I M Perfect lady

Category: FALC

  • The body truly doesn’t lie

    Within my family, there are two ways in which we have dealt with the sexual abuse of our childhoods.  One side believes and is actively in the camp of forgiving and forgetting, while only two of us are in the camp of discovering our own story and giving free expression…as Alice Miller writes in The Body Never Lies.

    " In each and every case I examined, I was able to establish that when people found the kind of therapeutic care and companionship that enabled them to discover their own story and give free expression to their indignation at their parents behavior, they were able to liberate themselves from the maltreated child's destructive attachment. As adults they were able to take their lives into their own hands and DID NOT NEED TO HATE THEIR PARENTS. And the opposite was the case whose therapist enjoined them to forgive and forget, actually believing that such forgiveness could have a salutary, curative effect. They remained trapped in the position of small children who believe they love their parents but in fact allow themselves to be controlled all their lives by the internalized parents and ultimately develop some kind of illness that leads to premature death. Such dependency ACTIVELY FOSTERS THE HATRED that though repressed, remains active, and it drives them to direct their aggression at innocent people. We ONLY HATE AS LONG AS WE FEEL TOTALLY HELPLESS." Alice Miller.

    This is extremely accurate in my experience.  

    I have do not hate my parents.  I understand them.  I completely get who they are and that the only love they can give me is their backwards hurtful love.  

    While I also totally feel the aggression of my siblings towards me, the innocent in the equation of my parents abuse.

    I can also sense this underneath the 'Forgiving' folks, the rage and anger seething while on the surface the speak kind words.  

    In fact, that is a perfect description of my mother in my childhood.  

    Interesting to know, that Forgiveness and Forgetting, actually fosters hate. And here is what I also know to be right on target…."You only hate as long as you feel totally helpless."  

    Empowerment allows you to feel love…and what I feel most from my siblings is this twisted dichotomy….the surface of 'forgiveness' while underneath rages hatred in their physical bodies.

    The body truly doesn't lie…

  • There is No End Game.

    In the past few days, between reading books, exchanging emails and dialogues, I have been shown the angst of trying to get a new response from an old system, and it is impossible.

    It is my belief, you have to completely abandon the whole machine, for the machine was set up with a mindset that can't be changed.  It will not allow a new viewpoint or new outcome.  

    The way our legal system is working is that it is not working…at least not for the ones who have been injured.  It is however, working rather well for the Lawyers who get paid to reduce the action down to nothing.  It is working extremely well for the perpetrators, and it isn't working at all for the injured party.  

    I don't know how the laws of the land were originally set up or why or what the expected out come would be, but I would have to say it is a colossal failure.

    Just in our little town on the front page of the paper, you can read time and time again how the charges are reduced, and the perp has been saved from serving time.  

    Yet, there is no mention about the second party, the injured party and how they feel or what it has done to their lives etc.  Where are the teams of people helping to see that the real innocent are taken care of???

    I am not sure you can now turn that big machine around.  For the judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys all know their part well, and it is a Justice System that is running without justice and no one seems to even care anymore.

    It is a system that was supposedly looking to find the truth, when the truth oftentimes is reduced and tossed out.

    IF this big machine called justice worked, we would be living in a land where the prisons would be shutting down due to lack of inmates.

    As a victim in the system, my justice was not served at all.  And there is no one in the Justice System who didn't know what my father did, yet for some odd reason, it works completely backwards…it works supremely well as Injustice.

    This system is just another system in the lives of victims that doesn't work.  It runs along the same lines as their childhood homes, where they innocent are treated unjustly, and the perps lives are given the utmost attention. 

    I am not certain I can even get you all to understand the wheels of justice are spinning in a totally wrong direction, and there are no cries of injustice, no picketing of the court house, nothing….silence, apathy.

    Each time you read in the paper another reduced sentence, a plea bargain, a this or that, and the abuser walks away with a few days in jail, you are witnessing the system abusing the child again.

    And no one says a word.

