Martha Beck writes in "Leaving the Saints"….. After a family therapy session where Martha remained the one lone family member willing to see abuse.." I could see that my siblings' truth, as well as that of all other Latter-Day Saints, would always be based on group consensus. I read psychology tests about the effects of socialization on perception, pondered the famous experiments by Solomon Asch that demonstrated how subjects who didn't know they were being tested changed their perceptions in order to agree with other people. Shown two lines, one long, one short, in the company of people who all claimed that the lines were of equal length, the naive subjects almost always agreed with the majority, rather than the evidence of their own senses. They not only said that the lines were equal; they often came to actually SEE them as being equal."
What is alarming and comforting at the same time, is that my family isn't any different from the test folks, who automatically side with the majority. That very few will use the evidence of their senses and stand alone.
She also wrote about losing her family, " It would have been less painful to lose my family to war or natural disaster; less shame, less confusion, less personalized energy. I did lose them you see. I've never really been back. Though there isn't an official "no contact" rule between us, my siblings and I stopped most communication after that bloody battle. I hear from other relatives that I am the black sheep now, the traitor to our family's code, the enemy of every thing we once stood for together…."
And the last few lines that caught my attention…"Sometimes I think there is not enough room in the Universe for the sorrow of that exile."
Being exiled from your family for going against the majority vote.
Blog
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The Majority Vote.
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Playing With Art
This picture was taken with the ipad, the ipad that I am shipping back to Apple tomorrow. It just didn’t work in sending stuff out to the internet, but was perfect for receiving.
The lighting wasn’t the best, but thought I would try and see if this works. I had been looking for a way to post pictures….
Let’s see if this works.
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Your Life Inside Out.
Chapter 24, Leaving the Saints, by Martha Beck.
"My hardest labor, however, happened in my head and heart as I made the transition in my spiritual quest from Camel to Lion. This phase of inner change involves one of the most dramatic paradigm shifts in the human psychology repertoire: the move from what psychologists call an "exogenous locus of control" to an "endogenous locus of control." It means the process of dropping one's dependency on external structures and establishing a sort of moral guidance system that comes from within."
"I'd spent the better part of three years trusting external structures and organizations, keeping every rule of every spiritual discipline I could imagine, quieting my own resistance, aiming for total obedience and humility. But continuing to do this would mean protecting the Mormon Church by keeping a dark secret, which would isolate me in a life of smothered rage and hopelessness. It felt wrong. I was in what felt like a no-win situation: my internal moral system was directly at odds with my family, community, my ancestral religion."
"Something a bit like this happened to me once before, when I'd rejected the advice of every obstetrician and adviser at Harvard by deciding not to end the pregnancy that later produced Adam. That time, however, I'd known in the back of my mind that millions of Mormons, including my natal family, would agree with my decision, This time, the child I wanted to defend was my own five-year-old self, someone who no longer existed except in my memory, and the people I would offend were my flesh and blood, my ward family, my brothers and sisters and my Brothers and Sisters."
"The Chinese have a phrase to describe the confusion that accompanies the change of dynasties: "when the earth turns over heaven." I kept remembering this phrase as I slogged through my days, watching everything I 'd thought solid and reliable fall into the sky,while unexpected new beliefs appeared in parts of my mind and heart I had thought were empty space. I diapered my babies, taught my classes, wrote my dissertation with the dull mechanical effort, robotic on the outside, tumultuous within…"
What I love most is that there is actually a psychological term for transitioning control from the outside to within. I wonder if they note that you will be going against your family of origin, IF they too chose not to transition control to within, that if you structured your life to fit a certain religion, that too will drop away?
Just interesting to be a text book example, but knowing the personal details of this switch.
I had intuitively called this, "Living Inside Out."
And that is exactly the street version of endogenous.
You literally will be turning your life inside out. -
I am now a stranger…
Being a living ghost as I bump into my old life still catches me off guard.
I am restrained by inner feelings and emotions; the easy flow of contact is no longer possible.
Even a Hi is loaded down with years of silence, confusion and pain. The old days and estrangement are at odds.
So, I walked by and she never looked up.
The death of our old relationship stands and a new re-birth hasn't been born…
I, a ghost of yesterday, my old life, the co-dependency and dysfunction. She still very much alive there…happy.
We both know it and feel it. We are more comfortable apart than together, for we no longer match, our ideas, our thoughts and our actions no longer fitting in that old comfortable 'family' way.
Sisters of estrangement.
Old familiars now awkward encounters…
I see my old self and barely recognize her…she sees the new me and I am now a stranger. -
Energy and Feeling Good
Slowly but surely my physical body has been pushed to the far reaches of my life, again. Well, I notice it when it creaks and aches and feels ouchy, when my neck and jaw are tense and in pain, when my middle is so expanded that I feel bundled up in a winter coat…and there is a faint feeble calling of the yoga mat.
