How I Am Healing from Childhood Sexual Trauma
TW // sexual violence, trauma response
I was on the brink of cutting myself the day I was reintroduced to hula: the art form that would infuse my life with profound healing.
An elderly relative had passed away, and I was planning to attend his celebration of life. Then I learned that he might be in attendance. At that, my mind and body went numb. Everything inside me felt dull and hardened. I started approaching my body with aggression, intentionally eating foods I knew would make me sick. Yet, the hardening continued. I felt encased in my own body, and my arms ached with longing for release. I was dissociating.
He had molested me when I was four. Those eight words have tainted every aspect of my life for nearly a quarter of a century.
At the time of my relative’s passing, I was like a bomb disposal technician eager for deployment while armed with rookie training. My fragmented memories had remained hidden until adulthood, expressing themselves in a million subtle ways. After these memories explicitly resurfaced, I decided to become a state-certified sexual assault crisis counselor. My hope was to channel my pain for others’ healing. Whatever the altruistic intent, the outcome was a grueling day-to-day existence. I obtained my certification just weeks before my relative’s passing. Within those weeks, I had experienced some odd phenomena: mini anxiety attacks during case studies, emotional numbness after sessions, and simultaneous arousal and near-blackout at a detective’s presentation. The certification process had been a field of landmines, and I had been hitting them left and right. At the time of my relative’s passing, the trauma was still close to the surface, the threat of detonation just a step away.
You know when you think you have studied enough, only to show up on test day and realize you know nothing? That was me. My failed test prep almost scrawled itself across my arms. By God’s grace, I reached out to close friends the moment I realized where my mind was headed. They responded immediately. They sat with me, hugged me, and called me.
I could have chosen to skip my relative’s celebration of life. But in my Asian American experience, family has this unexplainable pull. It did not matter that I had just eaten enough doughnuts to make myself sick. It did not matter I had nearly carved my pain out of my arms. It did not matter that my insides felt like a robot. About 25 minutes after the climax of my near self-harm episode, I was in my car headed to park for the gathering.
Phone calls from close friends grounded me enough to be able to show up and project my customary cheerful shell of myself to the world. When I received news he would not, in fact, be there, my insides collapsed in cold, exhausted relief. Still, I pasted on a smile, coaxed my dulled tastebuds to receive the chewy sweetness of mochi, and directed my energy towards finding as much interest as I could in my relatives’ lives while disclosing as little about mine as possible.
The merry tinkle of ukuleles interrupted my state of emotional self-preservation. My late relative had been an active member of the Hawaii Seniors’ Club, and his fellow members had a program to perform. I grinned despite my exhaustion, taking in the happy strumming, the quivery voices, and the straw hats adorned with feathers the colors of ketchup and mustard. When a group of ladies began dancing hula, though, my grin melted into breathless awe. For the life of me, I could not tell you what they were wearing or what songs they danced to. But the harmony of their bodies swaying in sync broke through my haze, lifted unseen burdens off my shoulders, and absorbed the entirety of my attention. I was captivated.
After the performance, I was introduced to Auntie Hedy, hula teacher and former president of the Hawaii Seniors Club. Her brown eyes twinkled behind golden frames, vibrant flowers poised against her gray hair. I lauded the hula ladies’ performance and inquired about the club. I was desperate to join, so I could dance, too! To my disappointment (and, perhaps, her amusement), I learned that the minimum age was 65 years old. I volunteered myself as the spry young person who could document stories from their generation. Nope, no exceptions. With that, my hula dream evaporated.
A Vehicle for Physical Healing
A few weeks later, I was involved in a car collision that left my car totaled and sent me to the chiropractor’s and physical therapist’s offices multiple times a week for a couple months. I returned to a highly pressurized situation at work: one that, unfortunately, brought an abrupt end to my position. Around that time, I reconnected with Auntie Hedy over Facebook, and she informed me that there was another hula group with which she danced. It was local to my area and, more importantly, my age group was welcome.
Jobless and still hobbling, I joined without hesitation. Little did I know how integral hula would be to my healing.
I was, by far, the youngest in the group by a few decades. It did not matter. As I coaxed my hips to sway into a basic kāholo, I was transported back to my seven-year-old self who had tagged along with her grandmother to hula class. Back then, the nuances of the art form had been lost on me. My body had teetered unsteadily as I shifted my weight from foot to foot in a hela. I had not had the awareness to sway my hips. Even then, I had had trouble inhabiting my body, my perfectionism expressing itself in stiff and clunky steps. Nevertheless, I had been happy to dance alongside my grandmother in praise of my Creator and happier still to chomp on arare and Danish butter cookies.
Eighteen years later, my perspective had shifted a bit. I still teetered unsteadily, back and hips reluctant to cooperate. This time, though, I was dancing from a place of vision. Snacks or not, I was eager to participate in this art form that had enraptured me at my relative’s celebration of life. I felt a bit shy as ladies old enough to be my mother asked me about myself. Yet, as the music started and we found our pukas in the practice lines, my shyness dissipated. In its place was a sense of resolve to partner with my body to master the steps.