    It is my belief, that we can't change that big machine, but the healing of abuse will have to come from a totally different angle.  Our healing and wellness can't depend upon the system serving us justice and punishing our abusers, instead we have to find another way to heal.

    We have to stop putting our faith in a broken system. Stop believing that the Justice System will crack down on crimes and lessen abuse.

    Instead we will have to create a whole new system outside of the laws of the land, a system that deals with the victims…the hurting innocent.

    Just as the church is unwilling to deal with the abuse of innocent children, so is the law. Their jobs are clearly to rescue abusers from their truth, while leaving children alone again with no adult hearing and seeing their abusers in their true colors…instead they take the black actions and bring it up to a gentle grey…beige even.

    We the people of the land, have to find a new way to reach the abused children and heal them.

    A way to reach them where they feel that their truth matters.

    It is these unhealed wounded children who are the ones to next walk into the courtroom.  Soon, they will be standing where their abusers stand.  We are feeding an endless cycle the way the courts are set up now, there is no end game.

     

     

     

  • The Parent’s Wrongs.

    In Alice Miller's book, "The Body Never Lies," she writes…

    "Severe illnesses, early death, and suicide are the logical consequence of subjection to the laws that we call morality, although in fact they suffocate our true lives.  This will continue to be the case, all over the world, as long as we show greater reverence to these laws than to life itself.  The body rebels against such treatment, but the only language at its command is the language of illness, a language that is rarely understood as long as the denial of true feelings in childhood remain unrecognized."

    "Many of the Ten Commandments can still claim validity today.  But the Fourth Commandment is diametrically opposed to the laws of psychology. It is imperative that there be general recognition of the fact that enforced "love" can do a very great deal of harm.  People who were loved in childhoood will love their parent  in return.  There is no need of a commandment to tell them to do so.  Obeying a commandment can never be the basis for love."  Alice Miller

    What happens when the commandments are telling children who have been abused by their parents, it is of greater importance to try and love them, than it is to not.

    And in fact, if you don't love them, you will go to hell.  To be a good christian child, you must love and obey your parents…end of story.

    In fact, there can be no story told from the viewpoint of the child.

    Putting silencers on the child's experience and feelings is the cause of people being able to do things without feelings.  Being able to do wrong toward others and selves, for they are disconnected to their feelings.  And their feelings go against the commandments of God.

    The God that I now know, is the God of truth, not the god of commanding abused children to love and honor their abusers.  That is not a kind loving god, but a god similar to their parents.  

    The line that came quickly to mind after discovering my father, was "To Love and Fear"….and how those two feelings are diametrically opposed as well.

    We need to make an addendum to the 4th Commandment, that says, "Unless your parents have abused you….than you are free to disregard this one….go in God's peace away from those that hurt you."

    As long as this commandment is preached and demanded that abused children follow it, as long as society sees estrangement from family as bad, we will have hurt children going on to hurt their children. The cycle needs to be broken. We need to find the culprits in our moral codes that are keys to setting the children free.

    The Detective who came to my home that day in 2004, to get my statement about my abuse from my father, says to me.  "I hope this will not come between your relationship with your father."  

    Immediately a child will feel the alliance between the adults…and the closed ear for the child's story.

    He didn't wonder how my father's treatment of me, how my mother's Active denial damaged me…and how my church's treatment of both had me living in a sea of adults who cared not a wit about the child's life…what it did to me. 

    In my humble opinion, it isn't the child and their tales or their willingness to speak of the deeds of abuse, but rather the moral viewpoint of the family dynamics.

    Everything is setup with the 'ideal' family in mind.  The perfect parents, lovingly caring and nurturing their children.  Yet, the facts of the land are the complete opposite…and nothing has changed in the foundations of our religions and laws of the land.

    We are all failing the children as long as we don't hear and see them in the reality of their lives and act accordingly.

    To keep beating the drum of Love and Obey thy parents….while they are sexually and physically beating the child…is insanity.  No one wants to point fingers and make parents pay.

    Instead they will extract payment by taking another child's life…and turning their natural bright spirit and create another dark life…simply by turning their awareness away from the parent's wrongs.

