I M Perfect lady

Category: Crusade

  • What I could live with.

    In writing about Karma I stumbled upon the idea of reflective self image…and narcistic behavior.  I have heard the word before, but I had never truly looked at what it meant.  And, if you are trying to change your reflection you will not change your karmic path.

    I just didn't sit smack down in the middle of what it means to only see yourself as a reflection in what people say about you…how other people's opinions matter more than your own, for you see yourself reflected in their eyes.

    I didn't get this word narcissistic as that when you saw yourself, it was through how others saw you….one step removed…via an outside window; the eyes of other.

    Even though I lived as a narcissistic lady and was devasted when the reflection of who I was shattered and I was left without a me.  There was no inside me without the outside image.

    It is like the voices and ideas of you by others is the mirror in which we see ourselves.  

    My voices (mirror) was something that I thought was loving and with high values and standards….I had an upstanding mirror and I saw myself as my mirror saw me. And it was all good, until my mirror became one that was warped and distorted…abuse.

    I had lived to keep the mirror saying good things about me.

    When I stopped dancing for the mirror, the mirror no longer said nice things.

    I had begun to dance for me.

    For the very faint and tiny self inside of me.

    Just the concept of doing for the self inside of me was foriegn…so strange and awkward.  I was very inept at being me.

    Little by little my self image shrank on the outside and grew on the inside.

    I was losing my narcissistic self.

    I am just amazed at how I can now see clearly how I was only a reflection of what others thought of me.

    What a scary way to live….for at any time, they can change their minds and then my image would change.  I had no control of my reflection…the mirror had all the power.

    Just picture the mirror being the one in charge of changing how you looked.

    The difference of knowing and owning and being a self without the need of a reflection compared to being a narcissistic….is so vast it boggles my mind.

    Wayne Dyer speaks of "Being beyond the good opinions of others…" and it was a place of great freedom and one that takes an extreme amount of fearlessness to achieve.

    It is what I had said early on. "I am going to go and find myself, I don't know who I am or that I was even missing."

    I had no self without the good opinions of others. That is why I cared so much what others thought about me.

    Now, I don't care how they see me…that is truly their business.

    Mine is to keep my inner view of me crystal clear.

    I don't do things that will reduce or lower the inner image of myself.

    I carry myself and I am the one who raises my value or lowers it, depending upon what I do.

    I am the one whose karmic path I have to live with.

    The ones who used to be the keepers of my reflection never had to live the karmic debts it cost me to keep dancing for their good words.

    Imagine…we do things that we don't like in order to get words that keeps our reflection shining good and then we have to live the consequences of the dance.

    In order to appear loving and kind in the reflection, we tolerate bad behaviors from others. All we care about is that the reflections sees us as good people.

    I am so grateful that my reflection shattered into a million peices and that I didn't have the strength to dance again.

    I then did what I had never done.

    I only danced for me.

    I only did what I could live with.






  • Reflect That.

    Karma - "The total effect of a person's actions and conduct during the successive phases of the person's existence, regarded as determining the person's destiny."

    While doing yoga today, it came to me that Karma isn't about what you do for others so much as it is what you do for you. How your actions are in harmony with your truth and spirit.

    Karma is very personal…it is between your soul and how you present yourself to the world.

    Karma isn't about doing for others at the cost of your own inner peace, love and joy.

    Our lives (karma) are echoing back how we feel about ourselves…not what we do for others.

    Our destiny is decided by how we speak our feelings and how we create boundaries as we care for our self.  

    Karma is self care…self love…being one with your spirit.

    Our karmic care is lost in a multitude of ways…for me it was abuse and being raised by a woman who was selfish, but not self caring…if that makes sense.

    She wasn't able to care for her self, let alone for the 14 children she gave birth to.

    I wasn't given a good role model on how to sow a destiny of love, peace and joy for my self.

    What I hear many saying is that they are going forward with the positive, and leaving their past behind.  

    And, what I see is that they are unwilling to examine their karmic trail, to see the exact science of cause and effect, and it is how we respond that plants a new karmic seed.

    I just don't see how being 'kind' to my father served my mother.

    It left her with a husband that was incapable to love, no matter how 'loving' she was.

    This is what I mean by our karma isn't doing for others, but rather doing for our selves.

    She would have taught her daughters a completely different lesson, had she been aware of what her actions were doing to her self.

