I M Perfect lady

Category: Examples of an Imperfect woman

  • Will to Erase the Excuse!

    “An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie….”

                 Alexander Pope

     

    Wayne Dyer writes in his book Excuses Begone,

     

    There’s statistical evidence that the conscious mind occupies approximately 5% of the total workings of the brain, leaving 95% to the realm of subconscious. Percentages interest me less than the ability to sense your mind as some amorphous component of your being that’s constantly changing from one ego-based thought to another, but rather as evidence of your nature, or your connection to the infinite intellect of creation.  This style of magnificent respect alerts you to your ability to access the highest function of your mind.

     

    According to Tor Norretranders, the author of The User Illussion, the subconscious mind has been calculated to process millions of environmental stimuli per second versus only a few dozen environmental stimuli per second that the conscious mind can process.  Conventional psychological wisdom says that much of what you believe about yourself, along with almost all of your daily actions, is programmed into your subconscious or habitual mind.  You spend a great deal of your time operating on automatic pilot, so to speak.  In fact, you could visualize your two minds as co-pilots:  the conscious mind is aware of its thoughts but is a minor player, like a real pilot in training; while the subconscious takes care of virtually everything you need to think, say and do.

     

    I take exception to this assertion that the habitual mind runs the show, doing everything that the creative mind isn’t paying attention to.  According to this view, the habitual mind is like a computer running a downloaded program that will play through out your life – it’s been permanently programmed from the moment of conception, and it’s next to impossible to get new software to rewrite existing programs.  I simply cannot agree that a part of your mind was nourished by ideas, images, and input that continue to be necessary for your sustainability today.  It’s my contention that this is a false belief that’s easily revealed as an excuse.  I don’t believe that anyone has to live with the belief that they have programming in their subconscious mind that can’t be rewritten.  I’ll explain my perspective on this issue.

     

    If you’re the way you are because of something that’s subconscious – that is, below your level of waking consciousness- then it’s clearly something you can do nothing about.  You can’t even talk about it, since it is beyond your conscious mind.  For the same reason, you can’t understand it; you can’t challenge it; and, most egregiously, you can’t change or fix it.  How can you fix something that’s totally inaccessible?  It would be like attempting to repair a broken watch that was sealed away in a vault: obviously, you need the combination to enter into that previously inaccessible space.

     

    If something is subconscious and thus automatic, it’s believed that you don’t have a choice in the matter.  And to me, that’s the most regrettable thing about this subconscious model: believing that you don’t have a choice.  The truth, as I see it, is that every thing you think, say, and do is a choice – and you don’t need to think, speak or act as you’ve done for your entire life.  When you abandon making choices, you enter the vast world of excuses.

     

    Right now, while reading this book, decide to begin choosing instead of excusing.  You can instantly decide to reprogram and direct your life toward the level of happiness, success, and health that you prefer.  (Wayne Dyer)

     

    While reading this book, and I am only in the beginning of it, this affirms what I have walked. 

     

    Did you hear what he was saying, that if you can explain the excuse, you know! 

     

    If you can show me what your excuse is, you know! 

     

    And if you know, than it isn’t hidden and subconscious, but rather you are allowing the excuse to run your world!  You gave up choices for excuses.

     

    This has been nagging at me, of how my sisters and brothers didn’t seem to have a choice. 

     

    What Wayne Dyer is saying is that they have excuses instead of choices. 

     

    This will ride with me forever. 

     

    Knowing that if you can form an excuse, it is no longer in your subconsciousness!  You are aware of what is in your vault, your safe, what you haul out as an excuse.  Amazing!

     

    What power this gives to those who feel they are forever doomed because the childhood environment etc, this will allow you to have power over anything you can label.

     

    If you can label it you can change the label.

     

    I am only on page 22, but so far I find this very insightful.

     

    Imagine trading choices for excuses!

    How powerless that even sounds.

     

    It just seemed so off balance that some have choices and others don’t, this really evens the playing field, an equal opportunity for all.

