Karma Singh - The Early Years

I was born at a very early age.

(Groucho Marx, 192somethingorother)

 

In Sheffield, Yorkshire, England was where it took place: In an unheated bedroom at 6:15 of a November morning in the servant's quarters of an upper middle class house. No, it wasn't one of those stories, my parents were married. Accommodation was still a bit scarce after World War II and they'd taken up residence there whilst waiting for something better. My father was working for the railway at the time, a job which he continued until retirement about 30 years later. My mother was (I presume) housekeeper to the owner but, to be honest, I have no clear memories of the inside of the house just the long back garden leading onto the farmland beyond. It's all been built on now.

 

My mother was not a healthy person and was several times for lengthy periods in hospital. It was during one of these periods that I was repeatedly sexually abused by the "neighbour" who had taken me in for the duration. A woman, not a man!  Not a happy time.

 

When I was five, the family finally got a home of our own. All that I can remember in detail of the following few years is the tremendous heft my mother developed from alcohol consumption and her frequent screaming spasms.

  

Things did get better over the following years; she stopped drinking when I was about 9 or so but it was never possible to have an involved conversation with her (still isn't, really). My father would never dare to contradict her - preferring to spend more of his time holding down two jobs and I often didn't see him for long periods. I was forced to do most of my growing up all by myself.

 

So, why did I choose all this? Make no mistake; this wasn't something that was done TO me but, at my choosing, done FOR me.

 

Nobody being there for me made me fiercely independent - why should I follow their rules? What had they ever done for me?

"No matter what I did it was never good enough to win approval."

"I am responsible for everyone else's problems."
These were the basic tenets of my life.

 

A difficult childhood and early adulthood but just look at where it brought me:

 

In order to win approval and to "make good" all that I had "done to my mother" by being born, I became very adept at solving problems even to the point of doing such professionally in several different ways over the years.

 

To "purchase" the approval denied me I felt myself driven to perform "impossible" feats.

 

Any expectation "imposed" upon me is to be questioned. What is this for? Whom does it serve? Does it do what "everyone" thinks it does?

 

These three things are primarily those which have brought me to not only expect solutions where "everyone else" says it is impossible but also to work out exactly how to create the solution. For the last 22 years this has been expressed in my work as a professional healer, i.e. teaching others to recognise just how they got into the hole where they are and how to get out of it.

 

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Now, I am in no way special in this. Everyone chooses their own birth circumstances as the tool by which they shape their lives. You too! Recognising that this is so lets you give up blaming for what hurt and lets you get on with making use of it.

 

The circumstances which I chose are, maybe, a little extreme but look at what I get out of it! Instead of being just a student, I have also become a teacher and the fastest way to learn anything is to teach it!

 

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