I M Perfect lady

Category: Books

  • Whole

    "Life batters us whether we are rich or poor, public or private. The wound we suffer may be an open cut or a slow, silent hemorrhage of the soul."Sarah Ban Breathnach

    I love the "silent hemorrhage of the soul"…it is how we all die while alive, where the essence of who we are slowly fades, by all the little choices we make that don't reflect our true feelings; each false action we part-take in, is letting of the soul.

    It isn't that we sell our whole self all at once, but fragments of who we are slowly drain each time we keep silent our true feelings; we sell our souls lie by lie.

    Usually, to spare the feelings of others.  We don't want to make them feel bad, but are way okay destroying our own inner peace…and by silencing our soul's truth, we talk and act in discord of how we feel.

    "I did not lose myself all at once. I rubbed out my face over the years washing away my pain, the same way carvings on stone are worn down by water."  Amy Tan

    In the past few days, I have been in the presence of women from various walks of life and was struck by the jostling of inner voices and outer voices…

    How snatches of soul speaking, mingling with old patterns jostle to be heard and expressed. I can sense confusion or the pulling and tugging of the tug-o-war between wanting to fit in and wanting to be free; and its cost.

    There is a cost to the soul to follow and a greater cost to leave…and lead.

    There is wanting to fit in and the need to stand out.

    To be accepted for who you are while being different.

    Ladies who are wanting to define themselves, while at the same time repeating patterns long set in place…due to not wanting to disappoint or step out of bounds of what is acceptable.

    Living a life without a pattern is scary and free.

    It is to be unchained, but undefined…to be in a spacious place of no rules, but without the comfort of numbers of like minded souls.  

    It seems there are some differents that are unique and valued, while others are rejected and cast out.  

    Why is that?  What makes it acceptable different and rejectable different?

    Each segment of the population has its unwritten rules that will accept or reject others, depending upon their life choices…

    Categories are usually classified of how many things you have in common, not in the things you are opposed to.

    We continually pair off into likeness.

    How will we stand out if we gravitate to the sameness?

    How will stretch and grow if we continually stay safe in the environments and patterns of our parents?

    I was pleased with myself to be myself with ladies whose patterns were so different than mine.  And I loved seeing and hearing their self expressions.

    Our Self comes when we can be at peace with who we are, when we stop the bleeding of our souls to fit in, but rather bring our full self to all encounters, unabashedly…to stop dressing ourselves in order to fit in.

    There is such peace in me to arrive as me…to not try to match who they are or to quiet my truth in their presence…instead feel completely at ease as me.

    Not only at ease but happy, content, satisfied…whole.


     

  • The Fabric of My Being!

    Chapter 11 in "Hungry" by Robin Smith

    Living with the Hole

    "The naked truth is always better than the best-dressed lie." Ann Landers

    "Thousands of people connected with my term "hole in the soul." I think that's because deep down many of us know that there is also a hole in our souls. We make up our country as its citizens, so if there is a hole in the soul of the country then we must check out the individuals who comprise this body we call America. The same is true of parents and their children.  Parents want their children "fixed" and whole. But those same parents are often unwilling to look at their own brokenness and the holes that their children inherited from them."

    "Having a hole in your soul is nothing to feel ashamed about. It is something to attend to. The holes in our souls highlight the key elements that are missing in us, and become a trusted guide to find the root of what is broken and injured in ourselves. Holes don't just go away of their own accord.  Some remain empty, while others get filled with imitation fillers or inferior substances – which always cause bigger problems later. But they may just as easily be filled with life-giving materials. These life giving materials are the nourishment we need and crave."

    "We nourish ourselves by establishing and maintaining healthy, substantive relationships with self and others; by having boundaries that foster respect and allow authentic "yeses" and "nos" when necessary; and by practicing good self-care as we nourish and nurture ourselves.  Yet too often we go hungry."

