I M Perfect lady

Category: Examples of an Imperfect woman

  • How can you lead your life if you follow?

    When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. 

     ~Victor Frankl

     

    The more dramatic of a change you make, it shows just how far off base you were to begin with, and how far apart you were living from your own truth.

     

    I remember writing, “I was so lost, and that I was going to go find myself, I didn’t know who I was or even that I was missing.”

     

    That is how far off base I was, I literally had no idea who I was or even where to start looking for me, nor how to recognize me in my life.

     

    I had so many ideals and beliefs that I followed that had nothing to do with my own experiences. 

     

    I marvel now at how I lived so lost onto myself, but so found in other’s lives, how I disappeared without another.

     

    When you find yourself unable to move unless it is in tandem with another, there is a great possibility you have lost yourself and you don’t even know you are missing!

     

    What is even scarier is to find the persons you have ridden tandem with are frauds, then what?

     

    I was terrified standing there naked without a life of my own.

     

    Dumped off due to the truth that came crashing in, I was left to reconstruct myself at 46.

     

    It was freeing and terrifying at the same time.

     

    I was finally able to make my own choice, and each and every new one I formed, was a layer of the new me.

     

    Little by little, situation by situation, day by day a new me began to emerge. 

     

    I marvel now at the width and breath of life I lived without being aware that I wasn’t there.

     

    No voice, no feelings, no emotions, no awareness of me.

     

    Incredible to live a life without a self!

     

    You literally can live blind and deaf, for you just simply follow.

     

    How can you lead your life if you follow?

  • Steering Our Own Canoes!

    One definition of codependency; Adult children of alcoholics; people in relationships with emotionally or mentally disturbed; people in relationships with chronically ill peoples; parents of children with behavior problems; people in relationships with irresponsible people; professionals – nurses, social workers and others in ‘helping’ occupations.  Even recovering alcoholics noticed they were codependent and perhaps had been long before becoming chemically dependent.

     

    Melody Beatte goes on to write.

     

    “One fairly common denominator was having a relationship personally or professionally, with troubled, needy, or dependent people.  But a second more common denominator seemed to be the unwritten, silent rules that usually develop in the immediate family and set the pace for relationships. These rules prohibit discussion about problems; open expression of feelings; direct, honest communication; realistic expectations, such as being human, vulnerable or imperfect; selfishness; trust in other people and one’s self; playing and having fun; and rocking the delicately balanced family canoe through growth or change – however healthy and beneficial that movement might be.  These rules are common to alcoholic family systems but can emerge in other families too.

     

    Melody’s personal definition is; A codependent person is one who has let another person’s behavior affect him or her, and who is obsessed with controlling that person’s behavior.

                    Melody Beatte

     

    As I sit here 5 ½ years later, I realize that I rocked the family canoe by getting out, I tipped the balance and was seen as crazier than the folks who began steering that canoe long before I was born.

     

    I heard on the radio today, that a family boat is heading down a certain river before a child is born, and our legacy is to pick up an oar and row.

     

    We are taught how to row and in what direction by our parents.  And we don’t start rowing at 18, but at about 1 year old or younger. 

     

    We are taught how to row and where.

     

    It is my opinion that two mentally and emotionally disturbed people were rowing my family’s canoe, and that the only way to save my self was to get out of the boat, and not to just stop rowing.

     

    I was no longer trusting in the elders who steered our family canoe, nor was I going to ride along with the rest, just because we were born in the same boat.

     

    While I couldn’t change the course of the family boat, I could change mine, but in order to do so, I had to jump out.

     

    It is seen as rejection of all who stayed in the boat.

     

    It isn’t seen as healthy or wise, but rather that I have set boundaries to keep them out.

     

    And I guess I have.

     

    I don’t want people in my canoe trying to steer me in a direction I don’t want to go in. 

     

    It has been a long and arduous journey to find the strength and confidence to row myself, to strike out on my own, learning how to row in a direction that is much more healthy than what I was taught.

     

    While the rest may see me as rejecting them, I am only embracing me. 

