  Not a human physical centre but a place within me, from which all comes forth.  It is a centre, a portal a way through to my eternalness.  It is the place from which I connect to me, the planet, to creative source, to soul as spirit.  It gets clouded by the chitter chatter, the busyness of life and by my own ignorance. 

Whilst I do my best to ignore its existence it is the place that the answers lie.  It’s the way.   It’s the point from my which I live.  Its where I listen and hear the whisper of the universe, its where the guidance awaits.  I just need to be stop, be still, listen, receive and act. 

How do we reach this place?  For me writing as a process takes me to this place.

  • Create the space so you won’t be disturbed
  • Gather your tools
    • laptop (I suggest you don’t use a laptop, if you want to turn autocorrect and spell checker ‘off’)
    • pen and paper
    • canvas
    • whiteboard
  • Turn off your phone and laptop (if you are not using it)
  • Remove all distraction
  • Light a candle
  • Create a sacred ritual for communion

Whatever works and simply ask …

  • What is it that needs to come out?
  • What is it I need to hear? 
  • What is going on within me? 
  • What can’t I see? What do I need to see?

Ask the questions and wait.  It may take a while for words to come.  But be ready for when they do.  You are the scribe of your heart and head.  You are the channel from which this comes forth.   Allow.

You may need to build trust with yourself.  This can be a vulnerable and intimate process.  Be gentle don’t force build trust.  Hold the compassion for yourself.  In some moments bucket loads will come out , in others maybe just one or two sentences.  Whatever comes is right for that moment.

So ask, listen and write.  When it stops simply ask “what else?”  and repeat the process.  You are entering another layer, going deeper in.

And repeat, layer after layer, deeper and deeper in to that still point.  Your centre from which your creativity, your inspiration, your delicious way comes forth.  ‘She’ is there waiting.   

When you seek an answer go inward.  Write your way.

It’s about reading to review and gain insight. 

By writing it out what will be revealed to you? 

What to do with what is revealed?

  • You can read it back and take out the pearls.  Take them. Review. Reflect.  Leg go. 
  • Write a new script, one from your heart.
  • You can burn it through ritual and let it go with gratitude
  • You can rip it up and throw it out.
  • You can use it as a guide of what to look out for.

If you choose to read it back, do so with compassion.  The truth is within if you want to hear it.  You don’t need to keep the writings.  It’s about clearing your head so your heart can be heard.   Judging what you write will only block the process.  You need to create a safe and nurturing space from which you can hear the voices in your heart. 

Then ask yourself these questions

  • Who are these voices? 
  • Is it your voice or that of another? 
  • Is it an old parameter? Lens? Filter?
  • Is it an outdated condition that is in the way? 
  • Where are my limitations? 
  • What stories am I telling me about myself?  About my life? 
  • What am I playing like a broken record?
  • What new voices/ scripts do I need to write now?

Work with your words.  Move through the process.  You will arrive at a new place.  A place of less resistance,  a place reflective of who you truly are. 

Writing for process, to move through, to clear, to gain insight can take you deeper into you. 

It is about connecting with the unconscious within and bringing it to light.

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Travelling as an insightful spiritual pilgrimage

Fascinating article published in the Journal for the Study of Spirituality (Beres, 2018) exploring how travel can become a spiritual pilgrimage.

How travel might be more like spiritual pilgrimage: an autoethnographic study Download

Reference

Laura Béres (2018) How travel might become more like spiritual pilgrimage: An autoethnographic study, Journal for the Study of Spirituality, 8:2, 160-172, DOI: 10.1080/20440243.2018.1523048

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Epigenetics and its powerful impact on your life

What influence does it have on who you are?

Image by Hal Gatewood on unsplash

There is evidence epigenetic changes are transmitted from parent to child during conception and pregnancy.  Leading into the concept of inheritance.  How the events of our lives could affect the development of our own children.  Alongside this is how we have been impacted by our ancestors and their life experiences.

What we experience in our lifetime can modify our DNA, and its these changes that can be passed down through generations. It is epigenetics that facilitates this transfer/influence between generations, what can be referred to as ‘transgenerational’.   Through the generations.

Epigenetics is defined as:

  1. the study of changes in organisms caused by modification of gene expression rather than alteration of the genetic code itself.

Our DNA is our unique song.  The genome, the double helix DNA code unique to us.  This ‘song’ remains constant.

Our epigenome (which sits in your cells with your genome) is a set of instructions that decides which bits of your DNA are activated, or which genes are switched on or off.  We have many epigenomes as every different type of cell in the body has its own epigenome.  These ‘audio engineers’ are fluid, changing as we develop.  They impact upon our cells, how they function and our health overall.

“genes are the unique song of you,

but epigenomes decide how that music is played over generations”

Kylie Martin

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2017-04-21/what-does-epigenetics-mean-for-you-and-your-kids/8439548

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Why do memories come flooding back when you visit places from your past?

