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.  

Fierceness Is Not Enough!

Reflections on the Harvey Weinstein/Hollywood drama and its fallout

Times like these, for long term feminists like myself, beg action and reflection. Neither, alone, accomplishes the task of what is needed for the endless journey home to the center of oneself -- and how one might, correspondingly, contribute to the world around oneself.

One of the essential values I inherited from my Jewish foundations underscores the dual demands of times like these; tikkun atzmi – repair of the self, tikkun olam – world repair. 

Never are these two to be separated.

Because I am made of this, I seek to, somehow, contribute something meaningful to help heal the daily outpourings of distress while, simultaneously, I explore the damaging experiences I have had with men, in my personal life. As a result, these days, I find myself ceaselessly searching my heart and mind to heal within, yet, seeking to find my particular lane to contribute what I can that I might, in time, provide to help foster progress out of this angst. 

In this distress, at what I see around me, and inside myself, soulful contemplation comforts me, as I attempt to find order in all the chaos.

Searching for answers, I ask myself  --

What does this near ceaseless confronting of men in power and their abuse thereof, these days, for their history of sexual abuse and harassment, mean for my life? What is mine to do, here, to help this outpouring that I have, like an Olympic contender, practiced, my whole life, to manage, personally and professionally?

What does this attack on the individual abusers and a system that has sustained them, even promoted and enabled them, mean for me today? And tomorrow? How can I help this male power-abuse and societal dysfunction that could be righted?

I know it can be corrected! On a small scale I have seen situations like this be reconciled, again and again, if not perfectly, at least with significant progress, even in my own life; a tale or two I will get to in time.

We are awash in one HUGE co-dependency game, on as grand a scale as one can imagine!

There are solutions -- and millions of people, like myself, who have either the skills or the personal experience, or both, to help make repairs. 

But this is not a solo endeavor. It is a totally collective endeavor. A dysfunctional system, of many interlocking pieces, got us here. The same can get us out.

If we are willing to work at it.

We must ask ourselves, who are the ones ready, willing and able to take up the task of the fixing? 

I, for one, along with many others, am in for the ride. But it will be a long one. And, we must ask that each and every one of us pay heed to what we have contributed to the problems we are now uprooting –- and get on board with whatever it is we need to do differently.

Finger pointing at others is not going to do it, wholly. And, trust me, if you don’t already know it, fierceness, alone, will not be enough!

For myself I realize that with all my wondering what to do, what to do, my fierce determination to “do” is not sufficient. I must take time, as must we all, to go inside myself – and – just simply “BE. Unhook from the urgency that drives me to act. Find the stillness inside. And, with that find my true way here.

So, in contemplation, I ponder, wondering –

If I am to adjust my world view, once again, for this new normal that includes a mindfulness, not only of the depravity of our president, but also of the many other bastions of female oppression that make up male-dominated organizations and businesses, what can I do with this that can contribute to the good of the whole; the altruistic way that sits in the center of me; all for one, one for all? I will seek and I will find, in good time when all is not so heavy as it is today.

In silence, it also comes to me to wonder, OMG, what about the supporting players; accomplices in the invasion of female dignity, safety and security? What to do about them?

I am back in the doing again, I see. So much is stirred it is hard to just let it be.

Here I consider that I must look and see, contemplate and consider, what to do? What to do?

So much is uprooted, how can we even begin to rebuild? Am I really ready to rebuild now, or is it still time to pause and reflect.

For example, how I am to even look upon the hidden oppression of women, rampant throughout society, troubles me, especially when even NPR is now pressed to reveal – and – take action upon, the cracks in what had seemed to be a well-balanced, female empowering organization?  

Then what to do with that?

Truly nothing is as it seemed before!

But there are meaningful things to do with all of this that is rocking us now.

Our whole society, it seems, is in need of repair! Where do we start?

Obviously speaking truth to power is where it begins. 

Then, what next? This is not enough!

I remember how upending it was for me when Richard Nixon was, finally, known to be fully culpable as the power behind the Watergate break-in. There again our country was in chaos.

It threw me down on the ground – and – most of those around me, in my age group, in terms of the world view we had been holding. What could it possibly mean that our president, JFK, a revered civic leader, Martin Luther King, Jr. and then Bobby Kennedy, had all been assassinated? And that our current president, Richard Nixon, had seriously lied to the American people? 

