I M Perfect lady

Category: WIND

Content of Your Soul

Anne Morrow Lindbergh, kept using the word "Centrifugal." When I first came upon it it twisted my tongue and it didn't make sense. The second time I saw the word, it was like I knew it, but didn't know its spelling. A line in song came to mind that used it "Centrifugal Motion"…from way back. I had never seen this word spelled out or used in a sentence. (Her book was written 50 years ago)

I had to look it up for, I didn't quite grasp its meaning, but could feel its pull.

" Moving or directed away from a center or axis."

I get this word.

I understand the forces that pull you away from your center…and how it feels to be far from the axis of who you are. I also feel the strength it took to reach my center, to be going against all I was taught to reverse this centrifugal motion my childhood and its circumstances, that were set in motion.

Abuse clearly is centrifugal motion and all its trappings add to the spinning away from your center, until it feels normal, to be one with the centrifugal energy…to please what makes you leave your soul.

I can visualize this centrifugal force as the reverse of your soul's desire, the thrusting back and away from your passion. The opposite of your soul's longing…being pulled away from who you were meant to be…of leaving you…due to reasons and circumstances you were not big enough to fight or resist. Weak against life's situations, small against the forces that forced.

Centrifugal motion is a great way to feel the pull of abuse…to feel your self being pulled away from your center…by the forceful need and desires of others.

What I experienced, was like I was going against gravity when I was putting up boundaries and stopping relationships that wanted to suck me away from what was good for me. It seemed odd that doing what was good for me, felt like the opposite of a drawing or pull, but rather going against a force field.

This force field is the negative energy system that comprises abuse…it is like we were taught to spin away from our selves, instead of spinning towards our soul's calling.

Like spinning tops, going in the wrong direction.

In order to heal, we are asked to start spinning in a new direction, going against the other spinning tops. Just the volume of so many going one way, while we are trying to get back to center, is incredible to picture.

There is an inner battle being fought, where the old centrifugal force is meeting head to head with the passion and knowing of our soul. Where truth is fighting to stop this centrifugal force.

I am not certain, I can articulate this accurately, but boy does this paint a picture for me, the hurricane forces of abuse ripping at us, while the soul pleads from way far back, small and weak, while the abuse winds are howling.

What is and was always shocking to me, I couldn't please both, it literally always came down to pick one. Centrifugal force of abuse or the passion of my soul. The energy of each could not be met by one choice. The choice either matched moving away from my center or remaining close.

Some say we don't have a choice in life, that our life is set out ahead of us, but, I wonder if we get two different lives, depending upon what force we ride?

I have ridden the back of centrifugal motion only to find in the end it was all for naught, for I may have arrived and been surrounded by family, but I sold my soul out to get there.

It leads me to wonder if the centrifugal energy is that of the ego/devil/evil?

And, if the dance in life is picking which one you want as your partner?

As an abused child, we had no choice, but will all get the chance to pick again?

Will all hear or feel the calling of their soul, feel the pull of their truth and no longer remain silent? Is this the journey of a million sorrows to find your way to stop spinning centrifually?

I see the world and all humanity, with two distinct forces swirling around each…the free will of the Universe.

One will send you spinning away from your center and the other one, moving you closer and closer to the content of your soul.

January 11, 2013
Feel Who You Are.

"When one is a stranger to oneself then one is estranged from others too. If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others." Anne Morrow Lindbergh

What struck me while reading this, is that while I feel estranged, and am estranged, from my family, I am very much in touch with me. That by actually coming in touch with myself, it led me away from my family. I know that this isn't the norm, that most who are seeking a deeper connection to self, will not have to leave their family of origin, but for those of us whose families are entangled in abuse, we will.

It also gave me a brief insight upon the lives of the abused, that the very fact that they can't or are too afraid to be in touch with their own our self, leads to being unable to touch others; and this is the energy void abused children live in.

Untouched, in the sense of a deep connection, love and peace with their parents…and even other siblings. For this disconnection with one self disables the very mechanism for being close.

