I M Perfect lady

Category: Examples of an Imperfect woman

  • Children in Peace.

    "The Conscious Parent" by Dr. Shefali Tsabary is a 100% turnaround from what most parents have been doing.  It is a much needed change to bring resolution to the dysfunction that is bringing such pain to our children.

    She writes.

    "To shift to a more effective way of relating to our children, we must be willing to face and resolve issues in ourselves that stem from the way we were parented. Unless we invite such transformation, we will likely parent with a certain irreverence, unheeding of the cry of our children's spirit and blind to their wisdom.  Only to the degree we as parents are attuned to our own being will we know how to help our children attune themselves to their unique essence."

    "For this reason, to parent consciously requires us to undergo personal transformation.  In fact, it's my experience that the relationship between parent and child exists for the primary purpose of the parent's transformation and only secondarily for the raising of the child."

    "When I point out to parents the ways in which they need to undergo transformation, I frequently meet with resistance. "Why us?" they retort, puzzled that I would suggest they need to change. When I explain that the only way their children will alter their behavior is if they as parents become more conscious, they tend to be dissappointed, unable to accept that the focus needs to be on changing their own mindset rather than on their children.  I find that many parents are afraid of opening themselves to the unknown in the way that shifting from unconscious to conscious requires. This path isn't for the faint-hearted, but for those courageous souls who wish to experience kinship with their children.  Our children come to us so we may recognize our psychic wounds and call up the courage to transcend the limitations these wounds placed upon us. As we uncover the ways in which our past drives us, we gradually become capable of parenting consciously. Until then, try as we may to bring awareness to the way we parent, unconsciousness seeps into our interactions with our children at the least provocation."

    "I want to stress that there's no point wishing your unconsciousness didn't exist. Rather, understanding the ramifications of unconsciousness and become aware of its consequences can motivate a person to embark on the penetrating self-examination that's required to become an effective parent."

    "In this your children are your allies, as they repeatedly mirror aspects of your unconsciousness, affording you the opportunity after opportunity to awaken from slumber. Because children deserve parents who are conscious, don't we owe it to them to allow ourselves to be transformed by them at least as much as we seek to transform them?"

    "While the precise details of the transformation we must each undergo are unique to us as individuals, the nature of this transformation is in many ways universal.  Hence a conscious approach to parenting urges parents to address issues that are the hallmarks of consciousness, such as:

    "Am I allowing myself to be led toward greater spiritual awakening through my relationship with my children?"

    "How can I parent my children with an awareness of what they truly need from me, and thus become the parent they deserve to have?"

    "How can I rise above my own fear of change and transform myself to meet the requirement of my child's spirit?"

    "Dare I go against the stream and parent from a place where the inner life is valued more than the external?" 

    "Do I recognize every aspect of my parenting as a call to my higher evolution?"

    "Am I able to perceive my relationship with my children as a sacred relationship?"

                                        Dr. Shefali

    What I know now, that I didn't know when I became a mother, is that our children are indeed here to transform us.  And, each time I felt out of control with my children, it was the whirlwind of my transformation blowing.

    It was a moment, that I knew I was going to have some intense soul searching to do.

    Once you encounter, or come face to face with your own lack in the midst of a confrontation, it is brilliant in its design.

    It literally can change you into knowing the trouble lies with you. 

    I so hope that many parents will embrace this concept and see how incredible it is to  'fix' yourself in the midst of great angst with your children.  

    The power of control is then grasped, for it is only you that you have to change…you are free from having to change your child.

    There are so many gifts in parenting this way.  The first being you can see the innocence of your children and how precious they are.  If you are trying to 'fix' them, you are not accepting them as they are.

    To me, my inner transformation was to love… by letting my children be free. To be free to be who they are. Nothing needed to be fixed or changed.  And, as soon as I thought there was, it was a change that I needed to make about me.

    All the fixing and transforming was done in me.