How was one to make sense of this chaos in the world order we had known?

Were we to now discard the lessons of our growing up that had included yearly, big deal celebrations of the birthdays of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, our pillars of leadership and what our country had always stood for? Or so we believed.

The darkness that has now been revealed disturbs me, while at the same time it casts a reaffirming light on what was readily intuited, if one took the time to consider the underpinnings of much that glittered but was not truly gold. Tinsel town had never been anything but façade. But what about NPR?

Everyday more dirt is unearthed, as the top, heavy with male dominance structures, shows its corrosive edges. I am disturbed and the conversations around me, focusing on this upheaval, are without end.

Much has been stored away in the body, mind and spirit of so many women, toxic and festering as secrets are liable to be.

But it is not only the harm, injury and trauma of the women, who like myself, albeit not professionally, have been victimized by male sexual dominance and abuse, I am concerned about our country, the women – and— the men in it and how we are going to put ourselves aright again.

I cringe at some of the revelations I see and read about while I celebrate the upheaval. 

It needed to be and was, in fact, long overdue.

I particularly applaud the cleverness of women like Ashley Judd. I believe they knew full well that while they could have no direct impact on Donald Trump, they could, instead topple Harvey Weinstein. 

Bravo!!!

But where do we go from here to set things aright?

Speaking truth to power is not enough.

Using our collective women power to stand up, speak out, join the chorus and the newest women’s empowerment movement, #Metoo, is, also, not enough in my book. 

The heartrending story of Aly Raisman and the other young women who were violated by that merchant of evil, Dr. Larry Nassar, hurts my very soul, every time I think of it.

Of all the stories that have come to light since the Harvey Weinstein/Hollywood scandal was unleashed, thanks to Ronan Farrow, the New Yorker and the NYT, young women, like Aly Raisman, Olympic Gold Medalist in gymnastics, being sexually assaulted by their physician, strikes me hardest; a mere child, an innocent. Though this issue had been exposed earlier, somehow, added to the others, it has taken on added impact.

How could this have been? Right under our very eyes? And, at a time when the athletic stars of these young women were burning most brightly.

And, yet “Fierce” as a title for Ms. Raisman’s new book, out this past week and discussed almost everywhere, hit a button of concern for me. 

While I admire the strength and determination demanded of an Olympic contender. And, I feel great compassion for the “fierceness” it must have taken for Ms. Raisman – and – others to manage the sexual abuse by the hands Dr. Nassar, known as “the” top physician for athletes, when I sink my body, mind and spirit down into the significance of this “fierceness” on a day-to-day, long-term basis, I can’t help but feel a bit of trepidation.

Not only on behalf of Ms. Raisman, but also just the simple notion of fierceness, in general, as it relates to a show of courage and fortitude, such as is now being displayed by the women of Hollywood who have come forth; women who will now, not allow the aura of Tinsel Town or Olympic Gold, or ordinary life to diminish them.

As I know it, both as a psychotherapist, as well as a life-long researcher of the Dark Side, fierceness, in some ways, needs to be considered as a double edge sword.

On one hand, fierceness, derived from our innate survival response, allows us to do just what it is intended to do, survive. Its importance in providing the individual with life-saving strength in the face of mortal threat, body, mind or spirit, makes it one of humanity’s greatest resources. 

However, fierceness, if examined closely and understood with its many facets of operation, can, if held too long, become the seat of doing oneself in. Its every day, next pathway of expression is anger, resentment, unhealed emotional wounds and fears; toxic stress chemicals that compromise the body as well as emotions. 

The action required for these is oftentimes no action at all, other than that which comes of solitude, quiet reflection, contemplation. This is the work of tikkun atzmi, self-repair. This is not done in the light of the media, talk shows or grand conferences. This is the inner work 
that must be pursued on one’s own.

Nancy Smith, licensed acupuncturist, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner and former registered nurse who has been my acupuncturist, now, for more than half-a-dozen years describes the phenomenon of being “stuck on” (i.e. engaged in non-stop action as well as inner stress), drawing on  the teachings of one of her mentors, Peter A. Levine, author of Waking The Tiger, explains the phenomenon of “getting stuck on” as a kind of emotional overdrive, based on instinctual survival coping defenses that eventually outweigh their usefulness.  

