Life of Love. Life of Love. Life of Love. Life of Love with Julie Hilsen.

Julie Hilsen: 0:09

Hello, dear friends, and welcome to another episode of Life of Love. We’re so happy to have you here in this beautiful day and we have a wonderful guest today. I’m excited to introduce Moira Dodd. She has over 25 years experience as a therapist, but her story is so much more. She’s a counselor who specializes in trauma bereavement and stress management, and she’s written a heartfelt memoir entitled Cherishing Me Letters from a Motherless Child. We are both warriors for joy and finding what our soul messages are, so it’s my deep honor to introduce Moira to Life of Love. Thank you, moira, for being here.

Moira Dadd: 0:53

Oh, thank you, Julie. It’s an absolute joy to be here. It’s a real honor. Thank you so much.

Julie Hilsen: 0:59

Well, thank you, and thank you for everything that you put out. You’re constantly adding to your repertoire of healing modalities and helping people figure out what their challenges are and beliefs that might be limiting them and obstacles, and so I would love for you to share with the audience. I’ve listened to your audiobook and I know your story from that, but if you could just give my listeners a little background as to what were your obstacles to joy and your backstory, because it’s a very powerful, courageous recovery and it’s just very excited for you to let everyone know that your story.

Moira Dadd: 1:41

Oh, thank you so much. I’m feeling really emotional just hearing you introduce me like that, because it is quite a story. Yeah, I didn’t have any joy, julie, at all in my young life, in my childhood. So my I do have an older sister, but when I was born I was 10 months old and I don’t know why, but my mother killed herself, so we can only imagine that she had a post-natal psychosis. Obviously I don’t remember anything at all from those days. So my father, so I’m nearly 70. So we’re going back to the early 50s, 1950s, a long, long time ago, and in those days I guess men didn’t take on children in the same way that they might do nowadays. I’m letting my father off the hook here, really. So anyway, he decided in his wisdom to place my older sister with his parents. So she went to live with paternal grandparents and I was put into care. So by the time I was three I’d had six foster homes. Now, why I needed six, I will never know. I don’t know. Why nobody kept me, I really can’t imagine. And when I was three I was placed into an orphanage. Now an orphanage, you’d think, is for a child with both parents who had died, but this particular orphanage was for many children who had lost one parent, it was still called an orphanage. It was a pretty loveless place and after 50 years I was able to get my records, my official records, about my story. And it was quite a harrowing read because every few months there were entries in this book which stated how difficult I was and the best way the staff could deal with me was to ignore me. I mean, it was really joyless, absolutely loveless and joyless, and any child living there would disobey the rules at their peril. There would be harsh punishments. It was harsh indeed. I learned to make beds, though I do a good mited corner on the end of a bed because I had to make the bed every day. We lived in dormitory like buildings, rather like an army barracks rows and rows and rows of beds, so I could go on and on, julie telling all sorts of things. Anyway, there it is. That’s the basis of my story.

Julie Hilsen: 4:58

But my curiosity was the six foster homes. But you couldn’t find any records from social services as to who those foster parents were or the situation or if you had experienced abuse and as an early from six months to three years you bounced to different homes.

Moira Dadd: 5:18

Yes.

Julie Hilsen: 5:22

And so obviously there’s a lack of understanding of just normal childhood development. That could happen Absolutely.

Moira Dadd: 5:29

Yeah, there was no knowledge really back then. I sound very old back then.

Julie Hilsen: 5:38

I could say that too. I have some back then stories myself. But just looking back 50 years, how much human consciousness and responsibility to human life has increased.

Moira Dadd: 5:53

Absolutely that is astounding.

Julie Hilsen: 5:56

Yes, were the orphanages run by clergy like nuns?

Moira Dadd: 6:01

Yes, they weren’t nuns, it was a Christian orphanage. So it was founded by a Baptist minister, a very famous preacher called I think his name was John Haddon Spurgeon, so it was called a Spurgeon’s home because that was his surname. And it was originally founded for boys, boys who’d come out of families through the war, and they were very poor. Maybe people are being killed in the war and so they were housing or trying to re-home boys and give them a trade to practice you know, carpentry, lots of different trades and then later on they started taking girls. So I went there in 1959.

Julie Hilsen: 7:02

And do you have any record of your mother’s parents?

