I M Perfect lady

Category: Examples of an Imperfect woman

  • Ten Affirmations for Male Survivors of Abuse

    My brother found these on Oprah’s website, and I believe they can be for
    anyone who is has been sexually abused.

    Howard Fradkin, Ph.D., LICDC, Co-Chairperson, MaleSurvivor Weekends of Recovery

    1. Recovery is absolutely possible and achievable for me.

    2. I will practice being disloyal to dysfunction and loyal to functionality.

    3. I give myself permission to connect to loving, affirmative, strong, sensitive, accepting men and women in my community.

    4. I release and forgive myself for any responsibility I have accepted in the past for my abuse.

    5. The abuser (s) from the past chose to hurt me; I will stop repeating the lie that it just happened to me.

    6. Offering myself daily compassion is necessary for my healing and growth.

    7. I commit to connecting to the boy inside me today so we can play, laugh and experience joy together, even if just for a minute or two.

    8. I believe deep inside me I possess the ability to face the truth of my abuse and to learn to use new tools for healing.

    9. I have the right and the ability to speak the truth of my abuse and deserve to be heard, understood, believed and supported.

    10. Feeling is healing; as I heal, I develop the ability to experience a wider range of emotions to enhance my health and connections to other.

    Thanks Oprah and Dr. Howard Fradkin, for doing the show, for sharing this information and for allowing each of us to stand a little taller, feel stronger and less alone.

  • Cover Your Truth.

    The phrase, “The Elephant in the Room” what does that really mean and how is it used properly?

    Have we been taught to not speak about things that are there, due to the reaction they bring?

    What are Elephants in a room?
    What is that?

    Is it a truth that is too much to bear?

    It seems to me that IF all know the Elephant is there and will not speak of it; we are all playing a game called, ‘lets pretend’.

    And ironically, it isn’t the Elephant we are pretending about but ourselves.

    A silent unspoken agreement that states, I will pretend to like you when I know you do things I don’t agree with, if you pretend to like me for pretending to like you.

    It seems to me that allowing an Elephant/truth to sit unspoken about is to pretend to pretend to pretend that there is a common ground that slipped away with the truth.

    And in order to maintain this false relationship, the Elephant/truth must not be mentioned, we skip around the mountain, and reach the summit of social niceties.

    We then form a new relationship that requires us to not go near the Elephant or truth.

    So what are we really preserving by being so courteous?

    Isn’t it just an old relationship minus the new and changing truths?

    This Elephant in the room that no one speaks about or entertains, to me is just dancing in denial with another.

    Being in a relationship that dishonors both.

    If truth isn’t allowed into a relationship, then I have no interest there.

    I am almost positive that the Elephant that arrived in the room with my father is he is a pedophile. If many adults in my youth had spoken of this Elephant, perhaps a few little girls would have been saved.

    It isn’t so much about the Elephant, but the ones who sit silently and allow it to be there.

    Elephants don’t disappear, don’t change, aren’t healed or treated in silence, nope, instead they continue to live out their sickness in full living color, while many courteously look on, being much to kind to speak of such ills about another person, to kind, to much into the social niceties, preserving a family, saving a father, sparing a brother, keeping sweet, that which isn’t.

    An Elephant in the room is showing you what is wrong and you will either see it and respond or look away.

    Pretending there is no Elephant is denial.

    And denial doesn’t heal, cure, erase, etc to the Elephant, it says much more about you than them.

    They are being their true selves; you are not willing to see it.

    You want to preserve a relationship of old, like good memories, and not willing to be present with who they are today, for it will crack, shatter, and explode the person you need them to be.

    At some point in time, it will be harder and harder to be in a room with an Elephant, it will simply cost you too much.

    My silence is not for sale, it cannot be used to cover your truth.

  • Gateway Into Self

    A blog called, Brave Girls Club, has a wonderful story about wearing signs, or the lack there of at;

    http://www.bravegirlsclub.com

    As I pondered which signs I am hiding or what I am not revealing it occurred to me that a sign was hung upon my neck, when my father’s truth hit the daily news.

    His past hung heavy around my neck.

    A sign I did not want to wear.

    His sign and my sign were puzzle pieces, they went together, he was a pedophile and I was his victim.

