Category: Examples of an Imperfect woman

  • After Me.

    Have you ever consider what your content is?  How much of your self you see as physical and how much mental, OR how much you consider the part that doesn't seem to age and has its own likes and dislikes, that is drawn or feels passionate about certain things. The space that isn't body or mind….and then, how much do each part make up in your world.

    Like is the body 50% and the mind like 30% and how can you know how you have divided your self. 

    I am also wondering with age if these numbers change or do they even change daily or minute by minute.

    And further more, how do you see yourself and then how does it feel?

    How in touch are you with the part of you that is unseen and untouched inside?  And, where do you focus most upon?  If you can sit quiet and try and see yourself from many angles, you will see you are multifaceted.

    I also believe, that when I had shut down and away my true essence; my soul….I was living with more fear, for I was connected more fully with my body.  Not the inner psyche, but the flesh and bones (size and look).  I was also connected more fully to the labels; but not the lady wearing the labels.

    To see my wife duties but never giving the lady doing them a second glance.

    Same with being a mom, a friend, a sister and a daughter. 

    I was all those things; minus me.

    The Me that could freely speak, act and be Me.

    And, what is so very interesting, is when I became connected to the inside of me, I lost relationships on the outside.

    I have been re-reading my journals.  I see a woman struggling with reclaiming her inner sense of self and knowing it was affecting how others responded to her.  And yet, I could no longer live in labels without Me.

    I was taught and rewarded for discarding me.

    And, in order to bring me to the labels, it would require an adjustment period.  And, in the end, some relationships could not handle the new role with me inside.

    I now see myself as 90% soul…inner being and 10% body and mind.

    I no longer am driven by the label and what society 'expects' of each label. I have redefined it for me.  My labels come after Me.

     

     

  • Fueled By Our Truth

    Elizabeth Gilbert asked to share a photograph of when you felt the most powerful.  It is odd, it isn't the one where your hair was perfect, you body size at its best and the right outfit.  

    "Generally speaking, the deepest kind of power doesn’t have much to do with anyone else at all. Nothing to do with status, nothing to do with reputation, nothing to do with winning.

    Because you can achieve all that stuff (status, reputation, victory) and still feel lost as hell. 

    No, true power comes from standing in your own truth and walking on your own path.

    That's it.

    When you are operating from that place (standing in your truth; walking on your path) you are the mightiest thing that has ever lived. Nothing can harm you."  Elizabeth Gilbert

    I have a great slide show of memories of me being powerful. 

    Perhaps one that began the roll was facing my mother.

    Staying with my truth against her perceptions and beliefs of our shared history.

    To dare and face her down. Or maybe more true, to dare stand UP for me.

    And to be the Guest Speaker at the Dial Help Gala, with My Story Line quilts so beautifully showcased….to speak to an audience about being estranged due to abuse.

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    I was reading Rythea Lee's quote ""The people who have lost their parents and families due to abuse deserve the utmost respect and support. These people have risked it all to heal and stand up for the truth. These people are heroes and angels who hold a horrific reality for everyone else. They have suffered and escaped, and for that, I bow my head in reverence." — at Michigan Technological University.

    To speak at "Take Back the Night" being the voice of a victim who no longer cowers in silence and shame.  

    To standing in Copper Country Mental Health, surrounded again by my quilts and speaking about my healing journey from abuse.  

    1234410_10153263504400594_821554407_nWhat I love is that I am not sad; but seem to be in my Element!

    And then to "Call Me Mental"…the documentary film that is still in progress. (This was almost exactly one year ago.  Feb. 10th)

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    It is remarkable, even to me, how comfortable I was talking about the quilts and Me and my breakdown into reality…  

    And, as I was looking through these photographs, I see how I have been so lovingly handed from one new friend to another…

    How I was able to be open and trust that my words would be heard…that I would be seen; and my truth recognized.  

    That is what gave me power!

    Oprah says we all want to be acknowledged.

    "Can You see me and does what I say matter?"

    I feel very grateful for all the opportunities and my ability to say Yes and step out of my comfort zone.  To be a visual reminder to many that our power is fueled by our truth.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Rebroadcasting the Old.

    When I see my story as a quilt, or my quilts as how I lived my life, (does art imitate life or does life imitate art?) I see the magical synchronicity that arose to greet me as I changed on the inside….while living life.

    It is to start your role in life as a caterpillar and change into a butterfly adapting the new features onto the same platform.

