My Magnificent Journey: From Fear to Love by Lee Teresa Lott (copyright belongs to Lee Teresa Lott) www.truepowerstrategies.com My childhood provided me with the most wonderful opportunities to travel the entire spectrum of power. I was raised in family which engaged in Satanic, occult practices. I experienced sadistic, physical and sexual violence and rapes accompanied by emotional and mental abuse inflicted by multiple male and female perpetrators. Also, to my great distress, I witnessed and was compelled to participate in the abuse and torture of others.

Such experiences were toxic to my development. They imbued me with a totally fear based consciousness. My response to such events was to dissociate. To survive, my mind literally “forgot” that which was unbearable. Decades of depression and numerous suicide attempts followed; commencing at the age of seven, when I tried to hang myself in the garden shed with my mother’s washing line. Pills were prescribed for the symptoms, but the cause was never addressed. Society was not ready to deal with the reality of child abuse. Aged 14, I experienced paternal pregnancy, followed by a termination in the most appalling circumstances. This triggered an eating order followed by addictions to sex, prescription drugs, nicotine, work and finally alcohol which progressed over the years.

My self worth was non existent. I continually felt ashamed of myself and “less than” many of the people I met. Such feelings were sourced in the judgments of parents, teachers and peers. Unconsciously, I internalised those judgments, until I too, judged myself and then condemned others to feel better about myself. I believed myself to be “not good” enough. An example of this was the day I told my form teacher that I wanted to go to University. She laughed in my face and said “what YOU Lee, you are not University material!” She turned to the class and said “did you hear that, girls? Lee wants to go to University,” which resulted in peels of laughter from my class mates - finally shredding any remnants of self worth and belief. ..

I qualified as a barrister at 21 years of age and went into a family and criminal law pupillage in 1973. Cases concerning child sexual abuse were the first cases I was presented with. I didn’t realise at the time but they triggered my painful childhood memories. In consequence, I fled to the emotional desert of maritime law. I was the first woman shipping lawyer to accept a position in the City of London. After three years I left, as opportunities for me to travel in connection with the cases I was working on were refused on the grounds that “women were unable to fire big guns in business.”

I was offered a legal appointment in Greece by one of my clients. After several years, ashamed that my burgeoning addictive behaviour was becoming apparent in the small expatriate community of Athens, I went to work in the anonymity of New York.
Here I experienced my first conscious contacts with “the Unknown.” Shortly, after my arrival, I was a passenger in a car which became a total write off when another car crashed into it. I was thrown through the front window. The hair on the front of my head was shorn off. My nose and right ankle were broken. In hospital, a nurse spent over three hours with a pair of tweezers taking the splinters of glass out of my eyelids. Lying there I knew I had experienced a moment of grace. I had not been blinded or killed. A few weeks later, still with a cast on my nose, I walked straight into a hold up, at a grocery store in Manhattan. Four men, brandishing broken bottles, rounded on me, two in front and two behind me. They had already cut one woman’s face. As one of the men raised his hand to slash my face, I heard shouting as a number of men came into the store to buy some drink for St Patrick’s Day. This distracted the muggers and gave me the opportunity to escape. I knew without a shred of doubt that there was some Unseen force watching over me.

In 1980 I returned to Greece, which I had missed. Shortly after, I met and married my first husband for all the wrong reasons. I was pregnant, unmarried. Subconsciously, I wanted the financial security of his affluence and a wedding ring on my finger to feel and be seen as wanted and loved. I became a battered wife. Matters became so bad, especially after our son was born, that I fled to England with our little boy, after my husband refused to consent to our son having surgery to save his hearing.
Having secured medical treatment for our son, I called my husband in the hope of reconciliation but sadly, he took our son back to Greece, blocking my return there by filing false criminal proceedings against me. Several years of legal proceedings followed in the UK and Greece as I tried to clear the legal difficulties, regain custody of our child and access to him. The attempts were futile. I lost my health and all my savings in the process. Eventually, when I did achieve intermittent access my husband would hurt our son to control me. I chose to limit the harm to our child by ceasing access to him. It was the most agonising decision of my life. The pain of being without my child was truly unbearable.

