Align With Love

Ok I have a crazy story to tell you!

Remember how I shared one of my #metoo stories a couple of months back. You can read it here. The gist of it was that when I was in my mid 20’s a guy, that I knew through friends, grabbed my boobs at a bar.

He thought he was being funny.

I did not.

Last fall when the #metoo phenomenon was in full force, I realized that I still had a lot of charge around that incident, that I hadn’t healed it yet. So I used a practice that I shared in this post.

AND… just 3 weeks after I did the healing and shared it with you – I saw the guy for the first time in 15 years! You can watch or read the rest of the story below.

I went to a Community Singing event in Santa Barbara – something that I truly love to do!

As soon as I walked in I saw him there. My body went into contraction, and I was so bummed. I’d been looking forward to this event for weeks, and I felt like him being there was going to ruin it for me.

We said hi to each other awkwardly and then he said “I don’t know why I’m here, but someone I trust told me I need to be at this thing tonight”.

As the event began and I started singing, I set the intention to keep opening my heart. As I sang, compassion started flowing through me, and I began to see his vulnerability.

And then there was a moment where I felt forgiveness.

It just came over me. It felt like it would release me.

So at the end of the evening I went up to him, with my heart pounding in nervousness, and I said “I just want you to know that I forgive you”, and he looked at me surprised and said “for what?”.  That kind of threw me.

It honestly never occurred to me that he wouldn’t remember what he had done.

I said, “You squeezed my boobs 25 years ago”. He looked shocked and said “I did? Where? When?”

I shared the details and though he truly did not seem to remember, he did say, “I’m sorry”.

I said “Well whether you remember or not, I forgive you.” Then I left and felt a big wave of relief.

I thought that was the end of it.

Then a couple of months later I get this message from him on Facebook – he gave me permission to share it here.

Hi Liesel. I have thought a lot about our interaction of a month ago. I lost a lot of sleep thinking about it, to be honest. I was in a state of shock when you talked to me and still feel somewhat unsettled about it. I’m wondering if you would be up for talking about it some more some time, now that I’ve had some time to process. I would be fine with Craig being there too if that would be something you’d prefer. If not a meeting, then could I write you a note and send it by mail? Of course I would understand if you’d like to drop it altogether. Either way, I sincerely appreciate your bringing this up with me. I would prefer to continue this by email but don’t have an address for you. My address is xxxxx. I have not been on FB for a year or so but rejoined just to send this to you, and now I’m going to sign off again. Hope to hear from you by email but if I don’t that’s cool too. Thx again for your courage and heart. 

Before I had a chance to reply, the fires started here and we evacuated.

Three days later we were staying in a little town about 2.5 hours north of here on the coast, waiting for the fires to die down so we could go home.

I was walking on the beach and guess who I see walking toward me…

Yep.

It was him.

I said, “So I guess we’re supposed to have this conversation now”. He started tearing up and said “I don’t know if I can do it without…” then he referred to his tears. I said, “I’m ok with whatever emotion comes up.”

We sat on the beach, and he started by saying that he had remembered the event. He shared that he had been doing a lot of soul searching about it. That when the whole #metoo thing started he had taken inventory and had felt good that he had never done any harm to a woman. Until we spoke, he hadn’t remembered that event.

He went on to say that he was in a very narcissistic and dissociated place in his life back then. That he was in a band and thought he was really cool. That when I was talking about my shirt, he thought it would be funny to squeeze my breasts.

He apologized profusely and took FULL responsibility for his actions.

In that moment I felt this deeper healing within myself. It was as if he was apologizing for all of the men who have behaved badly toward me. For all of the other #metoo moments.

I felt the healing run through my whole body.

Then I felt it clearly as bigger than the two of us.

That the work we were doing there on the beach was helping to heal the rift between the masculine and the feminine on a larger energetic level.

It was a profound moment in my life. I’m still integrating the shifts from all of it.

I wanted to share this with you as a clear example of how doing your inner work truly does create a shift in your outer world.

It’s my hope that his words of apology can be helpful for all of those wounded places within you too.

Sending all my love.