I M Perfect lady

Author: bjukuri

  • Wearing the Label “Therapist”.

    I just finished Annie G Rogers book "A Shining Affliction – A story of Harm and Healing in Psychotherapy"…it is brilliant in the understanding of how the past arrives in the present, until the past is corrected, and it shows the delicate balance between therapist and client.  How the truth can be manipulated by either side…

    Healing will take two people facing the truth.

    "The psychotherapy relationship is two-sided, whether we acknowledge it is or not. Each person brings to that relationship whatever is unrecognized, unknown, and unapproachable in her or his life, and a wish for knowledge of truths and wholeness."  Annie

    This alone is the key as to why some therapy works and others don't.  It isn't the total blame of the client, it is a relationship, where one person fails to show up fully, authentically…and I wonder what is the percentage of failures…Client or Therapist?

    Blaming the client only will no longer be acceptable.  How many folks have a relationship with the 'crazy' one and who are not truthful?  How many times does the 'crazy' one get left standing alone, unsubstantiated?

    What truly drives us crazy is not so much the actual facts of our history, but rather the lack of integrity of those who are 'helping' us….or our family and friends.  It is easier to put me into the category crazy, by my self.  But, it has more to do about their story than mine.

    I love the title, HARM and Healing.  

    For what most automatically believe is "If she would just get therapy, she would be healed"…and not take into the equation the other person in the therapy relationship…that there can be more harm being done in therapy, if the therapist doesn't see the client. 

    It is amazing that you can continue on your path of being a victim….just being victimized by the therapy world.  Ugh. How can you know?

    I instinctively have hung back from therapist, well actually from people…as someone I could rely on to tell me my truth.  I had followed folks for my first 46 years and they led me astray from reality.  Now, I was hell bent on going it alone.  Forcing myself to see that which I hadn't seen, feel what I had pushed away. Being aware instead of blindly following.

    I love how Annie shows the nuances of the client and then the harmful behaviors of the therapist as well as what is healing.

    It is my belief, that we are now on the cusp of recognizing that the crazy one isn't the only one who is misleading the healing, but that rather it is at the mercy of courage of the therapist.

    In the past, the one with the most college credits or the one who sat behind the desk was seen as the wisest.  

    That no longer will be the case.

    I am thrilled that there are books like this one out there.

    To show the way of not only how the past is repeated in our present, but how to get out of the cycle….and that it will take the right kind of person wearing the label "Therapist".



  • I am Humbled By Art.

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    This quilt came to mind while reading this section from Annie G. Roger's book, "A Shining Affiction."  

    "Blue was the color of your mother?  Or comfort?" I nod.  He continues, "And then, the blue got poisoned, love got mixed with something nearly lethal to you." 

    Annie's therapist was reading her Art.

    When I see this quilt now, it will remind me of the recipe of abuse…"Love got mixed with something nearly lethal" to our soul.

    My Art quilts have been my way of releasing the nearly lethal something, getting rid of the parts of me that were not authentic.

    Below are my latest two quilts.  I love their energy, how alive, how intricately impossible they match.  The Art is unleashed and free to express…daring to be.

    Art healing doesn't lie.  Art healing shows the inner wellness, always.  My nature and nature, colors and design all working together…with ease.

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    Beach House Memories….And, Beach House Memories Too!

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    What I am completely pushed back by is the way energy is sewed up in my quilts, how the unconscious small wounded part of me was still able to speak…in color and design.

    I am humbled by Art.

  • A Field Of Truth.

    "Then if you speak, you must not show your face, Or, if you show your face, you must not speak.  Shakespeare

     In Annie Rogers book, "A Shining Affliction" she writes,

    "These words of Shakespeare's.  I make my own translation quickly; "Speak the truth and hide your feelings in response to her nonresponse; or make up what you think she wants to hear, but shut up about what you really feel."   

    What is so mind blowing about this book, it is about therapists, but also therapist who are unhealed or who are blocked when it come to healing their patience, due to their own issues.  Incredible and astonishing and true. 

    The weaving of this story is spellbinding…and tragic and enlightening, how the patients truly is in charge, how they bring in their truth, how they are so authentic and then how it is met.

    Into what hands does their truth fall?