    I had always felt that she had multiple opportunities for a redo…each time he committed another act of abuse…she was given a choice to act differently, but time and time again, she failed to change her response.  She doesn't know how to begin to begin to change her karma.  She will always get what she has been getting, for she is doing what she has always done.

    There is an internal cost to loving people who hurt you.  Each time you focus on their needs and neglect your needs…you are being unloving and uncaring to your self.

    I just can't see how treating yourself poorly will grant you a karmic trail of love, peace and joy.

    You are not giving love if it is hurtful to your self…you are hurting your self and I am not sure what the other person is getting except perhaps a false message…or a message of how much you are okay hurting yourself.

    We are not responsible for the content and the destiny of each other's lives.

    We are only repsonsible for our own life. 

    Our life reviews will be feeling what we have done to others.

    If you are loving them falsely, you will feel this empty love.

    I believe that my karma path changed, my life's destiny was greatly altered when I began living from the inside out.  I went from expecting others to make me me….and instead worked on creating my own self.

    A self that had boundaries and self care rules.

    I no longer was self less and could do anything for anyone.

    I had an inner awareness of this living breathing soulful self who was affected by how I acted.

    I no longer lied to myself.

    I no longer pretended at the cost of myself.

    I became extremely aware of how each action I did was setting up my future world. For, I had experienced living a life, blind to the karmic response…and was intent on making others happy, while completely neglecting me.  And yet, I was very narcisistic.

    I just read that narcistic people can be either controlling or neglectful…and I believe that the difference between a narcistic person and one who is self loving is how they see/love themselves.

    I have been reading just a bit on narissistic people, and here is how I see it.

    They need someone else to show them themselves…they are incapable of seeing themselves by themselves.

    Meaning, I was a good mother IF my children showed me how I was.  

    I was a good friend, if a friend could show me how I was by what they said about me.

    If another person wasn't there, there was no me.  My sense of self was just a reflection.  I had no inner view of myself.

    A narsissistic person disappears without you telling them who they are.  It is a job that is endless.  My mother is only a mother if we make her one.  On her own, she is very much not a mother.  I was/am the maker of the mother daughter relationship…she couldn't be a mother without me.

    I know this will seem vaguely mental, but unless and until you can get away from the reflection of how others see you….you will not get this.

    I have deflected if you will all other's opinions, and have gained a connection with me inside.  I have literally turned inward to find out who I am.

    In doing so, my karma has changed from being narsisstic to being self loving.

    Anytime you are worried about your reflection (how others see you) you are dancing on the lip of being narsisstic.

    My mother believed, that her reflection of how she seen my father would change him…for, she loved her reflection of her self and not her self.  So, she worked on repeatedly changing his reflection by how she saw him.  And failed to see the real him.

    The world is not set up for us to change each other.  Imagine how brutal that would be, to have your image continual changed by how others seen you. Which they do and it does…but only in their eyes.

    No one can change my image of me, but me.

    I am solely responsible for my actions and my responses. It is my intention to pay attention to my inner world and the outer world will reflect that.






  • Go for Recess!

    "You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have."  Maya Angelou


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    I love to see the beginning and then in a short time the transformations….

     

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    It is fun creating with others, for we each find new ways to do the same thing…stretching our imaginations.



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    I love seeing the different ideas emerge…while often I sit not knowing what to do… or how to start…or even have a vision.  The possibilities are endless.



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    …and laughter and friendships flow easily.  


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    and giving and receiving….happen in many ways.


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    And we all go home with a new idea materialized.

    Women In New Directions is two hours….twice a month…a refueling of energy that seeps into our everyday life…a place for women to go for recess!

    "Creativity takes Courage"  Henri Matisse


  • Who controls your actions?

    When I thought about the decision making event or Judgment, it came to me that a way to avoid making a decision is to excuse or reason the second option away…meaning if there is only one choice, there is no need to make a decision.

    You just have to get rid of the second choice that popped up.

    You can do this by one of two ways…making excuses or finding reasons for this behavior…in a way that will make it reasonably okay and less negative.

    The more you can eliminate the negative values, the more positive it can be, hence no need to decide between two, for now the negative appears almost positive in nature.

    I have heard many excuses and reasons for remaining in abusive, toxic and dysfunctional relationships and none of them have to do with the actual negative action, but all have to do with 'understanding' how the person acts that way.

    "She didn't have a mother….so she doesn't know how to mother…."  

    "She was abused by her brother…so she doesn't know how to love or what abuse is."