Moira Dadd: 7:04

I mean, Well, the only record I have. So this is another story. Really, when I was much older and I had children of my own, I decided suddenly one day. I thought I wonder if there’s anyone still alive that might have known my mother. So I started doing a search. That’s a very long story. I did a search. You know how bureaucracy is going through. You know papers and newspapers and all sorts of different offices. Anyway, I did find some people that knew my mother. They were her cousins in Wales. That was the beginning really of joy, actually the healing joy. It was wonderful I had had my three sons beforehand and that was very joyful. But this was a different kind of joy. This was healing my core, childhood pain and these cousins, they were getting elderly. So I’m pleased that I found them when I did and they told me about my mother’s parents. So it was just anecdotal, it was just stories about them, and I learned a lot and it was great. I learned that she was a very accomplished musician and she loved opera, she played the piano. So that was lovely for me to hear because I had imagined her as a very depressed woman with nothing going for her at all and it was fabulous learning that she had such vibrant life skills. That was really wonderful. I don’t think I inherited any of those. I don’t play any instruments or anything.

Julie Hilsen: 8:55

And then I discovered you never do the way you pick up stuff. You may surprise yourself.

Moira Dadd: 9:03

And later on, julie, I discovered that she had worked for the Secret Services in the war and it was all top secret and she was a Morse code interceptor. And there’s a place in the UK called oh the name escapes me, it’ll come back to me in a moment and she worked there intercepting Morse code messages that were hidden, and she was somebody that was taught to intercept those messages and so it was. You know, it was espionage, I suppose, is what it comes under, and it was a very dangerous job and she got decorated for that. So she’s in a role of honor. Bletchley Park Bletchley Park is the name of the place in the UK and her name is written in gold leaf in the Book of Honor. Yeah, yeah.

Julie Hilsen: 10:10

That is fantastic. What a wonderful story. Yes, and now I can understand why you say it’s believed at some postpartum stress. However, she had another life, she was. Her dynamics are not stay at home, mom. Yeah, she’s a creator and she might have had secrets and knowledge. So I know that some things are presented in one way and some will come in and say, well, this is what it is. But unless someone questions the narrative, there might be a whole, like you said, a whole another story.

Moira Dadd: 10:54

Absolutely yes.

Julie Hilsen: 10:55

I mean opening the oven door and gassing. That could be voluntary or involuntary. Yeah, yeah.

Moira Dadd: 11:06

And then hers was voluntary.

Julie Hilsen: 11:10

Well, how do you know? Nobody was home, oh well. I mean, I’m just, saying like if somebody was threatened by her having this knowledge, they could set up the situation to make it look like it was her choice.

Moira Dadd: 11:24

Well, that’s interesting. I’ve never thought of that one, Julie.

Julie Hilsen: 11:28

Well, that just came to me as you’re talking.

Moira Dadd: 11:32

Yeah, that’s very interesting.

Julie Hilsen: 11:35

There’s just, it’s just a whole thing, and the whole idea that your sister went one place and you went another. And to me that’s just like you know, like your dad had trouble with you because you represented her when, when she, when this happened right, yeah like, yeah, and, and the story that’s put place in place is that she was a depressed mom or she was Overwhelmed or whatever, whatever it was. But you didn’t get that story from her family and her cousins and you know things. Things don’t, and you’ll find out one day. You’ll find out the truth, whether it’s on this side of the veil or the other side. Yes, indeed, but I would like to offer that there’s been suicides that have been claimed as suicides that weren’t and I’m just saying, unless you’re there. How do you know, and that that seems like a very um, I don’t know, it’s just came to me.

Moira Dadd: 12:33

It’s really fascinating. Yeah, I mean my. My tendency is to think that it was suicide, but yeah but that’s a lot for you to carry around.

Julie Hilsen: 12:46

It is, it has been. It has been and your dad when and I’m gonna skip forward to he got remarried and so with this orphanage. The law was when you’re, when you have a spouse, when you’re a widower and you take a bride, then you need to reclaim your child in this orphanage. That was the parameters right? Yeah, here you are. You are six. How old were you?

Moira Dadd: 13:09

well, I, I Was very young when he got married for the second time and I was taken out of the orphanage to be a bridesmaid and then I was taken back again and I never understood that. It was just bewildering to me. So clearly he was breaking the rules because he was supposed to Reclaim me when he got married. So that’s a mystery to me. I’ll never understand that one. But I remember the pain of that being taken back to the orphanage because I thought that I was going home and and that was a terrible, terrible experience. The pain of that, yeah, it’s really, really huge.

