Living Free: Letting Go to Restore Love and Joy … Courageously

By Karen Hope

She tried to run. She tried to hide. Her life, for thirty years, was spent living behind a mask holding onto her imperfections or what she thought were imperfections. No one knew the real her. Author Karen Hope didnt know the real her.
In Living Free, she shares how fear, shame, and guilt held her back from living the life she was created to live. Her journey was filled with traumas, old wounds, hurts, and layers of fear and anger. She didnt know who she was. In the memoir, Hope tells how she engaged on a trek, a journey back to finding her true authentic self. She narrates how she confronted the past to break free from religious abuse and control and the courage and faith it took to understand and know she could live her life as her real person.
Honest, personal, and self-reflective, Living Free offers a story of Hope finding herself and her own freedom. Through her journey, she encourages others to step out in faith to the love and peace they deserve.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Jan 9, 2018
• ISBN: 9781504393638

Karen Hope

Karen Hope is a dedicated teacher, healer, speaker, coach, and gifted energy worker who guides others in their journey toward personal freedom. She is an elementary school teacher and certified Reiki practitioner who holds workshop seminars in guiding others in releasing their past and finding their personal freedom. Hope lives in San Diego, California with her two daughters.

Book preview

Hidden in My Journey Through Time

In my life—was it my life?—or just my human pretenses in action? I was always doing, always moving, always asking where I was going next, and continually saying to myself: You’re happy! This is it. This one thing will make you happy. When somebody gave me a compliment, I’d say thank you, and in my head I felt some momentary relief: Whew! I am okay. I did well. Yet deep down in my dark aloneness, I really didn’t accept or believe the compliment. 

Why couldn’t I accept it and feel good about the compliment? I guess it was because inwardly I was unsettled and afraid… but afraid of what? I didn’t exactly know. Maybe I feared failure or rejection or had greater expectations of myself that I somehow felt I would never fulfill. I was not worried or anxious, just always afraid. It seemed that I held my breath in deathly fear that people might see the real me. That part of me that stayed securely hidden.

And what about courage? I love the word, but my perception was that I had none. How do people become courageous, anyway? I admired those people. I looked up to them and wanted to be one of them, but I was always afraid—because to reveal the real me was terrifying. How was I to move beyond this state of fear and personal disillusion? That was the big question, because I wanted to live! I wanted to be free, and I longed for people to see the real me. But the negative, nagging voice inside me never quieted down. It was always there. What if they don’t like me? Can I do it? I concluded that it was just easier to do what I have always done, but inside I was screaming: What is it? What do people want from me? It felt like it was high time to figure it out.

Can I plunge in and do just that? I had been afraid for so long, but now is definitely the time. Am I willing to take the risk? Am I willing to step into my courageous self? I guess so, because I’m committed to telling you the whole story—the good, bad, and ugly. 

We tend to think of our lives in parts, segments, or chapters. We think of our early years, perhaps high school, college, our twenties, thirties, forties, and I am now in my fifties. Every part feels like a fresh beginning, a new season. Questions arise, like What do I want to do differently? I have gone into each life chapter with bright-eyed expectation. Essentially, I have always had the same goals of peace, love, and happiness. With each passing decade, I felt as if I was relentless in starting over again, but time and again—without victory. Why? Achieving peace, love and happiness, within me, always seemed to be slightly out of my reach.

My first memory of consciously trying to gain the life I believed would bring me peace, love, and happiness was during my junior year of college. Yes, I was free! This was it! I was in control of my life! The chains were removed from me. I walked free, but I still felt stuck. What was wrong? I was like the analogy of the elephants whose legs are in chains for many years, then, when the chains are removed, they stay in the same place. They are free but don’t know how to live in freedom. They live as if they are still bound by chains. I was free, but I asked myself, What should I do now? I didn’t know. I was moving, I was living, but I couldn’t seem to shake off the heaviness due to the chains that kept me confined. There was a time I gave up and put my chains back on. What was I thinking, trying to break free? After all, there is a certain amount of safety and familiarity that comes with wearing the chains that kept me from venturing into the unknown. I realized I was physically free, but I didn’t understand how to live my life freely. I didn’t have an owner’s manual, rule book, or tool kit to help me know how to live in a free, unshackled world; one without constant criticism and judgement—and feeling afraid. I had to search for another way to walk through my life journey, and after many years, I would come to understand that way was also flawed—until the pivotal day when I would recognize an intense darkness that festered within me—and finally faced up to it. The way of life I’d created for myself up to now was no longer serving me. In fact, it was like putting a Band-Aid on a wound that never heals. I felt it in the irritation and angry eruptions that flared up inside. Most of the conversations within my head were painful and angry. I didn’t know how to stop them. All I knew was that the way I was living was eating me alive—because all of it was stuffed down, securely hidden from anyone’s view.

