I M Perfect lady

Category: Books

  • Something to be Nostalgic for…

    More from Brene Brown's book – "Rising Strong"...under the heading "Rumbling with Nostalgia.

    "…When, I wiped the nostalgia off my history to uncover the real trauma behind many of those stories, I began to understand why we didn't talk about emotions growing up. Of all the things trauma takes away from us, the worst is our willingness, or even out ability, to be vulnerable. There's a reclaiming that has to happen."

    "Sometimes, the deep love we feel for our parents or the sense of loyalty to our family often create a mythology that gets in the way of our efforts to look past the nostalgia and toward truth. We don't want to betray anyone – we don't want to be the first to get curious and ask questions or challenge the stories.  We ask ourselves, How can I love and protect my family if I'm rumbling with these hard truths?  For me, the answer to that questions is another question: How can I love and protect my family if I'mnot rumbling with these hard truths?"

    "We know that genetics loads the gun and environment pulls the trigger.  In order to teach our children about rising strong, we first need to teach them the truth about their history. I've told both my kids, "Drinking may not be the same for you as it is for your friends.  Here's what you need to know and understand." I also don't frame my wild stories as war stories from "the good ole days."  Yes, I have wonderful family memories and stories of crazy adventures that I love to share, but when it comes to addiction, medical histories, and mental health, I believe that nostalgia is deadly."

    "Stephanie Coontz, author of The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap, puts her finger on some of the real dangers of nostalgia. She writes, "There's nothing wrong with celebrating the good things in our past.  But memories, like witnesses, do not always tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We need to cross-examine them, recognizing and accepting the inconsistencies and gaps in those that make us proud and happy as well as those that cause us pain." 

    "Coontz suggests that the best way to reality-check our nostalgic ideas is to uncover and examine the tradeoffs and contradictions that are often deeply buried in all our memories. As an example, Coontz writes:

    "I have interviewed many white people who have found memories of their lives in the 1950s and early 1960s.  The ones who never cross-examined those memories to get at the complexities were the ones most hostile to the civil rights and the women's movements, which they saw as destroying the harmonious world they remembered. But others could see that their own good experiences were in some ways dependent on unjust and social arrangements, or on bad experiences for others.  Some white people recognized that their happy memories of childhood included a black housekeeper who was always available to them because she couldn't be available to her own children."

    "Coontz is careful to point out that the people who rumbled with their nostalgia didn't feel guilt or shame about their good memories – instead, their digging made them more adaptable to change. She concludes, "Both as individuals and as a society, we must learn to view the past in three dimensions before we can move into the fourth dimension of the future."   

    "There is a line in director Paolo Sorrentino's gorgeous and haunting film The Great Beauty that illuminates the pain often underlying nostalgia.  One of the main characters, a man reconciling his past while longing for love and relevance in his present life, asks, "What's wrong with feeling nostalgic?  It's the only distraction left for those of us who have no faith in the future." Nostalgia can be a dangerous distraction, and it can underpin a feeling of resignation or hopelessness after a fall.  In the rising strong process, looking back is done in the service of moving forward with an integrated and whole heart."  Brene

     

     

    When we bring up the discussion about sexual abuse in our childhoods, this is what we are up against…nostalgia – and our inability to be vulnerable, as well as being unfaithful to the love of parent and disloyal to the family.

    I agree wholeheartedly with Brene - How can I love and protect my family if I'm not rumbling with these hard truths?

    This is the oxymoron we are all faced with as we try and unscramble our childhood memories; those laced with sexual abuse.  

    We want to protect our families; while we are tearing them apart to sort out the abuse.  We want to love and protect our own children…yet, as we do so, it appears we are destroying the good memories of our own family.

    The exact thing can be said about religion…for most feel that their church is their extended family – my church family.

    How can you love and be loyal to the church while dissecting it for abuse?

    This is another road block into the unveiling of truth.

    And another road barrier is to be vulnerable.  

    I had to look that up to make sure I had it correctly.

    "Susceptible to physical or emotional attack or harm."

    I can see for victims, it is hard to be open to further attack or harm…to be, I guess, a willing victim.

    This is what we are asking children and adult-children of abuse to do. 

    I certainly changes the stories we have told ourselves…and our family…when you add abuse to the stories we tell.

    Again, how can you love and protect your family IF you leave out the truth about the abuse?  How can you even say, you love and protect, them if you are not sharing this truth?  

    Hiding the truth about sexual abuse or physical and emotional abuse; will not eradicate it.  It doesn't protect your family.  It doesn't ensure more love.  

    In fact it does the complete opposite…it leaves your family more vulnerable.

    How interesting.  

    If you are not vulnerable and honest, you will leave your family vulnerable.

    In dysfunctional families it seems everything we think we are doing and what we are holding on to, is often the opposite of what we think.

