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True Love True Self

A Journey to Self Love

Barbara Daoust

www.barbaradaoust.com

www.truelovetrueself.com

Published by Enchanted Forest Press

36 Juneberry

Irvine, CA 92606

www.enchantedforestpress.com

No portion of this book may be reproduced mechanically, electronically, or by any other means, including photocopying, without written permission of the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission from the publisher.

Limits of Liability and Disclaimer of Warranty

The author and publisher shall not be liable for your misuse of this material. This book is strictly for informational and educational purposes.

Warning—Disclaimer

The purpose of this book is to educate and entertain. The author and/or publisher do not guarantee that anyone following these techniques, suggestions, tips, ideas, or strategies will become successful. The author and/or publisher shall have neither liability nor responsibility to anyone with respect to any loss or damage caused, or alleged to be caused, directly or indirectly, by the information contained in this book.

First Publishing March 2012

ISBN: 978-0-9852070-5-2

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Book design by Reflection Studios

www.reflectionstudiosonline.com

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I dedicate this book

to my late husband,

PATRICK KEVIN FLEMING JOSEPH,

my first true love

and eternal guide.

Visit “Life Stories” at www.hollywoodforever.com
to watch a memorial video of our lives together. Go to “search”
and enter the name “Joseph”, to witness our love story.

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1 | My Personal Journey

2 | Chasing the Dream

3 | A New Phase

4 | What Not to Say to a Grieving Widow

5 | The Kindness of Others

6 | Magical Experiences

7 | Don’t Feed the Bad Wolf

8 | Make Peace with God

9 | The Power of Belief

10 | Clarity, Focus, and Purpose

11 | True Love

12 | True Self

PREFACE

“I am significant and deserving of all things good.”

My ‘Little Voice’ tells me that I am insignificant. It doubts that I have anything important to say. No longer willing to accept my ‘Little Voice’, I have chosen to stop my conversation with it. It’s time for me to be vulnerable, to share my story and to inspire. I want to share that in the midst of confusion, chaos, and uncertainty, you are not alone. Loss, disappointment, and change are all a part of expansion. Unbearable pain and detachment from your true self, your authentic self, your divine self, is simply your soul trying to get your attention. We are all divine beings having a human experience.

My intention in writing this book is to tell my personal story and to share how I transformed my pain into a much deeper connection with myself. It is also my intention to show you how to connect with your higher self and learn to love unconditionally.

The affirmations throughout this book are words and thoughts that I didn’t understand at one time in my life, when I was focused on surviving. They are words of kindness, validation, and hope. They are a reminder of how far I’ve come in my understanding of love—true love. They are a reminder of the importance and the power of the words “I AM”. They are a whisper telling us all to connect to our ‘Big Voice’ and to allow the rest to follow.

If you are willing to stop the ‘Little Voice’ that limits your truth, then read my story. Learn how to connect to your true self, so that you can create an abundance of love and greater happiness in your life.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to acknowledge the support and guidance that I’ve received from my loved ones: Louis Lotorto, the late Jean-Guy Daoust, Blanche Daoust, Nicole Daoust, Yvan Gregoire, Sarah Fleming, the late Maguerite Lannigan, Paul Joseph Sr, the late Paul Joseph Jr; from my dearest friends: Gerry Farrell, Kathy O’Brien, Carol Hexner, David Beglinger, Johanna Baruch, Lara Travis, Jarnette Jones, Liz Marks and Roy Pompa, Sam and Neda Korham, Shirly and Nir Keren, the late Shirley Hillard, Marcelo Cruz and Bridget Kelly, Suzanne Jordan, Kate Carson, Elaine Sonne; and from my dearest teachers, mentors, and guides: the late Leland Moss, Arna Vodenos, Candice Sherbin, Paul Piasko, Ron and Mary Hulnick, Christy Whitman, and Abraham-Hicks.

