I M Perfect lady

Tag: abuse

  • Agree With the Line.

    I finished listening to the Book "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett while I sewed yesterday afternoon.  

    The CD describes it as such;

    "Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step…

    In 1962 Jackson Mississippi, two African American maids and one white Junior League socialite- seemingly as different from one another as can be, will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why?  Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed."

    "In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three memorable women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women – mother's, daughters, caregivers, friends – view one another.  A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor and hope.  "The Help" is a timeless universal story about the lines we abide by and the ones we don't."

    I had read this book, watched the movie and then listened to it…all three times I was drawn to the courage it takes to step over the line.

    Stepping over the line, isn't done lightly or without great personal risks and consequences, and yet if someone doesn't take a chance, speak out and dare show the wrongness, change doesn't happen.

    Towards the end, the white character muses…"I may not have changed their minds… But at least I no longer agree with them." Speaking about her socialite friends.

    She had broken out of a system that had been put into place long before her birth, one she had grown up in…and dared to explore and see it from all angles.  Willing to see the wrongness of her people…

    It came with a personal cost, she lost friends and love, but gained personal strength and courage.

    I totally understand her dilemma…of stepping over the line, knowing you are stepping out of the life you have…into the unknown.

    Stepping over the line is what has allowed us as a species to evolve…if we all stayed behind the line, no change would occur.

    Once one takes a step, another will follow.

    The lines are drawn often with the mindset or understanding at the time, and progress happens when someone dares to argue with the line.

    I see one very entrenched line that is holding its ground and only a few dare to step over it and walk away…and that is the parental line.

    When you cross this line, your life will change.

    Most parents do not want their lines crossed…especially abusive parents.

    The treatment of the children in these homes is similar to the African Americans…for they are not allowed to have a voice, to speak about how the treatment feels on their end.  They are to serve the family in silence, bowing down to the heads of the households…a second class member…They are lower down on the totem pole, only those up higher can have their say, speak their minds and share how it feels…and enforce it.  Disregarding your vote without an election.

    This is the way of it, the line is not to be crossed…it stays firm until their death.  Their feelings are to be considered at all times…and perhaps even posthumously.

    At no point is a child to go against what the parent feels, thinks and believes, or they will be crossing the line…and stepping out of the family.

    I would love to see a revolution within abusive homes.  Of voiceless, choice-less children walking free.  Marching for the right to stand up. Shedding the cloak of secrecy that keeps their parents reputations clean in the social world…while the child remains in the silent darkness of abuse.  A flipping of the tables…

    Fear is what keeps most from stepping up to the line.

    The fear is as palpital as the ones the maids had. They had lived in fear of the white folks for so long, it never crossed their minds to speak up, even anonymously.

    Some may say, they 'respect' their parents too much to speak out…but respect doesn't keep you silent, fear does.

    Fear of stepping over this invisible line that has been there since you were little.  Fear keeps you on your side of the line…as it always has. 

    In life, there are always lines…and you will define yourself by the ones you abide by and the ones you don't.

    You have to wonder about lines and who they serve and why.

    And depending upon which side of the line you are, that line will represent two drastically different views.

    Look at the line of silence in abuse…see clearly how it divides and makes one a victim.  One of lesser value…and one more powerful.

    Abiding the line, you are agreeing with the imbalance.

    What I too truly love, is that I may not be able to change your mind, but I love that I no longer have to agree with the line.

     

     

     

     

  • The Images in our Minds

    "It is because of awareness that we know what is going on in consciousness.  It is because of consciousness that we know what is going on in mind.  Because of mind, we are aware of what is going with sensations. Because of sensations, we are aware of what is going on with the body.  Consequently, that which we are – that which is aware, that which we really mean by the ultimate "I" and the infinite Self, and that which is conscious – is operationally many levels removed from the body.  The interesting thing is that the body expresses and does what the minds holds.  One is subjected to what the mind believes.  In other words, the body, being like a puppet, is controlled by the mind, both consciously and unconsciously.  Few people realize he power of mind over body."  David Hawkins, Healing and Recovery.

    What amazes me continually, is the fact that so many people live lives unquestioning and firmly NOT wanting to know, to look at what was put in their minds and how?  Many are very content following blindly (unconscious) never daring to not follow meekly and without question. 

