I M Perfect lady

Category: Books

  • Write them Beautifully…

    In "Good Prose" The Art of Nonfiction.…about Memoirs.

    "The desire to tell the truth haunts the serious memoirist, and so it should. But there is a step beyond truth.  For the writer, the ultimate reward of memoir may be to produce a work in which the facts are preserved but the experience is transformed."

    "In "A Fortunate Man, a meditation on the working life of an English country doctor, John Berger writes: "Perhaps this is the true attraction of autobiography: all events over which you had no control are at last subject to your decision." Writers in all genres are attracted to the promise of control over past events – if by "control" one means creating form or finding patterns in a life or a mind or the world, and, in the case of memoir, finding a road through the wilderness of one's past."

    "Some memoirs cry out for this kind of control, as in the case of a young man with a painful past who had a powerful story to tell, but was uncertain about whether to tell it.  His name is Pacifiquel.  He grew up in an African country beset by civil war. His parents, farmers and herders – were virtually illiterate and yet they valued education, and Pacifique managed to attend grade school, often in peril from trigger-happy soldiers. He did well.  His test scores were among the countries highest and earned him a secondary school education. Then, at nineteen, through a series of improbable accidents and charitable acts, he was brought to the United States, where he spent a year at the private secondary school Deerfield Academy."

    "English was still strange to him and he arrived. (He was fluent in French as well as in his native language.) He had never read a great novel or poem, but as a child he had conceived a fondness for the kinds of stories that elders had traditionally told -mixtures of fact and fiction that the elders always claimed were true, with complicated structures leading invariably to a moral."

    "A frequent lesson of the elder's stories was the importance of discretion. Pacifique came from a culture that values silence, and so by training he was disinclined to tell his new schoolmates much about his past. Moreover, he worried that American students and teachers would be afraid of him if they knew about the violence in which he had grown up. They might think that it had left him violent too. But as he learned more English, he began to set down some of his experiences. When his teacher told him that some of what he ahd written was "Damn near pulishable," Pacifique said he only wanted to improve his English. They very idea of making his stories public seemed to frighten him. He worried that his stories were unfit even for his teachers to read because they contained so much horror. His teacher tried to reassure him , telling him that art had the great power to transform the experience of suffering and injustice into something beautiful. This idea made a strong impression on Pacifique."

    "In one story he wrote- he called it "The Color of a Sound" – Pacifique begins with a glass breaking in the dining hall at Deerfield. The sound triggers a memory. His native village is being attacked – on "one of the days my mother apologized to my brother and me for having given birth to us." The family's house is burned down.  He and his mother and brother spend the night hiding in the forest. In the morning, standing near a clearing, Pacifique witnesses the killing of a young school mate named Patrick. The boy has been tricked into approaching a rebel soldier. The soldier is holding a glass. The soldier drops it on purpose, and the glass shatters. Pacifique explains a superstition in his country, that if you drop something you are eating or drinking, you may blame a person near you for wanting it. The soldier accuses Patrick of having wanted his drink, then orders him to pick up the shards of glass and put them in his mouth. the soldier forces Patrick to chew, then shoots him in the forehead. The story ends this way:

    "Because I had seen many killings, and would see ones even more horrifying, I thought I would forget Patrick's, but eleven years later, when I arrived at Deerfield Academy, Patrick returned. In the dining hall whenever I heard a glass shatter, I did not think of the superstition.  I thought of Patrick's mouth full of glass and would see him trying to bite. My mouth would be full of food and I could not take a bite. It was as if the food in my mouth had become pieces of glass."

    "When my fellow students heard a sound of a glass breaking they knew someone dropped a glass and they would laugh at that person's clumsiness. When I heard the sound of glass breaking, I would not laugh. I would see a red color instead. The color of blood in Patrick's mouth. A color no one else could see."

    "During his first year in America, involuntary memories were an important problem for Pacifique – the dreadful things he could not banish from his mind, gusts of memory that could come at any time.  Two years later, he felt that something important had changed. While writing, he said, he had discovered a partial defense against his memories: "That's how it started. I wrote a story and I felt relieved. I could control it. In the head, I could not. It's as if you had your hands on it and you could control it and make it beautiful. So instead of haivng power on you, you had power on it. When it comes as a memory, it dictates to you, it controls you. After I wrote that story about the breaking glass, I would hear a glass breaking but it never came back that way.  I mean, I would remember what happened, but it was never as before.  I would think of making some modifications in the story, to make the story better. Then if a memory woke me up, I could get back to sleep by writing it down, thinking I could turn it into something beautifully written. I mean, that's what I wish."