How interesting, the first person you need to touch, is your self.

I had to first be able to see, feel and be with the parts of me that for so many years were totally ignored and intently pushed away and blindly denied. I had to touch, like a blind person…fingering all the aspects of my family, touching the truth and feeling and being with the horrors of betrayal and lack of love that is abuse.

What I feel most others are intent on doing, is focusing on what they want to be there, and not to touch the tendrils that they know will lead to the deep dark hole…the void that is abuse.

We feel that if we let our selves fall down the slope of reality, we will disappear and go out of our minds. Instead, by feeling to the depth of your being…you come in contact with your self. You touch you.

You see you and rest falls away.

Touching who you truly are, seems like it would be awful, for no one touched us, instead they used us. They did not value us.

I was afraid to be my self, for I wasn't allowed to be myself.

I was taught to not share my feelings, not ask for what I needed, to not be in touch with me. And, once abused, who wants to be in touch with that?

Yet, it is by sitting down right next to your truth, that you truly come to touch…to hold and be with the wounds, that are you.

I am all my experiences. All my feelings, the good, the bad and the ugly…

I am in touch with all of me.

In touching the dark terrifying places, I am able to feel and touch love, peace and joy.

I know, if you can't touch your self, you will not be able to touch and feel others…you first have to feel who you are.

January 9, 2013
Completely New Design

Wayne Dyer had an interesting viewpoint of the New Year Resolutions,

"This is the time of year that many of us make resolutions, or rather, reinforce the notion of living in the future, when really, the important question to be asking yourself is “How am I going to use my present moments this year?” It is simply a matter of asking yourself at the beginning of the day, “How do I want to conduct my life today?” When you get good at living your present moments one day at a time, you’ll see yourself changing right before your own surprised eyes. Remember, anyone can do anything for just one day, so tune out the sentences that keep you locked into your old self-defeating ways and begin to enjoy each day of your bright new year."

There is always a lot of chatter at the beginning of a new year, when the year changes, we have this notion that we are turning over a new leaf, that our future will change, we just have to request the right goals…and like magic, a new world will be there…and we will be different.

Like the Year has the power and not you.

Who wants to know that you have the power?

Who wants to feel that it was each little choice that has lead you straight to here?

Imagine blaming a calendar number for your life.

When you look up ahead into the distance in a wishful and even resolute…placing your desires on the year to change you, you are looking outward, when all the power lies within.

You got you to this point. You are the common denominator in your life. You are the choice maker or the "Not New Choice Maker".

As my brother used to say, "There is no one coming." He knew he was the only one to rely upon.

And, I also believe lots have no faith in themselves, for their lives keep repeating themselves. But, maybe, it was because you relegated your life to the year on the calendar.

What if you took it back.

What if you let the year go.

What if you only held you responsible for taking care of you?

What if you watched what you did.

How you ate and when….how you spent money, how often you were silent when you should have spoken, how many times you said yes, when a no was more truthful, how often you sat down instead of being active, etc.

It is a full time, plus, job to pay attention to your self…and to be aware and responsible for each of your choices…before, during and after.

How do you feel before and what do you do?

How does it feel during?

And how did that choice leave you feeling about yourself.

You are the one doing and the one feeling…the calendar number could care less.

And, Wayne is right, anyone can do something for one day. Just run the One Days together…but do it one day at a time.

I start to get anxious often, when my mind begins planning or worrying about a tomorrow to come. When I bring my attention and focus back to this moment in time, and I look around, I know what I need to do.

It is up to each of us to set up our worlds today for the kind of life we want tomorrow.

The new life, the new change, begins here…it will require you to do something different now.

When I worked for the Census, the main boss man always wanted me to read the reports of the numbers…a blury page full of scales and percentages and lines. I looked, but could not understand what they meant for my future predictions. I would tell him, "you look at the reports and I will take care of the people….that If I do a good job taking care of the people, the people will take care of the numbers."

