I M Perfect lady

Tag: choices

  • Homeless to Harvard.

    “Breaking Night” by Liz Murray, how she went from Homeless to Harvard, shows that you can change the legacy you were born into.

    Her endurance to survive was what she needed to change direction when she could see her course aligning with her parents.

    She is seventeen when she decides to return to high school, a friend suggests an Alternative high school, “It’s a place like a private school, but for anyone who is really motivated to go, even if they don’t have the money. The teachers really care about you.”

    Here is where she sees her past and future collide.

    “I was scheduled to begin high school in September, it was May now. I would use the months ahead to prepare; I had four years to make up. The next thing I had to do, in order to complete my registration to Prep, was return to JFK, my old high school, and get my official transcript.

    Having seen Prep, JFK looked absolutely massive in comparison. I passed through metal detectors to enter the building. No one looked at me. Students were everywhere, thousands of them. It felt like a bus station. Taking the number 1 train back to Prep later that day, I sat down and ripped open the manila envelope. Columns of failing grades- 45, 60, 50- were everywhere. It was unnerving, reading row after row of flunking marks. I felt like a mess, a big walking train wreck. The experience of talking about my grades (having been lectured by adults so many times) versus actually seeing my transcripts was night and day. Transcripts were a real thing, a tangible expression of what I had and had not done with my life, and a road map of what still had to be done. Looking at my academic disaster, I could see that I had a mountain ahead of me to climb.

    Then, very suddenly, sitting on the train gazing at the JFK stationary, it dawned on me – my Prep transcripts were still completely blank. I literally had nothing, no grades, zip on my Prep transcripts yet. I could start fresh.

    The thought of the clean slat was thrilling, especially after looking at the mess I had created. With all the things that had been difficult, it was one blessing to count on, the knowledge that what I did from this moment on didn’t have to depend on what I had done before. Back on Nineteenth street, I asked April to give me a copy of my blank Prep transcripts, which was a simple printout of my name on Prep stationary and rows of blank columns waiting to be filled in by my future grades. The JFK ones I handed to April and never looked at again. The blank ones I kept with me at all times. They were a reminder that I was, day by day, writing my future. Sleeping in a hallway around Bedford Park later that week, I took out my blank transcripts and I filled in the grades I wanted, making neat little columns of A’s. If I could picture it – if I could take out these transcripts and look at them – then it was almost as if the A’s had already happened. Day by day, it was just catching up with what was already real. My future A’s, in my heart, had already occurred. Now I just had to get to them.

    A memory of Ma helped me decide this. The only papers I’d ever seen that were as ‘official’ looking as transcripts were Ma’s short stack of documents to verify qualification for welfare. Ma’s caseworker were always so difficult, so technical with us. And the walls of those depressing welfare offices, for some reason, were always painted puke green, a color made uglier by the harsh fluorescent lights and the iron bars on the large windows. There were so many people waiting in those offices – dozens, hundreds. When the hard little seats filled up, people sat on windowsills or on the floor; they stood or they paced.

    Ma, Lisa and I would wait for hours too, one of the dozen of other families all nervously checking and rechecking their own short stack of vital documents. When it was finally our turn, what I can remember most about being hoisted onto Ma’s lap is the bizarre interaction between Ma and the caseworker. It did not matter what Ma was saying. All that the caseworker focused on were Ma’s documents. Birth certificates, notarized letters, doctor’s notes to verify mental illness, our lease. Ma’s actual words and particularly Ma herself, were invisible to this woman, a woman who had the power to give or take away food, rent and safety. All that boiled down to was this; either we had the exact documents required for approval, or we did not. There was no in between. And even if we were missing only something small, like a second set of copies or one of Ma’s doctors’ notes, a single error could make all our effort- the document gathering, the travel, and the hours of waiting –irrelevant. One missing or invalid document and our file was shut, tossed. They called “next,” and we had to come back another day to start from scratch. All because the documents were either correct or they weren’t, period.

    How was this different from my high school transcripts? It wasn’t. I thought, if one day, maybe just maybe I wanted to go to college, some person in a suit in a very different kind of office would open my file, read my documents, and either I would have the qualifications, or I wouldn’t. Yes or no, nothing in between. And if I didn’t, my file would be shut and they would call “next.” I would be out of luck. Some things in life, I’d learned, were nonnegotiable. Documents as official as these transcripts were big, they were my yes or no, they were my options. They were my ticket. Now I was going to think of everything I did at Prep inside the framework of my transcripts – and that turned out to mean everything.”

