<TRIGGER WARNING>

• Side note – I always wonder how to do an effective trigger warning
• I imagine my trauma is fairly rare, and that this won’t actually be a trigger for most of you, but before I reveal this potentially triggering topic
• I imagine when people read that there’s a trigger warning, that each person has at least one trigger that they (unconsciously?) scan for, and that even reading the phrase “trigger warning” can put them in touch with any post traumatic stress. so to help this trigger warning not be something that triggers ptsd, but allows for ptsr (pts-reorganization),  the healer in me invites you to consider:
• What triggers do you automatically look out for when you read a trigger warning?
• How do you prepare yourself?  Activated nervous system? Tense body?  Held breath?  Something else?
• Does that help?
• How is your healing path around that trigger?
• Are you ready for mine?
• What happened when I reintroduced that question after having raised awareness around it?
• I have a theory that a relaxed body and easeful breath helps these stresses roll through us, rather than catch in the net of our tension
• So the thing I’m writing about is – and I can see that part of the reason I wrote all that was to delay writing about this – that I took someone’s life in a car accident when I was 17, and the topics of shame and depression more generally.

</TRIGGER WARNING>

I was at the Hyacinth Fellowship’s in-person national gathering.  A gathering for people like me dealing with residual feelings of their involvement with accidental death or injury.  This just happened to taking place at a church just a mile and a half from where I had my accident, and I had this vision of going back and paying homage to the site where my accident happened.

On the first morning, I announced to the group I was going to go during the lunch break on the second day.

The first day was beautiful and connected.  It’s so wonderful to be so instantly understood.

On the second day, we had a long lunch break scheduled.  We ate our food and connected, and it was getting time to head out if I wanted to make this voyage.  My mission was to reclaim any parts of myself that I lost contact with that fateful day, so in preparation, I pulled up the last two photos I had access to of myself in my innocence… from just before the accident. One was a water polo team picture, the other was my prom photo.

When the emotions settled, I went back in to see who wanted to join, and to my surprise, over half the group was dressed and ready to join me, needing two full cars.  The show of support was amazing. On the way there, I repeated my apparently augmented* version ho’oponopono – I’m sorry, please forgive me, I forgive you, thank you, I love you – for a lot of the ride there.  (*turns out “I forgive you” isn’t normally part of it, but I like it in there)

I just said that over and over again.  Out loud, to myself, to those who died, to those supporting me in the car, to my younger self… the list goes on.

On the day of the accident, I was driving far too fast, and my friend Julie was in the back seat, trying to put on her seatbelt, so I looked back to help because I knew it was tucked down between the seats.

When I looked up there was a car there swinging wide to pull into their driveway.  I pulled hard to the right, but it was too late.

While the concussion ensured I have never remembered the impact, I know I hit them. Neither of the passengers of the other car, Edmund and Genevieve Cooper, survived the year.

The next thing I remember, a brief moment of consciousness, I had somehow gotten out of the car, and was sitting under a tree, hunched over, head in my hands.  Kristen was next to me, crying “Julie, Julie, Julie”. I know that Julie had a concussion and a head laceration. (She’s fine now) I can only imagine what Kristen saw.  Then I blacked out again. The ambulance arrived. I was in and out of consciousness the next few days.

All this was coming back to me, again, as we arrived.

When we got out of the car, I asked everyone to stay near the cars, and hold their hands out with their palms towards me, just hold space for me, and allow me do the first stage of this process in silence.

I walked to the tree that I came to consciousness under. I sat in that same position I remembered for that brief moment of consciousness that fateful day, with my head hunched to my knees.

I looked at where Kristen was, and I looked over where Julie and Edmund and Genevieve and the totaled cars would have been, and asked my deeper wisdom:

What do I need to know?
What do I need to learn here?
What’s incomplete for me?

I just sat there and I felt and felt and felt and listened for intuition.
I repeated ho’oponopono again and again.

I looked across the street, because I know this couple’s house was over there.  I didn’t know which house.

I’m sorry.
But what is sorry?
When you use sorry as an adjective, “a sorry sort of fellow”… that kind of meek miserable person is neither what I want to be, nor would “being sorry” do anything for any of the people I want to apologize to.
When I receive an apology I want to know they learned their lesson. That they won’t do it again. That they’ll let this mistake be something that changes them for the better.
I wanted to let it change me for the better.
I believe it has. In many many ways.

Except for the shame.

I committed myself to use all of my energy to make the world a better place.  Those that know me may have seen evidence of this.

What do I need to do?
What’s left here?
What’s… left… here?

Eventually one of the guys (an artist I had asked to take some photos for me) approached. He told me the group didn’t feel comfortable gathering on the lawn I was trespassing on. (They eventually found the homeowner and got his consent for me)

I thought they could stand at the site of the impact, and showed them where I thought the cars were.
There happened to be a flat bed truck there with a huge trailer with a ramp and an orange cone behind it.  I pointed, and said it’s roughly where that cone was.  The position of the truck serendipitously served to block off one of the lanes and allowing them to safely be in the road. The rest of the group went and stood there and held space for me while I was listened a bit longer at the tree.

Eventually I sensed it was time to go over to the site of the impact.
I sat down and meditated there for a while surrounded by my support team.

I asked my inner guidance again:

What do I need to know?
What do I need to do?

Intuition struck to call back any parts of my spirit that had run off or gone into hiding that day.
I said, “Come back.  You’re safe here now. You can come back.”And I felt a jolting rush of energy hit me.Eventually I looked up at all the people there, each of whom must have been struggling with self-forgiveness, and one at a time looked at them, waited for eye contact, then said “I forgive you.”

And anyone reading this, if you have been regretting something, consider that holding on to it is to ensure you don’t make that mistake again. And you haven’t since the last time. Good job. You can forgive yourself and still not repeat your mistakes.  I dropped back into myself and again asked what else do I need to know?

I’m sorry.
I’m sorry.
And I apologized to Edmund and Genevieve Cooper.
I apologized to their children for taking their parents.
I apologized to their siblings if they had any.
I apologized to their children for taking their parents, and because they wouldn’t have their grandparents there to help take care of their grandkids.
I apologized to their grandkids who wouldn’t get to know their grandparents.
I apologized to the nieces, nephews, nibblings, anyone who was going to miss them and didn’t get to have them in their life.
And I told them that I’ve done my best to make up for it and make a positive difference in the world since that day.
I’ve really done my best to grow from this, to learn from this, to make up for my mistakes, and that I’ve been really trying to honor their life ever since.

After a bit, I felt a second, less intense, wave of energy come into me.

One last check:
Anything else?
Nothing else?

I stood up.

It was a beautiful sunny day.  The bright blue sky, with these grey clouds, and I kid you not, these gorgeous bright silver linings.
It’s a really nice day, and I felt as available to the beauty of the moment as I ever have in my entire life.
I felt like my eyes were just glowing and clear in a different way.
I giggled and laughed.
I think I did what I needed to do.

I had brought a bunch of flowers. I handed one to each of them and invited them to honor those they wanted to honor (each petal can be a different person if you wish)
We went back to the tree and laid the flowers around it. We held hands around the tree
I released some sounds and energy that was left over, and invited others to do the same.

I left the site with a sense of lightness.

It was a truly incredible day.

And I love all these people and a lot of them are really inspired by the way I’ve faced my healing and, some were a bit afraid to go back to their accident sites, but now felt inspired.
At least one said I did a piece of healing for them.

Thank you so much for reading.

One last thing:
I’ll leave you with my augmented version of ho’oponopono

I’m sorry
Please forgive me
I forgive you
Thank you
I love you