And they did. I always finished first and my numbers were always ahead of the others and I did not look at the numbers on the paper, ever….for I knew that life lived and moved and was created in each action or non action of the people who worked for me. We were the LIVE version of the reports. I didn't need numbers telling me If I was doing a good job, I knew by what I did each day.

We don't need a daily or monthly report to tell us how we are doing….our live version of our lives is already telling us so.

And, you can't expect a good report on paper, if you have not done the work.

When I hear people say, "I am so glad this year is over and that I have great hopes in next year", I feel that they are removing themselves from the Line Item in the reports. Failing to appreciate that they are the ones generating the report.

Each day, each moment, each decision is creating the outcome of this year.

How will you stand on December 31, 2013, will depend on you.

There are 365 lines in this report, will your lines be following the same path of last year, Or, will you see a completely new design.

January 4, 2013
I was meant to be!

As I sit here at the end of 2012, my 53rd year, I am surprised about all my firsts. I love that I am doing things for the first time. I believe this is the key to staying young, to keep learning and trying new things.

1. A solo Art Show at the Sweet Water Cafe in Marquette…sold 4 pieces.

2. I was on the panel for Take Back the Night at Michigan Tech…my first public appearance as a spokesperson for victims of sexual abuse.

3. Was the Featured Quilter for our local Quilt Show in Chassell. My 20 Art Therapy quilts were on display.

4. I made a book about the quilts and one is on the shelf in our local library.

5. I gave a keynote speech at Dial Helps Fund Raiser Gala at Michigan Tech and my Art Quilts were on display…a reception, it seemed, for me and my journey. I even made the paper both here and in Marquette…a couple of times.

6. I Co-Founded the women's mentoring group, WIND; Women In New Directions with the help of Dial Help.

7. Speaking of Dial Help, I went through their 30 hour training for sexual abuse for their Victims Service Unit. I learned plenty and I have not gone out on any calls, but feel that I will use the training in WIND and as I continue to hear victims stories…

Those are what came to mind as highlights of my year and it has me wondering about my intentions for 2013.

What do I want to do?

What things do I want to learn?

How can I serve using my experience and art?

I would love to expand my knowledge about this blog and how to set it up and change the looks…to understand the full layout. A class would be awesome!

Expanding or actually just moving my art. Getting prints, cards etc online and in storefronts.

Find new places to display both my Healing Art Quilts as well as the ones for sale.

Take WIND on field trips…bring in speakers….expand the menu of what we do.

Be open to new ways to help victims and be a spokesperson.

Perhaps start a real book. Chapters and verses….find a format that or timeline/outline to set my words upon. I believe once I have a pattern, I can plop in my experiences. What do I want to share and to whom and how will it look?

There is a good chance we will be empty nesters by summer and I would love to redo our home to fit just us. Removing the excess of stuff we needed to be parents. To make it more a grown up home. Room by Room.

I will be on the look out now for the opportunities for these intentions….I am excited for 2013. I wonder how many new firsts I will have?

Intentions are the seeds to new experiences. What do you want to experiece?

For me….more Art, more speaking, more connecting/helping/mentoring….more writing (seriously) and learning and growing into who I was meant to be!

December 30, 2012
Perfect in Change

"I did not fail at being a basketball player nor did poetry fail me. More accurately, my inwardness evolved with enough life experience, so that moving bodily in the air evolved into the poet's dance of feeling which then evolved into the spirit's grace of being. I no more failed in my desire to be a basketball player than the cocoon fails the butterfly, though the form of the dream was painful to lose."

"Living up to a dream is rarely as important as entering it for all it has to teach."

Mark Nepo – The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

In reading this, I see how we often believe we Failed something, when we have actually evolved into a new way of being in the world. He went from movement to feeling to spiritual being.

Some may say I failed at being a Christian when I left the church. Yet I see it as a huge step in connecting to my soul that I wasn't able to reach within the confines of that religion. Totally not a failure for me.

Others will say that I failed at being a sister when I became estranged from my family. I see it as raising the bar in my relationships. I see it as requiring more for myself. A higher awareness in relationships; knowing how each affected me and how I was required to be in some. While I can appreciate their viewpoint of me, it is more about my viewpoint of me and seeing where the growth lies. Again, not a failure to me at all. I have grown in my relationships.

