Who I am
I am a spiritual seeker. I have always been a great believer, but before I was addicted to an image of God inherited from others, which limited me, imprisoned me with "moral" duties and divided me internally due to deep-seated guilt feelings. Today I am a free woman who lives with a deep sense of peace inside and who has changed her own interpretation of the divine (in which I still strongly believe also for having experienced it), but the God I believe in today is an ally and not a judge with raised finger.
The peace I experience today - a feeling of being loved and accompanied, guided and protected - is a conquest, born of years ofinner silence during which I learned
- on the one hand to no longer believe in all those inner voices (prejudices, beliefs, etc.) and harmful that burdened my existence,
- and on the other hand to recognize and "heal" my inner / generational wounds
so my life has become more and more carefree and pleasant: the “outside” world is nothing but a mirror of our inner world, the healthier the latter, the lighter the “outside” life flows. And today it is no longer a concept learned from books (Buddha, Jesus, Goethe and others), but the experience that has made my life a training ground for spiritual and personal learning and growth.
I have held several roles in my life, from that of teacher to that of mother and wife, but also that of author, actress and later artist and museum pedagogist ... but the role that has accompanied me since childhood was that of the good daughter and housewife who pleases everyone.
Each child puts on a mask to receive the attention of their parents / educators, that had been my mask, perhaps simpler than that of the rebel or that of the top of the class, but if you look carefully, one mask is as good as another, because the fundamental (and sad) thing is that with it we bury our true identity
I was (almost) the classic house and church girl for whom what matters is the happiness of others, and not their own.
Who knows why no one teaches us to
take care of ourselves first of all with love.
What can we give to the rest of the world -
if not our frustration and suppressed anger,
when we are not inwardly deeply realized and therefore serene?
And in fact I gave my frustration to others, first of all to my son - alas.
That all changed on September 10, 2012. That day a my son, a wonderful 6-year-old boy, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.
For those who do not know it, diabetes is certainly not a serious disease, but I knew nothing at the time, I was next to my child lying on a hospital bed and I saw him chronically ill (yes I knew this) for the whole life .
Alongside the sadness, a gigantic question arose in me, a question that changed the course of my existence:
"where did I go wrong?"
The God I believed in then was a God who promised joy to those who followed Him, so what?
How could I be happy with a sick child?
And how could my son be happy?
Why was my baby sick?
Why does a child get sick?
And why of diabetes, if I had always been very careful about its diet?
A LITTLE FOREWORD: a little story
When my son was born, the father and I began to change some of our habits and when the time came to wean him, we changed our diet: we slowly converted to organic. I believe my son didn't eat refined sugar until he was two or maybe three years old, but what I know for sure is that I had never bought him candy. He did not know them, nor did he ask them. When he started going to kindergarten (about 3 years old) he met the gummy bear-shaped candies, which almost all the German parents we knew generously and continuously distributed to their children (we lived in Germany).
Those candies are a concentrate of refined sugar, preservatives and dyes that are recognized as carcinogens. The Düsseldorf hospital reported them to parents among the products to avoid for children. Many times I had argued with other German mothers about this ... A lot of times I was angry, without getting anything: the mothers handed out sweets as if they were kisses. And when “Aldo” (my son) was invited to a friend's house, and in particular to birthday parties, I lived with the fear that he would stuff himself with jelly bears. I imagined him getting sick from those candies ... I had developed a phobia, without being absolutely aware of it.
One day at the playground a mother had brought out the fearsome bears. I - trying not to show nervousness - had asked her if she knew they were carcinogenic .
She had looked into my eyes, and then had pronounced the sentence that follows with such serenity, firmness and depth that those words as she uttered them seemed to be written in the air in characters cubitali: “I have always taken care of the nutrition of my children, perhaps in a maniacal way; I gave birth to 4 and I can only grow three, one died of cancer at the age of 3. Since then we have eaten whatever we like. "
You can imagine my shock.
However not included .
Yet those words were really strong, I still know exactly where I was when I heard them.
When I pass by today I still hear them, every time, and every time I think of that mother, and that little girl.
Yet I did not understand .
In retrospect I know I could have changed my way of life that day, but I didn't.
Maybe we only understand when we are "ready".
And many of us need to feel a sword pierce their hearts to wake up and understand, for me it was like that anyway ...
BACK TO THAT SEPTEMBER 10,
day of diabetes diagnosis
We were in that hospital room, my son, the father, me, my son's friend and a nurse.
At a certain point the door opens and a doctor in a white coat enters.
Do you know what that doctor is holding?
Do you know what waves like a trophy in the air? _Cc781905-5cde-3194-bb3b-136bad5cf58d_
A sachet of those candy: jelly bears .
He looks at my son and tells him: "then 'Aldo', these are your lifesaver, now you can / you must always carry them in your pocket with you, and when you feel a bit strange you eat them all".
I was 38 years old, a life as a fervent believer behind me and seasoned with monologues (NOT dialogues, I would understand later) you continue with a man named Jesus, but that day - for the first time in my life - someone ("from Above ”?) Gave me a very clear message through that doctor. It was not a message made of words, like that of the mother of the kindergarten, it was a STRONG AND CLEAR FEELING: the thing I had always fought against became my son's lifesaver: I must have misunderstood something very important in life.
I had to translate that message and that feeling into words. I did it like this “Chiara, your task is to take care of your child with love, but love trusts and is not afraid, when you are afraid, you have lost contact with me. YOU CAN'T CONTROL EVERYTHING, I AM GOD, NOT YOU! Before you, I am the one who cares for your child and takes care of him. Why don't you trust me? It is one thing to lovingly care for your child and their nutrition. Another is to deal with it with fear. "_ Cc781905-5cde-3194-bb3b-136bad5cf58d_
CHOICES BASED ON LOVE, NOT FEAR,
ON FAITH AND NOT ON CONTROL:
ALL HERE IS THE SECRET OF LIFE.
A "secret" written in the Gospels, told by spiritual masters and philosophers, but difficult (impossible?) To understand without having experienced it: my son had come to bring me this great gift, wrapped with incandescent paper and a sharp ribbon.
Since that day I have learned to trust: my theoretical faith has become a practical faith. My monologue is a dialogue. Existence is an alternation of questions and answers. It all became a learning and growing process. And my disastrous life became a miraculous life.