Stirling Castle view to Clackmannanshire, Scotland 2019 – Libby Kinna

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/insight/here-s-why-memories-come-flooding-back-when-you-visit-places-from-your-past?fbclid=IwAR0iXzppBkV85wDdE5lNiB7CcMPtza1_IYSvsR-y10DdbQf-N_zW8GAUuP8

I came across this interesting article on SBS which shares of the scientific theory behind this experience. Known as contextual-binding theory.

It is well established that learning in the brain happens by a process of association. If A and B occur together, they become associated. Contextual-binding theory goes a step further: A and B are associated not just with one other, but also with the context in which they occurred.

What is context? It’s not just your physical location – it’s a mental state that also comprises the thoughts, emotions, and other mental activity you’re experiencing at a given moment. 

Adam Osth Senior Lecturer, University of Melbourne

Looking at photos of past family members triggers moments of past family experience. The article goes on to share that our brain is like a google search engine. The clearer you are in what you are searching for the better results will be retrieved, same with your memory.

Every time I travel back to Melbourne this mass of emotions, feelings and memories come flooding back. Whilst I have fond memories of Melbourne, actually being there amplifies my experience and deepens the feelings.

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Making peace with divorce

This is my personal sharing of divorce, how it felt for me and my experience with it.  My relationship with divorce doesn’t end.  Its within me, an experience that I still feel the impact of and continue to heal.  Whilst undertaken with an intent to finish and wrap up a painful period of separation and to signal a readiness to move on it, it has proven to be a thorn in my side.  A wound that continues to heal.

It became a label that I wore which unconsciously put barriers around me, impacting how I related with self and life.  Little did I realise that this label would create negative imprints on my sense of self.  Imprints that were created from witnessing how my parents, and aunts and uncles moved through their divorces.   How the bitterness, anger, resentment and fear became a lens from which I viewed and believed divorce to be.   Even to this day I am clearing the lenses and coming more and more from my own internal heart centre, the knowing that there is another way to engage with divorce.  The pull of the past, which is all I had to tap into is strong and takes diligence to keep clearing these past ties that bind me to old paradigms of divorce. 

Divorce tapped me into deeply held religious dogma propelling me down a path of shame and defectiveness.  In Gods eyes I had broken my vows ‘till death do us part’.   I had sinned and would be punished.  I was damaged goods, unlovable and dirty.   My life was done.  Its pretty full on shit.  Yet the feelings were real.  I don’t even know where the hell this programming was coming from?  For I had not grown up in a religious environment, we didn’t go to Church, I wasn’t baptised or christened.  What the hell?  Here I was condemning myself to a life of self retribution based upon old biblical and religious constructs, none of which were relevant to my life here and now.  It was as if from the deep recesses of my soul a voice bellowed these sermons to me.   This caused huge internal conflict as the woman who I know myself to be here and now was chastised by the voices of the past.  I needed to get up of my knees, I am not kneeling to God in a church in this life time.      

Divorce is an incredibly unique and intimate experience.   No two experiences will be the same, just as no two relationships could be the same.   How could they be?  A relationship is the result of two separate beings coming together and co-creating a space that cocoons and sustains them both.   It takes on its own life force and forms its own unique resonance.  Like an embryo impregnated by the sperm that creates a foetus, so to do two people come together to create a relationship.   

Divorce can be arrived at from many destinations from one party or both. 

Whilst divorce is the term given to the legal dissolution of a marriage it is much much more than that.   It’s a process, signifying the ending and at the same time a beginning.  The beginning of a new way of living.   It’s a label.  It’s an emotional and mental rollercoaster.  It has the capability to rip apart; a force unto its own.    It can destroy and leave a tsunami of wreckage in its wake.  Its deeply personal and will shine a light on one’s internal wounding.  It will bring forth what one has been trying to keep hidden and out of sight.  It will bare your soul.  Break your shell.  It will pull out from under you your once steady foundation.  It’s a huge hole you could fall into.  It will take the wind out of your lungs.  It has the capacity to exhaust your nervous system.  It will leave you on the floor without a second glance.  

Divorce breaks families.  Whilst its undertaken between two (or just one) person in the marriage the impact rips apart the family that was built through this once love centred union.   

Divorce will push you to the end and challenge you to keep going.

Divorce is painful, messy, uncomfortable and paradoxically exquisite.

As I continued to unravel I became closer and closer to my truth.   Quite literally I was cleansing my soul by releasing the judgment on myself and freeing myself from ideologies and behaviours I had taken on from other.   Aligning more to my core knowing I am beginning to relate with divorce in a whole new way.  The fight against it stops.  In its place an acceptance of the outplay of my marriage.   Its relating with divorce in a healthier way and not giving my power away to it.  Its stripping away the label and in doing so fully opening to the offering divorce provides. 

It’s an intensely powerful process that provides personal growth, healing, integration and recalibration.  It’s a reset button.     

Photo by Jens Lelie on Unsplash