The Dawn of Hope

By Lisa Winneke

The Dawn of Hope is a book about the power of hope and how learning and practicing self compassion, acceptance and forgiveness, can transform our entire experience of life, the state of our relationships and how we view and relate to ourselves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lisa Winneke
• Release date: Jul 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9781922764348

Book preview

title

This book is dedicated to Rich for seeing the light in me even when I was blind to it, and for his unwavering love and support in allowing me to heal and rediscover who I am.

Awareness is like the sun. When it shines on things, they are transformed.

Thich Nhat Hanh

First published in 2017 by Lisa Winneke

© 2017 Lisa Winneke

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (for example, a fair dealing for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review), no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, communicated or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission.

All inquiries should be made to the author.

ISBN: 978-0-646-95548-3 (print)

978-0-9953900-7-2 (epub)

978-0-9953900-8-9 (Kindle)

A catalogue entry is available for this book from the National Library of Australia.

Project management and text design by Michael Hanrahan Publishing

Cover design by Kate Dixon

Photography by My Little Tribe

The paper this book is printed on is certified as environmentally friendly.

Disclaimer

The material in this publication is of the nature of general comment only, and does not represent professional advice. It is not intended to provide specific guidance for particular circumstances and it should not be relied on as the basis for any decision to take action or not take action on any matter which it covers. Readers should obtain professional advice where appropriate, before making any such decision. To the maximum extent permitted by law, the author and publisher disclaim all responsibility and liability to any person, arising directly or indirectly from any person taking or not taking action based on the information in this publication.

CONTENTS

Foreword – The Dawn of Hope

Part 1: The path to rock bottom

Prologue

The darkness before the dawn

Being highly sensitive – feeling too much

Bulimia – 20 years of secrets and lies

Fitting in – hiding behind masks

Part 2: Returning to love

Willingness, determination and baby steps!

Feelings

Releasing trauma emotionally and physically

Tuning into self-compassion

Finding peace through forgiveness

Loving you

De-structing perfectionism

Undoing the patterns of comparison

Fear, I see you

Discover YOU!

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

Resources

FOREWORD – THE DAWN OF HOPE

DR PETA STAPLETON

It is my absolute privilege to write this foreword for such a deeply inspiring and touching book. Well before I became a researcher in the area of EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques), which Lisa discusses in this book, I have been a specialist in eating disorders. For some eight years I ran a weekly support group in my local area, for sufferers to attend and share. I was witness to their struggles, their pain and anguish, and their eventual recovery and triumphs.

The depth of emotion Lisa shares in this wonderful book, and her rawness, honesty and sincerity is rare to read. It truly makes The Dawn of Hope an inspirational guide. Often the journey of recovery from something like an eating disorder is difficult and exhausting, and few therapies out there offer sufficient guidance. Few emphasize self-compassion as a central and key feature to healing. Self-forgiveness is also needed, and a profoundly personal process. Yet Lisa has found all these keys and her openness and authenticity in sharing how she achieved this adds to the success this book will become. It will be a guide for many a teen, young woman and those still wanting to heal.

Perfectionism and control, fear and limitation are core components of eating disorders and there is always a reason. There are also ways to heal. As far as we know to date, no one is born with these concerns. They develop in response to life situations, and for certain personality types. I too, like Lisa, am a highly sensitive soul. Too often, schools don’t teach our children how to deal with the world when you are deeply in-tuned; when you can feel energy. Outlets are sought, and while they provide temporary relief, in the long run they don’t result in happiness.

Lisa manages to describe her journey in this book beautifully, and unpacks what led her highly perceptive and impressionable soul down the path she has made. But what Lisa also does is offer her solutions, her recipe for learning to love her own self again. This is what is missing in many tomes – a guide for others to learn and be able to pursue their own path from this point.

Lisa came into my life through the tool I teach, research and write about – Emotional Freedom Techniques (often called Tapping). While this therapeutic technique is backed now by scientific studies, Lisa offers a more holistic approach. There are many tools out there to heal, but what Lisa points out is that most of those which work quickly and deeply, include both the body and the mind. I urge you to look for those therapies too.

With love and light,

Dr Peta Stapleton, Clinical & Health Psychologist

www.petastapleton.com

PART 1

THE PATH TO ROCK BOTTOM

PROLOGUE

Once you choose hope, anything’s possible.