    "When families choose to mask their pain and suffer in silence, they are filling the hole with a temporary, inadequate substance.  They're busy applying spackle to a crater, hoping people on the outside won't notice their suffering. They're terrified that others – even perfect strangers – will see the truth of their sleepless nights, loveless marriages, addicted family members, angry parents, despised siblings, and internal conflict. They'd rather fill these holes in, cover them up, than let anyone know they are human, hungry and imperfect."  Dr. Robin Smith

    At times I had to wonder if my pointing out all the holes in my family of origins fabric was helpful or exploitive, if there was a way to heal and not reveal?

    The truth of my family is literally the hole in the soul of our family…which leads to holes in the souls of the individuals who all have started from there.  

    My soul's intention was to give my children a fabric that wasn't filled with holes and gaps and me pretending with artificial fillers and remain in the family for the ease….instead I hope to pass on my fabric. 

    My fabric in how I live my life.  

    There are no holes I try and cover up.

    There are no rips that I want to pretend are not there.

    I live out in the open in all things…often to their discomfort.  

    My history and life's past may not be filled with wonderful loving memories, but it is my fabric of truth…

    My fabric of truth has many dark tones and I am now doing my best to add life giving colors…

    I believe we can't truly be ourselves until we reveal our selves to our self. I know who I am and where I came from and how it affected my life.  I am now unwilling to settle for relationships that are not substantive and healthy.

    I will not willingly make holes in my soul…for your comfort and ease.

    I am too aware now of what rips holes in my soul and I will not willingly participate in in the shredding of me.

    I can live with the holes of my past and respectfully honor how they came to be…how I came to be.  

    And, I believe I now have the opportunity to weave a new cloth in what I pass on to the generations below me. At the very least, I will not be one to make the holes in their souls…by being dishonest…and covering up my legacy…or showing them an inauthentic way of being.

    Each choice we make and all we do, knits together the legacy we leave behind…

    I see mine as a very rich tapestry with swirling darkness and graceful brights…the years of blind unknowing, clashing with the mind blowing awareness and infused with my inner truths of who I am…the Fabric of My Being!


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  • Let life be…

    Chapter 10, in "Hungry" by Dr. Robin Smith.

    "We wear the mask that grins and lies."  Paul Laurence Dunbar

    "I was sitting in the parking lot at the grocery store talking with my assistant Kim on the telephone.  It was a beautiful, clear, and warm afternoon, and we were discussing the exhaustive to-do list still in front of me. There was so much that remained on my schedule before my day could officially be called "over".  I felt overwhelmed and I knew I would be working late into the evening. All I really wanted to do was to be out and about enjoying the beauty of nature and the day with Kalle."

    "I said to Kim, "I just realized something. I am a mortician."

    "She said, "Excuse me, what did you say?"

    "I replied, "I am a mortician, the best anywhere.  I see dead people."

    "Kim was silent.  I knew she was waiting for me to say something clever that would put into context what I had just said. The words themselves seemed totally ridiculous. Actually, touched might be a more accurate description." 

    "I realized something today," I explained. "I have spent a lot of my life trying to make dead people and dead things alive." I went on to explain that I had spent years with dead people, in dead relationships, in dead places playing the role of the most skilled mortician. By the time I am finished with them, my handiwork had been so convincing that I believed – as did everyone else- that the dead person or thing had come back to life. But in reality they were merely embalmed in a mixture of make-believe, pretend and false hope. Fear of reality was my partner in this booming mortuary business. How frightening and how dangerous to be dealing with dead things and acting like they were alive!"

    "Kim got it, as did others with whom I shared the metaphor later. Many People are in the business of trying to make dead things alive again."  Dr. Robin

    An interesting metaphor for a life that isn't being fully lived or one in truth.

    I wonder how many therapist and well intentioned friends will try and breathe life into dead relationships and dead individual lives?

    I am not even sure most people are aware of the struggle they are engaged in while trying to keep relationships appearing alive, when they clearly are not working.

    When my sister had coined the phrase, "I am not willing to pretend to pretend," she was speaking of no longer wanting to be a mortician…of making dead people look alive.  Of living a life of pretending all is well, when it clearly is not.

