A Return to You-"Getting the Strength You Need - Now"

By Delecia A. Holt

Everything that we see, hear, smell, touch, taste, say, or do not say, has consequences. Four years of research, a lifetime of personal and collective experiences, and there is still more to do. I have observed one very important fact. That we, humans, tend to seek out others with similar beliefs, a similar 'base.' With them we find a comfort zone. We tend to strive for that level point, that provides us comfort. Because at that level, we have no one to impress. They are on the same plane we are for the moment.

That is until a life experience occurs, and one or both of us changes due to our belief systems formed within our 'base.' Our 'bases' influence every aspect of our lives, and the lives of those we interact with. We will explore this concept further in the book.

For now, think of our 'base' as the center of our physical and intellectual being. That place within the core of our spirits. Which provides us with the strength needed to survive all life's trials.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 27, 2000
• ISBN: 9781496906274

Delecia A. Holt

Ms. Holt is a specialist in the field of applied research. She has been and is still involved in several longitudinal, behavioral studies in the areas of mental health, child and family research, medical and environmental studies as well as the effects of alcohol and drugs on their users. She has devoted the past few years of her life to identifying social problems such as child abuse and domestic violence and has written numerous research papers on these and many other subjects. Her latest two novels are entitled Leaving Abuse Behind and Protecting Our Children from Predators Raising Morally Strong, Independent Families. Both books provide real life solutions to the problems of child and family abuse.

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Copyright © 1996 by Delecia A. Holt

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,

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without written permission from the author.

ISBN 9781496906274 (eBook)

1stBooks-02/14/00

About the Book

Everything that we see, hear, smell, touch, taste, say, or do not say, has consequences.

Four years of research, a lifetime of personal and collective experiences, and there is still more to do. I have observed one very important fact. That we, humans, tend to seek out others with similar beliefs, a similar base. With them we find a comfort zone. We tend to strive for that level point, that provides us comfort. Because at that level, we have no one to impress. They are on the same plane we are for the moment.

That is until a life experience occurs, and one or both of us changes due to our belief systems formed within our base. Our bases influence every aspect of our lives, and the lives of those we interact with. We will explore this concept further in the book.

For now, think of our base as the center of our physical and intellectual being. That place within the core of our spirits. Which provides us with the strength needed to survive all life’s trials.

Table of Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Introduction

Chapter One: Finding Your Base

Chapter Two: Sharing Yourself

Chapter Three: Knowing When To Leave

Chapter Four: Interpreting Your Experiences

Chapter Five: Accepting the Experience

Epilogue

Dedication

To my family who, has been, and is my Base. Thank you for allowing me to draw upon your collective strength, when my environment is in chaos! I love you all, for being yourselves.

Acknowledgements

I extend my gratitude to a mentor of mine in the world of Sociology, Richard Hough, Ph D., who heads up the child and family research group at children’s hospital in San Diego, California. He took me under his wing and taught me not only to observe my environment, but to also participate in it. To be a contributing part of my surroundings.

Thank you for making the time for this neophyte, involved in the journey of discovering the world around her. I appreciate all your efforts on my part.

I must also thank the many professors who took the time to listen to me babble on about a world I had yet to discover. For not shooting down my theories, but presenting me with alternatives. I listened. For my colleagues that bluntly disagreed with me at times, causing me to re-assess my beliefs. You all inspire me. You give me the strength and courage to question the obvious.

To my family, friends and those who may consider me their adversary. I appreciate your presence in my life. You fill my base with enormous strength. Strength, that I draw upon with every breath, providing the self-assured facade you have grown to recognize. I am simply reflecting that which is in you. Thank you for existing!

Prologue

Everything that we see, hear, smell, touch, taste, say, or do not say, has consequences. This book uses a collective behavioral approach, among others, as an attempt at explaining our individual behavior. I would like for you to be mindful of the effects that our individual behavior has on the collective behavior of society. Which effects our environment, changing us all.

Because I am female there may be the misconception that I should take a warm and fuzzy approach in describing our weakness and strengths. I am a sociologist. I study applied research. Which simply means, I identify a social problem, research the who, what, why, where, when, how, and report my findings. The applied means that after careful research. I propose a solution. By applying what I have learned.

