I M Perfect lady

Tag: abuse

  • Being on a Leash.

    As I listened to the rest of the book, ""Sway" The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior…by Ori Brafman, I learned more about the nature of being human and the irrational reasons we do that which we do.

    What I love is that all humans respond similarly; that no one is immune, that our bodies and brains are all equal…and we all fall victim to the irresistible pull of irrational behavior…it is in our nature.

    Our brains work the same way when prompted and can be fooled and are tricked more often than not.

    The example of a world renowned Violin Player playing his violin in the Subway…on his 3 million dollar violin, will go unnoticed, for he is out of place.  Our minds will not consider the inconsiderable, unless we challenge it or perhaps force it to go against the irresistible pull to go against what it 'knows'.  And it knows that famous Violin Players are in concert halls not in subways.

    In this case the violin player is out of its normal environment…so we fail to see him.

    I was also enthralled with the dynamics of groups and how we fail to act as an individual within them…unless one Individual stands up…we will move as a group, swayed in the same direction.

    I know this works in a cult.  And any dissenters are quickly shunned into silence…for in order for a cult to work, there can be only one leader and one view point…a cult is not a free society…you are ALL to move as ONE.

    When raised in a cult, you use the same model for your family; the parents are the leaders and there can be no dissenters present…ever.  Those who dare speak against the parent are quickly removed from having any relationship with those inside.

    For you are a threat to the force of One.  ONE family…not one individual within the family….the family comes first before your individual needs.  You are not allowed to do for Self.

    A dissenter isn't allowed to come in whether as a voice of a child within the family or an outsider.

    A dissenter brings gifts of discord and discord brings disagreement and disagreement opens the door that weakens the group and will lead to the empowerment of the individual.

    And dysfunctional families and cults are NOT interested in the power of the individual…keeping the Group together is the pull which leads to incredible irrational behavior. 

    The very thing that an abused child needs is kept from them…empowerment, being an individual, owner of her feelings…etc.

    An empowered child will not allow further abuse.  

    An empowered individual will not stay within a cult.

    Only victims are not empowered.

    This fear based irrational behavior of parents clinging tightly to the family group, lead to children having to push back in order to heal…or remain powerless inside.

    What my mother said she wanted was for me to heal, but she wanted me to do that within the structure of an abusive family.  It is like being a free spirit within a cult.

    The dynamics of a dysfunctional family is that there is but one leader, one voice and one choice and there is no room for a second opinion or feeling or expression or an equal power.  The very structure is based on Victim and Abuser.  

    This structure will not stand if there is empowerment or a dissenting vote.

    What most dysfunctional families want is to remain the same while allowing the adult children to heal.

    Each time I have written HEAL, what flashes through my mind is a dog heeling….keeping him on a loose leash…walking beside you.

    This is what freedom looks like to a dysfunctional family…they still want you to remain on a family leash, obediently walking while the parent holds the leash.

     

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    Life just isn't the same being on a leash…

     

  • Parents Call Family.

    I came across this paragraph in "Codependent No More" by Melody Beatte. 

    "Codependents are indirect. We don't say what mean, we don't mean what we say.  We don't do this on purpose. We do it because we've learned to communicate this way. At some point, either in our childhood or adult family, we learned it was wrong to talk about problems, express feelings, and express opinions. We've learned it was wrong to directly state what we want and need. It was certainly wrong to say no, and stand for ourselves. An alcoholic (abusive) parent or spouse will be glad to teach these rules; we have been too willing to learn and accept them." MB

    Communicating poorly was taught to us.

    To NOT communicate how we felt was demanded of us, expected of us.  This was dictated by the abusive parent who needed us to not mention how their behavior felt to us.  Or god forbid, speak of it to another person, share our experience, express our feelings… and communicate about abuse.  

    Even the spouse of the abuser will follow the rules.  They too will not talk about the 'problems' and the child then has no adult to which he/she can communicate directly.  

    Direct communication becomes extinct.

    If you communicate directly to these such folks, (abusers and their partners) you will be snuffed out, silenced, tossed to the curb, annihilated from their lives.  They will easily get rid of you so as not to hear a direct communication about a 'problem'.

    Their problem, their abusive behavior, their cover up, their lack of paying attention, their lack of doing nothing, their lacks in allowing abuse to continue on.  They certainly don't want to hear about it OR how it has affected the lives of so many and how it is now trickling down into the next generation. 