Eloquently, Nancy translates the inner balancing process needed, to offset our fierceness, with these words –

The storms of summer give way to the damp heaviness of late summer.  Then the deep letting go of the autumn.  So, as a person tracks the weather inside, she can sense the stuck places.  And allow them to transform as they move through the body and into awareness.

When the fury dies down and surely it will, both that prompted by external experiences and then correspondingly internally, we need to learn how to bring ourselves back into an inner steadiness, body, mind and spirit. Find out more about Nancy, my favorite acupuncturist who has aided my inner balancing with her hands on knowing here.

Fierceness then must seek a mellower channel. On its own, the hype of the internet reports, Facebook chats, conferences and marches of protest keep things hyped. This we must manage and not allow the excitement of our new women’s liberation to take its toll while we are after our full freedom.

For our best interest, we, thus, must come to realize that “fierceness is not enough.” 

When we think of survival-driven behaviors, we can view them along a continuum from the extreme of a Loser Survivor to the opposite extreme of the Winner Survivor. The Loser Survivor is an addict, power, sex or otherwise. The Winner Survivor seeks and finds balance, without and within.

See the Paradigm For Winners and Losers 

Breaking The Spell

More unfolding, on this end, from the Harvey Weinstein fallout

A New York Times article titled, The ‘Click’ Moment: How the Weinstein Scandal Unleashed a Tsunami, calls attention to a Mss Magazine edition that put sexual harassment in the workplace on its front cover, forty years ago, this month. 

Where were you when this article – and – the ones that accompanied it were published?

Were you still in diapers, or possibly an unborn? 

Or were you, like myself, already an active part of the movement to liberate women that has been going on for well over a hundred years; the movement of women fighting the good fight for the respect and dignity we all deserve? 

Wow! What a brew
have we here!

Where was I?

I was deep into teaching women to honor their bodies through my first workshop series titled “Scripts, Sexuality and Self.”

For close to twenty-five years I continued on with variations of this program, often doing weekend intensives at beach and mountain locations. Whenever and wherever I could bring women together to help empower and support them. 

And help them draw support from one another; something almost none of them had ever done before; women as a sisterhood was something that just wasn’t done at the time.

Even when I did my last weekend retreat in 1998, right before I lost my eyesight. 

With more than forty years experience under my belt, helping to empower women, as you can imagine, I have much to throw into the ring these days, as we, as a society, seek to find our way through the chaos of women being sexually harassed, used and abused -- and -- finally the dirty deeds now being seriously discussed.

I have so much to offer on this issue to help it resolve. But I am world weary today from all the heavy-lifting, working to free my own body, mind and spirit from all that has been being bypassed, now, for decades, that is being uprooted personally, on this issue. 

So I think this is enough for today. It is not so simple, these days, to just sit down and produce an article. There is so much to assimilate. So much to contemplate on how to best move forward through these challenging times. On my end heavy, heavy lifting!

It does look, however, as if we are heading for a long-desired destination; “winning in the battle of the sexes,” a greater peace now on the horizon. 

But lots of work to be done to get to this place of potential awe.

Long time coming!

The Cost Of The Quiet, 2017

My continuing series on the Harvey Weinstein scandal and its fallout.

This morning, as I am coming into the day, I am reflecting on the notion of wholeness and the cost one pays for fragmenting or fracturing oneself from that completeness.

With this, in mind, the words of “Alfie," the song, ring through my mind.

“What’s it all about, Alfie? 

Is it just for the moment we live? 

What’s it all about when you sort it out, Alfie?

Also with this I am remembering how impacted I had been by the suicide of L. Wren Scott. 

For months after I carried the fact of her death and what could be made of it, for those left behind, in a central part of me. 

Looking back my heart and soul must have been fully captured by the situation. 

I wrote blog articles about it and did, at least, three radio shows derived from it.

Searching through archives on my computer, I find that that, while L. Wren Scott died on March 7, 2014, I was still compelled to think intently about her death in July of that year.  