Christopher Reeve

There had always been a dark cloud hanging over my life, or rather me. I wasn’t ever conscious of this; I just accepted it as how my life was. So in an effort to survive, I discovered ways to numb and hide myself.

I was able to create such an incredible mask of confidence and strength that I not only fooled others, but most sadly myself too.

My friend laughs now as she recalls the vision of the ‘immaculate’ me, gracefully walking down the street in my beautiful dress, my beautiful big glasses, my perfect hair and my well behaved toddlers. I appeared to have it all under control.

As a result of the masks, I was completely unaware of the depression and anxiety I experienced and had done for years. I was so disconnected from my body and me, almost like I was a bystander or observer, not engaging in my life because it hurt too much.

I suffered from bulimia for many years but accepted it as something I couldn’t change and it became part of my identity. It was something that I kept a secret until just recently.

This darkness, I now see, began when I lost hope. In fact not only had I lost hope for myself, but I had deemed myself hopeless. In this place I was completely alone; I felt blocked off from the world, in a psychological prison.

But then, after years of being in this place, I met someone who shifted something that would change the entire trajectory of where my life had been headed. She saw beyond the masks and my perfect armour and, despite knowing more than I had shared with anyone, she saw me. For the first time ever I allowed this, and I didn’t feel judged.

What I felt was hope. I had hope that maybe I wasn’t as broken as I believed or that maybe there wasn’t something wrong with me. Maybe I wasn’t a loser, a failure and beyond hope.

As I walked away, I knew my life would never be the same again and I wasn’t wrong. It fuelled me along a path – a path back to love. It has been a process of really changing the identity of who I thought I was and slowly understanding that we are so much greater than our often limited minds. I can now be immensely grateful for the suffering I have experienced, as I know I have more love and more compassion for myself, and others, because of it.

The purpose of sharing my story is to activate hope, in order to awaken to a life of new possibilities.

THE DARKNESS BEFORE THE DAWN

Life is an unfolding set of opportunities to awaken.

Ram Dass

It’s true to say we’ve all experienced turning points. Some are like a small adjustment made to the steering wheel of the car you’re driving. Others force you to crash off the road so that when you get back on, it’s a distinctly different path to the one you had been travelling.

Yes, for me it was the latter. This turning point followed a crash down to a deep chasm of rock bottom. It was a culmination of having suffered from an eating disorder for 20 years, along with the depression and anxiety that’s often associated with it.

It started with my struggle to conceive. After many attempts, three ectopic pregnancies, surgery and numerous visits to hospital, I was very fortunate to conceive twin boys through IVF.

Naturally I was relieved but I couldn’t get excited because of the deep worry I felt that something would go wrong after so many failed pregnancies.

When I was 20 weeks pregnant, my fears were realised when I was admitted to hospital. The day before I had visited my obstetrician for a regular scan, only to discover that I had an incompetent cervix that was shortening rapidly. As the obstetrician spoke calmly and with confidence about his growing concern, I was trembling uncontrollably inside. He explained that I would need to go home and speak with my husband Rich, pack my bags and go to the hospital where I would remain until the boys arrived.

I left feeling completely overwhelmed and anxious. Would they survive? Would I be able to hold them inside my body until they were viable? And if they did survive, would they be normal? I remember ringing Rich in the car. I tried to remain calm but my hands were shaking. He as always remained positive and tried to reassure me that everything would be okay. But all I felt was dread.

I didn’t want to be in hospital alone. I wouldn’t have Rich’s love, support and comfort there each night for me to nestle into. It was going to be just my babies and me. I realise now I didn’t think I was capable. Look what I had done. I couldn’t even carry my own babies – my body had let me down again. At the time I was completely unaware of this sense of responsibility and the blame I directed towards myself.

For the next six weeks, each day began and ended pretty much the same way. Rich and my Mum visited daily, along with a stream of friends, but the monotony was hard and time felt like it stood still as I willed the days away, because this would mean we were one day closer to their proper due date. The loneliness and the mounting dread were the hardest.

So the 28th of May that year began like every other day. Breakfast and a morning check in from Rich. I was scheduled to have my weekly scan, which was always something I yearned for, to see everything was okay, but there was another part of me that always remained deep in fear.

This day, again my fears were realised. It was mid morning when the results showed what I had so desperately not wanted to see. It meant I could no longer carry my two babies anywhere near full term. My obstetrician was the person who delivered the news that their birth day had arrived. I tried to feel assured by his confidence