I M Perfect lady

Author: bjukuri

  • Associating with My Truth

    I have been fighting my body for so long, fighting with the feelings I have inside, tormenting myself as I struggle to not do, what it wants to do.

     

    I fought my body to be close to my parents.

    I fought my body to respond better to my parents.

    I fought my body to feel comfortable with my family.

     

    I was frustrated it couldn’t just relax, be normal, chill, and be a normal kid, a loving warm child.

     

    It was like there was an inbred system that didn’t respond correctly to the outside.

     

    It blew cold when it should have blown warm.

    It then blew warm when it should have blown cold.

     

    I felt best when I was far from my family. That is odd to know of yourself.  I could then relax and be myself.

     

    I am a freak of nature, for I don’t have the loving warm comfortable feelings I am supposed to have with family, mine are replaced with a cold standoffish chill. 

     

    So, I had to pretend what wasn’t within me ‘naturally’.

     

    The day that my father was exposed as a pedophile was the day I stopped pretending.  The cold fear within me was not unnatural, it was natural, and I was okay.

     

    I was okay within me. My feelings and my body were acting perfectly.

     

    I am perfectly okay and natural as an abused child can be.

     

    It is perfectly natural to fear those who harm you.

     

    There is annihilation between body/feelings and you when you are abused, and perhaps that is the real meaning of disassociation, we left our feelings behind.

     

    It was either annihilate the feelings or annihilate the parent.

     

    If you annihilate the parent you are out in the cold….

     

    To live in complete annihilation from your feelings and your body, is to live half alive.

     

    There came a fork in the road where I knew the cost that came with my self annihilation, the cost was me and many other little girls to follow. 

     

    When I didn’t speak up in fear of that man, he continued on.

     

    I was the imposter, I was the pretender, I was unnatural, and I went against my feelings to fit in.  I will not do that any more.  I will fit out and be shunned for associating with my truth.

     

     

     

  • Fear Moves Me Away From You…

    My mother and I had lunch at the Pilgrim River yesterday.  Unscheduled, unplanned and unseen.

     

    Five years have passed since I laid eyes upon her and she looks the same, dresses the same, and seemed her old self, not at all how I envisioned her to be.

     

    Not sure what had me look in that direction, but I caught the side of her face from behind, and immediately I felt it was her, it had to be, and then she disappeared from view.

     

    A ghost from my past…a shocking sight.

     

    My body immediately responded, without a thought in my head, it needed no direction from me.

     

    The friend who was with me knew something big was going on, for all my emotions rushed to my face, our conversation evaporated, she could tell something was dreadfully wrong.

     

    We each spoke at once, her asking and me telling.

     

    What I told her matched my emotions.

     

    Mother and fear.

     

    When I knew she was exiting the dinner and not staying for lunch, I felt much better, my tight chest relaxed, the heart slowed down, the nausea settled, and the lump felt like it had been bruised, squeezed and twisted. 

     

    This visceral fear that my body displays leaves me shaky and vulnerable, as well as embarrassed that it responds this way, that I appear as a frightened child instead of the adult that I am.

     

    My body and soul were wanting nothing more than to disappear, there was not one teeny part of me that wanted to holler and run out to reconnect with her, not one. 

     

    I was pushed into my seat, caught like a rabbit in a snare.

     

    In less than a minute she reappeared outside in front of our window where a pane of glass now separated us, I in the shadows and her in plain view.

     

    Her chatting and smiling, reaching and touching this stranger, not knowing her estranged daughter looked on.

     

    It was odd to see her there, like I was now a ghost in her life watching and her unaware.

     

    It was only a few minutes and she and her friend parted and she was gone. 

     

    As I started to feel my body relax, she once again came into view.  Driving by in her van and slowly make a u-turn in front of me.  My last view was of her driving away hand to cheek, and then she was gone. 

     

    What is so enthralling to me, is how my body responds just being in the room with her.  How it isn’t a thought in the head or a mind full of reasons and excuses, for before I could gather my thoughts, my body was in full fledge panic mode.

     

    It has its own visceral reaction far ahead of me, and I scramble to catch up.

     

    How to explain this? 

     

    What I know to be certain is that my body language speaks for itself, there wasn’t a word I needed to say to my friend, she knew by the look in my face how I Felt about my mother.

     

    It isn’t anger, it isn’t resentment, it isn’t judgment, it isn’t a myriad of things I have been accused of, IT is fear and sheer panic.

     

    I fear my mother.

