I M Perfect lady

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  • Around My Little Girl

    "Being true to who we are means carrying our spirit like a candle in the center of our darkness." 

    "If we are to live without silencing or numbing essential parts of who we are, a vow must be invoked and upheld within oneself. The same commitments we pronounce when embarking on a marriage can be understood internally as a devotion to the care of one's soul: to have and to hold … for better or for worse … in sickness and in health … to love and to cherish, till death do us part."

    "This means staying committed to your inner path. This means not separating from yourself when things get tough or confusing. This means accepting and embracing your faults and limitations. It means loving yourself no matter how others see you. It means cherishing the unchangeable radiance that lives within you, no matter the cuts and bruises along the way. It means binding your life with a solemn pledge to the truth of your soul." 

    "It is interesting that the nautical definition of marry is “to join two ropes end to end by interweaving their strands.” To marry one's soul suggests that we interweave the life of our spirit with the life of our psychology; the life of our heart with the life of our mind; the life of our faith and truth with the life of our doubt and anxiety. And just as two ropes that are married create a tie that is twice as strong, when we marry our humanness to our spirit, we create a life that is doubly strong in the world." Mark Nepo

    I totally get this, how we have to weave our soul's passion and truth into our human experiences.  I don't even believe that I knew my soul, until my life fell completely apart.  

    When the truth shattered my world, it didn't shatter my soul…and it was hanging on to what I called my little girl or my innocence…that I began weaving the essence of me into each situation.  If it wasn't good for my little girl (my soul), I did not do it.  

    I love this line "If we are to live without silencing or numbing essential parts of who we are, a vow must be invoked and upheld within oneself."

    It was hard to start living at 46 without silencing or numbing the essential parts of who I was…and I vowed to myself, to always do what was right for me and my soul, no matter what. In doing this, it has made me strong beyond belief.

    I also, like how he suggests to "interweave the life of our spirit with the life of our psychology; the life of our heart with the life of our mind; the life of our faith and truth with the life of our doubt and anxiety."

    I believed that prior, I lived in shattered fragmented pieces, never letting myself be joined together; for often my mind and my heart were at odds; that I would do what I felt I had to do, but not what would bring me peace.

    There is complete freedom and strength when you can weave all parts of you together so there is no inner turmoil.  I wonder, if what creates so many mental illnesses is due to the inner discontent between our mind and spirit…or heart and psychology etc?

    When I began the task that has taken 8 years and counting to weave my self back together, I had to exit relationships that would cause a war inside of me…and being okay with it being disruptive outside of me.  Meaning family being upset with my line in the cement etc.  I had to have my inner peace at all costs…for, in the past, I had allowed my insides to be a total mess while trying to clean up the outside world and IT DIDN'T WORK. 

    You can't change someone on the outside to bring you peace inside.  

    The only real change that will give you last peace, love and joy, is to weave together all parts of you….your mind, body and soul.

    That is what they say Yoga does, it brings the mind back to the body.  And I see it as bringing the mind into reality, to see what is, so that the body can move inkind.

    It is so easy when you can clearly see reality and when you have given your body/mind and soul permission to live with the truth and not run from it or cover it up or work to change it etc.  But, to be a seeker of the truth in all things and knowing you will be able to handle what it will ask of you.

    Truth will ask to respond to what it sees.

    Somehow there is great peace for me to be with the truth no matter its ugliness or how painful it can be…it allows me to be in the flow of life weaved together with strength inside of me.

    I literally have watched and marveled at the way I have grown up inside by knowing it was important to have no strands of disagreement inside.  I would work up a solution that we could all agree on. If one part of me wasn't happy…it wasn't done.

    In the beginning, before I understood the total affects of abuse, I had to envision inside of me this little girl and if this little girl wouldn't be happy, I did not do what others wanted.  For, I could see clearly now, a part of me that I had dumped years worth of duty upon, neglecting her needs, her desires, her passions and her fears.

