The Broken Shards of Life and Luck...

A few days ago, I dropped a plate of food after cooking for an hour. The plate broke and so I had to throw it away including the food. How would you have reacted? Not long ago I would have cursed, yelled and probably even cried. Why?

When I just turned 9 my family and I flew to Korea to go to Cheongpyeong which in a nutshell is an exorcism camp. There is so much to write about this place, but today I just want to point out one thing that stuck with me from our stay there.

At that time, Cheongpyeong was new and there were hardly any buildings, so we slept crammed with dozens of people in tents. In the training center when something “bad” happens it is explained by bad influence of the spirit world. Bad spirits are surrounding people or inside their body causing them to have sicknesses and accidents.

Almost everyone was getting sick in the camp because of the bad hygenic conditions. Yet, at the age of 9, when I saw other people including my friends getting sick, I thought: “they must be possessed by spirits and full of fallen nature. It is a good thing they are getting sick, because they are paying indemnity.” I wish I could have seen their illness for what it was: a result of bad hygienic conditions, maybe bacteria in the water or a virus that was passed around. I wish I could have had compassion for people instead of being condescending. It was not the first and only time that I was taught this simplistic and toxic teaching, but it is my most vivid memory of where I truly felt and believed it.

After that every time I got sick, had an accident or broke/lost an object, I thought it was a punishment and wondered: “what did I do to deserve this? Am I really that bad? What did I do to anger God?” I was desperate, because I tried and tried to be a good person and be perfect and yet I had so many accidents. It didn't occur to me that my fear and anxiety of doing things wrong made me more prone to hurting myself.

It turned into a vicious cycle: when something bad happened, I interpreted it as a punishment, I tried to better myself and suffer more which made me more nervous. The more often that cycle repeated itself, the more extreme my reactions got. I had tantrums and sometimes cried for hours over a cake that I messed up or a CD player that I broke. It was not because of what actually happened, but because of the meaning it had to me: I am inherently evil.

It might sound like an absolute trivial thought pattern, but it has caused me suicidal thoughts for most of my life, because there was no way to break out of this cycle.

One of the things I resent most about the fundamentalist teaching I grew up with, is that it made me feel like I was wrong and possessed my whole life. It took away our chance of being carefree, of taking things that happen lightly, of learning healthy thought patterns, coping mechanisms and boundaries, of listening to our own needs and wishes, of not being judgmental and condescending towards others, of developing our own thoughts and voice, of feeling safe, of not being an easy victim for abuse.

I wish something as minor as a shattered plate wouldn’t have held so much meaning about my worth, character and justification of my existence. I am proud that when I broke that plate the other day, I didn't care at all and just thought to myself: "well, that happens"..

Life is. Things happen. Not everything has a meaning, a purpose, a hidden message.

~Julia