     

    Embracing my independence, my freedom of choice, my boundaries, and learning what is healthy for me and what causes me pain, what I need to live in peace, love and joy.  Learning how to stay in my canoe and in my business, allowing and honoring each person to ride the river of life as they chose.

    I heartily and cheerfully encourage the rest to jump ship, letting the family’s legacy canoe to finally become empty of dysfunctional codependent folks.  It can happen when one by one each of us begin steering our own canoes!

     

     

     

  • Right For You.

    I read a wonderfully inspiring book at the Beach House, “Unraveled” by Maria Housden.

     

    She writes about a conversation she had with her dad about the choices she made that went against conventional thinking, but that spoke to her soul.

     

    “I heard the screen door behind me open.  Turning, I saw my father, holding two glasses of lemonade, coming toward me.

    “Do you mind if I join you, honey?” he asked.

    “Not at all, I’d love it,” I said.

     

    Perching at the edge of the stoop, he handed me one of the glasses.  I took sip, savoring the tangy sweetness in my mouth before swallowing.  My father cleared his throat.  I looked at him, realizing now that he had an ulterior motive in joining me.  I remained silent wondering what he was going to say.

     

    “Marie, I need to tell you something.”  He said finally.  My heart leaped into my throat. Suddenly I was ten years old, anticipating a scolding. My father addressed me by my first name only when it was really serious or important.

     

    “I want to talk with you about your life and the decisions you’ve made and are making.”  He cleared his throat again and took a sip of lemonade.  My heart was now thudding in my chest.  I willed myself to stay focused on my father’s words.  “What I have to say,” he continued, “isn’t just about you and your children.  It’s also about my mother.”

     

    His mother!  Although he had always found it painful to speak of her, I knew that my father had always loved his mother deeply.  For years had kept a large, framed photograph of her on top of the table in his office. I could see her image now, in my mind, a dark-haired woman with pale skin, full lips, and deep feeling eyes, wearing formal-looking, light-colored suit with a wide-brimmed hat.  I knew from what I had overheard as a child that she was quiet, soft-spoken woman who had been loved by everyone who knew her, and the wife of a doctor, my father’s father, an intense, emotionally abusive, alcoholic man.  The source of my father’s profound sorrow was that she had died in the hospital of cancer when my father was sixteen, before my father and his brothers were even told she was sick.

     

    My father was speaking, “Honey, I want you to know that, in terms of the decisions you’ve made in your life this past year, even the difficult one you’re considering now, I think your doing the right thing.  It hasn’t been easy, I know, to have the kind of courage you’ve had. But those of us who love you, and especially Will, Margaret, and Madelaine, it is wonderful to see you putting yourself out there.  God gives each of us talents to express.  Whose right is it to limit the expression of those gifts?  I feel lucky to have you as a daughter, and I will always be committed to instilling in you your right to excel.”

     

    I wanted to cry, my heart swelling with gratitude and relief, but my father was not done.

     

    “This has always been a man’s world,” he continued. “And no one knew that more than my mother. But she didn’t have the strength to do what you’re doing. She put up with a lot of unhappiness and abuse, and it killed her.”  He hesitated.  I waited. “What I have to say next might sound strange to most people, but I am sure you will understand.  I still feel my mother.   Her presence has always been a part of my life. And what I feel in relation to her now is that the decisions you’re making as a woman are not only helping you and your children.  Your decisions are also healing her.”

     

    I was stunned. I had never heard my father speak like this.  As he words sank into my bones, I felt my need to be perfect in his eyes melting. I knew then that I had to be willing to endure the disapproval of others in order to be everything I was capable of being.  My father had reminded me that not only was I responsible to my own life and the lives of my children, but I was responsible to every woman who had come before me and to those who would come after, who needed to be reminded, as I once had, that they are deserving and capable of more.

     

                Maria Housden

     

    I loved this book for it showed not only the courage it takes to go against society, friends and family to do what feels right to you, but also the delights in doing what you feel is right.

     

    Right for you.

     

  • What I Mirrored.

    Continuing on from “Codependent No More” by Melody Beatte, she writes.

