I M Perfect lady

Category: Examples of an Imperfect woman

  • Good Bye Buddy

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    I had to say farewell to my little buddy today…I was surprised how sad this made me.  I have enjoyed my ride and view from this jeep.  It has brought me through muddy roads and stormy days.  It gave me great confidence to tackle all the roads on my route.

    Due to the high miles (111,700), we decided it be best to sell it and find a newer replacement.  I have never gotten rid of a vehicle that I still loved.  Typically, our cars head to the junk yard when we are done, and by that time, we are so happy to see them go.  

    I cleaned out my personal affects and just felt weepy…I can't believe that I will no longer drive it.  

    I seen a few Jeeps on the way to town in my 'New' mail car and almost waved…and I remembered how surprised I had been when I first got the jeep and all other Jeep Wranglers waved to me.   No waves until the next Jeep finds its way to me.  And most likely I will wait till Fall to drive it.

    For now, I will be delivering the mail in nondescript, Cutlass Sierra..Oldsmobile…1994 model, with just 78,000 miles.  It will take some getting used to once again.  Driving a Left hand drive vehicle from the right.

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    A little old lady owned it…

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     I was not filled with eager anticipation as I cleaned and organized my mail stuff…Hard to say good-bye to a vehicle you still love.  It will be easier when it actually leaves the yard.  The woman I bought it from was sad too to see it go.  So, if you know of a mail person who would love a Mail Jeep, let me know!

    Good-Bye Buddy!

  • Family Picture Together.

    When your perceptions change, when your beliefs no longer stand, when your life is turned completely around, it leaves you standing awkwardly at times…backwards in your old life.

    I realize that I am the only one who has changed…and I am not expecting the others to change, but it feels extremely awkward to me.

    Lots of unspoken undertow swirling around…many agendas and expectations crashing into reality.  

    In the past, when I met up with controlling energies, I would try and appease them.  Now, I feel the urge to back up and away.  It almost seemed like there was a play director, and we needed to act a certain way.  Our real selves were not to be put on display, but the 'social' ones.  Every now and again, a real self would poke out.

    The strain of holiday and extended families is the 'getting along' for the Holidays, when the rest of the year our lives don't intersect.  A formal family.

    What I had felt and envisioned is the child who didn't fit into the formal family play, where your life scripts didn't match the tone they wanted to portray.

    I totally get now how the black sheep feels.  How my beliefs, my pathway and my life situation doesn't fit into the choreography of their expectations or ideals. How a family picture can eclipse real life.

    I can see how a child would become scarce…how rebellion erupts…how it would be easier to be absent.

    It is like reality doesn't fit into nice outfits and set table.

    I dare not bring in anything to upset the stage laid out.

    The strain of matching and withholding or doing social niceties leaves me drained.

    When your life is brimming with real life and its awkward truths, it is very hard to return to social graces.  I can totally see how a child who has been abused has no place to set down there reality.  They must continue on pretending the family picture hasn't been torn.

    It is no surprise to me that children leave and seldom return home in these homes.  I can see how awful it is to feel that your truth isn't to be brought up or spoken about.  How they simply keep you in your old mold even if all the insides have changed.

    The main focus is to hold the family picture together.  

     

     

     

     

  • The Part of Us That Never Dies.

    I have experienced two different viewpoints of Jesus, one where Jesus died to save me and one as an example of being one with God.  

    I no longer believe he died to prevent me from hell, that he will carry my worst behavior and sins, so I could ride on his coat tails and enter into Heaven, sin free as he is loaded down with my sins.

    I see Jesus's life much differently now.  I see him as an example of the highest level of consciousness, the ultimate in living as one with God.  I see him living his life totally connected to a higher power.

    Easter feels more about his death…and how folks will gain by this loss.  It just seems odd to me.  I never liked that he had to die to save me, it never felt fair or right…and it left me powerless.  

    My perceptions have certainly changed and as they changed, so did my holidays.