     

    I don’t like the way my body feels in her presence.

     

    I feel like an addict in a meeting, putting this out on paper…”I fear My Mother.”

     

    I fear what she stands for.

     

    I fear what she supports.

     

    I fear what she loves

     

    I fear her weakness.

     

    I fear her strengths.

     

    I fear her religion.

     

    I fear her forgiveness. 

     

    I fear what she fails to remember, but remembers to forget.

     

    I fear her.

     

    And my body agrees. 

     

    Perhaps fear is like love, you don’t get to decide, it happens to you don’t get to choose, it is chosen for you, you just get to ride along. 

     

    I don’t think I started out fearing my mother, it happened instant by instant and over time, I grew to fear my mother.

     

    Somehow it feels like a weakness that I fear her, that I want to stay away.

     

    That it has her in a higher spot, that she has control over me, that I am powerless.

     

    Powerless to me is being without  the power to get out of the way.

     

    Powerless is not moving away when you fear.

     

    Fear moves me away from you…

     

     

     

     

     

  • In Peace I Lay Down

    As I lay in a floor pose in yoga today, I became aware of the lump in my chest, and I wondered what they would find at my sonogram today.

     

    My doctor thought that perhaps it is an infected milk duct, and I thought while on the floor, how odd that is, since I am not nursing, I wonder how that could happen.

     

    My next thought, what have I been nurturing or holding close like a baby to my chest and what energy is in this area?

     

    The energy in this area is my heart, where I feel my feelings, where I express my self.

     

    My next thought was that I have been holding close to me things that hurt me. 

     

    Holding and wanting to nurture hurtful people, allowing them close into my space, opening my heart, and then getting hurt emotionally when I am misunderstood and once again and set outside.

     

    There is not only an emotional toll, but also a physical toll this is taking on my body.

     

    Today as I lay there I knew I had to let them out of my heart, let go of hanging on and release them…and the line in a hymn came in “God will take care of you…”

     

    In tears and in peace I lay down.

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Movement Against Fear Is Empowering

    I awoke from another profound dream and realized that my subconsciousness is healing.

     

    In the dream I am watching/babysitting an elderly couple, both are in bed, but not the same one, each are bickering to each other, clearly at odds.

     

    I am then sitting in a living room that has a glass wall where I can still see them, and I am reading, when suddenly the man is upon me, groping me, with no longer feeble hands, but very strong.  The woman remains sleeping, unaware.

     

    I am able to get free from his grasp and dial 9-1-1 on my phone, while he continues to pursue, and is now very angry with me for calling for help, and seems desperate to get me before ‘help’ arrives.  He also has picked up an object with which to hurt me.

     

    I put objects in his pathway as I am leaving the house, scrambling and telling 9-1-1 the house number of where he is, which angers him more. 

     

    Then I am in my car and the car is slow to start, but does and he is almost to the door handle… and I take off, leaving him grasping at air instead of the door handle of the car.

     

    I escape, successfully and have informed authorities, dream over. 

     

    I awake with a great understanding of what Peter Levine was talking about. 

     

    In the past this I have had a multitude of cat and mouse scenarios played out in my dreams and the dream always ended with me being caught, the end.

     

    Caught and frozen, just the dream ending and me waking up thankful IT being a dream so ‘nothing’ happened and I were saved. 

     

    Saved only because it was a dream, a scary dream or nightmare and I awoke.

     

    In my dream last night, it was the first time I was able to get away and to take the correct moves to do so, instead of freezing.

     

    Freezing and escaping from the scene by going into a dreamland in my mind, “disassociate” or waking up and it is a dream was all I had in the past.

     

    I had no way to escape in reality…until now.

     

    Boundaries, barriers, putting up a fight, standing up are all things a little child doesn’t have.

     

    It is those very items I am reclaiming and my subconscious mind is showing me in a dream I am succeeding.

     

    I awoke from that dream feeling as a heroine and not a victim.

     

    Moveable and not frozen, clearly seeing the cycle of caught and getting free, being restricted and getting away, instead of just knowing one side, frozen.  Frozen in fear.

     

    The freedom to move makes all the difference in the world.

     

    Movement against fear is empowering.

  • Boundaries are the Key to Healing!

    Putting up boundaries to keep someone out is where I still get a little shaky.  Yet it’s those times when I feel toxic energy seeping in, that I must erect a boundary in place.  It is imperative to my healing.

     

    Set up the space to keep me safe.