    "He was abused by a neighborhood girl…and this is why he is this way."

    "His marriage wasn't good anyway so it isn't like he cheated really…"

    It is shocking how 'good' people will find reasons and excuses for bad behavior to almost make those actions seem reasonable.

    What comes to mind is "Two wrongs don't make it right."

    Our ability to water down behaviors with excuses is how we navigate life running from decisions.  Isn't if funny, in a peculiar way, how we would rather stand tough on the excuses and reasons…rather than stand silent with the action.

    We don't want to be uncomfortable with just the naked action….we like to dress it up with reasons and excuses. We want to reason it way….out of kindness and understanding…draping words to deflect what is.

    What I find as insane is how many believe that words of reasons and excuses are reasonable things to believe in…that they will trump any action.

    I have been told many times in the past 8 years, that I don't understand and I don't know them, I haven't walked in their shoes….mostly these are pleas to hear the reasons and the excuses for a negative behavior.

    Is there really a good reason to neglect and abuse a child?  I do get it that patterns are passed down, but if we sit in the lap of accepting excuses, we will never break the patterns.

    Can there ever be a good reason to cheat or lie…

    I heard a line on the radio…and I can't remember the context…was it a book on CD or was it a person talking….but it goes like this.  "If you are ever wondering about a choice you are making….If you don't want that choice to be written on the front page of the paper, do not make that choice."

    Meaning anything you have to hide, is perhaps the wrong choice to be making.

    And I feel, that most often it is the bad choices that are in need of the biggest reasons and excuses…and when you are acting out of character, YOU need me to believe the reasons and the excuses and to NOT focus on your actions.

    I used to be a believer in the excuses and reasons and I overlooked many actions in order to believe in you…only to find out….people are not their reasons and excuses, but they are their behaviors.

    No matter what reasons you give to why my father sexually desired little girls…it will not stop his behavior from happening.

    No matter what excuses you give my mother for being a shallow emotionally retarded woman, it will not change who she is.  

    We have been taught that it is nicer to sit with comfortable reasons and excuses that it is kinder and more loving to understand etc….than it is to look boldly upon their actions and to 'label' them by what they do.

    Not only see their behaviors, but respond in kind.

    The behaviors of my parents has delivered endless pain and suffering and trauma…finding excuses and reasons doesn't lessen or remove the pain, all it does is to deflect it.  To not feel the cost and toll it has taken to be in relationships with them.

    Typically, as far as I can tell….there are the wrong doers and then the excuse makers….and they need each other to live in harmony.

    The wrong doers need you to be reasonable and understanding SO THEY don't have to change their behavior. They need you to find a way to be comfortable with their hurtful actions….and we do.

    It is seen as being more christian like to 'forgive' their sins….than it would be to address them and make them responsible for their actions. 

    It is seen as unloving to point out the negative actions and how they feel upon you.

    Each time we work to understand and excuse away their bad behavior it is to make them appear normal, nice, kind….etc.  It is to make them more positive than they appear.

    The way abuse lives in homes is that there are the excuse and reason makers working like hell to make it all right.  But, all these excuses and reasons do is to try and cover up negative actions.

    But, they can't.

    No matter what you say after a negative action….it will remain negative.

    You can't make abuse look pretty or nice or reasonable.

    You can't make cheating an act of love for anyone.

    All you are doing is living in a space of fantasy…and believing in the reasons and not in the action.

    In the land of reasons and excuses you don't have to decide, for you have erased the very thing you would have to decide upon….and have made it reasonable behavior.

    I am forever amazed at the capacity of the human mind to wrestle with reality and win…to add words to explain away an action…and then the ability of this same mind who changed reality To BELIEVE that which it just changed.

    Amazing.

    Our society, our churches, our religions and much of the rules we live by are engaged in the activity of excuses and reasons…very few have I encountered live in the land of actions mattering more.

    The only way we will ever be able to stop abuse is when we stop making excuses and reasons for unreasonable behavior…and instead start responding to actions.

    I believe that the left side of the brain is used as Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor said, "To take the least amount of informations and weave the most plausible story." 

    I see the left brain as the excuse maker….and believing what it weaves.

    To me, this is an incredibly insane world….when our left brain creates a story using the LEAST amount of information….and we use that as our moral compass.

    We have lost or perhaps never had an awareness to this device or perhaps we were trained to see the world through the left brain. 

