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Archives for June 2013

“My Gutsy Story®” Dixie Diamanti

June 10, 2013 by Sonia Marsh 26 Comments

Dixie Diamante

Breaking the Silence

 In horror, I stared at my 11-year-old daughter as she, with tears running down her rosy cheeks, recounted the times and places my own father had molested her.  I was torn from my place of denial with a vengeance that knew no mercy.  A war waged inside of me.  The little girl in me, who never faced her own issues, and being the mother who was always overly protective, fought for freedom from reality.  The very thing I thought I had so protected her from had happened.  I was in shock.   The stark realization of it began to sink in as I tried to make sense of everything I had been thrust into.

I was 35 years old and had never told a soul that I, too, was an incest survivor.  I was totally convinced I would go to the grave with the “secret”.  Now, because of my silence and denial, my own precious little girl, whom I thought I had protected with my life, had fallen victim to the very same thing I had endured.  “Dear God, how does one survive so much pain,” I prayed.  I honestly thought my heart would break.  My whole foundation of belief was shaken to the core.  I had convinced myself that I would never again have to deal with what happened to me as a child between the ages of 7 and 12 years of age.

I had very vivid memories of every incident down to the details but, until then, I felt nothing emotionally.  I had blocked out all feeling but remembered everything.  I taught myself as a little girl to separate from my body when I couldn’t deal with the trauma.  The real me floated on the ceiling playing with the butterflies while watching what was going on below.  I would feel sorry for the little girl below, because she looked so sad. But I was just glad it wasn’t happening to me.

Interesting enough, I had been in ministry for years, teaching and praying for the needs of other women when the force of my own past hit me like a ton of bricks.  I slowly realized that I, just like the women I ministered to, must begin the journey of walking through the pain of what happened to me to reach the shores of deliverance.  I had been in denial for so many years.  I had no idea where the journey would take me and I was scared.   I knew I had to break the silence.  I started with my daughter.

I went to work immediately to give my daughter all the care and love that I had so desperately needed as a child, but never got.  My mom instincts took the place of my own victimization.  I listened, validated, and comforted her with assurance that I totally believed her and would be there continually as she worked through her emotions.   I didn’t realize it at the time but I found that in validating her, I was also validating myself, as no one else ever did for me.

Confronting and exposing within my childhood family was the hardest thing that I ever had to do but I knew if I didn’t the incest would continue.  I felt like a wicked person at having to make my mom look at the truth.  It was horrible and heart breaking for me to watch her pain at my disclosure in detail.  But she soon accused me of lying and regressed into denial of which she was always good at doing.  Our relationship, faced with truth and not pretension, was never the same.  She could not accept the truth.  She did confront my dad.  But somehow they excused themselves of any responsibility and continued living as if it never happened.   I eventually had to release any expectations of her and accept the fact I could not change her, nor make things better for her.

The moment I released her from any of my expectations was the beginning of freedom for me.   And when I realized I would receive nothing emotionally from either of them, I released myself from the responsibility of protecting anyone ever again from this kind of violation, nor would I keep their secret.   I ­was the victim. But that is the day I became a ‘survivor’. And that was the day the generational pattern of incest was stopped in my family.  It was at that point that I knew my grandchildren would not be victims to the same crime.  The darkness had been exposed to the light.  The power of the “secret” was gone.  I felt empowered and free from the entanglements and emotions of the past.

Today, my daughter and I both are still learning to “live loved” by our real “Father” in Heaven.

DIXIE DIAMANTI  is a Certified Life Coach, author, speaker, and teacher, Dixie has reached out to women and men on the Central Coast of California for many years, leading them into freedom. She believes that every child of God has a distinct calling, and through her work, she assists and coaches them in finding their unique purpose in life.  Dixie loves to encourage and challenge clients to move forward in uncovering and making use of the hidden treasures within themselves through the coaching process of self discovery.   She is a wife, mom, and nana, to a large and supportive family. Website:www.reflectionsofgracehome.com

Dixie Diamanti Book Cover

Dixie’s book: “Climbing Out of the Box,” My Journey Out of Sexual and Spiritual Abuse Into Freedom and Healing, can be purchased on Amazon.com.

E-mail: Dixie@reflectionsofgracehome.com

SONIA MARSH SAYS: Dixie, thank you for opening up and sharing your story of how you broke the cycle of incest within your family. Your strength and courage in confronting your mother and releasing the “power of the “secret,” will help others see how you have healed and stopped the cycle of abuse within your family.

