I M Perfect lady

Author: bjukuri

  • Mr. Detective

    Ever since my classmates began encouraging girls to come forth who had been touched by our pedophile teacher, thoughts are turning around and around within me.

     

    What seems to be a clear pathway with a secure end is such a fallacy.

     

    While I wholeheartedly support each woman coming forward whose life has been changed due to a interaction or molestation with this man, I also sit firmly in their shoes and have worn those shoes longer or maybe walked further in them.

     

    I went back and read some of my earlier writings at the end of January, about two months into this ordeal. 

     

    You can see the tangled mess my mind is in and the feelings finding agreement with the truth and also feel the helpless unsupported confusion.

     

    Yesterday I decided to post it.

     

    This was given in the confidence, it was only for Mr. Detective man, he then passed it on to the Prosecutor and the Defense Attorney, who then passed it on to whom ever wanted it, like a show and tell article.

     

    Here is what I wrote almost five years ago, the night after he came to my home to get my ‘evidence’.

     

    Mr. Detective Man,

     

    I wrote this down last night and again this morning. It was in long hand.  I am going to type it out to you now.

    PS. Sorry I forgot my manners and did not even offer you coffee, I seen the pot after you left.

    Below is what I wrote.

     

    I talked to the Detective today. 

    Did he hear? 

    I talked to the Detective today can he help? 

    Can he do anything?

    I talked, did the Truth shine forth.

    He wants me to write what I know. 

    Where do I begin?

     

    Let’s start with now, today.  My niece’s confession is about 6 weeks old.  I have NOT talked to my mother or father.  What do those actions say? What kind of parents stay miles away from ‘their responsibilities” and allow us to face their music?  What does their actions show?  Silence speaks volumes.  How can they not know where we are standing?

     

    A Detective is in my home.  I am made to relive my childhood, to speak of behavior, to feel terror, the helplessness, to know that others followed me, to know that I did not stop him.

     

    As I sit in the mess He created and She supported – where are they?  She is in Austin – she had to leave her daughters house “the realness” was coming there – in phone calls etc.  So she ran, like usual.  She ran again and left us in the hellhole of their creation.  She cannot look at IT for IT is REAL, it is a monster – Hell yes it is.  So Run. Run and leave us again – deny, cry, excuse yourself yet again.  Can you really run from this? It is in you.  Cover it by running – but the truth won’t change in time, to something it never was.

     

    As I sit in my home of peace, I talk to a Detective.  He is here to listen to my story.  My story has no warm and fuzzy feelings.  My story.  In order to share my story – fear comes in, and betrayal comes with it.  Let us not forget the little girl.  It is funny how she comes right in.  She is helpless, she has no words, and she has no pictures.  She has no love, no safety, no comfort, and no soft place to be.  None are in her childhood.

     

    She comes in now with no words to explain to the Detective.

     

    I was born in innocence; I was a perfect little girl. With big eyes and a trusting loving spirit.  I was a little girl without fear.  When God made me, he did not give me FEAR.  God gives two things Life and Love, this I know.

     

    Where did the little girl’s innocence go and who replaced it with Fear.

     

    It would be easy if I had a date & one picture where I could show you. 

    Instead I have unfinished pictures – Me okay or Me leaving.

     

    I remember swinging on the big white swing set in the yard.  I remember him coming up to me bawling.  Why?  I don’t recall feeling safe – just confused. No words.  Why was he crying just to me?

    I remember sneaking out of his bed, fearful to wake him, feeling if I can get out I will be ok.  No memory about being safe in bed and why I was there?  Where was my mom – how old?  I feel young under 8.

    I remember running through the backdoor into the house, through the kitchen and outside.  He was sitting at the end of the table near the chalkboard.  As we ran by he reaches out to catch us – someone brought it to my attention that his penis is hanging out. Not on top, but beneath.  I remember telling myself – He did not know.  I remember not doing that game ever again.

     

    I remember adults coming over and there being a discussion of him and his underwear.  I also remember them making it ok, I don’t know how – but we were never told to be wary of him or that it was not normal.

     

    Remember, I am young.

    Remember I was not asked. 

    I did not know what they discussed.

     

    My mom never told me to fear him. 

    Yet she did tell us girls years later of bolting up in bed fearful he was with one of us. 

     

    My mom did not give me fear of Him – she gave me instead mixed signals. 

     

    So I had partial pictures and feelings of fear…..a little girl who sees the monster- Only she can see it.

     

    Adults come in – and go- they go with enough fear of their own to warn their own children and others.  In fact most of the congregation knew – all except those living with him.

     

    My mom too had her doubts, but she for whatever reason listened to the adults too.

     

    I believe she said she would keep an eye on him.

     

    I also believe by this time it was too late for me – he had already gotten to me.

     

    I am not sure how he molested me – no pictures.  Just a feeling to the core of my being- that he gave me molestation not love.  No safe harbor – but a sea of terror. 

     

    And what makes it so hard is your Mom is sleeping with him, loving etc him.  And as I grew, I knew to make wide circles around him.  I would never feel comfortable alone with him ever again, fearful even going blueberry picking.  Keep your distance – just in case.

     

    But the older you get and the more you see his acceptance, his normal life, the deeper you push your memories down.

