The Polygamist's Daughter

Stories, Reflections and Conclusions of Life on the Inside

Tag Archives: resentment


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Some Day I Am Going to Write a Book

I was seventeen years old when I climbed into the back of a car driven by a teenage boy I barely knew.  On that cold January night while the other passengers slept, I sat staring out the window watching the snow swirl around us as we sped through the Idaho dessert on our way to the promised land of Salt Lake City. Sitting in that car I never intended to go back to The Ranch or ever even look back. For the first time in my life I was free to chart my own destiny and although I had no idea what it looked like, I knew it wasn’t in the one place I had always called home.

For the next five years I struggled to make my way in the world I had been taught my entire life to fear. I attempted to drown my fears and sorrows in anyone and anything that came across my path as I searched for happiness and a sense of purpose. While on the outside I was a happy-go-lucky party girl, on the inside suicide plagued my mind. I lived a meaningless life riddled with shame and guilt, and with resentment toward myself and everyone in my past that had ever hurt me.

In my early twenties synchronicity brought me to learn that my inner turmoil was a result of my past experiences and that I was completely normal considering the trauma I had undergone. My mind began to open to new possibilities as I was introduced to self-help books and I began the process of what I now call self-therapy.

My books became my life saver and I told myself that someday I would write a book and give back to humanity the way that the teachers in my books had given to me. All of those years ago I had a dream of someday being an inspirational teacher to others. As the years went by I forgot about my desire to inspire people and followed the money instead. Just like so many other people do. I had a profitable business, traveled the world with my husband and children and I owned a beautiful home.  It wasn’t until the economy put me out of business that I began to wake up and remember the desire I once had.  My true life purpose began calling to me.

For several years I had been writing a book about my childhood and thought that it was the story that would bring me fame and fortune, but for some reason I could never seem to finish it. Now I know why. It wasn’t the book that had called me to write. The self-improvement book I had promised myself twenty five years earlier that I would write, pushed itself into the forefront. I had completely forgotten about that promise until one of my favorite self-help authors showed up on stage in front of me a few months ago. Then it all came flooding back. The only career I have ever really wanted and the only one that really inspired me was a career that inspired others.

Twenty five years later I am now a published author of the self-help book I said I would someday write. I am now standing on stages and mentoring others on how to find their own happiness and heal the trauma from their past.  I am finally doing the work that called to me so many years earlier and I am loving every minute of it.

So, how did I break through the barrier of “someday I am going to write a book” and actually do it? The push I needed to birth my new life as a published author showed up in my email one day. I don’t know where it came from or how I got on the list, and I said yes. The Transformational Authors Experience literally changed my life in so many ways.

If you have a book within you and you find yourself saying “someday I am going to write”, I highly recommend Christine Kloser’s author program. She only presents this once a year and I have found it so valuable I am doing it again this year.  The other book about my childhood is now finally finished and ready to move into the publishing process. Christine has now become a friend of mine and I can say with complete confidence that her programs make dreams come true. Checkout the Transformational Author Experience.

And if you have a few minutes to spare I recommend checking out my interview with Christine. I was one of only five authors chosen to share our TAE story. Listen to the interview here http://instantteleseminar.com/?eventid=40486098 and then go to the TAE website at click http://tinyurl.com/TAE-Kloser if you want more information on becoming an author yourself.


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What I Think about Polygamy Now

What do I really think about polygamy? Well that has changed over the years from thinking it was something God expected of me, to seeing it as a religious abuse and a human rights abuse against women and everything in between.

Having multiple sex partners and making lots of love sounds fabulous in theory, yet in reality I believe it is sadly missing the most crucial elements for genuine joy. It is important to understand that joy and happiness are two different things. Happiness is an emotion that can be generated in the belief that we are happy. It is generated by the perception of our choices and actions. Some people are perfectly happy in their misery, not realizing that joy is accessible. Joy is a state of being and occurs when we are fulfilled within ourselves and we no longer live our lives by the beliefs and expectations of anyone or anything else outside of ourselves. It is the result of our heart working to its full potential in alignment with our own inner truth.

Back to polygamy. Polygamy stems from a time in our human history when women were owned and collected by men and traded along with other livestock to build the kingdoms of men. King Solomon had hundreds of wives because he was a king with a very wealthy kingdom. Men gave him their daughters to earn favor with the king and in the hopes that their daughters would have a better life.

What does that have to do with today’s polygamy? Polygamy, now (except where polyamory is practiced – the newest hip term for open relationships, and a few ancient cultures where polyandry is practiced) only exists in cultures and belief systems where women are still recognized as being worth less than men and is justified by religion, otherwise recognized as religiously coerced polygyny. Some argue that it should be a person’s choice and yet any choice based in coercion, when there is a proverbial gun held at your head, isn’t really a free-will choice. It is a choice based in fear and is among the fear-based beliefs I often speak of.

