In The Spirit Of The Holidays --

Please check out my article --

“Forgiveness: The Gift We Give Ourselves”
(Link from cover to "The Importance of Forgiveness" or go to page 18)

By Anastasia Rosen-Jones as published in …

Frederick’s Child Magazine
December/January 2018
(Link from cover to "The Importance of Forgiveness" or go to page 18)

Courtesy of Frederick’s Child Magazine 

Also posted here --

As The Year Ends, Considering “Forgiveness: The Gift We Give Ourselves”

#MeToo House Cleaning

Of course I cannot know what is going on in your office or workplace or home. Any more than you can know what is going on in mine. But I can tell you this -- while I am continuing, as usual, getting ready for the holidays and the start of the new year, there must be an added alert, along with the ordinary.

So the other day, while I was digging in to some unexpected corners, here and there, intent on clearing away the clutter of my life, preparing myself for a cleaner 2018, a set of files I found in a long, stored-way drawer, jumped out at me, in a most startling way.

Courtesy
www.dreamstime.com

Lo and behold, I had unearthed, most unexpectedly, a HUGE cache of clinical training notes and correspondence having to do with some serious power-abuse of me by a former trainer and supervisor, with an added touch of sexual harassment. 

I had been bypassing the whole of it, in my conscious mind for decades!

You could almost call it a workplace, sexual harassment  situation, although it wasn’t exactly that. Instead it was more of an academic situation whereby one of my clinical training supervisors had not only oppressed and frightened me, with his power-over me position repeatedly, though I had called him on it and asked him to stop, but had also taken serious, career defeating actions against me for my rebuffs of him.

OMG!

What had I here?

Startled by my discovery, one of my first thoughts was that what I had found could have taken me down, but it did not! 

Thanks to the blatant, once spotlighted, outrageous evil of Harvey Weinstein and the now expanding women's power movement, I thought, almost immediately, that I had unearthed a buried treasure trove; something that, given the current climate, would be likely to hold seeds of another layer; these almost unimaginably -- of transformation and liberation for me!

Whoopee!

After a day of cogitation on my findings, I reached out to share my discovery with a dear colleague of mine, known for forty plus years. With this behind me for support, I contacted my professional training and accreditation association. 

And, lo and behold, before too many more hours had passed, I had both written and called the highest officials I could find from that particular organization and had begun the process of making an Ethics/Professional Practices complaint.

Can you believe it? 

Thank you Harvey Weinstein and women united!

So today I am immersed in preparing full documentation for that professional association which will remain anonymous, for the moment, until further notice. 

There is so much to copy, letter after letter of correspondence from a twelve year teacher-student relationship that went south, costing me much professionally; more than I can put a price tag on now.

Going through this stash, I am sometimes in so much pain!

Bottled up grief from things I have been containing, holding it mostly all to myself – for decades. Just as I had done about my child abuse and spousal abuse from my daughter’s father. 

I am masterful at containment. Now I hope I am being masterful at RECLAIMING ME!

Still, I am, off and on, in so much pain!

Yet so grateful to be alive at this time of expanding female liberation and equality!

Just  look how much freer we are becoming, collectively, day by day, now. 

And, for me, personally and professionally, I am so appreciative that out of the pain Anastasia, ME, is getting to rise again in the form of being able to serve my community, in a specialized way that is close to my heart, as I had done in the past, with more knowledge and expertise in how both men and women can move beyond gender tyranny than almost anyone, other than my devoted followers, collected in my close to forty-five years of professionally dealing with male-female sexuality issues, can imagine!

Anastasia, meaning of name --- “She who rises again!”

See New Horizons’ recent press release, "Beyond Gender Tyranny," on the professional angle.

Whoopee, transformation and liberation lie just ahead!

Thank G-d! 

Long time coming!

On Being Invisible And Invisible No More

When your survival is being threatened daily by your abuser you learn to keep secrets. You learn to not make any fuss though your life is in jeopardy. The Harvey Weinstein scandals and the #Metoo outpouring is releasing that kind of long-held survival threat and accompanying fear.

The Cost Of  The Quiet

Stories and stories, untold, are pouring out; mine, no less than yours.

There has been such an enormous cost to the quiet. And, yet on my end, as no doubt for many others, the liberation is here. But freedom does not come easily.

In the past month I have kept relatively quiet. I had little to say, at least publicly.

So much was incubating inside of me, as I heard and watched account after account of #MeToo stories come alive in the daily media and on the internet, I could not speak, except to those closest to me. I had almost no words; only memories, emotions and insights, born of dots, long overlooked, connecting.

Today, however, the lid is off, the bottle uncorked for the genie in me to fly free though I am not yet adept at flight.

I think, as I often do, I may write my way through the holidays. I believe I am beginning now.

Perhaps it is the Winter Solstice that is bringing this out of me now. The Winter Solstice has special significance for me, as my only son was born on the Winter Solstice; a child of an Jewish-Christian interfaith mixed marriage he was, also, born on the first night of Chanukah and came home from the hospital on Christmas Eve with a bright moon shining although not quite full.

He is my star child though by him, too, I am being punished for whistle blowing the family abuse secrets; sexual and otherwise.

This year, that punishing seems to be more vivid to my conscious mind, yet held in greater peace than, possibly, ever before.