    My children were spot on in knowing where I was off.

    Always.

    I would not be the person I am today, had my children not pushed all my buttons.

    They literally went into every place I was broken or wounded or in pain or insecure.

    Pointing out to me where I was off.

    If parents could get this…our world would be completely healed.  Fix the parents and leave the innocent children in peace!

     

  • Reconcile my past.

    I am re-reading a book "The Body Never Lies" by Alice Miller.  She and her viewpoints make complete sense to me.  

    She writes. 

    "In his famous novel Fateless, the Hungarian writer and Nobel laureate Imre Kertesz describes his arrival at the Auschwitz concentration camp.  He was fifteen years old at the time, and he tells us in great detail how he attempted to interpret the many grotesque and appalling things he encountered on his arrival there as something positive and favorable for him. Otherwise he would not have survived his own mortal fear."

    "Probably every child who has suffered abuse must assume an attitude like this in order to survive. These children reinterpret their perceptions in a desperate attempt to see as good and beneficial things that outside observers would immediately classify as crimes.  Children have no choice. They must repress their true feelings if they have no "helping witness" to turn to and are helplessly exposed to their persecutors. Later, as adults lucky enough to encounter "enlightened witnesses," they do have a choice. Then they can admit the truth, their truth; they can stop pitying and "understanding" their persecutors, stop trying to feel their unsustainable, disassociated emotions, and roundly denounce the things that have been done to them.  This step brings immense relief for the body. It no longer has to forcibly remind the adult self of the tragic history it went through as a child.  Once the adult self has decided to find out the whole truth about itself, the body feels understood, respected and protected."

    "I call the violent kind of "upbringing" abuse, not only because the children are thus refused the right to dignity and respect as human beings but also because such an approach to parenting establishes a kind of totalitarian regime in which it is impossible for children to perceive the humiliations, indignities, and disrespect they have been subjected to, let alone to defend themselves against them.  These patterns of childhood will inevitably then be adopted by their victims and used on their partners and their own children, at work, in politics, wherever the fear and anxiety of the profoundly insecure child can be fended off with the aid of external power. It is in this way that dictators are born; these are people with a deep-seated contempt for everyone else, people who were never respected as children and thus do their utmost to earn respect at a later stage with the assistance of the gigantic power apparatus they have built up around them."  Alice Miller

    What I love, and don't recall reading the first time is that the reason we choose a different perception is to Survive our own mortal fear.  It is to run ahead of our fears.  I knew we changed the images of our abusers to make them kinder to survive, but I hadn't gotten this part that it is to outrun our own mortal fear.

    Fear is chasing us…forever, until we can see our abusers and their crimes.  Our body will not rest as long as we pity and understand our abusers.  I know this is right.

    And, unless we stop and face our fears, we will use others when we feel insecure. We will control them to feel power.

    What is taken from us in abuse is our power…for we are overcome by someone older and wiser than us. We allow, for the lack of choice, someone to overpower us.

    In order to gain our power, we have to reconcile that moment.

    I had to look up the word Reconcile.  For, someone told me it must be hard to reconcile with my parents.

    I see or feel reconcile differently. 

    Here are some definitions of Reconcile.

    "Restore friendly relations between…"

    "cause to coexist in harmony; make or show to be compatible."

     "to find a way of making (two different ideas, facts, etc.) exist or be true at the same time."

    What I believe most of humanity is looking for between a victim and their abuser, is to return to friendly.  When in actuality, from the victim's perspective, we have to reoncile the two people.  The friendly one and the non-friendly one.  To bring into account the two different sides of one person.

    I don't believe the two can even be brought together in harmony.  In acceptance yes…but not to return to friendly in the relationship.

    When therapies and society and religions are looking to the victim to reconcile, do they know what they are asking?

    How is it possible to reconcile things that are the polar opposites?

    How will they co-mingle in harmony?