I am not sure why I wait for physical discomfort, for loathing and self recriminations, but that seems to be the way. That when I am on a winning streak, like 340 plus days of yoga, I lose the 'desire' or whatever that is.
It seems like all kinds of things came rushing in or crowding over My Time…that while tended this or that, I forgot to leave time, space, energy, Or I forgot to say no more than yes and slowly 'other' things overwhelmed my space.
I have spent tons of hours on my inner awareness and self control, self freedom, etc. But I keep a healthy distance from the body's needs.
My mind and soul feel at peace in a very open liberal place….and yet my body still feels in prison at times.
Over-run by old habits.
Habits that seem not of mind or spirit, but just residual affects from my old life.
In fact my outside (body) where my spirit and mind live needs to catch up with the inner work.
Maybe it is time to put the same intensity and focus on flipping my body.
My body is the odd man out.
It is not free.
It is not at peace.
My body can't do a thing without me setting the intentions, putting IT on the list, at the top and finding ways to serve it and give it the same sacred intensity that I gave my inner landscape.
Time to clean up my outer body act…finding new alternate habits that will bring in energy instead of lowering it.
I un-naturally turn away from my body.
Somehow I can do this when forced, but it isn't natural for me to be kind and desire good things and wanting to serve my body energy lifters…but I am more natural at neglect.
It is like I am in control of neglect and out of control for goodness.
And my body still tries its best to deliver all that I ask of it, but with hurdles and speed bumps…. with me fighting it each step of the way.
I fight doing yoga and eating foods that deliver good energy and instead dump in sweets and foods that drain me.
Maybe it is time to switch the fight around.
To fight for energy and feeling good. -
Perfect for Me.
A thought came to mind yesterday as I wondered about the withholding of truths, that perhaps it is the desire to be perfect that stops us.
We don't want to say things that are upsetting or we don't want to not go along to cause waves so we refrain from our truths to look better, seem more perfect, nicer even.
Yet in this 'nicer more perfect' mode, we are not feeling that inside.
Inside the storms rage, the contradictions swell, and it seems like we are split in two…having to wear 'nice' while feelings and emotions as well as knowledge seem to overwhelm the inside.
Just like pretending you don't have raging reaction to a bad food, where your stomach is turning, sharp pains, nausea, etc…and you continue to have a calm pleasant face.
Being truthful is to vomit up all what we hold inside, getting rid of the turmoil that is infesting our insides. And we want to do this in pleasant non-hurtful manner, or without causing grief…which is impossible.
The reasons and sources of our angst usually aren't wonderful experiences, but rather trauma. Speaking up about trauma will not sound or feel like chatting about the purchase of a new car. It will hold pieces and shards of pain, hurt, betrayal, fear, anxiety, shock and horror. It will reduce you to a shaking quacking hurt soul, and you have to explain how you feel.
We unveil our wounded soul.
The same one we had to cover up in order to survive, we now take the chance of dying in order to speak of it.
And there is a dying of sorts. The death of the survival person, the one who lived pretending the abuse didn't happen. This survival person is who people liked, who got along, who was 'nicer' and 'kinder'….and we are afraid that the truthful person will be annihilated.
In my case it happened. My survival self (the pretending trauma didn't live in my body) was accepted and my truthful self rejected.
Being rejected for being my truthful self felt like being abused a second time around, but this time aware and fully present…And this time, I didn't have the the body's natural survival mode of "Disassociation"….I wanted to feel this, to accept this, to acknowledge this, to honor this IN order to now live in reality.
I wasn't willing to revert back to my childhood ways of living a life inside that was totally different from my presentation to the world.
This time, what I feel inside matches the features on my face or my actions and often times, non-actions.
I no longer care if I am perfect for you, I am always perfect for me.
" The First Casualty of Dysfunction is truth" Carl Huhta -
What we endured.
From Martha Beck's book, Leaving the Saints
"All my life, I'd read and reread a thousand religious epigraphs to the effect that "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." I'd always been told this had to do with joining the true religion, learning the true description of the Holy Trinity, memorizing the true Commandments. Now, with that gong like tone thrumming through me, it all seemed so much simpler. The truth I needed to be free was simply the reality of my own life: This is what I feel. This is what happened to me. To know these small truths was to know myself; to speak them was to connect with my real self, other human beings, and God."
Martha was told by many people she was not allowed to tell her story of abuse, that the church's reputation was on the line, that her father needed to be held up as a pillar of its community, that many mormon spiritual lives depended upon her silence… except one woman came to her.
"Martha…I don't believe God would ever ask anyone to endure that sort of thing without talking about it. No one. No matter what." Her voice when through me like an arrow, through all the pain and confusion and fear to something at my very center. My body filled up with a kind of resonance, like one of the huge gongs I'd seen in Shinto shrines that make the air throb when they ring. It shattered my reserve, and as usual, I started crying. Rosemary just sat there, not a shred of tension or resistance in her presence. "Was it your father?" she asked, quietly. I covered my face with my hands to keep myself from falling apart, but it was like trying to protect a sand castle from high tide. "I didn't tell you!" I gasped, when I could speak. "Where did you hear that?" She shrugged and tapped her chest. I felt that sense of resonance again, crumbling all the barriers of my mind.
