When I think of the things I have experienced in my life that I could not have imagined in my younger years I am filled with gratitude and a kind of all. I think about this often with respect to my grandparents, all four of whom were immigrants at the turn of the last century.
I hear myself say that they could not have dreamed of the life they created for themselves, for their children, for their grandchildren, and now their great-grandchildren. When I see in my mind’s eye Grandpa sitting at the head of the long mahogany table in the beautiful home on Rosewood Terrace for Sunday dinner, and I contrast that with his early life I know the truth of Beyond Your Wildest imaginings.
Most of my clients come to me in some kind of emotional pain. They are carrying pain from traumatic, abusive and sometimes purely awful experiences in their past. My grandfather was someone like that.
He and his brother were orphaned at a very early age and he was sent to work as a five year old child in a sulfur mine in Sicily. The mining company bosses used the children to get into places that were too small for adult men to go into to bring out the sulfur. When my father as a child asked him about this, my grandfather replied, “I don’t want you to have to know anything about that!” That spoke volumes to my father and he remembered it all of his life and recounted it to me when my father himself was well into his nineties. Powerful words!
My grandfather is a testament to what we talk about with the Law of Attraction and inviting Miracles. Here was a man who endured a very harsh childhood and yet, somehow he managed to scrape together the money and the will to come to this country as a very young man. And then he not only began to build a life for himself but he went back to marry my grandmother and bring her here, and then he began to save money to send back for so many other family members and friends to come to this country. What an incredible man. What an amazing legacy!
Grandpa & Grandma under the pear tree in the backyard of the house on Rosewood Terrace
He dug ditches for a living to support his family until he broke his leg and couldn’t do that work anymore. He was desperate until his friends who worked at a men’s clothing factory told him to come and apply for a job as a presser. When he said that he didn’t know how to do that job, they told him not to worry and to just tell them that he did know how and they…his friends…would teach him once he was hired.. He did and they did.
My grandfather didn’t have therapy or counseling or coaching to help him through. He had friends, he had a very strong woman as his wife, he had the tight-knit immigrant community and he had a vision. Here’s the main thing: when they heard that the streets in America were paved with gold, they believed it. And when they arrived and realized that the streets were not paved with gold, but with opportunity, they were thrilled.
They sacrificed and scrimped and saved and up-leveled their lives systematically from living in a one-room apartment with I-don’t-even-know-how-many people, to living in the nine room two-story home. where he was able to make his wine in the basement and have a garden in the backyard and sit on the front porch in the summertime and bounce me on his knee as a baby.
Grandpa and me on his birthday in the backyard of the house on Rosewood Terrace.
I’m writing this not only because I honor the memory of my grandparents…and this is only one man’s story…but also because my soul is imbued with the knowing that healing and miracles are possible. I hope that this article gives you some hope if you are in pain from having been raised by a narcissistic parent or abused by a bully or suffered the trauma of sexual abuse or have been seen war or any number of things that tend to make pieces of our souls run away in helpless terror.
I hope that you know that you have value and worth and that you are lovable and that you can heal into a more peaceful life with moments of true Joy.
As that five year old orphaned little boy working in horrible conditions in a sulfur mine, Grandpa could not have imagined being the patriarch of a beautiful, prospering family and living in the elegant house on Rosewood Terrace, with him at the head of the long mahogany table and his sons, daughters and little grandchildren around it. He got there by attaining one dream at a time, one vision that feels reachable, possible, attainable….and you can too.
As always I hope you SPARKLE!
Janice Masters, The Shaman Mama
www.JaniceMasters.com/start-here/
If you feel ready to have a conversation with me about starting or continuing a healing journey into your dreams please use this link to schedule a time.
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