     I am not sure what brings or strengthens a person's awareness, but without awareness, your life gets left at the same level you were raised in.

    It seems awareness is the ability to question and research your past.

    And you know, the ones with the most to hide, research the least, question nothing and blindly face the future, never wanting to know, know, know what really went on.  Who did what to whom and how did it affect them.

    Parents who abused their children, are the ones firmly intent on letting the past go….letting their sins fade away.  They are the ones who fear questions of the past and fear awareness of what went on…and even worse, face the responsibility of their actions and how it then affected the young and impressionable who lived with them.

    Instead of looking deeply within themselves and their past, they focus intently on the future, like running away…yet they can't.

    Their past rides with them in the lives of their children.  The abuse program virus runs on.

    By not looking, you don't escape.  In fact, it is what keeps your mind in control, your failure to bring in awareness, allows the past to keep re-creating itself. 

    If you were born into a family of abuse and don't want to research it, you will then run on the same program set into place.  

    Somehow the vast majority of society believes that by not focusing on what happened, you will be set free…that you can live  your life forward, without exploring what was put into you.

    It is like you are running a software program to which you don't want to know its content.  Or, you want to believe you are running a wonderful program called loving kindness, when in fact it is one based on fear and abuse.

    There is no way in hell you can live in a home of abuse and come out with a program called love and caring.  NONE.  

    And unless you un-program what was given to you, what you soaked up living in that space, you will live your life with that program leading the charge.

    Running from the source of how you were programmed will not change the program.

    You literally are a software program and will have to change this program while its running in your mind.  Sorting through each untrue thought and switch it around.

    For what I am most certain of is that the child of abuse, in order to survive, changes the labels of emotions or doesn't record them at all.

    It makes a software program that doesn't record truth and reality.

    This illusions software is what it lives with. These are the glasses in which it sees the world. These are the backwards thoughts that live in its head.  The flipped upside down viewpoint of all things.

    We create this fake software in order to survive and it gets left running, unless we become aware of its wrongness.

    You can change locations, stop going to church, you can change clothes and houses, but the software continues to beat out its madness.  You can't change it by changing location.  You can only change it from the inside out.

    You have to see what is programmed and cancel it out.

    And those who will not see abuse, can't cancel it out. The abuse software then run their lives…it lives within them, it can't be out run…the virus isn't on the outside, it is in your head.

    Abuse isn't something out there. Abuse is living with a software program that is the opposite of reality.

    Imagine if you will, if children didn't depend upon their parents in order to survive, do you believe that they would simply allow themselves to be beaten, raped and fondled and be okay with it???

    We have to change the program inside for we can't change the outside. We are forced to live in an alternate universe and get lost there.

    We lose our way back to reality…

    Running away physically will not correct this program.  It is like changing the screen the projector is shining upon.  There is nothing wrong with the screen, but the projector is playing a movie called illusion.

    We say the opposite of what we feel….a film about what isn't our truth.

    In my experience, truth re-programed me.  

    What a parent who is abusing their child fears the most, is that we won't stay programmed, that we will awaken and become aware…that we will truly see and begin to untangle the mess…

    For when we do, our world flips and so do the images in our minds.

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    (Photograph by Hannah Jukuri)

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Your children are sure to follow.

    "The Body Never Lies," by Alice Miller.

    ‎"Children cannot escape their own parents, so they cannot afford to see through them either. Blindness makes it possible to survive. This is the way the abuse of children has functioned since time immemorial. BLINDNESS AND FORGIVENESS ARE ESSENTIAL TO SURVIVAL. But at the same time they lead to repletion and they perpetuate cycles of cruelty."