    Later, there would be times when I did not want to go to school. I wanted to sleep on Fief’s floor and not get up. Bobby and Jamie were hanging out, walking around the Village. People were cutting school, and I was missing all the fun. There would be times I did not want to sit in a chair all day long while fresh air was outside and I was missing out. But all I had to do was think of my transcripts, and I would go to school, on time, every day, for the first time in my life. Either I would have the qualifications or I wouldn’t, and besides my friends weren’t going to pay my rent.”
    Liz Murray

    Each moment she has to make a choice to either act differently and get a different outcome or fall back on the way of life she was used to.

    Her focus on having a different document to hand out in life, gave her the tool she needed to stay the course.

    Change is not easy, you have to go against all you have ever known, extract stamina in each moment to not waffle and capitulate, you have to be willing to let go of who you are to become who you wan to be…as Wayne Dyer says.

    A great book of how she turned her life around…imagine she did this at seventeen homeless and with a father addicted to drugs who lived in a halfway house.

    Literally, Homeless to Harvard!

  • I Play Where I am Happy!

    “It’s easier to love a happy me,” is a comment I made and it seems profound in a very simplistic way.

     

    How can you love yourself if you are unhappy?

     

    What I found by writing is that unhappiness is wanting what is impossible to have.

     

    If you are not happy with what you have, you can’t love what you are.

     

    My happiness came when I discovered that there was no chance in getting what I wanted for me, that I had to accept what I was.

     

    I wanted me to be a not abused girl.

     

    I didn’t want to own the abuse and all what the abuse did to me, nor any of the characters attached to the abuse, or the church’s line of forgiveness.

     

    The list went on and on, and nothing on the list was pleasing to me; a full menu of things I didn’t like.

     

    When there was no hope or a pray in heaven that my reality could/would/should change, I found happiness.

     

    It was either be okay with my lot in life, or be unhappy.

     

    It is easy to be happy with a nice pair of shoes or jeans that fit you well, but try and put on reality when it seems too sordid to tell and be happy in that.

     

    But it hurts more to be forever waiting and wanting what is impossible to have.

     

    For some reason it is better to accept what is possible than to get left seeking the impossible.

     

     

    I made friends with what was possible.

     

    I learned mostly I had possibilities.

     

    “When God shuts a door, he opens a window” I believe is a phrase many use.

     

    Instead of sitting by the closed door, I went to the window and had the courage to find a way to be happy.

     

    By turning my attention and desires away from the closed door, I was presented with a million opportunities to be happy. 

     

    They would never be the choices behind the closed door, they were all different and I was delighted and surprised to find they made me happy.

     

    In the window of opportunities I began to see a new life, a new way, a new me, a new normal was being born.

     

    There is simply nothing I can do to change my past or all the characters who played there, but I can now decide how I play today.

     

    I play where I am happy!

     

  • Held On So Tightly…

    I awoke at 4:00 am, with my right hand tightly clenched, my arm sore.

     

    A dream flooded my awareness.

     

    I was at a beach, and saw a young girl pour gasoline into the front seat of my car, I hollered, and she looked at me and continued to pour.

     

    When I arrived at the car, she was still standing there smiling and pouring gas in my car, I caught her hand.

     

    And held on.

     

    We were connected for hours, while I tried to call the police, while we waited for them to arrive, while we waited for them to do something.  For the whole long day, I had to hold on to this unruly defiant child, this young girl who did everything in her power to get a way.

     

    I went from hanging on tightly with one hand to at times keeping her in a double arm hug/hold.

     

    She had friends who came by and made snide comments to me, while they tried to get her free from my grasp, yet I held on tighter. 

     

    Her mother and family also happened by, and the mother said, go ahead see if you can do something…

     

    All day long this longhaired, thin as a rail girl and I were joined, she wanting so desperately to get away and I as so determined to hold her.

     

    When I awoke, I realized this is a great metaphor for holding on to wishing someone would change.

     

    It took all my energy, attention, concentration, to hold on to this girl who wanted to no part of what I wanted, and I wouldn’t let go.