    I no longer could care to care about what others needed or thought about me.  My only concern was the little girl inside.

    And, as I mothered myself, I was weaving together all parts of me bringing us all forward in peace, love and joy.

    I can see how we can have parts of us who are left at the age of our abuse, how we parts of us get left behind. These wounded parts need to be brought forward….to be expressed and then honored.

    What I feel deeply, is that my little girl was abused by my father, and it would be dishonoring to her, to then 'forgive' and forget and move on and continue in a relationship with him.  I instead forgave by accepting that the past could not have been any different, and in doing so moved away from this hurtful man.

    I also could see my mother's hand in helping to keep abuse in our home, by her lack of being able to do any different.  I too, forgave this by accepting her limitations that she could be any different….and in honoring my little girl, kept her away from my mother.

    It was a struggle at times, for the little girl and her needs were not what I had driven my life by before. And most often they were in a direct opposition of what I had lived by before.  But, now I honored her and only her.

    I gave up the fourth commandment.  I gave up "unconditional" love and had conditions for my little girl inside.

    The line I drew was around my little girl.


  • Withers Love

    "There will be times in your life when you have to choose between being Loved and being Respected. Always pick being respected, that love without being respected is fleeting – but that respect can grow into real, lasting love."  Unknown

    It takes courage to hold on to respect and not settle for love in this moment of time, whose cost is your own respect.

    If love's cost is losing respect from self or others, it will fail you.  It will not be a lasting love, for I know love and respect come together; never is love without respect.

    Anyone who doesn't respect your boundaries, your goals, and your values…doesn't love you.  

    I had to look up Respect.

    Respect- "Admire (someone or something) deeply, as a result of their abilities, qualities, or achievements. To feel or show deferential regard for; esteem…To avoid violation of or interference with: respect the speed limit. "

    I hadn't seen the word respect as an action of seeing the other person and honoring who they are.  No wonder you can't have lasting love if you don't truly see and appreciate the qualities and achievements that make up who they are.

    The cold distance between love and abuse is the one simple word – RESPECT.

    Abuse doesn't see the other person…in fact they are in complete violation of respecting the other person.

    So, what seems like a small word not to worry about…it is big.  If you are not being respected or if you are asked to do something that is disrespectful of another, you are most likely being asked to take a stroll down a bumpy pathway into abuse in some form.

    Love always has respect.

    Love always sees you…love is never blind.

    Love doesn't come to you without respect for you in hand.

    Love respects who you are and how you feel.

    Abuse never has respect for you.  Abuse doesn't see you…only what you can do for them.  It sees what you give, but not the cost to you.

    Abuse lacks respect.

    Abuse is a selfish need and desire…it is controlling, manipulative and saturating…drowning out your needs so loudly by theirs.  

    Abuse never uses respect.

    Abuse will get their needs met at all costs…blind to the pain of others.  

    My father never respected me.  

    My mother never respected me.

    They did not see me and my life, only their own needs from me.

    They did not see the cost of their needs on me. 

    I didn't see the cost of pleasing them.  It cost me Me.

    In pleasing them I lost the respect of me.

    I lost seeing me.

    I lost my own value.

    When I stopped pleasing them, I began to grow respect for me.

    This is the crux where Alice Miller laments.  "Honor thy mother and thy Father…." commandment. For, it means to respect them at all costs.  And usually, the child will and does, and it results in losing our own sense of self…our own respect.

    In abusive homes, you can't respect both…The abusive parent and your self.

    And, if respect is to see, admire etc…how is it even possible to love an abusive parent?  How is possible to respect abuse and love the parent?

    I lost my respect for my parents.

    I then lost any love like feelings too.

    What I appreciate and admire is their shining examples of the cost of no respect in a loving relationship.  

    They have shown us the cost of no respect.

    My father did not respect my mother when he cheated.

