I M Perfect lady

Tag: and

  • Voice of the Adult.

    David Hawkins writes about dieting or taking care of the body in "Healing and Recovery".

    "When one reaches this level of handling appetite and hunger, one is no longer fixed on one particular food or another.  One could say, "If we have a steak tonight, that's fine, and if we don't , that's fine."  So it is okay either way. This means that one is free."

    "One characteristic of this attitude is freedom. Freedom from what?  There is freedom from being run by a program or conditioning, and freedom from being a victim of the cycle. There is freedom from the entrapment that made us feel bad about ourselves.  As we get detached from these sensations, we begin to feel good about ourselves.  In fact, our willingness to do that goes up to level 310, which has an even better feeling about it.  We begin to accept that this is nothing other than a phenomenon, just a set of vibrations going on within consciousness.  It does  not have to do with food or the body.  Those are all programs.  In essence, physics explains it as just a set of vibrations going on in the field of consciousness that are within our power to alter. Once we do that, we can really begin to love ourselves more than we did before."

    "There is another very interesting aspect going on in consciousness that will also be very helpful.  It is something you can observe within yourself, and something I picked up within myself and saw happening.  The cycle in the past was to be run by the hunger, appetite, satiation, and then guilt. All the good intentions I had about dieting and taking off weight suddenly flew out the window and disappeared somewhere.  After filling myself up with far more than I knew I needed, suddenly there was a feeling of self-disgust and guilt.  People with severe eating problems often experience that.  They go into the bathroom, throw all the food back up, and then go into self-hatred, blame, guilt, and even suicidal depression, which can become very severe.  What really happens in this type of situation?  I observed that when a person sits down to eat, it is only the adult within who wants to take off the weight, and it is really the 'inner child' who is always hungry."

    "In the past, Dr. Eric Berne, author of "Games People Play" and creator of Transactional Analysis, along with other people in that field talked about our 'child', and 'parent' tapes that are like three voices within us.  One is the desirous child; one is the adult who is rational, intelligent and educated; and one is the parent who tends to be punitive and moralistic.  The parent tape is the one who tells us about right and wrong.  When we sit down at the table or walk to the refrigerator, the adult within goes unconscious and the child takes over."

    "What does the child know about diet, weight, and calories?  Nothing. The consciousness of the child is, "I want, I satisfy, and I get," so we go to the refrigerator without realizing we are in a different state of consciousness, one in which the child is dominant.  So who is poking around in the refrigerator? The child is. Who is ordering a second hot fudge sundae or having a second helping of potatoes and gravy?  The child.  After we indulge the child without realizing what is going on, when the meal is over, the child leaves.  it has had its fill, and then who takes its place?  The parent does who then says, "How could you have been so stupid?  Why did you have seconds?  So did you have a piece of pie? Why did you put ice cream on top of the pie?  I mean, think of the calories.  You are really stupid and weak; you don't have any will power. You are no good; your self-worth is rotten."

    "At this point, we are subjected to the inner angry parent who is blaming us. Blaming whom?  Blaming the inner child.  Where has the adult been all this time?  It has been silenced. The adult was not there at mealtime or after mealtime.  The child and the parent have taken over the whole eating program, which is natural because that is where the eating patterns get set up in the first place. They get set up with the child, and who is sitting next to the child, but the parent?  So the child alternates with the parent in running the whole eating pattern."

    "In order to counter act this, we have to be aware that the pattern is running.  Just to be aware of it begins to change it.  Now we can make a note to ourselves, put it on the table or the refrigerator, and consciously call forth our adult and tell the child, "This is the place for an adult now because my adult is very conscious of its eating."  My adult knows about calories, diets, and healthy eating patterns.  I consciously call forth my adult to be here at this meal. I say, "The adult me is here now" and consciously reject the presence of the child.  Because the overindulgence does not happen, when the meal is finished, my adult stays there. No parent comes in to blame me for what has been done."

    "It does not take self-control or resisting anything; it just takes being aware. When we sit down, we say hello to our adult and be conscious.  Just as we sit down at the dinner table, we watch the kid come up in us.  I have watched myself do this. "Oh, look at who is there at the table.  Oh wow!  Look at the pile of mashed potato!  Look at the gravy!"  Just watch people's faces when they sit down at the table and we see who is 'up' in them.  We see the eyes pop open and watch the pupils of the eyes get very large.  If that is not a five-year-old kid, then I never saw one."

    "We may see a serious looking businessman walk into a restaurant with his briefcase.  He goes through the cafeteria line and then sits down.  Now, watch his face as he puts his napkin in front of him.  He picks up his napkin – somebody else is already there.  There is the kid all ready to have a good time!  Of course, after the man gets up to leave, now we instantly see, "Oh, I ate too much."  Now who is there?  Look at the frown as the man is berating himself as he walks out of the restaurant.  In his mind, he is counting calories. He just ate 3,850 calories for dinner, and his doctor told him he is supposed to have only 900 calories a day.  He figures he cannot eat until next Tuesday now and wonders how is he going to survive."

