The ancient art of "whatifism"

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
March 7, 2023

In the Wizard Of Oz, Glinda asked Dorothy, "Are you a good witch or a bad witch?"

That movie kept popping up in my head as I was writing the Ministers Of The Mystery series. There are good witches and bad ones too, doing good or, doing harm. The thing is, people have always used their spiritual gifts the same way. While God granted gifts to all since the beginning of time, unfortunately, He left it up to them to use them or ignore them.

Maybe you're like me? I'm not normal. I never have been and never will be. I am unique and I embrace that uniqueness because I am the only one who lived my life as my life unfolded. When someone says they just want to fit in, I cringe, because there is always a price to pay for that.

We end up giving up parts of ourselves to fit into what others appear to be. That was made clear to me when I wanted to fit into what others expected my work to fit into.

I didn't want to fit into what others thought over 40 years ago when I first invested my life toward defeating #PTSD. It was bad all the way around. Fitting into what had already been done repulsed me since none of it was working. Too many were suffering and too few were healing.

It is the same way now. For all that has been reported on, talked about, and sadly, fundraised for, too many have settled for "easy" instead of what is accomplishable.

Too many with PTSD are not part of the conversation and that is the greatest sin of all. I guess you could have called me a bad witch back then when someone asked me why I didn't focus on average people with PTSD as well as veterans. I responded with something along the lines of veterans were unique and we owed them all we could do to help them recover from doing what we asked of them.

I finally became a good witch when I realized that was the key to healing veterans! With the number of other survivors out there growing every year, just from living as a civilian, there is power in that. When veterans, and current military members, finally understand they have also been exposed to the same traumatic events the rest of us are, and then exposed to the traumatic events in war, they begin to open their eyes.

That is the biggest reason why all the characters in the series were survivors of different events, and yes, including veterans.

Life as a survivor doesn't have to be as hard as it is. Suffering does not have to follow surviving when healing is ready and waiting to fill up the room with hope. Once you see how much we all have in common, even if our experiences causing PTSD were different, the road toward healing, is the same. We don't get too far doing it alone. When we accept the fact that others will not understand the world we traveled to is much different than anything they will be able to understand, we begin to find others that do understand. When we allow them to help us reach the magical world of healing, we understand we helped them too!

At the end of The Wizard Of Oz, the Scarecrow asked Glind why she didn't tell Dorothy about having the power inside her all along to go home. She replied that Dorothy wouldn't have believed her. She had to learn it on her own, and do you! You've always had the power in you too!