I was relearning how to connect with myself on a very physical level.
I learned to hold my shoulders level and bend my knees, ka’o starting in my mid-back and shoulders leading to the right, then to the left, with hips following in serpentine fashion. I learned to let my wrists undulate, movement rippling through my forearm to my elbow. I learned to sweep my hips in a smooth circle to create an ‘ami. As the weeks passed, I noticed my endurance grow. My hips clicked less. My steps grew steadier as I negotiated my weight from one foot to the other. Moving became the vehicle for my physical healing post-collision.
Body’s speaking. I’m listening.
Hula has become a conduit of deeper healing post-trauma.
By the end of my sexual assault crisis counselor training, the mini anxiety attacks, emotional numbness, and arousal/near-blackout were feeling like unwelcome house guests. They had shown up for the main event, but I was done entertaining. I started working with an EMDR therapist to process the trauma. These past few years in therapy, I have had to confront the reality that I have disdained my body for the past two decades. Bodily sensations of peace or pleasure have always set off alarm bells in my brain. I have rushed meals, avoided sleep, and operated at a frenetic pace: a lifestyle designed to silence my body’s needs and keep her subservient to my control. Deep down, I was terrified to listen to my body.
Hula has disrupted that.
For a few hours a week, I choose to step into a space where I am instructed to pay attention to my body. Make sure your fingers do not cross your midline. Sway into your step. Bend your knees. When I pay attention, mind and body in concert, my body becomes fluid as the sea. Sometimes, paying attention activates a trauma memory and a wave of nausea rolls through me. The occasional riptide is a small price to pay, compared to the beauty I choose to create through my own body.
Community: Embodied Belonging
The healing I have experienced through embodying beauty has multiplied exponentially as I dance in community.
This communal element is what most captivated me at my relative’s celebration of life: graceful limbs flowing in unison. A couple weeks ago, sixteen of us gathered in our hula teacher’s garage dance studio to prepare for a performance that evening. The scent of fresh flowers and happy chatter floated through the air as ladies pinned orchids and greenery to each other’s hair. One lady looped ribbon through strings of shells, crafting leis to complete the look. As “Mele ‘Ohana'' piped through the speaker, we bunched in the center of the mat and unfurled like a blooming peony, each woman intuitively spacing herself in her puka between the other dancers. Our full aqua pa’us swished with each step. My smile spread from ear to ear as I watched us through the broad mirror. The harmony was stunning. Together, we embodied beauty in a way that no single individual could.
The belonging I have felt while dancing eases the ache I feel when thinking about family.
In her award-winning memoir chronicling her story as a rape victim, Chanel Miller writes this: “Everyone had become a victim of this crime. Everyone had their story, had doors they secretly suffered behind.”1
I wept when I heard Chanel’s even-keeled voice narrate these truths through my car speaker. Everyone in my family has been impacted by my decision to expose the crime committed against me. Imagine if someone you love disclosed to you that someone you trust has harmed her. Then imagine that you, still reeling from the disclosure, realized your involvement may be required beyond what you were ready to give.
These are the issues my extended family has had to grapple with, and there is no easy resolution. When I started disclosing, I received a variety of responses: shock, sorrow, doubt, denial. None of these surprised me. But as he and I both continue to be invited to family functions, I struggle to own my place in the family. Insecurities needle me incessantly until I feel like a porcupine with reverse-prickles. If I don’t show up, will they see me as a failure? The weak link of the family? If I do show up, will they be watching my every move to see if I’ve “moved on” from the trauma? I don’t feel fully Japanese. My analytical brain sensibly points out that I am, in fact, only half-Japanese. The rest of those prickles, though, take up five times the mental real estate they deserve.
Truth is, I may never know exactly what my family thinks of me. That is okay. My belonging does not hinge on my performance but on the God who made me.
Hula puts flesh and bones on this truth that is still settling into my core. In hula, there is no question whether I belong. I do not have to have it all together all the time. God-knows how many times my hula sisters have covered for me: lending me a shell lei, finding me a plumeria set, and sewing me a pa’u so I could dance in our next event—to name a few. For many months, my hula teacher even met with me at 8:30 am every other Saturday to catch me up. These ladies have covered me with dignity and grace. They have unknowingly become God’s instruments of healing in my life. As we dance together, my prayer is that the beauty of our love for each other spills over and touches the hearts of those who watch us.
Trauma’s Story, Rewritten
Finally, hula has invited me to glide past the pressure of perfectionism and into a greater story.
Creating a performance-based identity was nothing new for me. I recall sitting before ivory keys as a young adolescent, frustrated tears streaming down my face as my piano teacher patiently asked me to repeat a few measures. By high school, I had developed a reputation of calm, collected maturity. Friends in my speech and debate league expressed surprise when I acted silly or demonstrated strong emotion, so I tried to stay in my box. I held myself to impossibly high standards and always strove to meet authority figures’ expectations.