     

  • Inner Level of Truth

    While I thought that we all see life from different angles, I had thought it was from the level of our experience, but it may be more from the level of our awareness. 

    David Hawkins writes a neat example of how we see the world.  

    "Imagine a "bum" on a street corner: In an upscale neighborhood stands an old man in tattered clothes, alone and leaning against the corner of an elegant brownstone. Look at him from the perspective of various levels of consciousness, and note the inconsistency in how he appears to different people and viewpoints.

    "From the bottom of the scale, at a level of 20, (Shame), the bum is seen to be dirty, disgusting, and disgraceful.  

    From the level 30 (Guilt) he'd be blamed for his condition: He deserves what he gets; he's probably a lazy welfare cheat.

    At the level 50 (Hopelessness), his plight would appear desperate, a damning piece of evidence to prove that society can't do anything about homelessness.

    At the level 75 (Grief), the old man looks tragic, friendless, and forlorn.

    At a Conscious level of 100 (Fear), we might see the bum as threatening, a social menace; perhaps we should call the police before he commits some crime.

    At 125 (Desire), he represents a frustrating problem – why doesn't somebody do something.

    At 150 (Anger), the old man might look like he could be violent; or, on the other hand, one could be furious that such horrible conditions exist in our country today.

    At 175 (Pride) he could be seen as an embarrassment or as lacking the self-respect to better  himself.

    At 200 (Courage), we might be motivated to wonder if there is a local homeless shelter – all he needs is a job and a place to live.

    At 250 (Neutrality), the bum looks okay, maybe even interesting.  "Live and let Live," we might say – after all, he's not hurting anyone.

    At 310 (Willingness), we might decide to go down and see what we can do to cheer up that fellow on the corner; maybe we'd be motivated to volunteer some time at the local shelter.

    At 350 (Acceptance), the man on the corner appears intriguing; He probably has an interesting story to tell; he's where he is for reasons we may never understand. 

    At 400 (Reason), he's a symptom of the current economic and social malaise, or perhaps a good subject for in-depth psychological study.

    At the higher levels, the old man begins to look not only interesting, but friendly – and then lovable. Perhaps we'd then be able to see that he was, in fact, one who had transcended social limits and gone free a joyful old guy with the wisdom of age in his face and the serenity that comes from indifference to material things.

    At 600 (Peace) he's revealed as our own self in a temporary expression.

    When approached, the bum's response to these different levels of consciousness would vary with them.  With some, he'd feel secure – with others, frightened or dejected.  Some would make him angry, others would delight him; some he'd avoid, others he'd greet with pleasure.   (And so it's said that we meet what we mirror.)

    So much for the manner in which our level of consciousness – that is, the world we encounter as passive observers – decides what we see. It's true that we'll react to things in a fashion predicated by the level that we perceive them from, that is to say, external events may define conditions, but they don't determine the conscious level of human response.  " David Hawkins

    What I failed to take into consideration, along with the truth, is that we all see what we see depending upon our level of awareness.  It isn't so much that the truth has different shades, but that we do.

    We have darker shades of viewing life and you see how you feel or by your level of being.

    I have learned that who I am to others, way depends on how they see themselves…and really their total understanding not only of self, but life and the Universe too.

    I have felt many differing viewpoints of me…and how I was so wrongly perceived. 

    Just as this bum, I am a lady and they bring their own definition of me to me, and it is colored by their own self awareness.  The lower the level, the worse of a person I become.

    This has freed me to be me…and to make choices based on what I felt was the best for my soul.

    What is also interesting, or at least it bears noting.  It seems that the choices that are good for the soul, are not so good for the pride/ego person.  

    My old choices that helped me thrive in the lower levels are now extremely unappetizing to me now.  It is like you lose the taste for old habits…the magnetism loses its attraction to you

    What is also very cool, is that no one but you can change the level of your consciousness, its energy field is derived by your thought patterns and beliefs.  What you believe…is your level of consciousness.  

    David Hawkins writes about making a leap in awareness.