I had seen myself as a failing mother, when I was actually doing my best with the mindset I had at the time. It was a stage in my growth, something to press off from…a knowing of what was not working for my children. This was perhaps the toughest growing I had to do. And to know that I had caused lots of damage due to my lack of self awareness.

If you see life in stages and levels of growth and changing, there really are no failures, just learning and evolving and becoming a deeper, broader, awakened self.

I do find it utterly amazing to have gone from the blind faith of the church into the wide open space of spirituality and freedom to be me. To have left the tight constraints of sins and threats of hell and damnation into feelings of heaven on earth.

And to have witnessed my changes…my dying of one self while birthing another. Of going from not feeling to feeling…of no expression to writing publicly and truthfully about matters deep inside of me. Of sharing myself unbounded.

The 360 transformation was all inside…

I didn't fail at being a faithful follower…I followed blindly well.

I didn't fail at being an abusive mother, I mothered at my level of knowing.

I always have acted at my level of awareness and consciousness…without failure.

My life changed when my inner self began getting restless…when doubts and resentments rose to a fever pitch that I could no longer ignore. When what I tried to control, became uncontrollable.

I believe that many are struggling now to maintain a life of following of going along to get along. That inside of them the unrest is getting harder to cap down. That the strength it takes to keep control, keeps failing.

It isn't that they are failing, it is that they are ready to go to the next stage. It is time to change or die…by going deeper asleep in drugs and mindless religion.

The Crysalis or the Butterfly Soup that Deepak Chopra called it…is the stage of great unknowing and can be fearful. Of leaving behind the life you have always known to step into the unknown. To leave behind a self you are familiar with to one that is strange and new.

If you can see yourself in stages, perhaps it will bring you peace while you are transforming. You are part caterpillar and new growing pains of butterfly…it is hard to find what is you, for parts are old and parts are new. It is okay. All the ineptness and strangeness is perfectly perfect in change.

December 1, 2012
Born to do.

I listened to Jean Houston on Oprah's Soul Series speak about the Heroes Journey…how we are asked to follow the lure of our souls…or die.

I understood this. I felt that I didn't have a choice but to follow where my soul led and it was leading me away from all that I knew…as Jean says, "somewhere over the rainbow..". What I did know, is that I had to follow or I would have died.

Not physically, but spiritually. I would have ceased to be engaged with life. I truly can't even begin to begin to visualize how my life would be today, had I not followed my inner voice and knowing into the unknown.

What she describes as the heroes journey, is that we meet aspects of our disenfranchised self. Our weakness and the places where we lost power and sense of self.

She references the Wizard of Oz….and how the tin man had no heart. My heart too was opened up following my own path. The yellow brick road isn't a road without challenges, but rather one that leads you to finding a stronger sense of self worth and self knowing and integrity. The path to being you.

I feel that I am a hero in my own life for going against the voices of many and doing that which my soul needed me to do. To walk away from family and church and so many beliefs that had distanced me from my body, mind and soul.

My heroes journey was reconnecting me with all aspects of me…bringing me back to me.

The line I had envisioned was "I am lost and I am going to go and find myself. I didn't even know that I was missing or what I look like." Heading out, out of what was comfortable for me into the land of the unknown…leaving behind all that I knew about me.

I believe, that we are all asked to take this heroes journey…but some will pass. And those that pass, are living lives in quiet desperation. And, some will have a life experiences that will catapult them onto the yellow brick road….that was me.

The heroes journey isn't to be a hero for others, but rather being your own hero. To stand up and save your self. Find your truth and speak it. Feel your feelings and give them a voice. Open your heart to your self and accept your unique value…to stop waiting for someone to come and complete you.

Following the lure of your soul…the desire and passion that calls to you….to leave behind what feels to be holding you down. It is.

I believe inside of all of us is the calling….it is up to each of us to stop listening to the outside voices and tune into our inner knowing. It is there.

