I M Perfect lady

Category: Books

  • Spirit of who we are.

    Shafali Tsabary's new book, "The Awakened Family" has what she calls

    "The Mandate of the Awakened Family."

     

    The time for a new beginning has arrived,

    Where family is no longer the chain that binds us

    But is the earth from which we blossom

    And the sky we learn to fly.

     

    No matter how the family unit looks, 

    It begins with a parent and child.

    A relationship that holds the energy of the sun,

    With the power to break patterns and resurrect the spirit.

     

    The awakened family waits for no one,

    It begins to heal right here, right now.

    It recognizes that these sacred bonds

    Can revolutionize the planet.

     

    "We awaken when we become aware of who we truly are. This awareness brings a realization of how liberating it is to be authentic – to be real, instead of who we think we are supposed to be or who others want us to be. Once we have connected with our sovereign spirit, creating the space for our children to get in touch with their own spirit becomes the critical objective of parenthood. Committed to the manifestation of the true self in each member of the family, the awakened family paves the way for children to own, discover, and express their inner voice, through which they foster connectivity with both their own being and that of others. Cognizant that this right to express their own spirit is the key ingredient for they present and future resilience and empowerment, they become a part of the global evolution of a world built on compassion and nonviolence and prosperity."

    "An awakened parent is one who is aware that the traditional paradigms of parenting, where the parent is seen as a greater than the child, are obsolete in the modern world, producing dysfunction and disconnection in families. Instead, they are willing to be the architects of a new model of parenthood where parent and child are seen as equal, serving as mutual partners on a path of growth founded on increasing consciousness."

    "In an awaked family, parents are aware that every relationship in their family exists to help each person grow. Parents view their children as mirrors through which they are able to see how they themselves need to mature and develop.  Instead of fixing what they see as faults in their children, these parents seek to work on themselves, raising their own levels of maturity and presence. The focus is always on the parent's awareness rather than the child's behavior. This is the core insight of the book."

    "When parents are aware in the present moment, learning and growing alongside their children, the entire family thrives. Free to actualize their individual destiny, each family member lives unencumbered and unafraid. Empowered with self-awareness, boundless in self-belief, liberated in self-expression, each feels free to explore, discover, and manifest their authentic being. The is the mandate of the awakened family." Dr. Shafali

     

    What she writes about in this book is true in my experience.

    Once I began working on myself and becoming authentic, my children became my equals.

    I highly recommend this book for anyone who has children.  And, even for those of us who are the awakened ones within families, to see why it is we couldn't stay.

    I could literally quote the whole book here on the blog!

    She writes –

    "…When children aren't given the space to assert their authentic voice, but are drowned out by the roar of parental agendas, they grow up anxious and depressed. Many of our young people who are so deprived of our acceptance – of simply being seen for who they are – that they self-harm in a variety of ways. Getting drunk, taking drugs, engaging in inappropriate sexual relations, even cutting themselves – all of these are cries for our acceptance. They are manifestations of a deep wantinging to be seen, validated, and known."

     

    What I love about this book, is that she does allow you to look at your parents and to see why it is that we had to become inauthentic in order to survive.  But, she also knows the remedy for it now.  How children are actually here to help us return to our authenticity IF you are willing to present and awakened.

    In fact, she calls the children "Awakeners".

    I love these paragraphs too.

    "To exercise domination over our children is a huge temptation for our ego, which loves to feel powerful and in control. Can we really blame it, when it was raised in an autocratic manner and is now addicted to it? After all, who else allows us near-total control over their life? You cannot do it at work. Or with your parents or siblings or friends. Often, your ego thinks the only relationship you can have complete control over is the one with your child. That's why it tries so hard to exert it. Only with our children do we get to be all-knowing, controlling, dictatorial.  If we only realized how this kind of control is actually indicative of a weak sense of inner power, we might reconsider our ways."

    "When we ignore the immature ways we sometimes behave toward our children, which they consistently reflect back to us, we turn down one of the most profound opportunities to grow ourselves up. If on the other hand we embrace the mirroring of our immaturity that our children offer us, we have a chance to become profoundly altered. The most ordinary, everyday, interactions with them in even the tiniest matters then become a catalyst for change."  Dr.Shefali

     

    What I love the most, is that we are always directed back to our self, for change.

    It isn't about what the child is doing; but our reaction and response to it…or even that we are the cause for poor behavior.

    If a parent can choose to be an awakened one and truly see their child as the awakener, your life will change in brilliant ways.

    It will not be easy; but it will be completely and utterly worthwhile; a journey of a lifetime.

    I have traveled this.

    Lived it and am living it.

    And, I know that my view of my children changed completely.

    To literally be able to see them without the filters of my past and societal expectations, but to see them as they are, is so huge.

    They owe me nothing.

    They don't need to become anything for me.

    There is nothing wrong with them; but perhaps an untold number of things wrong with me and the way I parent.

    Each day, as we move along together, IF I can remain present or struggle back to presence, our family will always benefit. Always!

    This book has the power to transform each dysfunctional family legacy that many of us have been raised beneath.

    When parents awaken, our world will change. This can be the most beautiful legacy you leave your children!

    Imagine a world where children are known as the awakeners!

    Who come to show us back to the spirit of who we are.

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  • Worth Living For

    In her book, "The Awakened Woman" Tererai speaks about finding your sacred dreams.  

    "…All this happened by naming an unnamed longing in her heart. That is the the awakening of our consciousness. When we listen to what makes us ache and breaks our hearts, we find our Great Hunger, our sacred purpose."

    She has a few questions to ask yourself in moments of silence- space and meditation.

    "Where do I look in my community or in the world and feel my heart aching with some lack , pain or injustice?

    "What does my heart long for?

    "Repeat the questions if you need more time with them:

    "What breaks my heart?"

    "What in this world makes my heart ache?"

    "What does my heart long for?"