     

    It takes away the excuse of excuses.

     

    Here is the definition, for of course I had to look it up.

    -forgive something: to release somebody from blame or criticism for a mistake or wrongdoing

    – overlook something: to make allowances for somebody or something

    – release somebody from obligation: to release somebody from an obligation or responsibility

     

    When I read the definition and applied it to what Wayne Dyer is writing about, the excuse is not for the other person, it is for you.

     

    It allows you to be powerless, choice less, which equals to hopeless and helpless.  

     

    If all knew that excuses were so self-defeating, I am sure no one would utter one again. 

     

    To use an excuse is to show how weak you are.  Imagine that.

     

    I will have to watch how often I use an excuse instead of having the will of choice.

     

    Will of choice, it surely will take will to erase the excuse.

  • Where it is you want to go!

    One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree.  “Which road do I take?” she asked.  His response was a question: “Where do you want to go?”  

    “I don’t know,” Alice answered.

    “Then,” said the cat, “it doesn’t matter.”

            Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

     

    I read that in the book “8th Habit,” the chapter on Pathfinding.

     

    My brother and I both noticed how the cat isn’t concerned where Alice is going, is simply asking.

     

    As I tentatively join in conversation with my sister, I am like the cat, wondering where it is she wants to go.

     

    I fact my last message included that paragraph and the following simple questions, “Do you know what you want in your life?”

    I took the road less traveled.
    Which road are you interested in?

     

    I am Like the Cat in the tree, if you don't know where you want to go, I can't tell you which road to take.

    It can’t matter enough to me which road you take or which one you don’t travel, it is and always has been up to you.

    My preferences are not factored in.

     

    I guess before we head out or pack our bags we have to know which way we are heading. 

     

    Where is it you are wanting to go?

    Do we know?

    Did we come with a blueprint?

    How do we know we are on the right path?

    How many forks are there?

     

    I heard on a movie last night that there are really only a handful of meaningful days in our lives, days that will make all the difference in our lives.

     

    They could also be called pivotal moments.

     

    Some days hold forks in the road, and depending upon where it is you are heading, you will pick one.

     

    May you hear your voice as you approach those forks, may you have the courage to step boldly and with purpose, may you know where it is you want to go!

     

     

      422

  • Come Dance With Me!

    “Unceasing change turns the wheel of life, and so reality is shown in all its many forms.  Dwell peacefully as change itself liberates all suffering sentient beings and brings them great joy.”

              Buddhist sutra

     

    Dwell peacefully in change.  We are certainly not taught to embrace change, to actually expect change, instead it seems that we struggle to stop change, always.

     

    The seasons are switching outside, and the leaves are changing color, leaving the living world for the world of decay.  As winter is being born, fall is dying.

     

    “If we had the patience and a high-powered microscope, we could sit and stare at our hands and watch the river of change flowing through our own bodies right now.  We could watch our cells changing and dying and being replaced, over and over and over.  From year to year, every one of our cells is replaced.  Literally, who we were yesterday is not who we are today.  Our skin is new every month, our liver every six weeks. When we inhale, we breathe in elements from other organisms to create new cells, and when we exhale, we send parts ourselves out into the atmosphere – into the living, breathing universe.  “All of us,” writes Deepak Chopra, “are much more like a river than anything frozen in time and space.” (Broken Open)

     

    Imagine, we are not frozen in time, yet how often do we feel we must capture this moment, take prisoner this age, or hold tighter this stage, instead of holding the value of change.

     

    The value in change is that we have to enjoy what we have when we have it, to treasure each morsel as it fleetingly rushes by, yet open to the new rushing in.

    Never holding to tightly or failing to appreciate what is here right now, and knowing when to release.

     

    That is a talent that babies and perhaps dogs have.

     

    I am slowly but surely learning how to do this, how to be at peace with change, to fully enjoy the moment and then let it go away.

     

    To be in the flow of change, instead of trying to be the stopper of change, if that were even possible!