"You can't tell anyone!" I whispered. "And I can't tell anyone! Ever! I can't!"
"Martha, listen to me." Rosemary's voice was no louder, but it had taken on a peculiar intensity. I remember thinking that I should pay close attention. I was right. The next three words Rosemary Douglas spoke changed my life forever. The moment she said them, I knew that this was the stable patch of earth in the landslide, the single great spiritual truth upon which I could build my life now that all other foundations had proven frail and uncertain. The words weren't God loves you, or Jesus is Lord, or Keep the faith.
Rosemary put her hand on mine, looked right in my soggy eyes and said, "You are Free."
We are not free until we can speak our story, to tell of our experiences…and sadly we wait for the permission of those who hurt us. What a great gift this woman gave her, to say, "I don't believe God would ever ask anyone to endure that sort of thing without talking about it. No one. No matter what."
At times this blog feels as if I don't have the right. But I agree with Rosemary, we must talk about what we endured. -
All it wants is truth.
Last night I woke up a few times with very strong feelings between Character and the Situation.
That most often we blame the situation rather than blame our selves and the lack or the choice of action we took in each situation.
There seems to be this wide separation in our thought patterns that has us victims of circumstances rather than participants in our lives.
We don't arrive with Character, but rather over time and through the valleys and mountains in our lives we begin to layer who we are by what we do.
Oddly enough, we somehow tend to NOT believe who others are, we keep blaming the circumstance rather than the character.
The circumstance is often times the accumulation of past events coming home to roost, it is not just a wild card that happened into our lives…
The Universe is the perfect score keeper and it never lets us get away with anything, the 'karma' deal is right on. We do indeed reap what we sow and the longer we put off harvesting, the bigger the crop we have to tend to when we finally get around to seeing what we planted.
What I am here to tell you is you can't plant denial and pull up honesty.
You can't spread seeds of bullying and come up with people who don't fear you.
How you move in the world echoes back your own energy.
Each moment of today is laying the carpet of tomorrow.
There is no vengeful God or evil Universe, there is just you tossing the ball against the wall of the Universe, you will get back what you put out.
There are no mistakes.
Truth will reflect back truth.
Deceit will conjure up relationships minus the truth.
It all begins with you.
You are the common denominator in all things. The world truly does revolve around you.
There are a billion places you can find people behaving badly but all that truly matters in your life is you.
Victims focus on what others need to do in order for them to find peace.
You will know you are no longer a victim when you can find peace in the midst of others behaving badly.
If my happiness depended upon my mother and father healing, I would be a victim of their lives. Instead, I put my wellness in my own hands. I looked in my own life and saw combinations of their dysfunction littered everywhere, and that is where I began.
In each moment of time, I looked at what I was believing or thinking, and then how I acted….did they match or was I a walking contradiction like them; partly truth and partly fiction?
Character can survive any situation if all it wants is truth. -
Whatever Reality Serves.
My brother's blog (www.messyguru.typepad.com ) shows the switching characters that a mother often displays when faced with truths that directly oppose her life. Her life and dream and ideals.
I have somehow had this wrong. I had presumed that my mother lived in truth and slide into unreality when uncomfortable subjects arose, but instead it seems she resides in non-reality and will slip out into reality every now and then.
Although this is just hearsay on my part, for she never came out of her camp of denial, pretend, or righteous unknowing for me.
She stayed true to the character of my childhood.
I can't know what would be more perplexing on a child, to have her step forth in knowing, and the go back to unknowing or to remain steadfast in unknowing?
While her actions aluded to the fact that her husband was in jail, for she seen him in an orange jumpsuit behind bars, she never not once spoke to me about why he was there.
This omitance echoes my childhood. This is what I meant by she never once told me to fear my father, to stand clear, to not trust etc. Instead it was always me that had issues, not him and certainly not her.
However during the early months of this, since she wasn't speaking of this, not available by phone, I made my own conclusions about the lay of the land. My body and I were in total agreement to who he was as well as to who he was married to and how this was able to continue on for so long.
My mother's character never wavered from the mother I knew as a child.
My father's character never wavered from the father I knew as a child.
My character greatly changed, when I saw them in their true colors.
All it took was one look, and my whole world shattered.
The character that I had been playing, loving daughter, died.
And in its place a new role was born.
I gave up all outside roles and stood firmly in the role called me.
I moved forward by what I felt inside.
I responded in kind to what life served up
When it served me a pedophile father, I walked in harmony with that.
When it served me up a mother who was unable to step into my world, I accepted that.
My new role is to walk in step with whatever reality serves.
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I M Perfect lady 