    It is like they focus on his birth and his death, but in-between where he lived is not celebrated.  The focus isn't on the middle journey where he lived…

    I am not a reader of the bible and now a self proclaimed no religion girl, but I do have a greater appreciation for Jesus and God now than I ever did.  I now have experienced first hand the miracles and oneness with God.  I get it.  It is personal, and you don't put any gods before Me.

    I love that no one has to suffer for me to get to Heaven…no one needs to carry my bad behaviors and sins, that they are mine to work through and bear the consequences.  My life is between me and God…no one has to carry the dark parts of me.

    And the dark parts are the places where I forgot who I was, where I became disconnected from the Source.  It was where I lost my way, but I was not lost…I just didn't see the Source.

    I don't know what to do with Easter, but to be with this day as it is.  To do as I do any other day…be me.  Go with the flow.  This day is no more meaningful or less meaningful.  All days arrive brand new.

    It is what you bring to each day that colors them for you.

    We color Easter, we color Jesus, we color God; we color by how we feel inside…by how we see ourselves, that is how we see God.

    I see all the colored Easter eggs as the many different viewpoints of God and Jesus.  How each of us get to have a personal relationship.

    The difference between my old relationship of worthlessness and the one I have now is vast.  One is to be empty and the other full…one lost and one found…one separated and one connected.  One living in fear and one in love.

    The two Easters on my journey…One with feelings of unworthiness and the other, a perfect child of God.  

    Religions seem to vacillate between the two poles…in order to keep religion alive, there needs to be sin and a savior…a death and a resurrection. 

    What if we live from the part of us that never dies…

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • A spiritual experience for me.

    "We often underestimate the power of giving voice, but it is real and sustaining.  It is the basis of all song.  It is why prisoners break into song.  It is why the blues are sung, even when no one is listening.  It is at the heart of all hymns and mantras."

    "And it works its healing not so much by being heard as by the fact that in giving voice to what lives within, even through the softest whisper, we allow the world of spirit to soften our pain.  In this way, the smallest moan is in itself a lullaby. In giving voice to what we feel, the darkest cry uttered with honesty can arrive as the holiest of songs."  Mark Nepo

    I love, "the darkest cry uttered with honesty can arrive as the holiest of songs."  My honesty in writing about sexual abuse does feel very holy to me, even if the topic itself isn't.  And writing about my experiences with the FALC and how its applications kept dysfunction going, also feel more holy than anything I heard in church.

    It isn't the topic that is written about, but the energy of honesty and integrity.

    And to me, the greatest songs and words ever spoken are those whispered or cried in total honesty.  I felt at one with God the day I began walking my truth…giving voice to how I feel, even if what I had to say was not welcomed by many, it was a spiritual experience for me.

     

     

  • Live where I was Planted.

    "In nature, we are quietly given countless models of how to give ourselves over to what appears dark and hopeless, but which ultimately is an awakening. This moving through the dark into blossom is the threshold of God."

    "As a seed buried in the earth cannot imagine itself as an orchid or hyacinth, neither can a heart packed with hurt imagine itself loved or at peace.  The courage of the seed is that once cracking, it cracks all the way."  Mark Nepo

    Nature truly is remarkable Grace.  

    Nature is the only place I clung to when the rest of my world was falling apart. It demonstration time and time again as  how to live life.  

    It is perfectly orchestrated and never resists…but flows in harmony.  Each part of nature stands as itself in its full glory.  It doesn't know how to be fake or pretend…it just is.

    Watching nature helped me be me…to find peace and live where I was planted.

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    Photograph by Hannah Jukuri

  • Acknowledgement of Hurting.

    "Unintended hurt is as common as branches snapped in wind. But it is the unacknowledged hurt that becomes a wound."  Mark Nepo

    I believe we all will hurt others and be hurt…as long as we are living and in relationships.  It is the unacknowledged hurt that wounds us.

    "Even if our awareness of being hurtful comes years after delivering the hurt, the smallest word or gesture – owning what we've done – can reopen the heart."  Mark Nepo

    I was sexually abused as a child, but no one ever acknowledged that they hurt me.  It is the unacknowledged hurt that wounded me.