I descended further into hell, drinking, taking pills, working and sleeping around, doing anything to avoid feeling my pain. One day, I decided to get my life in order. I got all the contents out of my cupboard and piled them onto the lounge floor, planning to put everything back tidily. They actually reached the ceiling. As I looked at this messy mountain, I knew in that moment I was mad. I had no idea where things went or how to put my life back together. I plummeted to suicidal and tried to find my suicide pack, which I had hidden. It was a supply of pills I always kept handy in case the pain went beyond unbearable. I could not find it.
I had succumbed to a breakdown. It was a breakthrough. I had hit rock bottom, and the only way was UP!
I admitted myself into a psychiatric clinic, unable to bear the pain of being me anymore. I could not understand why my life was such a mess, if I was supposed to be a lawyer and so intelligent. Why had it all gone so horribly wrong? I did not know then that a far deeper perfection was being worked out.

I was asked to do a family tree, listing any affairs, addictions and problems. I started with and A4 sheet of paper and then had to send out for a large poster size sheet of card. This exercise enabled me to see the inter-generational abuse, addictions, eating disorders and compulsive behaviours, nervous breakdowns, illegitimate children and so forth in my maternal and paternal families. As I stared at the chart I resolved that the chain of pain would stop with me. I vowed to find a way to heal, empower myself and live with joy. This would be the amends to my son for not being there while he was growing up and being inefficacious as a mother.

It took about 20 years to fully heal and to stand in the Light and True Power of my Being. I did it the hard way, not believing that life could be effortless. However, this was perfect because it enabled me to understand all the ways the ego uses to remain in control and avoid pain.

The first step was to “feel my feelings,” which had been frozen from the age of three. I had always avoided my feelings, but the therapists wanted me to share them. For several weeks I could not ‘get the feelings bit.’ When people asked me what I felt, I told them what I thought.

One night I wanted to die. I was ashamed again that I was not making any progress. I couldn’t get hold of any drugs; the window of my room wouldn’t open wide enough. In despair, I cursed the ‘God’ I didn’t believe in and demanded to die that night. “I don’t care how you do it. I don’t want to be here in the morning,’ I ordered. The next day, I woke up with the most amazing sense of peace. Something had shifted. I knew without doubt, I would be okay. The same morning, a woman lent me a book, ‘Living in the Light’ by Shakti Gawain. I opened the book at random onto a page which said something about when you reach rock bottom, a trap door opens and you fall into the Light. This resonated with me. It made sense of the previous night. Again, I felt the hidden hand of the Unseen.

Returning to the group sessions I managed to recognise a feeling! I had taken the first step to communicating with the spirit within me.

I found hospital hard as I was the first sex addict to go through treatment and my shame was immense. Subsequently, l realised that my sexuality had been defined by the sexual agendas of others which had impaired my own sexual development. My driven urgency for sex had been my need to be loved. It was the price I paid to feel loved and wanted. It was the only way I knew I could please people, win their momentary approval and acceptance.

Within four weeks I had left hospital. I attended AA meetings and Sex Addicts Anonymous. I followed their 12 Step programme, which was helpful. However, I could not agree that with their axiom that “once an addict, always an addict.” It did not resonate with me. Years later I found out why.

