I M Perfect lady

Tag: changing

  • The enemy of Lies.

    Who I was the first 46 years is totally different than who I am now.  I went from being totally submissive, compliant and eager to please, while a bit of an outspoken person, I spoke for what I then believed…as long as I stayed within the party lines.

    I never strove to make ripples in life, but rather was the one who smoothed over the waters; I took out the waves…a calming force, I was the one who would settle the ruffled feathers.

    It shocks me at times to see me being the one making waves and saying things I know will not sit well, but I say them anyway.

    At times it was hard recognizing me or even allowing the new me to be me, to let her speak and write with such forthrightness. 

    Sometimes it seems that I myself no longer have a boundary or a line that I can’t cross, whereas before there were many imaginary but firm lines.

    Now there is nothing I can’t say, as far as speaking the truth goes, there doesn’t seem to be a topic that is off limits, it is like I have discovered my own personal freedom of speech.

    I guess it helped to have my personal wounds splashed across the paper; it really left little to protect or hide…my darkest secret was broadcasted on the Radio, TV, and in the Newspaper as well as word of mouth. 

    Of course the only ones who knew, knew me, the rest it was just another sad story, a pathetic man doing obscene things…I was the story behind the story.

    My life’s details were freely handed out, talked about, discussed with bits of truths and tons of speculation sprinkled with hearsay and conjecture.

    I had thought in the beginning that many people would be asking me details and wanting to know this or that, but ironically no one speaks of this. 

    “It is a hard subject to bring up,” my husband once said.

    “It is a hard subject to live through,” I told him.

    I blog about my thoughts and feelings, about what I feel and how different aspects have felt to me, how people connected acted or didn’t act and how too that felt to me.

    It is like the blog became the friend or tireless family member who would always sit and listen and bounce back ideas that rolled around in my head…we straightened things on the blog.  It is like a very intimate trusting friend.

    Now, lately my blog has been getting tons of strangers watching me talk and engage with this friend, they get to be voyeurs into my consciousness.  Witnesses to my thoughts, beliefs and how I see the world and others…

    Lately I feel that there is momentum brewing, sacred connections are joining and creating an even bigger circle encompassing and reaching further and creating a stir…

    It is like it was meant to be that my story get written, my truths be told, my life be this open book in order for it to dovetail with a family just beginning this process.

    Its purpose was always beyond me.

    For often times, the most difficult things to write seemed always to be the most important to put down…and ones I couldn't not write. 

    Those were the things that others needed to read; those are the crucial signposts along this journey, the game changers, the deal breakers, the key. 

    There always seemed to be a bigger purpose than just me that I was tugging and pulling on pieces of others stories, that by me figuring out apiece here and there, others would see and shift with me. 

    And at times even those who passed prior were cheering for me as I righted another wrong belief…we seemed to shift in knowingness. 

    It seemed some were leading and others were following me. 

    Follow me to their own truths, not my truth.

    To see that this journey I took is possible and that you will never walk alone, you will have angels of all kinds showing you the way forward.

    Angels of lies kept me from going backwards.

    Angels of truth wrote books that led me forward.

    It isn’t my intention to hurt anyone with my truths, but the old adage is there, “truth hurts”.

    It hurts the illusion.  It hurts the life built upon lies. If it hurts enough, it will propel you to change, to grow, to expand, to raise your consciousness.

    Truth arrives to change you, to be your spiritual friend. Truth is only the enemy of lies.

     

  • The Stranger Among them.

    At times it is very interesting to be me, to actually watch reactions to me while being me.  I have changed my ideals and the way I live my life.  I have totally flipped and it shows in the reactions folks give me.

    It is like certain people have an allergic reaction to me.

    I seen a brother I haven’t seen in a year.  The last time, we were on ‘friendly’ terms, but he was a fence walker; he would visit me and then be with my mother. 

    He said he was okay with everyone, to each their own, it mattered not to him.

    Now it seems I matter…something has changed. 

    He and I used to stop by and call etc, but in the last year silence.  I don’t know what I have done, nor did I bring it up when I seen him this evening while out to dinner with my children and husband.

    He chatted with my kids easily, and sent me a glance and quickly looked away…I am used to those kinds.  I didn’t probe either or ask what happened. Didn't make him uncomfortable or put him on the spot, I let it go. 

    He has a new wife now maybe she is the change in us.

    I can’t know, and I don’t want to make him come or call or care.

    His actions are asking for space…I honor that.

    It makes me wonder why he was so free to come before, to fish, to eat, to get mending done, to vent, to rage and for me to hear, and now nothing.