    Even when it all came to light 40 years later, silence stood in the place of acknowledgement.

    I have often felt it wasn't enough to acknowledge how I mistreated and hurt my children with my angry words and general dysfunctional mothering…this lesson today has shown me, that in owning how I hurt them, began the closing of the wound and opening of our hearts.

    This is the opening I was waiting to enter…the acknowledgement of the pain they caused me…would have allowed my heart to reopen.  

    That is the difference, the dividing factor between estrangement and growing closer…Acknowledgement of hurting.

     

  • Truth or Pretending not to know the truth.

    "Peace from Broken Pieces, by Iyanla Vansant…speaks of our pathology, our patterns that we inherited from our parents and they got them from their parents; how we replicate their lives, unless we break the cycle.

    I taught my children by how I lived my life. I taught them the same way my mother taught me, in how she responded to life and mimicked her self worth. 

    The way she responded, shouted out her self worth, her allowance for behaviors and lack of boundaries showed she did not matter to herself.  As she continued to put others first, I too was taught that I came last, always.

    When I saw myself differently my pathology began changing.  I no longer was invisible to me and others magnified…instead I began living my life as if I mattered.

    I still see the old pattern emerge now and again in my children, its fragments clinging to their lives…echos of my old self still present…ghosts of my old pathology long ago recorded, still singing itself out in the now.  

    I totally get the lure of this pattern, I understand completely its profile.

    I had no real self unless I was doing, giving and living for the needs of other…I considered it selfish to focus on me.  I would disappear if another didn't need me in some capacity.  I needed to be needed, or I would have been left with my worthless self.  My value and sense of self came strictly from others…I had to shine in their eyes, for my eyes seen nothing in me by myself.

    As my mother before me, I lived self less… as a tool for others to use.

    I didn't have a me.  I didn't know what that me wanted…I was a complete stranger to myself.  I didn't know how to act if I wasn't acting for another.  

    My pattern was to disappear in others lives.

    The old pattern now is in shredds and a new one has replaced it.  I can only imagine how difficult it is for my daughters…with pieces of both patterns in their lives…yet hopeful.

    I can't know how long or how deep the old pathology is within them and which pattern will present itself more fully in their lives…and a part of me believes they signed up to learn this complicated pattern, the reversing of dysfunction.  

    All I do and feel I can do, is keep reflecting the truth back to them, for the old pattern was knitted together without it.

    It truly is broken down into two distinct patterns, Truth or Pretending not to know the truth.

     

     

  • Lead from your Soul.

    My mind can easily convince me of many things, most often things that are not for the good of my well being or are even healthy for me. I have followed it like a powerless soul for years.

    I have succumbed to its wishes out of fear.  

    It had me convinced that I would not be able to be without sweets, that I couldn't resist them.  I challenged that and faced the sweets with me and my mind.

    It is weird to know that my body doesn't crave sweets, but my mind does.  And I don't believe this is a desire of my soul and spirit.  My mind craves things that will have a dire affect on my body and soul…and it cares less.

    It doesn't care how large I get and actually will then have the audacity to then berate me for what it wanted.

    Once you over take your mind, you can pretty much do anything.

    My latest experiment is in doing yoga. Again, my mind will tell me I am too tired or its too hard, or not possible…and my body follows this lazy chatter and lays down.

    If I set up a plan knowing that the mind's job is to be my opponent, I can then know that my body isn't too tired, but my mind is. And in yoga, the result of doing yoga is to get ahead of the mind, to control it, so it doesn't control you. So, if you make it to the yoga mat, your mind lost.

    I am learning more and more about the mind/body/soul connection and I how backwards I had it.  I used to address the body like it was the problem…never challenging or questioning the thoughts and words the my mind uttered and believed in…and sadly I had zero connections with my spirit…well, maybe a few brief encounters, but they were far and fleeting.