    I believe we all are born unlabeled and quickly they are added to us and we then believe this is who we are.  I also believe that when you are sexually abused within your family, these labels have a double twist or perhaps two sets of labels.

    To get down to your real self, you have to first see your family in their true colors and often this hurdle alone is enough to keep folks from doing any self exploratory exercises and or doing things that will remove the labels. 

    The labels are covering more than the essential self or soul, but they are also there to cover up abuse.

    It is to swim through hell in order to finally be free to be you.

    I think what is so remarkable about my journey, is that I was able to rip off a label while exploring my new self and using Art as a way to keep my balance; for I felt comfortable and secure while quilting.

    I was terrified of the consequences of losing who I was, how I engaged, what I said, how I felt…and more importantly how would my inner change rock my outer world.

    And then, would I change so much that I would no longer fit into old relationships.

    As the new awareness movement arises and they are asking folks to shed their old labels and beliefs and to view life from a new angle, they are unwittingly asking many to dive into a hell hole they themselves didn't know existed and if they knew, have worked to skirt around.

    It is all good and well to ask someone to be here now…to accept what is, when it doesn't carry the vestiges of abuse.  

    Most think it is the pain of being abused.

    It is the pain of a past not being what it is.

    And, then…you not being who you thought you were.

    AND, you have a whole life built upon a false premise.

    Now what?

    Be here now???  In a life that doesn't come close to matching reality or a reality that is too terrifying to know.

    Perhaps the tools we all need is to to let go and grasp on….and to maintain something that will transcend both lives….Like Art.

    Or, whatever your passion is.

    For, I believe that your passion is your true self, the one beneath the labels and the beliefs and stories you were given in the years after your birth; it goes beyond the social titles we need in order to organize our world.

    It is as Richard Rohr spoke of on Super Soul; that we need to embrace, not only our soul, but our physical body and life as well. 

    I wonder if a holistic living is to embrace all of who we are and not segment out things that steal your peace.

    Richard also said that he believes that the soul grows with pain and suffering or on negative experiences.  I agree.

    I never even knew I had a soul, let alone was connected to it, until everything I thought I was was torn away.  And, all that was left was a sense of something I had never encountered…a Me that appeared to live brilliantly despite what my physical body and the life experiences I had endured.

    The symbol of the cross is what I was forced to live and what in the end served me well. 

    "Crosses symbolize spirituality and healing. The four points of a cross represent self, nature, wisdom, and higher power or being. Crosses suggest transition, balance, faith, unity, temperance, hope, and life. They represent relationships and and a need for connection to something." 

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    And, what I know for sure, what you don't transform, you do transmit….as Richard shared.  

    This I believe was my greatest fear; that IF I wasn't able to change enough, I would transmit the legacy of my abuse unto the next generation…

    We are either transmitting a new signal or rebroadcasting the old.

  • The Dance Between My Lady and I…

    I went to look for The Artist Way to post creative ideas for WIND's 100 Day Project…and I happened upon my "Morning Pages Journal".  My brother had sent me both the book and the journal.  And, I began with much eagerness….in 2004

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    On the fourth day I stopped.  

    My world tilted upside down.

    A week later I wrote…

    "I have been gone a week and a half.  In that time I was shown real insanity. How you only have the window of the Soul, that is all that is real.  The rest is insanity and an illusion."

    The next entry was December 28th…"Lots has happened. My mom left my dad, for he was a monster, I always knew deep within. He hurt many souls, mine included. I feel a void for he never was there for any of us. My mom built him up to what she wanted. What I need is the truth of all.  Just the truth.  It really does set you free."

    "It will be a happier, lighter future for sure.  A better soul moves forward. Truth is my guide. Love, Joy and Peace are all I need. I will find it in all I do, and all I meet."

    What I have noticed as I am reading my words from 10 years ago is how I would speak of the reality that I had denied and how I also look ahead.

    I balanced between figuring out the past and stepping into an unknown future with intentions to follow my truth.

    The Morning Pages were not to be a journal per say, but rather me writing for three pages. Often there is no date to signify another day. But, I can usually tell by the writing.  I start out with very neat….and then it grows and gets larger and messy. I typically end on a positive note…as how I am doing "As I sit here today" and what I will focus on.  

    From early January

    "So what is the lesson today – To live in the Now being truthful to me. Let my feelings show and be heard…. My biggest work is to tend to me in spite of all their needs. To tend to me first – love me enough to keep me first. They will all find their way. A new better way is what I will have. Less stress – less friction. I will accept that me and my family are on our own journeys. We will honor each others journey. We will honor each others space."

