Tag: Beyond

• Shattering Dream

  While commenting back and forth with Lynn C. Tolson, the Author of "Beyond the Tears", on facebook, it came to me why folks support the Coach and the Organization and not the abused boys…they don't want to lose that which they are a part of.

  Whether it is to be a fan of a winning football team and coach, or whether it be a family and father, no one wants to let go of that which they have looked up to, aspired towards, cheered on and been part of.   

  By looking at the abused child, you will see that your hero is a monster.

  It isn't the pain of the child, it IS the pain of the dream dying.

  Lynn asked on facebook, "Why is it so painful to support the abused children? Why, why, why (not expecting an answer). The topic of child sex abuse is so uncomfortable yet the victims live their entire lives in a world of hurt."

  It isn't the child's pain we fear, but our own pain as our family dies, our team isn't as grand as we thought, or that the icon coach is just a normal man, who didn't want to turn in a friend, or who didn't want the public to know that it is as vulnerable to abuse as any other organization.

  We fear our own losses so much that we will hold on to a false dream rather than feel it actually die.

  In walkng face first into my greatest fear, I was able to then see the abused child.  It seems we all have a choice in either holding up a dream or letting it die to save a child.

  What very few can do is let go of their own lives in order to save a life of a child, to spare them the shame, guilt and blame of 'wrecking' the dream.

  What hurt me the most, wasn't the rape of my father, nor even the image of him changing from dad to monster, but what hurt even more was being blamed for killing the family.  

  I wasn't rioting for his reputation…so it was seen as I was out to tear our family apart, when in fact all I was doing was standing by the abused children…the long list of girls who suffered under his hands.

  I wasn't able to stand in a picket line supporting those who knew and said nothing, and I was seen as a traitor to our 'family'.  

  It wasn't my pain that they couldn't bear feeling, but they didn't want to feel the pain of losing a family.

  We wonder why more folks are not lining up to give up the details of their abuse, it is to give evidence and facts that will tear apart their dream of family…

  It isn't that we don't support abuse, we don't want to support the tearing apart families, religions and organizations. But if abuse is within, your organization is decaying from the inside out, and eventually, there will be no good there to hold it up.

  Penn State has shown us it isn't the abuse that we can't bear to see, but the shattering dream.

   

   

  November 12, 2011

  abuse, Beyond, broken, dreams, FALC, Lynn C Tolson, Penn, sexual, silence, State, Tears, The

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• Let me be Free!

  While many may not feel or experiences brushes from souls passed, I feel the presence of my father’s sister, the one who taught me how to quilt, who set me on a path of playing with fabric that suited my nature.

  She didn’t bend me to do what she felt, but listened and offered to me a pattern that fit my free spirit, one that gave me my first drink of what it feels like to be the architect, the designer and the builder, she opened the door for me to play.

  She herself would do intricate, tiny little pieces that had to match perfectly, her work was detailed and painstakingly put together, I was her complete opposite, yet we matched in doing what we loved to do.

  Her past relationships with men were ones that left her hurting and it seemed she found solace in Art.

  My youngest daughter, out of the blue, says she wants to do a quilt, and it is the same quilt my Aunt had offered to me as a good first quilt.

  Unbeknownst to my daughter, I feel she is being spoken to by her great aunt, for she knows the feelings my daughter is going through and is heading her in a direction where she can find herself, Art.

  During my darkest spots on my journey, I clung to the moments when I had the energy to be lost in fabric, design and colors, and in those moments, I could feel my Aunt speak to me, telling me words of wisdom, that applied to working on a new technique in quilting or walking a new walk in life.

  I was given my Aunt’s sewing machine after she died, and I believe her spirit lingers nearby and encourages me to stretch and reach and be beyond where she was able to be.

  Her influence in my quilting, especially when I had just begun was key to me continuing forward, her undying faith that I could do anything is with me still.

  I felt that I wasn’t alone anymore in teaching my daughter, that I would have leagues of woman who have gone before lending their wisdom and voices with mine.

  My aunt loved my daughter, her spirit, her disposition, her spunk, her flair for being herself, and I know that if it is possible to help her now, she will.

  Today is a full circle moment, where I can be the teacher as I take my daughter to choose the fabric of her first quilt, it is my greatest hope that I can instill in her the love of quilting that my Aunt gave to me, or the art of creating.

