Please Help Me Get To Bali
Donación protegida
HELLO LOVING PEOPLE OF THE WORLD!
My name is Laurie Marie. I’m here to ask for your help if you feel called to do so. I'm a compassionate and loving soul from the Midwest. I’ve been a photographer for the past 9 years and I’m currently in a 1-year program to become a Certified Fearless Living Life Coach. This past year I've funded my entire education out of pocket and now it's left things a bit tight. You see I feel a calling in my soul to take part in Mastin Kipp’s “Enter The Heart Retreat” in Bali to bridge the gap between where I am and where I need to be. My heart is being pulled towards this in a major way, like I've never felt before. My challenge is I need to raise $12,000 by December 31st of this year in order to make it happen. Scary, I know! I'm looking for a miracle here! Now I know you might be thinking “Why should I help some random woman get to Bali?” Trust me, I get it; I have been asking the same thing myself so please let me explain why...
LONG STORY:
Growing up in the Midwest I came from a fairly normal family. I'm originally from a small town of less than 4,000 people. I was fortunate to grow up in a home with two loving parents who always wanted and tried to do what they thought best for me. Like most parents they wanted to love and protect me however life sometimes has a way of letting things happen anyways… One of my earliest memories is when I was 3 years old standing in front of my parents’ big bay window holding my bottom and sobbing. My babysitter for whatever reason had beaten me so badly that my bottom was black and blue. Fast forward to around 5 years old, unbeknownst to them I was being molested by two older extended family members. Those early experiences taught me a lot about myself at a very young age. I learned about my sexuality at a far younger age than I think most little kids should and I learned to keep my mouth shut. The fear and shame ran so deep within me that I would spend the next three decades not using my own voice. Regardless of what it cost me, I remember being a teenager and our babysitter’s older brother wanted me to lie on top of him. I was afraid of what he might do to me if I didn’t so I surrendered and did it anyways. I lost my ability to use my voice.
By becoming so sexually aware at such a young age it's no surprise to me now why I began experimenting with sex by the time I was 12 years old. At 15 I fell in love with a boy, (the wrong boy) but a boy nonetheless. At 16 I found out we were pregnant and I became a teenage mom at 17. I'll never forget when I found out I was pregnant, I accepted it as truth and moved forward with raising my son with all the love and care I could give. I now know that I was in a four-year relationship with a psychopath, that relationship contained more abuse and more belittling of my self-confidence and self worth. I ended it by the time I was 19 and from then on it was my son and I on our own. I forged ahead, determined not to be another statistic. I graduated from high school with my class and onto college. I worked multiple jobs like most single parents do and kept on going. My son’s father on the other hand learned how to play the system and to date still owes over $50,000 in back child support. I know I’ll probably never see that money but I know that I did my part.
We struggled for the next decade together. My parents again did all they could to help me out and without their support I don’t know where I may have ended up. Unfortunately struggling to get by and not use government assistance to get there forced us to move a lot. Cold Wisconsin winters are not friendly on ill-insulated homes, the heat bill would be so high we couldn’t afford to live there anymore and we would have to move again come springtime. Over the course of a decade we moved over twenty times, never really establishing a feeling of home. One of our many moves resulted in a move that would change me forever. My son was six at the time, I was 23 and in the winter of 2000 we moved into a new place, it was a duplex and I had only met the neighbor upstairs once when we were moving in. A month after moving in he had come downstairs one morning asking if he could watch TV with my son. I resisted at first and he pleaded, he said his bus would be coming soon and he wouldn’t be long. He was a 16 year old kid, I could tell he was a little off but had no idea. He was the kind of kid that the other kids liked to pick on at school and he probably didn’t have many friends, I’ve always had a soft spot for the underdog and compassion for people in general. So I agreed and he came in and sat on the couch to watch cartoons. I went to go take my shower and locked the door and got ready for work. Little did I know that the lock was broke and when I was showering the curtain moved and when I looked out he was standing their naked in front of me. At first I was really angry and yelled at him to get upstairs. He stared blankly and said no. This happened a few more times then panic set in. He got into the shower with me and was trying to have sex with me. I did everything I could to fight him off, so much so that my son heard me scream and saw it all happening. After what seemed like an eternity, he for some reason got off and I ran off hysterical upstairs to get his parents. I couldn’t get a single word out and yet she knew what had happened. She yelled at him to get off my couch and get upstairs. She begged me not to call the cops, asking me if I had seen his scars as she helped me get dressed. It all seemed so surreal. I called the police and my parents. It was the only time I can remember my dad crying. The police came and took him away, we moved yet again and when it was time to stand trial they deemed him incompetent even though he had planned the entire thing out. He admitted to the police that he heard kids at school talk about having sex and he wanted to have sex too. He turned off his mother’s alarm, asked to watch TV, waved the bus off and told my son to “go in your room because something scary is going to happen.” Again we moved, I couldn’t live there anymore, not after what had happened. The one place where I was supposed to feel safe, even home was not safe. My concern after the attack was rooted in how my son would deal with seeing something like that so I immediately took him for counseling that day. I learned to cope other ways and over the course of a year I gained 100lbs. I went from being a 23year old confident and strong women who felt good in her own skin to a 225lb girl that just wanted to hide.