     

    I think the river of life rushes by you, as you are the stopper person, that life simply goes around while you are standing still, it refuses to comply with your stopping.

     

    We can sit down and hold on to fall in our minds, but winter will come in anyway, tossing snow and frigid temperatures in our faces never asking our permission.

     

    I read a poem that describes God in four words, “Come dance with Me!”

     

    Come dance with me as winter, come dance with me as fall, come dance with me as summer, as youth, as old age, in sickness and in health, we join God in all His wonderful disguises.

     

    Come dance with Me!

     

     389

     

     

    Not the God of Names,

    Nor the God of don’ts,

    Nor the God who ever does

    Anything weird,

    But the God who only knows four words

    And keeps repeating them, saying:

    “Come dance with Me.”

           Sufi poet Hafiz

     

     

  • Surrender to the Truth.

    “Between stimulus and response there is a space.  In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response.  In those choices lies our growth and our happiness.”

     

    This quote is in Stephen R Covey’s book “8th Habit.”

     

    He goes on to write,

     

    With many who have grown up with unconditional love in supportive circumstances, the space may be very large.  With others, due to various genetic and environmental influences, it may be very small.  But the key point is, there is still a space there and it is in the use of that space that the opportunity to enlarge it exists.  Some with very large space, when facing adverse circumstances, may choose to cave in, thereby reducing the size of the space between stimulus and response.  Others with a small space may swim upstream against powerful genetic, social and cultural currents and find their freedom expanding, their growth accelerating and their happiness deepening.  The former simply do no open this most priceless of all birthday gifts.  Gradually, they become a function more of their conditions than their decisions.  The latter, perhaps stumblingly and with great sustained effort, open this priceless gift of freedom to choose and discover the force that releases almost all of the other gifts given at birth.

     

    The maverick psychiatrist R. D. Laing captured in the words below how failing to notice that we have this space kills our ability to change.  Humans alone have self-awareness.  Read, think about, and then reread this quotation:

     

    “The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice.  And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice, there is little we can do to change; until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds.”

     

    An awareness of our freedom and power to choose is affirming because it can excite our sense of possibility, and potential.  It can also threaten, even terrify, because suddenly we’re responsible, that is ‘re-sponse-able.”  We become accountable.  If we have taken shelter over the years in explaining our situation, and problems in the name of past or present circumstances, it is truly terrifying to think otherwise.  Suddenly there is no excuse.

     

    I am rereading this book, and this is the part that caught my attention the first time around.  It filled me with hope that I could stretch and grow that space between stimulus and response, and that I too would have enough space to remember myself.

     

    The other part I loved was the part that we “failed to notice, we failed to notice.”

     

    My sister in her last message to me suggested that she is seeing a different mother.  Perhaps she is seeing what she failed to notice before.

     

    Just because we fail to notice, doesn’t mean that the truth wasn’t always there to notice, but for some reason, perhaps survival, we failed to notice, we failed to notice.

     

    What then do you do with a ‘different’ mother?  What steps are you being asked to take, what happens if you take none?

     

    What I believe happens if you begin to take that one step, is that the space will open wider and wider for more steps and more choices, without taking one step, the space gets smaller.

     

    I didn’t know that it gets smaller, that it shrinks, but also so do you.  You become less and less of who you are.

     

    I know how difficult it is to make a change, to step out and do one thing differently, but I also can feel the death of self in the no choice mode.

     

    Isn’t it odd that he uses the word ‘taking shelter’ in the failing to notice, but once you do, all excuses fall down!

     

    My sister is standing there trying to decide what kind of mother she is holding in her heart and hands? 

     

    What will she see?

    Do you see what I see?

     

    That moment in time, where you look down and see what kind of mother you really have, it is not a pretty sight.

     

    It rips through you with such speed and anguish it leaves you forever changed. 

     

    The rapid tumbling of emotions and knowing create a torrent of thoughts, past and future slamming into each other each claiming to be the truth, you get left in a place of great distress and unknown, in a very doubtful mind, a messy and confused mind.