Read my blog article of July 9, 2014, The Cost Of The Quiet, to see what I mean about how bound up in this incident I was.

I find other blog articles on the death of L. Wren Scott, dating as far back to March 24, 2014 and radios shows, beginning on March 29, continuing forward to July 5, 2014.

Question: Why did this particular death by suicide upset me so much?

Answer: Because whatever was happening for me in the center of Washington’s darkness was bad enough for me to contemplate my own death by suicide.

Today I am giving much thought to this, as I continue, #Metoo, to sort out the deluge coming out of Hollywood from the Harvey Weinstein scandal, trying to regain my own sense of wholeness that feels a bit fragmented these days.

Similarly I had been captured, too, by the murder of Chandra Levy, And I wasn’t even getting sexually harassed or abused, or in an affair with a Congressman! 

Here, again, the dominant thought for me, in this situation, was “there by the grace of G-d go I.”

Listen to my stories that directly relate to my Washington fast track life that left me, thinking of suicide and knowing how risky was life in that arena. And, get a hint of my back story throughout the various articles on this site, especially under the label of Hot Pants and Motorcycles.

Interestingly "hints" are all you get when a person is hiding the whole truth; another one of those costs of the quiet. Thus, you will find all kinds of these, related to what I was not saying, scattered throughout this site.

Look to what is coming out, now, from Hollywood, if you have any doubt of that.

Here are three of my stories on my Anastasia The Radio Show –

March 29, 2014 -- There By The Grace of G-d Go I -- A

March 30, 2014 -- There By The Grace of G-d Go I!

July 5, 2014 -- The Cost Of The Quiet

Now think about this, if you will, for the thought for the day, derived from the Harvey Weinstein scandal etc. –

The abuse of power in the hands of the power elite, mostly male, can drive an innocent young woman to her destruction, especially if there is no one with whom she feels safe enough to tell what is happening for her..

In fact -- there is one the most serious costs accompanying the quiet; there is almost no one to tell. So you carry it all by yourself while it eats away at your soul!  

Here is an earlier article from October, 2013, that I wrote on this theme of power-over threats, There By The Grace of G-d Go I, long before L. Wren Scott's suicide.

For us naive women, I think it illustrates how power over abuses by men can almost be experienced as akin to same kind of threat as living under Hitler when you get right down to it; a mortal threat!

So what’s been happening in Hollywood to the young women who have been victimized by the power brokers of that system and the culture created?

What has been their cost of the quiet?

We must look hard at this for these particular, victimized women, especially in this day and age of understanding Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD) and the effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE).

I grew up in Hollywood from age twelve on. I did not leave it behind until I married at twenty-one. Today I am wondering if knowing Hollywood games, as I watched them growing up, at the side of my father – and seeing the price he paid in that arena, “Big fish in small pond in Ohio, small fish in big pond in Hollywood," aided me in leaving the Washington games to save my soul.

Resilience, we are learning, is what allows an individual to overcome serious survival threats. 

The Hollywood women who survived Harvey Weinstein and others like him are incredibly resilient. 

And, winner survivors, at that, as they have, not only survived assaults on their person hoods and their livelihood. But they have also done remarkably well in coming through these ordeals as true achievers of the highest brand.

What can we learn here, especially as women, about both the "Cost of The Quiet" and the will to survive, under extreme threat and pressure?

Now, it's all about #Metoo!

More later.

Because We Are Liberated, But Not Yet Free!

Note about this article and subsequent related ones

Articles coming off of the Harvey Weinstein scandal and the related fallout from it will be archived under the title "Hot Pants and Motorcycles".  Look for them, under that link, if you wish to follow my unfolding story and perspectives on this.

This will be necessary, as the deluge of reports, articles and commentaries inundating the media and internet are keeping many of us, certainly myself, pitched on the edge of near-constant reaction and response.

On my end, I can barely keep up with myself, as well as other women, putting out thoughts, feelings, experiences, verbally and/or on paper -- trying to integrate all that is being uprooted. 

Let alone do some normal, ordinary day things.

What a wonderfully, liberating tsunami this is!

I am so grateful to be a part of it.  Yet, it is all far off from fun!