I struggled over the next decade to lose the weight and again forging on saying “I’m fine,” when deep down my soul was in pain. I used humor and food as a way to cope. I hated my body and let it stop me from living life in certain ways. I put my focus in other places like school. I went back to school at 26 to get my Bachelors in Fine Art in Painting and Photography. I graduated in four years and in 2007 I began my photography business from the ground up and I married the love of my life. I put my heart and soul into both my business and my marriage and both grew successfully. As part of my business I offered boudoir photography, intimate images of women to celebrate themselves. In a way now I think I did it as my first initial form of therapy. By helping other women feel good in their own skin or see themselves as beautiful for maybe the first time ever, I was healing myself too. I’ve worked with hundreds of women over the past nine years and I’m so grateful to all of them for sharing such a vulnerable piece of themselves with me. Doing so has shown me how to have the courage to be vulnerable too.
Through photography I have been able to travel, go to workshops, grow my business and myself. In February of 2013, everything would change. I went to a workshop called “WhatIF” and all my demons I’d been ignoring rose to the surface. I had a breakdown and for the first time admitted I needed help. So on my return the very first thing I did was get into counseling. Through my healing process all of my emotions began manifesting physically and from February-May 2013 I struggled to walk. The discs in my spine started to degenerate and my core was too weak to hold my upper half. The pain was excruciating, my sciatic nerve was being pinched. I forged on, swimming, doing yoga, working out, I even had to go in for a couple of injections, whatever I could do despite the pain. I remember nights seeing my husband cry beside me because I couldn’t stop crying because of the pain. There was nothing he could do to make it go away or help other than to be there and support me. It was one of the loneliest and most helpless feelings I’ve ever experienced. Thankfully by May I had strengthened my core and the pain had gone away.
It’s been a long journey and it’s taken a lot of time and healing but I can say that I am the strongest I’ve ever been both inside and out. Through counseling, healing and my own journey I’ve learned to take back my power, heal old wounds and find my voice. I know now that all of the experiences that have happened in my life were preparing me for this very moment. I’m not afraid anymore to use my voice, I’m not afraid to be vulnerable and to put myself out there. I’m done being a victim of other people and giving away my power. I’m here because I have a message to share. A message that I hope will help other women love themselves more and help them step into their own power.
SHORT STORY:
As a survivor of abuse, sexual assault and trauma I’ve learned to heal over the past three years and I've learned to take back my personal power and I’ve found my voice. I’ve learned to love myself again, just as I am and now I want to help others do the same! I believe that if more people could have self-love, self- acceptance and confidence that they can crack open to who they are meant to be and bring their special gifts to the world! I believe with the state of the world as it is, the world needs more healers in it. The world needs good people doing good things. I believe I’m one of those people and I also know that I can’t do it alone. So I’m taking a huge risk and being completely vulnerable and asking, if this speaks to you in any way…
This money would help me get to Bali to join Mastin Kipp from the daily love and his team. I believe God has guided me to him and I believe through his work and my time spent in Bali I will get the clarity on how to bring this message to the world. I'm looking for a miracle here! I feel a pull to do this like I've never felt before and I believe I'm being guided to it, with help I know I can accomplish this dream much faster. I’ve already been accepted and I’ve said yes, now I’m putting my faith in God and others to help me get there.
My deadline is December 31st of this year! I’m praying for a miracle here.
Here is a little more on the retreat:
http://baliretreat.thedailylove.com
So if any of this resonates with you at all or touches your heart, please help me get to Bali so I can help others. I know either way I'll make it happen someday but with your help I can help the world much sooner.