    Abuse has its own island, and while we were born upon that island, we can't tell anyone what happened there, how we lived, who was there and what happened…it is like we fell from the sky, but not raised in abuse. 

    Yet we spent the first 18 years of our lives there…and it is as if 'nothing' happened.  As if our early years are meaningless.  Our parents don't want to know that they indeed left a permanent scar

    Our battle scars are wounds that go unhealed, for the very thing we need to heal is forbidden.  We are not allowed treatment.

    Imagine, one parent wounds you and the other refuses to treat you…a child is left on the island unable to communicate, or it will be tossed out to sea, the sea of estrangement.

    And guess what, it matters not how many years pass on, whether you are now married with children, IF you ever dare speak of your life on the Island of Abuse, you will be banished…

    Many feel it is better to live among those on the Island and speak indirectly and without meaning, than to speak their truth and fall into the sea.

    Those are our two damn choices. 

    Pick one.

    The sea of estrangement brought me back to me.

    I still see the Island and hear about the Islanders, their parties and their lives…and in the early days of swimming alone, I longed to go back, but each and every time I considered it, I knew that I would have to leave the new me behind.

    The rules on the Island forbade the use of direct communication or expression of ones feelings or to discuss problems.  If I were to go back, I go back as a voiceless, choiceless, indirect and meaning not what I say girl.  I can't.

    Once you get used to swimming in the sea of freedom and truth, it is impossible to be happy on the Island of Abuse.  

    Which I know is why many parents are scared spit-less for their children to speak up and be direct, for it means they are heading to the open sea…and when they get a taste of being free, they will never return to the dark Island of Abuse. 

    One that the parents call family.

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  • Living Vicariously.

    In the last blog post about Authoritarian child rearing…where the child is taught to listen to the parent, always…and forget how IT feels and how the parents are not open to a new way of seeing the world, PERHAPS from the child's eyes…leads to the greatest downfall of human kind; The separation from your own feelings…your truth.

    And actually, it isn't that we are separated from them, but we are taught to disregard them.  And in the disregarding of your own feelings, you are raised to live BY the feelings of others.

    Instead of a seeing eye dog to lead the blind around, we are given a Feeling Like I, person that we follow.

    We are taught NOT to use the wonderful instrument called the human body, but to disassociate from it….and hop on the backs of someone else's feelings and live from there.

    Living vicariously through their lives.

    I had to look up the definition of Vicarious….

    indirectly, as, by, or through a substitute; "she enjoyed the wedding vicariously". 

    Imagine, we are taught to live Indirectly and not directly in our own lives.

    I spent 46 vicarious years on the backs of my parents, my church, my friends…you name them and I was there in their lives…contributing and giving to make their lives 'happier' or whatever, meanwhile, I was nowhere to be found in my own.

    I was substituting their life for my own.

    When we are raised to not be directly with our feelings, we are then taught to not feel, that which we feel and to give up our feelings for the sake and happiness of another's feelings.

    We are brought up to live outside of our own bodies…and it doesn't help when we are abused, for in that moment too, it isn't about our feelings, but the feelings and needs of our abusers.  We assume this is life as usual, for our feelings have never mattered.  

    How is sexual abuse different from physical or verbal, when our feelings don't matter?

    Abuse compounds the authoritarian parenting style.

    Or perhaps, abuse is the outcome of trying to hijack another life and make it your own.  

    My demeanor was very dark as I mothered as an authoritarian…I was stealing lives just as my mother did.  Raiding their feelings to make me feel better.  Insanity and incredibly selfish.

    The only reason I let go of being the Authoritarian, is that I learned what I had the authority over….Abuse.

    My power, my control, my high handedness was all to keep abuse flowing freely and protecting and pouring loving feelings into a dark pit…a vortex of unending demand.

    I was a key player in keeping the Play called Family alive and when in reality, it wasn't family, it was abuse.  

    So, I had taken the same power and control and worked it sadistic magic to steal my children's feelings, hijacking them to make me feel good, just as I was taught as a child.  And we called this love.

    It was only when I seen the Reality Play and the Characters without the masks I was continually providing, did I stop acting.

    It was my acting that kept this all alive…I acted differently than I felt.  I acted in ways that made my parents smile, made them happy, even if it was allowing abuse. 

    Once I seen what the script I was reading from was really doing, I was horrified.  It wasn't about a loving family, it was all choreographed to keep a pedophile operating.