    "While still in your comfortable position in your quiet space, take a few minutes to say your answer aloud, even if only fragments or phrases emerge. You may not know what to make of your answer.  You may have two, three, or more answers. The answer may not make complete sense to you at this time. All of this is okay. The answer, even if partially formed is the beginning of your sacred dreams journey. Be open to any thing that surfaces."

    "No matter what arose in you this is a time for celebration. Take a few breaths of gratitude for the opportunity to explore these questions."

    "Before returning to your day, I encourage you to write down what you discovered. Now is a good time to start a journal or keep a notebook to chart your revelations as you read and practice these awakened rituals."

    "Over the next couple of days, read or state aloud what you discovered in response to the question What breaks your heart? Allow yourself to let the responses turn over and float through your daily thoughts and feelings. Begin making connections between your heart's longing and your life.  How might your heart's desire become a dream you can achieve? Do you see a connection to something beyond your own personal goals? How? Can you explain it to yourself and a friend?"

    "Most important, ask, "Do these desires not only heal the past but also uplift generations to come? Remember, you are not an ordinary dreamer, you are a sacred sister and you dream with a purpose for the greater good."

    "You will know if the desire in your heart is the kernel of sacred dream, because it will energize you, invoke your spirit of resilience, un-silence the once silenced voice, speak to issues that matter most and implore you to encourage other women to do the same. The Great Hunger expects you to honor the greater good with your gifts. This is what gives meaning to life."

    "Your unique gifts are longing to be expressed, and the Great Hunger will keep on nudging (or pestering) until you respond to the call. The whispers of the Great Hunger are always encouraging us to unlock what is within. Release your Great Hunger and you will be led by it with grace."  Tererai

     

    This was the first time I had heard passion or life purpose described in this way – what breaks your heart?

    Some of us wonder what our calling is; what is the purpose of life. Few of us are ever asked, "what breaks your heart?".

    Who knew, that this inner grief, could be our dream?

    What breaks my heart today, is mostly connected to the cycles of abuse. 

    My heart breaks for those who are unknowingly stuck in the cycle, and are powerless within themselves. Their lack of self-esteem and self-love; keep them forever victims for love and attention.

    My heart breaks for children who have to endure abuse; because the adults in their worlds are incapable to protect them.

    In looking closely into my own family of origin cycle, I can see the pattern repeating itself into infinity. The present learning nothing from the past. Where truths arise and are slowly faded into the wallpaper of the past. Nothing learned and/or nothing changed. 

    Would empowered women allow these cycles to continue? 

    Spiritual awakening IS to be awakened to your sacred dream; to what your heart hungers for.

     

    Tererai goes on to write about role models and the invisible road ahead.

    "We also need role models if we are to put our dreams into action, if we are to overcome all the forces that silence us. We need them to keep the spark going. If we are to act in service of our goals, it helps to see the footprints laid out before us and to be familiar with the known and unknown hands reaching back to pull us forward. This truly speaks to our connectedness – our ubuntu, or the essences of our humanity, knowing the we exist because of others and that it's our collectiveness that strengthens us. We need to know that every little step we take toward our sacred dreams makes us part of a global collective. And, yet there is always that invisible stretch of road full of challenges that hold us back."

    "The Invisible Stretch of Road"

    "There is an invisible stretch of road that lies between the idea of our dreams and the finishing mark of achieving them. This pathway is entrenched with barriers and potholes that seem to increase in depth as we women get closer and closer to claiming the prize. These barriers are universal, and we feel them deeply, but they are not identical across space and time: each woman faces her own impassible stretch of road in her own way."

    "Who are the champions who faced their own pervasive stretch of road and succeeded? My sisters, what are the inspirational stories that will awaken us from our own silencing and make our challenges feel recognized and help us map out how to cross the rocky terrain that leads to our dreams? Who are these giants whose stories remain a song in our souls reminding us that it is achievable – tinogona?"

    "Can we find them, and let their energy invigorate our passion? And do they have to be celebrities, or extraordinary individuals, or could they be an unknown grandmother whose ancient call becomes our source of inspiration? An elderly woman in your community who gained perspective from her own struggles and now inspires others to dream big, or a mother whose resilience has become a torch for others to shine light on their possibilities, or, perhaps an unlikely ordinary individual doing some extraordinary things to uplift others?" Tererai

     

    My role models are those who have changed the patterns of their legacy. Who have overcome the inner pull to remain closed within the family circle; who have broken free and found their own sense of self.  Martha Beck is one.  

    I admire the rebels, the unique individuals who walk to their own drum beat.

    They have taught me to be myself; even when it isn't popular or accepted.

    The invisible road that I have traveled on outside of the circle of family, is truly an invisible one.

    The unknown, far outweighs the known.

    My great hunger was for no more abuse. Little did I know, this thirst would lead me onto new paths.

    Paths that held great sorrow and brilliant self discoveries and would lead me far away from family.

    The distance I am from family, equals the changes I have made with my life.

    I can't know yet, if my dream is achievable.

    Can there really be a limb of my family tree that will be spared the agony of abuse?

    How far will the echo of my footsteps ring?

    Will the generations below me feel my hands pushing them forward?

    Is there anyone who feels the pull of my hands?

    My heart chose this road.  

    It seemed preordained.

    Whether I am successful or not; I lived true to my heart.

    And, that is something worth living for.

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  • Awakened Woman!

    I am listening to, and reading Terrai Trent's book, "The Awakened Woman". I love it.

    There is so much I want to share.

    "Soul Wounds"

    "We might think that the easiest thing to do in the face of so much silencing would be to put our hope in the future generations. But this struggle does not end with us. The vicious cycle of silencing women is not only in Nikita's or my ancestral village, it's global, and it forces women to make drastic decisions that further marginalize them, which in turn seals their fate at various levels of trauma to the soul."