In 1990, I saw a T.V. programme about ritual abuse. Before the end of the programme, I was lying on the floor, curled up in a foetal ball, my teeth chattering. I felt totally terrified and did not know why. I managed to pull the telephone onto the floor and called the hospital by pressing the number buttons on the phone with my nose. I re-admitted myself to the clinic, desperate to feel safe. I experienced dreadful flashbacks, accompanied by unpleasant body and olfactory memories plus emotions appropriate to the images I was seeing. As a lawyer, I needed to have evidence of what I was experiencing. The alternative was to accept that I was truly insane. I confronted one of the abusers, the family doctor, who had taken a keen interest in my recovery. I could not look at him, as I read him what I had written about the ritual abuse and his participation. His response stunned me. Very calmly, he looked at me and said, “You must not forget Lee, that most children find it very pleasurable. You did not mention when we “did” you in the surgery. You were about five, at the time.”
I told him to get out of my life. When I got back to my flat, I took the bottle of anti-depressants that he had given me, part of the suicide pack, which I had subsequently found. Despite knowing of my numerous overdoses on pills, he had prescribed them “in case of need.” Shaking, I emptied the contents down to toilet. Flushing the chain afterwards was the biggest act of empowerment I had ever undertaken up to that point. It represented my commitment to live.

As I healed, shipping law no longer felt right to me, I moved into the field of child protection. I enrolled on a course at London University about the impact of child sex abuse on adults. The lecturer invited me to go and talk to some lawyers in Cambridge, who had requested her help on advising them how to work with clients who had been abused. On meeting the lawyers and learning of the difficulties they had, I realised not only how little understanding there was about the impact of sex abuse on individuals, but also the additional trauma our adversarial legal system caused to the individuals who had the courage to come forward.

I wanted to work for better care for people who had been abused. I became the founder and president of the Association of Child Abuse Lawyers for ten years. I also set up my own consultancy designing and presenting pioneering training to professionals who worked with adults and children who had been abused. Concurrent to this, I continued with my personal healing and empowerment; attending workshops, reading books on empowerment and spirituality.
I experienced backlash with the child abuse work especially regarding my efforts to make ritual abuse visible. I received a few death threats, some distressing gifts on my doorstep, as well as being ridiculed and denigrated by some organisations. I felt saddened by the extent of abuse both in the UK and abroad and angry when I encountered professionals who turned a blind eye to the abuse of others. They knew and did nothing, using intellectual evasions as justification for inaction.
Always one for a challenge, I wondered how to bridge this gap between fear and integrity. I took time out just to be, to reflect on my life and take personal growth to a “really challenging point,” which was to “live with joy, by creating the life and work I love.”
I had met and married Jack during the intervening years. He was and still is an amazing source of love, support and wisdom. We have been together for sixteen wonderful years. It was time for me and time for each other, to draw a line under pain and Just Be in Joy.
We moved to a very beautiful area in Wales. I took up horse-riding and amateur dramatics. The dog and hens arrived, without a divorce! A condition of the marriage had been “no pets!”
I took time to meditate, walk and horse ride in nature. I learned to Just Be. In doing so, I stilled my mind and became conscious of the state of Being, which can only be experienced not taught.
As I reflected on my life several things occurred to me. The first was that I must possess an indomitable spirit. I did not know how I had survived some of my experiences, only a few of which are given here. Also, I realised that each of those “dreadful” experiences had held a far deeper perfection within them, which I was unaware of at the time. I had lost everything, health, child, money, family, but I had never lost the truth of who I Be. No one could take my spirit or true power from me.

I have created a life I love. I live in a place I love, with a man I love beyond words. I have wonderful friends and neighbours, beautiful surroundings and excellent health. My only challenge now is to create more joy.

Twenty three years have passed since my son was taken from me. He does not wish to know me. He has been imbued with the belief that I have thrown him away. Despite this, I am joyful. A message I would give him now is that the Love we hold back is the only pain there is.
I have just finished writing a book, The True Power Strategy, © which I hope will be published. It is the amends for my son. It provides the means, for him or anyone, to overcome suffering and to be the best they can be in Joy, consciously creating the life and work they love. Completing the book enabled me to complete my own process of personal fulfilment as I moved from the fear based consciousness of my mind, to the heart centred consciousness of my Being.
I now teach the True Power Strategy to individuals and organisations seeking to empower themselves and move beyond the limitations of fear by claiming the innate power and wisdom of their Being.