The other way I chose to take my first active steps toward freedom was during my junior year of college; I put on an effective emotional Band-Aid—a mask. I decided that I was going to be happy and from now on I would control all things that hindered me. I put on my metaphorical mask, and by the way, my mask always had a smile on it. I became an imposter within my own world. I resolved to cover up the life that had bound me in chains… and so I did. I did what I felt would bring me happiness. I began to live out the life that looked good to others, the one I was supposed to. I would earn a college degree, get a great job, get married, buy a house, and have kids. Yes, then I’d be happy. Wouldn’t I?

My mask became securely attached to my face. I was a very effective imposter. I smiled to show I was happy. I was kind when I was supposed to be kind. I tried to make everyone around me feel good. I always did what others wanted me to do. My mask was a good mask. It worked for me, just like the saying Fake it until you make it. I was doing just that, and I would breathe a sigh of relief when those around me seemed to like me and be happy with me. I was watching my own life unfold in front of me, but I never really lived my life. Instead, I was living the life of an imposter; simply a player in the game who reacted to other people’s emotions and lives.

Living as an imposter was long and arduous, but I managed to do it. I created my own rule book for living in my fake impostor world. I was considerate to everyone around me. I asked people questions, was interested in their lives, and encouraged others. I became a counselor to many without any real degree in counseling. But after all, I had many life experiences to refer to and draw upon to offer guidance. However, I would never let others know where I had received my wisdom. I never shared my deep dark secrets with anyone.

I soon discovered that no one really wanted to listen to me. Not really. People would rather talk about themselves. It was a great world for an imposter such as me to live, because I could hide behind the problems of other people. I could recount details about others; I knew their hopes and dreams; their families; their friends, kids, hobbies, and struggles. I was always amazed that when reversed, they knew nothing about me except for a few simple things. I always used to wonder: How can you share so much with a person and not ask her a thing about herself?

I began to realize that I wasn’t really a friend; I was a free counselor. I accept this as being my fault. I believe I attracted those types of friends into my life. It made me feel good to help them. As their sympathizer, the real me stayed well hidden. And it gave me some sort of esteem to have their approval. In their eyes, I was a worthy person to listen to their problems. I actually felt I was special in their eyes. It was okay that they didn’t ask about my life. As special, I should feel honored that they confided in me about themselves. Oh, whenever they had exciting news, I was also their biggest cheerleader. I was the encouraging friend; one who told them how wonderful they were, always giving them more ideas of support as they moved forward with their endeavors.

As time went on in these relationships, I tried to expose myself a little bit. I would share my good news with my friends, but there wasn’t much excitement for me since they didn’t ask questions or contribute in any way to what I was sharing with them. I had helped to establish that pattern of friendship; I guessed there was no going back, so after that, I somehow accepted that rarely would anyone ask me how it was going with me and my life. I silently hurt. I didn’t have the courage to outwardly express my hurt to them and say, How is it that you don’t take any interest in my life? Instead, anger and resentment festered within. Then repeatedly, I would get over it. I continued this pattern with people. It wasn’t their fault that I fostered these types of relationships. However, my feelings of resentment grew throughout the years since I continued to attract these types of relationships, with my pattern of behavior deeply embedded.

I lived for years—decades—behind this facade of seeming self-assured and able to help others; people liked me for it. I was well into my forties when my world of living as an imposter began to crumble. I became a force of negative energy since I couldn’t articulate who I was within myself. I lived my life solely as one who, I thought, would and should please others; I needed to receive their approval. My needs that continually uplifted others, made people want to have me in their inner circles. Of course.

How did I get there? Who was I? The crumbling inside couldn’t articulate who I really was at all. I had mastered the pretense of hiding behind a mask. If someone did try to ask me about myself, I habitually changed the subject and refocused the attention on the other person. People always fell for it, because most people love to talk about themselves!

