Our Stories Matter

We can get in the habit of telling our stories the same way, over and over. This session is about shaking it up, expressing it in a new way, and gaining some insight into how our realities have changed!

Invitations:

*Remember to set the stage for yourself: do you need a timer? a cup of tea? music? privacy? a meditation before creating?

1. Before and after hands and hearts:

Using one large piece of paper, (poster board or newsprint tend to be nice for this) or two smaller pages. Use any media - markers, pencils, crayons, pastels, paint to create your hand prints or outlines. Use whatever colors speak to you, without giving it a lot of thought. The hand on the left represents YOU pre-discovery, the hand on the right represents YOU post-discovery. Use colors, shapes, symbols, and words to depict the differences and similarities that tell your story, or the story of your adoption character from week 1. Next create a heart to express your feelings at the time of discovery.

2. Collage your story:

Using old magazines, cut or tear out pictures that speak to you as representing some part of your story. Consider dividing the page or doing two, so that one area or page can represent pre-discovery and one represent post-discovery. You could also do this on behalf of the Adoption Character you created in week 1. Some folks enjoy creating a background out of water colors before gluing images and words on top. I would encourage you not to give too much thought to the final image but rather, to get lost in the process of creating.

REFLECTION:

Take a moment to reflect. Gaze at your project, take it in and hold a safe space for whatever emotions or reflections come up. Is there anything new or surprising? How do you feel now as you look at it? Where does this story live inside you? Do you have the urge to add/change anything?

POST-REFLECTION:

Take a moment to consider adding text, a poem or story. Once finished, reflect again. If you were to name this piece, what would you name it?

Alternate Invitation:

Free write. Set a timer, or a page number (for example, 3 pages) and write and quickly as you can, using words or phrases that come to mind that tell your story. A great time of day to do this is first thing in the morning, or late, late in the evening or night. The idea being to write at a time when you're more relaxed and able to access that between sleep and wake state.

Once finished: Take a moment to reflect. Read your project, take it in and hold a safe (non-judgemental) space for whatever emotions or reflections come up. Is there anything new or surprising? How do you feel now as you read it? Where does this story live inside you? Do you have the urge to add/change anything?

After reflecting: take a moment to consider adding an image. Once finished, reflect again. If you were to name this piece, what would you name it?

*Please consider sharing with myself and/or the group, using the contact page or fb.

My first journal entry post-discovery.

“You shouldn’t be afraid of him anymore. You should, however, be afraid of me.”

This is what the text said in my head. This was the truth as I imagined it. This was the truth as I imagined
she imagined it. The truth of childhood home set ablaze, a metaphor for long-held shame exposed.

~

“We don’t have to tell everyone. That’ll be your choice. This is your story now.” She tried to console me.
Only that was a lie. Because the story had been withheld this long, and whole story would continue to be concealed. It had taken on a life and breath of its own. A life that had more to do with shame, fear and excuses. A life that was about the preservation of appearance, masquerading as self-protection.

My truth is, I had dreamt it. I had felt it. I had spoken it in whispers my whole life. The times I had dared to question it out loud, to the knowing adults in my world I was told to stop being ridiculous. The message that I must be crazy to question where I came from. My transgression was giving heed to something I
could feel in my body.

On this day, the day after my 33rd birthday, it feels as though my identity has been stolen. The theft confessed. But the answer to “where did I come from?” held hostage. Held hostage by my mother; now seeming to be both a victim and a stranger.
On this day I can feel empathy and compassion while also feeling the greatest rage, and hopelessness.
She won't tell me anything. Not his name, or if I have siblings. Not what he looks like; or how long they were together.
I suppose I contributed to this lack of information; I made the request that she not fill my head with just a bunch of horrible, awful things about him. At this stage though, I just wanted some basics. I knew I couldn't comprehend that I was from someone who was just beastly in all his activities. Forced out of the
denial I had grown up with, I was clinging to the hope that she could find something good to tell me about him.

It was a negotiation of sorts:

If I can’t be biologically from my dad, please make that mean that my birth dad is secretly awesome.
I can accept not sharing genetics with my dad, if only my birth dad can redeem my worth as a human.
My request to hear something good, or even just in general though, meant she had nothing to say about him.

Except that he was from Belgium; French Belgium.

As with so many things in this age, I went to GOOGLE. I wanted to know everything I could about
Belgium. French Belgium. Anything to fill this hole in my identity.

~

I can logic my story. I can tell myself there are thousands of other stories. Just. Like. Mine. Or maybe worse.
This train of thought doesn’t help. It doesn’t touch it.
My imagination went wild. Was he a rapist? Am I here because he raped my mother? Was he a drug addict? Was she? Was she a prostitute? Was he her pimp? Could she really be sure I was from him? My imagination was a cruel, cruel bed partner.
I can hear my sister, and mother, and others saying phrases like “work through this together”. It feels like they are speaking from a place of such foolishness, such ignorance, that all I can say is “leave me alone”.

All I can feel is “leave me alone.”

A random text comes through from my mom,

“He was fit, he was really into exercising.”

Okay. I’ll file that with all the other incoherent bits of information I could find on Belgium: he was fit, waffles, french fries, beer, peaceful protesters. Belgium, it seems, may be the only connection I have to my roots, my origin, my birth father.
I find myself clinging to everything I learn about Belgium. I read something about a protest in the streets where everyone ate french fries- ‘YES! These are my people!’ I thought.