    By Acting against my feelings and by keeping the family script going, I was not seeing or feeling what was really going on…and in doing so, was blind to the abuse.

    What still haunts me is the depth of my blindness and the breadth of my believability…how naively I was born upon this stage and began speaking in double speak, going the opposite direction of my feelings.

    And in doing so, gave me a life that was the opposite of reality.

    I am now an authoritarian about my feelings.

    I live directly with them and will not stray away from how they feel.

    If you can't be direct with how you feel, most likely you are living vicariously.

     

     

  • Authoritarian Lifestyle.

    ‎‎"Since authoritarian parents are always right, there is no need for their children to rack their brains in each case to determine whether what is demanded of them is right or not. And how is this to be judged? Where are the standards supposed to come from if someone has always been told what was right and what was wrong and if he never had an opportunity to become familiar with his own feelings and if, beyond that, attempts at criticism were unacceptable to the parents and thus were too threatening for the child? If an adult has not developed a mind of his own, then he will find himself at the mercy of the authorities for better or worse, just as an infant finds itself at the mercy of its parents. Saying no to those more powerful will always seem to threatening to him". Alice Miller ~ For Your Own GoodSince authoritarian parents are always right, there is no need for their children to rack their brains in each case to determine whether what is demanded of them is right or not. And how is this to be judged? Where are the standards supposed to come from if someone has always been told what was right and what was wrong and if he never had an opportunity to become familiar with his own feelings and if, beyond that, attempts at criticism were unacceptable to the parents and thus were too threatening for the child? If an adult has not developed a mind of his own, then he will find himself at the mercy of the authorities for better or worse, just as an infant finds itself at the mercy of its parents. Saying no to those more powerful will always seem to threatening to him". Alice Miller ~ For Your Own Good

    "Since authoritarian parents are always right, there is no need for their children to rack their brains in each case to determine whether what is demanded of them is right or not…is the sentence that struck me.  So, in homes like these the children are ALWAYS wrong.

    Imagine what this does to the self-esteem of the child and how voiceless they are. And if they always succumb to the power of authority, they will never get the chance to be on their own.

    And this is another way we lose our connections to our feelings, IF they are always 'wrong' we no longer trust them.  Instead we trust what the authoritarians are saying….and God Forbid we dare criticise…for we have been taught IT is not acceptable.

    The children of the FALC are mostly raised this way…in fact the parents of the church bow down to the power of authority (Ministers) and the rules of the church. And they then power over their children expecting them to act like they do….

    Being without connections to their feelings…and instead do as the authoritarians tell them to do.  A cycle of no one daring to criticize, for Only the ones in power are right.

    And within this system child abuse occurrs and it is so easy, for the children have been primed to do so…by simply being born into this authoritarian lifestyle.

     

  • Going Back, Willingly.

    One of my personality traits isn't really a trait, but a side affect of being abused…while I have heard the term Post traumatic Stress disorders, I hadn't considered myself out of order, when in certain situations, it clearly is so.

    What is witnessed as being out of control, is actually me grasping control of the situation and reality, so I don't get 'abused again'…I have a hair trigger where power seekers, offenders, liars, false promisers, people who always hand out the short end of the stick, etc are concerned.

    I can smell the hint of offensive behavior, words and false promises a mile away and I cut them off at the pass.  I clearly state without a smidgen of wiggle room, the swindle they are trying to slip by me.

    This can lead to loud outbursts, but with a very clear intent on my part as to what I will and what I will not accept.

    My boundaries which in the past were non-existent, are now like an electric fence.

    Without a boundary fence, people could do and say pretty much anything without 'getting a rise' out of me, in fact I was considered pretty laid back and hard to 'ruffle'…and I considered that too a personality trait, when it was actually a signal of No boundaries.

    Normal has to lie between the two…a bridge that isn't so igniting or completely shut down.

    Will I ever be labeled as normal, or is my 'electric' reaction normal for me?

    My husband has alluded to the fact that it is now normal for me to react with precision and zero in on any hint of abuse, albeit sexual, physical, emotional…I am on it and refuse to let it go.

    There is no almost abuse, or a 'little' lie, or loving control or friendly manipulation.  I see abuse as abuse; whether it is a seed just sprouting or a life times worth.  I am abuse detector and my alarms go off.