What have I learned? That the core essence of my Being is Unconditional Love. For me, love is not an emotion. It is my natural consciousness which I experience as a state of innate joy, balance, harmony, peace and freedom.

I have learned that the gap between fear and integrity is bridged when we live from the heart.

For me the statement “once and addict always an addict” denies the truth of who we truly are. When we claim and experience our True Power, addiction is impossible. For me, addictions filled the hole which I thought was me. It was caused by believing the illusion that I was just a human being separate from the Light of Love. I am not.

There is far more to me that who I thought I was or should be. I am not a human being on a spiritual journey, but a Being of True Power on a human journey. That true power is the spirit within me. My journey has been and is perfect in every way. The darkness allowed me to see the Light of Love within me and to know that there is nothing that love cannot forgive. It is truly unconditional.

The people who walked with me in their pain gave me the gift of knowing the nature, strength, courage and wisdom of my true power. The core essence of our Being can never be hurt. Those who apparently “abused me” were wonderful teachers sent to help me on my magnificent journey of continuing self discovery, understanding and growth. . I bless and love them all, for it cannot be otherwise.

The Power of A Smile
Alison Lynd, Folkestone, Kent.
How The True Value Of A Smile Was Revealed

Two years ago, a friend forwarded me an email. It was a copy of a letter written by a young man in his early twenties, just before he committed suicide. He said he felt no one was paying any attention to him. He had asked for a sign, and was hoping someone would smile at him. If he’d been given just one simple smile, he wrote, he wouldn’t have gone ahead with his decision.

My friends and I were deeply moved to hear that something as simple as a smile could have saved his life. Five of us made a pact. If it was up to us, nobody would ever go without receiving a smile. We would smile at everyone who caught our eye as we went about our everyday lives.

So that’s what we do; we smile at people! We also make comments about how they look. If they’re wearing a lovely coat, I’ll say ‘I really like your coat’. If they have a good hair cut, I’ll comment on it. It’s about paying attention to the little things. Once you’ve been doing it for a while, you get a bit braver. You overcome the social barriers.
If someone looks a bit down, I speak to them. I try to encourage grumpy shop assistants. I might say something like ‘It sounds like you’ve had a bad day...’
Recently I encountered a man who was fighting with his kids in Tesco. ‘I think your kids are lovely,’ I quietly said to him, which stopped him in his tracks.
Sometimes I May Not Feel Like It...

Being a busy Mum with two young girls, there are days when I don’t want to meet anyone. It’s not so easy to be positive and happy after an argument with my kids or receiving an unexpected bill I don’t know how I’m going to pay.

I feel better if I make a conscious effort and say ‘I can do this...’ Then, once I’ve started, it seems to have a life of its own. I’ve noticed that people who barely used to look at me now stop and ask ‘How are things going?’. I’ve made friends with people in the shop around the corner, librarians, people who work in our local petrol station... I introduced myself to all my neighbours when I moved in, and wrote everyone a Xmas card. I smile at them, and they all smile back and say ‘hello’.
My smiles are generally well received. I think people realise I’m not being funny, sarcastic or rude. When they see it’s coming from a good place, they seem to accept it gracefully. However, some people are quite shy, some think I’m crazy, and others are downright rude!

How The Idea Is Growing...
We started out with the idea ‘If I can stop one more person feeling the way this guy did... ease any of the pain he experienced, then we’re doing a good thing...’
Now I realise everyone feels pain in some way.

Friends and colleagues occasionally say to me: ‘You’re always smiling – why are you always smiling? Why do you smile at complete strangers?’ I explain that it’s an act of love. Once they understand, I’ve noticed they start smiling more themselves!

How has my life changed? Everything I do takes so much longer as I end up talking to so many people!
I’ve learned there are different degrees of smiling. I don’t have to give a full on toothy grin; it can be a subtle smile. Eye contact is important. When you smile at people with eye contact, they truly know the smile is for them. A smile coming out of the blue can change their whole day.