     

    Peter Levine says on his CD, “Sexual Healing” that boundaries are key to healing.

     

    He explains how if you have no boundaries you get stuck in that place, that trauma that abuse, the hollering, and the drama.  But if you can erect a boundary, it is the opening to which you flow into.

     

    It is the stopping power that I lost as a child that I can now use as big person, one that will restore my leaking boundaries.  

     

    Stopping them from coming into my world.  I have the power to keep people out, where as a child I had none.

     

    Who knew that trauma is about being boundary less, which is why the world seems so scary, you are unable to protect yourself.

     

    Or you have the reverse, still no boundaries and no contact with feelings, so anyone can stomp all over you, again powerless to more and more abuse.

     

    What I failed to realize is that healing is having boundaries.

     

    Actually stopping toxic people from walking on you is healing.

     

    In fact he says, having memories or not doesn’t matter, it is the process of completing the action where the healing stops.

     

    Traumatized people get left in the trauma energy, the tightness, and the constricted fear with no way out.

     

    He teaches you to flow between being comfortable and going into the tightness or stiffness of neck and places where you are stressed and then into places where you feel comfort, the ebb and flow.

     

    It is so exciting when you find that you can exit a place, a feeling, a stressful moment, a relationship, a situation, and a conversation, to be the one to ask for space.

     

    Space between you and harm. 

     

    Asking for space is the healing.

     

    When you are the one who stops the harmful interaction you are healing, you are completing the cycle of abuse.

     

    You are getting out of the way, instead of being frozen unable to move, unable to speak, to have a boundary.

     

    “Boundaries are the key to healing.” 

     

     

  • Being Irresponsible With Me.

    My failure to respond for me has led me to live a life that mirrored what others wanted of me, and each time I responded for another I walked away from me.

     

    Being irresponsible for my own self, while being overly responsible for others, is living outside of my self.

     

    I respond and move in harmony and accordance to how the other feels, not how I feel.

     

    If my movements brought sadness, I adjusted my movements, if it brought anger, I changed course. 

     

    My whole life as far back as I can remember was lived in accordance to the wishes and desires of another, a term I used was…”I was a whore for love and peace”

     

    What this means is my feelings were never in the picture, I had to grin and bear it, put my feelings and emotions aside and focus on another.

     

    And somehow I must have been rewarded for whoring this way.

     

    Perhaps being a good girl, for not making waves, for keeping peace…or as I now know, keeping sweet.

     

    Even keeping me sweet, or viewed as sweet for not resisting, for always responding to their wishes, for being the best people pleaser (or whore).

     

    My respond for me button lost its connection; I became disconnected to my feelings and was more connected to how another feels.

     

    The tragedy in all of this is while I was out there whoring for love and peace, with a broken respond for me button, I didn’t feel me.

     

    I didn’t feel.

     

    I didn’t feel that I had the right to speak up, to stop, to not do…I had to.

     

    I had to in order to be loved.

    I had to in order for peace.

    I had to in order to keep me sweet.

     

    I am shocked that it was to keep me sweet and not seen as the villain here.

     

    Yet I felt it.  What a traitor am I to think of my self!

     

    How selfish and cold to not continue responding as they need me to respond.  How dare I disconnect from the outside and reconnect to the inside.

     

    How dare I stop being a whore for their use!

     

    While celebrating on the inside I feel the wrath on the outside, but understandably so.

     

    I stopped using my body for their feelings.

     

    I stopped being irresponsible with me.

     

  • “The Invitation” by Oriah Mountain Dreamer.

     

    "It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

    It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

    It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain!I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.

    I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

    It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

    I want to know if you can see beauty even when it's not pretty, every day,and if you can source your own life from its presence.

    I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!”

    It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

    It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

    It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.

    I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments."

    (my brother had this on his blog, www.messyguru.typepad.com )

  • Held On So Tightly…

    I awoke at 4:00 am, with my right hand tightly clenched, my arm sore.

     

    A dream flooded my awareness.

     

    I was at a beach, and saw a young girl pour gasoline into the front seat of my car, I hollered, and she looked at me and continued to pour.

     

    When I arrived at the car, she was still standing there smiling and pouring gas in my car, I caught her hand.

     

    And held on.

     

    We were connected for hours, while I tried to call the police, while we waited for them to arrive, while we waited for them to do something.  For the whole long day, I had to hold on to this unruly defiant child, this young girl who did everything in her power to get a way.