    "As I begin today I will take my space and give or allow them theirs. Within our own space we bloom. My peace. My quiet. I love my children enough to give them their space. I love my husband enough to give him space. Be in your space – Be you! Be first!"

    The next day I write about my quilts.  "Yesterday was a success creatively – almost three backgrounds and borders.  Now I get to add intention – meaning or the  "Sutra" to them "A stitch to the soul" to help express or heal. Then when I do the machine quilting I will add words of wisdom add to the picture meaning. It is all good."

    And Julia Cameron has quotes on these lined pages….the one on this page read "As frightening and abusive as life with a crazy maker is, we find it far less threatening than the challenge of a creative life of our own."

    I also marvel at how I continued to mother and be a wife while my world is completely upside down and I have no clue of who I am….and how I keep the writing so about me…and how I continue to create…weeks after my world upends itself.  

    And there are moments when I am floundering and it reads that way.  When I am seeking alternate methods of connections. Angels were big for me. I believed they surrounded me and helped me. 

    I have to wonder when you are broken down what feels comforting…and are we more in tune or seeking and grasping at straws…anything to hold on or believe in; when all we believed is no more.

    I am glad to have these early journals…and to see me in my writing back then.

    The confusion is there.

    The anger and resentment.

    My hard line on truth.

    The unknowing of myself.

    The exploring.

    And creating.

    How as I changed, my mothering changed…my relationship with my husband changed….slowly I bloomed where I had granted me space.

    Here is today's Sutra – Stitch to the soul!

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    My saving grace was, and is, my love for playing with fabric, for the emergence of "My Lady" for she indeed grew as I grew….bolder, more playful and free!

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    While I recognize the woman who wrote those words…it is hard to imagine being her.  Being so small in Self- awareness or self -love or self- knowing who she was. But I love her courage to change herself mid-stream in her life.

    It is like the story is going and the main character changes their identity; yet the identity is unknown to her.

    Again, hard to articulate but your life doesn't change, just you do.

    I was, and am….a work of Art in progress!  It is to be the painting and the painter…and yet the background moves and changes…and your identity or character is defined by how you dance.

    It is SO like my quilts.  I lay the background down….and they are often quite similar, but the ladies change.

    I can't imagine the past 10 years without my Art.

    My therapy and therapist all in one!  I, the patient and the therapist; moving from role to role.

    "If you stumble make it part of the Dance!"

    The dance between my Lady and I!

     

     

     

  • Mosaic Work of Art

    "Forget Everything And Run OR Face Everything And Rise" Zig Ziglar

    Today I will find a plate to write my fears. (For Lung Leavin Day ) First I have to seek within to find them.

    What do I fear?

    I have thought briefly about the content of my fears and where they are stored.

    I wondered in what part of my life I would find them.

    I have monitored my body to see what comes up. And checked my mind and my feelings.  So far there is nothing tangible for me to grab onto.

    Somehow I believe I have lived out my worst fears…or certainly faced a huge amount.

    It had me wondering about fear and where it is stored and how is it accessed.  How it piles up and is the content the same world wide?  What creates fear so strong it has you in prison by its force?  And, even more important how do you become fearless?

    To me, my fearless state required I walk with all my fears.  It wasn't until I seemingly lost it all, that all my fears came home to roost together, that I entered into the state of being fearless; all my fears arrived and I continued to breathe.

    Not only breathe, but grow stronger having lived out my greatest fears.

    Here are some of my old fears in random order as I recall my darkest moments…perhaps when the clouds of fear descended upon me.

    Fear of being different.

    Fear of being the blending in and disappearing.

    Fear of being intimate.

    Fear of my emotions.

    Fear of having no emotions.

    Fear of having a broken heart.

    Fear of losing my identity.

    Fear of having no identity.

    Fear of a hopeless future in a cycle I couldn't get out of.

    Fear of change.

    Fear of not being able to change.

    Fear of not being heard.

    Fear of speaking my truth.

    Fear of my overwhelming anger.

    Fear of public disgrace with my father's exposure.

    Fear of not knowing what to say and no one asked.

    Fear of sharing my most private things on this blog.

    Fear of retaliation.

    Fear of annihilation.

    Fear of being disliked.

    Fear of not being able to stay with my truth.

    Fear of following my truth and being hated because of it and the fear I would capitulate to be liked; so I wouldn't be alone.

    Fear of speaking truths that shown a bright light upon the dysfunctional family and being shunned.