    It truly felt like I was being completely unloving and disloyal as I added truth to my childhood.

    As I sit here today, my nostalgia is overshadowed still with the new truths of the past  10 years.  The integrating what I thought and what is, hasn't settled down it nostalgia in the way, nostalgia feels.

    I had to look up nostalgia….

    "a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations."

    Another tragedy of sexual abuse in childhood….nostalgia.

    We may not know this feeling….a childhood of happy personal associations.

    Thinking of this.  I thought I was a non-sentimental person. For these feelings escaped me.

    Now, I believe they were not there to be had.

    Being sexually abused as a child removes the nostalgia from our life experience. 

    However, I feel like this time in my life will be my nostalgia someday.  

    I am in a good place in my story. 

    Where love, peace and joy are present.  

    Where I am awake and aware.  

    Where I have a voice and choice. 

    Where I am less afraid and say yes more.

    Where I am excited and okay with uncertainty.

    Where I know how strong I am.

    And, how resilient.

    Perhaps the further down the journey of life we go, the more we appreciate all the bends life takes us on.

    I know where I have been and I have confidence that I will be given who and what I need for each part of my journey forward.

    I will do my best to make this moment….something to be nostalgic for…

     

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  • Accepting a new reality.

    About Forgiveness….from Brene Brown's book "Rising Strong".

    "Rumbling with Forgiveness"

    "I've been engaged in a full professional rumble with the concept of forgiveness for ten years.  It has been glaringly absent from my work and all of my books.  Why?  Because I couldn't get to saturation – I couldn't find a meaningful pattern in all of my data."

    "I got very close before I wrote "The Gifts, but right as the book was going to press, I did three interviews, and what I learned during those interviews fell completely outside the pattern.  Ordinarily, that would be fine: Most research methodologies allow for what we call outliers.  If there are one or two small exceptions in the data, that's okay as longs the majority fall within the pattern. In grounded theory, though, there can be no outliers. Every story matters, and for your hypothesis to be valid, all your categories and properties must fit, be revenant, and resonate with  your data. If something doesn't work, you're not there yet. It's incredibly frustrating , but sticking to this principle hasn't failed me yet."

    "Then, several years ago, I was at church listening to Joe talk about forgiveness.  He was sharing his experience of counseling a couple who were on the brink of divorce after the woman discovered that her husband was having an affair. They were both devoted by the potential end of their marriage, but she couldn't forgive him for betraying her, and he couldn't seem to forgive himself, either.  Joe looked up and said, "In order for forgiveness to happen, something has to die.  If you make a choice to forgive, you have to face into the pain. You simply have to hurt."

    "I instantly buried my head in my hands.  It was as if someone had finally put the right sequence of numbers into a giant combination lock that I had been carrying around for years. The tumblers started turning and falling into place. Everything was clicking.  That was the piece that was missing. Forgiveness is so difficult because it involves death and grief.  I had been looking for patterns in people extending generosity and love, but not in people feeling grief.  At that moment it struck me: Given the dark fears we feel when we experience loss, nothing is more generous and loving that the willingness to embrace grief in order to forgive. To be forgiven is to be loved."

    "The death or ending that forgiveness necessitates comes in many shapes and forms.  We many need to bury our expectations or dreams.  We many need to relinquish the power that comes from "being right" or put to rest the idea that we can do what's in our hearts and still retain the support and approval others.  Joe explained, "Whatever it is, it all has to go. It isn't good enough to box it up and set it aside.  It has to die. It has to be grieved. That is a high price indeed.  Sometimes, it's just too much."

    "I spent the next couple of years revising the data through this new lens of forgiveness, this time including an ending, and the grief associate with that ending. I recoded and reworked my research, did more interviewing, and read through the literature.  I wasn't surprised to find a growing number of empirical studies showing that forgiveness positively correlates with emotional, mental, and physical well-being. A strong and clear pattern was emerging. This pattern would be affirmed when I read The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World by Archbishop Desmond Tutut and his daughter, the Reverend Mpho Tutu."

    "Archbishop Tutu served as the chair of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and Reverend Mpho Tutu an Episcopal Priest, is the executive director of Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation.  The Book of Forgiving is one of the most important books I've ever read.  I honestly did not have the words to adequately describe it to people after I finished it.  It not only confirmed what I had learned about forgiveness from Joe, but also supported everything I learned about vulnerability, shame, courage, and the power of story.  The book outlines a forgiveness practice that includes telling the story, naming the hurt, granting forgiveness and renewing or releasing the relationship Archbishop Tutu writes:

    "To forgive is not just to be altruistic.  It is the best form of self-interest. It is also a process that doesn't exclude hatred or anger. These emotions are all part of being human. You should never hate yourself for hating others who do terrible things: The depth of your love is show by the extent of your anger."