Julie Hilsen: 13:55

They treated you as an accessory, like oh you know, we’re getting flowers, we’ll get more. Yes, she can be the flower girl.

Moira Dadd: 14:01

Exactly, exactly that very very. It was so cruel, yeah, it was so cruel. And then, so two or three years later than I was seven, or nearly seven, just about seven Then he got married for the third time and I was then removed from the orphanage and my sister was brought from grandparents and there we all were, four of us supposed to make this happy household. Well, that did not work, it’s. It’s a bit crazy to think you can bring a child out of Seven years of institutional care and expect them to know how to live in a family. I didn’t know, so I was very disruptive, yeah. Which you had every right to be yes, and they didn’t know how to handle me and Unfortunately, my stepmother was a narcissist. She was very violent, so it was not not a good time, so there was still no joy right.

Julie Hilsen: 15:14

So I Just I honor, I honor that painful story because it’s it’s vulnerability, it’s hard and it’s you know. Thank you for sharing it. It also helps Give you validation for your work and where you are sitting today, able to find joy to have grandchildren you’re loving on. You have three happily married sons, just in a thriving practice. So it’s just a testimony to the human spirit and isn’t it just? yes, yes, nature and nurture, and and you decided to take nurture and say it didn’t happen, but I’m gonna. I’m gonna make it. I’m gonna make this life. So do you ever feel like you have angels around you, guiding you, or that, oh?

Moira Dadd: 16:02

definitely. Oh gosh. Yes, Absolutely, I do.

Julie Hilsen: 16:10

Yes, so I know that they have guided you.

Moira Dadd: 16:14

I can feel that, without a doubt, julie. Yes.

Julie Hilsen: 16:19

Yes, and I’d love, with your permission, to read a little quote from your book and then have you expand on what you meant. Okay, little exercise, it’s like a tea time with Moira. I left my tea upstairs. You’re, you’re at night, I’m, I’m in the early or late morning and you’re getting ready for dinner. So here goes it always. It had always been there within me, but I simply hadn’t noticed it because I had boxed it in and put it away. And I believe that was your, your light.

Moira Dadd: 17:00

Yes, that’s making me emotional. Hearing my words read back to me by you. That’s beautiful.

Julie Hilsen: 17:07

Yeah, beautiful, yeah, so how? How did you discover the box that you needed to open, like? Give us a little insight, tell us about that.

Moira Dadd: 17:20

Isn’t it amazing yeah, it’s such a good question that I Could have been so bitter and angry, and I was at times. I think the first Moment, really, julie, when I noticed something shifting in me was after I gave birth to my first son, who’s in his mid 40s now, and it was a long time ago, and I was very depressed, and I can remember one day standing in the kitchen of my home and I was scared. I was thinking, oh my goodness, I feel so depressed and so anxious. I think I might kill myself, like my mother did. And it frightened me so much. I decided to go to therapy. I Decided standing there in my kitchen right, I have to do something. I have to Stop feeling like this. I don’t want to feel like this anymore. It was so powerful. I remember it so clearly. So I I started therapy and that was the beginning of a long, long therapeutic journey Full of ups and downs, but it’s led me to where I am now. So that was the beginning of opening the box. It was a tiny little Little.

Julie Hilsen: 18:51

Yeah, the love for your son was was a perspective you needed to realize. There is, you know, box sitting there right, yeah, yeah, and you know yeah sorry, julie.

Moira Dadd: 19:05

Oh, no, no the thought, the thought of leaving my son because I only had the one. Then I’m feeling the same as I had as a child. I couldn’t possibly have done that. I couldn’t have put him through that.