    And how is it held and responded to.

    I believe, if the folks in therapy knew how critical it is for us to find someone to hold our truths, that it is WAY more about how they hear us then, HOW we tell our truths.

    It is my belief, that by the time an abused confused person happens to be sitting in a chair in any therapy type situation, they are desperately seeking someone to get them back to reality. 

    And, if the therapist ISN'T in their own reality, HOW in the Hell, can they get us to ours???

    This book is a Must read for anyone considering the line of truth work. That is what therapy is. We are looking to you to help us find our path in reality.  

    I just know by my own experience, that when I wasn't in my truth, I couldn't see truth in others.  

    Now that I am, I can be a witness to anothers truth.  I believe, to the depth of my being, that therapy will be changing in this direction. It will be a field of truth!

     

  • My Truth was Welcomed In.

    As I sit back and ponder my Keynote at Dial Help's Gala, I recall telling Tom Rosemurgy, that I always felt safer when he was there.  It even struck me as odd, for I was mingling and thoroughly enjoying myself, so where did the "unsafe" feeling come from.

    It occurred to me while taking my sheets off the line, that what he does is he upholds my truth with me.  He carries it, he believes me.  He, the Law Man.

    I felt so safe with Tom and the Dial Help girls and even with the Audience.  Safe meaning my truth about my history was honored.

    When I feel that with these kind folks, it makes me understand what "hostile" means.

    It means NOT believing in me…

    I know that some of my family reads this blog, and they would dispute my claims, that they don't believe me…or my story.  For they would say they do.

    Yet the sole reason, I physically as well as emotionally have put distance between us IS their reaction to my truth.

    While they were retaining a family, I was tearing it down exposing the abuse.

    This is the parting of ways.

    Their focus is and has been on keeping the family unit.  Which then leaves me standing there with my abuse showing and them paying more attention to keeping a family, than looking at how it affected me.

    What I felt on August 9th, as I moved around the atrium with My Lady quilts fully displayed, were folks who seen me.

    Their first agenda or words to me were not why I wasn't with my parents etc.

    They were extremely attentive to the journey an abused person travels in order to regain their power.

    My speech will not win ribbons, but what I love, Love, LOVE is that I did it.

    I stood up and gave it my best first shot.

    Against the family grain, I did what they don't want me to do.  Focus on Abuse and speak of estrangement.

    I am not even certain, they realize that I am estranged…due to their lack of being with my truth and not with the family.  I have felt that they hold me entirely responsible for my poor choice of keeping away from family members, functions and exiting relationships.

    How many folks would stay with someone who required you to keep your truth away.

    I just read today in a book titled, "A Shining Affliction- A story of Harm and Healing in Psychotherapy" by Annie Rogers….

    "I feel we're not talking about me – as I know myself."  She does not respond.  I go on. "When I say something really important to me, it doesn't seem to matter to you."  As I speak, her face is closed.  My words go out into the air and dissolve, as if I've said nothing – or worse, they hang in the room as if I've said the wrong thing.  I keep trying, as if I can find something that will interest Melanie and compel a response.  Then I give up, and we sit in silence again."  

     This is fairly close to the reaction my family has given me…What a great paragraph to depict why we feel the hostility.  There is no welcoming of our truths.

    Here is a picture of Tom…that I love.  He never, not ever, closed his face and let my truth hang in the room as if I had said something wrong. He is a gift to all victims who find the courage to speak up.  And he passed me on to An-Gel, who also accepted me completely.  The ease we have with each other is priceless.  They help carry my truth.  

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    And here is one of my new friend Barbara Rose. We felt an immediate connection.  I feel humble by her hearing me.  Sitting with my buddy Kirsten Menigoz, who when we met felt a strong immediate comfortableness…old souls reunited.   

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    Imagine what a fine reception for my truth!  A beautiful venue…and even Live music of Melissa Davis.

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    Thanks Melissa…it added a wonderful lively touch.

    Here I am in my speech talking about loving my lady, even without hair and standing like this.

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    I love my open stance, strong and sure.

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    And I love this one of the three of us. These two ladies are working hard to help victims…and I have now joined their team.  