    My father did not respect the little girls when he forced his sexual needs upon us.

    My mother did not respect him when she failed to see his negative actions.

    My mother did not respect herself enough to leave that relationship.

    My mother did not respect the children enough to take them away from him.

    For one small word, respect makes all the difference in the world.

    Respect will grow into a real and lasting love.

    No respect…withers love.



  • A silent partner.

    We have all heard about "letting go of the past" as a way to live a better future, but what does this actually mean and how do you make sure your past doesn't arrive in your future?

    First of all, we don't want to disregard ALL of the past, just the parts that don't fit comfortably in our daily lives. We want to pick and choose who comes into our future and who stays away…well, some will not say it is about who, but what.

    What or who is acceptable to bring forward and what or who gets left behind?

    Is it even possible to be a nit picker and just take the rainbows and smiles?

    What happens to the stuff we leave behind and how can we insure our lives so the 'unkind' reality doesn't arrive again and again?  What efforts are taken to make sure your future isn't littered with your past?

    What is the best insurance against having our negative arrive in our future?

    Too bad there isn't an insurance company for this…

    How will thinking positive about negative behaviors and family members who behave poorly insure a change in your future?  Is it possible to think away the negative…like the saying "pray away the Gay".

    Is it really just a mind game?

    Can I eliminate the negative thoughts and a person will now appear kinder, wiser and less hurtful?

    What I feel is the only insurance for a better future is to let the past go by letting go of relationships that hurt.

    Letting go of being involved with people who do hurtful things.

    Letting the past leave my life…so I don't repeat the same pattern tomorrow.

    There is a vast difference between thinking positive or acting positive; between accepting negative behaviors by not focusing on them, compared to literally not allowing negative behaviors.

    One is a mind game the other an action step. What will actually result in a future that is more positive?

    It is interesting to me how many feel that by talking only positive, it will change their future. Talk is cheap and it will not make a bit of difference.  It isn't enough.  Words are meaningless on getting rid of abuse.  It is the past of least resistance and it changes nothing.  ONLY perhaps the thought in your head.

    Your life will be the best indicator of change. You will literally experience what you have changed or what you have not.  You simply cannot get a new life by thinking differently without actions taken on your part.

    My mother's life is clearly a prime example of doing the same thing, BUT expecting a different result.  She was vigilant in watching for the pedophile's actions, but she was not even a bit vigilant with her response.

    She did the same thing for 49 years…hoping at some point her life would change for the better.  What she failed to appreciate was that she was the one keeping it the same, by doing the same over and over and over again.

    I still don't believe she was broken hearted about her abusive husband, but she was broken hearted about her husband who didn't love her. She failed to see beyond her needs…and failed to move beyond her thoughts.

    She let his past behavior go and go and go…into many future lives.

    Letting the past go, is like letting a harmful animal roam at will.

    It isn't the good times of the past that damage the future, but all the negative actions you let slip past you…while working hard to remain positive.

    I let the past go.  I stood firmly against abuse and all the actions that supported it.  I faced squarely the negative and let it go.

    I let the negative go, no matter who was wearing it.  

    You can't let the past go until you actually walk away.

    If you just think differently you walk hand in hand with a negative relationship.

    You are but a silent partner.

  • Reflect the truth

    What I didn't know was that I was unraveling as a narcissistic.  I was undoing all that wasn't real or the truth of who I was…I am so surprised I didn't know that I was a narcissistic person…when I was a narcisstic person.

    I didn't know this, for the reflection never told me so.

    No one ever told me who I was or how I was behaving, instead they told me what I wanted to hear, not what I needed to hear.

    And actually, I was in a tribe of people all doing the same.  No one ever said the real truth to me, instead behind my back the spoke differently. 

    As a person who relies on the reflection (people's opinions) it isn't helpful if the reflection says one thing to my face and another behind my back.

    What some call kindness or keeping family together is really keeping the narcissistic cycle going. No one speaks the truth to each other, instead they groom and clean the reflection.