Much, much, much more to come from Anastasia The Storyteller

The Wise Woman’s Way Out of #MeToo

The New Horizons Small “Zones of Peace” Project presents –

(Scroll down beyond seminar announcement to read New Horizons Small "Zones of Peace" press release.) 

The Wise Woman’s Way Out of #MeToo: 
A One-Day Seminar
 

New Horizons, circa 1998:
the month before Anastasia lost her eyesight.

(Notice that  this seminar is one of New Horizons’ efforts to help bring Executive Director and Founder, Anastasia Rosen-Jones, The Storyteller, into the Light.)

Read Anastasia’s #MeToo stories here.  

And about her amazing background that uniquely equips her to address current gender challenges here.

Also, hear Anastasia on Anastasia The Storyteller on Blog Talk Radio

OMG! What a time this is to be a woman – and make the most of our womanly strengths. Sharing our stories is one of our best ways to affirm our powers and help make our dreams come true. 

That’s what this one day seminar is about -- you and I, our stories and reclaiming our dreams!

The Wise Woman’s Way Out of #MeToo: 

A One-Day Seminar

From storytelling – and story “listening,” we gain insight, inspiration, connection, new found levels of wisdom and creative solutions to problems that we face.  There has been such a “Cost to the quiet” of holding the secrets we carried out of shame and fear. Now is the time to let them go! In this lies our woman-power and our shared futures.

Hear Anastasia’s amazing and inspiring story of a journey from sexually abused woman to High Priestess, with guidelines to get yourself there too – or anywhere else you wish to be!

Your opportunity to share your #MeToo Stories, hear the stories of other women and begin creating a new pathway for yourself out of the #MeToo trap. 

Saturday, Rescheduled, New Date TBA

10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Frederick Friends Meeting House

723 N. Market Street                Frederick, Maryland 21701

Reserve early, space will be limited!

Tax deductible donation: Early registration -- $25 prior to tba, 2018

$35 – tba, $50 at the door.

No one stays away because of $$$, inquire about scholarships and gifts in kind donations.

New Horizons is a 501 C 3  non-profit educational organization 

For Details and Reservations, Contact: Anastasia Rosen-Jones
Email: HarpersFerryNH@aol.com Cell: 240.409.5347

Be sure to read New Horizons Small “Zones of Peace” articles on Bridging The Gender Gap and other topics.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

December 12, 2017

New Horizons Pledges Development Of County-Wide Gender Gap Bridge-Building Support Network

The New Horizons “Small Zones Of Peace” Project, known throughout Frederick County for its bridge-building,  “Coffee House Conversations” efforts in the areas of race and citizen-police relations, has announced plans to update its city-wide support network approach.

From the mid-1980s to the early 21st century, New Horizons sponsored a full-fledged, highly successful, city- wide, support network program, addressing male female relationship problems primarily. With ongoing support groups in Montgomery, Prince Georges and Frederick Counties and Northern Virginia—boosted by day-long educational seminars, monthly training, and weekend retreats—the project became a mainstay for both men and women facing the kinds of gender imbalance challenges presently filling our daily news cycles by way of Hollywood-to-New York (and points in between) sexual harassment scandals.

In response to this outpouring, the New Horizons “Small Zones of Peace” Project, headed by Executive Director and Founder Anastasia Rosen-Jones, is now pledging to revitalize its support network model for Frederick County.  To this end, the organization will seek:  

1. Collaboration with other organizations, groups, agencies and individuals to help develop a Frederick County Male-Female Support Network;  
2. To develop a feasibility study to chart out strategies for the project; and 
3. To bring together the many voices of our community that have gender-based, power imbalance concerns. 

Ms. Rosen-Jones, a retired psychotherapist with more than forty years of experience in the mental health field, suggests that these sexual harassment and abuse scandals now offer our community an occasion to raise the bar for male-female relationships in Frederick.  “Whatever is now falling out, locally, from the national tsunami of scandals and #Metoo repercussions can become an opportunity in Frederick County,” Ms. Rosen-Jones stated. 

Ms. Rosen-Jones, who is a member of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) workgroup, a project of the Frederick County Health Department’s Local Health Improvement Plan (LHIP)—an effort including, too, Frederick County United Way, the Frederick County Mental Health Association, and other local agencies and organizations—states: 

“There is a strong correlation between what we do as ACE activists and what New Horizons is proposing here.  Recent trends reporting on sex and power-related problems in the workplace, as well as elsewhere, reveal that the main victims appear to be women and mothers. 

With secrets buried deep within, these adult victims, who may have never thought—previously—to seek help, find themselves rearing children while burdened with unhealed traumas that can impact their young ones.  As it is ACE’s task to assist children and families experiencing adverse conditions, we may also find community benefit in support and guidance to these male and female survivors in ways beyond current provisions and outside of immediate domestic violence crisis intervention services. This is what our support network will be designed to accomplish." 

New Horizons Support Network, Inc. is a non-profit organization that offers programs designed to teach interpersonal and community development skills and strategies through the model of its “Small Zones of Peace” Project initiative. Information about the organization can be found here. 


Also, read Ms. Rosen-Jones’ bio where information on Anastasia’s women’s studies research and on the intersection of the co-dependent (i.e. passive addict/co-dependent) and the aggressive/power addict can also be found.