    "He didn't show his stories to other students. He still wasn't  eager to make his past public, but he wasn't afraid of that anymore. He was afraid that other students would tell him the storiers weren't well made, and because their command of English was superior to his, he would be obliged to believe them. Most writers are vulnerable to criticism. It is hard to imagine one more vulnerable than Pacifique. Writing had been a great discovery for him, a defense against the invasions of memory, a way to get to sleep. But when he wrote stories that included the horrors of his past, he had to believe that the stories were well made or could be remade until they were. Otherwise, memory would regain its hold. "If it isn't well written," he said, "it is as if it comes back into you."

    "Many writers have spoken about memoir as a way to "objectify" experience, to get clarifying "distance" between oneself and one's past. But that is not precisely what Pacifique intended when he spoke of having power over his memories, nor is it the highest use of memoir. One can also use memoir to get closer to the past."

    "The memories that surface suddenly – merely unpleasant for most people, horrifying for Pacifique – are bolts from a bigger storm, capricious, even random. If you can go back to the source and see your memories whole, you can create truer versions of what you remember. You tell the stories as accurately and artfully as your abilities allow. If you succeed, you replace the fragments of memory with something htat has its own shape and meaning, a separate thing that has value in itself. The past becomes an assertion that your life is of the present and the future."

    "Taking the undifferentiated materials left by the past and giving them pattern and form can be – more of a solace- a source of great pleasure. The delight that memoir can offer is like the delight a woodpecker may feel when putting the finishing touches on a beautiful desk. The desk is different from the wood forever. And the good memoir is different from the memories behind it, not a violation of them but different, and different of course from the actual experience that gave birth to momory and memoir." Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd


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    I love how Pacifique wrote down horrific things and wished to write them beautifully.

  • Without Your Self


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    Krishnamurti writes about "Art, Beauty and Creation", in his book "Education and the Significance to Life."

    "Most of us are constantly trying to escape from ourselves; and as art offers a respectable and easy means to doing so, it plays a significant part in the lives of many people.  In the desire for self-forgetfulness, some turn to art, others take to drink, while still others follow mysterious and fanciful religious doctrines."

    "When, consciously or unconsciously, we use something to escape from ourselves, we become addicted to it.  To depend on a person, a poem, or what you will, as a means of release from our worries and anxieties, though momentarily enriching, only creates further conflict and contradiction in our lives."

    "The state of creativeness cannot exist where there is conflict, and the right kind of education should therefore help the individual to face his problems and not glorify the ways to escape; it should help him to understand and eliminate conflict, for only then can this state of creativeness come into being."

    "Art divorced from life has no great significance. When art is separated from our daily living, where there is a gap between our instinctual life and our efforts on canvas, in marble or in words, then art becomes merely an expression of our superficial desire to escape from the reality of what is. To bridge this gap is very arduous, especially for those who are gifted and technically proficient; but it is only when the gap is bridged that our life becomes integrated and art an integral expression of ourselves."

    "Mind has the power to create illusions; and without understanding its ways, to seek inspiration is to invite self-deception. Inspiration comes when we are open to it, now when we are courting it. To attempt to gain inspiration through any form of stimulation leads to all kinds of delusions."

    "Unless one is aware of the significance of existence, capacity or gift gives emphasis and importance to the self and its cravings.  It tends to make the individual self-centered and separative; he feels himself to be an entity apart, a superior being, all of which breeds many evils and causes ceaseless strife and pain. The self is a bundle of many entities, each opposed to the others.  It is a battlefield of conflicting desires, a center of constant struggle between the "mine" and the "not-mine"; and as long as we give importance to the self, to the "me" and the "mine", there will be increasing conflict within ourselves and in the world."

    "A true artist is beyond the vanity of the self and its ambitions. To have the power of brilliant expression, and yet be caught in wordly ways, makes for a life of contradiction and strife. Praise and adulation, when taken to heart, inflate the ego and destroy receptivity, and the worship of success in any field is obviously detrimental to intelligence."

    "Any tendency or talent which makes for isolation, any form of self-identification, however stimulating, dissorts the expression of sensitivity and brings about insensitivity. Sensitivity is dulled when gift becomes personal, when importance is given to the "me" and the "mine" – I paint, I write, I invent. It is only when we are aware of every movement of our own thought and feeling in our relationship with people, with things and with nature, that the mind is open, pliable, not tethered to self-protective demands and pursuits; and only then is there sensitivity to the ugly and the beautiful, unhindered by the self."

    Sensitivity to beauty and to ugliness does not come about through attachment; to comes with love, when there are no self-created conflicts. When we are inwardly poor, we indulge in every form of outward show, in wealth, in power, and possessions. When our hearts are empty, we collect things. If we can afford it, we surround ourselves with objects that we consider beautiful, and because we attach enormous importance to them, we are responsibile for much misery and destruction."