    My body comes alive and alert and intensely focused to do battle with whom ever is trying to steal my power or that of someone I love…whereas in the past all my signals were disconnected or I overrode them by disengaging them around 'family'.

    For now it seems to me that this new reaction is my body learning how to respond in a new way to an old dance.  It is me even learning to trust that I can say what I need to say, but not have 40 years of submission bursting forth to 'tell 'em off'….

    I can't know how long I will be considered Post Traumatic…or if this is what they call a chronic condition…but if I had to pick to either be totally shut down or completely tuned in….I will take the later.

    My Post Traumatic Stress disorder, my sometimes verbally attacking response, is me fighting back against abuse…it is me gaining my power, using my words, standing up with shaky guts facing the controlling powers that be.

    Even if I do it without the grace and dignity that others seem to have, at least I am no longer a silent unmoving victim.

    What just came to me is that I would shoot wildly at innocent targets, for I didn't know the real source of where my power was leaking…I had mistakenly believed that anyone I couldn't control was stealing my power. When in fact, anyone who controlled me was stealing my power.

    It isn't about the people I control, but about the people who control me.

    What I have learned is that there will be lines after lines of people who want to control you, and it is up to you to say no.

    And If you say No, and they don't hear it, disregard it…what they are wanting most is to control you.  "No is a complete sentence" says Oprah.

    Any time you are not able to say no, your power is gone.

    Yes and No are the swinging doors to freedom…if all that is accepted is a yes, you are with someone who is controlling you.

    I can smell the teeniest hints of only one choice or no choice….and I burst forth knowing the cage is about to settle down upon me.

    I remember the caged feeling and I go beserk….Post Traumatic, I have been there before and have no intention of going back, willingly.

     

     

     

  • How Low are your boundaries…

    “All children are born to grow, to develop, to live, to love, and to articulate their needs and feelings for their self-protection” ~ Alice Miller

    Who knew that in order to grow up, you have to learn how to articulate your feelings and needs?  

    Isn't it funny in a peculiar way, how the parents who abused us believe they know what our needs are.  Really?  You do?

    What is even more tragic is that we continue to believe they have our best interest at heart…really?  Are they not the same ones who lowered who I was, who didn't allow me to self-protect?  

    There is no other crime in the world where the victim and the offender have relationships long long after the crime, where there is no separation…unless, and it is a very small proportion, the child presses charges against the parent.

    In order for the crime to be addressed, the child has to put his parent in jail…and be then accussed of 'breaking up the family'. Really, isn't it really just a crime ring?

    These crimes are snuggled nicely into the family unit, where the other spouse is a knowing accomplice, and the child or children are held victims forever…

    Even the whisper of 'speaking' of this sets off and in motion a torrent of fear that pulls tighter the controls of the patriarchal power…striking the child mute once again.

    The child fears to stand against the offender/accomplice…and is persuaded to return to the 'family' or crime ring.

    What I will never underestimate is the power of the parents to sway the sanity and well being of the family unit…and they have the exact same power to create insanity and hold it tightly within.

    Parents power will either be used to abuse or be used to love…and the children will follow in kind.

    Our family used family as a place for abuse to flourish…it wasn't used to raise and teach us self-protection, in fact it did the complete opposite.

    It is said that my father clothed and fed 14 children, but they fail to report how he didn't raise us, but instead stunted our emotional growth, rendered useless our power to self protect.

    He instead, along with my mother, set us out in the world without a way to protect ourselves, we had to learn this on our own.

    It took me 40 years to figure it out, that first step in the course of self protection was to learn to protect myself from my parents….

    No abusive parent will grant a child its rights to their needs or feelings, it is impossible for them to even consider it.

    Abusive parents are very self absorbed, they don't even know what you need, but the certainly and unequivocally LET You know what they need….and like always, we acquiesce our feelings and our needs to please them.

    What other crime does the victim work so hard and give up their lives to please the offender???

    If we are not standing up for our feelings and what our needs are we are laying down in order to please the one who lowered us.  How low will you go???  It is like insane limbo….and actually it does leave you life in limbo.

    It is my belief that offenders have no low limits, they could care less what is required of you in order to please them….it is up to us how low the bar goes, how low are your boundaries…

     

     

  • Rear-View Mirror

    It is interesting to me the dynamics of Functioning or Dysfunctional, and how the very nature of dysfunction leads you to make choices that will reap more dysfunction.