    I think our greates Fear is knowing it is impossible.  We can't reconcile in our minds and hearts that the man/person we loved and trusted, did this to us.  We know, we will not be able to trust this person again.  Our greatest fears is that we are alone. Or worse, alone and vulnerable to attacks.  That the friendly life of harmony is over.

    How can we restore something we didn't separate?

    I did reconcile my past.  

    I brought in the truth and no longer pretended to be friendly or be in harmony with such energies of abuse.

    To those who want victims to find peace and love and joy with their abusers, they are asking the impossible.  Our bodies will hold the differences.

    The body doesn't lie.

    The body will feel the juxtaposition between title (Dad) and the energies (negative) that are running inside.  It feels the power seeking and the controlling.  It feels the energies of abuse. 

    Abuse will end when we can all see the separation between father and pedophile and not ask victims to reconcile…but separate.

    My reconciliation was to bring in the negative that I feared.  Somehow we know that the relationship is over when you can see the negative.  We fear being alone.

    Some have even told me how alone I am. 

    Isn't it better to be alone in the truth, than in company of lies?

    The well being of victims comes when we can separate ourselves from those who seek to gain power outside of themselves.  

    When I found my own power within, I stopped trying to control others to be powerful.

    My power comes from the freedom to make choices that bring me peace, love and joy. 

    Healing comes with freedom. The freedom to reconcile my past.

     

     

     

  • Mother’s eyes.

    With Mother's Day, comes a sense of doing something, honor or acknowledge memories and acts of love…dedication to the woman of our childhood…or the role model we followed.  We see our mother through our childhood experiences.

    As a mother, you are then in the middle where you look up and are looked at from below; your children.

    When we think of Mother's Day, we often don't see their children. 

    Mother's are links in the chain…each bringing forth the legacy of family.

    But, as you all know, my link and my mother's link don't fit together…the continum has been broken.  

    The very character and traits that are my mother, ARE what I have changed and left behind.  We no longer resemble each other.  It is as if we are strangers.

    How do you celebrate or honor the very character flaws that I had to bury?

    I guess, what I get left with more than anything, is the gratefulness I have for all my changes.  The changes that made me stronger, truthful and with clear boundaries and values, is what has put distance between my mother and I.

    With these changes,  I hope my daughters will have traits, character and memories of a woman to whom they can take parts and carry them forward.  That our links will fit together…to hold family.

    I don't think we can clearly see our mother until we mother.

    Or in times where our truths are either seen or denied.  

    Alice Miller says, that we see ourselve through our mother's eyes.

    If that is true, we also see our truths or the lack thereof, in how our mother sees not only her reality, but ours.

    How her choices impact the lives of her children.

    While there is a separation…there is also a link.

    I don't feel that I was a mother, until my choices were made to honor the child; my children as well as my inner child.

    One of the hardest things to overcome is to go against your mother.

    To stand up and disappoint her, in order to honor your truths.

    We are taught to obey our moms.

    To do what brings her happiness.

    I have disappointed and dishonored her, by my silence and distance.

    And I have done so without regrets.

    For I was my mother for 46 years, and had I not changed.  I would have wanted my children to stand clear of me, to do different than I, to be stronger…to see what I failed to see and to act in ways that honored their truth and being; their self.

    I am being the daughter I hope my daughters (and son) will be.

    One who will stand for her(his) Self, no matter what.

    I know that many will view my estrangement from my mother on Mother's Day an act of rebellion or being stubborn even Unloving…they want me to reclaim my mother.  But in doing so I would leave behind my innerchild…my truth and self.

    In dysfunctional homes, there is no way to honor your parent and your self…you have to pick one.  

    One will repeat history and the other will reconnect you to your soul.

    One denies the truth, the other embraces it.

    In one you move towards love, peace and joy and the other away from it.

    One the child is innocent and the other the parent is.

    When I saw my innocent child, I saw my mother's neglect of me.

    I then saw my neglect of my children.  I had to be the mother I didn't have in order to break the chain.