    "The acquisitive spirit is not the love of beauty; it arises from the desire for security, and to be secure is to be insensitive. The desire to be secure creates fear; it sets going a process of isolation which builds walls of resistance around us, and these walls prevent all sensitivity. However beautiful an object may be, it soon loses its appeal for us; we get used to it, and that which was joy becomes empty and dull. Beauty is still there, but we are no longer open to it, and it has been absorbed into our monotonous daily existence."

    "Since our hearts are withered and we have forgotten how to be kindly, how to look at the stars, at the trees, at the reflections on water, we require stimulation of pictures and jewels, ob books and endless amusements. We are constantly seeking new excitements, new thrills, we crave an ever-increasing variety of sensations. It is this craving and its satisfaction that make the mind and heart weary and dull. As long as we are seeking sensation, the things that we call beautiful and ugly have but a very superficial significance. There is lasting joy only when we are capable of approaching all things afresh – which is not possible as long as we are bound up in our desires. The craving for sensation and gratification prevents the experiencing of that which is always new. Sensations can be bought, but not the love of beauty."

    "When we are aware of the emptiness of our own minds and hearts without running away from it into any kind of stimulation or sensation, when we are completely open, highly sensitive, only then can there be creation, only then shall we find creative joy. To cultivate the outer without understanding the inner must inevitably build up those values that lead men to destruction and sorrow."

    "Learning a technique may provide us with a job, but it will not make us creative; whereas, if there is joy, if there is the creative fire, it will find a way to express itself, one need not study a method of expression. When one really wants to write a poem, one writes it, and if one has the technique, so much the better; but why stress what is but a means of communication if one has nothing to say? When there is love in our hearts, we do not search for a way of putting words together."

    "Great artists and great writers may be creators, but we are not, we are mere spectators. We must read vast numbers of books, listen to magnificent musci, look at works of art, but we never directly experience the sublime; our experience is always through a poem, through a picture, through the personality of the saint. To sing we must have a song in our hearts; but having lost the song, we pursue the singer. Without an intermediary we feel lost; but we must be lost before we can discover anything. Discovery is the begining of creativeness; and without creativeness, do what we may, there can be no peace or happiness for man."

    "We thing that we shall be able to live happily, creatively, if we learn a method, a technique, a style; but creative happiness comes only when there is inward richness, it can never be attained through any system.  Self-improvement, which is another way of assuring the security of the "me" and the "mine," is not creative, nor is it love of beauty. Creativeness comes into being when there is constant awareness of the ways of the mind, and of the hinderance it has built for itself."

    "The freedom to create comes with self-knowledge; but self-knowledge is not a gift. One can be creative without having any particular talent. Creativeness is a state of being in which the conflicts and sorrow of the self are absent, a state in which the mind is not caught up in the demands and pursuits of desire."

    "To be creative is not merely to produce poems, or statues, or children; it is to be in a state in which truth can come into being. Truth comes into being when there is a complete cessation of thought; and thought ceases only when the self is absent, when the mind has ceased to create, that is, when it is no longer caught in its own pursuits. When the mind is utterly still without being forced or trained into quiecence, when it is silent because the self is inactive, then there is creation."

    "The love of beauty may express itself in a song, in a smile, or in silence; but most of us have no inclination to be silent. We have not the time to observe the birds, the passing clouds, because we are too busy with out pursuits and pleasures. When there is no beauty in our hearts, how can we help children to be alert and sensitive? We try to be sensitive to beauty while avoiding the ugly; but avoidance of the ugly makes for insensitivity. If we would develop sensitivity in the young, we ourselves must be sensitive to beauty and to ugliness, and must take every opportunity to awaken in them the joy there is in seeing, not only the beauty that man has created, but also the beauty of nature."  Krishnamurti

    There is so much in this short section about the complex and simple place where beauty, art and creativity is born, it is born when we lose our self and our desires or what he calls pursuits. 

    How interesting for me, that my art flourished while my world fell apart.  Now it appears that it is truly the only place it can, when there is no me frantically needing and doing things that make up the Me world.

    It leads me to wonder about the WIND, the women in new directions. Is it possible to create your self into the empowered state, OR do you first have to investigate you and destroy the you that needs or desires things, due to being empty inside?  Do the women come empty to WIND, and will they be able to create since they have lost themselves?  Will the pursuit of creativity lead to the discovery of self?

    Is it like the quesiton of the chicken or the egg?

    From what he writes, he is saying true beauty and truth….and creativity comes when you are full inside, when you heart is full and there is no need for anything, when the mind isn't seeking…a space is there that  allows inspiration to flow.


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    And, are you in fact, the most creative when you are in the midst of great change, when you don't know who you are.  When your life and self you thought you knew is left lifeless on the ground….is it then, that you are most open?

    Interesting for me to note.  

    Being creative is best done without your self.



  • Injects the word fear.

    Here is a interesting writing on Fear….or perhaps what fear stands in front of, by J.Krishnamurti in his book, "Commentaries on Living, 2nd Series"

    "Why do you engage in welfare or in any other kind of work?"