    Yet the sign wasn’t hung upon me until a niece spoke up and her words matched my feelings, and now I had a sign as proof.

    What an awkward, clumsy, shameful, disgusting sign, I had to wear.

    It was this sign that all turned away from, old friends became strangers, acquaintances dodged me, my sign didn’t fit into many relationships.

    The sign entered into the room before me, it over shadowed any cute outfit I wore, there was no way to hide or dress it up, It was exposed.

    Sadly some signs are not given the same considerations as most.

    In the first blushes of wearing this sign, I stood alone.

    Me and my new sign not knowing how to stand, to walk and carry myself with this new found history, I soon seen how I was someone to steer clear of.

    It is so interesting that some signs gain many friends and tons of support, while other signs are shunned and feared, their darkness too dark to approach.

    Standing up in those early days, with the weight of the devastation upon me, the sign nearly collapsed my spirit.

    Surprisingly that by having had to walk alone, I have more strength, not less.

    I still wear my sign, it will not go away, it and I are one, my past is me, and I am it.

    Some signs are the gateway into self.

  • Stand Up!

    Yesterday Oprah had the second part with the 200 men who stood up against abuse, I have only seen small segments on her website, but the few I seen offered this, “Standing UP against abuse”.

    Standing up and speaking up with courage, releases the shame, the blame and the rage that live in silence.

    Standing up is not a victim stance.

    Standing up takes courage.

    Standing in the truth of your life and your life experiences, standing and speaking of the deeds of evil you survived as a child, the mixed messages, the bad definitions, the path it set you upon, all stop when you stand up.

    You then pick your own path.

    A path free of abuse.

    I believe to the depth of my soul, you either are sitting down with abusers and letting the legacy continue, OR you are standing up and speaking out and walking away from the abuse.

    It takes courage to stand up, but standing up is the only thing that will stop abuse.

    Sitting and remaining in relationships where the abuse lives is sitting down in abuse.

    I Stand UP!

    I applaud these strong men and the courage it takes to stand up and I am standing with you!

    It will change your whole life, from being a victim to becoming a survivor.

    Standing up and speaking is the only way to end this.

    It is never too late to stand up!

  • Mismatched Lives

    I will not presume what grief of losing a love one in death is, but I feel like I can articulate the grief felt when leaving a family.

    It is an odd sense of grief, almost self-inflicted, where you purposefully leave and walk into a field of sorrow and lonesome.

    You continue to keep yourself there each time you choose to not participate, you segregate yourself to solitary confinement, yet knowing others gather and go on, you become a ghost in their lives and they in yours, living walking talking ghosts.

    Your lives no longer intercede, nor are there new memories made, unless you count the new grief ones.

    The relationship has died but the body lives on.

    You become a silent witness, a ghost with a body.

    We may all appear the same, unchanged, and many have kept up their same old routine, it is only I that have left the path, one that keeps us separated.

    The separation is as complete as death.

    And even colder, I feel, for there isn’t loving feelings flowing back and forth, instead stark obvious disagreement, irreconcilable differences.

    The differences are what separate us, not death.

    Death is final the ultimate trump card, there is nothing to wish, hope or try to change. Both sides agree.

    In irreconcilable differences, sides continue to be haunted by trying.

    Trying to reconnect and trying to move on, failing to articulate and stop even trying, there never seems to be a Game Over sign.

    And you can be going along seemingly healing from the ‘divorce of family’ and a phone call comes in, a name is mentioned, a party gathers, a reminder once again of where you are literally standing, alone outside.

    Where in death people want to keep the old memories alive, I feel that when the past comes knocking it sets me back.

    Back to me having to decide again, is this a relationship I want, is this healthy for me, what has changed in their worlds, a ghost coming back to me…asking again,
    divorce or not, dead or alive, with me or not, friends or enemies, sisters or strangers, mother or abuser, a choice to once again be made.

    Nothings over, no final exit, just flowing in and out, shouting our glaring difference, daring me once again to not see, to turn away from the truth and get along. See not our mismatched selves and be a family.

    A family of mismatched lives.

  • One Verse

    Life seems to unfold flatly in front of us and some will half close their eyes to bring in a fuzzy sorta kinda picture, so not to see its pure untouched nakedness.

    Raw life.

    Life without words, just life arriving unshackled, free and unbound.