    I see how most people have a highly skilled and exceptionally fit left brain…with very little awareness left to see life naked.

    Silently without words.

    Just actions.

    Our left brain immediately wants to get involved and make it different than it is.

    I learned the hard way.  I had built a whole life on the left side that was a complete false world…and one day it all crashed.  I was left standing naked in a reality that I had hidden…in my left brain.  

    All that I didn't want to know or feel or deal with….was still there behind all the reasons and excuses…reality never changed.

    I just now had 45 plus years of unweaving to do.

    I am no longer a weaver of excuses and reasons…but rather I face reality squarely in its face…silencing the left brain's chatter center, as it wants to create an alternate place for me to live.

    There are only two places to live…in the left brain's landscape of reasonable excuses….or in reality.  And yet, in truth…there is only one place. Reality.

    No matter where your focus lies….only one reality exists.  But, there can be a billion reasons as to why.

    Maybe the more intriguing question to ask is why? 

    Why do you act the way you do?

    I never questioned my actions…it was like I was living on remote control…and someone else held the controls.  

    Now, I do focus on the actions…and I do often wonder who is operating their controls….for it often seems like the person has no power over their actions.

    But if they don't, then who does?

    Who controls your actions?




  • Walk in Easily.

    In discoverying that Judgment is actually a decision making event and living with the affects it has your actions…I also see how it clearly shows…what two things you need to decide upon.

    If there were no choices, there would be no need for decision…or "Judgment".

    In families, it is seen as being loyal and loving towards family, if you don't ever change your mind about people who are blood relatives.  Family IS Family, period.

    It is better to only see one choice…Family…and rally and fight to keep this first image alive…than it is to have actual boundaries and standards…(choices).

    How many of us put up with behaviors from families, that we would never tolerate from 'friends' or even strangers?

    We tolerate it and call it 'unconditional' love.  

    One of the most damaging things that we took from our parents home was the fact that my mother had no boundaries, no limits, no set point, nothing.  Anything was permitted by her husband, and she remained a loyal to 'their love' and marriage.  No matter how disloyal and hurtful he was, no matter the amount of damage he inflicted, she stayed loyal, like a blind dog to all his faults. Or worse, 'blessed them away'.

    So she was a blind dog who could see…active denial.

    This type of 'loving' is what she gave us as an example for love.  My father did all sorts of unloving things and it didn't change how she treated him…her tolerance for unloving actions told us it was NOT loving to change her mind.

    Instead she changed her mind on what he did.

    She removed the flaws and bad behavior with the forgiveness of sins….she forgave and forgot and moved back onto the landscape of nice and loving.

    She never let herself stay with the negative…she moved on.  

    Moved away from his negative behaviors.  She never barked or acted mean…she was always the faithful dog…loving the one who hurt her.

    So, there never was two choices, she quickly did what she needed to do to be the loving faithful wife.

    Now, my siblings are doing the same thing…being loving kids…overlooking the negative to have a positive relationship…if that is even possible?

    I told my brother, I don't care if I get an F as daughter, but I have boundaries within relationships.  I have expectations and standards and I will not lower the bar to the ground so family/friends can roll their butts over the line.

    What is see in dysfunctional families is the lack of a bar… so they don't then have to decide who makes it over or who falls short.  

    There will be no choices if you don't have standards.

    All types are welcome.

    Treat me kind or treat me mean…I will remain faithful always.

    Faithful to the family. Blood is Blood!

    Family is family…is a refrain I have heard repeated in its disloyal strength…

    They see me as being very cold and heartless and Judging…when I kick family out…for not reaching my bar.  

    I am not a family player.

    How dare I set a bar at all??? Who do I think I am that I can set limits for them to aspire to or fall short of?

    How difficult it has to be for your children to have this bar…to worry about falling short of the bar…

    And, I see their bars on the ground and wonder how they can live like that?

    How can you let anyone into your home?  How can you allow any types of behavior tag on to the backs of family and not flick and eyelid?  How is it okay to accept all and call it love?

    Really?

    All behaviors are loving behaviors?  

    Only God gets to decide (judge what is a bad behavior…you can't?

    This leaves you sitting bar less…like a faithful dog hoping that no one will hurt you…powerless without a protective fence.  Hoping for a loving relationship to bloom…someday.

    It is like you are the dog and the dog owner…and you have chained yourself to people who are hurting you…but hoping they don't.

    All I know, is that I lived both ways…and I prefer having my bar off the ground. To know I have the power to move away from people who hurt.  