    "I suppose it is just to carry on.  One must live and act, and my conditioning has been to act as decently as possible.  I have never before questioned why I do these things, and now I must find out.  But, before we go any further, let me say that I am a solitary person, though I see many people, I am alone and I like it.  There is something exhilerating in being alone."

    "To be alone, in the highest sense, is essential; but the aloneness of withdrawal gives a sense of power, a strength, of invulnerability. Such aloneness is isolation, it is an escape, a refuge.  But isn't it important to find out why you have never asked yourself the reason for all your supposedly good activities? Shouldn't you inquire into that?"

    "Yes, let us do so.  I think it is fear of inner solitude that has made me do all these things."

    "Why do you use the word 'fear' with regard to inner solitude?  Outwardly you don't mind being alone, but from inner solitude you turn away. Why? Fear is not an abstraction, it exits only in relationship to something. Fear does not exist by itself; it exists as a word, but it is felt only in contact with something else.  What is it that you are afraid of?"

     "Of this inner solitude."

    "There is fear of inner solitude only in relationship to something else. You cannot be afraid of inner solitude, because you have never looked at it; you are measuring it now with whay you already know. You know your worth, if one may put it that way, as a social worker, as a mother, as a capable and efficient person, and so on; you know the worth of your outer solitude. So it is in relation to all this that you measure your outer solitude.  So it is in relation to all this that you measure or approach inner solitude; you know what has been, but you don't know what is.  The known looking at the unknown brings about fear; it is this activity that causes fear."

    "Yes, that is perfectly true.  I am comparing the inner solitude with the things I know through experience. It is these experiences that are causing fear of something I have really not experienced at all."

    "So your fear is really not of the inner solitude, but the past is afraid of something it does not know, has not experienced.  The past wants to absorb the new, make of it an experience. But can the past, which is you, experience the new, the unknown? The know can experience only that which is of itself, it can never experience the new, the unknown. By giving the unknown a name, by calling it inner solitude, you have only recognized it verbally, and the word is taking the place of experiencing; for the word is the screen of fear. The term 'inner solitude' is covering the fact, the what is, and the very word is creating fear."

    "But somehow I don't seem to be able to look at it."

    "Let us first understand why we are not capable of looking at the fact, and what is preventing our being passively watchful of it. Don't attempt to look at it now, but please listen quietly to what is being said."

    "The known, past experience, is trying to absorb what it calls the inner solitude; but it cannot experience it, for it does not know what it is; it knows the term, but not what is behind the term. The unknown cannot be experienced. You may think or speculate about the unknown, or be afraid of it; but thought cannot comprehend it, for thought is the outcome of the known, of experience. As thought cannot know the unknown, it is afraid of it. There will be fear as long as thought desires to experience, to understand the unknown."

    "Then what…?"

    "Please listen.  If you listen rightly, the truth of all this will be seen, and then truth will be the only action. Whatever thought does with the regard to inner solitude is an escape, an avoidance of what is.  In avoiding what is, thought creates its own conditioning which prevents the experiencing of new, the unknown.  Fear is the only response of thought to the unknown; though you may call it by different terms, but still it is fear.  Just see that thought cannot operate upon the unknown, upon what is behind the erm 'inner solitude'. Only then does what is unfold itself, and it is inexhaustible."

    "Now, if one may suggest, leave it alone; you have heard, and let that work as it will. To be still after tilling and sowing is to give birth to creation."  J.Krishnamurti 

    My knowing knows this is right. That somehow we have used fear to stop doing what we can't know before hand, what we can't fully understand, we place fear before it.

    If you instead use the word Unknown, about something and wait to experience it, I am sure we would do much more.  

    Imagine, Fear is a thought that steps in when it can't know.

    It, the mind, seems to be standing in the way of many unknown thrilling experiences…instead of letting us experience many different unknowns, it and our past, because it has no experiences of what would be new experiences for us, put the word fear to cover up the unknown.

    What I have found is to become friendly with the unknown….to dare to step into the unknown, regardless of the thoughts in my mind. Now, I know…when the mind doesn't know the unknown, it injects the word fear.


  • Enough to Lie

    Dr. Maya Angelou wrote this about her mother…"She's very intelligent and often said she didn't fear anyone enough to lie." 

    Isn't that an interesting line.  

    Lying is when you are afraid.  

    Afraid of the other person…or you feeling your weakness with them…I guess it is the same…you are in fear.

    I didn't realize that truth speaking requires strength, self power, being fearless.

    It isn't so much about the other person, but about yourself. Are you strong enough to speak the truth?

    And, I can also see why many lie, because their power has been taken away due to various circumstances.  Which shines a light of understanding as towhy victims lie; their power has been taken away.  

    Just so interesting to me, that lying is a sign of being powerless.

    I did not know this.