    "Dr. Bertice Berry, an award-winning comedienne, motivational speaker, and sitcom star of The Bertice Berry Show, crystallized the viciousness of intergenerational family cycles when she said with no intervention we stay trapped in these negative cycles, as our parents and their parents before them were. In her book The World According to Me, Dr. Berry describes this generational curse: "Your parents are running a relay 'round the track and when you came along, they passed you the baton. You never really got to ask if this was your race… The pressure to keep going in the same direction , as fast as possible, is intense." No one can end this race without a powerful intention to change direction. " Tererai

     

    I love the visual of the baton and the relay we have with our parents and the generations before them AND after us. 

    I refused to carry the baton after doing so for 46 years. I dropped it to the ground and there is no part of me that wants to retrieve it.

     

    She goes on to say, 

    "My mother realized that if someone in our family and community was to break the cycle, she was going to have to achieve an almost impossible dream, a dream that would right the wrongs of generations and tear down barriers for girls. It was going to take a bold dream. And I had one – an insatiable hunger for education and for change to come to my village. Perhaps the most important gift my mother ever gave me was this: she made it clear to me that I had the right to dream, no matter the circumstances of my life."

    "The truth is, if we don't make it our mission to speak our truths in the face of so much silencing, we may not be putting our hope in the next generation, but instead passing down our silences to them. Lakota social work professor Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart calls this "historical trauma": "The cumulative emotional and psychological wounding over the lifespan and across generations." She also uses the phrase "Soul Wound" to explain this phenomenon."

    "Researchers have long thought that descendants of people who have lived through hardship are likely to pass on their trauma by way of socialization cues like sharing their own fears, anxieties, and depression. But cutting edge research now shows that this intergenerational wound is also an embodied one. Science is now helping us see that trauma is not only transmitted through social and cultural expressions, but act social experiences of suffering actually permeate our biological makeup – past traumas of our families are store in our cells. Experts call this epigenetic" Tererai

     

    Imagine, a mother who wants different for her daughter! This would have completely changed the relationship I had with my mother.  My mother instead tried to make me seem insane.  

    Doing anything differently, is not met with understanding. It is not seen as empowerment or rising self-esteem.  It is only seen as rebellion for dropping the baton.

    She goes on to write about her grandmother.

    "From Ambuya Muzoda I learned that gender inequality has the power to crush a woman's spirit. She firmly believed that young wives will only get in trouble by speaking out. She often said, "It is best to keep quiet and avoid saying things that trigger insults or beatings from a husband." Ambuya Muzoda suggests that I pretend to have a mouthful of holy water that cannot be swallowed and can only be spit out at the end of the argument. In other words keep quiet! She says this is the best way for wives to keep the peace at home. After all, one wouldn't want an abuser to have the satisfaction of seeing a woman's tears. To my grandmother, the suffering of woman was a curse with no solution." 

    "I did not agree with my grandmother's tragedy, but I also refused to let my husband see my tears. Early in my own first marriage, my husband encountered my stubborn refusal to cry. During fights, I wouldn't speak or fight back. I showed no emotion at all. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction. Instead, I'd bite my lower lip to hold back tears just as I did as a child working in the fields. This infuriated him and caused such incidents to escalates into assaults. And then blood and tears would begin to mingle. But to me, blood was better than Ambuya Mazola's approach. Although I admired her dignity, I did not want to live a passive life if I could avoid it."

    "My grandmother was a beautiful, dignified woman, but she passed down to me the trauma of being a woman in a patriarchal culture. She passed down to me her soul wound. She did not know any other way to protect or guide me."

    "Perhaps we haven't all experienced such profound trauma, but I'm willing to bet that you've suffered silences, indignities, sexism, or lost the pull of your girlhood dreams. What are your soul wounds? Can you afford to give those wounds to the next generation? "Our ancestors dreamed us up," writes educator and poet Walidah Imarisha, "and then bent reality to create us." What can you dream up for yourself and the world for the good of generations to come?  Tererai

     

    There is real power and legacy in the baton that carries the soul wounds of the women before us.  We literally have to choose to passively carry forward the pain when we repeat our parents lives.

    I recall vividly the morning, my intention was seared into my cells. "There will be no more." I can still see the sun glistening on the gravel rocks on my road, creating a bloody image before me.  

    There will be no more abuse, was my intention.

    I will use my life to stop passively supporting abusers by my silences.

    Every cell in my body agreed with me.

    There was hope, that someday, a woman/girl/boy/man in my family could be raised from childhood without suffering at the hands of a sexual abuser.

    That I would do the hard stuff. 

    I would suffer the loneliness, the ridicule and shame, of doing things completely different.

    It was as if I was born to be the change I wanted.

    I didn't have a role model to show me how.

    I didn't have a mother who supported this change.

    The village of church members were not cheering me on.

    And yet, I walked on, resolute in my dream, that it was achievable.

     

    Tererai goes on to write.

    "I shared the experience of meeting Jo Luck with my mother. Despite my fears, I reaffirmed my desire for an education. I told her, "The woman makes me believe that I can get an education and that my children can too." You would think that my mother – like her mother before her – who had suffered through tremendous adversity and abuse would be worn down by life. But not my mother! What I said was music to her ears! She told me to hold on this dream as though my life depended upon it."

    "She said, "If you believe in this dream of education and you achieve it, you are not only defining your future, but that of every life coming out of your womb, as well as those for generations to come. What you wast to become will change how you see the world around you." My mother repeated this mantra often, which to this day keeps me grounded."

    "My excitement, however, was deeply vulnerable to the realities of my situation – poverty an abusive husband, and my low self-esteem were ever present to mock my excitement, to laugh at my dreams. My mother knew I needed to go back to my foundation to find my roots. And so she encouraged me to write down my dreams and bury them in the ground. She told me that Mother Earth would nourish them beneath the soil and help them grow. To ease my doubts, she added, "Vimba naNyadenga, nevadzimu vedu, zvaunoshuvira zvinobudirira" – Trust the Universe to honor your dreams."  

    Here is what she buried.

    "I Tererai, have decided that as a woman, a life without education will be a burden. So I must educate myself. I met a woman from Heifer International who encouraged me to believe that I could achieve my dream of educating my children and myself. Here is my dream.