    It oddly seems like you will die and life will end, when you give up trying to make dead relationships live, but instead you actually come alive.

    Live and breathe and find deep passion and interest and aliveness in the simple things, for you are not forcing that which is not, to be.

    Living among the ruins pretending you have still have a relationship home.

    The contortion it requires sucks the life blood out of you…trying to make something from nothing….leaves you with mask overlaid on nothing…and tired.

    I wonder if many people call living, the task of turning the dead into a living thing that isn't real?

    How many would dare and live without airbrushing their lives?

     How many would drop the role of mortician, and let the dead lie?

    Perhaps this is what actually made my estrangement easier, was that the dead did not rise and revolt and fight to be in a relationship with me, but rather they continued to act as they had; dead.

    The dead waiting for me to make them alive. Make them a sister, a mother, a brother, it was up to me to paint them into a relationship with me.

    I dropped all my pretend brushes and have let life be…

     



  • All to see.

    Accepting who you are seems like kindergarten play, and yet, it is my belief, that people are complete ill at ease with who they are, where they have been, and what experiences they have experienced, and are trying desperately to be something that is impossible to be.

    Isn't the autoimmune diseases, when the body fights itself? I looked it up, "An illness that occurs when the body tissues are attacked by its own immune system."

    When we are unable to wholly accept who we are, we are at war with our self…fighting not to be in the life we have lived.

    Maybe it is due to the feelings of shame we have for leaving our self behind in so many decisions.  To spend our choices based on how they will affect others and not how they will feel to our self.

    I wish there was a word for this non-acceptance of self, this annihilation of our own life's journey.

    I wonder too, if we consulted our self first, before making choices, would we then be able to live with our self more comfortably?

    I also know, that one of the first affects of abuse is the wanting to leave your abused self behind, to hide it and never look. Perhaps this becomes a way of life…to not see/feel or be with your self.  Maybe to make others comfortable we had to leave our abused selves behind.

    I know, for my self, that when I fully accepted my abuse, I was able to accept me completely and I found such great love and affection, admiration and gratitude for all parts of me. 

    The part of my mind that shielded me from abuse, by failing to acknowledge it with memories.  The part that worked so diligently to right wrongs that were not mine to right.  The confused volatile, screaming mother, trying to love her children…without the proper model. Even the terrified adult woman who didn't know who she was…I accept them all.  I understand and feel deeply for all aspects of abuse and its long term and lingering affects…and the woman who lived through it.

    To not accept her during her various stages of development, would be to not understand or appreciate her growth as well as her trials along the way.

    Dr. Robin wrote about repentance….being a U-turn.

    "To repent is to turn and go in another direction." 

    I feel that my last 8 years have been going in a completely different direction than my first 46.  I did a U-Turn and began living with full acceptance of me.  

    The way the FALC viewed repentance, was only to forgive an action that happened, but they never required you to change direction. 

    Repentance in the FALC, is repetiveness…to keep falling and sinning and getting it forgiven time and time again. 

    How can you accept a self that fails over and over again?

    How can you trust a self that is so unreliable?

    The difference I believe is that their belief is that you can wipe away actions….and that alone leaves you with no incentive to change. But, what if your actions leave an indelible print upon your life? What then?  What if you had to carry with you all that you say and do?  How would you live knowing there is no life eraser?

    I thought for 46 years that the church held this magical eraser only to find out it was all in my mind, but that in reality, my actions were written as my life.

    I had to accept all my sins as part of me….and the only repentance was to make a U-turn and live a life knowing each choice is a part of me.  I will make them either in denial or in awareness, but either way, they are me.

    Acceptance of self is a wild and terrifying ride into reality…as your self, without a mask or eraser to make changes.  It is living naked fully exposed…actions and experiences all in the open for all to see.