     

    “Gradually, I began to climb out of my black abyss.  Along the way, I developed a passionate interest in the subject of codependency.  As a counselor (although I no longer worked full-time in that field, I still considered myself one) and as a writer, my curiosity was provoked. As a “flaming, careening codependent” (a phrase borrowed from an Al-Anon member) who needed help, I also had a personal stake in the subject. What happens to people like me?  How does this happen?  Why?  Most important, what do codependents need to do to feel better?  And stay that way?

     

    I talked to counselors, therapists, and codependents.  I read the few available books on the subject and related topics. I reread the basic – the therapy books that have stood the test of time- looking for ideas that applied.  I went to Al-Anon meetings, a self-help group based on the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous but geared toward the person who has been affected by another person’s drinking.

     

    Eventually, I found what I was seeking.  I began to see, understand and change.  My life started working again. Soon, I was conducting another group for codependents at another Minneapolis treatment center. But this time, I had a vague notion of what I was doing.

     

    I still found codependents hostile, controlling, manipulative, indirect, and all the things that I had found them before.  I still saw all the peculiar twists of personality I previously saw.  But, I saw deeper.

     

    I saw people who were hostile; that had felt so much hurt that hostility was their only defense against being crushed again.  They were that angry because anyone who had tolerated what they had would be that angry.

     

    They were controlling because everything around and inside them was out of control. Always, the dam of their lives and the lives threatened to burst and spew harmful consequence on everyone. And nobody but them seemed to notice or care.

     

    I saw people who manipulated because manipulation appeared to be the only way to get anything done.  I worked with people who were indirect because the systems they lived in seemed incapable of tolerating honesty.

     

    I worked with people who thought they were going crazy because they had believed so many lies they didn’t know what reality was.

    I saw people who had gotten so absorbed in other people’s problems they didn’t have time to identify or solve their own.  These were people who had cared so deeply, and often destructively about other people that they had forgotten how to care about themselves. The codependents felt responsible for so much because the people around them felt responsible for so little; they were just picking up the slack.

     

    I saw hurting, confused people who needed comfort, understanding, and information.  I saw victims of alcoholism who didn’t drink but were nonetheless victimized by alcohol.  I saw victims struggling desperately to gain some kind of power over their perpetrators.  They learned from me, and I learned from them.

     

    Soon, I began to subscribe to some new beliefs about codependents. Codependents aren’t crazier or sicker than alcoholics.  But they hurt as much or more. They haven’t cornered the market on agony, but have gone through their pain without the anesthetizing effects of alcohol or other drugs, or the other high states achieved by people with compulsive disorders. And the pain that comes from loving someone who’s in trouble can be profound.

     

    “The chemically dependent partner numbs the feelings and the non-abuser is doubled over in pain – relieved only by anger and occasional fantasies,” wrote Janet Geringer Woititz in an article from the book Co-Dependency, An Emerging Issue.

     

    Codependents are that way sober because they went through what they did sober.

     

    No wonder codependents are so crazy. Who wouldn’t be, after living with the people they’ve lived with?

     

    It’s been difficult for codependents to get the information and practical help they need and deserve. It’s tough enough to convince alcoholics (or other disturbed people) to seek help.  It’s more difficult to convince codependents – those who by comparison look, but don’t feel, normal – that they have problems.

     

    Codependents suffered in the backdrop of the sick person.  If they recovered, they did that in the background too.  Until recently, many counselors (like me) didn’t know what to do to help them.  Some times the codependents were blamed; sometimes they were ignored; sometimes they were expected to magically shape up ( an archaic attitude that has not worked with alcoholics and doesn’t help codependents either.)  Rarely were codependents treated as individuals who needed help to get better. Rarely were they given a personalized recovery program for their problems and their pain.  Yet, by its nature, alcoholism and other compulsive disorders turn everyone affected by the illness into victims- people who need help even if they are not drinking, using other drugs, gambling, overeating, or overdoing a compulsion.”

                    Melody Beatte

     

    What I love is that she sees how the codependents were formed…and in my experience it matches to what I know to be true for me.

     

    I love how she says we suffered sober…for indeed we did…My perpetrator wasn’t an alcoholic, but a sexual predator, yet the outcome is still the same.

