Wow-it’s one thing to be interviewed for a story and it’s another thing to see it in print. I’m not sure exactly how I feel.

This was just published in a magazine Chat in England. The timing is synchronistic as I am performing my one-woman show, My Brooklyn Hamlet in The Leeds International Jewish Performing Arts Festival and at The New End Theatre in June. Totally random coincidence–or is it? I couldn’t have planned it better.

The last time the story of my mom’s death was sensationalized was by The New York Post and on New York TV News in 1995, just after my mom was killed. That time I felt like a victim…to my father…and to the frenzy.

This time it’s a different story. I get to include my message of forgiveness in the last few paragraphs.

Forgive my terrible 1980’s style. Hey-it was in then!

If you know anyone who’ll be in England and might want to attend my show please have them email me.

Have a beautiful day.

Brenda

V-day is an event held worldwide each year to benefit organizations that help women and children who have been abused and assaulted.

This non-profit primarily raises their money through benefit productions of The Vagina Monologues. They’ve raised over $10 million  to date.

The first year I lived in Arizona I was cast as The Angry Vagina in a production in Flagstaff. We raised over $20,000 over two nights for the local organization that dealt with sexual assault. Ten % went back to the worldwide campaign to stop violence. The following year, in 2006, I organized the first V-Day Sedona event and my producing partner Mindy Mendelsohn and I went on to raise tens of thousands of dollars for the local shelter over the last few years.

Now that I’m in CA I’m so happy to be able to contribute for this cause that is so near to my heart.

If you google V-Day in your city you may be able to go to a performance locally. The proceeds for the ticket price goes directly to   stop violence locally and around the world. And—why not audition this year or next? It’s usually cast with non actors. Just an incredibly powerful and bonding experience.

I remember going to New Orleans to celebrate the star-studded tenth anniversary of V-Day. The audience filled a stadium. And at the end Eve Ensler asked people to stand up if they had been abused—people popped up out of their seats. Then she asked people who knew someone who had been abused to stand. The entire stadium stood up and I couldn’t stop crying. I was crying for the pain and I was crying for the hope I was feeling. Each person was no longer alone.

Blessings,

Brenda

I started the day visiting a women’s jail. A friend who works with a program that goes into the prisons invited me to be a guest and speak on the power of forgiving the unforgivable.

I chose to speak on how to forgive yourself and love yourself despite the judgments you currently have and why it is so important to forgive your abuser. It’s not for the abuser–it’s for you to release that angry energy from your own body.

I  made the decision to perform 15 minutes from my one-woman show, My Brooklyn Hamlet. I didn’t know if there would be the appropriate space for me to perform. I wondered if the women would get it. I wondered if my material would be accepted since I was performing about my father being imprisoned for my mother’s death and my reactions to everything back then. (My mom died in 1995)

Well, what a beautiful experience it was. Truth is I wasn’t pushing anything-instead I was listening to my inner guidance and trusting. From that place, as I arrived in the jail I absolutely knew that everything I did and said would be okay.

It was an incredible experience. I felt a oneness with the ladies and admired their innate wisdom and their desire to look at how they could get better, feel better, make more honoring choices.

Thanks Carrie–for giving me this opportunity.

One of the women experienced a spontaneous healing while I was there and offered me a gift of her writing about it.

How I cherish it.

Blessing,

Brenda

P.S. Here’s a coaching question: In what ways do you imprison yourself with your obsessive thinking or inability to forgive?

http://www.forgivenessandfreedom.com

Do you smoke? Drink too much? Overwork? Shop too much? Pop prescription drugs? Street drugs? Are you addicted to sweets? Caffeine? Overeating? Excessive exercising? Gambling? Your computer or smart-phone? Toxic people, relationships, work places, social scenes?

Are you doing things that numb you, take the edge off, help you forget (at least temporarily)? Or do you seek out substances, people, situations or activities that make you feel (manically) alive? Are you a thrill seeker or more likely to find ways to hide?

Some of these potentially addictive behaviors, done in moderation, can be just fine. Certain things are necessities for your health. Eating right, exercising regularly, and doctor-supervised medication regimens for legitimate ailments are beneficial and necessary. Does it really hurt to treat yourself to a special purchase once in a while if you can afford it? Does the occasional chocolate sweet matter if you don’t struggle with weight or cavities?

The real question to ask yourself is: Am I controlling what I put into my body, my mind, my life – or is it controlling me?

Facing addiction takes guts. Working through addiction involves a struggle. Releasing the addiction for good is what freedom is all about.

I remember being a smoker when I was in college. I had a pack a day habit. I’d sit in class wondering when I could get out and get my fix. I wasn’t present in the class, soaking in the new information or growing intellectually; I was in my own head, caretaking my addiction, and living in the future – at least up to the point of my next smoke.

Years later tragedy struck my family. I remember being single and depressed, but still, I would drag myself out of my apartment to hike. Hiking is a good thing, right? I would get in a great hike, but my addiction to numbing out kicked in soon after. One time, I bought a bag of chocolate-chip cookies and ate the entire bag during the half-hour drive home.

The sugar high numbed my feelings for a while. As that wore off, though, I was using my overeating as an excuse to beat myself up for my lack of discipline. So, to relieve the guilt I was feeling, I went to the gym to work off the cookies, and ended up injuring my knee by over doing it.

It’s a cycle of self-abuse. It has to be broken. Left unchecked it will take on a life of its own, while taking over your life, or eventually taking your life altogether.

Here’s where forgiveness comes in.