     

    For if you didn’t see who your mother really was, then who are you?  What else did you fail to notice, what other choices did you blindly make, what parts of your world is really real and how much else is a scam?

     

    It seems to me it is the first block to shatter, the first piece of the flimsily held puzzle, it’s the straw that broke the camel’s back, it was the one missing link, to see a mother who can’t see you.

     

    My first piece was to see my father, but in close succession behind him she fell, and then my whole life was like cascading dominos fell crashing upon each other.

     

    She is either standing there trying to keep the first domino from falling or lying beneath the rubble.

     

    The first domino is shaking, wobbling and tilting, what will she do?  Will she prop it up and hold on to it, or will she be too tired and let it all go?

     

    I am waiting for her next move, it is hers to decide and she alone is the one standing with her heart and hands holding the mother domino upright.

     

    Why is it the child who has to let go, why do we have to be the ones to walk away, to ask for space, to be the ones to face the truth?  It seems too much to ask.

     

    A child stands hands and heart holding, knowing when she lets go, the mother will fall, what strength it takes to let go!

     

    Surrender seems such a gentle word, unless you have to surrender to the truth.

     469

  • Punctuate the day!

    What I discovered yesterday is that everyone has to do some things every day that would be labeled work, some we get paid for and some we just do so we can eat or have clean clothes.

     

    It isn’t about what we do, but our attitude doing it.

     

    My freedom comes in what kind of mail lady will I be.  I bring me and I bring with me an attitude.

     

    I feel I have much power over my attitude, or at least the power of acceptance and being present with whatever appears.

     

    It is much easier to live that way then to be in one place wishing you were in another.

     

    Being a stay at home mom, there were tasks that I didn’t enjoy and lately find myself wanting to do less and less of the household jobs, so maybe working outside of the home will erase them from my job list.

     

    It almost feels like I am graduating again, that a new part of my life is opening up and I get to do something new. 

     

    In Elizabeth Lesser’s book “Broken Open” she discusses how she had to change the kind of mom she was when her kids left home and became young adults.  I understand that.

     

    That there is a time when the job ends, when it’s no longer required, and we have to change.

     

    As our lives change we change, we flow and bend as it does.  If we don’t then we will be hanging on when we should be letting go, refusing to bend we will snap.

    The more I am a working girl, the more the household chores are shared, bringing the kids into that extra part of life, the part that has no pay, but needs to be done anyway.

     

    When I am out each day, it evens up the playing field, I became one of them, I too am gone all day, and we all come home wishing there was a mom there cooking, cleaning and getting our clothes washed.

     

    It becomes a tag team effort, we each do some of each job and the job gets done. 

     

    This has been a great opportunity to get a preview of what it would be like if I worked full time.  The part I haven’t brought in was the Art expression.  I let most of that go.  I wasn’t able to maintain creating while working 6 days a week.

     

    It is up to me to carve out space, to block out time that is just for me, it is my responsibility to be creative, it will not just leap at me.

     

    After today I have two days in a row off, I will decide how I spend them! 

     

    We are the ones spending our life.  Imagine that, we are spending, we are taking our lives and using it, we are the ones who decide how will I spend my day, my free hours, and my time.

     

    With free will we decide how to spend our lives, how we either abuse or disuse so much time, like there is an unlimited amount there.

     

    We don’t need to hoard it, but neither do we need to toss it aside, instead we should be aware of the generosity that is laid out for us each day.

     

    Our time stretches out each day, and we can either place well-enjoyed moments, or flop down angry attitudes, we layout our lives, moment by moment.

     

    We decide what we lay down each day.

     

    See it like a patchwork quilt, and each hour is connected to the next, what will your quilt look like at the end of the day, how much contrast, how much texture is laid out?

     

    Even on my working days, I should add just a smidgeon of color, of wild enjoyment, even if it is just a hour, it will punctuate the day.

     

    IMG_4972

     

     

     

  • Inspired to move!