    I have heard from various people the truth being spoken, but they also tell me that they will not say it to the person's face.  It is so interesting to see this now.

    How, in an abusive…dysfunctional family, we all are cleaning each other's reflections with lies and omissions….to keep each other 'looking good'.

    Families of Narcissistic doings.  

    What is so odd or not so odd, is that all know the real truth of who each other is, but will not tell the person to their face.  Instead they will polish up the reflection so the person feels good about themselves.

    I stopped wiping the looking glass….and said out loud, what other's whispered about.

    I will no longer pander to their needs of looking a certain way or being someone….

    I had to look up the word pander to see if I had that word right.  

    Pander – "A pander is someone who provides what is required to meet the ambitions or vices of another."

    Yes, I will no longer provide what is required to the reflection they want…and rather show them what is real.

    I am continually shocked by how much pandering is going on to keep images alive…and how I thought it was because they didn't know the truth.  No, they know the truth, but they also know in order to be with that person they need to keep their image sparkling clean.

    What also amazes me is EVEN IF THE TRUTH comes in, they will continue to shine the mirror…neglecting this new incoming information.

    It seems that the more of a narcissistic you are, the more you indulge others and keep their mirrors clean with lies….and lies of omission.  And some call this relating or being in a relationship.  

    Really?  A relationship with a false reflection.

    It was horrifying and liberating to lose my self image as well as the false reflections I called mom and dad.  

    Unraveling the narcissistic…was to uncover all the lies…about me and my relationships.

    I guess the reason you need to be a narcissistic is that you are wanting to be someone different or to hide the truth about someone.  It is the life of believing in reflections…in words that don't reflect the truth.





  • Filled with Joy

    More from Mary Pipher's book, "Seeking Peace"

    "With crises, some people dig deeper into their entrenched identities and hide in the pup tent of their old beliefs. Many people simply numb themselves with television or self-medicate with alcohol and drugs. Some people blame all their pain on others and never examine their own role in creating problems. Other sufferers shrink their worlds into something small and manageable but actually quite false. People with eating disorders are an example of this narrowing of scope. The questions of the day boil down to simply “Have I gained weight?”

    "For all people, regardless of the crisis, the cure is always growth.Looking back from the vantage point of five years, I understand that my winter of sorrow was a gift. As Parker Palmer said in an interview, “To move closer to God is to move closer to everything, both joy and sorrow, light and darkness.” We may experience post-traumatic stress reactions, but we are beginning a process of post-traumatic growth syndrome. Darkness and loss signal to us more clearly than anything else that it is time to expand our point of view."  

    What I love was the grouping of words, "Post Traumatic Growth Syndrome". We often hear about PTSD, but now how it can be the catalyst for growing up, if you are willing to face the pain…to sit with the emotions and feelings.

    And she further writes, "

    "I was captivated by the concept of mindfulness, which is described as a bird whose wings are compassion and awareness. I realized that my tendency to avoid confronting unpleasant reality had to do with my lack of compassion for myself. I couldn’t afford to look too closely at events or I might see my own imperfections. When I did that, I punished myself mercilessly. Then again, if I could learn to accept myself in all situations, I could afford to see clearly. I could learn to be honest and gentle."

    It is true, that when you can see the messy reality and not be afraid to see yourself as a mess and as dysfunctional as the dysfunction, you then can accept everything. I have found most people don't want to explore and examine the mess for they will see them selves in a light that is unattractive and very much imperfect.

    But, you can't expect to look at a dysfunctional past and only see the positive aspects of yourself.  IT is in seeing where you lacked awareness, reason and clear insight, that you find the answers. 