    Reality.

    Worldwide realty show where there is no re-shooting or voice over, just life coming to us live!

    Life coming to us live and in living color!

    Yet how often do we see/hear and get what is playing out in front of us, the untouched version?

    How often do we excuse, dismiss, and let be behaviors due to some long held relationship we feel unable to dissolve?

    How often do we respond authentically to what is actually happening, or do we look the other way?

    When we turn, does the reality show make a sharp left with us?

    Do reality and its history not get recorded due to us blinking instead of responding in kind?

    Sometimes living in raw life I find myself brushing up against people who seem unaware that life is a live living breathing moving event.

    These are not actors, but actual people living life, it is not a rehearsal or a bad game show.

    This is your life.

    This is your moment in time, the here and the now, and each little tiny raw life moment is comprising your life, they all get tagged and stored into your history.

    What you do today is a day in the life of you.

    What you see today and respond to today is a recorded response in the life of you.

    How you respond to raw life builds the character called you.

    We can either work harder on keeping reality back or succumb to the rawness of life.

    Welcoming life exactly as the Universe created it, accepting the darkness as dark, the light as light, love as love, fear as fear…allowing each its own perfection.

    Love as love, not fear.
    Fear as fear, not love.
    Seeing the darkness as dark.

    Seeing the dance of Life as One….The Universe. One Verse.

  • Yoga Heals a Loveless Self

    “The purpose of yoga is to heal.

    Most people start practicing Bikram Yoga to flatten our stomachs, stretch our tight hamstrings, and/or to prevent future injuries. And yes it will do all of that, but those are the secondary benefits to practicing Bikram Yoga. The purpose of this yoga is TO HEAL and that healing takes place from the inside out. It works on a mental level (and spiritual level) to heal our minds. Only then can we begin to change our self on the outside.

    Bikram says, the yoga practice teaches us how to like our self and we start taking better take care of our self then we fall in LOVE with our self!”
    Karen Buckner

    What I didn’t know when I began this practice was how out of love I was with myself, and how my love of my self depended upon another.

    If they loved me, I was okay.

    I never loved me alone, by myself without doing for another.

    It is shocking how dependent we are taught to be on another’s good opinion, how we act/be/live/think/believe to be loved.
    To have another love us, yet we don’t stop and think what it would take for us to love us, alone.

    Doing was my self worth, which I mistook for love.

    I was worthless unless I was doing.

    Imagine this type of self-love where you give and give and give until there isn’t any energy left, until you are filled with resentment of the takers who are your love givers.

    Giving to get love?

    My damaged body is what drove me to doing yoga, with an arm hanging limply at my side, my upper shoulders and neck one huge knotted ball, I began to work on self.

    What I didn’t know was that I was actually filling up my empty tank inside and dumping out all the past beliefs about how to love, changing my inner beliefs of my self, one-second at a time, as I paid attention to my breath and body.

    Each day I brought my body to the mat, and focused on my breathing, as I twisted and bent this constricted body into unimaginable poses, I was changing deeply inside.
    It is a like strenuous physical magic, while I was concentrating so hard to change my body, my insides were healing, my sense of self blossomed, my inner strength to be me became strong, my mind sought clarity and the willingness to face what is…the list goes on and on.

    Yoga heals a loveless self.

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  • Peace In the Present Moment

    A book by Byron Katie and Eckhart Tolle

    “The most important, the primordial relationship in your life is your relationship with the Now, or rather with whatever form the Now takes, that is to say what is or what happens. If your relationship with the Now is dysfunctional, that dysfunction will be reflected in every relationship and every situation you encounter. The ego could be defined simply in this way; a dysfunctional relationship with the present moment. It is at this moment that you can decide what kind of relationship you want to have with this present moment.”
    Eckhart

    “If your relationship with the Now is dysfunctional, that dysfunction will be reflected in every relationship and every situation!” I know this is true.

    The word dysfunctional almost covers up what is actually happening, it is like a cover deflecting the actual event.

    People fail to notice that by not being with what is actually happening, they are having a dysfunctional relationship to what is, no matter what it is and that alone makes them dysfunctional.

    They are not functioning as one with reality.

    I love how simple he breaks down dysfunction.

    In my head it was all one big vast tangle mess, when it happens little at a time.