    "To break through this vicious circle we need to understand that so-called love cannot survive abuse, deception, and exploitation without seeking new victims. And if it requires new victims, it is no longer love but at best the longing for love. Only UNFLINCHING REALIZATIONS OF ONE'S OWN PAST REALITY, OF WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED CAN BREAK THROUGH THE CHAIN OF ABUSE. IF I KNOW AND CAN FEEL WHAT MY PARENTS DID TO ME WHEN I WAS TOTALLY DEFENSELESS, I NO LONGER NEED VICTIMS TO BEFOG MY AWARENESS. I no longer need to re-enact what happened to me and take it out on innocent people because now I know what happened. And if I want to live my life consciously, without exploiting others, then I must actively accept that knowledge." Alice

    What seems so clear, yet is so hard to wrap your brain around, is that a defenseless child is left without escape and in order to survive turns itself blind to what the parent is doing.  You mind will not allow you to SEE your parents.  Not 'remembering' what happened, allows you to live in a fanatasy. And in this so called, 'loving home' you then begin to grow and develop awkwardly.

    You set into place the opposite screen to what is.

    Love is abusive.

    Caring is neglectful.

    Your 'truth' is backwards…you become authentically dysfunctional and can't even see it.

    It is my belief, that we then hurt our children in order to keep 'love' alive.  Love means there must be a victim and a perpetrator.

    The fog of not seeing who my parents were, also swirled and darkened my access to emotions that were what they truly were.

    Meaning, I didn't have access to moving away from fear, and even more tragically, I didn't have emotions of warmth and kindness that moved me towards goodness.

    Not having access to warmth and kindness, kept me pushed back on the inside, not feeling drawn to children inside.

    My insides were all wrong.  

    My arms could wrap around them…but not my heart.

    My heart was used for clinging to abuse….so oddly it is, if you could see your children as hurtful, unkind, etc, then they could be loved.

    Not sure if you all can follow this, but it makes bitter sense to me.

    What gratitude I have for the fog lifting 7 years ago…and to see in harsh reality my parents and what they did to defenseless children unable to escape; I then was able to walk right-side up.

    Walking and pushing back from abuse and things that hurt me…allowed me to feel warmth toward my children…to feel their innocence and my deranged mind.

    For all the mothers out there who have doubts and glimpses of their childhood terrors, and are unable to see straight through to what their mother did…You will enact her emotional pattern.

    You will love what hurts…and be pushed back and away from kindness, love, peace and joy.  You will shut out the Light side of life, while stoking the fires of hell…and not even know it, for the blindness of surviving your childhood blocks you from seeing.

    Growing up means taking down the survival glasses and facing the reality of your childhood, feeling and seeing the defenselessness of being you in their home.

    The blocking out abuse lenses are also blocking you from seeing your innocence.  

    If you can't see you as an innocent child, your children will never wear that banner…

    It all falls down to pick one.

    You or your parents are innocent or to blame, for the childhood abuse.

    Depending upon what path you take; your children are sure to follow.

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  • Who Believed the Worst About Herself.

    In the aftermath of reading David Hawkins, I am left with an even greater understanding or perhaps an explanation of my journey, how I arrived, what happened that covered my eyes and spirit; my innocence.

    I almost felt that I was responsible for being so irresponsible, that I had somehow fallen asleep carelessly or that perhaps I didn't care enough to save myself or was kind enough to save my sisters or any other girl who was abused after me.

    There was a part of me, a pretty large part that felt I was responsible for being so irresponsible…and that irresponsibility is my nature, my soul's fingerprint, the DNA of who I am.  

    Another huge chunk also enjoyed the haughty elitism of the FALC; the one right pathway to Heaven.  That I didn't mind all the other poor souls going to hell…I was heartless to the core…Self Rightiously superior and self absorbed.

    When my 'truths' of my first forty-six years revealed themselves to be false, I began the digging process to uncover how I had gotten so blind, backwards and confused, and who was the real me underneath it all?

    It feels like I am paleontologist of my own life, where I am trying to get to the fossil of who I am…to see me in my natural state.

    While it takes courage to be willing to want to know the truth, to search for answers to your irresponsibility, to go into your coldness, your blindness to evil within as well as out; like researching a monster called Self.

    Being a detective in your own life…your dysfunctional life.  

    Taking apart your mental mind, re-creating the pathways of beliefs that led you to act like a robot…with a mind completely closed down and emotions and feelings buried deep.  A great student of hatred in order to feel good.  

    What I recall of the First Apostolic Lutheran Church, is that they spoke of nonbelievers as being the devil, along with items they called sins; how they will slowly take away your 'faith' little by little.  When in actuality, they (preachers) were taking away our innocence bit by bit.