  And all she did was open the door and let me be free!

  February 21, 2011

  art, Beyond, circle, from, full, moment, past, quilts, spirits, student, teacher, wisdom, women, words

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• Gateway Into Self

  A blog called, Brave Girls Club, has a wonderful story about wearing signs, or the lack there of at;

  http://www.bravegirlsclub.com

  As I pondered which signs I am hiding or what I am not revealing it occurred to me that a sign was hung upon my neck, when my father’s truth hit the daily news.

  His past hung heavy around my neck.

  A sign I did not want to wear.

  His sign and my sign were puzzle pieces, they went together, he was a pedophile and I was his victim.

  Yet the sign wasn’t hung upon me until a niece spoke up and her words matched my feelings, and now I had a sign as proof.

  What an awkward, clumsy, shameful, disgusting sign, I had to wear.

  It was this sign that all turned away from, old friends became strangers, acquaintances dodged me, my sign didn’t fit into many relationships.

  The sign entered into the room before me, it over shadowed any cute outfit I wore, there was no way to hide or dress it up, It was exposed.

  Sadly some signs are not given the same considerations as most.

  In the first blushes of wearing this sign, I stood alone.

  Me and my new sign not knowing how to stand, to walk and carry myself with this new found history, I soon seen how I was someone to steer clear of.

  It is so interesting that some signs gain many friends and tons of support, while other signs are shunned and feared, their darkness too dark to approach.

  Standing up in those early days, with the weight of the devastation upon me, the sign nearly collapsed my spirit.

  Surprisingly that by having had to walk alone, I have more strength, not less.

  I still wear my sign, it will not go away, it and I are one, my past is me, and I am it.

  Some signs are the gateway into self.

  November 13, 2010

  Beyond, blame, Brave, child abuse, Club, fear, Girls, is, life, pedophiles, see, shame, signs, standing, up, what

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• United together without abuse.

  “One can be a brother only in something.  Where there is no tie that binds men, men are not united but merely lined up.” 

  ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

   

  What is the something that binds a family together, what binds sisters to sisters, and brothers to brothers, and sisters to brothers and brothers to sisters?

   

  What ingredient is needed to weld a family together?

   

  Something held us together and something tore us apart, and I want to know what that something is and who was responsible for stealing the something.

   

  We can all get together and be a family lined up as I see it, or as others see it, a united family.

   

  If I were to join the lineup today, I would just be lining up I would not be reunited.

   

  The ‘something’ is missing for me now.

   

  Did I give it away or was it taken from me, or was it even there in the first place, perhaps it was just a total illusion all along.

   

  Maybe all we ever were was a family line up.

  A line up of abused kids.

  We were bound by abuse.

   

  When I stopped standing there in the abuse, when I left and walked away, I broke the bond that held me in place, I left the abuse, I walked out of the lineup.

   

  I was bound there by abuse, by a shared secret, my insides matched their insides, and we were united.

   

  United in a lineup of abuse.

   

  I want to lineup again, but not in abuse.

   

  I want to line up in a real family.

   

  And that is the legacy I am trying to build for my children, so that they have a family that is united together without abuse.

   

  September 21, 2010

  abuse, Beyond, broken families, leaving, legacy, lineup

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• Going Beyond the Challenge

  Deadlines and completing challenges seem to divert our attention to what is really going on.

   

  I have been doing Bikram Yoga for 113 days, I am in the middle of my second 60-day challenge, and in a week, I can say that I was successful in completing those two challenges, but what I would have failed to see is the affects and where I stand today.

   

  Challenges and deadlines become more concrete than the actual practice, they loom larger and get more attention than the actual affects the body wears.

   

  As I was doing my poses today, I could see where I still needed work, but also how far I have come, witnessed the strength and muscles that I have grown in the past 113 days; I am growing a yoga body. 

   

  This challenge is almost over and I know that if I were to feel success was completing It, and not completing each pose to its ultimate, I would be done.

   

  Done with the challenge, but not done becoming healthy and strong.

   

  I like the challenges, they keep me continuing, but each time one ends, I look in the mirror and know I want to keep going beyond the challenge.

   

   

   

  April 24, 2010

  60-day Challenge, Beyond, bikram yoga

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