Sending much love and thank you for your time and consideration! xo- laurie marie
My name is Laurie Marie. I’m here to ask for your help if you feel called to do so. I'm a compassionate and loving soul from the Midwest. I’ve been a photographer for the past 9 years and I’m currently in a 1-year program to become a Certified Fearless Living Life Coach. This past year I've funded my entire education out of pocket and now it's left things a bit tight. You see I feel a calling in my soul to take part in Mastin Kipp’s “Enter The Heart Retreat” in Bali to bridge the gap between where I am and where I need to be. My heart is being pulled towards this in a major way, like I've never felt before. My challenge is I need to raise $12,000 by December 31st of this year in order to make it happen. Scary, I know! I'm looking for a miracle here! Now I know you might be thinking “Why should I help some random woman get to Bali?” Trust me, I get it; I have been asking the same thing myself so please let me explain why...
LONG STORY:
Growing up in the Midwest I came from a fairly normal family. I'm originally from a small town of less than 4,000 people. I was fortunate to grow up in a home with two loving parents who always wanted and tried to do what they thought best for me. Like most parents they wanted to love and protect me however life sometimes has a way of letting things happen anyways… One of my earliest memories is when I was 3 years old standing in front of my parents’ big bay window holding my bottom and sobbing. My babysitter for whatever reason had beaten me so badly that my bottom was black and blue. Fast forward to around 5 years old, unbeknownst to them I was being molested by two older extended family members. Those early experiences taught me a lot about myself at a very young age. I learned about my sexuality at a far younger age than I think most little kids should and I learned to keep my mouth shut. The fear and shame ran so deep within me that I would spend the next three decades not using my own voice. Regardless of what it cost me, I remember being a teenager and our babysitter’s older brother wanted me to lie on top of him. I was afraid of what he might do to me if I didn’t so I surrendered and did it anyways. I lost my ability to use my voice.
By becoming so sexually aware at such a young age it's no surprise to me now why I began experimenting with sex by the time I was 12 years old. At 15 I fell in love with a boy, (the wrong boy) but a boy nonetheless. At 16 I found out we were pregnant and I became a teenage mom at 17. I'll never forget when I found out I was pregnant, I accepted it as truth and moved forward with raising my son with all the love and care I could give. I now know that I was in a four-year relationship with a psychopath, that relationship contained more abuse and more belittling of my self-confidence and self worth. I ended it by the time I was 19 and from then on it was my son and I on our own. I forged ahead, determined not to be another statistic. I graduated from high school with my class and onto college. I worked multiple jobs like most single parents do and kept on going. My son’s father on the other hand learned how to play the system and to date still owes over $50,000 in back child support. I know I’ll probably never see that money but I know that I did my part.
We struggled for the next decade together. My parents again did all they could to help me out and without their support I don’t know where I may have ended up. Unfortunately struggling to get by and not use government assistance to get there forced us to move a lot. Cold Wisconsin winters are not friendly on ill-insulated homes, the heat bill would be so high we couldn’t afford to live there anymore and we would have to move again come springtime. Over the course of a decade we moved over twenty times, never really establishing a feeling of home. One of our many moves resulted in a move that would change me forever. My son was six at the time, I was 23 and in the winter of 2000 we moved into a new place, it was a duplex and I had only met the neighbor upstairs once when we were moving in. A month after moving in he had come downstairs one morning asking if he could watch TV with my son. I resisted at first and he pleaded, he said his bus would be coming soon and he wouldn’t be long. He was a 16 year old kid, I could tell he was a little off but had no idea. He was the kind of kid that the other kids liked to pick on at school and he probably didn’t have many friends, I’ve always had a soft spot for the underdog and compassion for people in general. So I agreed and he came in and sat on the couch to watch cartoons. I went to go take my shower and locked the door and got ready for work. Little did I know that the lock was broke and when I was showering the curtain moved and when I looked out he was standing their naked in front of me. At first I was really angry and yelled at him to get upstairs. He stared blankly and said no. This happened a few more times then panic set in. He got into the shower with me and was trying to have sex with me. I did everything I could to fight him off, so much so that my son heard me scream and saw it all happening. After what seemed like an eternity, he for some reason got off and I ran off hysterical upstairs to get his parents. I couldn’t get a single word out and yet she knew what had happened. She yelled at him to get off my couch and get upstairs. She begged me not to call the cops, asking me if I had seen his scars as she helped me get dressed. It all seemed so surreal. I called the police and my parents. It was the only time I can remember my dad crying. The police came and took him away, we moved yet again and when it was time to stand trial they deemed him incompetent even though he had planned the entire thing out. He admitted to the police that he heard kids at school talk about having sex and he wanted to have sex too. He turned off his mother’s alarm, asked to watch TV, waved the bus off and told my son to “go in your room because something scary is going to happen.” Again we moved, I couldn’t live there anymore, not after what had happened. The one place where I was supposed to feel safe, even home was not safe. My concern after the attack was rooted in how my son would deal with seeing something like that so I immediately took him for counseling that day. I learned to cope other ways and over the course of a year I gained 100lbs. I went from being a 23year old confident and strong women who felt good in her own skin to a 225lb girl that just wanted to hide.