  • Soul’s Signature

    Here is another part from Dr. Robin Smith's book, "Hungry"

    "Last year I gave a keynote speech at a fundraiser for victims of domestic violence. As I stood at the podium and looked out into the crowd of beautifully dressed, well-to-do women, I imagined the tenor of my remarks would surprise them.  They expected me to speak about others, not them; about victims, not their peers.  But instead I told them, "This is an admirable cause, and I know you care very much about the women you are here to support.  But I want to take a few moments to speak about the hidden abuse that is in this room.  I know for a fact that in every gathering of women, no matter how successful or well-off they are, there's a form of self-abuse going on that is very prevalent. That self-abuse involves denying that you have needs. Denying that you have longings. Denying that you want something more than what you have right now.  The expensive clothing in the customized closet in the super-sized, gated house; the pool and very impressive cars and well-manicured grounds -all of that medicates your hunger, but it doesn't fill it. Our souls aren't for sale, even if we are. You may live the perfect picture, but it may be that you're afraid to acknowledge what you're really feeling beneath the facade.  You may have great abundance, but are left feeling empty."

    "I told them that I had watched for a while as they came into the room and greeted each other. I observed their greetings: Their shining, flawless smiles, their air kisses.  In fairness to them, I acknowledged my own privilege, which allowed me to drive to this event in one of those fancy-type cars, accompanied by my best friend who met me there in hers. I owned that I looked exactly like them in my Prada dress, Blahnik shoes, and crystal diamond drop earrings. "Now, I'm sure not everyone in this room has had a fantastic year, " I said, knowing this was most definitely true, "How many people came into this room today and when through a dialogue similar to this:

    How are you?

    Great.

    How are the kids?

    Fanastic.

    Everything good?

    Yes. Never better.

    "Instead of this standard dialogue, did any of you respond, 'Well, it's been a tough year…the kids are struggling with their new school…Bill's company has been laying people off, and we're scared about what this all means…also, we started couples therapy six months ago, so let's just say the jury is still out."

    "As I spoke I could see them shifting around in their seats, sitting up in surprise, thinking, Okay what do I do with this? Do I keep my plastic smile right now as she is saying it? Do I try to relax and breathe into this: What do I do in this moment, where the truth has shown up unexpectedly? And can I sit with these unsettled feelings, or do I need to make sure that my inner Botox stays intact so that no one can see? Oh God, I hope I don't look as nervous as I feel."

    Finally, I said, "You know, there's a lot of financial wealth in this room.  Your wills are probably intact, and they lay out who's going to get what. But what are you willing to your children regarding the issues of their hunger and their failures? How have you taught them to react when their lives don't turn out the way they'd hoped? Can you bequeath them something now – leave them a legacy – that will release them from the shame, especially the shame of hunger? To not feel ashamed of their humanity? Because that's so much of what we're afraid of. That the more somebody sees our humanity, the more in danger we feel. What would it mean for you to will your children an image of you as a mother who is open to them being full? Open to their holes and wholeness and your own holes and wholeness?"

    "As I finished, a great silence came over the room. I saw perfectly put-together women wiping away tears and bowing their heads, obviously moved. When I left the stage, one of the organizers touched my arm. I turned and saw tears spilling dow her cheeks. She apologized for her emotion, saying "I'm sorry. I wasn't expecting that."

    "I smiled at her warmly. "Don't apologize. This moment is worthy of our tears." And my own eyes misted, mirroring the truth that we were all sisters in the same struggle – the struggle to be kind to ourselves as we bump up against our fragile and resilient humanity."

    "I went to the ladies room and when I was standing at the sink a woman came up to me, hesitantly. She thanked me for my remarks, but I could tell she had more to say. I waited her out. Finally, she said, in a barely audible voice, almost a whisper, "Thank you for acknowledging that there could be someone in this room who is a victim of domestic violence, too, because I am that woman, and I know there are others like me here today. It's a painful and shameful secret we are all dying and trying to keep. And you know, we have lots of money and a house here, one in the Hamptons, and a flat in Europe. Last summer, I was beaten so badly at our European beachfront oasis that I had to take my children to spend the night in a hotel room for our safety."