    I think it is possible to work too much.  That if you spend 10 hours a day doing work to get money that is way too much.

     

    Maybe because it is work, not something that I love to do.

     

    The work is work, and I can do it, but it seems that the mail in my hand is making me turn this way and that way to find the slot.  And once I get in the car, the mail in my hand leads the way again.

     

    It seems that I am just riding along behind the mail, and that the mail doesn’t see me at, or cares!

     

    I work for the mail, period, we have no relationship or communication, It has a destination printed on it, and I follow or am directed by It. 

     

    I feel like a puppet on an invisible string.  There is very little space for us to deviate, unless we miss-deliver, which I have been known to do. 

     

    I have been doing this work almost nonstop, well 6 out of 7 days a week, it seems insane at best to move this way.

     

    My neck, shoulder, upper back is sore and stiff from all the similar movements, repeating and repeating, robot like.

     

    No wonder the postal employees go postal, it is from being led around and twisted around in a way that leaves no room or choice for freedom.

     

    We have no choice but to follow, follow, and follow.

     

    This is about as opposite as you can get from being an Artist, this is like connect the dots or color by number.

    I am not sure what would happen to my spirit if I had to do this 6 days a week for really really long periods of time.

     

    I felt it yesterday really consciously, that we are simply the puppet that delivers.  We come to work, pick up a letter and then twist or reach to put in a slot, get the next one and turn a different way and repeat this for a few hours.

     

    Getting directions from a piece of paper, and it gets so you turn without thinking, you see the name and know it is to your left and down, or to your right and up so far. 

     

    Then we hop in the car and the address on the paper tells you when to break, you pull down the door on the mailbox, etc….

     

    This blows my mind, or may I should say it blows my creativity.

     

    My saving grace is the interaction with the ladies in the office and then I listen to Sirius Radio.

     

    Oh my goodness.  This is what we do to bring home money to pay the bills.  No wonder there is burn out!

     

    Well it is time for me to pack a lunch and go and be the mail puppet!  It is clear out, so maybe I will have a sunny day.  The colors are changing so there is wonderful scenery to view along the way.

     

    I guess in the end we are all puppets to something!  The best is to be a puppet doing what you love to do, then I bet the invisible thread wouldn’t matter as much.

     

    If your puppeteer is Spirit or Passion, I bet we are inspired to move!

    143

  • I am worthy of being Me!

    Worthy or Worthless, who gets to decide our worth? 

    How do you tell if you are worthy or worthless, will people tell you the truth and if so which people?

     

    Which truth matters more, that of the folks outside interacting with you or your sense of self?  What is a sense of self and where is this determined?

     

    Is it our thoughts, our actions, our words, our feelings, just where is the value held?  Is there a value system in place where you get so many points for doing this good thing and then so many minuses for doing that?

     

    What makes a ‘bad mark’ and then what constitutes a good one.  What has value and what is worthless, what was a lesson and for our wisdom and then what was just junk?

     

    What in my life was all for naught and added up to zero on the worth scale?  Which part could I take out and call worthless?

     

    Which part of me is no good?  Is there a portion that I could live without?

     

    Who decides all of this?  Is there that ‘final judgment day?’

    Is there a final report card where we will fall short of the mark and then what?  What happens if our value didn’t hold up?

     

    The phrase, “two wrongs don’t make a right” so how do we right a wrong or do we live with wrongs forever?

     

    Do many wrongs pile up and make us a worthless person?

    If so, how do we then do ‘right’ to tear down the pile?

    What is right and what is wrong?

     

    I recall reading a while ago, that sin was when you missed the Mark. 

     

    I was raised in a religion that really kept score, they had a worthy or a non-worthy scale and put the fear of God in you.

     

    That religion told us there was this very judgmental God sitting up there calculating just how good you were and just how bad.  And they even had scales to weigh you and rules that would make you worthless.  In fact if you were human in a human body and living, you were pretty much doomed.

     

    This religion along with the abuse of my father kept me in a state of worthlessness.