    Each time we believed in the sermon about nonbelievers being bad, we were taught to hate them.  Each time we relinquished our rights to our body, the preachers/church won another part of our lives.

    Its subtle and not so subtle messages slowly turned us into hating not only others but our own flesh and blood…and the weakness of self against them.

    How it would be impossible to resist the devil, so best not to dance the first step.

    Innocence and strength of spirit was not preached…but wretchedness and our inherent weakness poured into us. 

    I recall spending my first night at a non-relative nonbeliever's home…I was in grade school.  They had a TV, the parents drank beer, and I was afraid to go to sleep.  I was terrified, like sleeping in the devils home.  Fear of them…and fear of the pull and not being able to resist.  I remember we slept on the floor in the livingroom, and she fell asleep with the TV on…and I was mesmerized watching it, while knowing it was wrong, but couldn't stop.  I felt how 'evil' was stronger than I.

    The little innocent child self, curious and in wonderment, wanted to see TV, knowing it was wrong…did so and then was terrified I would die with this sin in me and go directly to hell.  Stuck in a home of nonbelievers.  A weak child against the demons.

    Looking upon this from the perspective of the program they were putting in place sickens me.  Not so much the program which is so filled with elitism, but the fact that the innocent child gulps this up without question. 

    Eroding its sense of pureness. Imagine by grade school, I was already gone.  

    Now add onto this being abused by my father.  I am weak and wretched once again.  

    And now my mother's opinion of me comes in.  Once again, no one sees my innocence.  It must be true.

    Three very influential factions in my little world all see me as no longer innocent.

    There is no way I can't turn on myself and see me as they see me.  

    See my body as they see my body.

    And if I was of stronger 'faith' or a stronger little girl, I could have saved my innocence….I believed.  I was the one who was weak and couldn't save myself.  Because I couldn't I was responsible for being irresponsible.

    I didn't pull apart the string so deeply to see the intricate pieces of how all my innocence was lost.  

    If the church still held me innocent, while I had lost it with my father, I would have then been half innocent; half good.  But, there was no one in my little life that seen me as a very innocent child whose consciousness is not devious.

    What a big burden for a child to carry, the lack of innocence and good.

    No matter how much I tried to do good, It was never enough to erase the DNA of being guilty for losing my innocence…hating my weakness against evil.  I lost and it won, always.

    To see myself and to know myself and to feel myself as being innocent/good/a joyful Spirit was taken from me…replaced with feelings of guilt, shame and weakness. 

    It is like the church/dysfunctional parent rips apart all that is natural, and of spirit; peace, love and joy…transforming the child of innocence, to reflect instead, that of the devil and hatred and fear.

    What chance does the child have?  

    No wonder I felt weak and powerless, I was.  I was weak in discernment, weak in not standing up against adults.  I was weak in not questioning…I was weak and unable to fight those who were determined to have my innocence.

    Yet I berated myself and my weakness…and grew into a girl wise beyond her years.  An old person in a young life.  I tried to control what was out of my control….and felt guilty when I couldn't.

    I knew I lost my innocence. I knew I was weak.  What I didn't know was that the strong people in my life preyed upon this.  That there was no way in hell I could have stopped this.  

    Not the rape of my body nor the rape of my innocent mind by the church…nor could I have convinced my mother.  For her love of both of them left me with no one to turn to.

    As Dr. Maya Angelou says, "Children's talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives."

    What I failed to appreciate are a few things;

    The strength of the adults and the natural inherent trust of the child and its inability to discern makes it the weaker of the two.  It isn't that I was irresponsible, I was naturally over taken.  

    I didn't fight this larger system.  Which leads to another quote by Dr. Maya Angelou "…surrender in its place was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice."

    I now can honor my lack of resistance, for I had no choice.

    It wasn't weakness…I surrendered in order to survive.

    I can vividly see, feel and know the weakness wasn't weakness, but the truth of being a child…it is inherently weak against an adult.

    It isn't a personal character flaw, a carelessness or calculated callousness; I was naturally being a child.

    I could weep for the natural little girl…who believed the worst about herself.

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    Photograph, by Hannah Jukuri

     

     

     

  • How It Feels

    I am reading "The Body Never Lies," again by Alice Miller.  