I struggled over the next decade to lose the weight and again forging on saying “I’m fine,” when deep down my soul was in pain. I used humor and food as a way to cope. I hated my body and let it stop me from living life in certain ways. I put my focus in other places like school. I went back to school at 26 to get my Bachelors in Fine Art in Painting and Photography. I graduated in four years and in 2007 I began my photography business from the ground up and I married the love of my life. I put my heart and soul into both my business and my marriage and both grew successfully. As part of my business I offered boudoir photography, intimate images of women to celebrate themselves. In a way now I think I did it as my first initial form of therapy. By helping other women feel good in their own skin or see themselves as beautiful for maybe the first time ever, I was healing myself too. I’ve worked with hundreds of women over the past nine years and I’m so grateful to all of them for sharing such a vulnerable piece of themselves with me. Doing so has shown me how to have the courage to be vulnerable too.
Through photography I have been able to travel, go to workshops, grow my business and myself. In February of 2013, everything would change. I went to a workshop called “WhatIF” and all my demons I’d been ignoring rose to the surface. I had a breakdown and for the first time admitted I needed help. So on my return the very first thing I did was get into counseling. Through my healing process all of my emotions began manifesting physically and from February-May 2013 I struggled to walk. The discs in my spine started to degenerate and my core was too weak to hold my upper half. The pain was excruciating, my sciatic nerve was being pinched. I forged on, swimming, doing yoga, working out, I even had to go in for a couple of injections, whatever I could do despite the pain. I remember nights seeing my husband cry beside me because I couldn’t stop crying because of the pain. There was nothing he could do to make it go away or help other than to be there and support me. It was one of the loneliest and most helpless feelings I’ve ever experienced. Thankfully by May I had strengthened my core and the pain had gone away.
It’s been a long journey and it’s taken a lot of time and healing but I can say that I am the strongest I’ve ever been both inside and out. Through counseling, healing and my own journey I’ve learned to take back my power, heal old wounds and find my voice. I know now that all of the experiences that have happened in my life were preparing me for this very moment. I’m not afraid anymore to use my voice, I’m not afraid to be vulnerable and to put myself out there. I’m done being a victim of other people and giving away my power. I’m here because I have a message to share. A message that I hope will help other women love themselves more and help them step into their own power.
SHORT STORY:
As a survivor of abuse, sexual assault and trauma I’ve learned to heal over the past three years and I've learned to take back my personal power and I’ve found my voice. I’ve learned to love myself again, just as I am and now I want to help others do the same! I believe that if more people could have self-love, self- acceptance and confidence that they can crack open to who they are meant to be and bring their special gifts to the world! I believe with the state of the world as it is, the world needs more healers in it. The world needs good people doing good things. I believe I’m one of those people and I also know that I can’t do it alone. So I’m taking a huge risk and being completely vulnerable and asking, if this speaks to you in any way…
This money would help me get to Bali to join Mastin Kipp from the daily love and his team. I believe God has guided me to him and I believe through his work and my time spent in Bali I will get the clarity on how to bring this message to the world. I'm looking for a miracle here! I feel a pull to do this like I've never felt before and I believe I'm being guided to it, with help I know I can accomplish this dream much faster. I’ve already been accepted and I’ve said yes, now I’m putting my faith in God and others to help me get there.
My deadline is December 31st of this year! I’m praying for a miracle here.
Here is a little more on the retreat:
http://baliretreat.thedailylove.com
So if any of this resonates with you at all or touches your heart, please help me get to Bali so I can help others. I know either way I'll make it happen someday but with your help I can help the world much sooner.
Sending much love and thank you for your time and consideration! xo- laurie marie
Organizador
Laurie Marie
Organizador
Appleton, WI