     

    My mother’s codependency of my father is what I mirrored.

     

  • Who I Used To Be

    I picked up the book, “Co-Dependent No More,” which was one of the first ‘self help’ books I read in the early days upon learning about my sexual abuse.

     

    Here is what I read in the first few pages….

     

    “Codependents were a necessary nuisance.  They were hostile, controlling, manipulative, indirect, guilt producing, difficult to communicate with, generally disagreeable, sometimes downright hateful, and a hindrance to my compulsion to get high. They  hollered at me, hid my pills, made nasty faces at me, poured my alcohol down the sink, tried to keep me from getting more drug, wanted to know why I was doing this to them, and asked what was wrong with me. But they were always there, ready to rescue me from the self-created disasters.  The codependents in my life didn’t understand me, and the misunderstanding was mutual.  I didn’t understand me, and I didn’t understand them…

     

    My employer at the Minnesota treatment center told me to organize support groups for wives of addicts in the program.

     

    I wasn’t prepared for this task.  I still found codependents hostile, controlling, manipulative, indirect, guilt producing, difficult to communicate with and more.

     

    In my group, I saw people who felt responsible for the entire world, but they refused to take responsibility for leading and living their own lives.

     

    I saw people who constantly gave to others but didn’t know how to receive.  I saw people give until they were angry, exhausted, and emptied of everything.  I saw some give until they gave up.  I even saw one woman give and suffer so much that she died of “old age” and natural causes at age 33.  She was the mother of five children and the wife of an alcoholic who had been sent to prison for the third time.

     

    I worked with women who were experts at taking care of everyone around them, yet these women doubted their ability to take care of themselves.

     

    I saw mere shells of people, racing mindlessly from one activity to another.  I say people-pleasers, martyrs, stoics, tyrants, withering vines, clinging vines, and borrowing from H. Sackler’s line in his play, “The Great White Hope, ” pinched up faces giving off the miseries.”

     

    Most codependents were obsessed with other people. With great precision and detail, they could recite long lists of the addicts deeds and misdeeds: what he or she thought, felt, did, and said; and what he or she didn’t think, feel, do or say.  The codependent knew what the alcoholic or addict should or shouldn’t do.  And they wondered extensively why he or she did or didn’t do it.

     

    Yet these codependents who had such great insight into others couldn’t see themselves.  They didn’t know what they were feeling. They weren’t sure what they thought.  And they didn’t know what , if anything, they could do to solve their problems – if, indeed, they had any problems other than the alcoholic.

     

    It was a formidable group, these codependents.  They were aching, complaining, and trying to control everyone and everything but themselves.  And, except for a few quiet pioneers in family therapy, many counselors (including me) didn’t know how to help them. The chemical dependency field was flourishing, but help focused on the addict. Literature and training on family therapy was scarce.  What did codependents need? What did they want? Weren’t they just an extension of the alcoholic, a visitor to the treatment center?  Why couldn’t they cooperate, instead of always making problems? The alcoholic had an excuse for being crazy – he was drunk.  These significant others had no excuse. They were this way sober.

     

    Soon, I subscribed to two popular beliefs. These crazy codependents (significant others) are sicker than the alcoholics. And no wonder the alcoholic drinks; who wouldn’t with a crazy spouse like that?

     

    By then, I had been sober for a while.  I was beginning to understand myself, but I didn’t understand codependency.  I tried, but couldn’t – until years later, when I became so caught up in the chaos of a few alcoholics that I stopped living my own life.  I stopped thinking.  I stopped feeling positive emotions, and I was left with rage, bitterness, hatred, fear, depression, helplessness, despair and guilt.  At times, I wanted to stop living.  I had no energy. I spent most of my time worrying about people and trying to figure out how to control them.  I couldn’t say no (to anything but fun activities) if my life depended upon it, which it did. My relationships with friends and family members were in shambles.  I felt terribly victimized.  I lost myself and didn’t know how it had happened.  I didn’t know what had happened.  I thought I was going crazy.  And, I thought, shaking a finger at the people around me, it’s their fault.