    She also wrote this…

    "One of the saddest things about despair is our attempt to deny it. To move toward our pain requires us to buck a well-tuned system of defenses. We repress, somatize, rationalize and avoid our own despair. Too often we give our deepest pain orders to march off a cliff, forgetting that this pain is our psyche’s way of encouraging us to take it easy and offer ourselves some compassion." Mary

    This I find is the first step….going toward the pain and letting our defenses down…and perhaps learning how to become compassionate to our wounds…instead of moving away, seeking 'only positive' aspects.

    To accomplish running from the past and all your inherited dyfunctional traits will not lead to a positive life.  You simply can't just think away the past…you have to literally go down to the depths and not hide in the pup tents of your beliefs.  

    It is the opposite of what your mind tells you.  It tells you that if you want a positive life, you have to steer wide and clear of all things negative and painful.  And, the opposite is true…you are just shrinking your world into something you can manage and calling it a 'positive life'.

    Oddly, the more you explore and examine you and your heritage and experiences, the more your world expands and the more aware you are and a bigger vantage point are you looking upon your world.

    Going into the pain is the doorway to a life filled with joy.



  • 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.






  • Reflect That.

    Karma - "The total effect of a person's actions and conduct during the successive phases of the person's existence, regarded as determining the person's destiny."

    While doing yoga today, it came to me that Karma isn't about what you do for others so much as it is what you do for you. How your actions are in harmony with your truth and spirit.

    Karma is very personal…it is between your soul and how you present yourself to the world.

    Karma isn't about doing for others at the cost of your own inner peace, love and joy.

    Our lives (karma) are echoing back how we feel about ourselves…not what we do for others.

    Our destiny is decided by how we speak our feelings and how we create boundaries as we care for our self.  

    Karma is self care…self love…being one with your spirit.

    Our karmic care is lost in a multitude of ways…for me it was abuse and being raised by a woman who was selfish, but not self caring…if that makes sense.

    She wasn't able to care for her self, let alone for the 14 children she gave birth to.

    I wasn't given a good role model on how to sow a destiny of love, peace and joy for my self.

    What I hear many saying is that they are going forward with the positive, and leaving their past behind.  

    And, what I see is that they are unwilling to examine their karmic trail, to see the exact science of cause and effect, and it is how we respond that plants a new karmic seed.

    I just don't see how being 'kind' to my father served my mother.

    It left her with a husband that was incapable to love, no matter how 'loving' she was.

    This is what I mean by our karma isn't doing for others, but rather doing for our selves.

    She would have taught her daughters a completely different lesson, had she been aware of what her actions were doing to her self.

    I had always felt that she had multiple opportunities for a redo…each time he committed another act of abuse…she was given a choice to act differently, but time and time again, she failed to change her response.  She doesn't know how to begin to begin to change her karma.  She will always get what she has been getting, for she is doing what she has always done.

    There is an internal cost to loving people who hurt you.  Each time you focus on their needs and neglect your needs…you are being unloving and uncaring to your self.

    I just can't see how treating yourself poorly will grant you a karmic trail of love, peace and joy.

    You are not giving love if it is hurtful to your self…you are hurting your self and I am not sure what the other person is getting except perhaps a false message…or a message of how much you are okay hurting yourself.

    We are not responsible for the content and the destiny of each other's lives.

    We are only repsonsible for our own life. 

    Our life reviews will be feeling what we have done to others.

    If you are loving them falsely, you will feel this empty love.

    I believe that my karma path changed, my life's destiny was greatly altered when I began living from the inside out.  I went from expecting others to make me me….and instead worked on creating my own self.

    A self that had boundaries and self care rules.

    I no longer was self less and could do anything for anyone.

    I had an inner awareness of this living breathing soulful self who was affected by how I acted.

    I no longer lied to myself.

    I no longer pretended at the cost of myself.

    I became extremely aware of how each action I did was setting up my future world. For, I had experienced living a life, blind to the karmic response…and was intent on making others happy, while completely neglecting me.  And yet, I was very narcisistic.

    I just read that narcistic people can be either controlling or neglectful…and I believe that the difference between a narcistic person and one who is self loving is how they see/love themselves.