INTRODUCTION

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

—Reinhold Niebuhr

Tragedy hit home in 2003 when I lost my loving husband, Patrick Joseph, to fourth stage lung cancer two months before our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. He was diagnosed on May 5th and gone three weeks later, May 31st, 2003. The shock was devastating. There was no time to say goodbye, no time to plan, and no time to know what was really happening to us. We had been together since we were nineteen years old and at the age of 47, I had never known my adult life without him. Never before had I experienced such deep depression in my life until I witnessed the loss of my first love, my dearest companion, and my soul mate. Collapsing into a very ‘Dark Night’, I sabotaged both my physical and mental health as my desire grew to connect with Patrick on the other side. I felt abandoned, angry, and discouraged with life.

Not only was I traumatized by the loss of my husband, I experienced four more family deaths shortly after losing Patrick. Each one contributed another layer to a deepening despair beyond my comprehension. First, I found my mother-in-law, Lanny, dead in her apartment a year after I lost Patrick. My relationship with her had been tenuous at best in the past. She had chosen a life of alcoholism and I didn’t understand her choice. When I was facing the loss of Patrick, my connection with Lanny strengthened. She, too, had experienced loss at an early age when Patrick’s father, Jack, died tragically in a car accident. She was just thirty years old and the mother of two young children: Patrick who was almost three, and Sarah who was just six months. Lanny understood my sorrow, my pain, and my growing loneliness. She listened to my grief and empathized. I now understood why she had chosen alcohol as a pacifier for her pain. Losing her so soon after Patrick passed only deepened my unbearable loneliness.

Just when I thought I was regaining some hope in my life, I was struck again with another devastating tragedy. One of the most important men in my life, my father, Jean-Guy Daoust, was also diagnosed with fourth stage lung cancer. His tumor was in the same place as Patrick’s, behind his heart. There was no detection on previous x-ray’s; no signs, no warnings—same as Patrick. I was by his side in the hospital when he made his transition on January 2nd, 2005. The holiday season proved to be more than challenging for my entire family. When the doctor removed his oxygen mask to see if he could breathe on his own, he couldn’t. As the technician tried to replace it, the mask broke in half and time was the victor. It was a cruel parallel to lose the two men that I loved the most in my life to the same disease. I loved my father dearly, and his suffering was a reminder of all that I had witnessed a year and a half earlier with Patrick. I could only view life as brutal.

In October 2005, I witnessed one of my dearest friends of twenty years, Shirley Hillard, slip into a coma two months after she was diagnosed with liver cancer. She had been very concerned for my wellbeing after I lost Patrick. She delivered soup to my doorstep hoping that I would benefit from her care-taking nourishment. She called me every week and listened to my tears. She apologized when I accused her of saying insensitive things. This was a gift to me that showed her character and her compassion. I called her my ‘mom-away-from-home’. The day of her funeral was unbearable for me. Not only was Patrick not there to share in my grief and support me, I couldn’t believe that I was losing another loved one.

Finally, after struggling to keep Honey (my cat of twenty-one years) alive, I experienced her last few breaths as she passed away in my arms. I had no choice but to let go. Two years of administering IV fluids to support her kidneys, as well as asking friends and neighbors to take over as her nurse when I traveled away from home, finally came to an end.

The last tragedy in the sequence of so many, was when P.J., my forty-year-old brother-in-law, dropped to his death after his parachute failed to open during a routine sky dive. The young man who was diving tandem with him also met the same fate. I had become very close to my brother-in-law; closer than ever after the loss of Patrick. He too had become a part of my support team. He called me regularly on the phone, taking time away from his busy schedule to talk with me, encourage me, and uplift me. The day the phone rang and my father-in-law told me the horrific news, I screamed in disbelief. I couldn’t believe that he too had been taken from my life.

It is my intention, eight years later, to share with others how I survived my grief, and how I have learned to love again. I have experienced so many valuable lessons on my journey and have received many gifts along the way. Out of tragedy, I have changed. In losing the love of my life, I found out that I didn’t know how to love myself. I have learned to love myself again. But not without guidance, support, tools, and an abundance of kindness from others who witnessed my deepest grief.

