Door from South Africa #Emerges Proud

Door de Ridder was born in Holland, and growing up in a traditional christian family, also took on the notion of having to be a “good Christian”. As she bravely explains in her awakening story here, it took breaking down and working through the shame of the very natural human shadow that surfaces in order to connect with herself and accept her ‘wholeness’ in order to connect with her authentic Self.

Whether our pathway to our Truth, Love and Connection is found through nature, spiritual practices or religious figures, there are patterns in transformational crises that connect us all….As Door, explains, breaking down can be the blessing to wake us up:

At a young age I learned that it was not safe to feel. Attachment trauma had caused a lot of pain, fear, and emptiness in my life as it was not understood. I felt so afraid for abandonment, that I paid the highest price to prevent it. I sort of became ‘a piece of everyone’. Deep down I fought hectic problems, but I structurally suppressed them all. I wanted to be a good Christian. I started living as a shadow on the outside. I lost my precious fire, which comes from living from the inside out.

My Awakening started in 2014. Someone entered my life and started to make connection with the deep suppressed areas in my heart. In this bond I felt safe enough to access my deeper layers.
I came alive and a lot of my brokenness came to the surface. It was met with grace, love, and understanding. It was so healing! After this season, I was just not able to create my own inner safety yet. And I couldn’t push my deep feelings away anymore. It started to overwhelm me.

The outburst came in 2015. I crashed. Completely. A lot of shameful things happened on the outside. My life fell apart, due to the strong forceful energy on the inside, claiming my space back in life.
While I thought it was the end of the world, everyone witnessed the end of my world! At the same time, my inner being experienced so much Love, Connection and Clarity. I never felt so loved by Jesus, by the whole universe, as in this period! It felt like a whole new realm opened for me. Deep down in my soul I worked through the theme of dying and come to life again.
For the first time I personally experienced my real identity in the powerful metaphor of being the Bride, worthy the love, redemption, and healing of the Heavenly Bridegroom. In this ‘altered state’ I worked structurally through all kind of layers, blocks, and symbolical experiences. Because my subconscious was so open, love could penetrate in places which are normally closed. It landed in the core of my foundation. Love replaced fear. Looking back, this was a permanent transformation.

Psychiatry has a different opinion about this kind of episode. They see sickness, so I got medication. The first period I didn’t mind. I was exhausted, confused and I needed the rest of feeling grounded.
It was just a big shock to realise after a while that I was labelled and that the plan was that I had to drink medication for a long time. So, after stabilising, I decided – with permission of my husband – to go for another road than the medical one. I stopped with the medication. It blocked all my natural thinking and feeling processes. How could I ever digest all the beautiful experiences, if I was not able to feel it through? How could I hold value, if doctors would only see symptoms? A hard year followed. I was afraid.

Working through my own shame was the hardest. I felt for the first-time what stigma really meant – it felt like my life was over! There was so much damage, and nobody around me really understood what was happening. It was a lonely year. At the same time Jesus was close by. By the time I was brave enough to connect with Him again, He confirmed that He would turn it all around and His grace, His power, would work it out in me.

In time, I found helpful materials and inspirational people. I realised that I had gone through a ‘Renewal Process’ was resonating so much more on the inside than that I would have a scary brain disease. Learning about this kind of hectic transformational crises, confirmed something that I already knew. My process was and is a healing journey. It is beneficial, meaningful, and valuable. It just needs to be integrated. What a joy to find a group in Cape Town, where I getting some help in this! I am learning to feel, connect and integrate all of who I am. I learn to express myself whilst I am held in a space of love. The beauty is, the love and safety are internalising. I learn to hold myself. Slowly I come in a season that I really can ‘give birth’ to my transformation process in daily life.
I am ready to come out of my closet. Swimming against mainstream gives me the power to become fully myself. My past is turning into gold, there are so many treasures inside of me, inside of us all. With Jesus, I walked through my walls. And like I am comforted and loved, so I am holding and loving others – even when that means that I have to walk through walls again of limiting systems.