Category: Truth Be Told

  • Truth Be Told

    What would have to happen to end estrangement? What event or circumstance would allow me to find a connection?  

    My first thought, is to always go back to where we broke.

    I can't see it any other way.

    The thing that broke us has to be examined.

    Does it matter if life has moved on, if we have experienced more of life will that change how we look at the event that broke us?  Is it us or the event that created the estrangement?

    Every now and again, a sibling checks in.

    After a 12 year or so separation, I truly don't know what to do.

    How do you begin building a bridge over the estrangement?

    There is a group of women who are helping women in prisons re-write their life story…"Truth Be Told".  I think this writing exercise would also be very helpful for women outside of prisons as well.

    I then, thought, perhaps it would also be a good exercise for estranged family members.

    But, how would it work?

    It seems that the best would be to write our experiences of our lives.

    To see where we are, what we did or didn't do, the choices we made and why?

    How we engaged with life that has us standing where we are standing.

    The only way the "Truth Be Told" project works is IF everyone is brave enough to speak their truths.  And, in dysfunctional families this is often what causes the dysfunction in the first place.  They typically have a foundation of lies upon which it is built.

    They don't even have to be huge lies.

    Just not the truth be told…for the core of the family be poked full of holes.

    If I were to generalize the content of the gaps between my family and myself it would be the lack of living a life where the truth be told.

    The truth be told, no matter the outcome and consequences of it.

    This to me is the solid foundation upon which I have now rebuilt my life.

    The only way back from estrangement, to me, is if the truth be told and lived.

    For the victims to become empowered truth tellers.

    And, to live what they know the truth is.

    I have never understood how anyone can know there is abuse within a family and YET, still part take of its traditions.  To go to parties and celebrate new life events, while the very content of the family is built upon lies.

    Lies of normal.

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    I wonder what the list of writing prompts would be in order to unravel the lies or for the truth to come forth?

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    I wonder how many of the women in prisons were born into dysfunctional families? How many never were taught how to live a life of truths?

    What I also know, is that coming from an abusive childhood, the truth be told, was not accepted or welcomed.  Not when it was to color the family black.

    The quilt above, "Love Your Now" is the first step in awareness. To be with what is. To fully bring in all aspects of you and this moment in time. To be here now.

    What is the truth of where you sit?

    Truth has been my driving force for the past 12 years…my sobriety of denial.

    It has set me free.

    Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.

    What would you lose if the truth be told?

     

  • Moksha

    I am sending a quilt out to an organization called "The Truth Be Told".  A group of women who go into prisons, who give the women prisoners a chance to write their truth.

    Empowering them to write their stories truthfully, so that they can see their journey and what choices or needs led them to commit crimes.

    It isn't about changing the story; but rather accepting their whole truths, feelings and confused minds.

    I know this exercise could be main street art.

    It could be on every corner.

    How well do you know your own truth?

    What are your subconscious needs that drive you to do what you do?

    Do you know or can you see the choices you make and why?

    How often are you moving from your center; but rather being driven by the unmet need?

    If the truth were told, would you even recognize yourself in its telling?

    Here is what I know.

    My truth was a million miles from where I was.

    I could just as easily woken up in prison instead of a cult like religion.

    I had beliefs and fears and denial that kept the truth at bay.

    My feelings and emotions were unexpressed, unfelt and I lied to keep them that way.

    The truth be told, I had no clue who I was or how I had blindly followed the patterns of my childhood.

    Can this not be true for so many?

    I also know, that when I speak of recovering my truth, my mental breakdown out of denial, others sit in awe.

    Truth living isn't the norm.

    It isn't what we do.

    While the girls in prisons are held behind bars, we who are 'free' in society are actually lost behind the lies of our lives.

    The drastic change that happened after I embraced truth, shows the distance between truth and fiction in our worlds.

    Most would like to believe, they are living their lives truthfully, that they are not dancing to the music of a subconscious unmet childhood need…but, sadly it is so well hidden, you can't even know, you don't know.  Not only that.  You have lived your whole life to get this need met, you don't even know the real you

    The real me and the unmet need that masquerade as me, were completely different.

    They are not even close.

    The unmet need I had was I was not good enough and that I had to do this or that for love.

    The Me that I discovered is completely enough; pure love and innocence.

    She dances to her own music.

    Free to feel, express and move in tune with her soul.

    The prison walls are our belief in what is not real.

    What is not true.

    We create our own prison by our unmet needs.

    The best place to be is to not need anything but our own truths.

    My truth and I are one.

    I have broken the karma of the pattern I was born into.

    Moksha!

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