    "However, when I talk of forgiveness, I mean the belief that you can come out the other side a better person.  A better person than the one being consumed by anger and hatred.  Remaining in that state locks you in a state of victimhood, making you almost dependent the perpetrator.  If you can find it in yourself to forgive, then you are no longer chained to the perpetrator. You can move on, and you can even help the perpetrator to become a better person, too."  

    So, forgiveness is not forgetting or walking away from accountability or condoning a hurtful act; its the process of taking back and healing our lives so we can truly live. What the Tutus found in their work on forgiveness validates not just the importance of naming our experiences and owning our stories but also how rumbling with the process can lead to clarity, wisdom and self-love. So often we want easy and quick answers to complex struggles. We question our own bravery, and in the face of fear, we back down too early."  Brene 

     

    What I know to be true, in my experience, is this is forgiveness.  You are to literally sit with the loss and death of what was….and grieve.  It will then change OR renew relationships, and they might die.  This is a huge process to facilitate within yourself.

    This isn't what I was taught in the FALC religion…or in my childhood home.

    Imagine having this tool as a child and the freedom to use it?

    Imagine having it today…

    To me the great part of being sexual abused by someone you trust, and love, and are indebted to for food and shelter, is we are not able to end the relationship.

    We are instead forced to internalize our grief and carry on as if nothing traumatic has happened.

    It is the combination that destroys our soul.

    If you were abused by a stranger; you don't have to keep company with them….ever.

    The definition of Forgiveness above, is one that keeps reality real.  

    And, it empowers you….even if you have to face the grief accepting a new reality.

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  • Say Your Name

    More from Brene Brown…. "Rising Strong"

    "Man in the Arena" by Theodore Roosevelt

    "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat; who strives valiantly;….who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly."

    "While there are really no hard-and-fast absolutes in my field, there are truths about shared experiences that deeply resonate with what we believe and know. For example, the Roosevelt quote that anchors my research on vulnerability and daring gave birth to three truths for me:

    "I want to be in the arena.  I want to be brave with my life.  And when we make the choice to dare greatly, we sign up to get our asses kicked. We can choose courage or we can chose comfort, but we can't have both. Not at the same time."

    "Vulnerability is not winning or losing; its having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome. Vulnerability is not weakness; it's our greatest measure of courage."

    "A lot of cheap seats in the arena are filled with people who never venture onto the floor. They just hurl mean spirited criticisms and put-downs from a safe distance. The problem is, when we stop caring what people think and stop feeling hurt by cruelty, we lose our ability to connect. But when we're defined by what people think, we lose the courage to be vulnerable.  Therefore, we need to be selective about the feedback we let into our lives. For me, if you're not in the arena getting your ass kicked, I'm not interested in your feedback."  Brene

     

    This analogy best describes how I feel when I try to communicate with many folks from the FALC.   

    Not only are they in the cheap seats, many don't even use their names while commenting on the blogs. But, they are free to hurl feedback hiding behind an initial.

    It's no wonder I feel like I am laying on the arena floor dusty and spent….and look up to the cheap seats; which are hidden from my view and I am trying to do an authentic dialogue and it fails.  I forgot to remember; they haven't entered the arena floor. 

    I so love, that if you are not in the arena getting your ass kicked….your opinion doesn't count.  

    Say your name.

    Show your face.

    Be willing to be on the arena floor…..or be silent.

    The distance, and character, between those who have been on the floor, who use their real names, and those who are in the shadows is quite vast.

    Can there even be a real exchange under those circumstances?

    Don't we at the very least have to say our real name?

    Show up as ourself?

    Who are you if you can't enter the conversation about sexual abuse and religion without hiding yourself?

    I don't get this.

    I truly don't.

    Why is it, that you hide?

    To what end?

    And, while I and a few others stand on the floor of the arena, open and exposed, you feel the need to be in the shadows while criticizing our battles. 

    Can we really face abuse with faceless people?

    For the few who bring their faces…I respect you.

    And to the faceless ones; I am not interested in what you say…for how can I trust what you say, when I can't even see who you are.

    I believe our words are connected with our lives.

    If you disconnect your words from who you are….they are just words.

    To truly enter the arena of abuse; you have to say your name.

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  • Rise Strong

    I am in awe of Malala; she was on Oprah's Soul Series.  

    http://www.oprah.com/own-super-soul-sunday/Oprah-and-Nobel-Peace-Prize-Winner-Malala-Yousafzai-Video

    What I know to be true, is she is right; they can kill her, but they will not stop the movement; her mission is to educate girls around the world.

    She also said, the only thing the Taliban killed was fear, weakness and hopelessness….and what was born, was Strength, Power and Courage.   

    I needed to hear this.  

    At times my voice, for children who were abused, are being abused and are living with the affects of abuse; seems faint and often is criticized.  That the rumble opposing me is loud and justified.