    Now, I am learning to live totally backwards…to consult my spirit, my energy, my intuit knowing and use that to question my mind…and then my body is being steered by that instead of being subjected to the mind's negative, lazy chant.

    It truly doesn't take as much will power as you may think to not follow the mind, when you see the agenda the mind has…it is very self absorbed and uncaring about the body and soul.  If you can replace its agenda with a better plan, a dream, a goal…you then no longer will believe that which it begs for.

    Once I no longer believe my mind, my mind loses its power over me.

    "In God, all things are possible," and so it is in life, if you step around your mind…and lead from your soul.

     

  • I no longer have to pretend.

    ‎"I learned to survive by withholding what feels real. When events happen – when someone says or does something that hurts me – I have learned to absorb the hit and pretend that nothing changed, that everything is the same. But when I do this, my energy is used up in maintaining the pretense that nothing has happened, and I begin to spin coldly in the dark."

    "It is so simple and yet so brave to say that we are hurt when we are hurt, that we are sad when we are sad, that we are scared when we are scared. In very direct and daily ways, this energy of realness – this mana- changes situations because the immediate expression of our truth releases light and warmth that influences the life we are a part of. This is the way our spirit shines." Mark Nepo

    Learning to absorb the hit and then act as if nothing has changed is the crux of all dysfunction.  It leads you into a false life…an illusion, where your 'kind' parents don't hurt you.  You brought in the hit/abuse and then you proceeded to act like nothing changed.  It did. Your body is carrying the truth, while you are acting as if all is well with thee.

    I didn't even know that I lived this way, didn't fully grasp how my un-realness was the key to my pretend life.  In fact, I didn't know that I was allowed to truly act as if something HAD changed.

    The forgiveness of sins seems to dovetail with this, for when you utter the words, "your sins are forgiven" you then can revert back to the acting as if nothing happened.  Back to pretending…

    Learning to be real was actually shocking to my body at first, I was filled with terror and fear to actually say what I needed to say and even flooded with guilt for doing so. That I had no right to be real.

    In believing this way, anyone can do and say anything to you and your job is to absorb the hits.  Take it in and swallow, in silence.

    Doesn't that seem like a victim's role?  Like you are not allowed to speak up or get out of the way?  

    Imagine life if all were allowed to say and move in response to real life.

    I know for me, it has simplified my life.  I feel so much more at peace when I can use the words yes and no, when I can move towards or away from folks, when I am no longer an absorption cushion to all kinds of behavior.

    And the best part is, I no longer have to pretend…

     

     

     

  • They are my heroes

    In the paper yesterday two young girls spoke up about their abuse…and their abusers are now in the court system.  While many may focus on what kind of punishment the men will get, I see this from how it affects the young girls.

    Their courage to speak of what happened to them is extremely powerful in their lives.  They are no longer victims when they speak out.  No matter how the sentencing goes, these girls will not carry a secret, consciously or unconsciously, about themselves.  They will carry no shame.

    Their wounds are being aired out in childhood, being expressed and voiced to adults in their lives…and they are being heard.

    It is my belief, that they will heal faster and perhaps not have their abuse linger and bleed into their lives, by treating it today, in their childhood.

    They are able to see their abuse as being a crime of the men, not of the child.

    They will not carry the burden any longer of their untold story.  It has been told, it has been heard, and the men are labeled for who they are.

    As the men are addressed as the perpetrators, the child feels their innocence.  It is this return to innocence, to come out behind the secret that will reset their inner worthiness.

    Abuse doesn't have to carry a life sentence when it is categorized in the truthful manner of what it is.  To see, the imbalanced scales of what happened, who was in power and who was powerless.

    The most damaging part of child abuse is when it goes untreated, unspoken about, and that the child never gets her innocence back.

    I know the courage it takes to stand up, to say out loud what most don't want to hear…and I was an adult.  I am in awe of the girls, these little girls, who have the strength to do this.  I wish the papers would write about this from the girls perspective and not that of the criminal.

    What a brilliant story it would be if told in their own words…they are my heroes. 

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