     

    Sadly, aside from myself, nobody knew how badly I felt.  My problems were my secret.  Unlike alcoholics and other troubled people in my life, I wasn’t going around making big messes and expecting someone else to clean up after me.  In fact, next to the alcoholics, I looked good.  I was so responsible, so dependable. Sometimes, I wasn’t sure I had a problem. I knew I felt miserable, but I didn’t understand why my life wasn’t working.

     

    After floundering in despair for a while, I began to understand.  Like many people who judge others harshly, I realized I had just taken a very long and painful walk in shoes of those I had judged.  I now understood those crazy codependents. I had become one.”    

                Melody Beattie

     

    Now, I understand completely how she knows codependency so well…she has seen it from both sides.  She has used codependents and has been used as a codependent.

     

    What is also so striking in both sides is that while you are in that mode, you don’t know it, and blame the other person, but never look at your self!

     

    You are never the problem, you can’t see yourself, but you can so clearly see the other.  Amazing to see this in her first few pages.

     

    So, not only does the alcoholic or drug addict, have to be able to admit they have a problem, so does the codependent, both have to face their actions, and see themselves in reality.

     

    Simply see themselves and stop looking at others, blaming others, wanting to control others, but just turn all focus on self.

     

    That stops the codependent and makes you independent.

     

    Just re-reading all the colorful terms used to describe a codependent makes me shudder, it is reading who I used to be.

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Who I Used To Be

    I picked up the book, “Co-Dependent No More,” which was one of the first ‘self help’ books I read in the early days upon learning about my sexual abuse.

     

    Here is what I read in the first few pages….

     

    “Codependents were a necessary nuisance.  They were hostile, controlling, manipulative, indirect, guilt producing, difficult to communicate with, generally disagreeable, sometimes downright hateful, and a hindrance to my compulsion to get high. They  hollered at me, hid my pills, made nasty faces at me, poured my alcohol down the sink, tried to keep me from getting more drug, wanted to know why I was doing this to them, and asked what was wrong with me. But they were always there, ready to rescue me from the self-created disasters.  The codependents in my life didn’t understand me, and the misunderstanding was mutual.  I didn’t understand me, and I didn’t understand them…

     

    My employer at the Minnesota treatment center told me to organize support groups for wives of addicts in the program.

     

    I wasn’t prepared for this task.  I still found codependents hostile, controlling, manipulative, indirect, guilt producing, difficult to communicate with and more.

     

    In my group, I saw people who felt responsible for the entire world, but they refused to take responsibility for leading and living their own lives.

     

    I saw people who constantly gave to others but didn’t know how to receive.  I saw people give until they were angry, exhausted, and emptied of everything.  I saw some give until they gave up.  I even saw one woman give and suffer so much that she died of “old age” and natural causes at age 33.  She was the mother of five children and the wife of an alcoholic who had been sent to prison for the third time.

     

    I worked with women who were experts at taking care of everyone around them, yet these women doubted their ability to take care of themselves.

     

    I saw mere shells of people, racing mindlessly from one activity to another.  I say people-pleasers, martyrs, stoics, tyrants, withering vines, clinging vines, and borrowing from H. Sackler’s line in his play, “The Great White Hope, ” pinched up faces giving off the miseries.”

     

    Most codependents were obsessed with other people. With great precision and detail, they could recite long lists of the addicts deeds and misdeeds: what he or she thought, felt, did, and said; and what he or she didn’t think, feel, do or say.  The codependent knew what the alcoholic or addict should or shouldn’t do.  And they wondered extensively why he or she did or didn’t do it.

     

    Yet these codependents who had such great insight into others couldn’t see themselves.  They didn’t know what they were feeling. They weren’t sure what they thought.  And they didn’t know what , if anything, they could do to solve their problems – if, indeed, they had any problems other than the alcoholic.