    1. To go to America
    2. To get an undergraduate degree;
    3. To get a master's degree; and to 
    4. To get a PhD."

    When she showed the paper to her mother, she said, "Every dream has a greater meaning when tied to the betterment of community. This is what creates a meaningful life. It is one thing to achieve a dream based upon individual needs and another to build upon the common good. Her words inspired me to add a fifth dream.

     5. To give back to my community, especially to alleviate the plight of woman and girls." 

     

    I love that her mother was part of the dream creation and believed she could do it. And, she also believed that the Universe would honor it!

    I never wrote mine down.

    I didn't share my dream with my mother.  

    My early days of leaving the baton on the ground, was about the differences between us. Not a dream of someday, there being a family tree without abuse.

    I wonder at the differences of our dreams?

    I believe, my mother's dream is to keep her family together, no matter what.

    So far, she achieved it – except Me.

    I love the title of this book, "The Awakened Woman" and I agree with her that we are awakening around the world.  Breaking the silences, dropping batons and planting dreams that will end the suffering of woman. 

    Here's to the awakened woman!!

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  • Brene Brown goes on to say, in her new book "Braving The Wilderness" – about dehumanizing.

     

    "Challenging ourselves to live by higher standards requires constant diligence and awareness. We're so saturated by these words and images, we're close to normalizing moral exceptions. In addition to diligence and awareness, we need courage. Dehumanizing works because people who speak out against what are often sophisticated enemy image campaigns – or people who fight to make sure that all of us are morally included and extend basic human rights – often face harsh consequences."

    "An important example is the debate around Black Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter, and All Lives Matter. Can you believe that black lives matter and also care deeply about the well- being of police officers? Of course.  Can you care about the well- being of police officers and at the same time be concerned about abuse of power and systemic racism in law enforcement and the criminal justice system?  Yes.  I  have relatives who are police officers – I can't tell you how deeply I care about their safety and well-being. I do almost all of my pro bono work with the military and public servants like the police – I care.  And when we care, we should all want the systems to reflect the honor and dignity of the people who serve in those systems."

    "But then, if it's the case that we can care about the citizens and the police, shouldn't the rally cry just be All Lives Matter?  No.  Because the humanity wasn't stripped from all lives the way it was stripped from the lives of black citizens.  In order for slavery to work, in order for us to buy and sell, beat and trade people, like animals, Americans had to completely dehumanize slaves. And whether we directly participated in that or were simply a member of the culture that at one time normalized that behavior, it shaped us. We can't undo that level of dehumanizing in one or two generations. I believe that Black Lives Matter is a movement to rehumanize black citizens. All lives matter, but not all lives need to be pulled back into the moral inclusion.  Not all people were subjected to the psychological process of dehumanizing and being made less than human so we could justify the inhumane practice of slavery."

    "Is there tension and vulnerability in supporting both the police and the activists? Hell, yes. It's the wilderness.  But most of the criticism comes from people who are intent on forcing these false either/or dichotomies and shaming us for not hating the right people. It's definitely messier taking a nuanced stance, but it's also critically important to true belonging."

    "Another example of straddling the tension of supporting a system we love and holding accountable comes from one of the research participants, a former athlete from Penn State. He took a strong stand as an advocate for the abuse survivors who suffered due to the silence of the football program and Joe Paterno's protection of Jerry Sandusky. He said he couldn't believe how hateful some of his friends were, friends he'd known for thirty years. He said, "When you love a place like we love Penn (State), you fight to make it better, to own our problems and fix them. You don't pretend that everything's okay. That's not loyalty or love, that's fear."

    "When the culture of any organization mandates that it is more important to protect the reputation of a system and those in power than it is to protect the basic human dignity of the individuals who serve that system or who are served by that system, you can be certain that the shame is systemic, the money is driving the ethics, and the accountability is all but dead. This is true in corporations, nonprofits, universities, governments, faith communities, schools, families and sports programs. If you think back on any major scandal fueled by cover-ups, you'll see this pattern. And the restitution and resolution of cover-ups almost always happens in the wilderness – when one person steps outside their bunker and speaks their truth."

    "As we think about our journey from "fitting in" to striding into the wilderness of true belonging, we will be well served by understanding and recognizing the boundaries of respecting everyone's physical safety, and not participating in experiences or communities that utilize language and/or engage in behaviors that dehumanize people. I think calling the latter "emotional safety" is inaccurate. We're not talking about hurt feelings; we're talking about the very foundation of physical danger and violence." Brene Brown

     

    Okay, where do I begin to begin.

    What I love about this, is she has put language to what I have been experiencing from family and church.

    My frustrations have been when others can't see how when they worry more about the reputation of the institution/group etc, they are turning away from the treatment that has been dehumanizing.

    Can it really be a group of substance and value, when you are working to cover-up or uphold its reputation AFTER knowing abuse and dehumanizing acts have happened??

    What are you upholding???

    When church members, past and present, come in and try and convince me of the holy reputation of the First Apostolic Lutheran Church, I know they are not seeing the abused. They are instead choosing to uphold and be part of keeping its pristine reputation alive.  Meanwhile, I am speaking out as a victim of sexual abuse.

    The two pathways have no common ground.

    As my family continues to gather, celebrate and connect – maintaining its family like qualities, I stand back, doing what Brene writes about.

    "we will be well served by understanding and recognizing the boundaries of respecting everyone's physical safety, and not participating in experiences or communities that utilize language and/or engage in behaviors that dehumanize people."

    How else can we change the pattern and humanity?

    I am rehumanizing Me.

    I am reclaiming my human rights.

    And, in doing so, I have often found myself alone in the wilderness;

    Belonging to Me.

    I am no longer an active member of my family of origin.

     

     

     

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  • "You are only free when you realize you belong no place – you belong every place – no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great"           Maya Angelou.

    I began reading Brene Brown's new book "Braving the Wilderness.

    I love this part.