    "I was immediately sympathetic to her, but as I began to speak she waved a hand stopping me. "What I really wanted to comment on was what you said about a will and legacy we would leave our children," she said in a trembling voice. "We have a 26-year marriage with lots of money and lots of assets. But when you talked about what I'm giving my children, what I'm going to be passing on to them other than all this physical abuse and violence and this Kodak moment that was never real, I realized that I desperately want to leave them something healthy and real now before I'm dead or killed. I want to leave them something that will tell them that their hunger isn't bad. That my hunger was not bad. That I tried to keep our family together. That I'm not a horrible person or a weak person because I desired and tried to keep our family together."

    "Before I could respond, she slipped out the door and was gone. I would never know the rest of her story, but perhaps I had opened up a small sliver of light that would grow larger and brighter. Like many of the women in the room that night, she was starving but ashamed of her hunger – as if she didn't deserve a meal and a life. As if she could live without sustenance, safety and love. Reflecting on it later, I realized that she might not take that bite for her own sake, but might do it for her children. It was a start. We all have to begin honoring our hunger somewhere." Dr. Robin

    There are so many pages in this book earmarked and I am not even half way through.  What I love the most, is this book is about just being yourself and how we are all starving to be our truth…and that the world seems to be set up to keep us from being comfortably ourselves…

    I wonder if women are especially vulnerable to starving our real self by denying our feelings our desires and our passions, by silencing our voices and making choices to make others happy…while dying to be our self?

    What I also like about her questioning what are we WILLING to our children?

    I know that we are much more aware of what things, we will leave behind, but not what parts will our children carry forward of our lives.

    I feel extremely grateful for having the opportunity to leave behind a much more fuller legacy now, compared to what I would have left them 8 years ago. The years before I began living my truth.

    When Dr. Robin acknowledged that the woman in the bathroom, that was a very wealthy victim of domestic violence…how perhaps she would 'do it for her children, if not for herself'. 

    I know, that I began standing in my truth, not for me…but for my kids.  I was extremely uncomfortable looking at my truth, but I made choices based on their needs, not mine…yet in the end, I lived a legacy worth leaving behind.

    It wasn't a road that was easily navigated and at times one I wanted to get off of, but what I will now leave them with has much more substenance compared to the life I lived for the first 46, starving to be me…while not even knowing what I was hungry for.

    I am full of me…I am a whole me.  There is nothing I am hungry for.

    I feel that the choices I am making are all in alignment with my soul.

    Which is my ultimate dream for all my children; to be completely and openly themselves. To live their lives from the inside out. To speak their wishes and desires and make choices, EVEN if it is not popular.  

    I want them to have the strength and courage to stand up for themselves…to be authentically and 100% who they were born to be.

    Panache Desai called it living your soul's signature.







  • Dying to be Me!

    I am reading Dr. Robin Smith's new book, "Hungry – The Truth about being Full."

    "Fiction: If you reveal your real self, you'll be rejected."

    "Truth: If you're encouraged to be someone other than your real self, that is rejection."

    Experience can be a cruel teacher if the lesson you learn from childhood is that the real you is unacceptable.  It usually begins in small ways: "Don't say that." "Don't eat that." "Don't wear that." "Don't want that." "You did what?" "Fix your face." The messages can even feel benevolent.  Parents say, "I'm doing this for your own good." But the visceral feelings is shame – shame that you're not good enough."

    "Shame is at the heart of hiding and denying hunger – a deep fear that you are so fundamentally unlovable that no one will want you if they knew the real you. A man I know died of suicide after he lost his money in the stock market – an extreme example.  I can think of nothing sadder than a person who believes their very essence is unacceptable and unworthy of living unless they are always successful and "on top."

