Emancipating Me

Today begins a new venture and an adventure into healing, I did not see coming. I was inspired on Friday night after reading another’s work. @katedenae on Instagram shared with her readers that most of our social media posts share the high sides of our lives, the exciting moments the feel good moments. She asserted that we likely do not share our darker painful moments because we really do not want anyone to know.

I was inspired because I know the costs and consequences of holding on to our painful stories and their effect on mental health. I know by professional practice as I have worked with hundreds of people to seize their freedom and claim their personal power by sharing their stories of pain.

There is growth in the sharing and we discover that we are not alone, that our experience is not the exception but more the rule. I know this reality. This is real to me because it is personal. I too survived my own painful story to share it and allow my own healing to begin more than 30 years ago. I will come back to that in a moment. I am also a believe that God never wastes our hurts but redeems them to ur benefit and the benefit of others.

I reached out to my close friend @anndoquotes.inspire on Instagram to consider the possibility of our collaboration to inspire others with painful pasts to tell their stories to accomplish these things. 

1. That telling their stories might help encourage themselves and others to discover they are not alone. 
2. That telling their stories can be the beginning of their healing from their past hurts continuing to live in them as emotional pain and Post – Traumatic Stress Disorder. 
3. That telling our stories can help to generate a massive experience of healing among people suffering the lingering effects of painful pasts.

In graduate school, I wrote a paper entitled Emancipation to Becoming. In my mid – 30’s, I had begun intense reflection of my experience. I realized I had not become all I had the potential to become because I carried so much pain and anger. When I was not angry, I was depressed.

To make it worse, I was a master of disguise. My parental programming and social experience as a multi-cultural being in the segregated 1950’s had not lent itself to self – expression. My upbringing had not included having feelings and if I did, they certainly were not to be expressed.

I begin with the end of this tragedy to inspire hope. On a visit to my home when I was 35, the time had come to speak to my past to create a new present and a new future. My beloved parents that had beat me like I was an animal as a child began to speak to me as if I was that little boy and teenager they used to beat.

I made an announcement that night while we sat at the kitchen table that if both of them did not immediately apologize for the inhuman treatment of my childhood and adolescence I was never coming to the place I called home ever again. My mother immediately apologized. My father was slower but did also. The relationship with my family changed that night because I had changed. I had evolved dedicated to no longer being captive to the past.

Since that moment I have been involved in the continued development of my healing ad that of as many others as I might reach. To that end, @annndoquotes.inspire and I launch Emancipating Me on social media to reach as many people as possible with the possibility of not only their healing but as many others as they may reach.

This week of August 27, 2018 through August 31^st, we dedicate the next five days to post short installments of our stories to invite and encourage others to do the same. This is for you if you yet suffer the lingering effects of past painful experiences as children, teens or adults. Let this become your moment to emancipate yourself and free yourself from the prison hell of your past. Don’t you want to be free to feel good about yourself and love the life you have the possibilities to create? We hope and pray you do. This is our time. This is your time. This is Emancipating Me time.

Follow our work on Instagram. Our hashtag is #emancipatingme. The mission of Emancipating Me is to provide opportunity to help hurting people heal. 

Share your stories with us on Instagram @anndoquotes.inspire and @oscarcrawfordmedia or email to info@oscarcrawfordmedia.com to dialogue with either of us. What we sow together, we grow together.