     

    Neither of us allowed to be free.

     

    All it takes is one person to change their direction of struggle, it only takes one and we are both free.

     

    As I look upon the last few days, and me trying to get my sisters to see my point of view….this struggle depicts it perfectly.

     

    I am trying to convince them against their will.

     

    When I went to bed last night, I recalled how my mother always focused on who didn’t arrive; who didn’t send a card, who didn’t treat her well, and then wasn’t able to be aware of who did. 

    Her habit became my habit, I too lose many hours of precious time focusing on a segment of people who are in my mental mind’s opinion, not doing what they ‘need’ to do.

     

    I felt a long line of misunderstanding unravel last night as I lay in bed, and then the dream filled my sleeping hours.

     

    If you are so busy working with those struggling against you, you can’t play and enjoy those with you.

     

    I am letting them go…

     

    In my dream, as the long day ended, when we were both tired, I took her information down on how to reach her, and I let her go.

     

    My last sight of her was her walking away free, adjusting her clothes and shrugging and correcting herself, like a dog shaking its self once free from a leash.

     

     

    And I sat there rubbing my hand that had held on so tightly….

     

     

     

  • Right For You.

    I read a wonderfully inspiring book at the Beach House, “Unraveled” by Maria Housden.

     

    She writes about a conversation she had with her dad about the choices she made that went against conventional thinking, but that spoke to her soul.

     

    “I heard the screen door behind me open.  Turning, I saw my father, holding two glasses of lemonade, coming toward me.

    “Do you mind if I join you, honey?” he asked.

    “Not at all, I’d love it,” I said.

     

    Perching at the edge of the stoop, he handed me one of the glasses.  I took sip, savoring the tangy sweetness in my mouth before swallowing.  My father cleared his throat.  I looked at him, realizing now that he had an ulterior motive in joining me.  I remained silent wondering what he was going to say.

     

    “Marie, I need to tell you something.”  He said finally.  My heart leaped into my throat. Suddenly I was ten years old, anticipating a scolding. My father addressed me by my first name only when it was really serious or important.

     

    “I want to talk with you about your life and the decisions you’ve made and are making.”  He cleared his throat again and took a sip of lemonade.  My heart was now thudding in my chest.  I willed myself to stay focused on my father’s words.  “What I have to say,” he continued, “isn’t just about you and your children.  It’s also about my mother.”

     

    His mother!  Although he had always found it painful to speak of her, I knew that my father had always loved his mother deeply.  For years had kept a large, framed photograph of her on top of the table in his office. I could see her image now, in my mind, a dark-haired woman with pale skin, full lips, and deep feeling eyes, wearing formal-looking, light-colored suit with a wide-brimmed hat.  I knew from what I had overheard as a child that she was quiet, soft-spoken woman who had been loved by everyone who knew her, and the wife of a doctor, my father’s father, an intense, emotionally abusive, alcoholic man.  The source of my father’s profound sorrow was that she had died in the hospital of cancer when my father was sixteen, before my father and his brothers were even told she was sick.

     

    My father was speaking, “Honey, I want you to know that, in terms of the decisions you’ve made in your life this past year, even the difficult one you’re considering now, I think your doing the right thing.  It hasn’t been easy, I know, to have the kind of courage you’ve had. But those of us who love you, and especially Will, Margaret, and Madelaine, it is wonderful to see you putting yourself out there.  God gives each of us talents to express.  Whose right is it to limit the expression of those gifts?  I feel lucky to have you as a daughter, and I will always be committed to instilling in you your right to excel.”

     

    I wanted to cry, my heart swelling with gratitude and relief, but my father was not done.

     

    “This has always been a man’s world,” he continued. “And no one knew that more than my mother. But she didn’t have the strength to do what you’re doing. She put up with a lot of unhappiness and abuse, and it killed her.”  He hesitated.  I waited. “What I have to say next might sound strange to most people, but I am sure you will understand.  I still feel my mother.   Her presence has always been a part of my life. And what I feel in relation to her now is that the decisions you’re making as a woman are not only helping you and your children.  Your decisions are also healing her.”