    Fear of not being able to change enough to make a difference in my home.

    Fear of being wrong while following my body and soul.

    Fears that mostly consisted of me being me and not being accepted because of it. Fears of embracing all my imperfections and making them public would be the end of me.

    My greatest fears were of the truth and how it would impact the world IF they became known.  My truths about my feelings and my experiences.

    So, what do I have left to fear if I have attempted to live truthfully for the past 10 years AND have faced many of the consequences I feared?

    I looked up some quotes about fear….

    "I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear." Rosa Parks

     

    Does that ring true for me. I vowed I would stand with the child against my father.  Perhaps that is what lessened my fears.

    "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is the fear of the unknown."  H. P. Lovecraft

     

    In facing the unknown….I learned you can't know.  And I found peace living in the unknown.  Another fear neutralized.

    "What is needed, rather than running away or controlling or suppressing or any other resistance, is understanding fear; that means, watch it, learn about it, come directly into contact with it. We are learning about fear, not how to escape from it."  Jidda Krishnamurti

    I had felt cornered by my truths (fears) and they were much too big to hide or coverup and nowhere to run….so I became very astute in understanding their source, the root cause and how they impacted how I lived and conducted myself. Once I felt there was no way around the truth, I immersed myself in it.  Another way I became fearless about fear.

    "Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of every fear is freedom."  Marilyn Ferguson

    I think somehow my subconsciousness knew this and it was indeed the case….for after every fear was faced, I became freer and freer!

    So, what to write on the plate?

    "The other side of every fear is Freedom!"

    My intentions with breaking the plates with our fears on them is to transform the fear into something beautiful; a mosaic work of art.  

     

  • Fulfilled and Happy

    "In acceptance, we are free to be in the present. Once we have accepted our own true nature and the ways of the universes they are reflected in our world, there is no longer regret about our past, nor is there fear of the future.  Fear of the future no longer exists when the past has been healed. This is because in the usual ego-oriented state of consciousness, the ego tends to project the past upon the future, and a past that is viewed negatively becomes fearful when projected upon the imaginary future. Our letting go of the lower energies of guilt, fear, and anger, and pride has alleviated the weight of the past and cleared the clouds of the future. We face today with optimism and are grateful to be alive. We see that yesterday is gone, tomorrow has not yet come and we have only today"  David Hawkins – Letting Go – The Pathway of Surrender"

    This concept may be hard to grasp and even harder to execute, but it is, in my experience, the only way you can free yourself from the cycles.  Especially the cycles of abuse.

    If "not going back" and "moving on" or "thinking only positive" worked…abuse in my family would have stopped years ago.  

    I know, that I have been criticized for having stayed with this topic for over ten years, that I have 'not moved on' but chose instead to remain stuck in the past.  When in fact, I have been staying with my past to neutralize it.  To sit with and feel each part that brought up anger, negative feelings, guilt and shame.  I stayed there until I could find peace…and acceptance.

    And I have.  

    Some areas have taken weeks and months and have come back time and again for more acceptance and peace.  Each time a thought would arise carrying pieces of negative energy, it was my job to look at it more closely to see what part of me was still tangle up in a negative way.

    As my yoga teacher says, "Anytime someone can still your peace, you are the loser."

    My job was/is always to engage with my feelings until we come to a peaceful thought.

    As Byron Katie says in her books, the road to hell starts with "should, could, would".

    If he would…

    Or she should…etc.

    I have found that the only way to neutralize my past was to keep my thoughts and my feelings true.  To have the courage to face what is….no matter what reality was showing me and then find peace with accepting it.

     

    "a past that is viewed negatively becomes fearful when projected upon the imaginary future."

    Just this one thought alone….If you view it negatively….the negative is what will happen again and again.

    So, not only do you have to go back to a negative childhood (when incest or abuse has occurred) but you have to come away seeing you differently.

    You can't hold on to the guilt and shame and hide your abuse and have a different future.

    It is to be abused but to feel guilt-free, shame-free, without the negative drag.

    Today my negative radar is free.

    My gratitude scale is overwhelming.

    My future shines bright.

    David Hawkins ends this segment with…

    "In summary, then, the consciousness level of acceptance is one that we all long to achieve, for it enables us to find freedom from most of life's problems and to experience fulfillment and happiness."

    I am very fulfilled and happy.

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Cover Up the Predator.

    A very insightful article about family when it comes to one of their own being accused of sexual abuse.  In my experience what she writes is not uncommon.

