Finding Myself Again Through the Six Healing Sounds

It’s easier to write my story than to speak it, not because I am ashamed but rather because every time I speak of it I remember all that I have lost. Ten days before my seventeenth birthday I was assaulted by a man I barely knew. I had been teaching dance lessons and when they ended, he followed me to my car and attacked me. He left me with bruises, a dislocated shoulder and unimaginable pain, both physical and emotional.

I spent my birthday party hiding in the bathroom because I couldn’t stop my heart from racing. Although the party consisted of old friends, I didn’t feel safe. The person they knew was no longer alive. The assailant took my sense of security and my personality. I was once someone who would laugh to the point of tears; I volunteered often and looked for the good in every situation; I taught dance to special needs children and adults as a small way to help them to express creativity.

After the rape the creativity had left. The dancing (that I could bring myself to do) was hollow and unemotional. I will never know if the performances were for the audience or for myself. I did my best to keep emotions buried where they could not escape because, when they did surface, I was unable to catch my breath, to forget his face.

It took about a year and a half before I told anyone and agreed to see a therapist. It took three years before I understood the damage that this man, this animal, had caused. And I have now spent more than two years in physical therapy for the involuntary muscle contractions that will remain for the rest of my life.

Or so I thought.

I signed up for T’ai Chi Chih to help with chronic back pain that began after the attack. I wasn’t expecting anything to happen; I figured I might as well give it a shot and get the credits. I introduced myself to Instructor Sirkis and explained the back pain, and at some point she asked if she could place her hands on my back to try and help. I am not a “touchy-feely” person but I agreed and could immediately feel the heat pulsing through my back. I thought it was fluff but said thank you and went home. I slept for six hours and woke up feeling as I hadn’t in a very long time. That’s when I knew that TCC wasn’t fluff.

I continued going to classes and admitted feeling tingling in my fingers, arms and toes. But none of that helped balance me. I figured I was simply too broken to be healed in a summer session – just like I had been too broken to be fixed during years of therapy.

I have to tell you: I no longer feel broken. I haven’t had any muscle spasms since we did Six Healing Sounds. It is truly amazing. I sat down in the middle of the circle feeling awkward and looked Instructor Sirkis in the eyes to keep myself from laughing. But within moments the awkwardness was gone and I felt I was about to explode into a waterfall of tears. It felt as if someone had unplugged the bathtub of my own emotional drowning. The entire attacked played out before my eyes but this time I felt in control. I didn’t feel like the room was closing in on me. I left that circle feeling free and like myself for the first time in years.

Sharon Sirkis and TCC gave me back something I thought I had lost for good: myself. For that, I am eternally grateful. With all my heart.