    You too doubt the images partial though they be.  You doubt your fears and you instead look at your self and say there is something wrong with me.  How come I don’t have love, trust and warm feelings for him or her?  What holds me back?

     

    As I began my inward journey, the blocks were there, I just did not know what they were.

     

    All my stumbling blocks became clear – when I heard the truth about him.  It resonated deep within me I shook like an earthquake.  My insides rumbled and broke free – emotions poured out.  Truth really can set you free.

     

    For the first time in my life the world righted itself.  It finally all made sense, my life made sense. How odd is that?

     

    Can your life really make sense with a monster instead of a father?  Of course, he never could walk the walk of a dad.

     

    It is my belief that Dad’s love their little girls and will move heaven and earth to keep them safe. I know this because my 3 beautiful girls have a dad.  Their dad cried, for he brought his girls to Him the Monster.  He has protected them always.  His love for them is safe.  They can trust him with their lives, their heart.  He would never intentionally hurt them.  He is a dad.

     

    I had no dad instead I had a monster.

     

    As my world righted itself, my mom did not pop out.  No mom called – no mom came home, no mom reached out – silence.

    So did I ever have a mom- no I had no mom, the Ostrich is still there.

     

    I am a mom, not the best mom, but a mom.  My children’s spirit, heart and lives are placed before me.  It must be their welfare even before mine.

     

    The night we heard my niece’s voice, I had to sit gripping with fear for my girls.  Did he touch them too?  I could not lose myself in this mess until I hear them say No. My husband was smart to sit calmly and ask them first if they knew of someone touching them in any way improper – before he said who. 

     

    Even if they said no, they could be like me with fear.  But they will never have to see him again.  And we All are looking at the monster.

     

    So the monster lost his power.  He could only operate in the darkness.  He has no power in the Light of Truth. My power came back – my little girl will soon be safe to return.

    This mess needs to be cleaned up.

     

    But the likelihood many will stand in the truth is very slim.

     

    God kept my little girl safe – her soul, her spirit was safe – a survivor person stepped in.

     

    Now I can say good-bye to her and welcome the little girl back – too tired now.

     

    Mr. Detective, it is the next morning.  I dreamt again of sitting on a toilet in public.  I usually just am sitting there in the middle of a crowd of people.  And I don’t want to stand up, for then they will see my privates and me.  To me this dream represents the Secrets they all know and how I don’t and don’t know what to say to them. And I willingly did not create the past to be ashamed of.  So I just am stuck there. With no words – No reason – to ashamed to move.  I too am wondering of my predicament.

     

    Mr. Detective can I explain a hellhole. It is being alone – all alone, and very small.  Small powerless body with no words to explain, with no pictures, with fear, great fear, with betrayal of great proportions, of having not even one ear, one eye or one hand willing to see, to hear or to reach.  Reach the little girl, to see she is so little, to see her fear, see her confusion, see her – she matters. 

     

    To hear her, but to hear her you had to ask, you had to ask.  No one asked – not even her mother. No one asked.  No one saw the little girl’s spirit leave her; no one knew the innocence was gone.  The little girl had to be an adult in her mind – wise beyond her years.  For NO One was willing to see she mattered. 

     

    I had to say Good Bye to trust – Good-bye to love, good-bye to safety – I had no one.  It was up to me, little body, powerless with no words to protect me.  Be ever watchful.

     

    That Mr. Detective is no childhood – being free, playing, pretending, having a safe spot to be – for you whole body mind and soul to relax. 

     

    You know at 46, I just may get my childhood back, for I feel free.

     

    And Mr. Detective when your job is done this story may end or it may end with them dying.

     

    As I look around today – I know the hellhole I crawled out of.  All Know it too. I still am standing here alone.

     

    No father stepped forth – no mother stepped forth.  I am literally standing alone looking at the hellhole.  No one can admit to me now, I am sorry you did not matter.

     

    Silence, I sit in silence looking at a huge mess I did not create, but survived.

     

    No one can even begin to see the scope of what they helped build, when they choose not to look at it for what it was 40 years ago!

     

    Now, forty years later, they want to give me platitudes as to why, it was ok to leave me a little girl in danger of her own father.

     

    All this says a hell of a lot more of them than me.  Who are they?  Not even human it seems.

     

    Yet Mr. Detective man you come to me, to my house, to my innocence to put me back in the hellhole to relieve yet again and again.  I know the pain, I know the fear, and I know the wanting to matter.

     

    Will him going to jail heal me and give me a mother, Hell no.  She did not want to see the hellhole then – 40 years ago, when I was a very small helpless innocent girl and Mr. Detective man, I don’t have room in me to put the smallest piece of hope she will put herself aside and really look, even at me.  It has been weeks Mr. Detective, weeks, over a month and closer to two.

     

    She is in Austin trying so hard NOT TO LOOK.  And who Mr. Detective are you asking about the hellhole, All the little girls who were left alone in it.  And we are all still alone today.  Neither of my parents are willing to step up to the plate for once walk in my shoes.  Shoes that I have worn for 40 years, since I was so so small.  To take responsibility for what they created.

     

    I am so sad. I am so sad.  Every little girl should matter to someone.

    The end.

     

  • The Dance Begins and Ends with You!