PARADIGM SHIFT

“The more I love, the more love is returned to me.”

I have learned to accept the unknown as a companion for my evolution. My journey has inspired me to share my successes with others and to demonstrate how it is possible to regain strength, courage, and hope in the midst of immense disconnection from one’s self, one’s life, and one’s Knowing. It is my desire to help others find their true self so that they can experience love, joy, hope, and freedom from despair. I have had to gain this knowledge through circumstances which I now understand were experiences of extreme contrast where everything in my reality felt uncomfortable, painful, and negative. It is through this contrast that I have been guided to higher ground. My transformation is a one hundred and eighty degree paradigm shift—a paradigm shift that I am extremely grateful to have experienced because I have grown and expanded my consciousness beyond what I ever knew could be possible.

One experience after another led me to people, places, and opportunities where I learned to surrender, to trust, and to have faith in life. I have hope again. I have confidence again. I have love again. I have the desire within me to live again.

At this time in my life, I feel connected to myself in ways that I never knew were possible. I feel a sense of joy and wellbeing. I feel that there is so much to gain from knowing that the biggest gift you can ever receive is to love yourself first. It’s really a matter of choice. If you are sitting next to a child on an airplane and there is a need to use an oxygen mask, who do you put the mask on first? Some people might think that you should put the mask on the child first. The truth is that in order to save the life of the child, you need the oxygen for yourself before you can take action. So you would need to put the mask on yourself first. When you choose to acknowledge yourself first, you are much more capable of helping and loving another living soul.

You may be asking yourself, “How do I change my paradigm?” or “How do I shift from what isn’t working to what IS working?” The time to change is when you are willing to change. When are you willing to have an honest conversation with your inner critic who chooses self-judgment, self-denial, and self-loathing? When are you willing to accept who you are and all the gifts that you have been given? When are you willing to claim your talents, your strengths, and your skills? But most importantly, when are you willing to claim the beliefs that are serving you and reject the beliefs that are no longer serving you?

Have you been living your life based on someone else’s beliefs? Can you be conscious of the lies that you are telling yourself and be willing to discard them? Are you ready to transform your life and live in the freedom of your truth?

When is the time? When you can’t exist in your misery any longer, you know it is time. When you recognize that your pain is familiar and that you are addicted to it because you no longer know how to feel any other way, it is time. When you no longer know what it is to feel joy, it is time. When you are familiar with what it feels like to be a victim and feel that there is no hope, it is time. When the desire to change is strong, when you’re ready to feel something different, when you sense that something is pulling at you, tugging at you, calling to you, when you know that it’s too hard to live one more day, it is time.

I know that change is scary. There is a world of unknowns out there. I have experienced how scary this feels. I have come to understand that scary is not necessarily a bad thing. ‘Scary’ can be a place where new opportunities and possibilities for a brighter future exist. It’s our ego mind that creates the fear and the doubt we experience because it wants to stay connected to what it knows, to what is familiar. But this place of familiarity is a trap, teasing you to stay connected to what is no longer serving your higher self, your true self. I have come to understand that there is only one guarantee in life—and that is change.

COMMITMENT TO SELF

“I am courageous in action and word and I keep hope alive.”

It is my intention to demonstrate how you can commit to yourself. How you can change. How you can transition from a place of feeling lost, feeling pain, loneliness, and separation from your true self. I have lived in all of these dark places to such extremes, that I am truly amazed I am still alive. Out of despair, I was given a second chance at life and I was guided to a better understanding of my true self. From that place of deeper understanding, I have learned how to focus my energies, my desires, and my intentions to be kinder with myself. I have learned to recognize and acknowledge that I am powerful. From this knowing, I have learned to choose self-loving actions which support feelings of freedom, hope, and happiness. I no longer choose to be a victim of feelings that are in partnership with self-judging and self-loathing actions. Growing connected to my true self has brought me to a state of higher consciousness. From this state of being, I have learned to trust in an abundant Universe.