    It certainly was a night to remember…a place that honored my truth….stood in reverence of my quilts…I was completely at home there, for my truth was welcomed in.

    Thanks to all the Dial Help Team, Tom and the community!  I am humbled by it all. 

  • Universe called Me.

    I know what it feels like to live on both ends of the spectrum of having to be brave and strong and have courage, while inside of you is nothing….and then stepping out fully charged.  The two are lifetimes apart…or seven years in the making.

    I recall having to walk around our local town after the headlines in the paper and feeling so incredibly small, weak, vulnerable…"Like a scared rabbit" my husband remarked.

    And I was.

    I didn't know my own strength then…I was fully under the control and power of the outside sources, other's opinions and living from the outside in….and my outside crashed. So, I was left powerless.

    I had to use my own auxilliary power…my own definitions and choices.  My individual and personal resources, which added up to about 1%.

    I didn't realize how much I was powered by the church, family and society, until it suffered a complete shut down.

    My auxilliary power of 1% had to take over.  

    This was my sense of self, of who I am and how I fit in.  1% of my self worth was all that was left when you took away the religion and family legacy that I followed religiously as a good girl.  

    I had about 1% rebel, and that was what I began to live from.

    My inner dwelling place was small, a dot…a weak bleeping signal and that was what had to believe in.  My faith now switched from the outside to the inside.

    Living from the inside out…

    Incredibly I trusted this small tiny blip…this small sense of me.  I put 110% of my choices and confidence in this tiny dot called me.  For what I knew for sure is that the outside I had been following was completely not matching reality.  It was wrong…but my body had always been right.  It feared my father.  I had to now find out who I was inside.  My me muscle.

    This muscle of me was so damn small and weak and unused, it was shriveled up and stiff and with each decision I made and each time I trusted its choice, it grew.

    It flourished, unbended, stretched, grew limber and powerful and began filling up my insides, one section at a time.

    When I stood before the public at the Gala I had 7 years worth of self growth inside of me.  I felt strong and powerful being me.

    I know me.

    I trust me.

    I love me.

    The juxtaposition between the two are hard to articulate, but are clearly depicted in my quilts.  

    What I knew was that my self worth was growing, what I didn't focus on was that it is really our own self power.  That it isn't an auxilliary power, but our main power source.  Self worth is self power.

    I previously used the outside…people's ideas of me and the churches rules to power me.  I rarely made a choice based upon my own power, which back then was my auxilliary power.

    I love that my main power source is inside of me…plugged straight into the universe.

    Speaking my truth and never waivering from what it required me to do, has continued to recharge and expand my power base inside of me.  

    I agree it takes courage to stand up and tell your story, BUT it takes vastly more power to face your abuse, see your family as dysfunctional, make steps to separate all while operating under about 1% power.

    Yet, what I have come to know.  The authentic power doesn't need as much as the outside power.  It must multiply exponentially when it comes from your heart and soul…oh yeah, the Universe supports truth only.

    1% power from the inside can completely begin to turn your whole life around.

    It's a power that is completely reliable and unpluggable.  You will never be without power…for it lies within you.

    My Lady powered by the Universe called me.




  • My Lady and I are on a Crusade!

    Well it is official, I am a public speaker…I am no longer a first-timer.  I trusted in my natural ability to share and speak from my inner self, and it worked. 

    Some were a bit taken aback, when my plan as to just speak.  To carry no notes, to not prepare, but arrive and let it come…to just allow what comes to mind spill forth. 

    I knew anything less would be unnatural for me and would have me being one step removed from the event, like playing me being me.

    So I skipped right to me.

    I felt good.

    I felt strong, and it flowed out unrestrained, nothing was off limits, I was open.

    A few times I did leave the audience with concern for a few tears being shed by my daughter and my friend…but I hopped back into the speech and reconnected to the audience.

    The woman who gave my introductions did a brilliant job, a perfect segue into me.

    She quoted my blog.

    "I wonder what the Guest Speaker will say tomorrow evening at the Dial Help Gala?  I wonder what parts of her 7 1/2 year journey out of dysfunction will come to mind? What would the donors who support Dial Help most want to know?  How often does an event such as this have the opportunity to hear a victim share their story…and what parts would be the most helpful to the community at large?  

