Maria Arpa
Clara has been living in poverty most of her life. From difficult beginnings she was abused as a child and ran away. She fell into the world of drugs and became addicted living in a crack house. She got pregnant at 16 and had the child. For the first time she felt love. She went on to have 6 children, each time she felt the surge of love that had been missing in her life. Because of her drug addiction and the way she lived, some of her children were taken into care.
Eventually she got clean and moved into one room with her children. And then, she inherited some money unexpectedly. What should have been her ticket out of poverty ended disastrously as she went back on drugs, lost the one room home and all her children. She cleaned herself up again but by now the money was spent and her children, old enough to make up their own minds, wanted nothing to do with her
At this point in her life, Clara wandered into a community training. She was sad, depressed and haunted by her past. She listened, practised and learned something about empathy. It was a revelation. She told me that she had learned something that no one had ever shown her; that all her life she was trying to meet her needs but using strategies that were never going to work. She understood that the problem was the strategies and that she actually had power and choice over them.
Through the power of the Dialogue Road Map, she also realised she had the inner strength to use words to heal her rift with her children. Bit by bit, day by day she persevered until a few months later she brought two of her children to meet us as living proof of her progress. They had understood the change in their mother and trusted it enough to begin a new conversation.
Every time we see Clara she has grown and developed. She describes her mission as being the conduit to heal the family so that she can leave a legacy of trust and safety for the grandchildren. A gift, as she sees it, that is more valuable than money.
Names have been changed.
Reflections
Every person has an inner strength that has the power to heal. Often, that part of us has never been given the keys to unlock its potential or traumatic experiences shut that part of us down. It is never too late to begin.
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