    "Belonging is the innate human desire to be part of something larger than us. Because this yearning is so primal, we often try to acquire it by fitting in and by seeking approval, which are not only hollow substitutes for belonging, but often barriers to it. Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance."

     

    "This definition has withstood the test of time as well as the emergence of new data, but it is incomplete. There's much more to true belonging. Being ourselves means sometimes having to find courage to stand alone, totally alone. Even as I wrote this, I still thought of belonging as requiring something external to us – something we secured by, yes showing up in a real way, but needing an experience that always involved others. So as I dug deeper into true belonging, it became clear that it's not something we achieve or accomplish with others; it's something we carry in our heart. Once we belong thoroughly to ourselves and believe thoroughly in ourselves, true belonging is ours."

    "Belonging to ourselves means being called to stand alone – to brave the wilderness of uncertainty, vulnerability, and criticism. And with the world feeling like a political and ideological combat zone, this is remarkably tough. We seem to have forgotten that even when we're utterly alone, we're connected to one another by something greater than group membership, politics, and ideology – that we're connected by love and human spirit. No matter how separate we are by what we think and believe, we are part of the same spiritual story."

    DEFINING TRUE BELONGING

    "I'm a qualitative grounded theory researcher. The goal of grounded theory is to develop theories based on people's lived experiences rather than proving or disproving existing theories. In grounded theory, researchers try to understand what we call "the main concern" of study participants. When it comes to belong, I asked: What are people trying to achieve? What are they worried about?"

    "The answer was surprisingly complex. They want to be a part of something – to experience real connection with others – but not at the cost of their authenticity, freedom, or power. Participants further reported feeling surrounded by "us verses them" cultures that create feelings of spiritual disconnection. When I dug deeper into what they meant by "spiritually disconnected," the research participants described a diminishing sense of shared humanity. Over and over, participants talked about their concern that the only thing that binds us together now is shared fear and disdain, not common humanity, shared trust, respect or love. They reported feeling more afraid to disagree or debate with friends, colleagues, and family because of the lack of civility and tolerance."

    "Reluctant to choose between being loyal to a group and being loyal to themselves, but lacking that deeper spiritual connection to shared humanity, they were far more aware of the pressure to "fit in" and conform. Connection to a larger humanity gives people more freedom to express their individuality without fear of jeopardizing belonging. This is the spirit, which now seems missing, of saying, "Yes, we are different in many ways, but under it all we're deeply connected."

    "As I was defining the main concern related to belonging, I went back to The Gifts of Imperfection to look up the definition of spirituality that had emerged from my 2010 data:

    "Spirituality is recognizing and celebrating that we are all inextricably connected to each other by a power greater than all of us, and that our connection to that power and to one another is grounded in love and compassion."

    "I kept reading the words "inextricably connected" over and over. We've broken that link.  And in the next chapter, I'm going to show you how and why we broke it. The rest of the book is about fixing it – finding our way back to one another."  Brene Brown.

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    This part really struck me, for I have often stood alone in the past 12 or so years.  

    And, while I have been alone, more often than not, I did truly feel that I  truly belonged to Me. 

    "Once we belong thoroughly to ourselves and believe thoroughly in ourselves, true belonging is ours."

    This is so true in my experience.

    And, I also believe that the main part of my estrangement IS the lack of spirituality – a deeper sense beneath beliefs and ideology of family – there seemed to be a lack of humanity.

    In many dialogues, as we tried to make sense of the world of dysfunction, abuse, cults etc, we would often wonder about the humanity part.

    How could humanity treat other humans this way.

    So, there are two main components to my aloneness.

    One being I wasn't willing to join a group and give up on my authenticity…and then, the lack of being able to connect on a human level. There just didn't seem to be 'something' beneath their beliefs.

    It was as if nothing lived deeper within them.

    Where I found, and connected to a little girl or a lady who was just waking up to who she was, others lacked this.

    Or, perhaps never showed it to me.

    Their agenda to save the family, stand by the parent etc, may have disallowed them to show me what lie beneath. Did their authenticity disagree with the group they were wanting to be part of?

    It is as if the 'love' that the family defined was the only level there was. I couldn't tap into a deeper more individual self who belonged only to themselves. 

    Mostly, it appeared, that their inner world belonged to the larger group called family and/or religion.

    A woman, who was from the Old Apostolic Lutheran Church, I will never forget. There was nothing deeper than what she had been taught. There wasn't an individual who could speak or move outside of what her church had taught her.

    Unless and until you are free and belong only to yourself; you will not be able to see the level of humanity lacking.

    Unless you believe in their religion, there simply isn't nothing to relate to.

    There is no humanity beneath.

    Just as I felt in my family of origin. IF, I didn't agree with the family pattern, there was no land for us to relate to each other on. 

    I could only see and feel the family agenda.

    I can't wait to read how Brene writes in how we lost humanity and how we can get it back.

    I also agree with her sentence "Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance."

    What I have felt and experienced most is the low levels of self-acceptance. How this one place leaves you with very little to connect to.

    How can we connect with each other, IF one of us has no real love and acceptance of who they are??

    This just resonates deep within me. 

    Imagine, "our belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance."  I know, that my full acceptance of all me, the abused, the confused, the mental, the denial, etc, helped me connect deeply and belong fully to me.

    There was no part of me, that I didn't bring back to me.

    I belong!

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  • The Landscape Within

    From "A Mind At Home With Itself"

    Question asked of Byron Katie; and her response.

    "Mind is everything; mind is good," you say. Are you talking about awareness? Why do you use the word mind here? Why don't you ever use words like soul or spirit?"

    "What is there to be aware of other than mind? So mind aware of itself is awareness. And when mind is aware of itself, it realizes that not only is it not personal, it doesn't even exist; its an illusion. Prior to "I" there was nothing.  The "I" comes second, out of the nameless first. The apparent mind that questions itself begins to understand where it comes from, which is pure love, or lack for a better word. So if it's not the song of love it's a distortion of the nature it was born out of."

    As for words like soul or spirit, I don't use them because I don't know what they mean."