I have been inspired to live my life as fully as I can. I have found love in my life again and I am grateful. I am grateful to so many people who have guided me and who have shown me how to love again. And I am profoundly grateful to Patrick for his undying eternal love. I now ‘get it’.

I want to inspire you to embrace change as an opportunity for your growth. I want to show you how you can move out of despair, transition out of confusion, and transform your life so that you can be guided to the highest version of your true self. I want you to ‘get it’ too.

1 MY PERSONAL JOURNEY

“I am open to Spirit guiding me on my journey.”

Growing up on the grounds of the Douglas Hospital, one of Canada’s largest psychiatric institutions, in Montreal, Quebec, I witnessed events and situations that highly influenced my world. I felt tremendous compassion for the underdog and defended anyone who was criticized as being ‘different’. Knowing what I know now, I too was ‘different’ from many of my friends and family. I wanted to entertain and uplift the people around me. I enjoyed the process of transforming myself into characters that were larger than life—characters that were more adventurous, more fantastical and could broaden one’s view of the world. As an empath, I found myself able to tune into other people’s feelings, morphing into a reflection of their strengths, weaknesses, and qualities. This ability, this gift, gave me a feeling of power. Looking back, I’m now able to identify it as a false sense of power. I realize now that a part of me was disconnecting from myself and sacrificing my own wellbeing as a result of trying to please others and take care of their needs above my own. I was seeking validation. I wanted to feel powerful. I needed approval. This was my secondary gain: a way to feel important because I was needed. The truth became more apparent as I grew further detached from my true self and experienced more self-consciousness, self-judgment and self-loathing as I reached my mid-forties. I was so focused on looking for situations to feel loved, that I didn’t realize how much I was choosing to separate from my true self—my higher self. I just wasn’t aware that I was becoming ‘lost’.

Knowing now that I am only responsible for my own feelings, I have felt a true freedom from feelings of over-responsibility that I unconsciously chose to have for most of my life. My focus on pleasing others included fears of not wanting to disappoint anyone. I was the nice girl. I sacrificed my needs so that others would love me. Not knowing how to love myself and follow my own desires, I became the judge, the director, the teacher, who could tell others what to do to change their lives for the better. If they listened, if they succeeded, it was my success too. I was unaware that I didn’t even know that I didn’t know my true self. Facing myself when I lost Patrick was the cathartic event that catapulted me toward understanding this truth.

At the age of five, I knew that my strongest desire in life was to be an actress. By the time I was twelve, I confronted my parents and insisted that they sign a contract, handwritten by me, stating that they would send me to acting school for my thirteenth birthday. Amused by my creativity, they signed the contract and kept the only copy. Experiencing no major change in household income that year, or a larger understanding as to why their daughter wanted to act, sing, or dance, my parents conveniently lost the contract and denied that it ever existed.

I acted in school plays from the age of eight until I graduated from University with a BFA degree in Theatre Arts. As a young child, I was the tallest in my class and more often than not, I played the mother who lost her children, or wife who lost her husband, her best friend, etc. In high school, I played the part of Anne Frank in “The Diary of Anne Frank”, who lost her own life. When our high school drama teacher decided to move back to Australia and Drama 101 was no longer part of the curriculum, I persuaded my high school math teacher to direct me as Linda Loman in a production of “Death of a Salesman”. Linda Loman has a soliloquy at the end of the play where she is grieving the loss of her husband, Willy Loman. I didn’t get to play Linda at the time because my math teacher invited a director from a community theatre company to discourage me and my fellow players from going through with the project. He warned us that if we were to attempt one of the greatest modern tragedies of all time, at our respective ages, it would probably turn into another tragedy.