    "We can break out of this self-defeating pattern just by being aware. Make a little sign for the refrigerator door that says, "Adults Only."  Be conscious; be aware of who is there.  We will find that the adult enjoys the eating very much too, but just does not go crazy so easily."  David Hawkins

    What I love about how he breaks this down to there being three people that are vying for our attention or are in fact running our lives; The Child, The Parent and the Adult Self.

    At first when I read this I didn't distinguish between parent and adult, but read them as one.  But now I can see that my eating and actually my living patterns were created by a child and my parent.

    And how bringing in my adult self, I can take over the functions of my life that have been running on the program built by me as a child and my parent.

    This makes perfect sense to me.  I do eat like a child, often.  And then I do have a punitive parent come in and berate me…making me feel bad. While these two duke it out, my adult self is silent.  

    This silent adult self is the one who is missing in the places in my life where I have child like behaviors…as well as the beating myself up.  The over indulgent child, eating sweets and then the belittling parent spreading the icing on the cake of self loathing.  Or simply not being adult about my sweets.

    Whether this pattern has created a person 50 pounds overweight like I, or 300 pounds doesn't matter.  The key is the absence of a loving adult.

    This is the one pattern that I failed to see in practice.

    A loving adult.

    I have to be that which wasn't shown to me…the pattern of loving adult.

    What does a loving adult do?  How does a loving adult act?  

    Imagine having a loving adult take over your eating habits, doing yoga, etc.  I believe that I have had a loving adult take over parts of my life, but having a loving adult take over care of my body hasn't happened.

    The indulgent child eats for me and is lazy when it is time to work on my body…and then the parent screams and rants and raves as to why not.  No loving adult has come in to lead me through self care.  

    I almost have to wonder if subconsciously I am waiting for loving adult messages to come from my parent voice?  Waiting for this kind voice to take over patterns I have lived under and replace them with things I wouldn't even recognize as me.

    It is like I am either waiting for a loving parent or for my indulgent child to suddenly crave yoga and whole foods.

    Perhaps that is what we are waiting for…a healthy child to appear.

    What I know for sure is that a child can't lead this game of food and self care…for what I look like is the perfect pattern of a child in charge and what I feel like is having a nonloving parent.

    In order for this to change, I will have to keep returning my awareness to seek out my loving adult self…ignoring the child and parent pattern.

    And by asking for the voice of the adult.

     

  • The body truly doesn’t lie

    Within my family, there are two ways in which we have dealt with the sexual abuse of our childhoods.  One side believes and is actively in the camp of forgiving and forgetting, while only two of us are in the camp of discovering our own story and giving free expression…as Alice Miller writes in The Body Never Lies.

    " In each and every case I examined, I was able to establish that when people found the kind of therapeutic care and companionship that enabled them to discover their own story and give free expression to their indignation at their parents behavior, they were able to liberate themselves from the maltreated child's destructive attachment. As adults they were able to take their lives into their own hands and DID NOT NEED TO HATE THEIR PARENTS. And the opposite was the case whose therapist enjoined them to forgive and forget, actually believing that such forgiveness could have a salutary, curative effect. They remained trapped in the position of small children who believe they love their parents but in fact allow themselves to be controlled all their lives by the internalized parents and ultimately develop some kind of illness that leads to premature death. Such dependency ACTIVELY FOSTERS THE HATRED that though repressed, remains active, and it drives them to direct their aggression at innocent people. We ONLY HATE AS LONG AS WE FEEL TOTALLY HELPLESS." Alice Miller.

    This is extremely accurate in my experience.  

    I have do not hate my parents.  I understand them.  I completely get who they are and that the only love they can give me is their backwards hurtful love.  

    While I also totally feel the aggression of my siblings towards me, the innocent in the equation of my parents abuse.

    I can also sense this underneath the 'Forgiving' folks, the rage and anger seething while on the surface the speak kind words.  

    In fact, that is a perfect description of my mother in my childhood.  

    Interesting to know, that Forgiveness and Forgetting, actually fosters hate. And here is what I also know to be right on target…."You only hate as long as you feel totally helpless."  

    Empowerment allows you to feel love…and what I feel most from my siblings is this twisted dichotomy….the surface of 'forgiveness' while underneath rages hatred in their physical bodies.

    The body truly doesn't lie…

  • Show and Tell

    The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be. ~Socrates

    I looked up the meaning of the word Integrity and one of its meanings is to be in a state of completeness, undivided.

    My girlfriend said the definition that they are teaching children in elementary school, is that what you say, what you think and what you do all match.

    I had to let go of many relationships of people who were unable to walk the talk they talked.

    I am much more in awe of folks who have integrity and make no excuses even if what they are doing is unkind. At least they are not putting on a friendly face while acting poorly.

    If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, it’s a duck.

    We get lulled by words and swayed in fancy sentences when actions are way off base.

    My husband knows a man called Snake, and he asked him how he got that handle? The man said he earned it. I like that. My husband went on to tell me this man spent time in jail for having a relationship with a young girl…

    If only we called folks by their behaviors it would make life a much easier way to navigate.

    “People show us who they are, Believe them,” is Maya Angelou’s quote.