     

    Her comment that she didn't know what spirit and soul meant, brought me up short. 

    What do they mean?

    What is my experience of them?

    Where are they found?

    What do they look like?

    Feel like?

    Compared to the engagement we have with our minds; how often are we in conversation with our souls? Can we do that?  What I have called my innocence – was that the soul?

    Is the spirit equal to the awareness – are they interchangeable?

    Is the soul who we were prior to obtaining a body and is that where we return?

    Are Spirit and Soul words from religion?  Do we use them outside of what we call a spiritual experience?

    Can we dialogue with them like we can with the mind.

    If awareness can question the mind, can awareness question the soul?

    This is all very intriguing to me.

     

    She was also asked, "You say that the mind can never be controlled. But sometimes you say that mind is everything. Is the first mind the ego and the second mind awareness?"

    "Yes, "Awareness" is a way of saying that the ego is perfectly understood. Awareness is never tricked by what the ego thinks. It always knows the difference between what is and what isn't."

    I love that awareness is never tricked by what the ego thinks.  I agree.  In my experience, my greatest resting spot has been with awareness. I feel completely trusting in it. It is what I have called truth or reality. Awareness is.

     

    And, this question.

    "If someone asked you Subhuti's question – "How should people control their minds? – what would you say?"

    "First, I would invite them to be aware of their stressful feelings.  A feeling is like the mate to a thought appearing.  They're like the left and the right. If you have a thought, there's a simultaneous feeling.  And an uncomfortable feeling is like an alarm clock that says, "You're caught in the dream." It's time to inquire, that's all. But if we don't honor the alarm clock, then we try and alter and manipulate the feeling by reaching into an apparent external world. We're usually aware of the feeling first. That's why I say it's an alarm clock that lets you know you're stuck in a thought you may want to investigate.  If it's causing you any kind of discomfort, you might want to inquire and do The Work."

     

    There is a direct correlation between our feelings and our thoughts.  Oddly, we often think we can just think differently, without actually doing the investigation of whether a thought is true or not.

    It is very interesting that our untrue thoughts can prompt feelings.

    What I have noticed in my own life, is that I don't like the way stressful thoughts feel in my body.

    I have learned how to reduce and eliminate stress by questioning the thoughts and not trying to subdue them or override them with a different thought.

    There is integrity of a thought that has to be explored.

    Is it it true for Me?

    What I had found in questioning stressful thoughts, is that it is most often a struggle between what I want and what others are free to do.

    Mostly, I would say, we want to control others, more than our thoughts.

    When you literally give others their freedom, you actually gain peace.

    This book and her experiences may be very confusing and challenge many beliefs and thoughts we have been taught about our self, life and our minds. Yet, what she says rings true. 

    When I first read her books, I was relieved and anxious at the same time. It felt like I was cheating on my beliefs and thoughts I had about being in the world. 

    She, however, was the first one who brought great relief to me, when my world tipped upside down. She agreed with what I had to accept. She didn't try to change it or me.

    She was the awareness I needed to see what was.

    She says, that inquiry arose in her.

    The ability to question our thoughts.

    It awoke in me too.

    I don't recall prior to 46 years old ever being able to fully see the mind.

    A mind without awareness is scary to me. She says, that only a confused mind hurts others.  I agree. 

    The first book I read from her was, "Loving What Is."

    As I sit here pondering how my life has been changed by awareness; I can't say the same for soul and spirit.  I just might have to agree; that I don't know what they mean.

    My experience of them has been thoughts.

    Whereas awareness has felt like a presence, a wisdom or knowing.

    How interesting to ponder the landscape within.

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  • Who you are

    "Every no I say is a yes to myself. It feels right to me. People don't have to guess what I want or don't want, and I don't need to pretend. When you're honest about our yeses and noes, it's easy to live a kind life. People come and go in my life when I tell the truth, and they would come and go if I didn't tell the truth. I have nothing to gain one way, and everything to gain the other way. I don't leave myself guessing or guilty."

    "If a man wants to have sex with me, for example, I don't have to decide about my answer. I'm married and monogamous; my "No" pops out with a smile. I'm actually giving the man the greatest gift I can give: my truth. You can see that as a boundary, but if a boundary is a limitation, a contradiction, that's not how it feels to me. I see it as integrity. It's not something I establish; it's something that has already been established for me. Saying no isn't an act of selfishness; it's an act of generosity, both to myself and to the apparent other."

    Byron Katie – from her new book "A Mind At Home With Itself

     

    One of the greatest pieces of wisdom I heard from Byron Katie was that my No to you is a Yes to me.  

    It feels so kind to me.

    I love that I have the ability to say No.

    It hasn't always been in my vocabulary.

     

    The reason it wasn't in my vocabulary, was because I wasn't in my life.

    Or, more true, the truth wasn't part of my life.

     

    My ability to say yes OR no, is my greatest gift I have given myself.

    I do not pretend.

    For it would be a pretend Me.

    I don't like how that feels inside of me.

    Dishonest to me.

    I can say yes to the hardest things and in doing so have created a self of integrity and it feels so good. For sure not limiting; but endlessly expanding.

    What some see as boundaries are really self honoring or self defining moments.

    I have said, and I still believe, that the opposite of being a victim or being abused etc, is the ability to say NO…to have the choice.

    When we are in a relationship, where you can't say No, it isn't a healthy relationship.

    The greatest gift we can give another is their ability to be authentic.

    I love when my granddaughter says, "I don't want it".

    It is her truth.

    I honor it.

    I don't try and change her mind. 

    She is defining who she is.

    The boundaries some see against them, are actually the defining boundaries of who we are.

    Who you are is made clear by what you say yes to or perhaps your inability to say no.

    My noes didn't create a contracting life; but they opened up the infinite possibilities of being me. I love my noes as much as I love my yeses. For they are all yes to me!

    My noes are much more self-defining and feel extremely self-loving.

    And, free.

    I am able to freely express myself as myself.

    The noes do create the outline of who you are.