This pattern of playing tragic heroines, grieving mothers, and widows sustained my acting career. It’s ironic, knowing what I know now. I lost my husband around the same time in life that Linda lost Willy. In a sense, I got to play Linda, only I was playing a part more real than I could ever have imagined. It was as if some force outside of myself prepared me my whole life to know what it meant to love so deeply and to lose it so tragically. As a young person, I somehow unconsciously connected with sorrow on a very deep level. I had a strong knowing about what it felt like to lose a loved one. It was as if I was scripting my future. As I watched Patrick transition before my eyes, I felt a total separation from reality as I knew it. My life wasn’t real at that moment. I felt like I was on stage. I was a character speaking words rehearsed from a page. It wasn’t me saying them. The real me was sitting on the outside looking in. I was the audience member, observing with safe detachment, an unknown character in an untitled play.

When I declared that I wanted to study theatre as my major in college, my parents supported my choice. They didn’t understand my burning desire to transform myself into larger than life characters, but I don’t think I really understood either. They grew to accept that acting was my passion and grew to love every opportunity where they could see their daughter on the stage. If I wasn’t singing at the top of my lungs, or duplicating charcoal renderings of beautiful women and their high fashion hairdo’s from the back pages of “True Romance” magazines, or digging for clay in the river to sculpt square-shaped teapots and matching teacups that I painted the colors of the rainbow, or whittling tree branches that I painted to look like psychedelic totem poles, or painting hundreds of miniature posters on my bedroom walls that I copied from magazines because we couldn’t afford to buy the actual posters—I wasn’t alive. I needed to create.

OBSTACLES

“I am strong, courageous, and bold.”

The part of me that felt different also felt special. The part of me that felt special also felt somewhat guilty about feeling special. The game that I played with myself, and the limiting beliefs that I established as my truths, started to interfere with me taking positive action toward my desires. This was possibly the result of being a Pisces growing up in a household with two other Pisces: Mom and Dad. The push or pull of “I want it”, “I don’t want it”, was a knowing and a not knowing at the same time. My certainty was always measured against my uncertainty. As a result of not knowing how to ask for help or knowing how to receive the guidance needed to achieve a higher level of mastery, I was thrown off my path at the vulnerable age of sixteen. I lost faith in myself.

Every weekend during the summer, my father would drive my Mom, my sister Nicole, and me to our country place in Cantic, an hour outside of Montreal. One early Saturday, as we pulled up to our country home, I jumped out of the car and angrily stormed across our spacious lawn to the small wood shed in search of my bike. I was upset with my parents. I felt that they weren’t interested in listening to my stories on our trip across the Mercier Bridge, down tree-lined highways, and through quaint country villages to our small hideaway in Cantic. I remember thinking, “I’m going to ride so far away, they’ll have to come looking for me.”

This irrational thinking influenced me to make a decision that changed the rest of my life. As I rode away in anger, I made the decision to turn down an unfamiliar stretch of road leading to an intersection. The intersection connected to a road leading to the US border crossing, far from home. Once I reached the intersection, I realized that I was no longer angry at my parents and I started to feel concern for their feelings. Knowing how much I loved my parents, I stopped at the crossroads and decided it was time to turn around and go back home. In that moment, I came across a strange man who had stopped his car at the same crossroads. Sitting behind the wheel of his car, he boldly asked me if I wanted a lift. I said, “No, I have a bike, thank you.”

Sensing that I was in danger, I quickly turned my bike around and started pedaling back down the lonely deserted road. I assumed that the stranger was going to continue his journey toward the US border crossing but unfortunately, he decided to make a u-turn and follow me instead. As I focused on reaching the intersection heading home, the stranger engaged me in a game of speeding up, then slowing down, speeding up, then slowing down. This game of ‘cat and mouse’ continued the entire stretch of barren country road until we reached the main road where I knew it would take me home. I tried to stay calm and not show my fear.

The stranger reached the main road minutes before I did and stopped his car. Opening his car door, he revealed his erection through an opening in the zipper of his pants and flaunted his desires. His extreme behavior came as a shock to me and I immediately shifted my six speed bike into its highest gear. Dashing past his car as fast as I could go, I started the race of my life. The stranger jumped back in his car and continued after me. Speeding ahead of me, before I could make any sense out of what was happening, he slammed on the brakes, leapt out of his car, and with Iron Man determination, threw himself in front of my bike and firmly gripped my handle bars. The sudden jolt catapulted me fifty feet through the air. I landed in a ditch off to the side of the road, winded, immobilized and in a state of shock. As a result of the shock, I lost all of my motor control.