    Martha Beck writes in ‘Steering by Starlight’ she writes in a chapter called, Quick Stargazing Exercise for Beginning at the End.

     

    Try this:  Think of someone whose approval you covet.  It might be your lover, someone else’s lover, your boss, a celebrity who may never even meet you, or (if you happen to be an approval whore like me) every single person you ever meet.  Get all those needy feelings front and center.  Let them fill you whole mind.  Now imagine that you get to spend an hour with those people whose approval you seek.  Can you feel the desperation, the grasping, the sick sense that this hour isn’t nearly enough?  Excellent.

     

    Now, begin at the end.  Imagine you already have this person’s approval, that they adore you, that nothing on God’s green earth could ever diminish their total approval.  You are awash in approval. You couldn’t possibly in a million years soak it all in.  Letting this mental position fill your mind, picture interacting with your hero again.  Can you feel the freedom, the ease, the humor suddenly available to you?  Can you feel yourself start to smile without trying?  Can you tell that this version of you is way more likely to get approval than the version who’s always desperately seeking it?

     

    If so, you have just visited the observatory in your head and focused briefly on the truth as your Stargazer self knows it.  If not, try again.  Sometimes it takes a while to focus the telescope, but you’ll get there with a bit of trial and error.

     

    Once you do this exercise in your head, try it in a public place.  My favorite social avenues are coffee shops, so that’s where I do most of my experiments, but you might choose another location:  a book store, a shopping center, a rock concert, exercise time in the yard.  Just choose a place where there are lots of people milling about.

     

    For Trial One, walk into such a place thinking, “I need these people to like me! I need them to do what I want! I need their help!”  Notice how people interact with you.  For trial two, go into the same place the next day.  This time, prep  yourself by thinking, “These people love me. They think I am clever, handsome, talented, and gracious.  I rock their socks.”  If you can keep such thoughts in mind, you’ll notice you move differently, talk differently, smile in a different way as a sock-rocker.

     

    Do this exercise several times, and you’ll start to notice how differently other people act around you.  The more desperate you feel, the more they’ll move away.  The more sure of their adoration, the more positive interaction you’ll get.  If you want extra validation, have a friend precede you into the space you’re using for the test and observe the way other people interact with you.

     

    I’ve supervised this experiment with clients who have very low self-esteem, including juvenile delinquents and ex-convicts.  The results are amazing.  In a self-critical, fear-based mindset, the clients seem to physically repel people – everyone in the space literally moves away, some slightly some dramatically.  But when my clients manage to hold on to thoughts of being worthy and lovable, others move towards them, usually smiling, appearing to relax, as they get closer.  No one seems to be doing this deliberately; it’s like watching a field of tall grass bend one way, then the other, as the breeze changes.

                  Martha Beck

     

    I had a conversation with a friend this morning and brought up this section of the book, explaining to her, that while she would like to look at others for their treatment of her, she literally is the one who begins the dance.

     

    Just by how she feels inside, she is the ‘breeze’ telling them which way to bend or respond.

     

    It is almost if they can’t help but be swayed by her dark desperately seeking need, and that desperate need never attracts love, only pushes others away.

     

    What she desperately feels she needs literally stays further and further away.

     

    And ironically when she no longer needs their love, attention and approval she will have it.  When inside she is full of Knowing she has their approval, she will get more of it, when she feels herself being loved by them, she will get more.

     

    “0e the change you want to see in the world,” Gandhi said.

     

    I can also feel my brother and sisters desperate need of me, and it indeed does push me further away.  I feel their need for my approval, and the lack of their own self- approval.

    This goes as well for my mother, they are desperately seeking or needing ‘something’ from me. 

     

    And no matter how much I would say, do and be love in their presence it will not outshine or overshadow what is inside of them.

     

    That pulsating bundle of energy that is thirsty for outside approval is an endless sucking noise that we out here can’t fulfill.

     

    The switch has to be made inside; you have to feel it to get it.

     

    It is so hard to imagine that our inner view of ourselves matters that much, that we and we alone are directing how the world responds to us, how the dance begins and ends with you.

     

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  • Enlightenment Always Tastes Of Freedom

    I am reading a book, (I have many going at one time) by Martha Beck, “Steering by Starlight,” and in it she speaks of how will we know if we are making the right decision.

     

    The Buddha often said that wherever you find water, you can tell if it’s the ocean because the ocean always tastes of salt. By the same token, anywhere you find enlightenment – whatever improbable or unfamiliar shape it may have assumed – you can tell it’s enlightenment because enlightenment always tastes of freedom.  Not comfort.  Not ease. Freedom.

     

    In other words, the way you can tell you’re following fear away from your North Star is that while this course may feel safe, it will also feel imprisoning.  The way you can tell that something lies true north, even though inner lizard fear says to run from it, is that it feels liberating.  If you pay even basic attention to your own reactions, you can identify what I call a ‘shackles on’ sensation and distinguish it from a ‘shackles off’ sensation.  The difference will be perceptible to whether or not you are afraid to take a certain action.

               Martha Beck

     

    Enlightenment always tastes of freedom…….Sit with that awhile!

     

    How awesome that I am reading this book on how enlightenment tastes and feels, of freedom.