    In fact, I misunderstood lying as someone trying to get away with something, or trying to fool me, pull a quick one etc…when in fact they were to afraid to tell their truth….see their truth, be with the truth.

    I love that now, I don't fear anyone enough to lie.  


  • A Tough Pill to Swallow!

    I finally finished listening to "The Center Cannot Hold – My journey through madness" by Elyn R Saks.  

    A very interesting perspective between the woman, the illness, and her career self; how to deal with them all without having them bleeding each other.  

    And the stigma that is still attached to illnesses of the mind…and yet we 'normal' folks are dancing around the lip of insanity as well, each time we con others into believing things that are not true about ourselves…or when we are not truthful and authentic as we live our lives, and make our daily choices.

    What is considered a mind disease?  Is it not when our thoughts and our words don't match?  How often do we lie to ourselves and others, knowingly, making a choice to appear better than we are?

    From what I understood by her book, is that her psychosis was illusionary…it wasn't real.  How then can we say we are not psychotic when we step away from reality?

    It almost seems like her psychosis is equal to ours, neither of us are in reality…except she can take a pill that will push back the illusions. Is there a pill that will make us speak the truth?

    When you look at the mind illnesses and even mood illnesses, you have to wonder what causes the imbalance?  Is it reality or the way we were taught not to be there?

    I know that some in my family of origin believe that I have gone over the edge, that I have lost my mind, when I am in fact standing hip to hip with reality.  I will no longer pretend to pretend to pretend.  I am unwilling to join them in illusion, and I am seen as the problem…not that there is a real issue in reality.

    What I also found so striking in her book is her fight against the illness, due to its stigma and consequences in her life IF it were known.  Mind illnesses are so frightful to us all, we like to believe we all are always standing steady in reality, when we more often are unwilling to go there, BUT are not considered insane.

    Insane means, "not of sound mind".  What is a sound mind?  Or what is an unsound mind?

    For myself, I would say, that I was more comfortably accepted in my first 46 years of life, while I lived in illusion about many things….my family, my church and my self, compared to when I flopped out of the illusion or insanity.

    Perhaps for each family or individual, 'insanity' is objective and selective.

    What is the cost of aligning your life and your illusions? Would it cause you to feel anxious or fearful if the two were to collide and not match? How many of your friends and family are with you in the illusion?  Would it cost you your life as you know it to step out and into the truth of what you feel?

    Each time we ignore what we feel and do the opposite, we are dabbing our toes into illusion.  We are asking our minds to join us outside of reality. We do this often enough, that eventually we live there more than in reality. We have left reality and there is no magic pill to get us back. The only way back is to stand with our feelings…to honor our inner knowing, regardless to the cost or the uncomfortableness of those outside of us.

    I believe it would be harder to find folks who are one with their mind, body and soul…those who are living authentically.

    And yet we look down upon those with mental illnesses, while daily we preform all acts of mental gymnastics to spare us from reality.

    Insanity; a deranged state of mind…unsound.  I believe we are all on the spectum of being insane…and while most will not speak of it openly, but will profess behind your back your lack of stability in reality.

    Whether you will admit it or not, most of us are more comfortable with the insane than with those who are standing as one with the truth of what is.

    It appears very few want to know the truth, its sounds and echos, its feelings and knowings, more are at ease in the land of pretend.

    To bad there is not a pill that would make us all live authentically.

    An awareness pill.

    Reality…It is a tough pill to swallow!



  • Useful and Beautiful.

    There was a criteria for organizing your home by which each item has to be useful or beautiful, and the rest released.  (from the book, Simple Abundance, by Sarah Ban Breathnach)

    How interesting to look at your home from those lenses.  I have way too much stuff that is just simply stuff.  I will reduce the useless energy and extra work that the stuff adds to my life….It is like clearing out weeds to see the beauty that you enjoy.

    I will be able to see the real things I love and use, when I get rid of the things that have a weak reason to be in our home.

    I have emptied walls and drawers for cleaning purposes, but will take the time to filter out the things I no longer find value in.  

    Our home will then be easier to be in.

    I wonder how much of the rest of our lives are cluttered with things we do not find joyful, beautiful or useful?  Will this technique work as well on that?

    It was amazing to me how much I had around that didn't matter.

    I think I hung on to things out of being lazy, being afraid that I may need them at some point, or maybe not wanting to take the time to ask if it was useful or did it carry a connection to me.

    How many relationships do I have that are no longer useful or beautiful?  Are we too afraid to look closely at them?  How much of a drag do they have on our lives?  Is it truly possible to filter our whole lives by useful and beautiful?


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  • Love, Friendship and Loyalty.

    I am half way done with the book, "Bloom – Finding Beauty in the Unexpected" by Kelle Hampton.  It is a wonderful fast moving harsh truth read; when life changes its course without our permission or willingness to go along.  

