I M Perfect lady

When I thought about the decision making event or Judgment, it came to me that a way to avoid making a decision is to excuse or reason the second option away…meaning if there is only one choice, there is no need to make a decision.

You just have to get rid of the second choice that popped up.

You can do this by one of two ways…making excuses or finding reasons for this behavior…in a way that will make it reasonably okay and less negative.

The more you can eliminate the negative values, the more positive it can be, hence no need to decide between two, for now the negative appears almost positive in nature.

I have heard many excuses and reasons for remaining in abusive, toxic and dysfunctional relationships and none of them have to do with the actual negative action, but all have to do with 'understanding' how the person acts that way.

"She didn't have a mother….so she doesn't know how to mother…."  

"She was abused by her brother…so she doesn't know how to love or what abuse is."

"He was abused by a neighborhood girl…and this is why he is this way."

"His marriage wasn't good anyway so it isn't like he cheated really…"

It is shocking how 'good' people will find reasons and excuses for bad behavior to almost make those actions seem reasonable.

What comes to mind is "Two wrongs don't make it right."

Our ability to water down behaviors with excuses is how we navigate life running from decisions.  Isn't if funny, in a peculiar way, how we would rather stand tough on the excuses and reasons…rather than stand silent with the action.

We don't want to be uncomfortable with just the naked action….we like to dress it up with reasons and excuses. We want to reason it way….out of kindness and understanding…draping words to deflect what is.

What I find as insane is how many believe that words of reasons and excuses are reasonable things to believe in…that they will trump any action.

I have been told many times in the past 8 years, that I don't understand and I don't know them, I haven't walked in their shoes….mostly these are pleas to hear the reasons and the excuses for a negative behavior.

Is there really a good reason to neglect and abuse a child?  I do get it that patterns are passed down, but if we sit in the lap of accepting excuses, we will never break the patterns.

Can there ever be a good reason to cheat or lie…

I heard a line on the radio…and I can't remember the context…was it a book on CD or was it a person talking….but it goes like this.  "If you are ever wondering about a choice you are making….If you don't want that choice to be written on the front page of the paper, do not make that choice."

Meaning anything you have to hide, is perhaps the wrong choice to be making.

And I feel, that most often it is the bad choices that are in need of the biggest reasons and excuses…and when you are acting out of character, YOU need me to believe the reasons and the excuses and to NOT focus on your actions.

I used to be a believer in the excuses and reasons and I overlooked many actions in order to believe in you…only to find out….people are not their reasons and excuses, but they are their behaviors.

No matter what reasons you give to why my father sexually desired little girls…it will not stop his behavior from happening.

No matter what excuses you give my mother for being a shallow emotionally retarded woman, it will not change who she is.  

We have been taught that it is nicer to sit with comfortable reasons and excuses that it is kinder and more loving to understand etc….than it is to look boldly upon their actions and to 'label' them by what they do.

Not only see their behaviors, but respond in kind.

The behaviors of my parents has delivered endless pain and suffering and trauma…finding excuses and reasons doesn't lessen or remove the pain, all it does is to deflect it.  To not feel the cost and toll it has taken to be in relationships with them.

Typically, as far as I can tell….there are the wrong doers and then the excuse makers….and they need each other to live in harmony.

The wrong doers need you to be reasonable and understanding SO THEY don't have to change their behavior. They need you to find a way to be comfortable with their hurtful actions….and we do.

It is seen as being more christian like to 'forgive' their sins….than it would be to address them and make them responsible for their actions. 

It is seen as unloving to point out the negative actions and how they feel upon you.

Each time we work to understand and excuse away their bad behavior it is to make them appear normal, nice, kind….etc.  It is to make them more positive than they appear.

The way abuse lives in homes is that there are the excuse and reason makers working like hell to make it all right.  But, all these excuses and reasons do is to try and cover up negative actions.

But, they can't.

No matter what you say after a negative action….it will remain negative.

You can't make abuse look pretty or nice or reasonable.

You can't make cheating an act of love for anyone.

All you are doing is living in a space of fantasy…and believing in the reasons and not in the action.

In the land of reasons and excuses you don't have to decide, for you have erased the very thing you would have to decide upon….and have made it reasonable behavior.

I am forever amazed at the capacity of the human mind to wrestle with reality and win…to add words to explain away an action…and then the ability of this same mind who changed reality To BELIEVE that which it just changed.

Amazing.

Our society, our churches, our religions and much of the rules we live by are engaged in the activity of excuses and reasons…very few have I encountered live in the land of actions mattering more.

The only way we will ever be able to stop abuse is when we stop making excuses and reasons for unreasonable behavior…and instead start responding to actions.

I believe that the left side of the brain is used as Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor said, "To take the least amount of informations and weave the most plausible story." 

I see the left brain as the excuse maker….and believing what it weaves.

To me, this is an incredibly insane world….when our left brain creates a story using the LEAST amount of information….and we use that as our moral compass.

We have lost or perhaps never had an awareness to this device or perhaps we were trained to see the world through the left brain. 

I see how most people have a highly skilled and exceptionally fit left brain…with very little awareness left to see life naked.

Silently without words.

Just actions.

Our left brain immediately wants to get involved and make it different than it is.

I learned the hard way.  I had built a whole life on the left side that was a complete false world…and one day it all crashed.  I was left standing naked in a reality that I had hidden…in my left brain.  

All that I didn't want to know or feel or deal with….was still there behind all the reasons and excuses…reality never changed.

I just now had 45 plus years of unweaving to do.

I am no longer a weaver of excuses and reasons…but rather I face reality squarely in its face…silencing the left brain's chatter center, as it wants to create an alternate place for me to live.

There are only two places to live…in the left brain's landscape of reasonable excuses….or in reality.  And yet, in truth…there is only one place. Reality.

No matter where your focus lies….only one reality exists.  But, there can be a billion reasons as to why.

Maybe the more intriguing question to ask is why? 

Why do you act the way you do?

I never questioned my actions…it was like I was living on remote control…and someone else held the controls.  

Now, I do focus on the actions…and I do often wonder who is operating their controls….for it often seems like the person has no power over their actions.

But if they don't, then who does?

Who controls your actions?