     

    This morning I awoke early and actually had gone to bed early thinking about who is more delusional my brother or I?

     

    I can see him sitting there and him looking at me like I have lost my mind, which I did, and him wanting me to be different that I am.  And then I am sitting here wanting him to be different than he is, so we both are delusional about each other.

     

    Delusion can happen any time we are sitting in reality and not seeing what is in front of us or when we want to change what it is we see.

     

    Delusion is when we are not happy with reality.

     

    Delusion will not accept what is going on now.

     

    Delusion will always want something or somebody to be different.

     

    Delusion or Reality, pick one.

     

    In the book, “A Thousand Names for Joy” by Byron Katie, she says it like this.

     

    “I don’t know what’s best for me, or you, or the world.  I don’t impose my will on you or anyone else.  I don’t want to change you or improve you or convert you or help you or heal you.  I just welcome things as they come and go.  That’s true love.  The best way of leading people is to let them find their own way.”

     

    So as I sit here one day later, I can see how delusional I can get, when I feel that there is something I am supposed to do, or say or if I jump high enough, shout loud enough, use the correct words, the perfect books, I can change what it is they are.

     

    I am delusional when I feel I want them to be different, to see different, act different.  I am delusional and shackle those people to me.  You be this way for me!  Who cares what you want, I need you this way, FOR ME. 

     

    Talk about conditional love!

     

    What freedom there is to let them do themselves in whichever manner that is.  I am free then to do myself. 

     

    I can be a great ripper girl, ripping apart my own delusions.

     

    It isn’t my job to go around ripping to shreds others delusions or even pointing out their own deluded states, I just must keep an eye on mine!

     

    Enlightenment always tastes of Freedom!

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  • I am with Truth and Love.

    December 4th is an anniversary of my plunge out of delusional living, into the vast awareness of reality, truth, and knowing.

     

    Most individuals who sit in meditation are seeking to find more awareness and to be more present.  My awareness came in like bull in a china shop, stamping and kicking, and uprooting carefully placed family members, futures, hopes and dreams, crashing any small-idealized version of me, leaving me broken in a million pieces.

     

    Enlightened for sure, in reality absolutely, in horror beyond what my mind could hold and without a strand of thought I could rely upon, I was left aware. 

     

    I have been reading about the Presence Process, which seems like a much gentler way to be woken up from delusional thinking, instead of finding yourself on a landscape where nothing makes sense to your mind.

     

    A landscape filled with contradictions so huge the mind had little to offer in the way of explaining.

     

    Finding your self out side of the mind looking at the damage that went on while you lived in there in some state of Psychotic thinking, leaves you breathless.

     

    I looked up Psychotic disorders; they are severe mental disorders that cause abnormal thinking and perceptions. People with psychoses lose touch with reality. Two of the main symptoms are delusions and hallucinations. Delusions are false beliefs, such as thinking that someone is plotting against you or that the TV is sending you secret messages. Hallucinations are false perceptions, such as hearing, seeing or feeling something that is not there.

     

    As I was shocked out of my mind and standing naked in reality, brushing up against a multitude of disgusting facts, I have come to see that whole event as a good thing.

     

    I was propelled out of my mind and into a land of Reality, by a tsunami like wave taking everything I ever knew to be true and turning it false, being dragged along with big eyes and open ears, unable to fit into that small dark mind to hide, I had no choice, but to face the stark reality, without a barrier or buffer to soften the blow.

     

    It amazes me still that I lived for 46 years with a delusional mind, and called it normal.  And perhaps to me it was the only normal I ever knew.

     

    I come from a long line of delusional people.

     

    Folks who tried valiantly to create a different story than what life presents to them, all done within their minds.

     

    “Forgiveness is accepting that the past cannot change,” is the meaning of forgiveness Martha Beck uses and which gives me much peace. 

     

    I not only accept but cling to the fact that we cannot change the past.  We cannot unring bells and change things around to fit what our minds feel more comfortable with.

     

    While many in my family see me, still today, as the one who did the ripping of the family unit, the one who is tearing it apart, they are correct.

     

    Yet what I am really ripping apart is their delusion that we had a loving family.  I am going in their minds and messing with their beliefs they hold so dear.

     

    They are acting like I am taking a loving kind father and Me and me alone, turning him into a pedophile.

     

    That I am taking a loving kind mother and turning her into a self absorbed distant religious zealot.

     

    That I am taking a kind loving brother and forcing him to join the side of the defense, to live with a pedophile, that it was I who swayed him to stand against me.

     

    How in the world do these facts sit in their minds and feel comfortable in their bodies?

     

    How did I control these people to take actions like this?

     

    It becomes my fault for ‘tearing up our family’….I made them do these things.

     

    How am I standing here accused of ‘ripping your family apart, stitch by stitch’?

     

    As I stand here today 5 years later, there is not one regret I hold, not one thing I would have done differently.

     

    Some suggest I do not call, stop by, go to parties etc.

     

    Party with whom, what folks do you want me to be with?

     

    With people who stand strongly against me for tearing down our family, for taking their kind loving thoughtful family and turning them into monsters.

     

    How dare I wreck their family?

     

    I made a pedophile, me…I made that?

    I made a mother who was so absent that she didn’t even arrive up here for four months….I did that?