    "Living behind a mask may make things comfortable in the short term, but do you really want friends, lovers, and even collegues to like and appreciate you for the mask?  Or do you hunger to be accepted for your real self, warts and all?  The arid life behind the mask chokes off breath and free will.  A woman I know tells the story of her grandfather, who was raised in a religious Roman Catholic family.  But, for most of his adult life snuck into Quacker Meetings.  In his heart, he defined himself as a Quacker – all the while pretending to be a Catholic to keep peace in the family.  Only after his death was the truth revealed.  His freedom to be himself happened in death.  My heart went out to him when I heard his story.  I imagined his closed world, his unacceptable secret, and how lonely it must have been for him to keep his true nature locked away.  His story represents the fear we all have to be ourselves.  Sneaking to Quacker Meetings for worship was a brave step…at least he was trying to honor his hunger pains."

    "I often hear people proclaiming, "I want to be loved for the real me."  In reality, however, they worry that the price of authenticity will be too high. The truth is, there is no higher price than the one paid for living a life that is a lie."  Dr. Robin

    So far, and I am only a few pages in, I love this book…it is about "Dying to be Me!"

     

  • Failing in Seeing Reality

    Is life lived in the intentions, with the actions or in their outcome?  Where does reality bloom or how can we discern the value of the intentions from their literal outcome?

    What I am noticing is that in abusive families, the intentions more often than not, do not deliver the favored outcome or an outcome aligned with their intentions.

    And, I also believe that most who come from the distorted reality of abuse, believe that IF their intentions were wholly, then regardless of the outcome, they themselves cannot be held accountable.  They see themselves only by their intentions and not by the consequences of them.

    (I did go and look up the word Wholly. "Wholly – Entirely; fully.")

    Reality seems to change depending whether you are focusing on the intentions rather than the outcome.

    To me, IF my intentions are to be loving, but you feel hurt, than I am not loving you, regardless of my intent.

    There is no doubt, that in my life, I have lived with wholly intentions that had terrible outcomes…and yet, I felt righteously right, for I knew my intentions. Yet, I was blind to the affects my active intentions had on others…let alone on me.

    If you view the intentions of abusive families, their intentions are to love.  They are not trying to hurt or deliver pain…or to annihilate individual feelings, yet they do.

    In fact, I bet that most families mired in abuse, are totally unaware that their love hurts.  And, they will fight and holler and scream and profess deeply and ardently their love.  What they fail to appreciate is how their intentions fail to deliver their intended feelings of love.

    This has to be the fine line of contention between a loving family and an abusive one, the lack of actually delivering love.

    My mother will claim her undying love for me, yet her actions failed to match her intentions.  Her letters always state how much she loved/loves me.  And yet, she was not able to do what love would do.

    So again, if her intentions were wholly; fully love, does it really matter the outcome?

    I say yes.  

    For her intentions were to be loving, yet she failed in doing the hardest thing love does.  

    What does love do when someone abuses your child?

    Does love forgive the abuser?

    Is it possible to have loving feelings for both the abuser and the abused?

    Her intentions of loving everyone, had consequences….dire ones.

    What is the cornerstone of abuse, is the lack of being a responsible lover, of failing to carryout actions of love.  Instead, no boundaries are erected, no relationships are severed, nothing changes.  Abuse has no consequences in a dysfunctional home.

    Even the wide variety of helping actions towards my father are not seen as being supportive of an abuser. They will each tell you of their honorable intentions, failing to see the consequences to themselves and others.

    My goal in the past 8 years is to see how, what I do, DOES  affect others and how am I contributing to or not promoting abuse.

    Isn't the road to hell paved with good intentions?

    Perhaps the abusive family lives in intentions and bases their confidence there, rather than in the collateral damage in its wake.

    It is like there are two drastically different viewpoints of our family….intentions and outcomes.

    And, I believe that many feel, that if their intentions were not cruel or harmful, then they are not 'bad' people.  They want to see gleeful enthusiasm of ill intent…which is absent in many abusive homes.  