I realized that I didn’t know how to talk about myself. How does a person do that–share their inner feelings with others? But then, I’d never had such connections or the opportunity to do so as a child either. Now, as an adult, I finally figured out that I didn’t know how. Therefore, I stuck with what I knew, rather than to journey into the unknown. The problem with that is that I always ended up stuck! I kept myself lost! I existed… but not really. Does that make sense? I would become so angry that I felt that to have others listen to me, I would have to pay them; so I eventually shared my heart with paid counselors. It seemed that there was no one else in the world with whom I could open up or I felt would understand me. I told myself that my friends had enough problems. I knew because I listened to all of them; they didn’t have time to listen to mine. Oh, occasionally I did take a chance and take the mask off, sharing with others. But I thought it was my fault they didn’t listen to me, even when I made a conscious effort to try to confide in them; no one seemed interested. I quickly would give up and replace my mask. There within lied the sense of rejection and my continual question, What is wrong with me? Why don’t people want to get to know me? I saw the attention that many of my friends received. It was overwhelming to watch how some people were showered with so much love, attention, and affection. What was wrong with me? Why weren’t people that way with me?

In social circles, I would coach myself in how to put my real self out there. It was very stressful trying to do so. When I would start talking, people looked away after about a minute or started talking to someone else as if I never existed. I was clearly not worth their time. It was odd and uncomfortable—and with some of my friends, I talked extremely fast to make a point because I knew I only had a brief time to talk before I lost their attention. I still worked on slowing down when talking to people, since I spent most of my life feeling as if I wasn’t worth their time. (I now know it’s a false notion, but it took me years to learn my value.)

So if I wasn’t worth their time, where did I go from there? I didn’t know how to function without my mask upfront and tightened securely around me. So you’re probably thinking I should have sought help… I actually did! Yes, I test-drove a couple of counselors. Let me tell you that finding a good counselor isn’t easy. I read the bios to see if the counselor might be someone I could relate to. However, I knew the dark deep secrets I kept concealed. Could I ever trust someone else enough to share with them? As for counselors who listed their religions, that made me nervous and scared. Yes, afraid, because what could I expect from them? In my mind, religion equaled judgment and hypocrisy, and represented much of the anger and shame of my childhood. I judged them, because if I was to finally take off my mask and be open and honest–I mean, what is the sense of going to a counselor if I’m not going to be honest?

Yes, I did finally try going to counselors in my thirties and my forties. They were lovely women, but I just couldn’t seem to connect with them. Maybe I wasn’t ready yet. I told myself that I could actually do a better job helping me than they could. So that was that!

I had many life experiences, and much pain, so after all, why couldn’t I just be my own professional counselor because, hey, I had dealt with stuff? I had lived through trauma, survived, moved on, and never talked about it… but did I really survive and live life? Wasn’t I just hiding?

By the time I neared fifty, I crashed big time! My mask slipped off; I couldn’t get it to stay on. The tears just kept coming. Why wouldn’t they stop? I felt out of control. Karen, stop it! You are a strong woman. Everyone was always telling me how strong I was, so I couldn’t let people down by allowing them to see that I wasn’t really strong at all. I remember my brother telling me when I was crumbling inside myself, I’m not used to you this way. He said it in a manner as if to say, You better get your act together. I began getting angry with people when they referred to me as being strong. I was like… Fuck! Can’t I feel; can’t I feel weak too! Can’t I be the one to ask for help—just once? My family members saw me as being strong, and they didn’t really want to see the sensitive, soft side of me—and definitely not emotional turmoil.

I was quite the actor, but living a life in a mask, though Oscar worthy, was about to result in a mental breakdown, or else, I realized, I would live alienated and isolated until my demise. I sometimes think about people who have committed suicide. Did they also have masks on to cover up all their emotional pain, until one day they just couldn’t do it anymore? They couldn’t dare to take off their mask and find their way back to their intended purpose to live a life of truth—and be seen? So instead of facing such painful reality, have they decided to leave it behind?

With such thoughts as these swirling within, as I approached my fiftieth birthday my stone wall I’d so carefully built around me came tumbling down. For the first time, I decided to take off my mask, to look at myself and see who was really looking back at me. I wasn’t sure who I was going to find, but for the first time, I was going to look deep down inside and figure out how I got where I was. I was willing to open Pandora’s box to see me—yes, see the real me!

Where My Life All Started

It is hard to go back in time. I mean to truly go back in time and look at one’s self and patterns of behaviors within his or her own reality—it is tough to do. It is easy to view and remember monumental events and how I survived them, but what was I doing before these events? What was the core of my being?