     

    I feared God, for so much about me was wrong, I didn’t measure up to his wholeness that he needed and wanted of me.

     

    As I sit here today I view myself with much different eyes.

    I see my life experiences especially in the formative years and see how it was I grew.  There is no judgment there, just a knowing.

     

    I see myself as “forgive her she knew not what she did.”

     

    Einstein was right, “you can’t solve the problem at the same level it was created.”

     

    I couldn’t solve my problems within that religion for that religion created many of them. 

     

    I couldn’t solve my abuse staying with my father I had to leave. 

     

    Learning to love had to be found away from those who loved me wrong.

     

    I see now where I missed the mark many times, but I can also see why. 

     

    Maybe worthiness comes with understanding or with empathy towards yourself, and when you can see clearly that you did the best you could given what you knew, you will find yourself worthy.

     

    I see myself, as a work in progress, a life being experienced moment by moment, and the final project will be complete upon my death and not a moment before.

     

    I get excited when I get to try and do something differently than I did before, when I get to try and be a different me.

     

    Not a better me or not so good me, but a different me.

     

    I am and will always be just me. 

     

    So, is there such a thing as a worthless Me? 

     

    Maybe we should throw away the words worthy or worthless along with that religion.

     

    The me I am is because the road I traveled, not in spite of it.

     

    I am worthy because I am me!

     

    My body is worthy, it is a fabulous vehicle, my brain is worthy for it can rewire itself, my feelings are worthy for they show me reality, my eyes are worthy for they see all things, my ears are worthy in all they hear, my worthiness goes on and on, in fact I dare you to find one part of me that isn’t worthy of being me!

     

    I am worthy of being Me!

     088

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • I Love so I can Live.

    Love and its application, how does each person apply love?

    How do they know what to love and what not to love, or how to love and how not to love?

     

    The choice in love is not a given.  Are we able to chose or not chose to love our parents, our siblings, even what we love to wear at an early age?

     

    The freedom in the Love is the key to if love is dysfunctional or not.

     

    If we can love from the self-view, or we can call it self-loving view, if we can decide ‘I love you’ or ‘I don’t love you’ then it is love from the inside.

     

    If it is love that is decided for us, demanded or expected of us, then it is not real love, but a commanded love.

     

    Unless you have experienced the free love, the choice love, you will feel that we walk away in anger.

     

    It is so not the case.  I walk away with love inside, with approval of self, with my self esteem held firmly in place with all my no’s and yes’s coming along for the ride.  I am a total package of freedom.

     

    This kind of love allows the other person to do and be what it is they want to be, but it gives us the right or privilege to move away.

     

    When you love yourself enough, was a title of a small book I read once, a book where there were just a few words on a page, more like quotes, and that term stuck with me.

     

    When you love yourself, you will not put yourself in harmful places, you will walk away from those who blindly hurt you.

     

    When you love yourself, you don’t need others to fill you up or prop you up, or do this or that. 

     

    Love isn’t about what you can give to the other, to complete the other; instead love is about letting the other be free to do the job of being themselves.

     

    I used to be in other’s businesses, but now I stay in my own.

     

    Each of us come with the same advantages or challenges along the way, and if we are seeking to learn, there are a million opportunities to learn each day.

     

    Opportunities to learn about our self and how we, love both others and ourselves.  It isn’t about changing the other to make them more loveable, but rather finding someone that matches our meaning of love.

     

    Of course the most optimal thing is to find this among your family, your sisters and brothers, but often we have to leave them in order to find love.

     

    I used to have a set of love rules that did not apply to family, family had a free pass, and it required nothing of them.

    It allowed them to less of themselves.  What I called love was actually love of enabling lower standards.

     

    I was in support of those doing and being less, remaining at lower level so I could ‘help’ them.

     

    But my going in and helping was enabling them not to help themselves.

    When I became responsible for just me, it freed them to be responsible for just themselves, I was the one to set them free.

     

    If I continued to believe that they couldn’t live a life without me, that is co-dependent, and it has me thinking less of them.