Dixie Diamanti’s is the 2nd story of our second series “My Gutsy Story®” Anthology #2. Mary Hamer’s is the first one.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR FOR THE SPECIAL EVENT TO LAUNCH OF OUR FIRST “My Gutsy Story®” ANTHOLOGY, ON SEPTEMBER 26TH, 2013, IN ORANGE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA. Click here for your invitation.

Do you have a “My Gutsy Story®” you’d like to share?

NOW is the time to submit your “My Gutsy Story®.” Please see guidelines below and contact Sonia Marsh at: sonia@soniamarsh.com for details.

You can find all the information, and our new sponsors on the “My Gutsy Story®” contest page. (VIDEO) Submission guidelines here

Your Special Invitation to “My Gutsy Story®” Event on September 26th, 2013

June 6, 2013 by Sonia Marsh 18 Comments

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We are going to be in this theater. Please invite your friends.

I know this is early, but I’m so excited to let you know about the special location for the launch of our first Anthology on September 26th, 2013.

“My Gutsy Story®” Anthology.

MyGutsyStoryA-5-S FINAL

Thanks to Larry Poricelli, Regional Manager of the Regency Theaters, and President of Southern California Writers Association (SCWA) we are inviting all 64 authors and the general public (up to 500 people) to attend this special event starting at 6 pm-9 pm, at the South Coast Village Regency Theater on Thursday, September 26th, 2013.

Larry Poricelli SCWA
Larry Poricelli

Our panel of four indie authors who have contributed to the “My Gutsy Story® Anthology.

Our fantastic upbeat moderator: Marla Miller, Author, Freelancer, Teacher & Founder of Marketing The Muse

  • Sonia Marsh: Founder and editor of My Gutsy Story®” Anthology
  • Linda Joy Myers: Founder and President of NAMW (National Association of Memoir Writers)
  • Jason Matthews: Indie author expert.

Part of book sales will benefit WomanSage, a charity helping women in transition.

The Regency South Coast Village theater is located in a fabulous area, close to Orange County Airport– aka John Wayne airport (SNA),  South Coast Plaza, the largest shopping mall on the west coast (if you’re a shopper you won’t be disappointed,) and many hotels and restaurants within walking distance of the theater.

The Regency South Coast Village Theatre

Inside the Regency South Coast Village Theater
Inside the Regency South Coast Village Theater
1561 W. Sunflower Ave., Santa Ana, CA, 92704
(714) 557-5701
Sonia checking out the lobby of the theater
Sonia checking out the lobby of the theater

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 Please check back and mark your calendars for this event. If you cannot make it, let your friends know about it. We shall update you on sponsors, and the event, as we move along.

Your suggestions regarding potential sponsors are greatly appreciated.

“My Gutsy Story®” Mary Hamer

June 3, 2013 by Sonia Marsh 23 Comments

Mary Hamer

“Breaking out of the Library”

 This is a story of escape—though a slow release from sucking mud rather than a daredevil exit down castle walls on a rope. How I released my imagination, that’s the story.

It began the day I was returning from a sabbatical to the college where I’d been teaching for ten years. As I looked round the familiar setting, the sun-filled lobby lined with mailboxes, the green upholstered chairs grouped in the common room, one powerful thought—or was it intuition? –transfixed me: I shouldn’t be here.

It was alarming. I’d given my life to education. Scholarship girl, Oxford, PhD. That meant a certain limited kind of writing. Correcting papers, marginal notes, final comments to help my students. And in the vacations—only then—writing and research of my own. Ever since the day when I was given a shiny green fountain pen for my sixth birthday, in a secret, unknowing kind of way I’d set out to be a writer.

But where had writing as a professor got me? How muffled and anxious my voice was. I can see that now. My first book, Writing by Numbers: Trollope’s Serial Fiction, was about the way the Victorian novelist, Anthony Trollope, worked. He kept count of the number of pages he wrote every day, anxious not to be lazy, not to be in the wrong, anxious to please his editors with the correct word length.

Only after it was published did I begin to wonder how much of his fears I shared. And why wasn’t I writing novels of my own? For three days I sat paralysed at my desk. I wanted to write a story but I couldn’t do it. I gave up and went back—but not entirely to my old ways. I began to question the connection between my own life and the topics I was choosing to research.

