Soul Blues
For Yom Kippur
By Diane Joy Schmidt

After certain experiences in my life, I was never able to be at home in my own skin, I felt an undercurrent of unease, that I had no right to be here. I ran around looking for respect, validation, vindication, love, or even, like, would do. Hell, I’d settle at least for acceptance.

I’d sometimes get recognition, affection, love, but it didn’t adhere, it didn’t stick, it was like when the body cannot process nutrients, the good feelings would fade quickly, I was soon starving again.

It didn’t occur to me that what I needed was self-acceptance, self-respect, self-love, self-validation. You’re supposed to learn those things when you’re a young adult. But for some of us it takes a lifetime.

Over many years, decades really, I sought healing. Prayers were said for me. Over years, layers healed, and then there would be more underneath, like an onion. I also had to do the work.

Quite recently, while writing poetry, it happened that I faced some deep humiliations I had experienced fifty years ago. In junior high school, certain girls who were mean and jealous spread evil gossip about me, what today we call social bullying. This is what in Hebrew is called Lashon Hara, the evil tongue, a person who spreads stories about someone. In the Jewish tradition it is a serious sin. Whether the stories are true or not doesn’t matter, this is slander. It causes harm. For me, it had cast a shadow that reached across my whole life. It was a pattern that would repeat.

When I finally wrote about this horrible experience, which I had never clearly faced before, over the next days a new sense of myself came to me. It was exactly like a part of me returned that I didn’t even realize had gone missing. It was like meeting a long-lost friend that I welcomed in my soul’s house. Perhaps it had been waiting out there somewhere, like the experience, all those many years. I experienced  a kind of redemption, grace and self-forgiveness.
The New Moon of this month marked the beginning of the High Holy Days of the Jewish tradition with Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, and at sunset on September 18th begins Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. We reflect during this time on those things we wish to ask forgiveness for, to atone for and, most importantly, we practice self-forgiveness. Each year I have a deeper understanding of what that means, and especially this year.

I’d like to say, I’ll never be lonely or self-doubting again. It’s not like that. But new growth is taking place in my soul and that undercurrent of anxiety, of emptiness and fear that, like a dull hum in the background you forget is there, has lessened. There has been “post-traumatic growth,” a phrase I’ve heard recently that I like. I feel respect and acceptance for myself. I am allowed to be here, to have faith in myself, I can trust my judgments. I can breathe. It has been a long journey. I think that is a blessing and spiritual healing for which I am truly grateful.

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Published Gallup Independent and New Mexico Jewish Link
Award,  3rd Place, Two Columns Personal, NM Press Women for GI together with The Eighth Night.