    I am glad I have the ability to make decisions…that I don't have to be in relationships with people who hurt me.

    And let me tell you it hurts more when family hurts you…than if a complete stranger lies…or betrays you.  

    But, I also know by setting boundaries, I am teaching my children to not be a helpless dog…that you don't have to continue to love those that hurt you.

    I am showing them a new pattern….one that I wasn't given.

    I know family is family…until they hurt you…then we get to decide again.

    I can only see hurt being healed if the one who hurts you works to change their behavior, learns that it isn't okay to hurt family.

    Hurting families are abusive families.

    You simply can't get a loving family without boundaries.

    We were taught in the church and in our abusive home, that you are not worthy of setting you own boundaries, of having a set of standards that may exclude some….

    Many see me as being alone and isolated for my bar is too high. 

    Really?  Too high…so not to let pedophiles and cheaters in?  Really that is too high?

    And I ask, how low is your bar if they can walk in easily?


  • In Sound Judgment!

    I see two main sticking points between me and my estranged family…and I am certain, they will absolutely agree.

    One, I drew a line in the Cement and refuse to budge.  Second, that what I call the truth, they call judgment.  

    And really, there is only one sticking point…the line in the cement and it is called the truth….

    What is so completely frustrating, is that many will say that they agree with me, that my father is a pedophile, that my mother is 'slightly mental' and both are emotionally bankrupted…and that their lives are a mess…and we all were affected by it, BUT…they will not judge them.

    What does that mean?

    It appears to me, that this word "judgment" only comes in when the next step would require them to do something...and instead, they will say, "I will let God be the one to judge them…"

    I had to go and look up this word Judgment to see just what God is supposed to be doing for these folks, just what are they incapable of doing.

    Judgment - the ability to judge, make a decision or form an opinion objectively, authoritatively, and wisely, especially in matters affecting action; good sense; discretion: A man of sound judgment.

    This is interesting and completely true in my experiences of them.

    It is the inability to make a decision especially in matters affecting action.

    So, here is the deal as I see it.  They can't make the decision or form an opinion that is hard and concrete, FOR THEN it will affect their actions. AND, they are not willing at this time, to change their actions….meaning estrange themselves from family.

    They remain undecided.  Wow.  I could feel them swinging from side to side, but in actuality, they are only swinging in their minds.  Their actions have not changed one bit.  Nothing has been decided…."God will decide for them…"

    Really, God's job is to make decisions for you?  

    I just didn't know that judgment was about making decisions….but more about 'blaming'.  That is how I feel that they look at me, that I am blaming my parents for abuse.  Well, let's see….didn't they abuse their kids?  I made the decision that they did and then it altered my actions.

    The very reason that my actions and their actions do not match, is that I made a decision.  

    I love that judging is making a decision.  

    For I definitely feel that once I made the first huge decision, I had many many more to make.  I had to continue making decisions based upon this one.

    THEY ABUSED THEIR CHILDREN.  That is what I decided…and my life changed completely after this decision.

    So, they are waiting for God to decide IF they abused their children????

    Isn't that what they talked about near my father's dead body???

    What is there to decide?

    OH, yes, it will then require you to live like me. 

    Outside of the family, for father and pedophile have no common denominator.

    Mother and accomplice to sexual abuse, have no common denominator.

    And there is a vast difference between those who judge and those who do not.

    The judging ones make a decision in the cement, there is no going back.

    You all know it….so until then, "You will leave the Judging to God"…so you don't have to decide.

    But hey, while you are pondering this….what do you think about the judgment I made that my father abused girls???  If you haven't 'decided' on this…you make the little girls liars.

    For isn't HE INNOCENT, until proven guilty???

    And doesn't that make us guilty Until he is proven innocent?

    You all are wimping out on making a line in cement….and while you do, you are discrediting each little girls story.  For, according to the Detective's report that I read, RAY Huhta was not innocent.  And, I made a decision upon hearing a little girl's voice that echoed my fears…I decided then, without even going to trial, that the little girl was correct, she spoke the truth….and it has affected actions incredibly.

    I have moved away from anyone who remains undecided.

    Your indecision has me guilty and him innocent.

    And, from the way I have been ostracized it fits completely.

    I am guilty….of what???

    Oh yeah of making a decision.

    I decided that they abused the children…and there is not one action step that doesn't tell you so.  I have acted completely and relentlessly…for the innocence of the girls.