There was no response between my brain and my nervous system. Betrayed by my own inability to defend myself, I had no choice but to surrender to being dragged three hundred yards through a hay field. Far from the possibility of anyone seeing us through four foot tall blades of grass, I knew that I was in serious harm.

Landing at his chosen spot far enough away from the country road, he jumped on top of me and awkwardly tugged at my summer shorts. In that moment, I started to regain motor control. I had enough strength and willpower to bring my thighs to my chest and lock them in a position that created more effort than he anticipated. Crying and pleading for him to stop, my attacker looked into my eyes and suddenly stopped. Something changed his mind. Did he see that I was only sixteen? Did he realize that I was not going to enjoy him? Calling me a “Big Baby”, he told me to get back on my bike and go home to my “Mommy”. To my surprise, I leapt to my feet without hesitation. Quickening each step with confidence, I ran as fast as I could to retrieve my bike lying in the roadside ditch and cried “Momma” all the way home.

I escaped what could have been my worst nightmare. Physically, I was unharmed. My body was mostly covered in scratches, scrapes, and bruises. My spirit on the other hand, suffered much more than I could have realized at the time. I was deeply wounded. I had no way of knowing at the time how my future would be impacted. I was so disappointed with my mind. My body didn’t behave the way I thought it should have behaved under the circumstances. There was a disconnect. I felt betrayed. At one time, in my mind, I was a warrior. In my mind I was strong and fearless. I trusted that I would always be able to defend myself, just as I always did when the boys at school would playfully surprise me and try to wrestle me to the ground for a kiss. They never succeeded.

Somehow through my crying hysterics, my parents pieced together what had happened to me. Without hesitation, they drove me to the village police station. The first question I was asked by one of the police officers after I told him my story was, “What were you wearing?” Feeling extremely vulnerable in the moment, I quickly assumed the responsibility that the whole incident was my fault.

My father was so determined to avenge his wounded daughter. His plan was more than I could handle but I willingly allowed him to take care of me the only way he knew how at the time. He encouraged me to get back on my bike, and I rode back down the barren road where I once had met the stranger who became my attacker. Doubting that I could possibly cope with the idea of being bait, my father tried his best to assure me that I would be safe. He knew his plan. He wasn’t going to let me out of his sight because he would be watching through his high quality binoculars. In the trunk of his car, he hid a crowbar and he was prepared to use it if the stranger reappeared. For the second time, I survived the long drive down the lonely road knowing that my father was watching. I was doing it for him. I understood how much pain he was feeling for me. It was the last time I ever rode my bike far away from home in reaction to my parents not listening to me.

Unfortunately, there was no counseling available to me at the time. Somehow, it was decided that we would never talk about it ever again. I didn’t even tell my best friend for fear that I would risk being judged as the person at fault. I felt so ashamed.

Soon after the harsh reality that my world was not as safe as I had previously known it to be, I stopped acting. The incident with the stranger caused an extreme course correction in my life. At the time, I didn’t relate my trauma with my sudden desire to stop performing. It later became apparent to me that, on a subconscious level, I associated my desire to be seen in public with the belief that I might be attacked or harmed. Being seen was no longer a good thing. It was a bad thing. To be seen meant that I could experience danger. To stand out, or stand apart, risked that I could become a vulnerable, defenseless victim of someone else’s desires. Unconsciously, my desire to pursue my childhood dream quickly faded. The final curtain dropped. I chose to focus on becoming a drama teacher. This decision prompted my choice to study at Concordia University in Montreal, where I received a BFA in Theatre Arts and a Specialization in Drama in Education. It was the safer choice.

FORGIVENESS & GRATITUDE

“I am forgiving myself and releasing all judgments of others.”

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

1

MY PERSONAL JOURNEY

OBSTACLES

FORGIVENESS & GRATITUDE