    I have begun many speeches in my head and when I recognize the lack of an audience, it fizzles out….Well your audience is here now, Beth.

    And so I got up feeling very surreal.  Me, a public speaker??? Really???

    But, there sat the public, so I guess so. 

    I can't really say what I said, for I was saying it not listening…which I know will sound strange, but that is how it went.  I know I hit the spots I wanted them to know…

    How it is that an abused child loses a family when they set out to heal…how the old detective didn't want my sexual abuse to come between my relationshipw with my father and how I wanted him to find one, just one, common denominator….but he didn't.  How, the community would help the victims by staying in reality and not budging.  How Silence is for the Perpetrator and Speaking out is for the Victim/Survivor.  

    My one moment of emotional wobbliness came when I read Rythea's quote.

    "The people who have lost their parents and families due to abuse deserve the utmost respect and support. These people have risked it all to heal and stand up for the truth. These people are heroes and angels who hold a horrific reality for everyone else. They have suffered and escaped, and for that, I bow my head in reverence."

    When I was done, Dial Help gave me a vase of fresh flowers in appreciation for my work.  I was in shock and awe, for I have only been there but a few months.  

    As the Gala ended…many people sought me out, asking to purchase a quilt, my book, offered eye to eye contact saying to me… "You are brave"  "Strong" "Courage"  "Powerful"

    I accepted their words…I felt them into each of my cells, they rang true.

    Oh, and I found a new friend.  An instant comfortable strong familiar knowing, a tug, a draw, a magnetic pull and our personalities meshed, connected.  Something neither of us could have stopped if we tried.  I invited her to come to the WIND…she accepted.  She does visions…of course, since our first creative project is a Vision Collage.

    I was told I was a crusador, before this event…and had to look up the meaning.

    "A vigorous concerted movement for a cause or against abuse."  Yep, that is me.

    My Lady and I are on a Crusade!

    Below is the link to our local paper.  Check out where I am! 

    Daily Mining Gazette

    My daughter took many photographs. When she completes her work on them, I will pass them on!


  • Head Held High, Being Me.

    I wonder what the Guest Speaker will say tomorrow evening at the Dial Help Gala?  I wonder what parts of her 7 1/2 year journey out of dysfunction will come to mind? What would the donors who support Dial Help most want to know?  How often does an event such as this have the opportunity to hear a victim share their story…and what parts would be the most helpful to the community at large?  

    I have begun many speeches in my head and when I recognize the lack of an audience, it fizzles out.  

    What I know is that I can't prepare more than I already have, that trying to know before I am standing there is impossible.  If I can focus on who I am talking to, I will know what to say.  

    I have designated myself, as the unofficial voice of the victim…and I feel that the oppressive silence needs to be broken, and I am the one who is cracking a chip into the wall of shame or fear that holds others back.

    I want to put a normal face on sexual abuse victims.  Maybe even more than normal…a face of courage.  I want them to know about our journey and what we are up against and what would be helpful to us.

    I want them to hear how keeping silent about abuse locks you into the land of no truths.

    I want to stand tall, strong, confident and articulate as me.

    It isn't about what I wear, how my haircut makes me look so put together, but rather can I express adequately how abuse changes who you are and then how claiming your truth flips you back to who you were meant to be.

    What most victims yearn for is a hearing ear….I will have 100 or so listening to me.  

    A message was sent to me today that said,  "I am very proud you are a crusader for victims of abuse.  You are using your energy for a worthy cause."  This is from someone I have not had contact with for many years.

    In my response back I found this. 

    "You have no reason to feel nothing but proud of me. I am proud of me.  I have walked great distances inside of me to get here.  I have done nothing I am ashamed of."  

    I own this to the depth of my being.  I am proud and not ashamed of being me.
    I own this!

    What I thought of the other day, was about the day I stood pumping gas in my mail car, knowing I had to enter into the gas station.  And at the table there were the locals who knew me, and had just been informed by my husband, that the sick man who was arrested for CSC in the paper was my father.  I had to straighten up my back, reach up my neck, take a deep breath and hold my head up…even when the greatest pull was to crawl away and hide.  Looking towards the morning sky that day I vowed to myself, "This will not define Me!"  