    I am thankful for the conversations blasting me with anger about this word judgment…for now I will understand how it pertains to me completely.  

    It is true, I judged my parents….

    This was one of the first decisions I made independently…one that I know is supported in truth and fits into reality.  It wasn't a decision based on lies.

    I stand in sound judgment!


  • I had been weak.

    I love this analogy from yesterday's reading by Mark Nepo.

    The Art of Facing Things What people have forgotten is what every salmon knows. —ROBERT CLARK 

    Salmon have much to teach us about the art of facing things. In swimming up waterfalls, these remarkable creatures seem to defygravity. It is an amazing thing to behold. A closer look reveals a wisdom for all beings who want to thrive. 

    What the salmon somehow know is how to turn their underside—from center to tail—into the powerful current coming at them, which hits them squarely, and the impact then launches them out and further up the waterfall; to which their reaction is, again, to turn their underside back into the powerful current that, of course, again hits them squarely; and this successive impact launches them further out and up the waterfall. Their leaning into what they face bounces them further and further along their unlikely journey. 

    From a distance, it seems magical, as if these mighty fish are flying, conquering their element. In actuality, they are deeply at one with their element, vibrantly and thoroughly engaged in a compelling dance of turning-toward-and-being-hit-squarely that moves them through water and air to the very source of their nature. 

    In terms useful to the life of the spirit, the salmon are constantly faithful in exposing their underside to the current coming at them. Mysteriously, it is the physics of this courage that enables them to move through life as they know it so directly. We can learn from this very active paradox; for we, too, must be as faithful to living in the open if we are to stay real in the face of our daily experience. In order not to be swept away by what the days bring, we, too, must find a way to lean into the forces that hit us so squarely. 

    The salmon offer us a way to face truth without shutting down. They show us how leaning into our experience, though we don't like the hit, moves us on. Time and again, though we'd rather turn away, it is the impact of being revealed, through our willingness to be vulnerable, that enables us to experience both mystery and grace.  Mark Nepo

     

    I totally get what he is writing about, especially when it comes to hearing the truth when it isn't pleasant or kind.  When it crashes into what you have previously believed. 

    I somehow was taught to not climb the waterfall of truth, but to duck beneath it and just stay with the positive.  

    I am now much like the Salmon.  I face it squarely with my full insides.  I want to know the truth and oddly, instead of drowning me, I am actually becoming stronger and as I see it in my life, moving ahead.

    Dodging the truth will not advance your life at all.

    And facing it fully in the belly, feeling the sharp jolts of the truth, will actually let you rise above it….and not drown.

    As human beings, we somehow believe that the truth will be the death of us….when the complete opposite is true.  

    Knowing who my father was and how he lived his life, actually allowed me to live mine.  

    Like a salmon, I have been climbing the sometimes endless waterfall of truth….advancing bit by bit…letting the truth slam me in the gut time and time again…it has given me courage and strength to advance in my life.

    I can understand how this seems improbable, how it seems that you are swimming in the endless flow of negativity, but actually you are turning the negative into a positive advancing movement. 

    While most want to turn their bellys away from the negative, believing that it will keep them positive, it actually weakens them.

    I didn't become strong by turning away from the truths….the truths actually showed me where I had been weak.


  • A parent to me.

    When my father's obituary was in our local paper, it was short, to the point of almost being meaningless…for it did not show the progression of his children's lives, who they married and their children.  It simply had our first names.  Now, I have no idea who gave this information to be published or why it was so condensed…but its odd nature struck me.  

    Perhaps what made it seem even odder, is that my mother sent me the family tree info pack, that held the details of the ripples of their lives together…about a week and a half after he died.

    The juxtaposition between his public obit and the real family tree sat with me…

    Again, no knowing the intention, whether it was a thoughtful and calculated slim obit or was it just subconscious quick giving the bare details….of his life, it just seemed odd.  

    Like wanting to say who his is, but not saying saying who he was, or who was connected to him…what are the real numbers, and names and lives. The briefness of it cancelled much of his life…the lives of his children and their children's lives. It didn't show who he left behind.

    That is what strikes me the most.  He left behind a pile of kids, grandkids and great-grand kids.  He was the top….he 'touched' many lives in ways again, we don't want to write about…not to even mention the sheer numbers.

    I can see the quandary the person who was left with the task to write the obit was left in.  Who do we connect with this man?  How much do we write and how?  If it had been me, I would have put the whole complete obit. 

