Bullying and Trauma

Shortly after I started 5th grade, my teacher sent home a note that changed everything. “Mary Helen,” she wrote, “is falling asleep in class. Please see that she gets enough sleep so she is ready to learn.” 

My mother accompanied me to school the following day, took one look at my last-row desk next to the hot radiator, and started looking for a new school. 

Weeks later I was enrolled in a private school known for its academic excellence. I’d tested in, so I must have been smart enough ... and by the looks of photos I was happy. But the class bullies descended on me just days after I started and it wasn’t long before the their words had beaten the spunk right out of me. 

The school took no notice and my mother had no idea how to help me, so I was left on my own. Believing that who I was was absolutely not okay, I set about creating a new persona by asking everyone, in one way or another, “who do you want me to be?” As you can probably imagine, that got me into a whole lot of trouble, and trauma compounded. 

Bullying Really Does Create Trauma

No one understood trauma back then, but it's clear to me now that the bullying can create major trauma. That's not a small thing: there are studies galore about how trauma impacts children throughout their lives. That's because if trauma isn’t healed, it compounds. 

By my early 30s I was angry, rebellious, depressed, and seriously considering suicide. I later learned that trauma had essentially sliced a schism between the left and right hemispheres of my brain. And it all began with bullying. 

Repairing the Damage

When I was 38 I married Bill Rossi, a man with the wisdom and patience to help me learn about my heart. I was a difficult case because the trauma had become so deeply ingrained, but through decades of work, I healed. 

I've written this book to share what I now know: your heart is your superpower. Call it clichéd, trite, or corny, but I know that if you join forces with your heart, you'll be able to deal with whatever life throws your way. Your heart will even heal you, if that’s what you need. 

The Key? Your Magic Heart!

Children can bypass a lot of suffering if they learn to trust their heart early on.

Bill used to say that today’s so-called gurus “make a mountain out of a molehill,” and trusting your heart is surely the essence of all spiritual paths. The practice I developed as I went through it is a simple, practical, hands-on way to do that, one that leads you to your innate happiness. Bullies, Blaze, and Bravery is the first book in The Magic Heart Series to communicate that practice.

These understandings are based on the teachings of Brahmagna Ma and Ramana Maharshi, saints who taught Advaita Vedanta in the early 1900s - a tradition that states that only the Divine exists. To me, trusting your heart is the foundational element of all spiritual paths.

 All spiritual paths lead to the heart, and that's where our power lies. 
Bullying and other traumas shut it down, causing anxiety and depression. 
But when we learn to stay with our heart like we did naturally when we were young, 
we empower it to dissolve our trauma.
In the process, we find our innate happiness ... we discover who we are.