    I made a brother reduce the ‘sentencing to time served and two years in another state’….I did that?

    I made a brother arrive to see him with a bottle of cognac….I did that?

    I made a sisters stop calling me because it was too hard to hear the truths, I did that. 

     

    What did I do?  Please, tell me how in the Hell I was able to sit here in my home and direct these individuals.

     

    In YOUR minds I am doing a hell of a lot of damage.

     

    Ask your father what he did and why, for surely I was only present for my own molestation, my own rape.  It was my body his penis penetrated, it was my friend who watched it and recorded it in her mind, it was my body who carried the terror for 46 years.  It was me at 7 years old.  Is that a delusion?

     

    When you are blaming me even today, you are saying that I made him act, I made him rape me, and it was my fault, I tore up the father and made him turn into a pedophile.

     

    Delusion is thinking that it was my fault then, and today for tearing up ‘this family’.

     

    I am under no delusion of where I am standing or who I am no longer standing or dealing with.  I am standing in Bright awareness and very comfortable being exactly where I am.

     

    I am out of my delusional mind standing at one with Reality.

    I am out of my delusional family too.

    I am out but in good company, I am with truth and love.

     

     

  • I will be the hope for you.

    A new case is being built to put away a pedophile, stories of evidence are being sought, prayers are being said, and there are passionate attempts to do something about this.

     

    While responding to a post on facebook, it came to me that the evidence is gathered, the stories are pulled or shamed out of the girls, and then used to put him away.

     

    Meanwhile the girl is left standing there with her underpants down, exposed to the world, the evidence was taken, but no one says what will help her, what will take away the affects ‘the evidence’ had on her.

     

    When the detective came to my home to ‘gather evidence’ he never once ‘asked’ what I needed.

     

    Our conversation was very uncomfortable for both of us. He was intent on building a ‘case’ against my father, and I felt used even by him.

     

    I asked pointed questions of him, of his law, and spoke to him by phone a while after the trial, and none of what he did helped me, an old victim.  However, I do agree it does stop future ones being born.

     

    Yet even in my father’s case, that isn’t even true, for he is now free. 

     

    What you all have to also take into consideration, that until the Law is seeking evidence of abuse, many are not even aware that their relationship was abusive.

     

    I know that is hard for those who have never been abused to phantom, but it is true.

     

    The first evidence that something isn’t right is when the law is involved and ‘their evidence’ shines a light into the discomfort we felt.

     

    The exposure of him being ‘investigated’ that someone else had a read on this man, that my inner terror of him, wasn’t just me overacting, that even if my mind held no pictures, I was thrilled yet horrified that someone was labeling him.

     

    We may have girls/ladies who are sitting out there blown back and out of their minds in what actually was going on with this man.  And we are expecting them to come forward and share what they didn’t know.

     

    The mind is capable of taking the least amount of information and creating a most plausible story, and now we are seeing that our stories of him are all wrong.

     

    It makes you guilty by association, or so it seems.

     

    If we can just remember that the evidence we are seeking is from a person, an individual, one who is now aware of not only who he is, but then immediately has to see what in her allowed this.

     

    This is not just as easy as stating facts, spewing forth words that will put another piece of the puzzle together, instead they are words that are shattering our whole past, our interactions or lack of knowing, mountains of realizations are weighing us down.

     

    So, not only are we just finding out, but are being asked to share this before we can even wrap our minds around it.

     

    What I needed the most was hope.  I needed someone to tell me that there is a way to live after abuse, to love after abuse, to be happy after abuse, to find joy after abuse, to learn how to see reality of abuse and not distort it.

     

    I will be the hope for you.

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  • A Little Girl Is Lost

    On Facebook, a former classmate made a comment about a woman who was married to a pedophile, but is now divorced, that if she doesn’t step forth, “She must be delusional! If she doesn't speak up against him and lets him get off again, it will be simply inexcusable!

     

    The word delusional struck me, so I had to look it up.

     

    -the act of deluding : the state of being deluded 2 a: something that is falsely or delusively believed or propagated b: a persistent false psychotic belief regarding the self or persons or objects outside the self that is maintained despite indisputable evidence to the contrary; also: the abnormal state marked by such beliefs …

     

    Wow, she is right, the wife is delusional.

     

    I felt it as an attack to call her delusional and to hold her accountable for whether he goes free or not.

     

    I tried to write a few comments, and then thought I better explore this delusional thing.

     

    What I failed to see is that the whole dance of child sexual abuse is a dance into delusion.

     

    The ex-wife of this man ran away with him at 16, she was very much a child still.

     

    The dance into delusion doesn’t start with revealing the monster first, instead you are introduced to a man who is charming and attentive, he is grooming you into delusion.

     

    Somehow he feeds us a false sense of who he is and a feeling of being special with his attention. 

     

    What vital information is left out is the ultimate goal, the prize at the end, our bodies for him.

     

    Perhaps it is hard for us to see ourselves so unworthy in another’s eyes, when indeed it is true.

     

    There must be something that happens then that we will not change our minds.  Does he then return to the nice attentive man?

     

    What I hadn’t really understood, was that we FIRST had a wonderful image and belief of who he was, and we didn’t want that first niceness to shatter.