     

    I do believe to the depth of my being that each and every one of us comes into this life to learn what love is, to learn what self is, to be separate and whole.

     

    I also believe that we are given daily ways in order to do that, chances to make a new choice.  That there is a subtle or loud voice in our heads that is seeking for us to change, sometimes it is actual life being played out in front of us.

     

    Look around and see what is going right or what is going wrong, how often you are at peace with your voice or when you suppress what you feel and why.

     

    I lived longer silently and ignorant of using my own voice.

    I talked lots, but mostly I was a mouthpiece for others.

    I now only speak for myself.

     

    If I can find my voice, I know others can too.

     

    I heard my voice whispering in the backgrounds always, but I was too fearful of the consequences to speak.

     

    Now I am fearful of the consequences if I don’t speak.

    In the past my body and inner feeling was to move away from my father, but I stayed close.

     

    We all know the cost of that silence.

    I will never Not listen to my inner voice, my inner feelings, no matter at what cost to the other person.

     

    Love is being brave enough to move away.

    Love knows you can.

     

    When I moved away all my love came with.

    My love moves with me where ever I go, what ever I do, my love is like my breath now.

     

    Without my Love I would not want to live.

     

    It isn’t living without love it is simply surviving.

     

    Surviving isn’t living it is trying not to die.

     

    How many people are just trying not to die instead of really living? 

     

    I Love so I can Live.

     

    406

  • A voice and a choice!

    The dialogue continues with my sister and I.  That alone is surprising.  What she continues to show me is how she seen him and experienced the hurt.  What she fails to see is a way out of the hurt.

     

    I will repeat myself, that it doesn’t make it better to have your abuser be a your father, a man you trusted, loved and who fed and clothed you, IT MAKES IT WORSE.

     

    Wrapped up in and twisted around in is love and abuse. You can’t seem to tell where fear begins and love ends, or visa versa.

     

    Then let’s add the expectations of others as to how a daughter should act, and even expectations of your self!  Who are you if you can’t love and honor the father?

     

    I am certain this is where the rubber meets the road, the separation or division between my family and me.

     

    Perhaps they did see who he was, but they didn’t know how to stop being the role they had for many long years.

     

    Isn’t it funny it isn’t about him or who he is, but rather about who you are.

     

    Who are you in your relationships, what do you allow or not allow?  What would cause a daughter to give up her role, is there a line that has to be crossed, what is the line?

     

    My sister bravely stood in front of him, stated her fears and revulsion of him, yet couldn’t stop being a daughter.

     

    I know that in the past, I have heard of others who stand staunchly in their places amidst great forces, and I used to think how strong and how brave.

     

    But when I see a child who has been abused by a parent continue to be with or feel obligated to them, I see the breakdown of free choice.

     

    There seems to be a binding that takes place at a very young age, a bonding of sorts, one that will hold strong over the greatest evils, blood indeed is thicker than water.

     

    To break away, to stop being in a relationship takes more strength than staying.  And staying has to be very very hard.

    Maybe it is the opposite, for to stay would have killed me.

     

    How interesting it will be if we can continue to dialogue out why she stayed and why I left.

     

    Two abused girls with different reactions. 

     

    I will not judge them why they stayed, for I know the pain of leaving.  I know the cost of losing all, yet I also know the glory of finding a free self.

     

    I am free and strong, I now have a voice and a choice.

    I love that, “a voice and a choice” that is what all humans should have.

     

    He is allowed to be the man he is and I am allowed to walk away.  My mother is allowed to be the woman she is, and I am allowed to walk away.  I am not staying in a place that doesn’t suit my new found truths; I am not staying for their good and my detriment.

     

    I walked away from them, but straight into being me!

    At last I was present in my world, I had a voice and a choice!

     

     IMG_4328

  • ….your Birthday.

    “In the middle of the journey of our life I found myself within a dark woods Where the straight way was lost.”

            Dante Alighieri

    362

     

    I am reading Elizabeth Lesser’s book, “Broken Open.”