    I would not be the mother I am today, had I not left my mother.  

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    I stayed with her…my little girl.  I saw her and didn't turn away…from her abuse.

    I honor all mother's who can see to the truth of their child. A child's self worth shines from their mother's eyes. 

     

     

     

  • And yet they stay.

    What is interesting about being estranged from family, due to abuse, is that others can see why I would move away, but not why they need to.  They have no troubles with me excluding MY family.  But they will not exclude theirs.

    There is a weird perception with abuse, in that it is easier to see abuse when it is outside of your own family and friend circle…than to look within.  

    Most often other victims of abuse will agree wholeheartedly why I left and can see clearly into my reasoning…and yet find a laundry list of reasons why it would be impossible for them to do the same.  

    Or, find ways to perceive their families in a nicer light…that will stop such drastic behavior such as estrangement. Or better still, remind me that they will not be so 'unkind'…inadvertantly calling me unkind.  

    Perhaps those most against me, are fellow victims of childhood abuse…those who agree in words…but not deeds.  They don't mean to be, but are.

    Most want the 'kinder' version of healing. 

    Is there one?

    Is there a way to honor and respect yourself within a family of folks who can't see you and your needs?

    What I find so puzzling is how divorcing a spouse seldom is seen unkind…but leaving a family that isn't conducive to trust, honor and respect IS.

    The sentiments that I am unkind, IS what stops most from making the same choices…for it is socially and religiously more kinder to forgive, forget and continue on IN the family, than leave.

    There is a stigma I carry.

    Remember the meaning of stigma?  "a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person."  

    Most try to put the disgrace upon me.  Me, the one who has walked away from abuse.  I am seen as unkind.

    How again does that work?

    Leaving a family that is steeped in abuse is unkind….to whom?

    Who benefits the most if we all stay?

    Certainly not the next generations of victims….but the abuser and his/her supporters.

    Just as a spouse who stays within an abusive marriage…staying only allows the abuser to abuse more.  It is never good for the abused.  And those who leave, are not called unkind.

    As long as victims stay, or try and make things better within an abusive family, abuse will flourish.  There is no love, trust and respect, there is only victims who see it as unkind to leave.

    Kindness stays, forgives, forgets, looks towards the positive, ignorning the bad. 

    Unkindness means walking away, putting up boundaries, setting standards higher than the family…self-care.

    I am a disgrace for wanting more.  

    My new level of self-care includes me, my peace, my happiness…my love.

    One definition of estrangement is to "Turn away in feeling or affection".

    What I believe, is that this "Turning Away" happens in the moment of abuse.

    My estrangement happened as a child.  I am just honoring that today.

    How many victims have feelings or affection for those who abused them?

    And yet they stay?

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Matches their tune.

    When family functions arise, or when news of siblings enter into my world…I feel a phantom family take shape.  Its presence plays with my insides, messes with my head and questions who I am.

    I would have thought, that my resolve would have solidified by now, and that the nerve endings where the family used to be, would be long dead. Or, that I would not feel inclined to respond…and yet it is like a reflex reaction…before my mind remembers.

    And when I remember, I know that once again my lack of presence will not be understood, but ridiculed…belittled and demeaned, scoffed at as mental, insane, bitter and cold.  

    What I think I long for is family acceptance…and the pain I flinch from is to once again feel their rejection of me and my truths.

    Its almost like self-infliction…staying away and the barbs it reaps.

    Each of us both are moving away…being repelled by our beliefs and/or our truths…they simply can't co-exist.

    While I know many will fault me for not attending, few will see their own distaste for me and the truth.

    It is odd to walk as the truth and feel how many turn away…and yet blame the truth for its content and not their own lack of willingness to dance with it.

    The music I see my family playing is a repeat from histories long ago…the family tune…stuck on the same old song.

    There are perhaps some changes in people and ages and they have taken on new roles etc, but the music and words behind the gatherings echo our past. 