    I have been reading just a bit on narissistic people, and here is how I see it.

    They need someone else to show them themselves…they are incapable of seeing themselves by themselves.

    Meaning, I was a good mother IF my children showed me how I was.  

    I was a good friend, if a friend could show me how I was by what they said about me.

    If another person wasn't there, there was no me.  My sense of self was just a reflection.  I had no inner view of myself.

    A narsissistic person disappears without you telling them who they are.  It is a job that is endless.  My mother is only a mother if we make her one.  On her own, she is very much not a mother.  I was/am the maker of the mother daughter relationship…she couldn't be a mother without me.

    I know this will seem vaguely mental, but unless and until you can get away from the reflection of how others see you….you will not get this.

    I have deflected if you will all other's opinions, and have gained a connection with me inside.  I have literally turned inward to find out who I am.

    In doing so, my karma has changed from being narsisstic to being self loving.

    Anytime you are worried about your reflection (how others see you) you are dancing on the lip of being narsisstic.

    My mother believed, that her reflection of how she seen my father would change him…for, she loved her reflection of her self and not her self.  So, she worked on repeatedly changing his reflection by how she saw him.  And failed to see the real him.

    The world is not set up for us to change each other.  Imagine how brutal that would be, to have your image continual changed by how others seen you. Which they do and it does…but only in their eyes.

    No one can change my image of me, but me.

    I am solely responsible for my actions and my responses. It is my intention to pay attention to my inner world and the outer world will reflect that.






  • Replenish myself.

    I am reading, "Seeking Peace" by Mary Pipher…here is a section that I understood very well….

    "I made another important decision: I was finished with the self-improvement projects I had launched my whole life. All of my goals to better myself had become gaols, prisons that kept me from accepting myself. My constant efforts to improve had been a form of self-aggression. Now I wanted to accept myself as I was. Psychologist Carl Rogers formulated what he called “the paradox of change,” which is that people can change only in an environment of utter acceptance and regard. I wanted to create a mental environment in which I viewed myself as someone who deserved to be understood and cherished, rather than criticized and improved. My goal was healing and self-reclamation."

    "I spent hours petting my old Siamese cat, Woody. I bought myself fresh flowers and herbal teas. I made pozole and chicken curry. To cool down my agitated brain, I played solitaire and listened to classical music. Dressed in sweat pants, T-shirts and thick warm socks, I watched the snowfall and the winter birds."

    "As weeks passed with this regimen of seclusion and self-care, I felt a small sense of relief. I was doing what my body and spirit wanted me to do. I had arrested the process of depletion, and slowly, very slowly, I was replenishing myself. I had always been a person who lived in my head and who viewed my body as a container for my busy mind. Now I had no choice but to pay attention to my body. My muscles were sore from stress. My heart raced and skipped beats. My adrenaline system  was pumping toxic chemicals into my system. I was as stricken with remorse and wound up as a trauma victim. The long-neglected territory of my body called out for kindness."

    "For the first time in my life, I signed up for a yoga class at a nearby church. I approached my first session fearfully. I felt self-conscious about my body, and I was sure that I couldn’t do the exercises. I experienced the same kind of anxiety approaching yoga as I had on the playground in elementary school."

    "However, yoga class was the opposite of the schoolyard in Beaver City. Quiet, gentle women welcomed me into a peaceful, highceilinged room. A wonderful teacher named Margaret reassured me that whatever I did would be fine. Slowly and carefully, she guided our group through relaxing movements. Thanks to her, I learned to notice where I was tense. She taught me to stretch and loosen muscles and to attend to my breathing and my posture, and she helped me make connections between a relaxed body and a relaxed mind."  Mary Pipher

    I am enjoying this book, for in it she writes about a childhood, her adulthood and how she was the way she was, until she could no longer be that way…

    I see how we as humans learn and grow from the home we were raised in and how its affect lead us into a life that may or may not be what our inner soul needs.