    Perhaps he doesn’t need me anymore.  How odd it is to have these relations fade into nothing, to watch me fade away. 

    The old me would have forced and pushed myself in…maybe even by offering more and more for him and now her.

    The new me watches them with me, how I have nothing that they need anymore.  How I am just a wall flower or just a casual hi and few pleasantries, and the old familiarity has turned to strange.

    I am strange. 

    My actions are strange…I am the stranger among them.

  • My own formation.

    In the past six years I have been learning new software, my body functions the same, it just responds differently.

     

    My arms move, my mouth speaks, my brain thinks yet they are doing things completely in a new way.

     

    It is like waking up one day and your body refuses to do what it used to do; the inner driving force has switched gears completely, it is all backwards.

     

    This new software has me moving in the opposite direction of my old flying formation, I go right and others move left, I go up and the others go down, I feel totally out of zinc.

     

    I am the lady in a country line dancing row… three steps off.

     

    It seems I didn’t have a slow software exchange, but one day a whole complete system was inside of me.

     

    Like a new me hopped inside and began living my life while still in my old life.

     

    I have to give credit to my husband and children for being able to bring this new me into their old lives, to welcome and get used to her new ways.

     

    As we go forth there will still be more steps I will take that will be out of rhythm with theirs, and we falter and then get used to this unique dance of ours.  Me going one way and them going another in harmony.

     

    We are dancing to the same song but moving with our own rhythm.

    I often feel like the odd duck, but oddly a very free duck.  I fly in my own formation. 

     

  • Find Their Own Way…

    The battle of the wills end when you allow the other to have free will, it is pretty hard to fight with freedom.

    The tighter you hold and the more you force, the less the other person can feel and find their own sense of what it is they want to do.

    When I was in the beginning stages of my mental breakdown, my husband and I found a place to stand that left us both in total freedom, a place called “I love you today.”

    In this spot, it allowed each of us to change our minds and to gauge our own feelings about whether we wanted to stay together. This free space to be yourself, to feel that which you feel and to express it daily allowed us the time to re-configure a new normal in our relationship.

    We fell into this spot after weeks and months of feeling the instability each of us had during the most stressful event in our marriage, Me not knowing who I was.

    Pretty hard to promise tomorrow, when today is unknown.

    It felt so much easier to breathe when we embraced the unknown and lived presently with each day and even each moment.

    “I love you today” is an honest and alive relationship and we both promised the other that if and when we didn’t want to be here we would tell the other.

    It isn’t a piece of paper, the ‘happiness’ of our children, or a million other reasons that folks stay together, but instead we individually get to choose if we fit together, if we are happy here, if we enjoy this place, if we are at peace here, if it is a spot for us to grow and change….

    It is like a free-range relationship, where each has the freedom to be who we are, and when who we are no longer works together, we will be brave enough and honest enough to let the other know.

    I just don’t feel then, that we can blame the other; we will always hold the power within us.

    I love you today, and if it changes I will let you know.

    I am thinking this same idea can be used upon our children. Instead of raising children who must remain in our pen (religion, mind set, pathway, etc), where we tell them how to be and grow, that we instead open the gate and let them roam free.

    Let their will be done.

    Let them decide which way to go and how to be.

    It releases both of us to be who it is we were meant to be.

    This reminds me of the paragraph from one of Bryon Katie’s books,

    “I don’t know what is best for me, or you, or the world. I don’t try to impose my will on you or anyone else. I don’t want to change you or improve you of convert you or help you or heal you. I just welcome things as they come and go. That’s true love. The best way of leading people is to let them find their own way.”

  • 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!

  • Growing Me.

    There is another word that has screwed up more people than being perfect, and that is being normal.

    What is normal?

    Can you spot a normal person in a lineup?

    Inside of us isn’t there a specifically designed normal for us, one that is specially made by the path that we walked?

    Normal in the dictionary says to conform to the standard.

    What is the standard?

    Who designed the standard in each situation and can the standards change?

    I had to look up standard; it says the level of quality.

    Quality of what?

    How can we know the best quality and isn’t our best the best quality?

    Do we have to measure ourselves against others standards?

    So normal is conforming to standards of quality.

    But who are the quality makers?

    Who decides whether I reached the level called normal?

    To me, this seems like perfect recipe for failing to always be looking outward to the judges of quality for the nod of approval, instead of creating a normal for you.

    It is normal for me to run, from groups that seem to enjoy brainwashing conformity, as a newly freed mind!

    It is normal for me to embrace all things free after being held captive by a mental mind for 40 years.

    Yet is this normal?