     

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  • Shawl of Love

    Happy Mother's Day has many different angles.  I am a mother, I am estranged from a mother, and my daughter is a mother.  Generations of women ahead and behind me. The past and the future connected by me.

    Mother's Day looking back at my mother leaves me empty, where praise and heroic memories should be.  I see the volumes of heavy obligations and escapes. Holes in her morals and values when they were needed the most. Her tapestry is weaved by her weakness, blindness and faithful love of her religion.  A shroud that leaves me out.

    I feel nothing to celebrate or praise.

    Nothing that draws me near.

    I know her fabric, for it was from there that I had to break free.

    I know its weight and confinement.

    I too was dead, but breathing.

    Busting out of the heavy cloak of denial is what has set us apart.

    I see, feel and can move independently.

    My freedom and awareness dance lightly in reality.

    And yet, there are strings and threads of my past.

    I cannot get a different childhood and parents.

    My estrangement will always set me apart.

    From those whose lives are untouched by abuse and those who still hold tightly to relationships laced in abuse.

    I am between both worlds.

    Different.

    A third path.

    New

    I celebrate those who are strong enough to break free of old patterns, of letting go from dysfunctional families, to be resolute in the separation.

    The distance between my mother and I, is what will give my granddaughter a new legacy.

     

    Sheryl Sandberg spoke of Post Traumatic Growth, in her book “Option B”.

    “The one I will become will catch me.”

    I love this.
    
I truly know what it is like to have to become the one to catch me.

    It was to become the mother I needed to mother me.

    That is post traumatic growth.

    Using trauma to grow is how we change the legacy of abuse.

    I celebrate the post traumatic growth Moms.

    Women who have gone against the pull of family in order to create a new pattern; one free of dysfunction and abuse. Those who show great post traumatic growth!  They are worth celebrating!

    They stand alone, strong, brave and empowered; Badass Moms.

    Who I became caught me; and with her I face a future filled with hope, love, peace and joy!  

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    Happy Mother's Day, celebrate women who changed their families legacy; by being stronger than the circumstances of their childhoods.

    Women who love themselves enough to tear their patterns apart and recreate a new shawl of love!

     

     

     

     

  • The Body Keeps Score

    "The Body Keeps Score" by Bessel Van Der Kolk M.D. is the most comprehensive book I have read about the affects of childhood trauma on our lives.  And, how the medical community is in the learning stages of how to effectively deal with adult children of abuse.

    I am listening to this book, but ordered the hard copy to use as a reference.

    Here is about the brain and trauma…  This is long but so insightful as to what happens in the brain.

    "SHIFTING TO ONE SIDE OF THE BRAIN"

    The scans also revealed that during flashbacks, our subjects' brains lit up only on the right side. Today there's a huge body of scientific and popular literature about the difference between the right and left brain. Back in the early nineties I had heard that some people had begun to divide the world between left-brainers (rational, logical people) and right-brainers (the intuitive, artistic ones), but I hadn't paid much attention to this idea.  However, our scans clearly showed that images of past trauma activate the right hemisphere of the brain and deactivate the left."

    "We now know that the two halves of the brain do speak different languages. The right is intuitive, emotional, visual, spatial, and tactual, and the left is linguistic, sequential and analytical. While the left half o the brain does all the talking, the right half of the brain carries the music of the experience.  It communicates through facial expressions and body language and by making sounds of love and sorrow: by singing, swearing, crying, dancing, or mimicking. The right brain is the first to develop in the womb, and it carries nonverbal communication between mother and infants. We know the left hemisphere has come online when children start to understand language and learn how to speak. this enables them to name things, compare them, understand their interrelations, and begin to communicate their own unique, subjective experiences to others."

    "The left and right sids of the brain also process the imprints of the past in dramatically different ways. The left brain remembers facts, statistics, and vocabulary of events. We call on it to explain our experiences and put them in order. The right brain stores memories of sound, touch, smell, and the emotions they evoke. It reacts automatically to voices, facial features, and gestures and places experienced in the past. What it recalls feels like intuitive truth – the way things are. Even as we enumerate a loved ones virtues to a friend, our feelings may be more deeply stirred by how her face recalls the aunt we loved at age four."

    "Under ordinary circumstances the two sides of the brain work together more or less smoothly, even in people who might be said to favor one side over the other. However, having one side or the other shut down, even temporarily, or having one side cut off entirely (as sometimes happened in early brain surgery) is disabling."

    Deactivation of the left hemisphere has a direct impact on the capacity to organize experience into logical sequences and to translate our shifting feelings and perceptions into words. Without sequencing we can't identify cause and effect, grasp the long-rem effects of our actions, or create coherent plans for the future. People who are very upset sometimes say they are "losing their minds." In technical terms they are experiencing the loss of the executive functioning."

    "When something reminds traumatized people of the past, their right brain reacts as if the traumatic event were happening in the present. But because their left brain is not working very well, they may not be aware that they are reexperiencing and reenacting the past – they are just furious, terrified, enraged, ashamed, or frozen.  After the emotional storm passes, they may look for something or somebody to blame for it. They behaved the way they did because you were ten minutes late, or because you burned the potatoes, or because you "never listens to me." Of course, most of us have done this from time to time, but when we cool down, we hopefully can admit our mistake. Trauma interferes with this kind of awareness, and over time our research demonstrated why."

    "STUCK IN FLIGHT OR FIGHT"

    "What happened to Marsha in the scanner gradually started to make sense. Thirteen years after her tragedy we had activated the sensations – the sounds and images from the accident – that were still stored in her memory. When these sensations came to the surface, they activated her alarm system, which caused her to react as if she were back in the hospital being told that her daughter had died. The passage of thirteen years was erased. Her sharply increased heart rate and blood pressure reading reflected her physiological state of frantic alarm."