    I too am no longer looking for self- improvement, but rather self acceptance. I am not running from my past, but learning from it.  There is a big difference…failing to learn from our past choices, leads us to repeat them.

    Using nature to replenish or balance our inner energies, gives us space to look at our life for things that cause us stress and remove them.

    I love these few sentences….for they resonate and reflect my path.

    "As weeks passed with this regimen of seclusion and self-care, I felt a small sense of relief. I was doing what my body and spirit wanted me to do. I had arrested the process of depletion, and slowly, very slowly, I was replenishing myself!"  Mary Pipher

    I had emptied myself by being a great co-dependent, and it took many years to replenish myself.

  • Go for Recess!

    "You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have."  Maya Angelou


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    I love to see the beginning and then in a short time the transformations….

     

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    It is fun creating with others, for we each find new ways to do the same thing…stretching our imaginations.



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    I love seeing the different ideas emerge…while often I sit not knowing what to do… or how to start…or even have a vision.  The possibilities are endless.



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    …and laughter and friendships flow easily.  


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    and giving and receiving….happen in many ways.


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    And we all go home with a new idea materialized.

    Women In New Directions is two hours….twice a month…a refueling of energy that seeps into our everyday life…a place for women to go for recess!

    "Creativity takes Courage"  Henri Matisse


  • Who controls your actions?

    When I thought about the decision making event or Judgment, it came to me that a way to avoid making a decision is to excuse or reason the second option away…meaning if there is only one choice, there is no need to make a decision.

    You just have to get rid of the second choice that popped up.

    You can do this by one of two ways…making excuses or finding reasons for this behavior…in a way that will make it reasonably okay and less negative.

    The more you can eliminate the negative values, the more positive it can be, hence no need to decide between two, for now the negative appears almost positive in nature.

    I have heard many excuses and reasons for remaining in abusive, toxic and dysfunctional relationships and none of them have to do with the actual negative action, but all have to do with 'understanding' how the person acts that way.

    "She didn't have a mother….so she doesn't know how to mother…."  

    "She was abused by her brother…so she doesn't know how to love or what abuse is."

    "He was abused by a neighborhood girl…and this is why he is this way."

    "His marriage wasn't good anyway so it isn't like he cheated really…"

    It is shocking how 'good' people will find reasons and excuses for bad behavior to almost make those actions seem reasonable.

    What comes to mind is "Two wrongs don't make it right."

    Our ability to water down behaviors with excuses is how we navigate life running from decisions.  Isn't if funny, in a peculiar way, how we would rather stand tough on the excuses and reasons…rather than stand silent with the action.

    We don't want to be uncomfortable with just the naked action….we like to dress it up with reasons and excuses. We want to reason it way….out of kindness and understanding…draping words to deflect what is.

    What I find as insane is how many believe that words of reasons and excuses are reasonable things to believe in…that they will trump any action.

    I have been told many times in the past 8 years, that I don't understand and I don't know them, I haven't walked in their shoes….mostly these are pleas to hear the reasons and the excuses for a negative behavior.

    Is there really a good reason to neglect and abuse a child?  I do get it that patterns are passed down, but if we sit in the lap of accepting excuses, we will never break the patterns.

    Can there ever be a good reason to cheat or lie…

    I heard a line on the radio…and I can't remember the context…was it a book on CD or was it a person talking….but it goes like this.  "If you are ever wondering about a choice you are making….If you don't want that choice to be written on the front page of the paper, do not make that choice."

    Meaning anything you have to hide, is perhaps the wrong choice to be making.

    And I feel, that most often it is the bad choices that are in need of the biggest reasons and excuses…and when you are acting out of character, YOU need me to believe the reasons and the excuses and to NOT focus on your actions.

    I used to be a believer in the excuses and reasons and I overlooked many actions in order to believe in you…only to find out….people are not their reasons and excuses, but they are their behaviors.