    All the negative points to me…while abuse attends the party unscathed.

    In the past few days, I have felt this heavy energy inside of me like a fog that seeps into my cells and fills me with hopelessness and at the same time acceptance…that no matter what I have done, the music plays on.  Playing my father's song.

    I carry the wrath that should be his…

    I am on the outside and abusers like him…on the inside.

    Today is my mother's 82nd Birthday…she too on the inside.

    Celebrated as Mom.

    Don't know what praises she will reap…how many will acknowledge her today.

    The band plays on.

    I stopped.

    Nothing else did.

    It takes time to find my peace inside again. To feel strong. To gather myself back…to know that even if they have changed nothing.  I have.

    I changed the music inside of me…and it no longer matches their tune.

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    Recalling the "Lady Bug Medicine"….I will dance the lady bug dance..fearlessly.

    "Ladybug's medicine includes carrying the golden strand that leads to the centre of the universe, past lives, spiritual enlightenment, death and rebirth, renewal, regeneration, fearlessness, protection, good luck, wishes being fulfilled, protection." 

  • Ladybug Medicine.

    Making Art for someone, is like being a surrogate mother…giving birth to something that isn't yours.  Perhaps all of Art is this way.  

    I began this quilt with the intent of giving it away…and when it was done, I wanted to keep it around for awhile.  Mostly I enjoy the process of starting from nothing and watching it develop, I enjoy the ride.  

    Some quilts, (my Story Line) have an immediate resonance with me…feel that they are part of the journal of my life.  Others just are fun and delightful friends I played with for awhile and I am okay saying good-bye.

    Others.

    Well others are ladies I would like to hang around with…longer.

    Which is the case with these two dancing on the shore.  I loved their connection or energy and even their challenge to capture them on film.

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    It was as if the wind swirled and danced with them.

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    It is like something special that passes too quickly, or a moment you are unable to grasp.  

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     I looked up the spiritual meaning of "Lady Bug" –

    "Ladybug's medicine includes carrying the golden strand that leads to the centre of the universe, past lives, spiritual enlightenment, death and rebirth, renewal, regeneration, fearlessness, protection, good luck, wishes being fulfilled, protection."

    May this quilt inspire those who gaze upon it…and give them the ladybug medicine!

     

  • Steer clear of the past.

    "And his silence wasn't just a cultural stoicism, it was a misguided idea of victory. I've always thought that by trying to ignore those memories I take away their power, because I feel like such a victim when I think back, and I don't like feeling weak.  So I simply try not to think about them.  Besides, it's as if he wins every time I replay them, or attach any importance to them. But they are important. "This patient, viewed his memories through a prism that emphasized the horror and loss, rather than his personal heroism. I get that too."  An excerpt from "Death's Imperfect Witness" By Pam Leonard

    While this is a work of fiction, the main character is wrestling with how abuse has shaped who she is…and what it means to go back; emotionally.

    The idea that by focusing on your abuse and by going back it will keep you a victim, when instead, I feel, that when you do research on your past and what happened, how the non-abusive parent responded, you will learn valuable things that will help you stop being a victim.

    I am just not certain you can 'stop' being a victim, by not dealing with the abuse. It seems to me that not dealing is to not regain your strength.

    For when you do go back and face what is, you then are stepping back into control. 

    And, I also feel, that if it reduces you to a child or with fears that seem to overwhelm you, it is because it is bringing you back Emotionally to where it is you are stuck.  

    You will be a forever victim, if you don't go back and feel what it felt like back there and then to make new choices.  It is both in the feeling and then choosing again, that you regain the power.

    To never go back and sit down in the memories or feelings of abuse…is to live stuck in that emotional age of when you were abused.

    Which is why it is so hard to have adult relationships, for you are living with the emotional age of a child.  Our emotions get tucked away with the memories of abuse we don't want to feel.