    By watching what one person who dares speak out can do….it inspired me and filled me with hope…and grace.  To dare speak up…

    I loved how she said, "She could either be silent and be killed, or speak out and be killed." And, she choose the second.   

    A great role model for us all…and something I needed to hear today.

    The more us women stand and raise our voices to end the suffering and injustice for women; it will change the future for generations to come.

    It was so telling to hear her father speak how he was raised his daughter different than most men. And, that choice allowed his daughter to use her voice when the time came.  To speak her opinions and feelings.

    Her being the bravest girl; began when her father valued her.

    This too, had me in tears.  Imagine what love can do.  Love, he says is Freedom.

    I agree.

     

    In Brene Brown's book "Rising Strong" – under the heading "The Badassery Deficit", she writes:

    " I know, badassery is a strange term, but I couldn't come up with another one that captures what I mean.  When I see people stand fully in their truth, or when I see someone fall down, get back up, and say "Damn. That really hurt, but this is important to me and I'm going in again" – my gut reaction is, "What a badass."

    "There are too many people today who instead of feeling hurt are acting out their hurt; instead of acknowledging their pain, they're inflicting pain on others. Rather than risking feeling disappointed, they're choosing to live disappointed.  Emotional stoicism is not badassery.  Blustery posturing is not badassery. Swagger is not badassery.  Perfection is about the furthest thing in the world from badassery."

    "To me the real badass is the person who says, "Our family is really hurting. We could use your support." And the man who tells his son, "It's okay to be sad. We all get sad. We just need to talk about it." And the woman who says, "Our team dropped the ball. We need to stop blaming each other and have some tough conversations about what happened so we can fix it and move forward." People who wade into discomfort and vulnerability and tell the truth about their stories are real badasses."

    "Daring is essential to solve the problems in the world that feel intractable: poverty, violence, inequality, trampled civil rights, and struggling environment, to name a few.  But in addition to having people who are willing to show up and be seen, we also need a critical mass of badasses who are willing to dare, fall, and feel their way through the tough emotion, and rise again.  And we need these folks leading, modeling, and shaping culture in every capacity, including parents, teachers, administrators, leaders, politicians, clergy, creatives, and community organizations… Brene

    Again, what inspiring words to read.  I really am a Badass…

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    I am willing to feel the darkness…and rise strong!

     

     

  • Manifesto of the Brave and Brokenhearted…

    Manifesto of the Brave and Brokenhearted.  

    by Brene Brown

     

    There is no greater threat to the critics and cynics 

    and fearmongers

    Than those of us who are willing to fall

    Because we have learned how to rise

    With skinned knees and bruised hearts;

    We chose owning our stories of struggle,

    Over hiding, over hustling, over pretending.

    When we deny our stories, they define us.

    When we run from struggle, we are never free.

    So we turn toward truth and look it in the eye.

    We will not be characters in our stories.

    Not villains, not victims, not even heroes.

    We are the authors of our lives.

    We write our own darling endings.

    We craft love from heartbreak, 

    Compassion from shame,

    Grace from disappointment, 

    Courage from failure.

    Showing up is our power.

    Story is our way home.

    Truth is our song.

    We are the brave and brokenhearted.

    We are rising strong.

     

    From Brene Brown's book "Rising Strong- The Reckoning. The Rumble. The Revolution.

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    I just received it, but hear Oprah read the Manifesto….and looked it up.  

    I agree with it.

     

     

  • From Whence I Came.

    From "Big Magic" by Elizabeth Gilbert…

    "Motives"

    "Oh, and here's another thing: You are not required to save the world with your creativity."

    "Your art not only doesn't have to be original, in other words; it doesn't have to be important."

    "For example: Whenever anybody tells me that they want to write a book in order to help other people, I always think, Oh please don't."

    "Please don't try to help me."

    "I mean, it is very kind of you to want to help people, but please don't make it your sole creative motive, because we will feel the weight of your heavy intention, and it will put a strain upon our souls. (It reminds me of this wonderful adage from the British columnist Katharine Whitehorn: "You can recognize the people who live for others by the haunted look on the faces of the others.") I would so much rather you wrote a book in order to entertain yourself than to help me.  Or if your subject matter is darker and more serious, I would prefer that you made your art in order to save yourself, or to relieve yourself of some great psychic burden, rather than to save or relieve us."

    "I once wrote a book in order to save myself. I wrote a travel memoir in order to make sense of my own journey and my own emotional confusion. All I was trying to do with that book was figure myself out.  In the process, though, I wrote a story that apparently helped a lot of other people figure themselves out – but that was never my intention.  If  I'd just sat down to write Eat Pray Love with the sole aim of helping others, I would've produced an entirely different book. I might have even produced a book that was insufferably unreadable. (Okay, okay…Admittedly a lot of critics found  Eat Pray Love insufferably unreadable as it was – but that's not my point: My point is that I wrote that book for my own purposes, and maybe that's why it felt genuine, and ultimately even helpful to many readers.)   Elizabeth…

     

    I understand this and it makes great sense.