Julie Hilsen: 19:21

Yeah, you took a, you took a cycle of Obviously your father didn’t have, he didn’t have the kind of loving parenting to model, to even like you know, like I remember listening in your book and you know the one time he brought up a picture of your mom and you asked him about it and yeah, he was able to share some in. You know that third stepmother wasn’t gonna have it and yeah and he wasn’t gonna stand up for whatever reason. He didn’t think he could do it alone. Yeah, and your forgiveness of him and writing the letters to him, I’m releasing him. He didn’t condone his behavior. He didn’t say it was okay, but she said I’m not gonna hold on to this and and he had his reasons. He had his weaknesses. Obviously, it was very deep set because what he did is on, is Uncomprehensible, it’s just, but yeah, it’s, it’s neglect and abuse and you know it was that’s. It’s rough, but you know, through the lens of our, you know, 2023, these things, you know we, this doesn’t happen, hopefully. I haven’t heard of this happening to anyone else. So, you know, I feel like humanity’s an evolved and you know there’s many. I know my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather and my mother’s side was raised in an orphanage in the United States Because his dad was killed in a tractor accident and he was raised by nuns. but there’s definitely some darkness on that side of my mom’s family, like my mom’s dad, was very harsh. His famous quote was the moment you lit, the moment you’re born, you start to die. That was his famous quote. That was his lens on life. How sad, and yeah, and it’s the. You know, for some reason the institution is supposed to be Christianity and and religious, but for some reason it had this layer of darkness just placed over it and and the souls that have suffered. You know it’s. You’re not the only one, but it’s, you know it’s. So I’m so happy that we seem to have moved on from that kind of institutional like Trauma gosh and then it is.

Moira Dadd: 21:53

It is traumatic. Yeah, it is really traumatic. I hope that I now look through the lens of my heart, mm-hmm.

Julie Hilsen: 22:03

Yes, I think you’ve accomplished that so much, and that’s what I’d love for you to tell me about the self-love project well, I mean it’s.

Moira Dadd: 22:14

It’s something I believe passionately, and, julie, that our relationship with ourself Really dictates our relationship with everyone else. So you know, if I’m hating myself and hating my inner child which I used to Then it’s going to be very difficult for me to love someone else really deeply and unconditionally. So I discovered that little by little I could throw out that frozen little child inside me and start to love the innocence in her. She didn’t do anything wrong, it wasn’t her fault. The things that happened to her were not her fault. So I was able to forgive her and love her unconditionally Doesn’t mean I have to love all the behaviors I’ve done. I’ve done some pretty awful behaviors in my life and other people have done some pretty awful behaviors to me. So self love and forgiveness to me is not about accepting all the behaviors I’ve done. That’s a different journey, really to reconcile myself to those. It’s about forgiving and loving the innocent part of myself, my inner child, and the innocent inner child within everyone else, within all of us.

Julie Hilsen: 23:44

Great to say that. See that everybody has an innocent inner child.

Moira Dadd: 23:49

Yes, so I teach that now. I’m really passionate about that in my work, yeah.

Julie Hilsen: 24:00

That’s awesome, thank you. And the inner child. I know that I’ve done a couple episodes on the inner child, but it’s just fascinating to me how, when you connect and you say, okay, inner child, this is something we went through, I see you and you’re in the scared place. I see you and you feel neglected or you feel ignored, but I’m holding you and I have you. And I think that’s a magical part of your memoir is that you’ve written these letters and people can read these letters and put in their own inner child conflicts, even the point of evaluating your belief system.

Moira Dadd: 24:49

Yes, oh, very much so. Yes, that’s a big part of it, because when we’re traumatized as a child I’ll come back to the word trauma but when we’re traumatized as a child and we’re experiencing such fear and sadness and pain, we start to tell ourselves a story. We don’t know we’re doing it because our brain is just little and new, but we’re laying down the foundations of a story about how bad we are. Well, it must be my fault that daddy doesn’t love me. I must have done something terribly bad for mommy to leave me, and so on and so forth. It’s got to be my fault. I can’t blame mommy and daddy, because I need them and they need to look after me. So it’s got to be me. And this is the child’s way of trying to stay safe, trying to make some sense and meaning out of what’s happening to her or him. So yeah, the word trauma. In the olden days, a long time ago, experts used to tell us that trauma was about having some terrible accident, a car crash, a train crash, something awful awful that happened. Nowadays, experts know that anything that disrupts the equilibrium of the baby and the child is traumatic to that child, where the child feels scared, abandoned, rejected. Anything at all that really upsets the child’s nervous system. That is trauma. So we apply that word much more universally now.

Julie Hilsen: 26:45

Yeah, it’s a perceived threat. It’s an idea that you’re vulnerable, that you’re feeling unsafe, unseen.

Moira Dadd: 26:53

Yes, yes, and to a child, that perceived threat is very, very real, like I’m going to die If I don’t feel safe, if I’m not looked after, no one’s here for me, I’ll die, and that’s not true, but it feels true.