    I know from experience, that the greatest thing I could do was to look closely and to take as long as I needed to sort out what happened in my childhood.  It does appear that I have been 'stuck' in the victim mode, when in actuality, I am regaining my strength.  

    The woman who first caught a glance of being abused and who I am today is completely changed.  My insides don't resemble the old me at all.  My emotional age has grown tremendously.  

    My first glimpse reduced me to a child; overwhelmed with terror. My voice was spoken from a very tight place in my higer neck.  Now I am speaking from deep in my body.  

    Space has opened up inside for me to live and feel life fully.  

    We go back to our abuse, not to be swallowed up by it, but to grab our child self and have them show us around. In doing so, we can see the overview and respond as an adult.  

    The initial brush with these long held down emotions is overwhelming…but eventually, the volume lessens.  The terrorizing scream…is what a child would feel, and we honor it by moving away from what hurt us.  

    My feelings and my body's emotions were reconciled when I went back to see where the fear came from.  I didn't become weaker, but stronger knowing the truth.

    It has never been my experience that the truth weakens you.

    I feel that you will remain a victim as long as you steer clear of the past.

     

  • Beauty of Life

    I don't know what is more unsettling, the fact that I was so affected by having to make do with a car on the mail route OR how quickly I became used to it.

    My first day of delivering mail from the left-hand drive vehicle without four wheel drive, overwhelmed my inner peace.  It makes everything 50% harder than a normal mail day with a right-hand drive jeep.

    From getting in, to sitting strangely, to struggling to reach each mail box, to getting stuck, because one tire was just a bit too deep in the snow….all made up for a day of frustration, reducing me to a two-year old wanting to throw a tantrum.  I resented being put upon…I just wanted my jeep.

    The second day, I was much more at 'home' in the vehicle…and this was equally as odd.  Showing me how quickly we can become comfortable with the uncomfortable.

    The first day I felt the concept of dysfunction and its cost on your inner world as well as the frustrations in the outer world, and how it creates a cloudy environment in which you live.  Just 'making do' is the ingredients that makes turmoil.

    I understood how important it is to have the proper tools for a job.

    I also could see how we can 'make do' in many areas of life…by letting go of what is optimal.

    And worse how we can adjust ourselves to be okay with much less than perfect situations.

    Without the struggle of making do, my work life with the Jeep moves with ease…and there is very little emotional or stress as I go about my route. 

    When I experienced the make do world, I know that there are many folks in the world whose lives are at the pressure point of exploding, due to having to make do.

    It helped me see the mountain of 'make do' my childhood was under…and the weight of it blows my mind.

    I am not sure being raised in a home where there is so much not working, you would be able to discern it being stressful; for it is normal.  Everything is an effort to make it work.  

    In a family of 14, the money was not enough, the space was not enough, the attention not enough…add to that a strict religion and abuse and you have an impossible environment for gentle raising.

    The stress on the parents is one thing, but the cost on the children is more. For we had no choices and were suffering abuse in a hostile environment of making do.

    I used to think it was an admirable trait to be able to complete a task with less than perfect tools or in a situation out of control…to not need the perfect tool, made me stronger/wiser/more proficient. Now I can see its cost upon me.

    Being the second oldest, I was my mother's helper; her right hand.  We struggled against a tide of 'not enough' and then too much.  Not enough tools and way too much work.

    It would be a challenge to run a household of 14 children with money and proper parenting…it is mayhem with the things we were up against. 

    As I thought of the climate in my childhood home and of my childhood, I could see how I internalized the lacks as mine.  How I drew in the stress and how it stole my life.  I survived, but I did not pay attention to me.

    What I wanted. My dreams.  My needs.  All were hidden behind the stress of the loud needs within the house.

    I now feel an almost allergic reaction to anything that resembles 'making do'.  

    Even a temporary detour there puts me into panic, resentment, and feelings of being out of control and knowing I MUST still make it work, somehow.  It reminded me of how I used to live.