    The very nature of dysfunction is to not look at what is, or not feel that which you feel, which leads to a life that you won't look at or feel, which has you facing forward to the next moment in time, but not this moment.

    It is natural in the dysfunction to look ahead and disregard past behaviors, to not voice how you feel and to remain focused on the future, without looking out the side windows or definitely the back-window.  To not follow through with what you feel, but toss your feelings behind you and look ahead.

    My mother drove her life, heedless to how her actions affected us. Her attention on the future, kept her from dealing in the now. And she certainly was not going to look behind her at what lay there…and in doing so, years upon years of abuse lay scattered in her rear-view mirror, while she doggedly drove on into the sunset, never taking her foot off the gas peddle to stop.

    Her not stopping her life for an act of abuse…made it so my father didn't have to stop either…If she stopped, he would have been made to stop.

    She was his ticket to keep going.

    While she focused on the wide window in front of her, he was off to the side abusing, and in her rear-view mirror we all lay abused…while her attention was looking anywhere but there.

    Dysfunction is not looking and certainly not stopping your life style or interrupting your 'family' for abuse.

    Dysfunction doesn't stop when it sees abuse.  Dysfunction doesn't stop when it feels pain. Dysfunction doesn't stop when it is betrayed…dysfunction just plows ahead.

    Heading to a destination that is far away from abuse, into happiness or laughter, but dysfunction certainly doesn't stop for abuse.

    That is dysfunction. That is why families are okay with abuse, for it doesn't pay attention to it.  It allows it to ride along in the rearview mirror by promising NOT to LOOK.

    Looking at abuse is not permitted in dysfunction.

    Speaking about hurtful behavior by another is not allowed in dysfunction.  You are to forgive and move on, you are not allowed to hold 'grudges' or carry the truth forward, you must leave it lie in the rear-view mirror.

    Dysfunction is to create a person without a past.

    None of their 'sins' are taken into the future….only who they are today…sinless, abuseless, just a body without past actions….that is all that comes into the future.

    You are not allowed to look at the junk in their trunk…that is dysfunction…you must keep separating actions from the person.

    Surely I could keep a dad if I didn't bring forth the rape…that is dysfunction.  Yet,I kept looking behind in the rear-view mirror and seeing the rape….oh why couldn't I just focus on today…and a rosie future.

    In my experience, the only thing that happens if you never look back or out the side windows is Abuse gets to dance free….

    While my mother stared ahead toward future happiness…my father was able to rape and fondle and forcefully hold many little hands upon his penis…dysfunction won't look at abuse.

    Function stops and stares at abuse…function sees the child, function doesn't drive on…function stops her life…and stares behind her at all the flags she missed, all the places she didn't see…Function sees the monster…dysfunction sees the husband/wife.

    In order to continue on without abuse, you have to see where you have been…how you drove and not take that road again.

    Is impossible to stop abuse by not seeing it.  You can stare for the rest of your life ahead and it will not stop.

    Abuse needs you to not see.  My father needed all folks to Not see his abuse. And sadly, only the children saw it.  The helpless child felt the pressure of his powerful hands pressed upon his penis….they couldn't stop him.  

    Dysfunction will not stop and stare…

    I believe children are told to not talk about it, not dwell on it, to forgive that action and move on….it isn't that it isn't seen, but we are told to look ahead, and not to look behind.

    Not hold another person accountable…not let that one action or multitude of sins color their character, focus on the good times, the good things and ahead.

    That is the ingredients of dysfunctional families.  They don't stop for abuse…and they never look in the rear-view mirror.

    "Objects Are Closer than they Appear" 

     

     

  • Love will never leave you Powerless.

    In the past seven years, my brother and I have been dialoguing and most often coming to the same point, but from two different directions.  But we have always honored and respected each other enough to only speak our truths, even if and when that truth landed in unsettling ways…it seemed that we needed each of our sides in order to fully embrace and know the lay of the land.

    Our conversations often times are batting words and definitions around, trying to understand where the other is coming from.  For while we were raised in the same house, we came out differently, but the same. We both walked forth dysfunctional, yet displayed it in two different ways.

    I have been telling him for many many years, that he is Authentically Dysfunctional, and it meant to me that he was bravely owning all of his abuse and how it left him…and how he has done extremely remarkable in undoing the damage by learning to function in reality.