     

    My mother said repeatedly, “It hurts me when you speak of him that way.”  She couldn’t even say the word pedophile or repeat monster. 

     

    She didn’t fail to see him, she failed to give up her first impressions of him.

     

    She became delusional when the indisputable evidence to the contrary arrived and she didn’t allow it in her mind.

     

    I recall saying that her strength was her blindness, it seemed just absurd that she could hold on to a loving image of this man. 

     

    When you see her as delusional, it is hard to expect a different outcome. 

     

    What I know for sure is the drop out of delusion is a long fall into a sea of horror and pain, swirling madness and disbelief to see the juxtaposition our minds had against reality, the contrary is wide and vast.

     

    What you are asking of these girls is to switch their hero for a monster, to feel worthless.

     

    Delusion is a preferable place to sleep, you can delude yourself and escape the pain of reality.

     

    It becomes like a drug of choice, to live in delusion, free of pain, suffering and knowing, in a land where ‘love’ abounds where the mask of normal is firmly put in place. 

     

    Yet our body feels the precarious ledge we are on, the razor sharp narrow line of where delusion ends and reality begins.

     

    Our whole lives work to keep the delusion alive.

     

    And in the end it is all for naught,

    a monster roams free,

    and a little girl is lost.

     

     

     

  • Life is Reality’s Parade!

    Another segment from the book, A Million Miles, A Thousand Years, by Donald Miller, I love is this.

     

    “A good storyteller doesn’t just tell a better story, though.   He invites other people into the story with him, giving them a better story too.

     

    When we were in Uganda, I went with Bob to break ground on a new school he was building.  The school board was there, along with local officials. The principal of the school had bought three trees that Bob, the government official and the principal would plant to commemorate the breaking of the ground.  Bob saw me standing off, taking pictures of the event, walked over and asked if I would like to plant the tree for him.

    “Are you sure?” I asked.

    “Absolutely,” he said.  “It would be great for me to come back to this place and see the tree you planted, to be reminded of you every time I visit.”

     

    I put down my camera and helped dig the how and set the tree into the ground, covering it to its tiny trunk.  And from that moment on, the school was no longer Bob’s school; the better story was no longer Bob’s story.  It was my story too.  I’d entered in the story of Bob.  And it’s a great story about providing an education to children who would otherwise go without.  After that I donated funds to Bob’s work in Uganda, and I’m even working to provide a scholarship to a child I met in a prison in Kampala who Bob and his lawyers helped free.  I’m telling a better story with Bob.

     

    Nobody gets to watch a parade.

                 Don Miller

     

     

    Including others into your life, whether it is in the trying times or the joyous ones, weaves a common thread, a line that connects us with each other, and has us marching along in friendship. 

     

    He has a great story of a New Years Day parade his family started in his neighborhood, one where no one could watch, and all had to participate in, which ended in a big picnic.  You could opt out, but not watch.

     

    Isn’t that a great metaphor for life, a parade without spectators?

     

    Even if you are out sitting, that is your contribution to the parade, sitting down, while the parade moves forward, or are you on a float of pretend?

     

    I will remember that by allowing another to be part of a great moment, it more than doubles that moment.

     

    Life is Reality’s Parade!

     

  • See Who You Really Are!

    In a book called The Presence Process, by Michael Brown, he speaks about bringing your attention back to the present moment.

     

    This book actually is a process, and a friend of mine is in her second week, and asked me to read along. 

     

    In a note before the first week, Michael offers this.

     

    Dear Friend,

     

    I commend you for coming this far, and I encourage you to go all the way.  I have walked this pathway myself – many times.  This pathway was uncovered by walking it, not by talking it, or reading it, or thinking it.  By walking it myself I have ensured that if you follow the simple instructions your journey will be safe, gentle, and full of profound insights and confirmation.  I have paved this journey with my integrity.  Many others have contributed to the efficiency of this experience by successfully walking it themselves.  Many more are walking it right now with you.  All who have succeeded have done so by completing it.  As you enter and commence The Presence Process, please therefore intend to do whatever it takes to complete it.

     

    Please accept that you do not have to resolve everything that is causing imbalance in the quality of your life experience in the short time it takes for you to complete this journey.  You can walk it several times to gain a sure footing upon the pathway that is your life.  In The Presence Process “completion” does not mean “being finished”; it means arriving at a point in your journey where you are ready and equipped to take full responsibility for the quality of your unfolding life experience.

     

    Everything you could possibly require to bring the quality of present moment awareness into every step that you take is between the covers of this book.  Read, apply, and practice it well, and you will deliver yourself to where you really choose to be.

     

    Remember that your life is your divine destiny unfolding deliberately according to a sacred blueprint that in each moment invites you to show up and fulfill your highest potential.  Your life experience is a beautiful gift revealed by your conscious unwrapping of it.  Your point of freedom in it all is accessed by your attitude towards it.  Choose to be aware.  Choose to be present in each moment of it.  Choose to walk with grace and gratitude through every experience.

     

    From the center of my heart to the center of yours I bid you well.  The Presence within me is the same Presence within you.  As such we depart together, we journey together, and we reach completion together.  Thank you for having faith in what we share.  Thank you for your company along this most beautiful way.