    It isn't so much about WHAT event changes your life course, but how you handle it, what goes on in your mind, how you act, don't act, learn, grow and how when life changes, often so does your perception.

    AND, what had me in the ugly cry, is how much love and support she got at the moment her old life halted and the new one began.  How her flailing psyche, emotional insides were being held up by so many supportive people.  How different we both were.

    Until I read the massive amounts of help she received, did I sit with the silent echo when my old life halted and my new one sat there.

    My new life.

    A life change that came out of nowhere, yet one that had been traveling with me unawares…Guess I was living a double life and the false one fell down.

    To me, it isn't the tragedies in life that mark you so much, BUT it is how others act when it happens. How your relationships can withstand the punch.

    We all assume, that our families are waiting in the wings…arms and spirits ready to catch us when we fall…that our tragedy will be one they will not mind handling…

    This book left me wondering if sexual abuse is the last place of discomfort?  Are we as a society so ill prepared to deal and address the needs of a victim as she makes a life away from her abuser?

    How is it that my tragedy had people walking away from me and not draw in closer?

    The very people Kelle leaned on the most heavily, were absent in my life.  Granted, new people stepped in, but the old reliables, were unreliable.

    It perhaps was by far more tragedy on an already tragic moment.  In fact, it is what Kelle feared the most; the reactions of her family and friends.  She needed them to see her life change in a positive way, and not have it be untouchable.

    I felt untouchable.

    I felt the repulsive push back.  

    I saw the familiar friends, turn away instead of scurrying to bring comfort.  Quick short glances, a soft hi and the turn away.  Or, worse yet, hollering and outrage from my family….and even worse yet, the comfort and care my father received…he the sexual abuser….and NOT me, one of his many victims.

    I do understand the why this happened, I just don't know how we can change it.

    The why….Is because my abuser was their father and husband.  It was Grandpa….and his accomplice, their mother and grandmother.  I was asking them to let go of a relationship to support me.  I was asking them to drop their old self and take the free fall with me into the land of the unknown….estrangement.

    It isn't about sexual abuse.  It is about CHOOSING the life of estrangement.  

    Well, choosing isn't actually what we freely do either, but actually what happens.

    I again looked up the word estrangement.

    "estrange, alienate, disaffect
    These verbs refer to disruption of a bond of love, friendship, or loyalty. Estrange and alienate are often used with reference to two persons whose harmonious relationship has been replaced by hostility or indifference: "

    I didn't find the other definition about moving away from hostility…..

    But, I guess we can look at both sides of estrangement. How folks responded and then what I chose to do with their reactions.  

    Imagine feeling hostility and/or indifference to your sexual abuse BY familiar family…your 'support' system?

    While they were anything but HOSTILE and INDIFFERENT to my father.

    It was the complete and utter flip or backwardness of it all.

    Which again, is why I felt so cheated, so ostracized, so rejected when tragedy struck.  

    You truly don't know the circles of support you have around you….from the very close family, to the really good friends, to your intimate partners, to sisters….until you test its strength, by tragedy or a challenging life situation.

    You can't know until.

    Will relationships bloom brighter or whither on the vine?  What is the strength of the relationship? 

    Sadly looking back, my estrangement happened when I was a very young girl. Sexual abuse was the disruption in the bond of love and trust, it happened way back then. But living in denial and living with a mind that blocked out the "disruption" I continued on like the bond had not been broken.  Like there was love, trust and loyalty…when it was long gone.  

    You know what is funny in a tragic way, is that I felt the broken bond.  I lived with feelings of "not feeling close" of not feeling warm or loving towards them….But I thought it was me.  I thought I wasn't trying hard enough to feel more.  I had a broken inside, I was cold and uncaring. I had the fault inside of me.

    Instead, on the cold December day, I felt the truth of it all.  I wasn't broken.  I was completely right.  I couldn't get close to hostility.  It wasn't me that was broken, but them.

    They (my parents) disrupted my bond with them.  They broke the chain, not I.

    And, I took this broken chain and called it love.  

    I modeled my life after theirs.  I mothered a lot like she did. I treated my self a lot like she did.  I worked harder and tried to be more perfect to fix the broken chain.

    When, the only way to fix me, was to walk away.

    The tragedy of sexual abuse, is that in order to heal, you have to walk away from the broken chain…you can't fix the chain by staying.  You will just be another broken link in the line of many.

    Isn't the saying we are as strong as our weakest link?

    Sexual abuse tears the bond of love, friendship and loyalty.


     

     


  • As Art

    I have experienced creativity at a deep level, a healing level, but I could not have pinpointed what it healed, why or how. I just knew that Art Quilting was key in making me feel better…I can see how it had its hand in helping me become more wholehearted…or perhaps to hold my heart, while my life was falling apart…and continued on expressing me.