Julie Hilsen: 27:11

Right. And then you know it’s crazy how kids believe everything that you say to them. Yes, and so parents don’t realize these idle threats to control child’s behavior. Yes, these blanket statements, they’re taken as gospel truth. I mean, and it’s something you have to unlearn, you have to really look is that? does that make sense to me as an adult you know like there’s so many things to uncover and to question, so it’s good that these things are coming to surface and these paradigms. I used to just listen to the news and think it was all truth. And then you know, and now, like I don’t even believe the death report of your mom, I’m like well, who says yes, you know, like I’m getting to the point where I’m like you know, I’m going to create my own reality because who’s to say I’m wrong? We can change timelines, like just you don’t like where you are, you jump on another timeline. You figure, I was listening to Joe Dispenso this morning and he was talking about oh yeah, the how you know. And he was talking about beliefs too. That might be why it’s on the tip of my tongue. But you know, when you envision how you want something to happen so like if you envisioned your dad keeping you after that second wedding the flower girl scenario you envision him wrapping his arms around you and saying, hey, you know, we’re a family, and you were younger then, so you might have been able to work through more of the trauma or adjust to the family situation more than you know. Because I imagine when you went back, when you got introduced in the family again with this other narcissistic step mom, you were probably unsure if you’re even going to stay, so you didn’t want to bond because you might be pushed back again anyway. So what’s the point of opening your heart and feeling love?

Moira Dadd: 29:17

in that family. Absolutely, it’s a newly spot on. Yeah, I was very closed. I was very closed by then.

Julie Hilsen: 29:25

Yeah, listening to your book, I felt like you were. You know, I envisioned this, this wild creature, and you were just looking for someone to wrap you, hug you and tame you. Yes, you were like this, you know, even like a different language, like you didn’t understand love and you didn’t understand the family dynamics, and you just needed someone to tame you.

Moira Dadd: 29:50

Yes, that’s really clever language. It’s so true. Yes, it is. Thank you for that. I love that. Yes, what I did learn later on is that, of course, love was already in me, and that’s where I found my joy, when I realized that my soul, in that innocent child part of me, was just pure love and was already inside me. Yeah, it’s the pity I didn’t know that earlier in life. But hey, I know it now and I’ve tried and spread it and share it as much as I can.

Julie Hilsen: 30:33

Yes, yes, and know that there’s layers, but you can unpeel those layers and you can get to it. Everyone deserves it’s a birthright to be loved, and we’re only here because God loved us.

Moira Dadd: 30:44

Yes.

Julie Hilsen: 30:47

And God has put us here to love. Yes, and we’re turning the paradigms around. There are things that have been placed on us by institutions, by people who didn’t respect love, and these things are being turned around with our you know, strong and we’re entering, you know, this age of Aquarius, where energies are shifting, and Definitely, and we’re turning it upside down or shaking it up. Yes, yeah, well, you are my warrior sister and I honor your like. Thank you so much. You know the She-Ra, she-ra, princess of Power. Have you ever do you remember? Yay, that is that is how I picture you, that’s wonderful. It’s just been a divine conversation and I thank you and I thank God for bringing us together and this wonderful time.

Moira Dadd: 31:44

Thank you, julie. Thank you so so much.

Julie Hilsen: 31:48

And thank you, my listeners. I really appreciate your ears and your hearts and I’m really excited to introduce my new website, lifeofloveandjoycom. You are welcome to head over there to make comments about any episodes or give me suggestions for episodes you recommend. I am here for you and I want you to know that we’re a community and I’m supporting you and holding space for your life of love. Also so exciting my audio book is finally out, so you can pick it up on Apple Apple audio books or on Audible. And what’s pretty cool is Amazon has given me a promo. They’re wanting people to listen to their audible content, so you know it’s just great timing. I guess they gave me a promo code. You can download my book Even if you’ve tried a promo code with them before or you’ve done trial membership. This is available to everyone, regardless. If you’ve done a promo and canceled, you can sign up with the link that I’ll provide in the description. You get my title for free, and if you’re a prime member, you get another title for free and access to their whole library, and if you don’t want to use it, you can always cancel it. So that’s available, and a big thing you can do to help me out is leave a review. Leave a review on my podcast, or leave a review if you liked my book or my audio book. It’s huge for me, so I really appreciate it and always go out and have a wonderful day and live your life of love.