     

    I was stunned. I had never heard my father speak like this.  As he words sank into my bones, I felt my need to be perfect in his eyes melting. I knew then that I had to be willing to endure the disapproval of others in order to be everything I was capable of being.  My father had reminded me that not only was I responsible to my own life and the lives of my children, but I was responsible to every woman who had come before me and to those who would come after, who needed to be reminded, as I once had, that they are deserving and capable of more.

     

                Maria Housden

     

    I loved this book for it showed not only the courage it takes to go against society, friends and family to do what feels right to you, but also the delights in doing what you feel is right.

     

    Right for you.

     

  • Steps towards mine.

    My online conversations with family are so enlightening and disturbing, confusing and clear, and they show me who they are, and how they see me.

     

    What continues to surprise me is that they hold me up to an unattainable standard and then have no standards for themselves or the rest of the folks they spend time with.

     

    Their willingness to hang on to my father and let me go leaves me forever puzzled.

     

    My latest infraction is that I knew my mother wasn’t with my father, but I said it for my benefit, for my stories benefit.

     

    I lie for the benefit of my story?

     

    My story is torrid enough without needing one drop of falseness.  They don’t make Hollywood movies that are as tainted and twisted and long-suffering as mine.

     

    I willingly admitted that I assumed wrong, and that wasn’t believed. 

     

    My mother was in my father’s new town, but refused to see him, she would get dropped off before his house and wait while they delivered ‘stuff’ to him.

     

    She was near, but not with him, sorta like when she is up here.  She is near me, but not with me. 

     

    So what does that mean?

     

    We have not had a reunion any more than they have had a divorce, it seems she lives in between.

     

    Between the ending and a new beginning, a no place.

     

    It seems to me it would be easier to end it once and for all, to complete the relationship to finalize it, like ending a contract, for until then you are nowhere, not married, but not divorced.

     

    Separated with space, living in a hammock between both lands.

     

    Her not being near him hasn’t brought her closer to me, I wonder why? 

     

    Where is she really?

     

    No steps taken to sever or to reunite.

     

    What kind of life is it to live in between, to live in the space that isn’t either side, to be free of making a choice either way?

     

    Isn’t that standing still?

    Undecided?

    Unknowing?

     

    I see her as unchanged, for even if she has left my father’s side, she hasn’t made steps towards mine.

     

     

     

  • Future Us!

    Here is a great concept that I had never considered in a book called, “Stumbling on Happiness” by Daniel Gilbert.

     

    “We treat our future selves as though they were our children, spending most of the hours of most of our days constructing tomorrows that we hope will make them happy. Rather than indulging in whatever strikes our momentary fancy, we take responsibility for the welfare of our future selves, squirreling away portions of our paychecks each month so they can enjoy their retirements on a putting green, jogging and flossing with some regularity so they can avoid coronaries and gum grafts, enduring dirty diapers and mind-numbing repetitions of The Cat In The Hat so that someday they will have fat-cheeked grandchildren to bounce on their laps. Even plunking down a dollar at the convenience store is an act of charity intended to ensure that the person we are about to become will enjoy the Twinkie we are paying for now. In fact, just about any time we want something – a promotion, a marriage, an automobile, a cheeseburger, we are expecting that if we get it, then the person who has our fingerprints a second, a minute, or a decade from now will enjoy the world they inherit from us, honoring our sacrifices as they reap the harvest of our shrewd investment decisions and dietary forbearance.

     

    Yeah, Yeah.  Don’t hold your breath.  Like the fruits of our loins, our temporal progeny are often thankless. We toil and sweat to give them just what we think they will like, and they quit their jobs, grow their hair, move to or from San Francisco, and wonder how we could have been so stupid enough to think they’d like that. We fail to achieve the accolades and rewards that we consider crucial to their well-being, and they end up thanking God that things didn’t work out according to our shortsighted, misguided plan.  Even that person who takes a bite of the Twinkie we purchased a few minutes earlier may make a sour face and accuse us of having bought the wrong snack.  No one likes to be criticized, of course, but if the things we successfully strive for do not make our future selves happy, or if the things we unsuccessfully avoid do, then it seems reasonable (if somewhat ungracious) for them to cast a disparaging glance backward and wonder what the hell were we thinking.  They may recognize our good intentions and begrudgingly acknowledge that we did the best we could, but they will inevitably whine to their therapists about how our best just wasn’t good enough for them.

