November 30, 2020

In my last column, I shared how my friend told me I’d become a Social Media Monster and my desire for external validation had gone too far.

My first reaction was to defend myself, lick my wounds and delete Facebook off my phone. It wasn’t enough. I was still haunted by this ugly “truth” of my hollow core, void of self-love. I wanted to know the “why” and “what” caused me to be this way.

I didn’t intend to find the answers through a Jewish Shamanic healer, but I did.

The healer is Stuart Weintraub. I knew he was the founder of the Center for Child-Safe Divorce, and his painful divorce sparked him to create this organization, but I didn’t know he was also an energy healer who had studied with Native American Shamans.

Stuart inspired me to write my last JJ article, but after I shared it with him, he kindly reflected that I could still go deeper.

He said, “Sometimes the heart (blocked by the head) doesn’t want to be raw or honest.”

He suggested energy work may be helpful and invited me for a session. The invitation felt right. I said yes.

When I arrived at his home, he clarified, “I’m not the source of your healing. I’m merely a channel your spirit guides use to send you messages.”

Next, he created a sacred space rich with burning sage and calming music. The smells and melodies relaxed me. He asked me to share my intentions for our session. He chanted ancient blessings and invited my spirit guides to join us. I then laid down on a massage table. Then he asked me to share my earliest memory.

I almost whispered, “I was two years old, in our dark, shabby, one-room apartment with my brother, age four. My parents were violently fighting, screaming, physically hurting each other. I was terrified.”

That began a lifelong, vicious verbal attack of my mother hating my father and my father hating my mother. My entire life, each parent reviled the other.

During the healing, I was shocked to feel a crushing cold, steel vice clamped on my head — I felt my parents had crowned me with a “Halo of Hate.” Every hateful word they spat at each other was also an attack against me. Why? Because I am half my mother, half my father, which equaled one whole piece of shit.

I started writhing on Stuart’s table, my hands erratically rubbing my head, screaming “Get it Off!”

I don’t know what Stuart did, but I began to visualize the cold crown of hate slowly release, dissolve, and dissipate. I curled into a ball, trembling and sobbing. I turned over onto my stomach, tears still dripping through the table’s face cradle. “I’m cold.” I murmured. Stu put a blanket over me.

Soon after, I felt warm and stopped shaking. Then, metaphorically, I sensed a steady warm rain began to fall and blend with my tears. It took me a moment to understand who sent the rain. It was Gaga, my beloved grandmother. I felt bathed in “Gaga’s” love. I called out, “I don’t want self-love, I need ancestral love! I need Gaga’s love.”

As I slowed my breathing, I heard Stuart chanting and quietly drumming. As I regained my senses, I slowly sat up, feeling at peace. He handed me a cup of warm tea. I sat in silence and gratitude for the answers he helped reveal.

I now understand, though my parents loved me in their own way, I felt they each hated half of me. Thus, I’ve hated the whole of me. My entire life, I’ve lived a lie desperate for validation to prove I’m better than my parents’ hate.

My entire life, I’ve lived a lie desperate for validation to prove I’m better than my parents’ hate.

The saving grace of my childhood, the one continuous light of love, was from Gaga, my grandmother. Her love is the pure unconditional love I want to embody as I accept and integrate these painful truths and work towards self-love.

The biggest revelation though, was my parents “gift” of hating each other ties into the Torah and elevates the fifth commandment, Honor thy Mother and Father, to another level.

Every parent should know this commandant is for them too. NEVER disrespect your child’s other parent because your child (of any age) feels like you are criticizing them, too.

As we drank tea, Stuart showed me the “I am half of each of you” image on his website and it all made sense.

After I thanked him and walked away in the twilight sky, I contemplated the powerful and transformative experience of the healing. My body felt weary, yet my heart felt full.

When I got home, I craved a connection to Gaga, so I took out her book of poetry. She had secretly written poems her entire life. When she was 88 years old, a friend found them in a box and published them in a book, “He Nei Ni” (Here I Am) which became our lifeline to her spirit.

I opened the pages to a poem I didn’t remember and was comforted to read she too pondered how to love herself.

INTROSPECTION

By Margie Lipman (my Gaga)

 

Oh, I am really a wonderful person

            Underneath all of the shams of exteriors

For in my heart a brooklet is running

            And in my soul a nightingale’s signing.

Deep down inside me are strange little murmurings

            And whisperings and songs

There’s music and laughter and tears hot and stinging

            And forests and rainbows and love light and G-d.

 

I’m so grateful I have Gaga’s Love.

But I know I still have more work to do.

Stuart shared that I need to learn to separate the “how” from the “who” — meaning I have to separate “how” my parents made me feel from “who” they are. Only then will I find a path to forgiveness and will my heart truly be free to love myself and others.

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Audrey Jacobs is a financial adviser and has three sons.