     

    It was a formidable group, these codependents.  They were aching, complaining, and trying to control everyone and everything but themselves.  And, except for a few quiet pioneers in family therapy, many counselors (including me) didn’t know how to help them. The chemical dependency field was flourishing, but help focused on the addict. Literature and training on family therapy was scarce.  What did codependents need? What did they want? Weren’t they just an extension of the alcoholic, a visitor to the treatment center?  Why couldn’t they cooperate, instead of always making problems? The alcoholic had an excuse for being crazy – he was drunk.  These significant others had no excuse. They were this way sober.

     

    Soon, I subscribed to two popular beliefs. These crazy codependents (significant others) are sicker than the alcoholics. And no wonder the alcoholic drinks; who wouldn’t with a crazy spouse like that?

     

    By then, I had been sober for a while.  I was beginning to understand myself, but I didn’t understand codependency.  I tried, but couldn’t – until years later, when I became so caught up in the chaos of a few alcoholics that I stopped living my own life.  I stopped thinking.  I stopped feeling positive emotions, and I was left with rage, bitterness, hatred, fear, depression, helplessness, despair and guilt.  At times, I wanted to stop living.  I had no energy. I spent most of my time worrying about people and trying to figure out how to control them.  I couldn’t say no (to anything but fun activities) if my life depended upon it, which it did. My relationships with friends and family members were in shambles.  I felt terribly victimized.  I lost myself and didn’t know how it had happened.  I didn’t know what had happened.  I thought I was going crazy.  And, I thought, shaking a finger at the people around me, it’s their fault.

     

    Sadly, aside from myself, nobody knew how badly I felt.  My problems were my secret.  Unlike alcoholics and other troubled people in my life, I wasn’t going around making big messes and expecting someone else to clean up after me.  In fact, next to the alcoholics, I looked good.  I was so responsible, so dependable. Sometimes, I wasn’t sure I had a problem. I knew I felt miserable, but I didn’t understand why my life wasn’t working.

     

    After floundering in despair for a while, I began to understand.  Like many people who judge others harshly, I realized I had just taken a very long and painful walk in shoes of those I had judged.  I now understood those crazy codependents. I had become one.”    

                Melody Beattie

     

    Now, I understand completely how she knows codependency so well…she has seen it from both sides.  She has used codependents and has been used as a codependent.

     

    What is also so striking in both sides is that while you are in that mode, you don’t know it, and blame the other person, but never look at your self!

     

    You are never the problem, you can’t see yourself, but you can so clearly see the other.  Amazing to see this in her first few pages.

     

    So, not only does the alcoholic or drug addict, have to be able to admit they have a problem, so does the codependent, both have to face their actions, and see themselves in reality.

     

    Simply see themselves and stop looking at others, blaming others, wanting to control others, but just turn all focus on self.

     

    That stops the codependent and makes you independent.

     

    Just re-reading all the colorful terms used to describe a codependent makes me shudder, for I was reading about who I used to be.

     

  • The Land of Pretend.

    “Notice When Your Thoughts Argue With Reality”

                Byron Katie

     

    I know as I approach working full time, my head has to be on board; my thoughts have to agree with where I am.

     

    If I am riding around in the mail car, ‘wishing’ I were at home, it will be hellish working. My attitude at work will be affected by how I am thinking, and my demeanor will reflect my thoughts.

     

    Tossing mail will not make me suffer, but the thought that I should not be tossing mail while I am tossing mail, will.

     

    It is amazing it is never where you are that makes you suffer, but ‘thinking’ you shouldn’t be there that does.

     

    Accepting where you are at all times seems like a no brainer, but Notice When Your Thoughts Argue With Reality.

     

    Notice how many times a day you say, ‘I should be…, this shouldn’t be, I wish it didn’t, I don’t want….

     

    Those little phrases are the doorway to hell or illusion.

     

    Each time something happens and your first thought is, ‘it shouldn’t be, you are attaching to a thought that is arguing with reality.

     

    “It shouldn’t be is a thought…it is a ticket out of what is.  It is hailing you to come on board, to leave the scene of what is, to walk away, to escape into the land of pretend.

     

  • Search Out the Lie!

    “You don’t experience anxiety unless you’ve attached to a thought that isn’t true for you.  It’s that simple.  You don’t ever feel anxiety until you believe that a thought is true- and it’s not.”