    No matter what reasons you give to why my father sexually desired little girls…it will not stop his behavior from happening.

    No matter what excuses you give my mother for being a shallow emotionally retarded woman, it will not change who she is.  

    We have been taught that it is nicer to sit with comfortable reasons and excuses that it is kinder and more loving to understand etc….than it is to look boldly upon their actions and to 'label' them by what they do.

    Not only see their behaviors, but respond in kind.

    The behaviors of my parents has delivered endless pain and suffering and trauma…finding excuses and reasons doesn't lessen or remove the pain, all it does is to deflect it.  To not feel the cost and toll it has taken to be in relationships with them.

    Typically, as far as I can tell….there are the wrong doers and then the excuse makers….and they need each other to live in harmony.

    The wrong doers need you to be reasonable and understanding SO THEY don't have to change their behavior. They need you to find a way to be comfortable with their hurtful actions….and we do.

    It is seen as being more christian like to 'forgive' their sins….than it would be to address them and make them responsible for their actions. 

    It is seen as unloving to point out the negative actions and how they feel upon you.

    Each time we work to understand and excuse away their bad behavior it is to make them appear normal, nice, kind….etc.  It is to make them more positive than they appear.

    The way abuse lives in homes is that there are the excuse and reason makers working like hell to make it all right.  But, all these excuses and reasons do is to try and cover up negative actions.

    But, they can't.

    No matter what you say after a negative action….it will remain negative.

    You can't make abuse look pretty or nice or reasonable.

    You can't make cheating an act of love for anyone.

    All you are doing is living in a space of fantasy…and believing in the reasons and not in the action.

    In the land of reasons and excuses you don't have to decide, for you have erased the very thing you would have to decide upon….and have made it reasonable behavior.

    I am forever amazed at the capacity of the human mind to wrestle with reality and win…to add words to explain away an action…and then the ability of this same mind who changed reality To BELIEVE that which it just changed.

    Amazing.

    Our society, our churches, our religions and much of the rules we live by are engaged in the activity of excuses and reasons…very few have I encountered live in the land of actions mattering more.

    The only way we will ever be able to stop abuse is when we stop making excuses and reasons for unreasonable behavior…and instead start responding to actions.

    I believe that the left side of the brain is used as Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor said, "To take the least amount of informations and weave the most plausible story." 

    I see the left brain as the excuse maker….and believing what it weaves.

    To me, this is an incredibly insane world….when our left brain creates a story using the LEAST amount of information….and we use that as our moral compass.

    We have lost or perhaps never had an awareness to this device or perhaps we were trained to see the world through the left brain. 

    I see how most people have a highly skilled and exceptionally fit left brain…with very little awareness left to see life naked.

    Silently without words.

    Just actions.

    Our left brain immediately wants to get involved and make it different than it is.

    I learned the hard way.  I had built a whole life on the left side that was a complete false world…and one day it all crashed.  I was left standing naked in a reality that I had hidden…in my left brain.  

    All that I didn't want to know or feel or deal with….was still there behind all the reasons and excuses…reality never changed.

    I just now had 45 plus years of unweaving to do.

    I am no longer a weaver of excuses and reasons…but rather I face reality squarely in its face…silencing the left brain's chatter center, as it wants to create an alternate place for me to live.

    There are only two places to live…in the left brain's landscape of reasonable excuses….or in reality.  And yet, in truth…there is only one place. Reality.

    No matter where your focus lies….only one reality exists.  But, there can be a billion reasons as to why.

    Maybe the more intriguing question to ask is why? 

    Why do you act the way you do?

    I never questioned my actions…it was like I was living on remote control…and someone else held the controls.  

    Now, I do focus on the actions…and I do often wonder who is operating their controls….for it often seems like the person has no power over their actions.

    But if they don't, then who does?

    Who controls your actions?




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