My earliest memories were always of being alone, at least until I turned eleven years old. I had a brother two years younger than I. He was sweet, but I took the role on as more of his caretaker, his second mother, than his big sister.

The earliest memories of me with my parents were more of my mother. My mother only seemed to exist in my mind or my memories. She was there in body, but not emotionally. It’s odd, I know, but I didn’t have any connection with her other than she birthed me and she was my mom. Other than that, I just saw her from afar, observed her, and wondered about her. She never let me in her world. I found a letter she wrote to my aunt after she died. She described me as a nosy child watching her from around every corner. She was accurate with that assessment of me. I am still nosy as an adult, but I like to think of it as being curious.

People often ask me, How did you find that information out about that person? My response, I ask questions. I ask questions that don’t really have any relevance to my life, but I love learning about what others do in this world. In addition, I guess it helped me to change the subject so I wouldn’t have to be the one answering any questions. Asking questions took the spotlight off me, which I had decades of practice at doing.

My counselor—and yes, I found a remarkable counselor when I was ready and willing to take off the mask and do the hard work—would always say to me, Karen, you are a master at changing the subject. She was right; I truly was a master at changing subjects. I knew that was part of my behavior that needed serious revising.

My mom clothed me, fed me, and took care of our everyday needs, but I never knew her. There were no hugs, talking to me and asking me questions, reading me stories, or asking me about my day. She just made sure our basic needs were met. Like being in prison a person is entitled to food, clothing, shelter, and medical attention, but anything else like a hug or interacting with us, that was a privilege we didn’t get.

I observed my mom’s unhappiness at a very young age. It felt as if she got up every day and did her job for the day with absolutely no emotion. However, I began to notice her sadness around my father. It was as if she didn’t like him. She did her wife and mother duties, but it was as if she were dead inside. I remember this vividly between the ages of four and seven. Then I would notice the rage of emotions after my father went to work—intense rage and anger. She would storm around the house talking angrily to herself, throwing pillows on the couch, breaking dishes in the sink, and feverishly putting things back in their place. She would do this for the longest time without it ever occurring to her what my brother and I would be doing at the same time. We knew, because we were watching her.

There was a storm within her soul that she could never seem to calm. It rose up on many occasions. Then there was the flip side of her personality, where she would simply lie on the couch, flat on her back with her eyes closed. She would always say, I’m resting my eyes. The mood swings went from terrible rage to almost a comatose state.

She lived in her isolated back-and-forth world until the day she died, which occurred when I was eleven years old. She was on her own stage. Again, during this time, what my brother and I were doing didn’t seem to concern her. She never yelled at us, hit us, or played with us. She simply didn’t have much to do with us. There wasn’t much acknowledgment of our existence. It was strange. You learn to manage alone. It is bizarre that I can’t even remember during those early years a hug, an encouraging word, or one memorable and sweet moment.

Until recently, I never truly thought about this time in my life or reflected on this period. I think of children in orphanages who are clothed and fed but are never offered any emotional connection that humans crave. Early on, a development of learning how to love someone and how to receive love is supposed to occur. Love is a confusing emotion to me, I suppose because my mother’s love seemed to be absent.

From my earliest existence, I felt as if I was set down in this world and someone said, Okay, now go live. But this came without guidance, directions, or instruction manuals. Aren’t our parents supposed to be our guides? Aren’t our parents supposed to love us? Maybe mine did. Was I supposed to feel something or just know they loved me because someone once told me they loved me? They loved you in the best way they knew how. Okay, then what? I’m supposed to take something away from that and teach my children about love when I didn’t have a clue what love was really all about. I guess you can say, I love you. Is that enough?

Most of us know the human connection during those formidable years as a child is so meaningful and affects your future patterns of behavior. Some of those behaviors from my childhood have been a part of my adult life and my programming—my mind’s thoughts and my actions. My responses have been rooted from those earliest years of childhood development. Just like any kind of repeated patterns, habits, and addictions, it takes time, practice, patience, grace, and forgiveness to reprogram those thoughts and feelings. Then there are the times when those old negative thoughts and feelings overtake, and ego will take over. Becoming self-aware gives each of us the strategies to promote self-worth to feel those feelings, as well as a greater sense of self to move past them. Self-discovery and healing are painful, as