My perfectionism went deeper than, perhaps, anyone realized. Beneath my drive to achieve, excel, and live a morally upright life was a little girl who believed she was filthy and bad. I appeared compliant and cheerful to the outside world; I governed my internal world with heavy-handed austerity. Minute decisions felt like they carried the weight of life or death. I feared that one wrong move could catalyze irreversible harm to myself and others. Any failure to meet expectations sent me into a spiral of self-shaming.
As a four year-old, I had been forced to shoulder the adult responsibility of sexual arousal with the added weight of panic, shame, and powerlessness. Coerced participation in my own violation had further complicated matters. I blamed myself for failing to protect myself, losing agency over my body, and getting pleasurable sensations from something I instinctively knew was wrong. My quest for perfection was a desperate attempt to prove my worth to myself.
Hula, again—in all her radiance—has disrupted that.
She has invited me to slip out of my performance-based straitjacket and step into a different narrative. I have accepted the invitation. Sure, I might repeat the same 6-second bit five times or be reminded to tilt my chin back an inch. Not even a twist of the wrist escapes my hula teacher’s eye. However, my newfound devotion to beauty is not to be confused with my bondage to perfectionism. My internal posture has shifted. Instead of fear of failure, the tantalizing challenge of technical excellence spurs me onward.
Hula is a storytelling art. Contrary to stereotyped portrayals as “a hip-shaking, arm-flailing dance for entertainment,” hula is incredibly nuanced. Timing and body angles are matters of precision. Hand gestures, and knee dips are carefully interwoven to carry the story forward.
When my hula teacher taught us choreography for “In the Sweet By and By,” her father was dying. She consistently encouraged us to move beyond the mere motions and connect with the song. She suggested we dedicate it to a loved one, perhaps one who was no longer with us. Eyes were wet as we gathered in a circle before splitting into practice lines. Many of the ladies had lost their parents; some had also lost their spouses. For me, the song took on new meaning a year later when I lost my Chinese Po Po. From then on, I held her memory close as I monitored my wrist rotations and followed my arms with my head.
This experience punctuated something I had grasped at a core level the moment I had started my reintroduction to hula. Dancing was not just about putting on a good show or performing the steps with graceful precision. Rather, my entire being longed to align itself with the beauty that I had found in hula. Whether I was drilling ‘uehes until my thighs burned or bowing to applause on a stage, I did not want thoughts of comparison or self-absorption to taint my mind. I did not want frustration or impatience to soil my lips. They did not seem to fit with the beauty I had discovered.
The Pull of Beauty
Author and theologian C.S. Lewis puts it well: “We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words—to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.”2
You got that right, Lewis.
A friend recently asked me what beauty is to me. I stretched to reach a philosophical definition from the top shelf but returned instead with a can of vibrant descriptions. Hula was, of course, one of them. When I tossed the question back to her, she paused before replying, “I think beauty is magnetic.”
Beauty is magnetic. It beckons us out of the mire to come, receive nourishment, and share it with others. I am well aware that hula is not the all-time epitome of beauty. Yet, for me, it has become one of the clearest conduits. Through hula, I have the honor of worshiping God with my whole being. As I sway into a kāwelu or lift my hands to the heavens, my body is telling a different story than the story I was taught when I was four. My body is not something to condemn, isolate, or bury in shame. Rather, she is a masterpiece carefully crafted, a living invitation to anyone who wants to know the God who made her.
Through hula, I—one body in a community of other bodies—am telling the story that there is a God who is beautiful beyond words and worth sharing with others. He is the reason I have breath in my lungs and strength in my limbs. His heart is expansive, and I bring a smile to His face as I use the body He has given me to bring His joy to others.
The Triumph
It is striking to me how two elements so diametrically opposed to each other remain interwoven in my life. Sexual trauma reeks of powerlessness, isolation, and degradation; hula is infused with grace, kinship, and dignity. I was exposed to both during childhood. Both resurfaced in adulthood. Yet, they are not equal. Not by a long shot. The latter, in flowy style and trailing a scent of plumeria, will far outpace the former. Darkness must bow to the Light. Trauma will be swallowed up in healing.
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
[Revelation 21:3-4 | New International Version]
Many thanks to
, , , , , , , , , , , Brandon Weaver, Kip Henderson, my Pen Pals writing group, and my hula sisters. Your generosity with time, thought, and attention gave me the strength to share my story. Soli Deo gloria.All images in this post have been shared with the permission of my hula sisters.
Chanel Miller, Know My Name (New York: Penguin Books, 2020), 226.
C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory: And Other Addresses (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 42.
Your words capture the sheer depths of human ache and the simultaneous goodness of God’s story. Watching you live out these words has been beautiful. ❤️
Cheering you on in all the healing you have experienced and the beauty to come!