    "On our scale of consciousness, there are two critical points that allow for major advancement.  The first is at 200, the initial level of empowerment; Here, the willingness to stop blaming and accept responsibility for one's own actions, feelings, and beliefs arises – as long as cause and responsibility are projected outside of oneself, one will remain in the powerless mode of victimhood. The second is at the 500 level, which is reached by accepting love and nonjudgmental forgiveness as a lifestyle, excercising unconditional kindnes to all persons, things and events without exception.  (In 12-step recovery groups, it's said that there are no justified resentments -even if somebody "did you wrong." you're still free to choose your response and let resentment go.)  Once one makes this commitment, he begins to experience a different, more benign world as his perceptions evolve."  David

    Beauty indeed is in the eye of the beholder…You simply can't see that which you are not aware of within you…the less of your self you know and undertand, the less of me you understand and know.

    The more I have learned about me, the broader I view the world…the world is seen from our inner level of truth.

  • Enjoying LIfe together

    Yesterday I spent creating two Mitten Tree Ladies…who are so full of, (as one woman put it,) exuberance.  I love the fabric and the feelings these ladies have.  Their spirits are imbued with self power.

    IMG_7244
    And working with sweater fabric has been a new challenge, but I love the way it adds a new dimension…the feeling of winter.

    IMG_7249
    This Evergreen batik fabric was a challenge, just to see what colors would go with it.  I put down the white and black and greys and whites and was surprised it would go….and the brights flowed too.  I add colors by feeling and never know what will be allowed and what will have to go.

     

    As I was waiting for the above pictures to be downloaded on to this site, I was reading in David Hawkins book, Power vs Force. 

    "Force is limited, whereas power is unlimited.  Through its insistence that the ends justify the means, force sells out freedom, for expediency.  Force offers quick, easy, solutions.  In power, the means and the end are the same, but ends require greater maturity, discipline, and patience to be brought to fruition."

    "Great leaders inspire us to have faith and confidence because of the power of their absolute integrity and alignment with inviolate principles.  Such figures understand that you can't compromise principle and still retain your power."  David Hawkins

    What really caught my eye, is that Force Sells out Freedom…and it will justity any means to get what it wants.

    Acting out in this moment of time, to ensure a peaceful end…really?

    Is not your life created by each step in time?  

    It is insane to think that all the steps of force will in the end deliver a relationship of empowerment.  You can't steal power and have a strong individual left standing.

    I have seen families in the FALC, and even those who have left the church behind, but not the force driven relationships, force their children…by not letting them have their freedom.  

    It has shown me how it was so imperative that I give my children the power to make their own choices.  That is freedom.  Letting them decide…especially when it went against my values or viewpoints…or basically against me. That was when it mattered most.  And I let them.  I not only let them, but had to do so willingly in complete agreement, that yes, they are allowed to go against me.  In fact, if they feel so drawn to, they must…they have to follow their own inner feelings, NoT Mine.

    My earlier mothering instincts were to force them to do as I did…yet after I gave my self the power to walk differently than my parents, it would have been hypocritical to not let them do the same.  And they did.

    It takes great discipline and patience to watch your children grow into their own maturity and lives…but what freedom and joy to allow them them to be free thinkers and free movers, to not be attached at the hip of me….doing and saying and being…Like puppets on my string.

    I truly believed in my own freedom and my authentic power…and that belief powered and gave me strength to give the same to my children. 

    It really does take great patience and discipline to stay in the mode of freedom of choice and empowerment…allowing them to be free, for you can't know if they will freely chose to be with you.

    "If you love someone, set them free….If they come back to you their yours…"  You will then have two free spirits enjoying life together.

     

  • Wish For Your Self.

    What a great year of learning, again.  

    Lessons seemed to continually line up to serve to me… more of me; more freedom, more letting go, surrendering and allowing, more ways to be expressive, a deeper understanding, followed by affirmations of what doing the opposite would look like.

    I think I thought, that when I said I was going forth with love, peace and joy, like magic, that was what would follow.  Wrong.  

    Instead I was served up all of my relationships were no love, peace or joy existed, and asked to redo myself there.