    In reading "The Gifts of Imperfection" by Brene Brown, she talks about Wholehearted people and what role creativity plays.

    "Let me sum up what I've learned about creativity from the world of Wholehearted living and loving:

    1. "I'm not very creative" doesn't work. There's no such thing as creative people and non-creative people. There are only people who use their creativity and people who don't.  Unused creativity doesn't just disappear. It lives within us until it's expressed, neglected to death, or suffocated by resentment and fear.
    2. The only unique contribution that we will ever make in this world will be born of our creativity. 
    3. If we want to make meaning, we need to make art. Cook, write, doodle, paint, scrapbook, take pictures, collage, knit, rebuild an engine, sculpt, dance, decorate, act, sing -it doesn't matter. As long as we're creating, we're cultivating meaning.

    "I also realized that much of what I do in my work is creative work.  Writer William Plomer describes creativity as "the power to connect the seemingly unconnected."  My work is all about making connections, so part of my transformation was owning and celebrating my existing creativity."

    "Letting go of comparison is not a to-do list item.  For most of us, it's something that requires constant awareness.  It's so easy to take our eyes off our path to check out what others are doing and if they're ahead or behind us. Creativity, which is the expression of our originality, helps us stay mindful that what we bring to the world is completely original and cannot be compared. And, without comparison, concepts like ahead or behind, or best or worst lose their meaning." 

    "If creativity is seen as a luxury or something we do when we have spare time, it will never be cultivated.  I carve out time each week to take and process photographs, make movies, and do art projects with the kids. When I make creating a priority, everything in my life works better."  Brene 

    I know being creative or continuing to quilt when my life was falling apart was crucial, but what I couldn't articulate was why.  It brought meaning, expression and a familiar place I could be me without judgment or ridicule and anger.

    Most folks have a hard time presenting their Art, for they fear the critics.  My critics were in my personal life, like it itself was a work of art, open to criticism…and my quilted art was ignored.

    I was more expressive and controversial in my daily living life and it was totally reflected in my art….yet my life was actually leading the charge.

    The harshest critics I have faced are related to me…

    To live wholehearted, to be vulnerable, open and expressive of your emotions and feelings, you will be living, loving wholeheartedly.  

    I don't know what I thought wholehearted living was in the past, perhaps a pure, kind and nice person…maybe embracing of all things, accepting without limits.

    Now, I view it totally different.  I see it as being honest and sparing no feelings, not yours and certainly not theirs.  To live with your whole heart means to go where it is uncomfortable and to erect boundaries, to walk away with your whole heart instead of allowing others to rip it apart.

    Wholehearted living is a work of art itself…it will cause controversary, it will not be easy, and yet it will bring back into yourself your whole heart.  

    While I was bringing my heart back to me…I would return to quilting where my free and open heart could play without fear of rejection.  Creativity was a safe place to express me….to be me. 

    “Here's what is truly at the heart of wholeheartedness: Worthy now, not if, not when, we're worthy of love and belonging now. Right this minute. As is.” 

    When I was rejected on the outside, I was welcomed in my Art.

    It didn't care about the tough choices I was making in my real life, it didn't want or need me to be different than I was, it accepted me as I am.  And, through creativity I accepted me as Art.


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  • Please themselves.

    Here is another interesting piece from Brene Brown on Perfectionism.

    "PS – Shame and perfectionism aren't related, are they?"

    "I emailed her back and explained the relationship between shame and perfectionism: Where perfectionism exists, shame is always lurking.  In fact, shame is the birthplace of perfectionism."

    "I lover her response: "You minght want to talk about that before WE start the read-along.  My friends and I know that we struggle with perfectionism, but we don't claim shame."

    "We don't claim shame.  You can't believe how many times I've heard that.  I know shame is a daunting word. The problem is that when we don't claim shame, it claims us.  And one of the ways it sneaks into our lives is through perfectionism."

    "As a recovering perfectionist and an aspiring good-enoughist, I've found it extremely helpful to bust some of the myths about perfectionism so that we can develop a definition that accurately captures what it is and what it does to our lives."

    • Perfectionism is not the same as striving to be your best. Perfectionism is not about healthy achievement and growth. Perfectionism is the belief that if we live perfect, look perfect,and act perfect, we can minimize and avoid the pain of blame, judgment and shame. It's a shield. Perfectionism is a twenty-ton shield that we lug around thinking it will protect us when, in fact, it's the thing that's really preventing us from taking flight.
    • Perfectionism is not self-improvement. Perfectionism is, at its core, about trying to earn approval and acceptance. Most perfectionists were raised being praised for achievement and performance (grades, manners, rule-following, people pleasing, appearance, sports).  Somewhere along the way, we adopt this dangerous and debilitating belief system: I am what I accomplish and how well I accomplish it. Please.  Perform. Perfect.  Healthy striving is self focused – How can I improve? Perfectionism is other-focused – What will they think?"