     

    http://www.alternet.org/gender/i-understand-why-people-believe-sexual-predators-rather-victims-i-did

    Not only is not uncommon, but it makes it extremely hard when the victim and the predator belong to the same family.  

    We can see the insanity in other families, but rarely will family see the predators at their own family reunions, dinner tables and family picnics.  

    When family doesn't believe that a crime has been committed…and instead focuses on the lives of the victim…it doesn't change the criminal into a nice person, but rather it give him/her cover to continue on.  

    I know that we all believe the law and courts and attorneys need to do this or that to get these criminals off the street….BUT, family refuses to get them out of the family. 

    If you only knew how many families are riddled with abusers AND those NOT believing it enough to stop relationships, it would blow your mind.

    It is far more common to react like the family in this article, than it is to act like I have.

    My family still doesn't see their behavior as being against victims.  They see it as supporting family, no matter what.  Their behavior is echoed with each new predator that pops up in the midst.  The very first place they lean is towards the lives of the victims.

    Paint the victims in a negative tone in order to cover-up the predator.

  • Worlds Apart.

    The two worlds existing side by each is so remarkable. And the inhabitants of each world speak two different languages and see things completely different.

    Not like a similar variation or just a bit down the spectrum…but completely different.

    Where one daughter sees a dad and the other a pedophile.

    That different.

    And the occupants of these worlds can't speak to each other for each sees a completely different person.  Our language has no common denominator.

    Our words fall on deaf ears.  Our beliefs hold us prisoner each on our own side.

    The woman who was able to see her mother as an alcoholic, said about her life and her childhood…."It was to see everything in color after only seeing black and white for years."

    I said, only months after seeing….that I see too much.

    There are only two worlds in the mind.  But reality holds only one.

    I know why many live in the other world.

    You get to have a mom and a dad.

    You get to have family.

    You get to have what our mother's mind created.

    You get to skip around and forgive and forget anything that would shatter that world.

    I am threat to the veil you hold in your mind.

    I come in with a rush of ugly.

    With emotions too wild to hold and feel.

    I am the representative of all the things the veil has hidden.

    The ugly truths your world can't hold.

    This knowing of two world existing together…and how the mind keeps you away from mine…brings me peace.

    Knowing it isn't personal.

    When I first stumbled upon this "other" land I was horrified, shocked and shattered…my whole life blew apart and was completely constructed and rebuilt in one horrifying moment.

    I died and was reborn.  You died too.  You who I knew no longer existed…and were reborn into someone I couldn't recognize anymore.

    Into a world where everything was the opposite of what my mind had labeled.

    I am a stranger now to the old land.  One who doesn't believe the old labels.

    I am now at home on this side.

    While we are standing on different sides of the veil, we will not hear each other.  It will only be when we are standing together.

    I know I can't go back.

    I can't put the veil up and not see what I saw.

    I can't pretend to pretend to pretend.

    So we will travel through the years together but apart.

    I see you.

    And you see me.

    Yet we don't see the same.

    Everything is different; depending upon what side you are standing on.

    Somehow this image brings me peace; knowing the sentiment I have heard.  

    "Forgive them, they know not what they do."

     

    Reading in The New Codependency by Melody Beattie, she writes.

    "Communicate Authentically"

    "Are we talking to manipulate, control, or alter someone's perception instead of to honestly express ourselves? We can't simultaneously communicate who we are and control or manipulate. When we're manipulating or controlling, we're not speaking our truth.  If we're numb or disconnected from ourselves, we may not know what our truth is!  Maybe we are not lying, but we're not being who we are.  It's not deliberate. Some of us have been codependent chameleons for so long we don't have a sense of ourselves at all. Our intuitive responses to people – and how they talk to us – can give us real hints to what other people are up to, and where they're at. But that requires trusting ourselves and knowing what we're feeling.  If people are trying to control us, we'll feel like we want to back off, run away, escape. If we're being manipulated, we'll feel confused and cruddy after the conversation ends.  Another communication problem is draining energy or power from someone under the guise of "talking." People may act like they want to have a conversation with us, but many people with codependency issues use conversation as a way to get us to take care of them. They're draining our energy the way thieves siphon gas from someone's car. People segue from asking how the person is into begging the person to tell them what to do, listen to them complain, or take care of them emotionally.  If someone is "taking power" in communication, it can be detected by how the person is robbed of power feels when the conversation ends – exhausted, drained, or depleted. When someone feels incomplete and things the other person holds the missing piece to them, they drain other people's energy or take their power. Is someone controlling, manipulating, or draining you? Does someone's name on your Caller ID evoke a groan, or do you hide in another aisle when you see the person at the grocery store because (whether you have the words to describe it or not), you know he or she wants to control, manipulate or suck your soul? Or is the situation reversed? Are people avoiding you? Do you want something you're not honest about or aware of from them? Do you want them to fix you, validate you, make you feel better? Do you believe they have some magic, insight, answers, or power you don't?  Do you htnk someone else has the power to make you feel whole and complete?"  Melody

     

    Perhaps the two worlds are simply those who communicate to honestly express themselves and those who communicate to control and manipulate.