    What he heard was he could never not be Dysfunctional.  What I had implied was that he was openly dysfunctional and recovering his functions.

    For what I believe is the heart or root cause of the term Dysfunctional, is that you are unable to function correctly in a situation, that you do odd things instead of what nature would do.

    Our Function as a human being, no longer functions correctly; our systems begin to operate backwards.

    We are drawn to people who hurt us, instead of being repelled away.

    The complexities of living backwards is mountainous; our whole lives are lived blindly hurting ourselves and blaming others.

    We can't function on our own.

    We need others to change so we can be okay.

    We have lost the connection inside of us to move away.

    In abuse, when someone overpowers us, especially someone we love and trust, we become powerless to them.  We are then left minus the switch to move away.

    To function means you have your power back.  You can move towards and away from people and behaviors that don't feel okay to you…You become unfrozen.

    Without this switch, you are dysfunctional.  You can't function and be the one to move.  You are left in a place without legs.

    The Function of a victim is to be powerless, unable to move, frozen without choices.  Many folks get stuck in this position after abuse, especially if the abuser is your caretaker.  We simply are left without a choice, we can't move, so we grow up in the position of being powerless.

    Being powerless and being unable to move is the function of a victim, and a victim we will remain, until we can move.

    While my whole family of origin sees me as being cold bitter, angry and stuck, it is actually the complete opposite.  I am free and functional for the first time since my father's abuse.  I lived as a victim for 4o years, and now in the last 7 have been working to become functioning as a natural human being.

    I now have the ability to move away from folks who hurt me, who bring toxic energy…

    In order to function again, you first have to see where you are unable to move…where you are a victim, where you haven't moved away from abuse…That is my meaning of being authentically dysfunctional; you have to be real with what is not working in your life.

    If you cannot see your self in prison, you can't set your self free.

    And I do believe, that it is easier at times to stay prisoner in a life that you know, compared to walking free into one that you don't know.  

    Just as in the experiment of mice, who were raised in a shock box, one that would emit shocks in order for them to eat…when they were given two choices, a box without shocks and food or one with, they all chose to continue with what they were used to.

    I do get that it is easier to continue being shocked than it is to learn a new way of being.  It is easier to sit in the jail and be a victim, than it is to walk free.

    But the bottom line, is that you and you alone decide to move your switch or to let it be.  Once you know, you can't not know…and once you know, you are willingly being a victim, and then, IS that really a victim or are you now an active participant?

    Being authentically dysfunctional is admitting you can't function…and in acknowledging you are unable to function, is the first function of becoming functional.

    If you can't see where you lost your power, you can't get it back…it remains lost.  

    Sometimes, it is hard to get your power back from those who took it in the first place, harder still if you believe love is attached.  But here is what I know for sure, love will never leave you powerless.

    (Dysfunction, equals no power, which then adds up to no love.)

     

     

  • Impeccable Word

    Not grasping what is meant by the term Truth, is the key to all of life.

    What does it mean if you can't grasp or know truth?  How are you taught this or perhaps not taught this?  Is there a class where you can understand the terminology of truth?

    There seems to be a fluidity with words when there is no body of truth behind them…words are meaningless unless you attach Truth Feelings.

    The only power words have are the truth feelings that ride along with them, if there is no power of truth, then they just are letters arranged and sounds being spoken.

    What I am not certain of is how you teach truth feelings…and how to utter them instead of words with the opposite feeling attached.

    Or, perhaps this is just the wiring defect with those of us who have been abused, where we are not able to speak what we feel or feel what is the truth.

    A Lie Detector doesn't detect wrong words, but actually how we are feeling when we utter the words…it is monitoring the body.  So what the lie detector really detects are feelings that don't match the sentence being spoken.

    Somehow when we are abused, we have to begin Pretending how we feel, instead of how we actually feel.  This could be due to threats of violence or shame in speaking out, we hide the FEELINGS of abuse.

    I believe we learn that hiding our TRUE FEELINGS is what is needed in order for many things to continue on as 'normal'….and so we do.

    We now have learned to say things we don't mean or feel….we have separated our body of feelings from the words we speak.

    So then our words do not have the support of our true feelings.

    "Being Impeccable with your Words" as Don Miguel Ruiz says, means that our words match what we feel.  I had to look up the word Impeccable….

     "In accordance with the highest standards of propriety; faultless."