    I love that I am not responsible to help others with this blog OR with my art.

    Although to be honest, I did want to go public with my journey so that others would see they were not alone…and in hopes it would help someone.  For, at the time I was so confused, there wasn't anyone writing about this experience that I was going through.

    I have tried to help, and write with helping in mind.

    But, now I know why some of my greatest writings are when I am trying to just figure me out.  It is for my own selfish purpose.

    When I am doing my art…it is all about me.

    On rare occasion I try and make it a viable message….and those fail.

    My best pieces of Art, are those that I don't even understand until years later.

    There is a burden when doing anything for others….if it is just that sole purpose; if you are not enjoying the doing of it.

    This was great for me to read tonight as the discussion on another blog is taking on the issue of sexual abuse in the church….or the families of the church.

    I often write my comments as 'helping' and I am sure they feel heavy.

    I will have to watch how I interact and the reasons why.

    I should be able to discern this by how I feel.

    If it flows freely and I am not trying to help or teach; but express me….it should feel and be genuine, and less burdensome to others.

    Often I am learning more about myself as I respond and ponder and reflect at who I was prior to discovering my own sexual abuse.

    The two lives are so completely different.

    As I try and talk to the women who are walking where I once walked….I will have to find a way to talk; for I am talking to Me in my Past.

    I truly don't know what the tone will be; what I can say or how…that will connect us.

    Is there a place for us to stand….a piece of ground that overlaps.

    A common place where the old me and this new one can meet?

    Something we both have in common?

    What part of me now is the same as the old me?

    Nothing comes to mind.

    My free spirit and my caged self….

    The sleeping and the awakened.

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    My frustrations lie in not having a common road; a place for us to meet…a language we both can hear…and be heard.

    Who I am today is like a free soul; unburdened…because I can see.

    I stand with my truths…even the ugliest I embrace.

    It is like I am still the same me; but one that sees all of me and loves her.

    The old me didn't see much.  Okay, didn't see myself.

    At all.

    How would I have been able to help another see; if I myself was blind?

    A person born into captivity has no trouble with their cage.

    You can't see something wrong when wrong has been your normal.

    It is a miracle that I am who I am today….coming from whence I came.

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    "Relax, you are not in charge…."

  • Step into the Unknown.

    From Elizabeth Gilbert's latest book, "Big Magic"

    "Fear is Boring"   I love that phrase!

    "Around the age of fifteen, I somehow figured out that my fear had no variety to it, no depth, no substance, no texture.  I noticed that my fear never changed, never delighted, never offered a surprise twist or an unexpected ending.  My fear was a song with only one note – only one word, actually – and that word was "STOP!" My fear never had anything more interesting or subtle to offer than that one emphatic word, repeated at full volume on an endless loop: "STOP, STOP, STOP, STOP!"

    "Which means that my fear always made predictably boring decisions, like a choose-your-own-ending book that always had the same ending: nothingness."

    "I also realized that my fear was boring because it was identical to everyone else's fear.  I figured out that everyone's song of fear has exactly that same tedious lyric: "STOP, STOP, STOP, STOP!" True the volume may vary from person to person, but the song itself never changes, because all of us humans were equipped with the same basic fear package when we were being knitted together in our mother's womb. And not just human:  If you pass your hand over a petri dish containing a tadpole, the tadpole will flinch beneath your shadow.  That tadpole can't write poetry, and it cannot sing, and it will never know love or jealousy or triumph, and it has a brain the size of a punctuation mark, but it damn sure knows how to be afraid of the unknown."

    "Well, so do I"

    "So do we all. But there's something particularly compelling about that.  Do you see what I mean?  You don't get any special credit, is what I'm saying, for knowing how to be afraid of the unknown. Fear is a deeply ancient instinct, in other words, an evolutionary vital one….but it ain't especially smart."

    "For the entirety of my young and skittish life, I had fixated upon my fear as if it were the most interesting thing about me, when actually it was the most mundane.  In fact, my fear was probably the only 100 percent mundane thing about me. I had creativity within me that was original; I had personality within me that was original; I had dreams and perspectives and aspirations within me that were original. But my fear wasn't some kind of rare artisanal object; it was just a mass-produced item, available on the shelves of any generic box store."

    "And that's the thing I wanted to build my entire identity around?"

    "The most boring instinct I possessed?"

    "The panic reflex of my dumbest inner tadpole?"

    "No"     Elizabeth Gilbert

     

    How interesting that fear is screaming to stop.  

    To stop life and all its wondrous opportunities to experience something new.