Four years of research, a lifetime of personal and collective experiences, and there is still more to do. I have observed one very important fact. That we, humans, tend to seek out others with similar beliefs, a similar base. With them we find a comfort zone. We tend to strive for that level point, that provides us comfort. Because at that level, we have no one to impress. They are on the same plane we are for the moment.

That is until a life experience occurs, and one or both of us changes due to our belief systems formed within our base. Our bases influence every aspect of our lives, and the lives of those we interact with. We will explore this concept further in the book.

For now, think of our base as the center of our physical and intellectual being. That place within the core of our spirits. Which provides us with the strength needed to survive all life’s trials.

Prayer

God,

Our merciful, Father

I stand before you draped in darkness.

I ask your forgiveness.

I come seeking guidance and enlightenment.

I am blessed!

Through your graciousness, I am worthy.

Amen.

Introduction

A few years ago, I recall sitting at home, watching the Oprah Winfrey show. She was doing one of the many shows that, she often does, on bettering oneself, a self help show.

She spoke of a book entitled A Return To Love. She and her guest, the author of that novel, were discussing how devoid mankind has become in respect to asking for and sharing love with one another. They spoke of how mankind, in general, needs to return to a loving life style in order to truly be happy. Upon hearing the title of the book. My immediate response was something to the effect of (I verbalized this thought). How can man return to love when most don’t know what love is, or for that matter who he, himself is. First he had better return to himself! She should have called the book A Return To You." This, from someone who thought she had it all figured out.

At that point in my life, I was the type of person that would not hesitate to tell another what their problem was, and the truth, as I perceived it to be! To throw a few more coals in the fire. I would tell them how to fix, what I perceived to be their problem!

Admittedly, I knew that I had problems of my own. That were in need of repair. But, I also knew that no matter what I was presented with. I could and would rise above it. I believed, that I could overcome all adversity. I always had. I gave new meaning to the word smug. What I did not know is that our creator was about to put my belief in "self’, to the test in a very big way.

Not long after viewing that segment of the Oprah Winfrey show. A series of events occurred within my personal life. My then husband, Mikael decided it was time for he and I to become parents. So, I agreed and we set off on the road to parenthood. Well, we may have packed our bags, but the ship never arrived. For a year or more we made a valiant effort to render me plump. When ever and where ever possible. All to no avail.

In thirteen years of marriage, it never occurred to us that our union would not produce children. At least, not until the infertility specialist told us there was a problem. To me it sounded like Houston, we have a problem!

Being the beautiful, impatient man he is, he decided he could not wait. Apparently, his biological clock was not just ticking. It was about to explode. He wanted. No, needed a child post haste!

We had successful businesses. We had just sold our old home, and closed escrow on the new one. Then one morning he said, that he wanted a divorce. So much for happily ever after. The morning the moving van arrived to our old home. He then informed me that he would not be moving into the new house. We had purchased together. Unannounced to me he had found a home of his own, sometime earlier. I blinked. I found myself infertile, without a husband and moving into our new home, alone. I was very disappointed. But I was not devastated. We had passionate sex the night before. We were having coffee and Danishes, like we did each morning. The only difference was that, this morning I would begin a life on my own. I should have been frightened. I was not. I should have been angry. I was not. I should have asked why. I did not. Instead I smiled, hugged him and assisted the movers with our belongings and went on with life.

Several months later I began dating a gentleman. He said all the right things and made all the right moves, at least in the beginning. Freshly out of a broken relationship. I heard only what I needed to hear. I heard him say I want to take care of you and share everything I have with you. I interpreted that to mean that I was the only one for him. I had not then realized that there are numerous ones for us all, just in different spaces in time. Each sent to teach us a different lesson and to strengthen us in a different manner. To assist us with the strengthening of our base. He asked me to move in with him. So I rented my house to a nice, young couple. Jumped heart first into the murky waters, of love. Things were, as the say, A-O.K. in the beginning!

I thought I was happy. Until I missed my menstrual cycle. I was pregnant with his child. Involved in the last days of a divorce and all the emotions that can entail. Yet, I did get what I had previously prayed for. A miracle I had prayed for and desired to achieve with my husband. Yet, it was this complex man. Who helped me conceive such a special miracle. Maybe, because I no longer had the pressure to do so. I had forgotten that the doctor said I may be able to conceive approximately nine months after the surgery. It turned out that she was correct. Nearly nine months to the day I conceived.