    What is really standing out to me this time around is the fact about feelings. Or the fact that it is more typical than not to not be aware of your true feelings.

    Alice writes, "Genuine Feelings are never a product of conscious effort. They are quite simply there, and they are there for a very good reason, even if that reason is not always apparent.  I cannot force myself to love or honor my parents if my body rebels against such an endeavor for reasons that are well-known to it.  But if I still attempt to obey the Fourth Commandment, then the upshot will be the kind of stress that is invariably involved when I demand the impossible of myself.  This kind of stress has accompanied me almost all my life.  Anxious to stay in line with the system of moral values I had accepted, I did my best to imagine good feeings I did not possess while ignoring the bad feelings I did have.  My aim was to be loved as a daughter.  But the effort was all in vain.  In the end I had to realize that I cannot force love to come if it is not there in the first place.  On the other hand, I learned that a feeling of love will establish itself automatically (for example, love for my children or love for my friends) once I stop demanding that I feel such love and stop obeying the moral injunctions impossed on me.  But such a sensation can happen only when I feel free and remain open and receptive to all my feelings, including the negative ones."

    "The realization that I cannot manipulate my feelings, that I can delude neither myself nor others, brought me immense relief and liberation.  Only then was I fully struck by the large number of people who (like myself) literally almost kill themselves in the attempt to obey the Fourth Commandment, without any consideration of the price this extracts both from their own bodies and from their children.  As long as the children allow themselves to be used this way, it is entirely possible to live to be one hundred without any awareness of one's own personal truth and without any illness ensuing from this protracted form of self-deception."

    "A mother who is forced to realize that the deprivations imposed on her in her youth make it impossible for her to love a child of her own, however hard she may try, can certainly expect to be accused of immorality if she has the courage to put that truth into words. But I believe that it is precisely this explicit acceptance of her true feelings, independent of the claims of morality, that will enable her to give both herself and her children the honest and sincere kind of support they need most, and at the same time allow her to free herself from the shackles of self-deception."

    "When most children are born, what they need most from their parents is love, by which I mean affection, attention, care, protection, kindness, and the willingness to communicate.  If these needs are gratified, the bodies of those children will retain the good memory of such caring, affection all their lives, and later, as adults, they will be able to pass on the same kind of love to their children. But if this is not the case, the children will be left with a lifelong yearning for the fulfillment of their initial (and vital) needs. In later life, this yearning will be directed at other people.  In comparison, the more implacably children have been deprived of love and negated or maltreated in the name of "Upbringing," the more those children, on reaching adulthood, will look to their parents (or other people substituting for them) to supply all the things those same parents failed to provide when they were needed most.  This is a normal response on the part of the body.  It knows precisely what it needs, it cannot forget the deprivations.  The deprivation or hole is there waiting to be filled."

    "The older we get, the more difficult it is to find other people who can give us the love our parents denied us. But the body's expectations do not slacken with age – quite the contrary!  They are merely directed at others, usually our own children and grandchildren.  The only way out of this dilemma is to become aware of these mechanisms and to identify the reality of our own childhood by counteracting the process of repression and denial.  In this way we can create in our own selves a person who can satisfy at least some of the needs that have been waiting for fulfillment since birth, if not earlier.  Then we can give ourselves the attention, the respect, the understanding for our emotions, the sorely needed protection, and the unconditional love that our parents withheld from us."

    "To make this happen we need one special experience; the experience of love for the child we once were.  Without it, we have no way of knowing what love consists of."  Alice Miller

    While I knew that having lived 46 years trying so hard to possess feelings of love and warmth toward my parents, and working at being a warmer person, it had never not once occurred to me that I wasn't the problem. That due to the lack of feelings of love didn't mean there was something the matter with me…but rather what I was trying to love.

    I remember having odd and horrifying realizations about my self, when the lack of deep caring and love didn't arise from me, towards my parents.  I would not even want to glance to long at this self that seemed to be so detached and cool.  For what child doesn't want to be with her parents?

    The double feelings that I had with the discovery that my father was a pedophile, was that I wasn't a broken love person.  I wasn't cold or detached…I wasn't living in a broken body and cold toward family…I wasn't damaged…but my family was.