    It is like Patrick Carnes writes about in The Betrayal Bond, "There is always something kind, noble or redeeming about someone who has betrayed you. Victims of betrayal will hold on those good things even while the world crashes around them. By holding on they stay stuck…"

    What most in my family are doing is holding on the to the good…which is normal in betrayal bonds. Seeing the bad, but giving it logical reasons and justifications.

    My father's history lends itself to laying the foundation for my father's actions.  Just because I understand them doesn't mean he is guilt free.

    Most in my family are acting out according to the bonds of betrayal. I don't feel betrayed by them, although I used to.  Now, I understand that coming from whence they came, they are behaving perfectly.

    They will continue to reap what they sow…not their intentions but the consequences of their actions.  Failing to see the consequences of their actions is to fail in seeing reality.

    "We must always hold truth, as we can best determine it, to be more important, more vital to our self-interest than our comfort.  Conversely, we must always consider our personal discomfort relatively unimportant, and indeed, even welcome it in the service for truth. Mental health is an ongoing process of dedication to reality at all costs."    M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled…

     

     

  • Rules and Sins

    "We Sinners" by Hanna Pylvainen, is a book of fiction about the Laestadianism faith.  And it has many similarities to my old religion especially in how it affects the children as they enter into their young adult years and the complications of being raised within a rule based religion.

    I found it fascinating to read about something similar to my own roots…and how the family members lived this religion or tried to…or failed and its consequences.

    It shows the complexity of not being able to walk the walk that is presented AND live your life honestly.  It literally forces you to lie in order to be a 'good' christian.

    Even as a women who is unable to use birth control and the sheer amount of hardship having so many pregnancies and its wear and tear on the body…and try to be graceful about the overwhelming burden of caring for so many children adequately, let alone your own self.

    I was asked to come to a book group and talk about We Sinners, which is why I read it.  It brought back the weight of that religion upon my childhood home.  

    The guilt laden rules of the religion seem so far from my world, like it was another lifetime ago.

    "We Sinners" clearly shows how religion reigns supreme and how the individual, let alone the family structure, is secondary to upholding the religion. The religion will make you a fine person and will keep the family strong…it untruthfully says, when in fact, it is the religion itself and its impossible rules that lead to the decay.

    When religion comes before the person, the person will rot from the lack of self expression or authentic living…to be able to freely be yourself.  Instead we are made to conform into a veriable cage surrounded by rules and sins.

     

  • Change in our Homes.

    I purchased Nate Berkus's book, "The Things That Matter"….and have been pleasantly or at least unexpectedly surprised, in how he was able to show the person by what kinds of things their homes held.

    I remember seeing my home for the second time, but like it was the first time.

    When I suffered my breakdown into reality, I looked around my home like a stranger, wondering who had decorated it; for very little represented me. Instead it looked like bits and pieces and fragments of what other people liked.

    My daughter then painted the whole house and added color, and we went about reorganizing it…mostly throwing out all that we didn't love of find a deeper reason to keep it.

    Now, about eight years have passed, adult children have come and gone and my last one is thinking of leaving this spring.  It leaves me once again to look at my house and the things that matter.

    I also had given up the house as being a high priority and allowed myself to relax so that my kids could relax at home…and with it went my desire or passion to have my home a certain way.  

    I feel the stirring of desire to reclaim my home.  To make it a couple's home…to have it once again reflect us.  

    I wondered about myself and my lack of caring for redoing rooms now left vacant…had I lost total interest in my living space?  

    What it does show me is that I had put my children's interests and needs ahead of the house, for now the home is in need of some artful care.

    Nate's book has inspired me to look at the things I have in my house…what is their connection to me…what do I love…and what could easily go?

    I also love that he likes homes that break the 'rules' of decorating the best. This frees us all to just be ourselves, to bring in what we love and then our homes will reflect us.

    For 25 years our home has been shared with children and their stuff, along with what they needed to feel at home in our home…and now I feel the excitement to once reclaim this whole space. 

    It will be an easier task to go through things, when you can weed out all that don't matter.

    Little by little, thing by thing, room by room, I will make our home full of things that matter…and in turn will be a house of things I love.  