    The only reason they communicate is to keep their fake world going…by trying to control others to keep it all in place.  The thing they fear the most is complete and utter freedom to be. 

    To express, to feel and to be who we are.

    The contrast in communications between the two, are worlds apart.

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  • Time to Fall

    Yesterday I saw the mound of snow that was in front of the mailbox where I fell out of the jeep.  A snow mound that created a small hill.  Now, I see why my jeep rolled away so easily once my foot left the break.  

    I also realized the significance of me letting go or surrendering to the rolling jeep…to my fall. In releasing my foot and escaping completely the jeep…after my leaning so far, removed said foot off the break.

    If I had tried to stop the jeep, my legs may have gotten run over….instead I rolled the opposite way; toward the mailboxes and didn't try to save the jeep.  Nor was I quick to try and get up…instead I rolled in the snow.  Which is why I was so completely covered in it.

    This is a lesson on trying NOT to interrupt an accident while it is happening or struggle against it.  Letting the jeep roll and me rolling, we rolled with it in acceptance.  Both going with the flow.

    Completing what I started with the fall. And not trying to "Not look like I fell" while I had.

    It is like following the truth of what is…while it is.  

    The gentleman that was at the next box waiting is something else.  I marvel still at his pose of standing and waiting.  He did not budge from his pose.  He waited…unmoving.

    He had to see the whole scene, the fall and rolls and the get up and brush off, walk to the jeep, the back up and deliver again… Well actually, what is so cool, is that I had delivered the mail, and then fell.  

    He too didn't intervene in anyway.  He simply waits for his mail; routine uninterrupted.

    Did he know that all would be okay?

    Nothing to get shook about.

    Watching karma bumping into me…

    He was fine.

    He was standing.

    Waiting.

    Not his turn to fall.

    Or roll in the snow.

    I am just not sure I would not have moved.

    I am thinking, I would have been racing towards the rolling jeep.

    Getting in the way.

    He just watched reality roll…and asked when I was back in the drivers seat, "Are you okay?"

    I didn't even have the where with all, to ask, why he didn't move.

    Just answered. "Yes."

    The juxtaposition between the two mailboxes, with me and so much rolling and falling, brushing, and walking, etc…and him standing unmoving is quite remarkable.

    It wasn't his time to fall.  

    (it was mine)

     

     

  • Self Love.

    Here is a post that I had "shared" on Facebook from Jeff Brown.

    "I grew up in a home where love was measured by abuse. Not only did they abuse those they loved, but they measured our love for them by the amount of pain we were willing to endure at their hands. Talk about a recipe for a disaster in later life, where pure, vulnerable love appeared suspicious by contrast. Little did they know that our willingness to endure their abuse was not a measure of our love for them- it was a reflection of our own self-hatred. You don’t endure abuse because you love someone- you endure it because you don’t love yourself. Once you do the work to regain your sense of worth, abuse becomes an impossible path."

    Even after all these years of exploring the affects and the symptoms of abuse, I hadn't considered…."our willingness to endure their abuse was not a measure of our love for them- it was a reflection of our own self-hatred."

    What makes this sentence so powerful is that it isn't about THEM….it is about us!

    When it is about us…there is a solution WE can do something about.

    And, I know that when I began to love myself, abuse became an impossible path for me to be on.  I loved myself enough to say no more.

    It isn't easy to start loving yourself when you are full of self hatred, but it IS possible.

    I first loved the women filled with self loothing….resentment and cold insides.

    I understood why she was the way she was and vowed she didn't have to live like this anymore.

    I made changes and put up boundaries and barriers against abusive and those in denial and those who also were steeped in self hatred that they were unable to see me and my innocence.

    It has been by far the most wild life journey….to go from self-hatred to Self LOVE!

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    Thanks to the young woman who felt this post deeply.  I had meant to share it here!