That name, ‘Trollope’? Was ‘trollop’ how I’d been taught to name a woman who knew what she wanted? How I’d been taught to think of my deepest self?

What in fact did I want?

All I knew, that day back at work after my sabbatical, was that I didn’t want this, the college. I went home that night and told my husband I needed to give up my job. He was quite startled. It meant doing without my salary and we still had kids at home.  For myself I knew I was making a huge decision. I’d clawed my way up to some kind of perch in a very competitive world. I’d be letting go.

But instead of a sickening plunge, it was release that followed: my voice was freed. In fact my whole body felt free. Those first days I literally rolled on the floor in my study, bubbling with joy. More mature activity followed. But it was no coincidence that I then wrote a book, Signs of Cleopatra, about the way Europe learned to condemn a woman with a mind of her own and the power to do what seemed best to her!

My new state of liberation gave me the nerve to choose boldly. I set off on research trips, to Egypt, to Venice, to Rome. I searched out experts in art history, history of costume, Egyptology. Meeting these strangers, being treated with respect by them, my confidence grew.

I began to read the literature I used to teach with new eyes. In a move to re-educate my body as well as my mind, I took actor training: a month’s intensive with Shakespeare & Company in Western Massachusetts. They taught me to find the voice that comes from deep inside. Another book followed. I wrote about Shakespeare, how he used the old stories to get his audience to ask questions about political and religious authorities: those very authorities who had subdued me and blinkered my vision as I grew up.

Writing my next book, about children and damage, in order to build my argument, I moved from the voice of the teacher into the voice of the storyteller. Perhaps, deep down, I’d been a secret storyteller all along but it had been knocked out of me at school. My old kindergarten teacher had to remind me of the day I kept our class of five year olds spellbound, telling them the old fairy story of the Hobyahs. I’d forgotten that power had once been mine.

What now? I asked myself, one day in 2003. And I remembered Rudyard Kipling, the man I’d wanted to study for my PhD, though that had been vetoed by my supervisor. Free now to explore him, I read my way into Kipling’s life. I began to realise I’d been treading in his footsteps—India, the east coast of the US, South Africa, his home in Sussex—preparing. I seemed to be on some sort of track, ready to reconnect with myself.

Deciding to follow the course of his life was one thing: choosing to write about it in the form of fiction, rather than biography, was a massive leap. I’d never written anything but criticism before. But confidence and stamina had built up in me and I was no longer looking for permission or waiting for someone else’s timetable.

And so I came to write my novel. In the end, it was not just about Rudyard Kipling.  His story led me to that of his sister, Trix, also a writer, but a woman who lost faith in her own voice. Turning my back on life in college that fateful day opened a path led home, back to what I knew for myself! It worked. Kipling & Trix won the Virginia Prize for Fiction.

MARY HAMER was born in Birmingham. Educated at the Catholic grammar school and at Lady Margaret Hall, she grew up a secret rebel. Reading Kipling’s Jungle Book, in the small branch library in Harborne offered her the first hint that there was a different, more exciting way to see the world. Mary is married, with grownup children and seven grandchildren. Kipling and Trix is her fifth book and first novel. Please check out Mary’s website: www.Mary-Hamer.com

Mary Hamer Kipling and Trix cover visual9

Mary’s books: Writing by Numbers: Trollope’s Serial Fiction, Signs of Cleopatra: History, Politics, Representation, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Incest: a New Perspective, Kipling & Trix.

Click on the book cover for the US Amazon link, and or the UK Amazon link. 

Join Mary’s Facebook page, and on Twitter @mary_hamer

SONIA MARSH SAYS: Mary, we all love to read stories about giving up what doesn’t feel right, and going with passion instead. Congratulations on your books and awards. Three authors who submitted stories about following their passion are: Carol Bodensteiner, Larry Jacobson and Lois Joy Hofmann.
***

Mary Hamer’s is the first one in our second series “My Gutsy Story®” Anthology #2.

Our first Anthology is being launched in September 2013, with a SPECIAL EVENT IN ORANGE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA on September 26th, 2013. News about the event this Thursday, June 6th.

 Do you have a “My Gutsy Story®” you’d like to share?

NOW is the time to submit your “My Gutsy Story®.” Please see guidelines below and contact Sonia Marsh at: sonia@soniamarsh.com for details.

You can find all the information, and our new sponsors on the “My Gutsy Story®” contest page. (VIDEO) Submission guidelines here

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