    This may be the greatest tragedy of abuse, where we learn to separate what we feel and what we say…we lose our grasp on expressing our feelings truthfully and hold on to the illusion of what is not.

    Our power isn't lost in the act of abuse, our power is lost when we can't speak of how it made us feel…When we can't be truthful with our feelings after, when we have to go back and now pretend nothing happened or to make nice.

    The disconnection between what we feel and what we say is when we start abusing ourselves…

    We disregard how we feel in order to keep the relationship, the family, the 'love' of thy father and thy mother, we fail to grasp and hang on to our feelings of what is true for us…and instead make sure they get what they want and what feels good for them.

    The dance of the offender/victim fails to operate when the victim finally stands up and demands that their feelings be considered.

    While many want to put full blame on the Offenders, there is a second party involved who agrees with this dance, and the game ends when the victim decides that she/he is allowed to bring forth her true feelings.

    While many think this is a battle of words or powerful actions, it is actually a game of whose feelings will be honored…whose feelings are of greater value?

    What I have come to know, is that abusive parents, believe that their feelings matter more, have a higher slot on the scale of life, and that their children must submit and acquiesce their feelings. 

    It is the acquiescing of their truth and feelings…Accept something reluctantly but without protest…that makes them the perfect victim.

    And in doing so, learn to live without grasping the meaning of truthfulness…for to be truthful is to be without a family.

    They willingly give up their truth feelings to save a family…yet all they are really doing is allowing the Offender to go on.

    If only, all my 46 years of living without adhering to my feelings bought to bear a loving father and a supportive mother, then it wouldn't have been all for naught, but it was.

    No matter how much I suppressed my feelings, it didn't magically create them differently.  All that happened is that I suppressed what I felt. That is all.

    Even when I unleashed all that I felt, nothing really changed.  They didn't suddenly SEE what they had done and then changed.  Nope, all that happened is I began to walk impecably with how I felt.

    I no longer suppressed and hid what I felt.

    I took grasp once again of my feelings and held on…for it was clear to me, I was holding on to truth…

    Suppressing the truth doesn't change anything, it only prolongs the inevitable.  I had to look up SUPPRESSING…

    To Prevent the Development, action or expression of a feeling, impulse, idea…restrain.

    So, instead of holding firmly on to family, We are holding back the feelings of fear, loss, betrayal, hurt, sorrow…

    We don't want to feel those feelings attached to our parents.

    And in not owning or being truthful with the negative feelings, we betray all our feelings…we loose our impeccable word.

     

     

     


  • Repeat that action

    Reconcilation: Healing the Inner Child by Thich Nhat Hanh

    Walking with Our Ancestors

    "When we were only four years old, we probaby thought; I'm only a four year old child, a son or daughter, a little brother or sister.  But in fact, we were already a mother, already a father. All past and future generations were there in our body.  When we take a step on the green grass of spring, we walk in such a way that allows all our ancestors to take a step with us.  The peace, joy and freedom in each step will penetrate each generation of our ancestors and descendants.  We walk with the energy of mindfulness, and with each step we see countless generations of ancestors and descendants walking with us."

    "When we take a breath, we are light, calm, at ease. We breathe in such a way that all generations of ancestors and descendants are breathing with us.  Only then are we breathing according to the highest teachings. We just need a little mindfulness, a little concentration, and then we can look deeply and see. At first we can use the method of visualization to see all our ancestors making a step with us. Gradually we don't need to visualize any more. With each step we take, we see it is the step of all people in the past and future."

    "When we are cooking a dish that we learne to make from our mother or father, a dish that has been handed down through generations of our family, we should look at our hands and smile because these hands are the hands of our grandmother. Those who have made this dish are making this dish now. When we're in the kitchen cooking we can be completely mindful; we don't have to go into a meditation hall to practice this."

    "In the past, did your grandfather play volleyball?  Did your grandmother go jogging every day?  Did she have the opportunity to practice dwelling in the present moment while she was walking or running?  When we are running we should allow our grandmother to run in us.  Your grandmother is in each cell of your body. You carry your ancestors in you when you're jogging, when you're doing walking meditation and when you're realizing the practice of dwelling happily in the present moment.  Maybe previous generations didn't ahve the opportunity to practice like this.  Now, whether we're practicing walking, running, or breathing mindfullly, we have the opportunity to bring happiness and joy to countless generations of ancestors."

