{"id":17218,"date":"2013-12-11T12:11:57","date_gmt":"2013-12-11T20:11:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fireitupwithcj.com\/dev\/\/new\/\/?p=17218"},"modified":"2015-10-14T16:28:55","modified_gmt":"2015-10-14T23:28:55","slug":"healing-abortion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fireitupwithcj.com\/dev\/healing-abortion\/","title":{"rendered":"Healing from having an abortion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fireitupwithcj.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/abortion.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-17220\" alt=\"abortion\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fireitupwithcj.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/abortion-150x150.jpg\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>Christina Haas lost everything her marriage, her house, and her job. \u00a0Join CJ as she interviews Christina about how her personal loss from abortion and miscarriage were the catalysts to finding herself and her purpose.<\/br><\/p>\n<h1 itemprop=\"name\">Listen to a Show Segment<\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/fireitupwithcj.mywholelife.net\/RadioShows\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/12.11.13-Haas-Segment-1.mp3\"><span>Segment 1<\/span><\/a>: How do you rebuild your life after losing it all? Christina shares her story of guilt and shame and how she reconciled her religious beliefs with having an abortion.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/fireitupwithcj.mywholelife.net\/RadioShows\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/12.11.13-Haas-Segment-2.mp3\"><span>Segment 2<\/span><\/a>: How did Christina heal from the emotional scars of her abortion?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h1 itemprop=\"name\">Blog Post by Our Guest<\/h1>\n<h3 itemprop=\"name\"><a href=\"http:\/\/christinaehaas.blogspot.com\/2013\/11\/a-ten-year-anniversary.html\">A Ten Year Anniversary<\/a><\/h3>\n<div>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-184R0sNBnJU\/Uo-qud8y3GI\/AAAAAAAAANU\/MVOcWE6tBG8\/s1600\/photo+%25286%2529.JPG\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-184R0sNBnJU\/Uo-qud8y3GI\/AAAAAAAAANU\/MVOcWE6tBG8\/s200\/photo+%25286%2529.JPG\" width=\"150\" height=\"200\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>It was ten years ago this past week that I started my healing journey with abortion. I was at my wit\u2019s end and knew if I didn\u2019t deal with my complex feelings from over eleven years earlier, I would probably end\u00a0up institutionalized.<\/div>\n<div id=\"post-body-5121769158511542789\" itemprop=\"description articleBody\">There were\u00a0many factors contributing to\u00a0my suppressed feelings of grief and shame. The biggest factor, by far, was my Catholic upbringing. While it gave me a deep faith in God, it also informed me I had committed a mortal sin.My Catholic roots went deep. I attended a Catholic girls\u2019 school for four years before high school, and a Catholic college. To make matters worse, by the time I finally fell apart, my husband was enrolled in the seminary to become a deacon. Soon there would be many more eyes upon us both, looking to our family as model Catholics.\u00a0<strong>After the years of parochial education, Sunday sermons and deaconate formation training, I\u00a0felt like a failure\u00a0as a human being. The pressure to live up to these standards was unbearable.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Thankfully, there is a program for healing in the Catholic Church called Project Rachel. Project Rachel changed the course of my life.<\/p>\n<p>Project Rachel helped me to understand the weight I had borne for over a decade. They helped me grieve and stood with me as I released my grief and asked God and my unborn daughter for forgiveness.<\/p>\n<p>As with many retreats, the confidentiality of the group was a requirement of participation. Given our purpose for being together, that made absolute sense. Unlike other retreats, however, the Project Rachel retreat required secrecy in other\u00a0facets of the weekend as well. Our location\u00a0was secret. No one knew where we were meeting and we were advised not\u00a0to share that information, except with our spouses.\u00a0Also unusual was our final instruction &#8211; not to share\u00a0with family or friends anything about our abortions or our weekend together.\u00a0<strong>It might not be safe, and therefore was\u00a0something we\u00a0should\u00a0keep to ourselves.\u00a0For me, there was continued fear and shame as I listened to this final counsel.\u00a0<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong><\/strong><br \/>\n<strong><\/strong><br \/>\nThe one thing I was not able to release, my shame, stayed with me far longer than any other difficult emotion. Even Project Rachel\u2019s Christ-like leadership and its generous love and compassion could not do for me what I so sorely needed. They could not change the language of the Catholic leadership and populace to remove condemnation or judgment. In the end, I was able to release the shame and find freedom only by looking outside the Church.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Since my retreat, as I listen to discussions between so-called pro-lifers and pro-choicers, I\u00a0continue to\u00a0wonder why the Church uses the language they do. Sinful, wrong, unthinkable, senseless murder \u2013 these are all words used in Catholic sermons and dialogs about abortion. The judgment these words evoke made it very difficult for me to release the shame of my abortion and I am\u00a0certain make it difficult for most others.<\/div>\n<p>It\u2019s unusual to talk about abortion. And while it isn\u2019t everyone\u2019s thing to share their story with the world, I do believe it is important that we share our stories with someone. One of the most productive things we did in the Project Rachel retreat weekend was to share our stories with each other. Sharing stories healed us because as we listened, we forgave. As we forgave and understood our sisters\u2019 pain, we were able to access and release our own pain, and\u00a0begin the process of forgiving ourselves.\u00a0With greater support from Church leadership, women would be able to leave Project Rachel feeling more supported in their healing and fully releasing the shame &#8211; the contradiction and tension between emotional freedom and faith tradition would dissolve.<\/p>\n<p>I hope and pray that one day soon Catholic leadership will really listen to the stories the women of the church have to tell and comprehend the compassion of the Project Rachel ministry who allowed us voice to tell them. I hope they will begin to understand and accept the\u00a0experience of\u00a0women\u00a0that compels them to make this choice.\u00a0<strong>Until we are able to speak without fear or secrecy, the road to full healing will be longer than it needs to be.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<div><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n<p>As I reflect on my ten-year anniversary this week, I realize how lucky I am to be able to share my story today feeling strong and secure in who I really am \u2013 a woman of light and love who knows all is very well with her soul.<\/p>\n<p>Namaste.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h1>About our Guest<\/h1>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fireitupwithcj.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Pebbles-Christina-headshot.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-17219\" alt=\"Pebbles Christina headshot\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fireitupwithcj.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Pebbles-Christina-headshot.jpg\" width=\"117\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>Christina Haas, a former business owner and CPA, is an emerging voice for women of all ages who yearn to release the guilt, pain and isolation of having an abortion. Through her own journey, Christina helps women experience forgiveness, healing, acceptance, and freedom around this sensitive issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Christina Haas lost everything her marriage, her house, and her job. \u00a0Join CJ as she interviews Christina about how her personal loss from abortion and miscarriage were the catalysts to finding herself and her purpose. Listen to a Show Segment Segment 1: How do you rebuild your life after losing it all? Christina shares her<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19973,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[516,458,67,56,63,489],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[5200,5197,1627,5196,3824,5194,5202,5199,608,2879,5190,5191,5198,5195,5203,5192,3028,5201,5193,894],"class_list":["post-17218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-compassion-and-confidence","category-emotional-intelligence-and-psychology","category-parenting-and-families","category-show-archives","category-wellness","category-women-issues"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.fireitupwithcj.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/abortion-150x1501-compressed.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fireitupwithcj.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fireitupwithcj.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fireitupwithcj.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fireitupwithcj.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fireitupwithcj.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17218"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.fireitupwithcj.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20479,"href":"https:\/\/www.fireitupwithcj.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17218\/revisions\/20479"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fireitupwithcj.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fireitupwithcj.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fireitupwithcj.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fireitupwithcj.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17218"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fireitupwithcj.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=17218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}