    I was given opportunity after opportunity, sometimes many at a time, all clamoring for my attention…insatiable energies of need and control, that had kept me from peace or feelings of love or experiencing joy.

    What I believe lots of folks believe, is that they stay in the same place, but instead of feeling anxious, controlled, resentful, rage, anger, tight restraint…they will just work harder to feel different.

    To stay with same relationships, BUT feel differently about them.

    Feel more loving…will bring up love.  And to become peaceful where rebellious feelings explode…to dial down or to a different frequency.

    That isn't what real love, peace and joy is.

    That is denying what is there and forcing feelings.  Which is to have false feelings of love, peace and joy.

    Many believe you can simply just 'think' differently about an individual etc and like magic, feelings will change.   That your feelings are the problem within the relationship…not that the relationship itself is where the troubles lie.

    Seeing life differently is where the key lies.

    I am reading, "The Body Never Lies" by Alice Miller.  This is one of the first authors who addresses the child, instead of the parent…she sees abuse from the child's perspective and how the body feels and then how the child is made to 'feel different' in order to honor and love thy parents.

    She writes, "The parenting approach know as "Poisonous Pedogogy" breeds overly well adjusted individuals who can only trust the mask they have been Forced to wear because as children they lived in constant fear of punishment. "I am bringing you up in the way that is best for you" is the supreme principle behind this approach. "If I beat you or use words to torment and humiliate you, it is for all for your own good."

    "In this 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 interpet 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 bring 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 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 humilations, indignities, and disrespect they have been subjected to, let alone 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 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 that respect at a later stage with the assistance of the gigantic power apparatus they have built around them."

    "The sphere of politics is an excellent example of the way in which the hunger for power and recognition is never stilled.  It is insatiable, it can never be entirely satisfied. The more power these people have, the more they are spurred on to actions of compulsory repetition, restore the initial feelings of impotence they were trying to escape; Hitler is his bunker, Stalin in his paranoid fears, Mao in the final rejection by his people, Napoleon in exile, Milosevic in prison, Saddam Hussein in his mortifying fall from power. What impelled these men to abuse the power they had achieved to such a pitch that it ultimately plunged them into impotence and powerlessness?  I believe it was their bodies.  Their bodies sustained the knowledge of the impotence they felt in childhood; they stored such knowledge in their cells, and they set out to force their "owners" to face up to that knowledge. But the reality of their childhood instilled such fear in the hearts of these dictators that they preferred to wipe out whole peoples, to exterminate millions of human beings, rather than confront the truth – their truth."  Alice Miller

    I am reading this book for the second time, and it once again has a much broader meaning to me, than the first time around.  I am now able to see more potently the actual ways a child has to disregard its own body in order to survive, to look for 'positive' so not to drown in its own mortal fears…and how quickly an outsider can spot the crimes, while those within are unable to see.

    I have experienced the view of being an outsider and the quick slamming of the door behind me as I stood on the sidewalk, for the 'family unit' couldn't withstand the truth…mine and theirs.

    Their impotency against truth is what causes such insane behavior. Their lack of self power and worth has them snubbing outside…like that is where their truth lives…within us.

    You can berate me and kick me out of your life, but your truth, just as in the Dictators of the past did…but you are kicking us so as to NOT feel and own your own truth.

    I know that I have been kicked aside.  And it has nothing to do with me, but it has much more to do with the individual's fear of their own truths.  By keeping me out of their worlds, they like the 15 year old Hungarian Boy, keep their concentration camp a place of positive living…of love, peace and joy.

    I am so grateful that I was able to have the courage to see my own truth…

    What I didn't know, is that the most violent among us are those who are in mortal fear of seeing their childhoods in Reality's Light.

    That their violent behavior is to keep themselves from feeling the truth about their parents.

    So, as you go forth on this New Year's day, be careful what you seek for your self in 2012.

    If you seek, like I did, a life filled with love, peace and joy; you will first have to find all the places you have it wrong.  It has been 7 years of learning what isn't…in order for me to then set forth again.