    I feel grateful for letting things go…and putting my kids first.  

    I have let them have messy rooms, painted rooms, rooms of many colors, rooms for TV and games, toy rooms, overflowing entry spaces, closets stuffed with stuff….

    It will not feel like an empty nest, but an empty canvas…one where I can once again transform it into a childless home.

    How interesting to see our lives change in our homes.

  • Relieved From Being Grounded

    I am reading Pema Chodron's book, "Taking a Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears.

    She writes,

    "There are many ways to discuss ego, but in essence it's what I've been talking about.  It's the experience of never being present.  There is a deep-seated tendency, it's almost a compulsion, to distract ourselves, even when we're not consciously feeling uncomfortable. There's a background hum of edginess, boredom, restlessness. As I've said, during my time in retreat where there were almost no distractions, even there I experienced this deep uneasiness."

    "The Buddhist explanation is that we feel this uneasiness because we're always trying to get ground under our feet and it never quite works.  We're always looking for a permanent reference point, and it doesn't exist. Everything is impermanent. Everything is always changing – fluid, unfixed, and open.  Nothing is pin-down-able the way we'd like it to be. This is not actually bad news, but we all seem to be programmed for denial.  We have absolutely no tolerance for uncertainty."

    "It seems that insecurity is ego's reaction to the shifting nature of reality. We tend to find the groundlessness of our fundamental situation extremely uncomfortable. Virtually everybody knows this basic insecurity, and often we experience it as horrible. With me in that  same three-year retreat was a woman with whom I'd once been close friends. Something had happened between us, though, and I felt now that she hated me.  We were in a very small building together, we had to pass each other in the narrow corridors, and there was no way to get away from each other.  She was very angry and wouldn't talk to me, and that brought up feelings of profound helplessness. My usual strategies were not working.  I was continually feeling pain of no reference point, no confirmation. The ways I had always used to feel secure and in control had fallen apart.  I tried all the techniques I had been teaching for years, but nothing worked."

    "So one night, since I couldn't sleep, I went up to the meditation hall, and sat all through the night.  I was just sitting with raw pain with almost no thoughts about it. Then something happened: I had a completely clear insight that my whole personality, my whole ego-structure, was based on not wanting to go to this groundless place.  Everything I did, the way I smiled, the way I talked to people, the way I tried to please everybody – it was all to avoid feeling this way.  I realized our whole facade, the little song and dance we all do, is all based on trying to avoid the groundlessness that permeates our lives."

    "By learning to stay, we become very familiar with this place, and gradually, gradually, it loses its threat.  Instead of scratching, we stay present. We're no longer invested in constantly trying to move away from insecurity. We think that facing our demons is reliving some traumatic event or discovering for sure that we're worthless. But, in fact, it is just abiding with the uneasy, disquieting sensation of nowhere-to-run and finding that – guess what?- we don't die; we don't collapse.  In fact, we feel profound relief and freedom."  Pema

    Isn't it interesting to see her view point of ego, of not wanting to feel the unease of living groundless and changing.  The part of us that wants to ground your life in a certain feeling is the only one with the trouble, for feelings are moving….and changing, and life is not stuck in one spot….even though often it seems like our lives are stuck, we only imagine they are.

    I was lucky to have experienced the free falling, feeling of no ground, and panic…only to find that that is the true nature of living.  

    "This too shall pass…" is the state of being.  Being present is to get used to feeling the static uneasy and not find a permanent reference point.  We want to hold onto something that will NEVER change!  And that alone, is impossible.  Somehow, we have grabbed onto addictions and habits that we believe will bring us permanence, when the only thing permanent is our habitual actions…while life hums along groundlessly changing beneath us.

    We grow old, people die, fall out of love, into love, feel sad, feel happy, it moves and ebbs and flows and we pile layers of habit on top…focusing only on that, believing life lives there….it is only a camouflage over life.  Ego I guess lives in habit, while our souls thrive in ever changing uncertainty….free and relieved from being grounded.