    "When we agonize over questions like, Who am I? Where do I come from? Was I wanted? What is the meaning of Life? we suffer because we're caught in the idea of a separate self.  But if we look deeply, we can practice no-self. This is the realizationt that we're not a separate self, we're connected to our ancestors and to all living and non living beings."

    "Western psychotherapy aims at helping create a self that is stable and wholesome. But because psychotherapy in the West is still caught in the idea of self, it can bring about only a little transformation and a little healing; it can't go very far.  As long as we are caught in the idea of a separate self, ignorance is still in us. When we see the intimate relationship between what is self and what is not self, ignorance is healed and suffering, anger, jealousy and fear disappear.  If we can practice no-self, we'll be able to go beyond the questions that make people suffer so much."

    "We are a continuation of the stream of life. Maybe our parents weren't able to appreciate us but our grandparents and our ancestors wanted us to come to life. The truth is that our grandparents, our ancestors always wanted us to be their continuation.  If we can know this, we will not suffer so much because of our parent's behavior.  Sometimes our parents are full of love and sometimes they are full of anger. This love and anger comes not only from them, but from all previous generations. When we can see this we no longer blame our parents for our suffering."

    Habit Energy

    The purpose of meditation is to look at something deeply and see its roots. Whatever kind of action we take, if we look deeply into it we'll be able to recognize the seed of that action. That seed may come from our ancestors. Whatever action we take, our ancestors are taking it at the same time with us.  So father, grandfather, and great-grandfather are doing it with you; mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother are doing it with you.  Our ancestors are there in every cell of our body.  There are seeds that are planted during your lifetime but there are also seeds that were planted before you manifested as this body."

    "Sometimes we act without intention, but that is also action.  "Habit Energy" is pushing us; it pushes us to do things without our being aware. Sometimes we do something without knowing we're doing it. Even when we don't want to do something, we still do it.  Sometimes we say, "I didn't want to do it, but it's stronger than me, it pushed me." So that is a seed, a habit energy that may have come from many generations in the past."

    "We have inherited a lot.  With mindfulness, we can become aware of the habit energy that has been passed down to us. We might see that our parents or grandparents wer also very weak in ways similar to us.  We can be aware without judgment that our negative habits come from these ancestral roots.  We can smile at our shortcomings at our habit energy. With awareness, we have a choice; we can act another way. We can end the cycle of suffering right now."

    "Perhaps in the past when we've noticed ourselves doing something unintentional, something we may have inherited and we've blamed ourselves.  We saw ourselves as an individual isolated self, full of shortcomings. But with awareness, we can begin to transform and let go of these habit energies."

    "With the practice of mindfulness, we recognize that a habitual action has taken place. This is the first awareness that mindfulness brings.  Then, if we're interested mindfulness and concentration help us look and find the root of our action.  That action may have been inspired by something that happened yesterday, or it may be three hundred years old and have roots in one of our ancestors.  Once we become aware of our actions, we can decide whether or not it's beneficial and, if it's not we can decide not to repeat that action. If we're aware of the habit energies in us and can become more intentional in our thoughts, speech, and actions, then we can transform not only ourselves, but also our ancestors who planted the seeds. We are practicing for all our ancestors and descendants not just for ourselves; we're practicing for the whole world."

    "When we're able to smile at a provocation, we can be aware of our ability, appreciate it and continue in this way.  If we're able to do that, it means our ancestors are also able to smile at what is provoking them.  If one person keeps calm and smiles at a provocation, the whole world will have a better chance for peace.  The key is to be aware of what our actions are. Our mindfulness will help us understand where our actions are coming from."  Thich Nhat Hanh

    I truly felt the energies of my sisters of many generations back as well as the future sisters….as I changed my habit energies.  They are with us and are cheering us on as we try to achieve what their generatons were not able to do.  

    You never walk alone…for in your cells is the history of habits and if you are aware, than you will intentionally pass on habits. 

    Awareness brings intentions.  

    Awareness also carries the responsibility to respond with mindfulness.

    Some of us carry the seeds of being aware…it seems to me, you either know or you don't know.

    And once you know, you can't not know.

    Once you can see the root system and how it grows, you then have the choice to continue to plant what is growing in your family or not.

    In my family, I was able to clearly see the root system of abuse, of how it came to be, and what continued it to flourish.  What habit energies watered it.

    I then had the opportunity to act with intention…I had a choice to either continue knowingly with abuse or decide not to repeat that action.