                    Byron Katie

     

    Attached to a thought that isn’t true for you or believing a thought is true and it’s not.

     

    I didn’t know that the anxiety was from lies, from believing in something that isn’t true.

     

    What I guess we fail to notice is that there are false thoughts; untrue thoughts that we attach to and ride while anxiously holding on.

     

    Which is why Byron Katie’s first question is, “Is that true, can you positively know that it’s true?”  Then she asks,  “Who would you be without that thought?”

     

    What is the most amazing thing is that by believing or not believing our thoughts we can turn from suffering to not suffering, from anxious into peaceful.

     

    Changing what we believe is all we can do, reality is as it is, it flows and moves and changes, it is in our minds all within our heads that we suffer the most.

     

    Watch which thoughts you become attached to and how they make you feel?

     

    When you are feeling anxious, search out the lie!

     

  • What you can reach!

    I love women who inspire me, who show me how to reach beyond your normal reach and succeed where you are unsure of succeeding.

     

    The same week my boss turned 50, she completed her first Copper Man Triathlon, swimming ½ mile, biking 23 miles and then running 5, and she completed it under 3 hours, her goal!

     

    During her training period she discovered that she loves to swim, that it isn’t that scary to run on the ski trails in the woods, alone and that if you do the work, you can accomplish anything you set your mind to. 

     

    The sense of achievement, sense of self-pride and excitement still glows within her a week and a half later!  “I did it,” she said, “I really did it!”

     

    I love that she showed us how to stretch, reach and then grab on to something you think is out of your reach.

     

    Stretch and you will be surprised what you can reach!

  • Loving What Is…

    We would rather be ruined than changed;
    We would rather die in our dread
    Than climb the cross of the moment
    And let our illusions die.
    ~W.H. Auden

     

    What is so unreal is that we believe we can stop change that it is up to us to keep things the same, and it is viewed worthy if we remain unchanged.

     

    Not only unchanged, but that if you change it is somehow seen as bad, wrong or that you succumbed to a new circumstance, instead of standing hard against change.

     

    I have come to see that change happens often and mostly for my benefit, and the more I get used to letting go of rigid beliefs about my life and how it is supposed to flow, I am much more relaxed and willing to bend with the next thing that changes.

     

    Our bodies change, the days change, the seasons change, our roles change, our attitudes change, our energies change, our feelings change, our world simply doesn’t stop changing.

     

    I think we can accept change as long as it goes according to our vision of our futures, but as soon as it changes and creates a kink in our plans, we then stand strong against that change.

     

    Standing against change feels stronger, yet it is actually a weakened state.  The strongest is to surrender and accept with grace whatever is happening, for it is happening.

     

    Accepting what is, as Byron Katie says…is really loving what is, and if you are not accepting it, you are fighting with reality and you only lose, but 100% of the time.

     

    I think we think we are good at navigating the changes in our lives, until the unthinkable happens, when we are forced to look upon something that certainly goes against our dreams, or our plans, and then see how you accept change?

     

    I have found that it is in accepting the most difficult things that we truly see ourselves; see where we truly are, how we are and how we are really living.

     

    Are we living in reality or in a dream about reality?

    Are we flowing with the Universe and living in a love hate relationship with it?

     

    Loving the Universe when our plans are going according to plan, and despising that same God, when things fall through?

     

    It has taken lots of disappointments, lots of changes, and lots of moments of utter disbelief to finally see the gifts in all the changes that have happened in my life.

     

    I was forced to look for gifts among the piles of changes and in doing so always found the thread that lead me to understanding the change.

     

    In seeing a bigger picture or seeing that which I failed to acknowledge, it was my perspective of change that was needed.

     

    Instead of sitting in the land of ‘expecting no change’, I now live knowing all life changes…I am comfortable with change, and if not, I know that it is my mind that has to be changed, not reality.

     

    Reality changes whether we agree or disagree…it is up to you how long it takes.

     

    I have found the quicker I change my mind, the more peaceful I am.

     

    Byron Katie says there are three little words that cause suffering…should, could and would.

     

    And there are three words that bring peace, Loving what is…