    My wish for you is your own wish for your self.

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Transformed by awareness.

    This is my third reading of the book, "Power vs Force" by David Hawkins. And this time I am understanding the broader picture of the levels of energy/consciousness we all are traveling in.

    He rates the levels from 20 to 1,000.

    "Energy Level 30: Guilt"

    "Guilt, so commonly used in our society to manipulate and punish, manifests itself in a variety of expressions, such as remorse, self-recrimination, and the whole gamut of symptoms of victim-hood.  Unconscious Guilt results in psychosomatic disease, accident-proneness, and suicidal behaviors.  Many people who struggle with Guilt their entire lives, while other desperately attempt escape by amorally denying it altogether."

    "Guilt domination results in a preoccupation with "sin," an unforgiving emotional attitude frequently exploited by religious demagogues, who use it for coercion and control. Such "sin-and-salvation" merchants, obsessed with punishment, are likely either acting out their own guilt, or projecting it on to others."

    "Subcultures displaying the aberration of self-flagellation often manifest other regional forms of cruelty, such as the public, ritual killing of animals.  Guilt provokes rage, and killing frequently is its expression. Capital punishment is an example of how killing gratifies a Guilt-ridden populace.  Our unforgiving American society, for instance, scorns its victims in the press and metes out punishments that have never been demonstrated to have any deterrent or corrective value."  David Hawkins.

    What is so shocking is the "Sin-Salvation" equation is the impetus for the FALC.  It is at the level of 30.  Jesus is at 1,000.  Wow.

    Energy Level 100 is Fear.

    "At the Level of 100, a lot more life energy is available – Fear of danger is healthy. Fear runs much of the world, spurring on endless activity. Fear of old enemies, of old age, or death, of rejection, and a multitude of social fears are basic motivators in most people's lives."

    "From the viewpoint of this level, the world looks hazardous, full of traps and threats. Fear is the favored official tool for control by oppressive totalitarian agencies, and insecurity is the stock-in-trade of manipulators of the marketplace…"  David

    Fear is the favored official tool FOR CONTROL.  It seems such backwards way of living to me.  However, I used to live by these standards…

    Rising from Fear is, Desire 125, then Anger at 150…to Pride at 175.

    "In contrast to the lower energy fields, people feel positive as they reach this level.  This rise in self-esteem is a balm to all the pain experienced at lower levels of consciousness.  Pride looks good and knows it; it struts its stuff in the parade of life."

    "Pride is far enough removed from Shame (20) Guilt, or Fear that to rise, for instance, out of the despair of the ghetto to the self respect of being a Marine is an enormous jump."

    "Pride generally has a good reputation and is socially encouraged, yet as we see from the levels of consciousness, it's sufficiently negative to remain below the critical level of 200.  This is why Pride feels good only in contrast to the lower levels."

    "The problem, as we all know, is that "Pride goeth before a fall." Pride is defensive and vulnerable because it's dependent upon external conditions, without which it can suddenly revert to a lower level.  The inflated ego is vulnerable to attack.  Pride remains weak because it can be knocked off its pedestal back to Shame, which is the threat that fires fear of Loss and Pride."

    "Pride is divisive and gives rise to factionalism: the consequences are costly.  Man has habitually died for Pride – armies still regularly slaughter each other for that aspect of it called nationalism. Religious wars, political terrorism and zealotry, the ghastly history of the Middle East and Central Europe – these are all the price of Pride, which all of society pays."

    "The downside of Pride is arrogance and denial. These characteristics block growth; in Pride, recovery from addictions is impossible because emotional problems or character defects are denied. The whole problem of denial is one of Pride.  Thus Pride is a sizable block to the acquisition of real power, which displaces Pride with true stature and prestige."  David

    Imagine, that Pride is the last step before courage or truth.  It is the last level in the lower levels, below 200.  And denial holds you there.

    The lower level operates on force, fear and denial….and in order to get to the upper level, you have to admit your character defects.

    And in the FALC, to see your character defects, would mean dragging up your sins from the past…  

    Reading this for the third time, I am understanding it at a different level, and realizing the energies of people truly account for their behavior.  You really can't expect them to act above their level.