The heroes journey is to follow your gut instincts, to listen to your inner child, to pay attention and be its servant. The heroes journey is to save your unique self.

And for me, it was to rescue me from the hold of the church and the affects of abuse. To find a way to free me and to find the aspects of myself that I had given away or distance myself from.

What Jean speaks about is to enhance the mind, open the heart and to go deep into the soul….a heroes journey is to explore your self and find out who you are meant to be. You doing what you were born to do.

(Jean Houston's new book – "The Wizard of Us")

November 27, 2012
Know your path.

I had wrote a post a long while back about being the bus driver instead of a passenger, and as I began doing yoga again to heal my legs…I know this to be true.

I was raised a passenger….one who served the bus driver. That in order for my life to change, I had to please the driver…hoping he/she would take me where I wanted to go.

As I experiences the subtle changes once again in my body after three days of doing Bikram yoga for an hour and a half, I know our quality of life is directly related to what we do in our days.

If you are sitting back waiting for someone to change in order to be happy, you will have a long scenic ride in their life, but not yours.

At times the weakest part of me, wishes for the quick fix, for being allowed to be lazy and have fixes magically happen…but mostly I love that I am in the drivers seat.

I go where I feel inspired and swerve around the places that feel unkind or untrustworthy…and make detours into fearful places that return my strength and sense of self.

Yoga has been a place where I connect with my body in a way that shows me I am the center of my life. My life is steered by me and me alone. My body and inner health is not being attacked from the outside, but rather from my thoughts and ideas inside.

I am so grateful to know the healing affects that yoga brings…and to feel stronger today for taking the time to move my body in ways that will allow it to heal and be strong.

When my mind fights this, the pain in my body wins.

Pain is a great motivator…so don't try and cover it up. Listen and you will know your path.

November 26, 2012
Walk Alone

My Thanksgiving thoughts fit better on this blog…they are more retrospective than looking ahead.

I feel thankful for all the deep dark days of sorrow…all the valleys where I was able to leave all the material matters to rest, and just dwell in the emotions…where my focus attached itself to my spirit, instead of looking outward at things.

When your inner landscape collapses, the outside things mean nothing.

Without the devastation of my life…I would not have found my soul.

I am thankful for the tragedy.

I am thankful for all the people and things that failed me.

I am thankful for having to reach deep within in me for me.

I am thankful for my awareness, a rise in consciousness to see above or beyond my old beliefs.

I am thankful for leaping into uncharted waters and finding new steps.

I am thankful for the strength it has taken to do so.

I am thankful that in the darkest moments I found my connection to the Universe.

I am thankful that I am aware of the dance between Him and I.

I am thankful knowing He was there in the darkest moments showing me where I was not being authentic, where I had lost my truth and my hold on reality.

I am thankful that I know, I never walk alone.

November 22, 2012
From Here.

This blog has been a great place for me to speak and to be heard. Even if, just one person were to read it…I was heard.

This blog has offered me a place to talk about abuse, to say what I feel needed to be said, about family and church and how both played a crucial part in my abuse. I feel that I have done my due diligence to be one who knew and said something. It was my intention to expose what many would love to keep hidden…I did at 46, what some feel I should have done as a child.

This blog has been a great sanctuary for my feelings, my confusions, my pain, and heartache…a place to release into the Universe the affects of abuse and my struggles to find a way to not repeat my family's legacy.

This blog has been filled with huge affirmations, epiphanies, insights, clarity and knowing… A place where I could bring my angst and come away with answers. I was the most surprised most often how the post would end.

I didn't begin this blog with an agenda or a goal in mind. It was just that I felt I wanted to share my journey, in hopes that someone out there would find comfort in knowing they were not alone.

I wrote for myself, but always felt that maybe what I discovered, would help another.

This post is number 1278. Somedays I wrote two, but for the most part I have been writing on here for over 3 1/2 years. That in itself seems incredible to me.

I have thought of quitting the blog from time to time Or that I have come to the end of what I can possibly say about abuse and living with it's affects….and now I am thinking that day has come.