    I am not sure I can tell you how it feels to believe you don't have access to warmth and caring or love towards parents…and feel you are damaged. That you arrived empty of that kind of love.  Yet I knew I could feel, but couldn't carry those feelings to my parents.

    It now gives me great peace to know I can't manipulate feelings…that emotions are natural responses, ones that come up without any assistance from me.  It leaves me in a neutral position taking the lead from my body.

    My body never lies…however, I have lied about my body.

    I have lived faking my feelings.

    Living a fake life.

    But no more.  Now, I simply agree with how It feels.

     

  • Wish For Your Self.

    What a great year of learning, again.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Seeing life differently is where the key lies.

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

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

    "In this famous novel Fateless, the Hungarian writer and Nobel laureate Imre Kertesz describes his arrival at the Auschwitz concentration camp.  He was fifteen years old at the time, and he tells us in great detail how he attempted to interpet the many grotesque and appalling things he encountered on his arrival there as something positive and favorable for him.  Otherwise he would not have survived his own mortal fear."

    "Probably every child who has suffered abuse must assume an attitude like this in order to survive. These children reinterpret their perceptions in a desperate attempt to see as good and beneficial things that outside observers would immediately classify as crimes. Children have no choice.  They must repress their true feelings if they have no "helping witness" to turn to and are helplessly exposed to their persecutors. Later as adults lucky enough to encounter "enlightened witnesses," they do have a choice. Then they can admit the truth, their truth; they can stop pitying and "understanding" their persecutors, stop trying to feel their unsustainable, disassociated emotions, and roundly denounce the things that have been done to them.  This step bring immense relief for the body.  It no longer has to forcibly remind the adult self of the tragic history it went through as a child. Once the adult self has decided to find out the whole truth about itself, the body feels understood, respected, and protected."

    "I call the violent kind of "upbringing" abuse, not only because children are thus refused the right to dignity and respect as human beings but also because such an approach to parenting establishes a kind of totalitarian regime in which it is impossible for children to perceive the humilations, indignities, and disrespect they have been subjected to, let alone defend themselves against them. These patterns of childhood will inevitably then be adopted by their victims and used on their partners and their own children, at work, in politics, wherever fear and anxiety of the profoundly insecure child can be fended off with the aid of external power. It is in this way that dictators are born; these are people with a deep-seated contempt for everyone else, people who were never respected as children and thus do their utmost to earn that respect at a later stage with the assistance of the gigantic power apparatus they have built around them."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Never Lied.

    In "Power vs Force" by David Hawkins, he writes,

    "In the experiments to be described in this book, the reactions of the human body provide such a signal of change in conditions.  As will be seen, the body can discern, to the finest degree, the difference between that which is supportive of life and that which is not." 

    "This isn't surprising: After all, living things react positively to what is life-supportive and negatively to what is not; this is a fundamental mechanism of survival.  Inherent in all life forms is the capacity to detect change and react collectively – thus, trees become smaller at higher elevations as the oxygen in the atmosphere becomes scarer. Human protoplasm is far more sensitive than that of a tree." DH

    There is so much going on in the Universe that we are not aware of; all the little choices that are made due to a detection of change in conditions.

    I see the home environment as a small universe within the universe. And its occupants with highly sensitive bodies, that detect change of conditions.  

    Children come in with bodies of high intelligence, that far exceeds what their minds know.  And they too learn to grow or not grow depending upon the climate within the home.

    No matter what they are told, they can feel the lay of the land, and adapt in order to survive.  When love turns abusive…their bodies detect the change of conditions…they become alert, wary, anxious, etc…and grow accordingly.

    They will require less if less is given. 

    Or flourish and expand according to the safety and love given.

    You don't have to know the intimate details of a family home, just look at its children.  How are they doing in society?  Are they flourishing or floundering?

    We step forth with the markers of how we were raised.

    You can see those of us who lived in home environments where the child wasn't seen; we have a hard time finding ourselves, our voices, our worth.  We grew low…we adjusted our selves and didn't rise higher than the treatment.

    Our stunted growth shows.  

    The lack of emotional growth or balanced lives.

    What is so remarkable, is that we forget we are not permanently planted, like a tree. We can transplant ourselves…and Move to a more Life Supporting environment.