    A moment in time presenting itself to you and you changing it into what you need it to be…

    What is so exciting about all of this is that you can stop the dysfunction by greeting what is as it is Now.

    Dysfunction begins each moment in time you fail to see the beauty of what is.

    The darkest beauty as well as its opposite.

    “The simple truth of it is that what happens is the best thing that can happen. People who can’t see this are simply believing their own thoughts, and have to stay stuck in the illusion of a limited world, lost in the war with what is. It’s a war they’ll always lose, because it argues with reality, and reality is always benevolent. When you argue with reality, you lose – but only 100 percent of the time.”
    Byron Katie

  • Let the Pain Out

    “Real difficulties can be overcome, it is only the imaginary ones that are unconquerable.” ~Theodore N. Vail

    When you face what you actually are compared to what you desire to be, you will find much peace, it is trying to be someone else that’s impossible.

    Letting go of the potential, the prize of someday, the if only of yesterday, and the idealized version of self that is the hardest to do.

    To sit down fully in imperfection and disappointing the mind, by facing all the evidence contrary to many beliefs.

    What I felt most for the men on stage with Oprah was that they were unable to claim their lost innocence and how abuse changed them.

    They wanted what is impossible to attain, and in doing so sit in denial of whom they are.

    They are the combination of innocence lost and the affects of abuse, and when they can see the imperfections of their lives, they will see how perfectly it is.

    How abuse does steal innocence, how if you don’t address abuse, abuse lives its life for you.

    It seems that you are a victim when you repeatedly succumb to the wishes of if only, or I can’t be different, and you become a victor when you stand and state the obvious.

    I was abused.
    I am confused because of the abuse.
    I lived an upside down life due to being abused.

    Until we can recognize how upside down we are, we can’t seek to right ourselves.

    By holding on to the picture of innocence, we miss who we now are.

    I will never not know the feelings of terror of a father.
    I will never not know who I would be without the abuse, but I can know who I can be in spite of it.

    There is a life after abuse, a way to reclaim your life today, but not undo yesterday.

    Life after abuse starts when you out yourself.
    Until then, you are locked in the dark with the secret.

    Once you step out, your life after abuse can begin…Abuse and its shame lives in the dark quiet silence.

    You don’t have to tell the whole world, but speak to someone, open the wound and let the pain out.

  • Shine Once Again.

    “Children’s talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives.” ~Maya Angelou

    I don’t know what to blog about the show with Oprah and 200 Adult Children of Sexual abuse, men whose boyhood was stolen and now their manhood too seems to be lost, they are left in a middle ground, no longer innocent and no longer able to be a man.

    What I heard was that sexual abuse leaves you feeling vulnerable.

    The definition of vulnerability is,

    “Susceptibility to attack or injury; the state or condition of being weak or poorly defended; a specific weakness in the protections or defenses surrounding someone or something.”

    Being susceptible to attack and injury is to be a child, especially one that isn’t being properly watched and cared for, being poorly defended…having a specific weak parent that can’t protect you.

    A weakness in a parent can be a simple as loving the predator, defending his goodness while the child’s experience is widely different.

    I have stood on both sides, the parent and the child, the blind and the unseen, the knowing and the unknowing, on both sides feelings are denied.

    Fears are pushed aside…children are left undefended, monsters go on labeled as father, feelings not felt.

    Blindness spreads.

    When I did see, damage lay all around.

    When I did feel, terror was the truth.

    When I did know I was cast out.

    Cast out for speaking, seeing and knowing abuse.

    As I watched these men, I know what they fear, they fear being cast out.

    Shunned for being abused.

    How is that right?

    How do we have this so upside down and backwards?

    What I know to be true is I was cast aside, my voice not wanting to be heard, what they want the most is for me to be unchanged, to appear like the picture of innocence all the men held.

    To just be me without the abuse.

    What an impossible task to attain… to not be abused while being abused.

    So each man stands in the impossible stance, abused while trying to not show the affects of it, yet the abuse has infected each part of their lives, there is no place that abuse doesn’t touch.

    Once you stand fully in being abused, you can then begin to see where abuse created a life instead of you.

    Exposing the abuse allows the innocence to shine once again.

    “In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play.” ~Friedrich Nietzsche