Testimonial May 2010
"In 1997 my partner of 11 years passed away from cancer, then three months later one of my sisters passed away from cancer as well. I was in a real mess, but trying to keep myself together, I kept working and shifted in with two sisters.
I was also coping with a chronic illness of which I was diagnosed with endometriosis when I was about 27 years old, but I feel I’ve had this condition right from the start of menstruating, but progressively got worse as the years went by.
I met my partner when I was 24 years old, it was an abusive relationship, but I convinced myself it wasn’t. My health got worse and worse, I became more withdrawn, more so than I was before I met him.
The pain, bleeding and vomiting at period time became so severe I was admitted to hospital for an operation. I was also told I had developed fibroids in my uterus.
I was so stressed trying to recoup from the operation and the demand to go back to work, as I was the main income earner, I kept working for another year, but emotionally and with this chronic condition I just couldn’t go on anymore. Gave up work for six months, saw a GP who said I was suffering from anxiety attacks, severe stress and depression.
He put me on anti-depressants which I took for a couple of weeks, but they seemed to make me feel numb and at the same time out of control. I stopped taking them. I felt no support or care from my partner, he was even more distant than ever.
Him not working put an enormous strain on our finances, so I went back to work. A year later he was diagnosed with cancer and passed away at the end of 1997, my sister died 3 months later.
About 7-8months later I saw an advert in the Nova newspaper for a retreat in the Perth Hills. I had never done one before, had not met Matthew, I just booked to go for 8 days. I felt like I needed to go somewhere quiet to give myself a break.
From that first retreat, there was one thing Matthew had said that really stuck with me. He said give 100% to the meditation process and not to believe everything he said but to question everything for ourselves.
It was a very simple act of sitting still and feeling all the senses of the body being in contact with exactly how I was actually feeling. This for me was extremely challenging, as the pain in certain areas of my body became unbearable but over the period of the retreat the pain shifted and changed. Matthew helped me stay with what was coming up for me. I was so scared to go back to my life. It had a profound affect on me, soon after I shifted into a place on my own, where I had not lived on my own before. That was a big step and I felt good about it. As I have done retreats over the past 10 years, I’ve started to face up to how scared I was, the turmoil and confusion, but also a quiet sense of myself I so desperately needed.
The whole process of retreats and the nourishing delicious food Kate served, has helped me pay more attention to what I was putting into my body and still do. The massages I received from Matthew have been beneficial in correcting a twisted pelvis, lower back pain and moving through a multitude of emotional blocks.
About 4-5 years ago I began to have memories of sexual abuse from the time I was about 3 years old. They started surfacing while sitting on retreat. Some were very clear visually, some sketchy but with strong distressing feelings and sensations in my body. The abuse has carried through into adulthood. The way I felt about myself, the physical symptoms I had, thoughts of wanting to give up and die. I felt like a big chunk of me was locked away and buried.
I mean this in all sincerity, that if it wasn’t for Matthew’s help and going on retreats I might not have made it through. I’m not only facing up to what has been done to me as a child and adult, but also to the behaviours in me that are still hurting myself and others as well.
Matthew is a unique individual, whose approach is real, direct and with a depth of clarity and understanding I have not encountered before!
Thank you Matthew for helping me live not just exist. You have had a profound impact on my life. Thanks for everything!"
Post submitted by Maree Shaw
excerpt from letter - some of the letters on this blog were originally used for another purpose, with the individual authors permission references irrelevant to this blog have been removed and in some cases the posts made anonymous, what remains is the guts of their experience of Matthew Meinck.