     

    I went from hanging on tightly with one hand to at times keeping her in a double arm hug/hold.

     

    She had friends who came by and made snide comments to me, while they tried to get her free from my grasp, yet I held on tighter. 

     

    Her mother and family also happened by, and the mother said, go ahead see if you can do something…

     

    All day long this longhaired, thin as a rail girl and I were joined, she wanting so desperately to get away and I as so determined to hold her.

     

    When I awoke, I realized this is a great metaphor for holding on to wishing someone would change.

     

    It took all my energy, attention, concentration, to hold on to this girl who wanted to no part of what I wanted, and I wouldn’t let go.

     

    Neither of us allowed to be free.

     

    All it takes is one person to change their direction of struggle, it only takes one and we are both free.

     

    As I look upon the last few days, and me trying to get my sisters to see my point of view….this struggle depicts it perfectly.

     

    I am trying to convince them against their will.

     

    When I went to bed last night, I recalled how my mother always focused on who didn’t arrive; who didn’t send a card, who didn’t treat her well, and then wasn’t able to be aware of who did. 

    Her habit became my habit, I too lose many hours of precious time focusing on a segment of people who are in my mental mind’s opinion, not doing what they ‘need’ to do.

     

    I felt a long line of misunderstanding unravel last night as I lay in bed, and then the dream filled my sleeping hours.

     

    If you are so busy working with those struggling against you, you can’t play and enjoy those with you.

     

    I am letting them go…

     

    In my dream, as the long day ended, when we were both tired, I took her information down on how to reach her, and I let her go.

     

    My last sight of her was her walking away free, adjusting her clothes and shrugging and correcting herself, like a dog shaking its self once free from a leash.

     

     

    And I sat there rubbing my hand that had held on so tightly….

     

     

     

  • A Willing Witness

    “…grateful for your willingness to witness our loss” is part of a sentence I read on Facebook tonight, which struck me as odd that there are two kinds of witnesses.

     

    I never thought that there could be willing witnesses and non-willing witnesses.

     

    Yet the two drastically different witnesses are exactly what I have experienced. 

     

    One is so courageous and brave, will stand by and allow you to express the darkest of fears, the emptiest of sorrows, will listen endlessly as the truth flows and the madness is wrung from your soul and not shudder and turn away.

     

    A willing witness treads into the deepest trauma’s the most anxious anxieties, and wades through sorrows crushing blows, and still is able to remain connected, eyes, ears and soul.

     

    A willing witness never turns away. 

     

    It is this courageous witness that allows us to stand taller, dig deeper and find a small thread to continue on.  They remind us we are not alone.  That our mental state is ‘normal’ coming from whence we came.

     

    I am blessed and forever grateful for my brother who has been my most willing of willing witnesses.

     

    I also have had willing witnesses that are friends, strangers, writers, renewed old friends and new friends. Ladies whose walk equals mine or are even much worse. I am filled with great warmth and loving energy knowing that I have so many wonderfully willing witnesses.

     

    The greatest gift we can give another is to be a willing witness.

  • Bubble Of Pretend

    I was told yesterday that hypochondria was a disease, that somebody with an imaginary illness, is ill.

     

    I had never considered that just believing in something nonexistent made you sick.

     

    It is a belief in something that isn’t there, an imaginary idea, and the belief is what makes you ill.

     

    In denial you refuse to acknowledge existence of something and being a hypochondriac you believe in something imaginary.

     

    The two seem like kissing cousins, related in an odd way, where both are removed from what is truly going on, and both cases, it is a belief that keeps them ill.

     

    Within a dysfunctional family we have relationship hypochondriacs (or the opposites), for they believe in something imaginary; believing things to be better than they truly are, and unable to see the illnesses that surround them.

     

    The coorelation between the two is remarkable.

     

    I am surprised I didn’t realize that just believing in something imaginary is in itself an illness.

     

    While the hypochondriac is convinced things are worse than they are, a person in a dysfunctional relationship are convinced things are much better than they are.

     

    I wish they had a name for the opposite of a hypochondriac.  When I looked it up on Yahoo here is what I found.

     

    “The opposite is a MAN! Most men will think nothing is wrong with them even if the tumor is growing out of their head!”

     

    I guess the opposite is thinking nothing is wrong in the face of evidence to the contrary.

     

    Both sides are caught in a belief that keeps them from seeing what is true, and that in itself is the illness.

     

    Stuck in a belief that doesn’t exist in real life.

     

    Living in a bubble of pretend.