Jozelle

“ Reclaiming Innocence. What if I told you that you are innocent and will be proven more innocent the more you keep looking?  For years, I’ve avoided addressing the shame I’ve held onto about my experience of being raped when I was sixteen years old.  Simply put, I believed it was my fault and that I should never have gone to that party. I thought I would tuck that experience (as well as many other shameful memories) away as I focused on the present moment.  Then I heard Aya’s perspective on NVC as a process of reclaiming our own innocence. In a Zoom session witnessed by beloved friends, Aya led me through my memory and thoughts of my sixteen year old experience with my needs and feelings at the forefront of the conversation. You know what I learned? That sixteen year old girl went to that party because she was craving connection, intimacy, and love. She drank to feel comfortable in her skin so that she could meet her needs for connection, intimacy, and love. She wanted to feel alive so that she wouldn’t die. How innocent… Imagine THAT was the narrative told when a rape victim shares their story. “You went to that party because you wanted to feel loved… You did what you did because you longed to meet your soul’s need for connection. And the avenue you chose is what you truly believed was available. You. Are. Loved.” Fortunately, with Aya’s facilitation and the support of loving community, I was able to tell my sixteen year old self just that. Rewriting the past by substituting lies with the truth reprograms the present. The biggest shift this perspective of innocence has made is eradicating the notion of the self, its impulses, and past experiences as bad. When I realize more and more that “bad” does not exist, I am free to look at my experiences with curiosity and dissolve shame and judgment with compassion. I am able to touch truth and let truth touch me. I can look at myself without conditions and that is freedom. In seeing myself this way, I am able to see others in the same light. I am learning that people are not “bad.” Rather, life is trying to meet fundamental needs. As a result, I’ve been able to have more intimate and authentic conversations with people I used to judge as “bad” because I can now see beyond such a concept.  My hope is that the more I can view myself as innocent, I will be able to see the everlasting layer of purity of others. Life is always trying to meet the qualities of the spirit. It knows no moral judgments. When we can view people through this perspective, we can look each other in the eyes and say, ‘How innocent.’ ”