    I knew that I had to find a Me besides the one who was left fully exposed, whose dirty underwear was in the paper for all to see.  I had to find a way to rescue me.
    I had no experience or knowing HOW I was going to do this.  But, I felt that my father would not steal one more moment of my life.  That I would not be a coward in fear.  Nor would his reputation be mine to carry.

    I believe that I have reached the point where I am now fully claiming that right. That in the local paper there will be the daughter of the sick man….standing up and telling her story…PROUD of who she is.  
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    I don't know what I will say, but I know that they will get to see the victim behind the headlines…standing tall, head held high, being Me.

     

     

  • Hair Cut

    My Picture Before…my haircut.

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    I have been working to grow it out….or perhaps waiting for a Perm…or just loving the ease of wash and go with headbands.  My girls wanted me to try a new hair salon…


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    You can see the sun has bleached it out, and the color is faded….long without a style.


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     Here we are in the middle. She dried it before she cut the style into it.  I love the color. She put in Low Lights.  This is Michele…from Salon by Michele.

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     My new back view….Love the lift.  

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    Another view of the same cut…. My sides are not long enough to make a dramatic angle, but we will get there.  It is a work in progress.  I had some dry hair damage, that we will also work to restore.

    And then the front.  Michele spent alot of time fussying….I will see what I can do 

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    Already, I have fluffed it….with my fingers…messying with the cut. And the color doesn't look this light in real life. The lights made it lighter.  I love the cut and color…It feels like it is something…instead of undecided.

  • Without their Approval

    Sometimes you don't know what you miss until you get that which you are missing. 

    I didn't know that it mattered if my mother approved of my actions, when in fact I was blatantly out here doing the opposite of her approval, yet underneath buried deep was the longing for approval.

    I then sought it in others.

    Others are supposed to give to me that which was lacking from my mother.

    Feeling the complete void where her approval should be, is the space where others are filling in.

    Not that I openly sought it, but underneath each new encounter was this fear of not getting their approval.

    I approved of me, and yet there still was a piece of me that was waiting and it came alive in the presence of others…to be fed.

    There is a weird play going on…I am doing that which I know is not going to get approval from my mother, yet waiting for it.  It was the feelings of not being able to share my upcoming speaking event with family members, to have their support. Instead I step out and do exactly that which they don't approve of…but, a false belief system craves their approval.

    I guess her approval would mean that I am loved and accepted.

    So, even if the world accepts me, the little girl, the wounded one, still wishes for a mother's approval. When, the only way she can get it is to disregard her truths.

    This juxtaposition is the agonizing choice we make.

    Our truth or her approval…which really means 'love' and acceptance.

    The abused child absolutely cannot have both.

    Pick one.

    As I sit only days away from going more public with my truth, I feel the expanse between us widening, the valley floor moving.  

    I didn't realize I needed her to be proud of me, until another woman was.

    I am doing the opposite of what used to bring me love and approval…I now am doing this for me.

    I approve.

    I love the woman I am. 

    I will go up there and speak without their approval.

  • Coat of Expectations

    Every now and again, a ghost of my old self arrives in the present…"there but the Grace of God go I"…

    It was discerning and uncomfortable, enlightening and affirming…as the new me felt how impossible it was for the two energies to mix. 

    The old me was totally engaged in the future, planning and controlling this moment of time to assure a more peaceful tomorrow, by delivering expecations like garments we all were suppose to wear.  It mattered not if we would be uncomfortable wearing them, we would appear better if we did.  Our self we were in this moment of time, was not good enough.

    I found it perplexing and engaging to witness this.

    How thoroughly engulfed in the future she was…her mind would not accept us as we were.

    This controlling the future, kept her from just being with us.

    That was me.

    It is denying this moment…escaping the here and now and the what is, preparing for a better tomorrow.  You can never relax and just be…nor can anyone in your presence. She is looking for your plans and controls…or is looking to plan and control your world.

    It was so uncomfortable to be your self in her presence, for it was different from what she wanted.  And when I didn't race to fit her expectations, long silent pauses filled the room.

    I used to be real good at making the uncomfortable comfortable, of being that someone that others needed me to be…forsaking myself to wear their coat of expecation.