    "Adrenaline is one of the hormones that are critical to help us fight back or flee in the face of danger. Increased adrenaline was responsible for our participants' dramatic rise in heart rate and blood pressure while listening to their trauma narrative. Under normal conditions people react to a threat with a temporary increase in their stress hormones. As soon as the threat is over, the hormones dissipate and the body returns to normal. The stress hormones of traumatized people, in contrast, takes much longer to return to baseline, and spike quickly and disproportionately in response to mildly stressful stimuli. The insidious effects of constantly elevated stress hormones include memory and attention problems, irritability, and sleep disorders. They also contribute to many long-term healthy issues, depending on which body system is most vulnerable in a particular individual."

    "We now know that there is another possible response to threat, which our scans are't capable of measuring. Some people simply go into denial. Their bodies register threat, but their conscious minds go on as if nothing has happened. However, even though the mind may learn to ignore the messages from the emotional brain, the alarm system signals don't stop. The emotional brain keeps working, and stress hormones keep sending signals to the muscles to tense for action or immobilize and collapse. The physical effects on the organs go on unabated until they demand notice when they are expressed as illness. Medications, drugs, and alcohol can also temporarily dull or obliterate unbearable sensations and feelings. But the body continues to keep score…."

    He goes on to say further on:

    "For a hundred years or more, every textbook of psychology and psychotherapy has advised that some method of taking about distressful feelings can resolve them. However, as we've seen, the experience of trauma itself gets in the way of doing that. No matter how much insight and understand we develop, the rational brain is impotent to talk the emotional brain out of its own reality. I am continually impressed by how difficult it is for people who have gone through the unspeakable to convey the essence of their experience. It is so much easier to talk about what has been done to them, to tell a story of victimization and revenge – than to notice, feel, and put into words the reality of their internal experience."

    "Our scans reveal how their dread persisted and could be triggered by multiple aspects of daily experience. They had not integrated their experience into the ongoing stream of their life. They continued to be "there" and did not know how to be "here" – fully alive in the present." Bessel

     

    What we call mental illness, often is the affects of living through a traumatic childhood.  Our brains are literally affected – while our bodies truly keep score.

    I highly suggest listening to this book, if you want to understand your own traumatization or that of someone you love.  This book makes complete sense to me and how inept our medical system is to help us navigate through our affects of early childhood trauma! 

    Often the diagnosis isn't childhood trauma, but the effects of it.  

    How our body responds and not the cause of it.  We often treat the symptoms but not the cause. And, how do we treat childhood trauma, compared to how we treat depression???

    I love this book on so many levels!

    Incredible information – The Body Keeps Score! What an amazing human body we live in!

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  • All Truths.

    "You don't grow up missing what you never had, but throughout life there is hovering over you an inescapable longing for something you never had."  Susan Sontag

    "A fatherless girl thinks all things are possible and nothing safe." Mary Gordon

    When I hear a daughter speak lovingly or thankfully for their mother; I feel so cheated. 

    It is as if a huge part of living was kept from me.

    What I didn't know, was that when I worked through the abuse –  love wasn't behind the pain.  There really is no answer or conclusion, just the empty space.

    I know this may sound weird, like how would there be love behind abuse.

    Or even more parents.

    I feel cheated on not only the live relationships that were underlined with abuse, but in the natural grief when they pass.

    It is like we are parentless in our youth and then again in our adult lives.

    Estrangement is a very awkward land.

    Abuse, even more so.

    Abuse teaches us the opposite of love.

    And, so when the time comes to grieve, there is nothing to grieve.

    The naturalness of wanting to be near, closer, sharing, caring, is replaced with distance.

    When raised on abused love, you are left in the world upside down and backwards.

    First you have to get yourself right before you can love correctly.

    This new love doesn't flow naturally.

    It comes with baggage of PTSD and anxiety and codependency to name a few.

    Love that is free and open takes struggle to make it so.

    Although, the more I am loving of self and free to be me, the more I can at the very least bring in neutral energy.  Love without expectations or needs from me.

    I am reading a book by Anderson Cooper and Gloria Vanderbilt – "The Rainbow Comes and  Goes."

    He writes, "It's the kind of conversation I think many parents and their grown children would like to have, and it has made this past year the most valuable of my life. By breaking down the walls of silence that existed between us, I have come to understand my mom and myself in ways I never imagined."

    "I know now that it's never too late to change the relationship you have with someone important in your life; a parent, a child, a lover a friend.  All it takes is a willingness to be honest and to shed the old skin, to let go of the long-standing assumptions and slights you still cling to."  Anderson

    This dream or idea is also a place where there will be no comfort. For rarely, do the abusers get honest.

    It isn't about the slights I have experienced; but the lack of honesty that permeates the environment within abusive homes.

    How can there be a healing conversation when honesty is absent?

    I believe it would be easier to join a conversation where beliefs and thoughts were exchanged truthfully…than to place any hope in a conversation where my honesty isn't welcome and their's is withheld.

    I often feel it is my fault for demanding, needing, and wanting honesty.

    That I am asking for the impossible.

    Imagine love where honesty is missing? 

    Is that love?

    Perhaps the greatest loss in abusive homes is our lack of trust in truth.

    Who are you without your whole truths?

    The last conversation I had with my mother, I wasn't allowed to talk about her husband (my abuser) and her religion (the one that made his sins disappear). Which is why it was our last.

    She wanted to acknowledge it without acknowledging it.

    To bring it in; but not to own it.

    Another great loss, is that there is no place to dialogue it out.  

    There is no closure or place to try and understand.  

    Another vast vacuum where we are made to be alone.

    Here is what is weird.

    We are alone in the midst of abuse and then alone when we set boundaries.

    Alone seems to be our relationships with our family of origin in an abusive home.

    I would be just as alone inside, as I am outside.

    Good to know.

    What I would want the most is an honest conversation – deep and vast with boundless courage to understand all the nuances of abuse.  To have no boundaries into which we explore.

    I believe I have done this. 

    The depth of understanding ourselves, is how deep we can go with another.

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    Once you go deep, you can no longer live on the surface of life.

    And, love has to be deep enough to hold all truths!