     

    How can this happen?  Shouldn’t we know that tastes, preferences, needs and desires of the people we will be next year – or at least later this afternoon?  Shouldn’t we understand our future selves well enough to shape their lives – to find careers and lovers whom they will cherish, to buy slip covers for the sofa that they will treasure for years to come?  So why do they end up with attics and lives that are full of stuff that we considered indispensable and that they consider painful, embarrassing or useless?  Why do they criticize our choice of romantic partners, second-guess our strategies for professional advancement, and pay good money to remove tattoos that we paid good money to get?  Why do they experience regret and relief when they think about us, rather than pride and appreciation?  We might understand all of this if we had neglected them, ignored them, mistreated them in some fundamental way – but damn it, we gave them the best years of our lives!  How can they be disappointed when we accomplished our coveted goals, and why are they so damned giddy when they end up in precisely the spot we worked so hard to steer them clear of?  Is something wrong with them? 

    Or is something wrong with us?”  Daniel Gilbert

     

    I love this concept that we are making choices today so that the US of our future will be happy, when we can’t possible know that the US in the future will be like, want, need or anything!  And we work harder to please the US we don’t know than we do on please the US of today!

     

    I say do today what you love.

    Do it each day for the rest of your life and give up on the future US. 

     

     

  • Where I want to go…

    “Keep on going, and the chances are that you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it.  I never heard of anyone ever stumbling on something sitting down.” 

       ~Charles F. Kettering

     

    Today was my 132nd day of doing yoga and my whole body and mind seem to be screaming to let it go, let it be, just relax you have come far enough.  Yet another voice of knowing, the silent motivator who has seen great improvements countered these excuses.

     

    I am thinking it was a fantasy to believe that one voice would grow silent, and a fallacy to think you will silence forever one voice.

     

    One voice this morning had lots of great reasons to stay in bed, the rain, a cool room, a warm bed, a long week of work, a tired body, while the other voice spoke of strong muscles, yoga gives energy, feeling good, etc.

     

    I feel better knowing that I have two voices and two choices and I can follow either, there isn’t one right voice, just two voices leading to two different places.

     

    Each day it is up to me to decide where I want to go!

     

  • Your Free Will.

    “Our bodies are our gardens – our wills are our gardeners.”  ~William Shakespeare

     

    I looked up the word willpower and it said, “the strength of will to carry out one’s decisions, wishes or plans.”

     

    What I didn’t know was that willpower needs a destination in mind a wish or a plan.

     

    Willpower needs direction and it awaits us to show the way.

     

    I had thought it was this ether like substance that some people have more of it than others. 

     

    Instead I think we all have willpower at the same level and it takes us where we decide to go.

     

    Willpower has no power without us, until we make a stand to either  stay or go, to do or not do, to make or not make, to fear or not fear, to love or not love, to be or not be, it will support our choice no matter what.

     

    It has taken the rap for not being there at full throttle, while the real truth is you changed your direction. 

     

    If you stop and turn back, willpower follows, it is your free will!

     

     

     

     

     

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  • All the Gifts Awareness Brings!

    One hundred and four days into a new habit, the habit of being aware, of being responsible for my response to life, of knowing that I will always get the results I want depending upon my actions.

     

    My actions in the past 104 days has been to do yoga daily, to make it a priority to take care of this body, by giving it my attention, by moving stretching bending and stretching it into becoming more and more flexible and strong.

     

    I can’t get the results I want, without doing the action step.

     

    The action step is to get out of bed, to carve out time and space in my day to work on my body, to begin sculpting it into a new design.

     

    There seems to be only two habits in the world, the mindless effortless sleep habit or the action based awareness.

     

    I am making it a new habit to be aware in all things.

     

    It makes life alive and very responsive and I have the best seat in the house to experience and feel all the gifts awareness brings!

     

     

  • Will to Erase the Excuse!

    “An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie….”

                 Alexander Pope

     

    Wayne Dyer writes in his book Excuses Begone,

     

    There’s statistical evidence that the conscious mind occupies approximately 5% of the total workings of the brain, leaving 95% to the realm of subconscious. Percentages interest me less than the ability to sense your mind as some amorphous component of your being that’s constantly changing from one ego-based thought to another, but rather as evidence of your nature, or your connection to the infinite intellect of creation.  This style of magnificent respect alerts you to your ability to access the highest function of your mind.