    Imagine a life where you said "YES"….instead of STOP?

    Where would you go, what would you do, what choices would you make different and how would they impact your life?

    Being able to say yes regardless of the fear is huge.

    It isn't as Elizabeth says…..to be fearless; but brave.

    "Bravery means doing something scary."

    And, I have heard that being fearless, is to feel fear….but to do it anyway.

    I have vowed to say Yes to me.  

    In the past, I stopped…..out of fear.

    Fear stopped me from being me. From voicing my thoughts, my emotions, my feelings. It stopped me from being me, out of fear that Me would not be acceptable.

    And, the fear was right.  

    I wasn't accepted as me within the dynamics of an abusive family.

    Not the me, with a voice and one who spoke up for herself.

    The old Me had to be silent, and to go along to get along. To be loved, I had to have no voice, different than what was good for the other.  

    She died when I said "Yes"

    I remember being terrified. Yes, terrified to express myself. To stand out and be different, to speak my truth, to say that which was true for me.  I used to feel like I was going to die or be murdered for it.

    And there was a death.  A death of the old me…and more.

    A death of a relationship.

    I lost many due to saying Yes to me…..when in the past I stopped. 

    I stopped myself from speaking my mind, my truth, and being Me.

    Imagine, the multiple ways fear stops us from being all we can be…

    The new me is very mindful of how I answer life's questions.  How I respond will always be to say Yes to me….or stop being me.

    For 46 years, I stopped being myself for love, peace and joy within a family…..and it didn't end well.  

    So, now….I don't stop.

    I continue on with reality, regardless of what it asks and who I lose.  For even if, I stopped, it wouldn't change reality….Only me.

    I would stop being an authentic, creative, unique Me.

    And, over time….I would be a Me, even I couldn't love.

    I love the me that doesn't stop being Me….out of fear.

    I am brave enough to know the scary outcomes of always being honest…and living out what is true for me.

    I love that I am not a boring STOP person.

    But, a yes person… as I step into the unknown.

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  • No Decorations Needed!

    "The Rescued Soul" by Christina Enevoldsen

    From Chapter 13 "Embracing My Anger"

    "I also had a persistent fantasy of stabbing my mother in the face. The recurring image of something so horrific was quite disturbing. I'd never considered doing anything like that; blood makes me nauseous and even hurting someone's feelings bothers me."

    "I tried to suppress my feelings by thinking loving thoughts and imagining kind things about my mother. I berated myself. But the frequency and intensity of those thoughts wouldn't allow me to discount them."

    "I had to own my desires and find out their source.  Where did they come from? What purpose did they serve? What was the significance of destroying my mother's face? The fantasy was an important clue."

    "I remembered an incident from my childhood. I was alone with my dad in my parent's bedroom. My mom took great care in decorating the whole house, but especially their room. The bedding matched the drapes, which coordinated with the carpet. Their bed rested on a raised platform that was designed to make it the focal point of the room."

    "My dad perched me on the edge of the platform while he sat on the floor across from me.  He had several pornographic magazines spread out next to him. While my dad put his finger inside of me, I looked up at the drapes and thought that appearances were all that mattered to my mom. She could make the house look like a palace, but it would always be a dungeon."

    "My mom was more interested in an image than reality. I was enraged that she chose to sacrifice me so she could keep our family looking perfect. My slashing fantasy was an expression of my anger to make everything look nice, rather than making it nice.  Her face represented the image that was so important to her."

    "One of the primary ways I expressed my feelings towards my mother was by letter writing. I wrote many letters and emails to her.  This is one of them:

    "Dear Mom, 

    You're such a LIAR!!! You claim I'm the one who's lying and you hide behind your religious facade and your pretty house and pretty clothes. You're disgusting! With all the effort you put into pretending you're so good, you could have actually been a good person.

    All my life, I thought I was the problem.  I thought if my own mother didn't love me, I must be unlovable. I took on all the hatred, resentment, judgments and disgust that you directed toward me and turned it on myself. I learned to feel those things about me.

    I worked so hard for you to love me. All my life, I wanted to be close to you. I worked to get good grades, I tried to behave myself, but you didn't seem to see me. 

    When I was ten, the school psychologist noticed something wrong with me after she observed me for only a few minutes. YOU LIVED WITH ME!!! WHY DIDN'T YOU NOTICE?????? You never saw me at all.

    But, I WAS THERE!!!! And my abuse DID happen!!! No matter how much you deny that and accuse me of living in a fantasy world, your husband did disgusting things to me.  YOU were disgusting toward me too!!! How dare you make your life easier by sacrificing me! I deserve better than that!!!

    "My buried anger was coming out. Through my anger, I was not only objecting to the abuse, but its false messages. My anger was the shift into validating myself instead of the lies. It was my declaration that I deserved to be treated better."