I will not shut this blog down or delete it, I will let it be here. I will come to it when I feel I have something to share…when it fits the subject about sexual abuse. When my wounded self once again needs to explore and know what troubles it.

What I aim to do is begin a second blog, "Imperfect Too".

I see Imperfect Too, being more about the creative expression…about my artwork and stretching and growing that. I want to create a blog that will have inspiration of the Artful kind. I want to work on marketing My Lady and her quilts and put her artwork on cards and canvases….letting her great energy move out into the world. I want my daughters photographs to have a portal to pass through. I want her and I to work on learning how to make a shopping cart, etc to become the power behind marketing our Art.

I feel it is time now to change the focus in my life towards being more artful and less reflective.

Now, that I know fully who I am…I believe I can now be me.

I feel that this blog holds who I am and how I became to be….and "Imperfect Too" will be about finding a way to express artfully Me.

Both the light and dark are who we are. I have explored and dug and felt and purged the darkness for almost 8 years. I have written to find me and now I will write as I try and live the artful free life of My Lady.

"Imperfect Too"….will be My Lady and I…how we both grow forward.

Just like my art quilts….I first create the background and then I add the lady…so too is my life. My background is now firmly in place…who will I now be from here?

November 21, 2012
What I could live with.

In writing about Karma I stumbled upon the idea of reflective self image…and narcistic behavior. I have heard the word before, but I had never truly looked at what it meant. And, if you are trying to change your reflection you will not change your karmic path.

I just didn't sit smack down in the middle of what it means to only see yourself as a reflection in what people say about you…how other people's opinions matter more than your own, for you see yourself reflected in their eyes.

I didn't get this word narcissistic as that when you saw yourself, it was through how others saw you….one step removed…via an outside window; the eyes of other.

Even though I lived as a narcissistic lady and was devasted when the reflection of who I was shattered and I was left without a me. There was no inside me without the outside image.

It is like the voices and ideas of you by others is the mirror in which we see ourselves.

My voices (mirror) was something that I thought was loving and with high values and standards….I had an upstanding mirror and I saw myself as my mirror saw me. And it was all good, until my mirror became one that was warped and distorted…abuse.

I had lived to keep the mirror saying good things about me.

When I stopped dancing for the mirror, the mirror no longer said nice things.

I had begun to dance for me.

For the very faint and tiny self inside of me.

Just the concept of doing for the self inside of me was foriegn…so strange and awkward. I was very inept at being me.

Little by little my self image shrank on the outside and grew on the inside.

I was losing my narcissistic self.

I am just amazed at how I can now see clearly how I was only a reflection of what others thought of me.

What a scary way to live….for at any time, they can change their minds and then my image would change. I had no control of my reflection…the mirror had all the power.

Just picture the mirror being the one in charge of changing how you looked.

The difference of knowing and owning and being a self without the need of a reflection compared to being a narcissistic….is so vast it boggles my mind.

Wayne Dyer speaks of "Being beyond the good opinions of others…" and it was a place of great freedom and one that takes an extreme amount of fearlessness to achieve.

It is what I had said early on. "I am going to go and find myself, I don't know who I am or that I was even missing."

I had no self without the good opinions of others. That is why I cared so much what others thought about me.

Now, I don't care how they see me…that is truly their business.

Mine is to keep my inner view of me crystal clear.

I don't do things that will reduce or lower the inner image of myself.

I carry myself and I am the one who raises my value or lowers it, depending upon what I do.

I am the one whose karmic path I have to live with.

The ones who used to be the keepers of my reflection never had to live the karmic debts it cost me to keep dancing for their good words.

Imagine…we do things that we don't like in order to get words that keeps our reflection shining good and then we have to live the consequences of the dance.

In order to appear loving and kind in the reflection, we tolerate bad behaviors from others. All we care about is that the reflections sees us as good people.

I am so grateful that my reflection shattered into a million peices and that I didn't have the strength to dance again.

I then did what I had never done.

I only danced for me.

I only did what I could live with.

November 8, 2012