    What I know is that he had 15 children, one son died (a still birth).  Most of us married, some have divorced and remarried, one experienced a death of a spouse and remarried.  We have had children and their children have had children. We have married spouses with children.  

    He had 49 grand-children and 12 great-grand children.

    Up until 8 years ago…he was dad and grandpa to all of these numbers.  He was in their lives…and recently he was still part of many, but not all.

    His influence lives within the numbers he left behind.  All were touched, by even not being touched  All were affected…even if neglected.  All carry with them the vestiges of his character.  He lives on in all of us…

    How each of us allowed him into our worlds…shows more about us than him.

    While it was greatly disturbing to know my father was a pedophile, it was far more tragic to realize I didn't know…that the trauma was not recorded in my mind.  That my life was lived awkward at best due to this one missing link.

    I am grateful beyond grateful, that his truth didn't go to the grave with him.  

    I am a complete person knowing that I was abused.  I made sense, my life made sense, the religion made sense, my mother made sense, the siblings made sense…all of it matched my experience, once I had the whole picture.

    Without knowing the complete picture, you get left with the obituary in the paper, a surface quick overview of first names.

    I for one, needed to know the details so I made sense.  I needed to know why I couldn't feel close to him and why I carried resentment towards her (my mother)…why I had such rage inside….all the why questions were answered when I knew who he was.

    We are directly grown from our experiences with our parents.

    Being at the top of the pile, we will have more saturated strong influence, but all were touched and affected.  The younger ones get a milder dose…but even at its weakest strength, its strength will change your life.

    Doing a rough estimate there were 75 children whose lives he was in contact with….not counting the spouses.  And the spouses had to deal with the awkwardness of our emotional damage….so they certainly should be included.  Say, roughly another 10, plus his wife. That is 86…out of the gate.  Oh, and let us not forget his sister and his brother, now we are closer to 90 folks.  And now we could canvas the neighborhood where he lived for roughly 35 years….the numbers are going way over 100…for each family home in our neighborhood had large families near 10 each…3 families that I know were affected.  

    His life wasn't a simple obituary….

    It is my hope that peace is found in knowing he did abuse.  In knowing you are not mental or that your story wasn't believed (even if the parents did nothing).  It isn't about the reaction to your story, it is about that it did happen.

    You can find your power in claiming this.

    My real life began when I fully accepted that I was abused.  I could then begin to live my truth and to love all of me.  I love the parts of me that were damaged.  I love who it made me to be. 

    The greatest thing all of his victims can do is to learn to love ourselves again. To put our lives in first place.  To take back what he took in our childhood.  Our love, our trust and our faith in our selves.

    I decided early on that his abuse wasn't going to define me…but rather I was going to re-define myself. I was going to go towards love, peace and joy.

    Love of me.  Joy in me…and what brings me peace.

    I am but one small name in his obituary, but I too have a legacy to leave behind.

    Mine will be, there is a cure to being abused and that is to take back your power.

    To take back your life and break the silence…to turn away from what the dysfunctional family wants and desires and turn inwards to the wounded child inside.

    Taking care of my wounded self; I was a parent to me.


    IMG_8980
    I can create a new family tree!





  • I Exploded in Feelings.

    "I was entirely alienated from both my inner and outer worlds. All my life, I have found it difficult to admit I am feeling anger, fear or bitterness. Ever anxious that certain feelings would make me an evil person or cost me love, I have locked out unacceptable feelings. That winter I dealt with my “bad” feelings as if I were a hanging judge. I found them guilty and executed them as quickly as I could. However, all that resistance created more intensity and anxiety." Mary Pipher

    In reading this I had to post another post.  

    What I find so enthralling about my journey is that when I began expressing my truth and my feelings, I was depicted as evil.  

    I was taught and shown by example not to express anger, fear and bitterness…but rather depict a sunny face, no matter what.  And, you especially did not show anger, fear or bitterness against family.  You had to keep those feelings under lock and throw away the key.

    What you all may not understand, is that even if you feel them and don't release them by feeling them out loud, you will be feeling them…but it turns into rage against innocent people and things.

    The sheer volume of rage I had inside of me, that I directed towards my children in moments that did not warrant that volume, makes me a believer in this.  All my years of keeping a lid on my own inner truths, made a huge volcano inside…that could be tapped at any moment, if my children didn't respond in the manner I needed in that moment.