An unexpected bonus is if you queue gracefully at the bank, the cashier is nicer to you. You have a more interesting conversation when it’s your turn.
It’s surprising the things people will tell you. I feel privileged and honoured so many have shared their stories with me.
I feel a lot more in tune with the world now. I felt quite selfish for a while when I saw how closed I used to be; how busy and wrapped up in my own little world.
What we do is share a smile, but I’ve never thought about making it into any sort of group or organisation. It’s more of a feeling than a philosophy. At the beginning we made a conscious decision to see if by changing our behaviour we could stop just one person from killing themselves. It’s just rolled on from there.
It’s like starting a chain reaction. It just catches on. I think people are doing it without realising it.

The other day I saw an old man just about to fall off a kerb. I dropped my things and rushed over, helped him to his feet and onto the bus. He turned to me and said: ‘It’s been a long time since I’ve seen someone not of my generation go out of their way to help a complete stranger. You’ve changed my attitude.’ I was so touched by this. My kids heard it too. I think they saw that it’s OK to go out of your way to be nice - you don’t have to walk around with a chip on your shoulder.
Bring On The Love Revolution...

Joyce Mayer, an American preacher, said what this world needs is a love revolution. When I heard her, I realised I had to step up a gear. I now make more of an effort to speak to people who look as though they’re having a miserable time. The most important way to show love is to give time. It’s one thing that we don’t have much of, yet it makes all the difference.

One To Try In The Doctor’s Surgery
I had an accident at work, so I’ve spent a lot of time in the doctor’s surgery recently. A metal shelf fell on my head, and I’ve been learning how to walk again. On one visit, the waiting room was as usual full of people huffing and puffing and complaining. My pituitary gland was playing up as a result of this accident so I’d got really, really thin. When I went in to see the GP, I said ‘How are you? Nice to see you...’ She said: ‘I’ve been sitting surrounded by sick people all day long. You’re the only person who ever asks how I am.’ My sister said to me ‘You’re here because you’re ill, you’re the one in serious trouble, and yet you’re asking the doctor how she is...’ She said this in front of everyone in the waiting room. It affected them. You could see them all thinking about it. They could see I was in such a state, yet I walked in with a big grin on my face. It goes to show that you can still do this when you’re really sick.

So, think of me next time you are in a doctor’s waiting room, and make a comment with a smile. See how quickly that smile spreads. It’s more contagious than a cold!

Karen’s Story – Becoming My Potential
Finding My Way
Karen Wright

I have always had a knowing, a feeling that I knew the truth in some way – a kind of gut feeling or intuition – that I had a potential to fulfil. I was right, but it’s taken life events to show me what it is.

The first significance was a chance meeting with a woman ten years ago in 2001. I knew from the first meeting that our paths had crossed for a reason, but at the time didn’t know what, and we became friends. She was a Reiki healer and colour therapist, my first encounter with someone in the ‘healing field.’

After discovering that my son had suffered from migraine for seven years, she insisted that I take him to her Homeopath. I didn’t know what that was, but I just trusted her, and took him the following week to see her Homeopath. After a period of 18-20 months his migraines had gone, and to this date have never returned. As a family we then began to use Homeopathy as our primary choice for health care.

A few years later I was bored of my job in retail and looking for a change in work and career -something that challenged and interested me, something for myself – expressive, creative – I wasn’t sure. I vividly remember one evening in July that year. I went to bed as usual, but woke up abruptly in the twilight of dawn – sat bolt upright in bed and said aloud ‘that’s it Karen! You’re going to be a Homeopath...How come you didn’t think of it?’ It wasn’t a conscious decision, but it was a decision nonetheless! And that was it... I went off to train firstly for one year on lay prescribing courses. Then, in 2004 at the Centre for Homeopathic Education to train full time for three years. I graduated in 2007.