Taking it a step further and assuming it is a choice based in freedom, there are still other issues to consider. It is nearly impossible to have a relationship that is balanced in the masculine and feminine when the numbers are lopsided. In a world where we are attempting to create balance and equality, polygamy simply does not make sense. The more women in the relationship the more masculine and authoritarian the man in the relationship is. That is why extremely authoritarian men are drawn to this form of relationship. The practice of polygyny also causes an imbalance among men. Men who are the most desirable attract the most women, leaving ordinary men without partners. Studies have shown that this imbalance increases violence in men and more hatred toward women. Precisely the opposite of the masculine/feminine balance and mutual respect so many of us are working to create.

And one more thought for consideration. Polygamy is heart breaking, or at the very least prevents the heart from working to its full potential. Women must guard their heart and cannot allow themselves to fully and completely love and connect with their husbands, simply because it hurts too much, and lovemaking lacks the creation of love. It also prevents men from opening up their heart and giving to their full ability out of the fear propagating jealousy and resentment between their wives. And yet, this is sold as love and beauty. What kind of love is it when we intentionally block our hearts from loving and creating to their greatest capacity?

In all honesty I don’t think polygamy can work until the world finally recognizes, once and for all, that men and women are equal. That if men can have more than one wife, women should be allowed the same courtesy, and that love can and should be given openly and freely without fear, coercion or jealousy.  It is certainly not my cup of tea, but in a perfect world it just might work. In a perfect world!


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Recovering from Spiritual Abuse

I define religious abuse as physical, sexual and human rights abuses that are justified by religious dogma and religious opportunists. Spiritual abuse is abuse of the human spirit and exists within many of our beliefs in the form of fear, which is often disguised as love. These beliefs prevent us from connecting to ourselves and to Spirit, and prevent us from experiencing unconditional love. These fear-based beliefs result in trauma that manifest in the same way as emotional abuse, leaving individuals who are filled with shame, guilt, resentment and depression. Our beliefs teach us we are born sinners, that we are to be ashamed of ourselves for our actions, that we don’t deserve to be in the presence of God and that we can’t possibly live up to God’s expectations of us, and so on. These beliefs not only traumatize us emotionally, they cause trauma to the soul and affect our beliefs about our soul’s worth.

We are told to believe in an unconditionally loving God, yet in the same token we are given a long list of conditions under which God will love us. We are told that we are separate from God and we are separate from love, and that both need to be painfully earned outside of ourselves through our actions. Most of us have been taught to love each other as God loves us. Our understanding of God’s love is conditional; therefore our love of others is conditional. We have been taught to love each other as we love ourselves, yet fear, guilt, shame, resentment and judgment about our own worth is reflected in the judgments we have toward others. How can we possibly love each other without condition when we don’t have unconditional love for ourselves?

The self-loathing that is induced by our fear-based beliefs causes spiritual trauma.  In order to heal this trauma we must first recognize the difference between spirituality and religion. Spirit is energy, and spirituality is the energetic essence of who we are. Connecting to spirituality is learning to connect to who we really are, deep within the core of our being, and understanding our true self. It is that part of us that is all-knowing and is connected to Infinite Intelligence, not the fear filled beliefs in our mind. Our beliefs are a result of messages we have picked up throughout our lifetime and we assumed were real. Once we learn to analyze our beliefs and see how they resonate deep within us, we can determine which beliefs are in alignment with our inner truth.

Recovering from spiritual abuse can be a long and often painful process because it causes us to reevaluate everything we think we know. As we peel off the layers of fear, face the source of the pain and learn to change our perceptions of our life experiences, the trauma associated with our beliefs begin to lift away. Love is the energy that heals all things and when we face our fears with love and compassion, our fears no longer have any control in our life. Every belief about who we think we are, why we are here and what is expected of us will come under scrutiny. Only when we do the inner work can we truly know our own individual journey, our own unique spiritual experience and our own path.  All transformation must begin within ourselves.

It is my understanding that we have come to a place in our collective evolution where we can comprehend the mind, body and soul connection, and see how soul trauma manifests as physical disease. Just as psychological and emotional abuse leads to physical disease, so does spiritual abuse.  And just as psychotherapy eventually became recognized as a legitimate form of treatment, I feel that spiritual therapy will someday be recognized. While some may claim that this therapy is already being provided at church, there is often a hidden agenda, which is to propagate the very beliefs in which the abuse occurred. We cannot heal the damage to our mind, heart, soul or body by repeating old patterns. As a result of this understanding we will see the emergence of more professionals such as Judith Orloff, M.D. and other enlightened therapists. This emerging field of professionally trained experts can, and will, bring about the healing of humanity, and assist the global transformation from a world based in fear to a world based in love.