As a result, my blog writing, at least on this site, feels as if it is almost becoming a stream of consciousness letter, to be shared with my site followers, especially women

Let me begin by recapping that yesterday I wrote of a most shocking discovery –

I Cannot (Yet) Find A Single Incident Of Sexual Harrssment Of Me In My Workplace!

Omg!!

NO sexual harassment of me – in the workplace!

Where does this leave me now, in alliance with my Sisters?

We definitely need to take a deep look at this.  

There might be good things to learn from how I managed to escape. We must not miss the opportunity for this, if there is one!

But it is all so BIG to sort out right now! 

So I will need to communicate in bits and pieces.  

I might even take to writing on my blog like a diary. It is all so very much, pouring out faster than can be assimilated.

I was up late last night and the night before exploring the ramifications, for me, of the revelations I have discovered thus far. And, of course, going back and forth to my Smart Phone reading, online, what others are saying.

The night before I spent reviewing my history with men, especially in the work place. Last night I was searching my mind and heart to find out how I had, apparently, become this anomaly of never having experienced work place sexual abuse or harassment, up against, possibly millions of other less fortunate women.

To set the record straight, there are exceptions of what you might infer from this "never" statement of mine, regarding sexual abuse and harassment from men. 

But these were on a personal level; same damn scenario, only the setting changes. 

For me, it went like this -- 

I left two abusive husbands. The first was a sado-masochist. I will just let you imagine what that was like. Omg!!

And he was the one for whom I saved my Virgin self. What a honeymoon night and the ones that followed did that turn out to be!

It took me four years to leave him. By then I had only begun to understand what was being done to me, after my ob-gyn pressed me to talk to him about my sex life. 

That’s how dumb and innocent I was back then!

This man is still punishing me, through my children and long term financial security, to this day. 

He has done everything he can, and still does, on occasion, to discredit me. It never ends. 

Yet!

Could a new day be a coming, I pray?

I have been, at least, liberated by the Harvey Weinstein scandal enough to find the words to lay out what has been happening to me by confronting my two children with their participation in the collusions and conspiracies that have kept me frightened, subdued and quiet all these many years.

The second husband I left was a rage-aholic and an alcoholic. He was really scary!

Fortunately, he was not and is not evil like Husband #1. 

Yet both of these men have wrested my children from me with their money and power-over, used to warm the effort.

We are going to really start talking about this stuff -- BIG TIME -- from now on, for my part, 

I am finding that there is an astounding difference in what I lived with in my first two marriages and how I have lived my life in the work place. Sorting this out looms above me.

Still I Cannot (Yet) Find A Single Incident Of Sexual Harrssment Of Me In My Workplace

I will come back to that shortly. It is quite a story, especially as it centers on my life as Founder and Executive Director of the U.S. “Male” Service!

How’s that for a business name! And, one that, somehow, just might have shielded me from sex abuse and harassment. If it did, I must give some of the credit to my Beloved press agent, Charlie Brotman.

We will come back to that shortly.

Right now I need a break from this outpouring. I think I should get some breakfast as it is already 10:30.

What's The Deal? I Cannot (Yet) Find A Single Incident Of Sexual Harrssment Of Me In My Workplace.

Sisters,

I am writing this on my phone today as I go from appointment to appointment. So I will need to fine tune this message when I get back to my office.

We definitely need to take a deep look at this. I was up quite late last night reviewing my history with men, especially in the workplace.

Have found NO sexual harrassment of me!

More later.

“Coming Out” Can Be Scary – Even If You Aren’t Gay!

Darn, if I hadn’t deluded myself that my “coming out,” after all these many years, was not to be an event. Instead, while I had, conscientiously, set my blueprint-oriented mind on preparing for New Horizons’ Annual Board Meeting agenda, which would include a press release -- about me -- that was likely to be its center fold, I had minimized the impact the overall plan would bring about.

At the onset, it seemed to be an ordinary, forthcoming event, to my minimally detail-focused mind. I would preside over the meeting.  Three new board members would be added to our long-term three, bringing us to six. All would agree New Horizons' small “zones of peace” projects was now going to need to take less of our attention than it had been for the past decade. 

Trump and Team in office and the overall polarized conditions in our country meant that building “zones of peace” everywhere you go needed to temporarily go to the sidelines. Genuine survival was demanding our attention be elsewhere these days!