     

    The philosopher William James wrote that there are two kinds of people in this world – Once-Born and the Twice-Born.  Once-Born people do not stray away from the familiar territory of who they think they are and what they think is expected of them. If fate pushes them to the edge of Dante’s famous dark woods, -where straight way is lost- they turn back.  They don’t want to learn something new from life’s darker lessons.  They stay with what seems safe, and what is acceptable to their family and society.  They stick with what they already know but don’t necessarily want. Once-Born people may go through life and never even know what lies beyond the woods – or that there are woods at all.

     

    Perhaps Once-Born person awakens one morning and feels the beckoning finger of fate loosening disturbing questions: “Is this all there is to life? Will I always feel the same?  Do I not have some purpose to fulfill, some greater kindness to give, some inner freedom to taste?”  And then gets out of bed and dresses for work, and he doesn’t attend to the soul’s questions.  The next morning, and all the next mornings he lives as if the soul was a figment of a flighty imagination.  This inattention makes him confused, or numb, or sad, or angry.

     

    A Twice-Born person pays attention when the soul pokes its head through the clouds of a half-lived life.  Whether through choice or calamity, the Twice-Born person goes into the woods, loses the straight way, makes mistakes, suffers loss, and confronts that which needs to change within himself in order to live a more genuine and radiant life.

     

    But let’s be careful here.  Sweeping distinctions like Once-Born and Twice-Born are often misleading. They can make you feel like a failure if you perceive yourself as a stuck-in-the-mud Once-Born.  Or they can inflate the ego if you fancy yourself a White Knight, swashbuckling your way through the boring landscape of everyday life.  The journey into the woods of change and transformation is an inner one.  The outer story line need not be a soap opera, since the real drama is being carried out in the heart of the traveler. The most ordinary looking lives are often being lived by the most extraordinary spiritual warriors – Twice-Born people use difficult changes in their outer lives to make the harder changes within.  While Once-Born people avoid or deny or bitterly accept the unpredictable changes of real life, Twice-Born people us adversity for awakening.  Betrayal, illness, divorce, the demise of a dream, the loss of a job, the death of a loved one – all of those can function as initiations into deeper life.

     

    The journey from Once-Born to Twice-Born brings us to a crossroads where the old ways of doing things are no longer working but a better way lies somewhere at the far edge of the woods.  We are afraid to step into those woods but even more afraid to turn back.  To turn back is one kind of death; to go forward is another.  The first kind of death ends in ashes; the second leads toward rebirth.  For some of us, the day arrives when we step willingly into the woods.  A longing to wake up, to feel more alive, to feel something spurs us beyond our fear.  Some of us resist like hell until the forces of fate deliver a crisis.  Some of us get sick and tired of filling an inner emptiness with drugs or drink or food, and we turn and face our real hunger: our soul hunger.

     

    Twice-Born people trade the safety of the known for the power of the unknown.  Something calls them into the woods, where the straight path vanishes and there is no turning back, only going through.  This is not easy.  It is not a made-up fairy tale.  It is very real and very difficult. To face our shadow- the dragons and hags that we have spent a lifetime running away from – is perhaps the most difficult journey we will have to take.  But it is there, in the shadows, that we retrieve our hidden parts, learn our lessons, and give birth to the wise mature self.  From my personal experience, and from my work I have done with men and women in my workshops, I know that the difficulty of the dark journey is matched only by its rewards.  I also know that every single person in the whole world is offered- over and over- the chance to take the voyage from Once-Born innocence to Twice-Born wisdom.

    (end of quoting her book)

     

    It is my sister’s birthday, and my wish for her is to enter into the woods, to leave the beaten trail of being powerless, and step into the power of the unknown.

     

    Her courage stays only in the known, and boldly she walks in the meadows of our youth stomping down wild ideas the soul is whispering.

     

    Today sister may you hear the whispers, may you find the courage to heed the call, to walk bravely with all your courage into the woods and become Twice-Born on this day, your Birthday.