The ‘Journey’
‘ You’re going to go on a journey,’ the Principle said on my first day at College. ‘You’ll change. You’ll become more the person you’re potentially meant to be...’ ‘What’s he talking about?’ I thought to myself. ‘I’m just here to become a Homeopath...’ At that time words like ‘journey’ and ‘spirituality’ meant swishing around in a long skirt banging a drum somewhere. I pooh poohed it as ‘a load of old twaddle.’

How wrong was I? The Principle was right: it was a massive journey of personal discovery - but not then a particularly spiritual one. My closed mind, however, was starting to open. One evening at a tutorial the conversation strayed to spirituality. ‘I’m not at all spiritual,’ I claimed, ‘but I always go by my gut feeling, my intuition...’ ‘But your intuition and gut feeling are the same thing!’ Someone said. A profound discovery for me that evening! I’d probably been ‘spiritual’ all my life – I just hadn’t been aware of it! That changed my perspective and I started to be more open to the idea.

Towards the end of my college course, my friend recommended we take a spiritual retreat in Greece with Anne Jones. As I trusted my friend more than myself at that time, I agreed to go. However, my friend cancelled her place soon after to travel Africa, and left me with the dilemma of whether to go to Greece on my own or not to go at all. It was a big decision for me, but I decided to go.

The retreat with Anne was the most wonderful experience and I loved having a whole week to myself away from my family. I met some wonderful people and witnessed some amazing experiences as we progressed through the programme. The experience for me was to open my mind fully to a spiritual dimension that I had never considered. It has re-shaped my perspective on life completely to a whole new concept of being. I had a conversation with Anne at the end of my week in Greece. I mentioned that I hadn’t had such profound experiences as some other members of the group. She replied that I was here (in life) to ‘spread the word,’ and that my soul was ‘not severely wounded.’ I understood exactly what she meant. I had always known this on some level.

Since my initial Greece retreat with Anne, I have done many workshops and participated in another retreat with her. Her work excites me and I continue to evolve spiritually.

I have for the past six or seven years seen a Homeopath for my own personal growth and have worked through a healing process of past issues. I have looked inside myself and visited my inner ‘ child in order to heal and move on. I have learned to live more in the ‘here and now,’ ‘the present’ - in fact, the only place you can or ever will be. As a result I experience far less anxiety and fear.

My Discoveries...
Over the past eight years of working with a Homeopath, Anne Jones and reading, I have come to make sense of who I am. I realise that I’ve always been spiritual but it’s taken others to help me see it. I’ve learned from everyone who has come my way, but in essence I’m still the same person. What I’ve learned from Anne’s teaching is that my ‘knowing’ is universal wisdom and understanding and through me it can be passed on through my work as a Homeopath to facilitate and empower the healing of others.

I’m 50 now, but I don’t feel any age. In fact I sometimes feel eternal! I can catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and not recognise that ‘older woman’! I’ve come such a long way – who’d have thought I’d be using words like ‘eternal’ and ‘spiritual’ – I have to laugh at myself!

My Purpose
Now I definitely know that I’m on the right path - to facilitate the healing process of people – to empower and motivate them to become their potential. For when we are true to ourselves, our pain and suffering lessen.

Where I Am Now
Recently my spirituality has been coming on more strongly. I feel tingles in my body as confirmation of my intuition at times in conversation. Increasingly I find myself saying things to patients that haven’t come from my thoughts. The words seem to come easily and I guess that’s the spiritual aspect working in a practical way.

I‘m at the point now where I’m really able to trust myself. I’m no longer a people pleaser. I’ve learned not to seek approval from others. I am now more able to be true to myself, and this is very liberating.

I live without a lot of the fears and anxieties that I used to have. It’s a great feeling. In this process I’ve been able to let go on the need to control my family and can now stand back and watch them fly - free from parental expectation.

Life for me is in limbo at the moment, like many of us. I am not sure what the future holds, but I trust that whatever the universe throws at me I can deal with and that my future is bright and exciting. I wake up each day and say ‘thank you for bringing me this far’!

Karen Wright