     

    Kindest regards,

    Michael

     

    This is a very powerful process of awakening the Presence within you; of bringing you back to the present moment, of placing you in your life.

     

    Lots of self help books claim to change your life, this one doesn’t change your life, it changes how you interact with life.

     

    The focus is on present moments, feelings and learning about past beliefs and their impacts on your responses today.

     

    In Week Two he writes about the difference between responding and reacting.

     

    “A reaction is unconscious behavior in which our energy is directed outwards into the world in an attempt to defend ourselves or to attack another.  A reaction is a drama that is played out in an effort to sedate or control the nature of our experiences.  The theme of all reactive behavior is blame or revenge.

     

    A response is a conscious choice to contain and constructively internalize our energy with the intention of using it to integrate and liberate our unconsciousness.  The theme of all responsive behaviors is responsibility.”

     

    He then goes on to say, From this point onward, as we go about our daily experiences, certain circumstances will unfold that will magnetically attract our attention.  These are the circumstances that we want to pay attention to so that we can work with them internally.  This magnetic pull on our attention occurs because these particular circumstances are energetically connected with our suppressed past.  These specific circumstances will isolate themselves from others that we are experiencing in that we will have a powerful emotional reaction towards them.  Often we will perceive this emotional reaction to be uncomfortable or unpleasant.  Initially, we are going to react unconsciously to these setups until we gain the present moment awareness to behave consciously and responsibly.  Therefore, it is important for us to keep the understanding of how deeply suppressed memories surface in the forefront of our awareness: not as images in our head but as unfolding circumstances and as the way people behave in our outer world experiences.

     

    Our task for this Session is to identify the ‘messengers’ as they appear in our life experience. By being able to accomplish this task, we will be awakening a quality of ‘seeing’ that enables us to begin perceiving what is really happening beneath the surface of the physical circumstances of the world.  Developing this skill of discernment teaches us how to use our mental capabilities to see beneath the surface of our physical experiences and into the emotional currents of our predicament.  This skill is essential because it enables us to differentiate what is really happening from what is reflective memory.  Only when we are able to accomplish the task of efficiently identifying the messengers in our life experience will we be ready and able to exorcise the ghost of our past.  Being able to identify the messengers will enable us to become our own ghost-busters. We can then begin navigating our awareness out of the illusions created by the dream called “time”.

     

    This is a book that I would highly recommend if you find you are more reactive then responding to life’s circumstances.

     

    I wish you well my friend as you once again walk the pathway, this journey to see who you really are!

     I M perfect Dance!

     

  • You Can Look Away.

    “I Want To Know What Love Is” is the name of my brother’s post ( www.messyguru.typepad.com ) how do you recognize what love is?

     

    Love to me is like the word gratitude, it is a feeling inside an overwhelming emotion, not a word.

     

    The word love can be thrown around and tossed into some pretty dark and twisted places, manipulating a body and mind.

     

    People use the word love to cover-up many actions that are hurtful, laying it on top like a Halloween mask.

     

    The word love can be used and abused like a body and mind. 

     

    Just as most wars are fought in the name of God, most abuse is done in the name of Love.

     

    When abuse is done in the name of Love, we are left with a backwards feeling of love.  “Love hurts” is a line in a song, and we believe this to be true.

     

    It isn’t a knowing or thoughtful response; it is a subtle knowing that even when hurting us they really love us.

     

    I know this may seem insane to most, yet when those we love hurt us, we can’t separate where love ended and abuse took over, we didn’t see love die.

     

    Love changed into abuse like an actor changing costumes, in a reverse way, all appeared to look the same, but inside the damage lay.

     

    Our definition of love changed, replaced by this unnatural event.

     

    What we failed to notice was love slipped away, totally.  It did not stay.  Love cannot be with abuse.

     

    The magic trick our mind had to do to continue allowing us to be with folks who hurt us, was to erase the old meaning of love and add a new one.

     

    Taking the natural whole meaning of love and adding abuse, degrading, manipulating, painful, hurtful, emptiness piled high until all we are left with was self- loathing.

     

    Instead of hating the abuser, we began hating ourselves.

     

    Self -hate instead of self -love, the switch was made, the costumes exchanged, but perhaps it was done on the wrong one.

     

    We needed to change who they were, instead we changed who we were.

     

    We walk away feeling guilty for an act we did not do, but an act that was done to us. 

     

    We mustered up the strength to walk along damaged inside, silently hating and hurting, putting on a ‘normal’ face.

     

    The normal face we tried to keep was on them.

     

    What an insidious game we played, what work it was to ‘pretend’ they were normal, what work to pretend that we were too.

     

    For when we couldn’t speak of who they were, we couldn’t speak of our inner wounds, we couldn’t tell anyone that love slipped away, that abuse took its place, that the normal inside of us was replaced.

     

    So what is normal natural love?  What was there before abuse slipped in and pushed love out?  Who were we before this happened?  Can we remember?

     

    How does it feel to not be abused?

     

    While we try and sort out love from abuse, the abusers seem to walk away free.

     

    Instead of looking inside of us, the clues are outside.

     

    Reality needs the adjustment in our minds.

     

    In our minds the costume changed, not in reality.

     

    In our minds we exchanged love for abuse and called it even.