    I became unglued.  My rage, fear and all other negative feelings came rushing to the surface needing an outlet.

    What I know for certain is that each time I have gone back and felt an emotion that wasn't pleasant, it made me more pleasant.

    It is just the opposite of what I had thought.

    I thought if you expressed rage and anger about abuse, you would get left bitter and angry….when the opposite is more true.

    There are things in life that will ignite feelings of rage and anger….so let them come up to be expressed at the actual moment in time. Don't hide them or speak falsely about how you feel.

    Being truthful with your words and feelings.

    It was scary for me to do this, for I was taught that 'good girls' don't make waves, they don't act up and they don't speak their minds.  Good girls are always nice. They take all kinds of treatments and smile…nicely.  Evil girls will act up and say what is on their minds.  They are misbehaving.

    I love being a 'bad' girl for walking with my truth…for being unruly and disruptive…it feels so much better and freer than having to clamp down on my feelings and words.

    I used to walk around with clenched fists….literally.  Holding all my feelings in check.

    Until one day reality was bigger than I…I was overwhelmed by what I was supposed to keep inside.  I wasn't big enough…there was no more room to push down any more.  

    I exploded in feelings.

  • Out Run the Truth

    From Mark Nepo's book, "The Awakening" - October 28th
    "I have stopped. You have not." —BUDDHA 
    "There is a story of how, just before he was hung, Angulimala, the murderer, became an Arahant, or worthy one, because of his encounter with Buddha. Angulimala had seemingly been so driven from his own life that he was taking the lives of others. Perhaps it was timing, the readiness of a man about to die confronted with the unwavering presence of an authentic spirit; no one will ever know. But it is said that the two stood before each other for a very long time, and when the silence seemed to part some veil from Angulimala's eyes, Buddha said to him, “I have stopped. You have not stopped.” This was followed by an equally telling silence, after which the fortress of cruelty that Angulimala had built around his heart crumbled. It is said that, though Angulimala was hung with a rope made from the fingerbones of his victims, in the moments between Buddha's words and his own last breath, Angulimala truly lived." 
    "Of course, such a story is a penetrating riddle. What had this man not stopped that enabled him to murder? And what had Buddha stopped that enabled him to be enlightened? Though we will never know, we can suggest that the thing not stopped might be any form of running from the risk and pain of being alive, such as denial, hiding, projection. For any form of running from the truth of ourselves can lead to such a numb existence that one can become violent in order to feel. If we don't stop running, we can murder ourselves again and again by taking the lives of others, either physically through violence or sexually through conquest or emotionally through dominance and control or professionally through power." 
    "Ultimately, however you enter this riddle, we are both Buddha and Angulimala, and we repeatedly need to have this conversation with ourselves in order to stay compassionate and real."  Mark Nepo
    Somehow I was taught to escape the truth over and over again, to focus on the good times and then the good times will be....
    Even today, I am asked repeatedly to let the abuse go...when what I am doing actually is bringing in all that I had run from.  It all came home to roost and now it is time to pay.  I pay my past debt by feeling.  I also had to look at what I did so as to not risk the pain of being alive. I had to see the life I led that enabled me to run from the truth of our family.
    What I am doing today is no longer running, but stopping and feeling...either past unexpressed emotions or expressing emotions in the present.  
    In the past I had a great need for dominance and control....of others.  Now, I work at just staying in control of me.  
    Each person is allowed to move freely and I then too can counter act by moving how I feel.
    In reading this, you can clearly see how the most controlling people are the farthest away from their self.
    There is no need to control others, IF you have full control of who you are.
    I recall it being very liberating and extremely frightening, when I knew to the depth of my soul, the only one I had power over was me.  
    In recognizing that....I gave the power back to everyone else.  I no longer carried the responsibility of their choices....where before I felt I did.
    As a mother, it was scary to give your children their lives back...especially for a very controlling mother....but I did.  I let them all go free.
    I am allowed to voice an opinion, to share wisdom, but in the end, their lives are separated from me.  They have their own Karma wheel...and what they do onto others, will be done on to them...
    Mostly I try and show the cause and affect.  They can move this way....but it will make me move that way.  
    A long while back, I knew as a mother I was the consequence lady.
    The kids were allowed to make a choice and I then had a consequence for that choice.  It is how the Universe works.  Your free will....has a consequence.
    You can run, but you cannot hide. All that you are running from is running with you...you simply can't out run the truth.