    What is hard for folks to imagine is that parents will naturally keep their children at the same level they are.  They can only raise a child as high as they are, no higher.  

    My life clearly showed how I only grew as high as my mother. 

    And it would have been stunted there, had I not gotten out.

    My body had always felt the negative vibes, but I had overrode them.  I believed that my body was working incorrectly, for it was sending signals Against family.  

    I believed that I had to work harder to be/feel more loving toward my parents.  I had feeling issues.

    It was a horrifying relief to know my body was right on.

    Except now I had to reverse all that I knew and follow this highly sensitive brilliant body…and celebrate each feeling.

    For each feeling was a signal to me of the condition and changes around me.  It didn't care what I believed, what dogma I followed, what history I had with people, it was literally moving around beeping and binging messages to me, constantly.

    It is like having the best instrument in all the Universe…and you live in it.  

    Once you are aware that the body talks to you constantly, you can't be unaware.  

    To stand by your feelings is to stand hand in hand with the Ultimate power; God/Universe.

    What I see in abusive homes, is we are taught to worship a lesser god, one that disregards our feelings.  Our parents. 

    When you honor and love your parents in an abusive home, going against the feelings of your body, you are being turned away from your Higher Power.  

    What is so amazing to me is that God created our bodies and yet we don't see the connection or feel the vast Divinity of them…nor trust that God made them to work perfectly. 

    Doubting the body, to me is, doubting God. 

    When someone abuses our bodies, they are actually wrecking the gift that God created.  

    When others treat our bodies violently, we are taught to not feel like the gift we are.

    It takes lots of effort to restore our selves to our natural state.

    My life changed completely when I stopped honoring my parents and began to honor my body…it truly has never lied.

     

     

     

     

     

  • God’s Peace

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

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

                Byron Katie

     

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    You had no one to show you the way. 

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

    Yours was not, for you gave birth to me.

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

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

    God’s Peace.

     

     

     

  • Love responds in truth always

    In my mother's latest note I found a new viewpoint, another place where we don't match, the two drastically differing ways to deal in life.

    While she keeps coming back to how she feels and how she sees me, I too keep coming back to my viewpoint of her and they don't match.

    My experience of her, isn't her experience of me.

    I did bring her joy and help.  I did try my best to alleviate the overwhelming situations of being in a family of 14, what I failed to understand that behind me, she and her husband were making things even more difficult to manage.  A backdoor was opening and closing allowing in abuse, that was eroding the family atmosphere I worked so hard to keep afloat.

    She keeps talking about what I was doing and NEVER mentions what she was doing behind my back.  My aching tired and overstressed back.  I was seeing chiropractors in middle school…ya think???

    Trying to keep her family together…when abuse was ripping it apart. There wasn't enough I could do to mend what they broke.  And yet she speaks of it not.

    Tell me mother what do you think it was like being a child of yours?

    Tell me mother…how do you think it feels to be me. 

    My abuse went unnoticed, uncared for, unreported…with no response from you…except that you appreciate my help and joy.  Imagine an abused child now has to bring help and joy…while no one tends to their wounds.  We try harder to please for somehow in this upside downstate, when you fail to take responsibility, we do.  

    You say you love me.  How I ask?  How?

    What does love look like to you?  Does love turn its back on the hurting?  Does love not see the abuse?  

    You keep repeating words about love, but can't take a step that is loving.  

    Love walks right into abuse and takes full responsibility.

    Love protects the child at all costs.

    Love doesn't forgive and forget, it remembers and acts accordingly.

    Love is being in your truth and my truth.

    Love is not just a four letter word…

    Love is fearlessly seeing what you don't want to see and doing things you can't imagine doing, to protect the innocent and to stand strong against those who hurt.

    Love…doesn't only see what is kind.

    Love sees it all…and love responds in truth always.

     

     

     

  • When She Writes It.

    I am at work, with a racking cough, aching bones and going through piles of mail, and come across my name and my mother's handwriting.  

    I put it in my slot. 

    What now, I wonder, what now…?  The added weight of the letter works on me as I continue to toss the mail.