I was elated and frightened simultaneously. How was I to tell this man that I thought I was pregnant? When my husband said that he had left me for being infertile. Why did I not become pregnant while Mikael and I were together? What a blessed mess, I thought.

Upon going in for a pregnancy examination, the doctor regrettably, informed me that the opening in my cervix was no larger than that of the head of a straight pin. Along with a few other major complications. This meant that I would most likely not be able to carry the child full term. Or, successfully deliver the child. It was a miracle in itself. That I was capable of conceiving. I eventually lost the child.

Sometimes we have to give up miracles to understand the significance of the experience. So, my miracle, my child, would never be realized. Fate is a fickle lady! It is often said that God doesn’t always give you what you want, when you want it. But He’ll give you what you need, when you need it!

Then one day out of the blue, this gentleman, while holding me in his massively gentle arms, said We need to change our living arrangements. The tears began to flow, but I spoke as if I were unattached to the pain associated with such a moment. I responded as if it were someone else that he was in need of obtaining his freedom from.

To his credit, he explained that he had expected visitors to arrive shortly and was concerned as to their understanding our living arrangements. Being that we were co-habitating, and he was a minister. But, I had long recognized the signs of infidelity, on his part. Yet, I did not question his motives.

So, there I was fertile, without a husband. Without what I thought to be a gentleman friend, and homeless. So, I did what I normally did. I said O.K., Thank You. I wiped my tears, raised my chin, thus sticking my nose up in the air and packed my belongings.

I rented a storage facility and moved in with one of my sisters and her child, in a on bedroom apartment. She would prove to impact my life in a way I could not fathom.

At this point, it was time for me to show what I was made of. For years I had been perceived, in my family as the pillar of strength. Able to handle anything life placed before me. Whether it was being molested as a child, being raped on more than one occasion as a teenager, or being stalked by one of my attackers, and a myriad of other atrocities. I had always, seemingly, pulled through unscathed. But, could I this time?

As I sat in that one bedroom apartment, I began to realize something I have always known but did not yet know how to verbalize. I knew that I could and would survive the trials placed before me. I knew how, but I did not now why!

Not until a girlfriend of mine, Sharon Rogers, asked me the correct question at the correct moment. During one of our many conversations regarding love, happiness and forgiveness. She, herself was involved in a troubled relationship. Like attracts like. She asked, How can you trust after being hurt like that? I simply explained that it was due to my belief in myself. The belief that no matter what was placed before me, I could and would persevere. I came to the realization that I consciously, chose to survive and that I was not the type of person that would curl up in a corner to escape the pain of my environment. I realized that I would not allow anyone or anything defeat me. That as a child, I was raised (taught) to survive. That, it was all I knew how to do. My behavior was an automatic response. And in essence, is who I am. A survivor!

I did not know how to term that inner strength, or how to go about identifying where it came from. All I knew is that God gave me the strength to persevere. Thus, I could do nothing less. Moreover, He endowed me with the right to choose my version of reality, and had surrounded me with two strong women as examples. I then realized that I had been granted the freedom to choose who I am, who I will become and who I hoped to become. Thus, by all accounts, I consciously could do nothing less. Not because I was afraid of a God unleashing His fury upon me. But more so because I thought myself blessed, and extremely fortunate to be so strongly, endowed spiritually. That I recognized my right of choice. Where so many of us do not. Therein, lies my obligation.

An obligation and responsibility requiring me to set the best example I could for those around me.

On December 25,1994, never had I felt so at peace. As I spent Christmas with my family, in my sister’s one bedroom apartment. That afternoon I picked up a pen and paper. I had not written a serious piece in several years. I began to write and did not stop until all five chapters had been drafted. I refined the concepts and tied in the research sometime later. But, the concept of a central point within us that retained all aspects of every experience we had was realized. I then termed it the base. As it provides us with a source. A starting point where we can store and retrieve the strength needed to create or destroy our lives, and our environment. I knew for the first time where I drew my strength from when I needed it.

We will examine a few of my life