     

    In our minds we exchanged dad for pedophile and called it even.

     

    In our minds we exchanged mom for pedophile lover and called it even.

     

    In our minds we exchanged reality for a pretend land and called it even.

     

    As long as we lived in our minds only, we were normal, they were normal, and all was normal.

     

    In our minds that love was normal, but what is out of our minds Love?

     

    What is Love that stands alone, Love that water cannot wet, fire cannot burn, what is that Love?

     

    Is that a Love that can be sold, bought or destroyed? 

     

    When abuse comes in does Love change or is it just simply waiting for us to discover it didn’t go anywhere, we did!

     

    Love doesn’t fall out of someone, you can’t lose Love, but we can fail to notice Love, you can look away.

     

     IMG_3396

      

  • A Powerful Story.

     

    I am reading a book by Donald Miller called “A Million Miles and A Thousand Years.”

     

    He speaks of being a writer.

     

    “If I wanted my character to advance the plot by confronting another character, the character wouldn’t necessarily obey me.  I’d put my fingers on the keyboard, but my character, who was supposed to go to Kansas, would end up in Mexico, sitting on a beach drinking a margarita.  I’d delete whatever dumb thing the character did and start over, only to have him grab the pen again and start talking nonsense to some girl in a bikini.  He’d do this, remember, in a story about a performance artist-turned-ecoterrorist.

     

    And as I worked on the novel, as my character did what he wanted and ruined my story, it reminded me of life in certain ways.  I mean as I sat there in my office feeling like God making my worlds, and as my characters fought to have their own way, their senseless, selfish way of nonstory, I could identify with them.  I fought with my ecoterrorist who wanted a boring life of self indulgence, and yet I was also that character, fighting God and I could see God sitting at his computer, staring blankly at his screen as I asked him to write in some money and some sex and some comfort.

     

    I like the part of the Bible that talks about God speaking the world into existence, as though everything we see and feel were sentences from his mouth, all the wet of the world his spit.

     

    I feel written.  My skin feels written, and my desires feel written.  My sexuality was a word spoken by God, that I would be male, and I would have brown hair and brown eyes and come from a womb.  It feels literary, doesn’t it, as if we are characters in books.

     

    You can call it God or a conscience, or you can dismiss it as intuitive knowing we all have as human beings, as living storytellers; but there is a knowing I feel that guides me toward better stories, toward being a better character.  I believe there is a writer outside ourselves, plotting a better story for us, interacting with us, even, whispering a better story into our consciousness.

     

    As a kid, the only sense I got from God was guilt, something I dismissed as a hypersensitive conscience I got from being raised in a church with a controlling pastor.  But that isn’t the voice I am talking about.  That voice really was the leftover hypersensitive conscience I got from being raised in a church with a controlling pastor.

     

    The real Voice is stiller and smaller and seems to know, without confusion, the difference between right or wrong and the subtle delineation between the beautiful and the profane.  It’s not an agitated Voice, but ever patient as though it approves a million false starts.  The Voice I am talking about is deep water of calming wisdom that says, Hold your tongue: don’t talk about that person that way; forgive the friend you haven’t talked to; don’t look at that woman as a possession; I want to show you a sunset; look and see how short life is and how your troubles are not worth worrying about…..

     

    So as I was writing my novel, and as my characters did what he wanted, I became more and more aware that somebody was writing me.  So I started listening to the Voice, or rather I started calling it the Voice and admitting there was a Writer.  I admitted something other than me was showing a better way. And when I did this, I realized the Voice, the Writer who was not me, was trying to make a better story, a more meaningful series of experiences I could live through. 

     

    At first, even though I could feel God writing something different, I’d play the scene the way I wanted.  This never worked.  It would always have been better to obey the Writer, the one who knows the better story.  I’d talk poorly about somebody and immediately know I’d done it because I was insecure, and I’d know I was a weak character who was jealous and undisciplined.

     

    So I started obeying a little.  I’d feel God wanting me to hold my tongue, and I would.  It didn’t feel natural at first; it felt fake, like I was being a character somebody else wanted me to be and not who I actually was; but if I held my tongue, the scene would play better, and I always felt better when it was done.  I started feeling like a better character, and when you are a better character, your story gets better too.

    Don Miller

     

    I way understand what he is saying, that if we give up our direction we think the character called Me is heading and instead just be written into each moment, you will be surprised how much better the story called ‘your life’ will turn out.

     

    What I also got from his book thus far was that the writer doesn’t know where you are going, but he does know your character and what would make you a better character, and like he said, and a better story called you.

     

    When I am in doubt about what I should do, I do nothing right away, instead of projecting myself in to somewhere I am unsure of the outcome, I step back and see if a better idea comes.

     

    I just didn’t know that as a character, I was waiting on the Writer.

     

    Also, if you allow the ‘Writer/God’ to direct you, you will be asked to face conflict, overcome weakness, face challenges, live real and feel, to learn more about the character called self.

     

    Learning about yourself in moments that require your character to participate and not head to the nearest beach for it is much easier.

     

    Your character is an artistic rendition of allowing the Universe to write upon the slate of who you will become.

     

    Be a submissive character to a powerful Writer, and you will become a powerful character and your life a powerful story!