    Freedom to Be Angry

    "All my life I judged myself for being angry. I denied my anger and tried to cover it up with more acceptable feelings. I was doing the same thing my mom did – I was decorating over things I didn't want to see or feel."

    "As long as I rejected and denied my anger, I didn't control it; it controlled me. It spilled out unintentionally on me and others I cared about."

    "Displaced anger is impossible to get rid of. As long as I projected it in all the wrong places, I could never work through it; there was a never-ending supply."

    "Giving myself permission to "feel what I feel" has proven the shortest way out of that emotion. Processing my anger allowed me to resolve it."  Christina

     

    First of all, this anger is towards the non-abusing parent.  I get this.  So, imagine the feelings towards the one who actually did the abuse.  Which is in the next bold section titled "Anger Toward My Primary Abuser"

    Back to the correlation between her wanting to slash her mother's face and the root source of it.  How the true anger comes from her mother putting on the perfect family portrait instead of seeing what is going on with her child.

    The rage is not being seen and the attention to detail goes into the decorations of the home!

    I have done both. 

    I have raged and displaced my anger.  It wasn't until I directed my anger at my parents, did the unlimited supply of anger start to decrease.  And, when I placed my attention in the direction of the source of my anger, my children came into focus.

    My home and its decorations seemed so minor compared to the lives of my children.

    I get this completely.  I also know that when we decorate our feelings instead of showing them, doing as our mother's did to our home….putting on a good front!

    We are trying to make kind, things that are not kind.

    The fake face and pretend life is worthy of knife slashing anger!

    What we want most is for someone to see behind the facade…to see us.

    "Can you see me and do I matter" is the line Oprah uses.

    The rage is that the pretend fantasy of a loving family matter more.

    The rage is to feel invisible…

    And then as we break the silence, a full out war is raged against us. We have to prove the fantastical family didn't exist. It is to battle with our mother's to show the truth against the fictional life she created.

    What is so unbelievable to me, is how strong this fantasy is.  How, even when my father was in an orange jumpsuit, the family saw a father.

    His biggest cover up was just being a dad.

    And, his strongest supporter was my mother decorating their marriage and family…and I, her second in command.   

    Until I saw and felt the truth, that lay beneath.

    I no longer decorated, but stood at one with reality.  

    My decorating with pretend feelings was broken.  

    All I was left with was the real raw emotion.

    I was not able to pretend to pretend to pretend.

    I met me for the first time. 

    The real me.

    And, I met my real past ungarnished and horrifying.

    It's brilliant tragedy was me.

    By accepting the truth, I fell in love with Me.

    No decorations needed!

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  • Give Away Your Power.

    more from Chapter 12 – "The Rescued Soul" by Christina Enevoldsen

    "Owning My Power"

    "I've realized a little at a time over many years that I am capable of improving my own life in big and small ways.  As a childhood victim, one of my only powers was complaining.  As I've transitioned into viewing myself as an empowered adult, I've learned to listen to my thoughts.  I've become alert to grumbling or whiny expressions that are meant to gain me sympathy – as though I'm completely at someone else's mercy."  Christina

    What I didn't know, is that complaining is to be disempowered; to believe that someone else holds your happiness/joy/love etc.

    And, that as a child, that was our only power against the bigger adults…to complain, in hopes they would treat us better.

    Very interesting to note.

    Instead of complaining, an empowered adult has the power to change things in their lives.

    Christina gave this example…

    "When I was still learning to own my power, I planned to complain to my husband that he never spent time with me, but I stopped myself.  That sounded like an accusation, not the invitation that I intended.  I was blaming him and placing all the responsibility for our relationship on him, as though I was powerless.  In the past, whining didn't accomplish anything other than drawing us further apart, which was the opposite affect I wanted."

    "This time, as an empowered person, I said to my husband, "We haven't spent much time together lately and I miss you.  Are you free for dinner on Thursday?" I took responsibility for my feelings and my relationship and I had a date."  Christina

    The difference between whining and complaining and then being empowered for how we feel, plus carrying our part of the relationship…is vast.

    Living life as an empowered adult is the answer and healing from a childhood of being a victim of abuse…in all its forms.

    When you complain; you give away your power.

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  • Blameless Freedom

    Chapter 12, "The Rescued Soul" by Christina Enevoldsen

    "In reality, being a victim is falling under the power of someone or something else.  It's a lack of power.  The powerlessness might result from being smaller, weaker, younger, slower, less knowledgable, less experienced, having less authority, or having less social status.  At the heart of victimization is the fact that victims are overcome by a greater power.

    "Victim Blaming"

    "I blamed myself for my abuse as a way to survive my childhood. Blaming myself gave me the sense of control I needed – that I was desperate for.  To accept that I was helpless, that there was nothing I could have done, felt like death. However, if there was something wrong with me then I could work to fix it so there was hope of better treatment."