    And then, the way it changed how I seen life.  I was unable to enjoy the fun things of life…while struggling to make do.  I came home drained.

    I know this is a thumbnail print of my childhood.

    With so much surviving going on, no room is left for the lighthearted dreaming. And even the kinder feelings never get a chance to bloom.  This I think, makes me the most sad.  To see a child so caught up in the struggle…that our soulful part of ourselves is stunted…severely.

    What I also believe, is that this soulful part is our true selves.

    The true self that gets neglected in order to survive.

    This is the most tragic loss of childhood abuse and neglect. 

    Where life's struggles take up life…neglecting the dreamer, the soul, the Art, the beauty of life.

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  • Successful Path

    "After all there were far more pathways to messing up than there were to success…" is a line in book written by Pam Leonard…."Death's Imperfect Witness".

    What I love about that line, is that this is life…and our choices.  

    Each will lead somewhere, but where? 

    And how true,  there seem to be more pathways to messing things up, compared to the one that will lead to success.

    How can we know which ones NOT to take and without having the experience of success…to gamble on one, that appears unsure.

    Maybe just knowing that there are more pathways to mess things up….it will lead us to be more cautious or questioning of life…or to look wider at our situations; to not react at first glance, but to search for things that don't add up.

    Usually, in my experience, the pathway that appears the easiest, is often the one that leads to the biggest messes.  Or the one which requires no probing or looking deeper than what is seen at first glance.

    Knowing there are more options for messing up than those to success, make the successful paths not only harder to find, but they will require more of you; just to find them, let alone traverse them.  And, from what I have seen, less traveled.

    Most seem to follow the crowd, regardless of where they are being led, not daring to ask questions or risk being foolish with discernment.  

    Some of us can see "something isn't right", but how often do we follow our guts and voice this idea?  

    Who wants to be the one to see what others would rather NOT see? Who wants to create a 'bigger' problem…when there appears to be a 'simple' solution?

    As I view the generational legacy of incest within the framework of pathways….there certainly are more that lead to messes, than away.

    In order to find the path to success, you will have to seek what is failing, what isn't right, to see what is off, to feel and intuit things…to look for problems, not what is working.

    I think most fail to find the path to success for they are not looking for what isn't right.

    Instead they focus on what appears to be fine.

    They refuse the whole package and pick and pull from the positive…ignoring what is failing.

    I know it appears that I am a negative seeker, that I overlook the positive…when in fact, I am taking in the whole image and going where that path leads.

    As Dr. Maya Angelou says, "People show you who they are, believe them the first time."

    I see our individual lives as pathways, where we will walk with each other and displaying ourselves by the choices we make.  Showing a blind eye to what is off, doesn't fill me with trust in you.  I see a person who is blind to what is going on.

    The successful path, is one that stays in reality…no matter what presents itself.  And a successful person is one who dares to see what is off…what others want to hide and ignore…

    I am not going to try and make other see.

    But I will always try to see clearly.

    And, when I feel something is off….to seek that.

    This is the tool of the body and mind…which many override.  I neglected the signals of my body for 46 years…now I use it to live life.

    I use my body to find the successful path.

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  • True Being.

    I loved this talk.  He opens us all, inviting us into the complex experiences of those who appear different.  Their challenges are really ours to accept.

    Brilliant and articulate!

    My upbringing within a cult-like religion, who cast aside anyone who was of a different faith, schooled me for sameness.  

    And, how sameness equaled special, saved, better than.

    It made me one of the worst kinds in humanity, where difference was not allowed.

    When I too was cast aside for my abuse or my speaking of it, or for my seeing the churches hand in blessing it; allowed me to live as "different". 

    Being Different has made me accepting.

    While I would not want to re-live the past again, I would give nothing for my journey today.  

    What I know for certain, It isn't the "Different" among us who are creating a negative world, but those who can't see them in their true being.