    Perhaps I did overshoot the mark and I have landed in a land beyond normal.

    Some feel ‘normal’ in abusive situations for that is all they ever have known, to them that’s normal’.

    That is the only quality or standard they know.

    Maybe it is only when you no longer like that standard or that quality that you strive for a higher level, a new normal for you.

    This new normal for you is personal, societies standards, nor your friends or parents don’t measure it, it is an inside job.

    Inside of you, something tells you that you are ready for a new normal.

    You no longer are comfortable doing that which you have done, and want to raise the standard by which you live.

    You then move to a new normal for you.

    What is normal is conforming to standards you now have.

    I feel we re-set our standards time and time again, the more we learn the more re-setting we do.

    I had previously set standards by my parents, until I saw their standards, and then I began creating my own standards.

    What was normal for me for 46 years was their standard, not mine.

    Now I have a new normal and in this new normal, I reset my standards all the time, they seem to be fluid and life changing.

    There is no mark that I will hit and say “Bingo” I am now stuck at this normal.

    My life and me are normally changing, we are not stuck unchanging like a plastic flower, we are like a real live growing me.

    I love that I am not done growing, for I think that is dead.

    I am a normal growing me.

  • Change will Happen!

    If you are not trying to change, you do not have any choices to make, you just keep repeating what you have been doing, there will be no inner struggle, no wondering or thinking, no stressing about how you will handle each new moment that arrives, where you will again be asked to make a choice, differently.

    If you don’t make a new choice you remain unchanged, and if you do make a new choice you will be changed, but grow further and further from your old familiar ways.

    Not changing is easy; it is mindless and falls effortlessly within your life, like smoke seeping into each minute.

    Change is like breathing new air into each choice we are asked to make daily, the small and the large, the complicated and the simple, each little decision has to be dealt with as a if you were a new arrival on earth, yet with the magnetic draw of a long held pattern.

    To jump the track of an old pattern isn’t as easy as one suspects and you will not know until you are actually the one doing the heavy lifting.

    Heavy lifting is doing the opposite of what you are used to, the complete and total opposite is required in order to change.
    You can’t change your life by doing nothing different, by not affecting your world and each relationship in it, the only way to change is to allow waves of new you flow into everything in your life.

    Since you are the common denominator in your world and with all whom you spend time with, if you change, all will feel the ripple affect.

    If there is no ripple, you haven’t changed.

    In the book, “Tattoos on the Heart” by Gregory Boyle, he is speaking to a gang member who is asking “How many homies have you buried…you know, killed because of gangbanging?
    “Seventy-five, son,” (this was some years ago. If he asked today, it would be more than twice that number.)

    “Damn, G, seventy-five?” He shakes his head in disbelief, his voice a bare hush now. “I mean, damn…when’s it gonna end?”

    I reach down to Omar and go to shake his hand. We connect and I pull him to his feet. I hold his hand with both of mine and zero in on his eyes.

    “Mijo, it will end,” I say, “the minute…you decide.”

    The moistening of his eyes surprises me. He grabs my hands in his.

    “Well,” he says, “then, I decide.”

    “Omar,” I tell him, “it has always been as simple as that.”

    “How many things have to happen to you,” Robert Frost writes, “before something occurs to you?”

    Change awaits us. What is decisive is our deciding.
    Gregory Boyle

    When you decide, change will happen!

  • Follow an Impulse Fearlessly.

    “Every day we slaughter our finest impulses.  That is why we get heartache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and recognizes them as our own, as the tender shoots, which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty.  Every man, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths.  We all derive from the same source.  There is no mystery about the origin of things.  We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up, to discover what is already there.” 

     ~Henry Miller, Sexus

     

    Slaughtering our finest impulses…is what leads us to not doing what we feel inside.

     

    What stops us? 

     

    I am learning to follow the impulse, to listen to the voice inside, whether it be to steer away from things or to be drawn towards them.

     

    Our lives are lived from the tiny impulses that happen as we move along each day.

     

    Impulses to take a new path, to speak to a new friend, to call an old one, to send a card, to make a call, to say words we fear, to try a new idea, a new hobby; all are sparked by an impulse within.

     

    It isn’t so much that we don’t have impulses, but fear quickly comes between the impulse and us halting it from happening.

     

    To follow the lead of the impulse fearlessly, knowing you are in fear, but to feel the excitement of doing something new, daring to express or share a part of you that needs to be voiced, to be a playmate with the impulse. 

     

    Be a willing playmate, stop sitting on the sidelines of your life…get up and follow an impulse fearlessly. 

     

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