    And looking at life from above 200 looks completely different from beneath.  One is based on fear of the truth an the other is based on loving the truth.

    Isn't there a song that says…."I've looked at life from bothsides now…"

    What an incredible journey up through the levels of consciousness and to see life completely transformed by awareness.

  • God’s Peace

     I was asked, "Do you love your mother?"  And this is how I feel.  I wrote this almost 3 years ago…

    “You are the mother you have been waiting for.  When you focus on the mother, you become motherless.”

                Byron Katie

     

    Happy Birthday Mom, I want to thank you for all you taught me.  All the pain you suffered so I could get it right.  I want to thank you for staying true to form, for staying the course, so I could see by your example where it would lead me.  I had you to show me the awful way it would turn out, if I was not strong, if I had no courage, if I had only fear.  

    It is your birthday, and I wish you well, I hold no resentments or anger.  I have lived as you and wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.  Your walk is hard it is not an easy one.  I know the trials on the way, the blindness, the unknowing, no memory, no path, the lost hopes, the dreams that never arrive, the pit of desperation, of false hopes, of others changing, endless roads to no where.  

    I know how it is to hurt unintentionally, to see but not see, to hear but not hear, to have children you can’t protect, to lose more than your heart can hold.

    Some how, by some miracle, I have been spared of lifetime of that.  I have been allowed to spring free, allowed to know a new me.  I was able to walk free of the prison that holds you so tight. 

    We don’t know why I was set free, why I walked away, why I could see what you never could, why I could hear reality.  All we know is that the two of us are the same, but different, for some reason you had to be left behind in a hole of a million sorrows. 

    I stand here outside in the brightness of day, with truth and honesty, reality and kindness. I know why you did what you did, for you didn’t have another way.

    If I had to wish a wish for you, it would be this, “I wish you love, peace and joy, a Heaven of bliss”.

    It is because of you, I am who I am. 

    Ironically we were both motherless yours died when you were two.

    You had no one to show you the way. 

     As a mother I know it would bring me great peace to know that my life was for naught.

    Yours was not, for you gave birth to me.

    If only I could return the favor and lead you out free, but it doesn’t seem to be the way of it for now.

    I leave you knowing where you are, and I wish you peace.

    God’s Peace.

     

     

     

  • Being on a Leash.

    As I listened to the rest of the book, ""Sway" The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior…by Ori Brafman, I learned more about the nature of being human and the irrational reasons we do that which we do.

    What I love is that all humans respond similarly; that no one is immune, that our bodies and brains are all equal…and we all fall victim to the irresistible pull of irrational behavior…it is in our nature.

    Our brains work the same way when prompted and can be fooled and are tricked more often than not.

    The example of a world renowned Violin Player playing his violin in the Subway…on his 3 million dollar violin, will go unnoticed, for he is out of place.  Our minds will not consider the inconsiderable, unless we challenge it or perhaps force it to go against the irresistible pull to go against what it 'knows'.  And it knows that famous Violin Players are in concert halls not in subways.

    In this case the violin player is out of its normal environment…so we fail to see him.

    I was also enthralled with the dynamics of groups and how we fail to act as an individual within them…unless one Individual stands up…we will move as a group, swayed in the same direction.

    I know this works in a cult.  And any dissenters are quickly shunned into silence…for in order for a cult to work, there can be only one leader and one view point…a cult is not a free society…you are ALL to move as ONE.

    When raised in a cult, you use the same model for your family; the parents are the leaders and there can be no dissenters present…ever.  Those who dare speak against the parent are quickly removed from having any relationship with those inside.

    For you are a threat to the force of One.  ONE family…not one individual within the family….the family comes first before your individual needs.  You are not allowed to do for Self.

    A dissenter isn't allowed to come in whether as a voice of a child within the family or an outsider.

    A dissenter brings gifts of discord and discord brings disagreement and disagreement opens the door that weakens the group and will lead to the empowerment of the individual.