     

    According to Tor Norretranders, the author of The User Illussion, the subconscious mind has been calculated to process millions of environmental stimuli per second versus only a few dozen environmental stimuli per second that the conscious mind can process.  Conventional psychological wisdom says that much of what you believe about yourself, along with almost all of your daily actions, is programmed into your subconscious or habitual mind.  You spend a great deal of your time operating on automatic pilot, so to speak.  In fact, you could visualize your two minds as co-pilots:  the conscious mind is aware of its thoughts but is a minor player, like a real pilot in training; while the subconscious takes care of virtually everything you need to think, say and do.

     

    I take exception to this assertion that the habitual mind runs the show, doing everything that the creative mind isn’t paying attention to.  According to this view, the habitual mind is like a computer running a downloaded program that will play through out your life – it’s been permanently programmed from the moment of conception, and it’s next to impossible to get new software to rewrite existing programs.  I simply cannot agree that a part of your mind was nourished by ideas, images, and input that continue to be necessary for your sustainability today.  It’s my contention that this is a false belief that’s easily revealed as an excuse.  I don’t believe that anyone has to live with the belief that they have programming in their subconscious mind that can’t be rewritten.  I’ll explain my perspective on this issue.

     

    If you’re the way you are because of something that’s subconscious – that is, below your level of waking consciousness- then it’s clearly something you can do nothing about.  You can’t even talk about it, since it is beyond your conscious mind.  For the same reason, you can’t understand it; you can’t challenge it; and, most egregiously, you can’t change or fix it.  How can you fix something that’s totally inaccessible?  It would be like attempting to repair a broken watch that was sealed away in a vault: obviously, you need the combination to enter into that previously inaccessible space.

     

    If something is subconscious and thus automatic, it’s believed that you don’t have a choice in the matter.  And to me, that’s the most regrettable thing about this subconscious model: believing that you don’t have a choice.  The truth, as I see it, is that every thing you think, say, and do is a choice – and you don’t need to think, speak or act as you’ve done for your entire life.  When you abandon making choices, you enter the vast world of excuses.

     

    Right now, while reading this book, decide to begin choosing instead of excusing.  You can instantly decide to reprogram and direct your life toward the level of happiness, success, and health that you prefer.  (Wayne Dyer)

     

    While reading this book, and I am only in the beginning of it, this affirms what I have walked. 

     

    Did you hear what he was saying, that if you can explain the excuse, you know! 

     

    If you can show me what your excuse is, you know! 

     

    And if you know, than it isn’t hidden and subconscious, but rather you are allowing the excuse to run your world!  You gave up choices for excuses.

     

    This has been nagging at me, of how my sisters and brothers didn’t seem to have a choice. 

     

    What Wayne Dyer is saying is that they have excuses instead of choices. 

     

    This will ride with me forever. 

     

    Knowing that if you can form an excuse, it is no longer in your subconsciousness!  You are aware of what is in your vault, your safe, what you haul out as an excuse.  Amazing!

     

    What power this gives to those who feel they are forever doomed because the childhood environment etc, this will allow you to have power over anything you can label.

     

    If you can label it you can change the label.

     

    I am only on page 22, but so far I find this very insightful.

     

    Imagine trading choices for excuses!

    How powerless that even sounds.

     

    It just seemed so off balance that some have choices and others don’t, this really evens the playing field, an equal opportunity for all.

     

    It takes away the excuse of excuses.

     

    Here is the definition, for of course I had to look it up.

    -forgive something: to release somebody from blame or criticism for a mistake or wrongdoing

    – overlook something: to make allowances for somebody or something

    – release somebody from obligation: to release somebody from an obligation or responsibility

     

    When I read the definition and applied it to what Wayne Dyer is writing about, the excuse is not for the other person, it is for you.

     

    It allows you to be powerless, choice less, which equals to hopeless and helpless.  

     

    If all knew that excuses were so self-defeating, I am sure no one would utter one again. 

     

    To use an excuse is to show how weak you are.  Imagine that.

     

    I will have to watch how often I use an excuse instead of having the will of choice.

     

    Will of choice, it surely will take will to erase the excuse.