    "As an adult, going from one abusive relationship to another seemed to confirm that I was to blame for my abuse and that I had always been to blame – even in childhood.  I was the common denominator.  Some people who saw my cycle of abusive relationships that followed me into adulthood judged me for "allowing" it. I deserved whatever I had coming to me."

    "Supposedly, the remedy to "being a victim" was to accept the blame so I could make necessary changes."

    "Does that mean that if I didn't break something, I can't fix it?  If I didn't make the mess, I can't clean it up? I'm a mother so I know that's certainly not true! But I tried for years to apply that to my abuse. I had to accept "my part" in it so I could move forward."

    "In my healing, I've found that freedom coincides with the truth. If it's not true, it may help me to cope for a time, but it won't set me free.  It won't lead to empowering choices and actions. It won't promote love for myself or others – only dysfunction."

    "The truth is that victims don't make abusers victimize them.  To believe that is to say that perpetrators are the true victims – their choice was dictated by the victim. If the victim hadn't mouthed off, if the victim had worn more clothes, if the victim hadn't been walking home alone, the abuser wouldn't have been "forced" to violate them."

    "That was the way I thought when I was married to my abusive husband.  I believed that I provoked him to abuse me.  Unconsciously, I knew the cycle of abuse – the build up, the explosion, the honeymoon. The build up was agonizing.  I knew the explosion was coming, but when??? I had to get it over with and get to the honeymoon part of the cycle, which is what I lived for. The only choice I thought I had was when I'd be abused – not if."

    "In reality, my ex-husband was looking for any excuse to belittle me and to take away more freedom.  He was waiting to twist something I said or did into a reason to punish me."

    "Abusers justify their punishment by finding a so-called weakness. The weakness doesn't even have to make sense. The flaw or mistake could be "too fat" or "too skinny", "too pretty" or "too ugly", "too stupid" or "a know-it-all". What's ideal one day is a mistake the next.  The standards change to keep the victim insecure and self-doubting."

    "I've lived under the control of many abusers and each one considered different qualities a weakness."

    "I deserved to treated respectfully, no matter what flaws I have – or I'm thought to have. The truth is that I'm not responsible for my abuser's behavior."

    "Accepting blame is only helpful if I am really at fault. If I keep getting fired from every job because I'm constantly late, blaming my boss for unfair standards won't help me; blaming traffic won't help me. I'll have employment problems until I recognize my responsibility and do something to change my behavior."

    "Accepting responsibility for things that are my fault can be the first step to improving my life, but accepting responsibility for things that are not my fault can also keep me in the cycle of abuse and failure."

    "One of the problems with accepting false blame is that I became even more angry with myself. I was caught in a game I could never win.  That didn't empower me to change the circumstances or myself. If I was somehow responsible for my abuse, what good would it do to leave my abuser? If I deserved the abuse, why should I fight it?"

    "I needed to see who truly deserved the blame."

    "The truth is that I can place the responsibility on the perpetrators of my abuse while still taking responsibility for picking up the pieces of my life.  I can acknowledge it was the abuser's fault and still have power to heal."  Christina.

     

    What I failed to consider is that we find control when we blame ourselves.  This is huge.  We don't want to feel out of control the relationship is…so in order to bring some kind of control, we hold the blame.

    And, society also carries the burden of blaming the victim when they choose to see the perpetrators out of control…and that we the victims are in control of them by what we wear, where we walk and what we do.

    If you can grasp this belief; it will change your life into empowerment.

    I do remember my world spinning out of control, when I let go of the self-blame and responsibility.  The spinning was the unraveling of my story of how I I had the problem and the correction of my world.  Placing the true picture upon my parents.

    When I did this, even though my outer world raced out of control; my inner sense of self, calmed down and became clear.

    Giving back the brokenness to those who broke it…was extremely powerful.

    It left me with broken relationships, but back in control of me.

    I gave back to my parents the responsibility for the abuse in our home.

    I carried with me the part I was responsible for.  

    My silence.

    My need for attention.

    My wanting to be accepted.

    My desire to make others happy; no matter what.

    I didn't create their mess and so I had no power to fix it.

    I only could be very aware of my responsibility within my relationships.

    My actions.

    My words.

    My energy.

    My agreement….or disagreement.

    My relationships are about me.

    They tell the world who I am by what I tolerate or don't.

    Who I spend my time with.

    What I spend my time on.

    I am no longer a victim of anyone's behavior.  No one can make me do something without my consent.

    No one has more power than me in my life.

    I love that the most.

    And secondly, I love that I no longer need to blame someone to garnish control in my world.

    I let my world spin in whatever way reality is…

    I am a lover of realty, no matter what really presents.

    I accept it without blame.

    I wonder about what the Angel of Love will deliver?

    Certainly she dances with blameless freedom!

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