    The key words are Show and Believe… it is as if the world is one big place of Show and Tell, but instead of bring something to show, we bring ourselves.

    We are all showing people who we are and they are showing us.

    It is not a game of pretending to be something different.

    Watch actions, how they display themselves and how they take care of their lives, they are on this stage called life being who they are, it is our job to believe what it is we see.

    How often do you give them the benefit of doubt? Whose doubt? Who doesn’t want to believe and why? What will happen if you believe? What will you lose?

    It is incredible to me now to not believe them. It is like they are screaming their truths and we are blocking our ears and shutting our eyes.

    “People Show you who they are, BELIEVE them.”

    We don’t want to believe who they are, for it will wreck our dream.

    The pain we are afraid of is the sorrow of our broken dreams.
    It isn’t so much that we lose them; we lose our dreams and our future.

    Yet what is the karma we are actually tending to?

    A lifetime of dancing with people who are disappointing, for they can’t measure up to what we hold in our minds, for we refuse to believe who they really are.

    It gets you so confused, that you then lose who you are.

    You are a believer of what is not.

    While extremely painful, it was very liberating to finally be able to believe in what people showed me. I love what is. I stay in step and in tune with the show and tell!

  • Felt Its Worth

    Before beginning yoga today, I cleaned the mirror I stand in front of, it was layered with weeks of dust, and I appeared fog like behind it. Today I felt the need to wipe it free, as I did so the line from a song arose in my head, “I can see clearly now the pain is gone…”

    Then into yoga I went.

    I was on the third part of the Awkward pose, where I go from standing up to squatting down, and Bikram asks us to descend slowly, and I lost my control and fell into a squat and smiled as I did so.

    This smile took up my whole face, my cheeks, my eyes and my mouth rose into a delightful bend, and inside I felt its wonderful wave of joy.

    I smiled at my rendition of his yoga; I smiled at me and the transformation of my face and received fully my smile about me.

    A smile about me isn’t something I have any memory of ever receiving.

    I was shocked first at the way this smile changed my look, and even more stunned to receive its full value inside.

    To feel myself worthy of a full-blown smile.

    I froze for a half of second to feel such sheer delight inside myself.

    My smile quickly disappeared and I struggled to smile while tears of sorrow dampened my face.

    Imprinted in my minds eye is my smiling feeling being over swept by sadness as memories flung themselves upon me, one on top of the other.

    A 50 year long life review flashed before my eyes, all the places where I mistook myself for being bad, wrong, and despicable, how I had not seen my own worth or how I had lost sight of myself inside myself.

    The simple fact that I was unworthy of a smile from me about me is so harsh and tragic; yet it was never my smile I sought. I didn’t even know I was missing my smile for me.

    The mouth I tried to change was my mother’s.

    Before putting my words to paper, I spoke to my brother and then did some mindless cleaning, and it came to me what love I had for my mother.

    I literally gave my soul, my insides away in order to bring a smile to her face and to keep it there.

    How tragic that she wanted my smile more than she wanted my tears and my sorrows, and even more dreadful for a little girl to be left with such sorrow inside, such darkness.

    In denying my abuse, she left me in the dark.

    It is funny in a sad way, how I wanted her to have a smile, more than me.

    I could cry a river of tears for the little girl who wasn’t allowed to feel her sorrow out loud, to be heard and valued as abused.

    Valued as abused and not having to hide this fact.

    I can see I took up my mother’s view of me.

    My mouth and facial images reflected hers in my mirror and even more tragically inside.

    Inside I knew my mother blamed me.

    I took away her sunshine, I stole her lovely story, I was darker than the darkness that abused me.

    I changed her smiling face to anger.

    And it was my job now to put her smile back.

    And I tried and danced, and pranced and worked and slaved and toiled to bring it back, and to keep it in place.

    When I was tired of holding up those cheeks, when I simply didn’t have anymore to give, or when I tried to tend to myself, I heard her angry response, “How dare you Beth Ann…” and up I got and began dancing again.

    Six years ago all my dancing for her was over, done, finished, the end.

    I stopped where I stood and in the middle of the darkness began to see what I did for me and what I did for others.

    Life offered up to me a million situations for me to choose again, their pleasure or mine, their smile or mine, their feelings or mine.

    Each and every time I found the strength to disappoint my mother and chose me; I opened up inside, made room for that smile.

    Today, I feel that I have made it to the other side, to the side of worthiness, or at least I have felt the wave of joy lap at my feet, I feel that I am worthy to now frolic in the ocean and swim to its depths.

    I look forward to seeing another one come out of me and shine upon me and for me to welcome it in!

    I have been waiting in vain for her to arrive and tell me that I am a good girl, that I am of value, and that the abuse didn’t change who I am, in her eyes.

    I wanted her to smile that it was okay that I was abused, it didn’t matter to her, and she loved me any way.

    Again, the smile I sought was hers and the one I found was mine.

    What I love is that the first smile I was able to receive was mine!

    A smile in full acceptance of all of me, the darkest dark and the brightest bright.

    I smiled at me and felt Its worth.