    "Understanding the difference between healthy striving and perfection is critical to laying down the shield and picking up your life. Research shows that perfectionism hampers success.  In fact, it's often the path to depression, anxiety, addiction, and life-paralysis.  Life-paralysis refers to all of the opportunities we miss because we're too afraid to put anything out in the world that could be imperfect. It's also the dreams that we don't follow because of our deep fear of failing, making mistakes, and disappointing others. It's terrifying to risk when you're a perfectionist; your self worth is on the line."  Brene Brown, from her book, "The Gift of Imperfection"

    What I knew, but didn't know, was that perfectionism is a sign of shame.  And when I embraced my imperfections, I became perfect.

    It seems that we were sold on the opposite.  That if you show your imperfections you will feel shame, and oddly, it is when you don't that you do.

    When you don't claim your shame, you will hide behind perfection…Interesting we can claim our perfectionism, but not the underlying energy….Shame.

    I knew there was fear in perfectionism and even paralyzing affects, but I didn't know that it was shame based.

    There is a vast ocean of difference between improving for your self or doing it for approval of others.  To be relaxed in an imperfect life or anxiously trying to keep up the perfect image.

    It was a huge blessing to have been involved in a scandal that I was unable to shine into perfection…for it freed me to embrace my self and to get out from under the life of pleasing others.  When you are ostracized on the outside, it is easier to focus on just you. There was no one out there to please anymore…so I just please myself.

    If Imperfection is the art of being you…it would make Perfection the art of being what others need you to be.  

    When I began to please myself, I was able to let others please themselves.  




     

  • Be real or Pretend

    Do we really know what being authentic means?  I felt like it was something I had to do again and again, that it isn't just like a coat you wear, but how you act…and it either lived in each moment or died.  

    In Brene Brown's book, "The Gifts of Imperfection" she writes about what her research found about being authentic.

    "Before I started doing my research, I always thought of people as being either authentic or inauthentic. Authenticity was simply a quality you had or that you were lacking.  I think that's the way most of use the term: "She's a very authentic person." But as I started to immerse myself in research and doing my own personal work, I realized that, like many desirable ways of being, authenticity is not something we have or don't have.  It's a practice – a conscious choice of how we want to live."

    "Authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day.  It's about the choice to show up and be real.  The choice to be honest. The choice to let our true selves be seen."

    "There are people who consciously practice being authentic, there are people who don't, and there are the rest of us who are authentic on some days and not so authentic on other days.  Trust me, even though I know plenty about authenticity and its something I work toward, if I am full of self-doubt or shame, I can sell myself out and be anybody you need me to be."

    "The idea that we can choose authenticity makes most of us feel both hopeful and exhausted. We feel hopeful because being real is something we value.  Most of us are drawn to warm down-to-earth, honest people, and we aspire to be like that in our own lives.  We feel exhausted because without even giving it too much thought, most of us know that choosing authenticity in a culture that dictates everything from how much we're supposed to weigh to what our houses are supposed to look like is a huge undertaking."

    "Given the magnitude of the task at hand – be authentice in a culture that wants you to "fit in" and "people please" – I decided to use my research to develop a definition of authenticity that I could use as a touchstone. What is the anatomy of authenticity? What are the parts that come together to create an authentic self? Here is what I developed:

    Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we're supposed to be and embracing who we are.

    Choosing authenticity means

    • cultivating the courage to be imperfect, to set boundaries, and to allow ourselves to be vulnerable;
    • exercising the compassion that comes from knowing that we are all made of strength and struggle; and
    • nurturing the connection and sense of belonging that can only happen when we believe that we are enough.

    Authenticity demands Wholehearted living and loving – even when it's hard, even when we're wrestling with the shame and fear of not being good enough, and especially when the joy is so intense that we're afraid to let ourselves feel it. Mindfully practicing authenticity during our most soul-searching struggles is how we invite grace, joy, and gratitude into our lives."  Brene

    I think most think, that being authentic means never being wrong or different, but perfect.  I found that I could only be authentic when I was imperfect.  When I allowed myself to not fit in and to not please others, but to please myself.  

    At first being authentic feels like you are purposefully hurting others and being very self centered in a negative way.  But after awhile, it is more hurtful in the long run to be inauthentic, for sooner or later, the false response will catch up to you. 

    We don't escape the circumstances we were not truthful in, we just delay responding to them.

    Overtime, all the things you neglected to deal with pile up, until your life becomes unmanageable….and at that time, it will all fall into your world to be reconciled.  

    In Bikram yoga, he will say, "Is it better to suffer 90 minutes or 90 years or 10 seconds or 10 years?"  This is how I feel about being authentic.  I would rather have an uncomfortable moment, the tough conversation, now, than to suffer pretending.

    It seem so simple to me now…..be real or pretend.