    As I am bundling the mail to take on the route, I put mine in my purse, in case I decide I need to know what she has to say somewhere along my route.  I don't.  I feel the weight without even reading the words.

    I listen to a novel, moving along box to box, road to road, package to package….time passes, and she comes and goes along the route and I don't read it until I turn on my road.

    These words are spread out on stationary sheet, blue snowflakes around the border…plain white middle.

    Birthday/Christmas 2011

    Dearest Beth,

    You have been a great help and joy for many years.  You are my daughter and I have always loved you from Day 1.

    May God bless us all and give peace in 2012.

    A Mother's Love,

    Always and Forever,

    Mom

    I wonder what she is trying to accomplish by this letter.  What prompts her to send out these words?

    Stating a mother's love? Trying again to make me believe…

     A mother's love???  A mother who blessed her husband when he raped me.  Really, you loved me since day one.  I would beg to differ.  No matter how many times you write it, it still sounds hollow to me.  I don't feel the love.  Too many little girls lives were changed by how you loved me.

    She says I have been a great help and joy….And I certainly had been to abuse. She mentions nothing about my actions today, the present Beth, just the Beth of old.  She sees only her….refusing to acknowledge my changes, the new me.

    "May God Bless us all and give peace in 2012."  

    What is peace to her?  Would peace return to her life, If I would turn back into being a help and a joy for abuse?  Would peace then return, is that the Blessing she wants from her God?  

    Peace in dysfunction…an oxymoron for sure.

    Taken at a glance and just reading the words, it sounds like a lovely letter from a mother to her daughter; but the background experiences taint the words.

    Even the little girl in me feels the absence of her understanding as to where I am at.  I don't know if she can even fathom my path…our differences are so vast.

    While these notes may be comforting or helpful to her, they are not to me.  They come in blindly seeing only how she feels and what I brought….they fail to see how I felt or what I got back then.

    I asked myself, "what did I get from her…?"

    What is my response to her.  

    As a daughter of hers what can I possibly say?

    "Mommy Dearest…"  

    It seems when the hurt gets toughened up and put aside, she comes back in to peck at the cut.  I told her the kindest thing I have to offer her is silence.  No words.  Nothing.  Empty of retorts.

    As soon as I ponder what I would respond, it gets my blood pressure pumping.  I feel all the rage and wounds and resentment, hurt and pain.  Not only for me, but so many little girls, I get swallowed in the dark…I have no kind words to send back to her.

    I stop mentally writing a response…

    I just want her to remain silent.  To let it be.  To stop writing how much she loves me and how she will be my mother forever and always.

    Don't I know it.  Haven't I felt her brand of Love?  Was I not given another dose even today?  How can a mother who allowed such atrocities go on, write this letter to a Me?

    All she sees is how she loved me, not HOW she loved me.

    She misses all the places she wasn't aware…and I was abused.

    She misses all the things she overlooked that caused me pain.

    She misses all the mothering things she failed to accomplish when abuse walked through her door into her life, into her marriage and into her daughter.  She misses that.

    She only wants to see the joy and help.  She doesn't want to see the gaping wound of dysfunction.

    The wound that steered my life into flowing backwards and crooked.

    Seeing my Helping her and Joy for many years IS NOT what I need her to see. She doesn't need to see me that way.

    She needs to see me, a little child being hurt by her father. She needs to see that and then write letter about how she loved me so.

    Without mentioning my pain, her love stays golden.

    And without mentioning my pain… I would dissolve back into a land of dysfunction again.

    She keeps sending me letters expounding on her love…when a letter explaining how she couldn't have loved me would be more true to the nature of my experience.

    I don't want a love letter… I want a letter telling me how she abused me.  Isn't that odd.  We don't want our abusive parents to tell us how much they loved us for we carry scars of abuse…we want them to acknowledge what they did to us was not love.

    I could puke on the words of love she writes.

    Trying to give me her love…in words, when she failed in deeds.

    Once again, she didn't write the letter that will break my silence…

    She continues to hide behind a loving mother…when reality has shown me the opposite.  

     It is good for me to know what letter I am waiting for.  I always felt no need to respond, and now I know what words I am seeking…my truth, I will recognize it when she writes it.

     ‎"Truth can be Unrecognized, but it can't be changed." 

    David Hawkins