I couldn’t stop the beast of addiction while I loathed myself. In my case, I lived with profound remorse for my inability to save my mother’s life. Although I had nothing to do with my mother’s death, I felt I could have done something to stop what happened to her. This was totally illogical, but it felt true.

I couldn’t stop abusing myself, because subconsciously I didn’t want to feel good, feel pretty, and feel like I was in great shape. With my mother gone, I believed I didn’t deserve anything good for myself. The unhealed subconscious part of me was driving my choices and behaviors to a place where I was most comfortable, and comforted. When I was tired, numbed out and invisible, I felt safe and protected. My guilt, shame and profound sadness made me want to hide, disappear, and cease to live.

Can you tap into a part of yourself that can see a better life? Is there something in you that wants to live in the light again?

I had a part of me that could touch that light—it was the part that made sure I left the apartment and got into nature. Eventually, I realized that despite the loss of my Mom, she was still alive in my heart and with me always.

Look at when your addiction started. Look at the relationships around you at the time. What was working and what wasn’t? What were you trying to cover up? A sense of shame? Not being good enough? Not feeling in control?

If you can stop practicing your addiction, even for a few hours, a few days, a few moments, then you have started to take back your control over your own life. You will start to regain your ability to choose. It is from this place that you can go deeper into the “True You”. The person you were created to be in your truest form lives free from the choices, behaviors and addictions that have helped you to hide or to falsely feel alive for so long.

There are many programs out there to help support you in your journey to change your self-defeating patterns of behavior and I encourage you not to do it alone. Google a 12-Step Program in your area and show up at a meeting. They could refer you to a medically supervised treatment program (if that’s what you need). You might seek out a spiritual healer in order to tap into a power larger than your own willpower; you might add yourself to a prayer list.

Know that you aren’t alone in your struggles.

Learn from your poor choices and self-destructive actions. Release the past. Forgive yourself for the mistakes you made. Get present. Now, start living again in freedom.

Want to reprint this article in your ezine or website? You may, as long as it remains intact and you include this complete blurb with it: Brenda Adelman, MA in Spiritual Psychology, referred to as The Queen of Forgiveness, teaches people who have a lot to offer but are stuck, how to become present, enjoy more success and peace in their relationships and lives by letting go of old and new resentments using the art of forgiveness. For FR*EE tips on how to finally be happy and free visit www.forgivenessandfreedom.com.

I was an actress in 1995 when my father took my mother’s life. The first few years I hid behind the characters I played and then in 1998 I just knew that the key to my healing was to give life to the very people I hadn’t yet forgiven–through the creation of my one-woman show.

My one-hour fifteen minute show started as an exercise in a top acting class in Los Angeles and then morphed into the final version it is now after years of tweaking text, showcasing scenes before an audience, perfecting dialogue, practicing my craft and finally performing in front of thousands of people.

I’ve taken scenes out, rewrote dialogue based on laughs I got or didn’t, put scenes back in and made sure there was a proper beginning, middle and end.

I remember in the beginning I didn’t know if my show would resonate with an audience because my story was so dramatic and yet it was the very personal nature of my story that made it so universally accepted.

If you are working on a show you want to tap into a universal theme–such as loss, betrayal, love, grief, forgiveness and then as one acting teacher told me—make it personal because God is in the details.

To see a two-minute trailer of my show go to my homepage at http://www.forgivenessandfreedom.com.

If you know an organization that might benefit from bringing my show to one of their events please contact me.

And if you’d like some help creating a show–let’s talk–I’m available for creativity coaching.

Inspired and Grateful,

Brenda

I’d love to look at other theatres too, that might be interested in having a performance or two of my show at their venue. I’m open to suggestions and contacts.

The countdown is on.

In forgiveness and freedom,

Brenda
My Brooklyn Hamlet
Her mother was shot. Her father jailed. Then he married her aunt.
A one-person show based on my true story and the power of forgiving the unforgivable.
Forgiveness and Freedom

Claudine Struck invited me back to her radio show on Voice America. The Recovery from Betrayal episode is ready to listen to at Stay Sane Now Radio Talk:
http://www.modavox.com/voiceamerica/vshow.aspx?sid=1481

Claudine interviewed me for the first 16 minutes. Some of the topics:

New Age Guilt

Knowing that Feelings are Fleeting

Getting to the Core of an Issue.

Click on the January 21st… link. It’s a powerful segment.

In the freedom of forgiveness ……. Brenda

And I’m in talks to perform my show in London for a three week run at The New End Theatre directly following the festival.

I titled my show, My Brooklyn Hamlet, because of the parallels that the character of Hamlet and I share. In Shakespeare’s tragic play his main character’s father was killed by his uncle and then his uncle married his mother!

In 1995 my father shot and killed my mother and then soon after married my aunt.

However, my show and my story don’t end like Hamlet’s. I don’t die in bitter rage and blame. Instead I find peace through forgiveness.

Who knew when my mother was reading me Shakespeare as a little girl that it would have such a healing impact for me and that it would lead to me incorporating some of Shakespeare’s greatest lines into my show.

I remember seeing Lynn Redgrave on Broadway in her one-woman show, Shakespeare for My Father. Who knew her magical creation would spark me to write a one-woman show one day. Great theatre lives with you–like great music does.

I studied Shakespeare in London when I was in my twenties. Who knew my summer at The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art would be pivotal in me learning the technique and tools of Shakespeare so that I could one day apply my skills to Shakespeare’s words by presenting them in England.

I weave Shakespeare’s most wondrous soliloquies into my modern day script to bring it to life in 2010.

The countdown is beginning.

In love and awe,

Brenda