It wasn’t as if I hadn’t been mentally preparing for that “annual event,” our board meeting, where my forthcoming “press release” was to be the main business. Of course, I had. I am a competent administrator. I know how to do my job!

The turn-around, however, was that, now, Plan B, “Anastasia and her message and back story,” were to become our main focus. This meant that “Anastasia’s Coming Out” would become our daily business.

It wasn’t as if I hadn’t been planning my “return” to D.C. for decades that the press release was announcing. I had been -- and -- rehearsing various scenarios of what that would be like, off and on. However, I couldn’t quite fill in the details. Who could know how these would be when  “coming out.” was going, by nature, to be an interactive process?

Then the actual day came of publicly announcing my “return,” the day we would take the press release I had been drafting in my head for years, refined by my board, and set it on the path of its first steps, sending it out into the BIG world; the realm that goes way beyond my computer, where I had been languishing, living a half-life more or less, for the past decade or so.

Writing and posting blog articles is one way of putting oneself out into the public domain. And it is an activity that does have a degree of human interaction. This becomes especially apparent when one sees these are being read, as Google’s Analytics will tell you they are. Still if connection is what you are after, this method is not quite fully human. 

As it turned out, moving on from those preliminaries, the day, actually being yesterday, came. 

And I was completely unprepared for the whoosh of baseline human emotions the presenting of it brought forth out of me!

The press release had been written and approved by my board, which had actually not exactly been a shoe in either, but a process, not an event.

So I did it! I sent out the first press release to a well-chosen talk show host, selected because: 1. She is spectacular in her field; 2. I had already had the privilege, some thirty years ago, of being on her show; and 3. Still today, I am a great fan of hers. I thought she, the talk show host, and I could be a good match, once again, for an interesting and lively show.

Having taken this long awaited step, I then found myself shaking like a leaf inside!

OMG!!  What did I do, next? 

I texted a handful of people that I am totally sure love and respect me. This loyal group of friends and supporters sent me back all kinds of wonderful “Go girl” messages. These I followed up on by being: 1. incredibly grateful; 2. Heart-warmed; and 3. Collapsing into a puddle of tears for which I had no idea of the source.

At this point, I thought I was in need of something more than texting could provide. So I picked up my little Smart Phone and called someone who I thought would be caring and compassionate of my coming apart just as I was “coming out.” Thank goodness for my astute intuition. My instinct led me to call a lesbian friend of mine. 

She knew all about “coming out”!

Definitely I had made a good choice. With tears puddling down more fully now, she and I spoke for a while on my behalf. Soon , wise woman that she is responded to my telling her I was “coming out” of hiding after decades and decades of concealing parts of myself by asking --

“What happened all those many years ago that set you into going off hiding?” 

Smart woman!  She knew "coming out" was a process, not an event, with many back stories behind it.

But, you know, I didn’t actually have an answer to that question. I had to think about it for a few minutes.  Then memories began to flood into my consciousness, along with a torrent of tears. 

Why – and – how had it come about that I left a seemingly successful career on the Washington, D.C. fast track?

I don't exactly know the answer, at least not the full story. I have been burying the details for so very long. However, it didn’t take long for me, after that conversation, to realize that the answer is not a simple one. 

That’s for sure!

I will need to take time to even answer this question for myself. Nonetheless, already I can see, as I begin diving down into my psyche, that the process of answering the question and finding the answers is seeming as if I am raising up a sunken ship, weather beaten, water logged, old and rusty, but, glory of all glories, a ship full of treasures; the bounty being a retrieval of lost parts of myself.

The way I am going to about this taking back of me is that I am going to allow my “return” to truly be the unfolding journey it will be, not an event. 

I will set my mind to going as softly as I can into the memories and related emotions and luxuriate in the findings. 

I will honor the rebirth, reverencing that this just might be one of the penultimate moments of my life, respecting that it may exemplify the true meaning of my name, Anastasia, “She Who Rises Again.”

With this all in mind, I can now truly see that “Coming Out” Can Be Scary – Even If You Aren’t Gay!” And, that learning from my LGTB friends might just become one of my treasured gifts from the adventure.