    And dysfunctional families and cults are NOT interested in the power of the individual…keeping the Group together is the pull which leads to incredible irrational behavior. 

    The very thing that an abused child needs is kept from them…empowerment, being an individual, owner of her feelings…etc.

    An empowered child will not allow further abuse.  

    An empowered individual will not stay within a cult.

    Only victims are not empowered.

    This fear based irrational behavior of parents clinging tightly to the family group, lead to children having to push back in order to heal…or remain powerless inside.

    What my mother said she wanted was for me to heal, but she wanted me to do that within the structure of an abusive family.  It is like being a free spirit within a cult.

    The dynamics of a dysfunctional family is that there is but one leader, one voice and one choice and there is no room for a second opinion or feeling or expression or an equal power.  The very structure is based on Victim and Abuser.  

    This structure will not stand if there is empowerment or a dissenting vote.

    What most dysfunctional families want is to remain the same while allowing the adult children to heal.

    Each time I have written HEAL, what flashes through my mind is a dog heeling….keeping him on a loose leash…walking beside you.

    This is what freedom looks like to a dysfunctional family…they still want you to remain on a family leash, obediently walking while the parent holds the leash.

     

    IMG_6985

    Life just isn't the same being on a leash…

     

  • Nothing Can Sway Them…

    Today as I rode along in the mail jeep, I listened to "Sway" The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior…by Ori Brafman.

    A very interesting look at what is behind the irrational behavior. 

    In the beginning of the book, he speaks of two very compelling reasons why people don't change their minds or the direction of their lives.  

    One is the "Aversion to Loss"…where they will hold on to a sinking ship, rather than lose it.  It isn't even about what they are holding on to, it is that they just are simply repulsed by the thought of Loss. They live life from the NOT losing perspective and fail to see life from a view point of gaining something new. They literally are not even able to see a new way, for their sole focus is on NOT LOSING what they have.  This one factor will lead to all kinds of irrational behavior.

    Now couple it with an added vice, "commitment"…and you have the makings of insane behavior. 

    They made a commitment and that commitment overshadows any facts that fly in the face of that.  Their commitment binds the NOT Losing sentiment into a circle that they can't escape from.  No rational directives can penetrate the tightly woven Beliefs they hold.

    I highly recommend reading this book, if you have irrational folks in your world and you simply can't figure them out.  The experiments alone are very interesting to see how the human rationality works.

    What this has helped me see is that if your mind set is on NOT LOSING, you will not be able to see a new way.  For you are holding tight to the thought that you can't lose what you have…it isn't what you have, but losing.

    This of course brings me to my siblings and how they don't want to lose the family and even how they are committed to the roles of brother/sister/son/daughter, they acted irrationally from my point of view, because they couldn't lose.

    Loss becomes the larger meaning…than what you holding on to.

    This is why I couldn't understand why they were so dead set against letting go…they didn't want to lose…and their commitment to that family stood higher than the family they were committed to.

    I don't know if I can adequately explain this, but if you read the book, you will see how we give up being rational in irrational ways due to holding on to a secondary meaning.

    Oh, and there is one about "Value"…where if your first impression is that person or thing is valuable, you will not change your mind easily…and in fact, you will disregard information that tries to lessen the value.

    The first impression of valuable stands against all facts to the contrary.

    These three different examples dove tail in nicely to abuse and it explains how folks refuse to budge in a new direction.

    Lots of the abuse is happening in families whose 'reputations' proceed them, and it is extremely difficult to change the minds from the first impression of valuable…our minds can't be swayed.

    It works in the opposite direction too.  If you are labeled as less or worthless, you can't get people to believe otherwise. And it even works if people label you worthless, you begin to believe them EVEN if you have facts that dispute it.

    We simply can't be swayed by facts, for in front of the facts, stands our first impressions…or fears of loss…or our ironclad promise of commitment.

    Losing family….failing to honor your commitment to the family and changing your Values of them stand in the way of navigating rationally in the face of abuse.

    In my experience, this explains the behaviors of my family…they are a strong bunch; nothing can sway them.