I M Perfect lady

Tag: codependency

  • Baton-Less!

    I thought about innocence yesterday and what it is, how is it experienced and do I truly know it.

    This morning it came to me that I was picking up pieces of innocence as I walked searching for truth, and that perhaps truth is innocence, for without truth can there be innocence?  And is it possible to have experienced so much that isn't innocent and still be innocent or be able to return to the land of innocence?

    I had looked up the meaning of innocence and one definition said, "freedom from guilt or sin through being unacquainted with evil – blamelessness.  I like this one.

    Being free of guilt…

    I thought perhaps it was impossible to get back a state of innocence, that once you fell out of that pureness, it would be impossible to wipe yourself clean again.

    Innocence dies when you feel blamed.  Innocence dies when you become acquainted with evil… And it returns when the blame lies outside of you.

    If everyone would look upward, toward their parents, victims would dry up…innocence would bloom…like a chain reaction of love flowing backwards through generations; innocence would flourish.

    Seeing the flow of guilt and how it poured downward into small children, you can see the cause…how it forms and why.

    Alice Miller is correct, that the fourth commandment has really messed with our heads and psyches, by bringing blame into our selves out of fear of blaming our parents.

    Innocence is being able to stand up and face the truth of what is…not carrying the blame, shame and guilt that isn't mine to carry.  I didn't start this trickle down affect, but I do carry my responsibility to stop it from flowing down into my children.

    If I blame my children for 'making me mad' or 'losing control', I am passing the baton of guilt to my child.  If she reaches for the baton, she will lose her innocence.  Taking the blame for something you didn't start is to lose your innocence.

    Taking back your innocence is to hand back the blame.

    A relay going backwards, is the only way we can heal ourselves from abuse…

    The weight of carrying the wrong baton is where all the issues lie.  

    I remember in the early days of my mental breakdown, the days of discovering that all I thought I knew, I knew nothing….I recall feeling that this mess was much to big for me AND that I can't fix what I didn't create.  

    It took me out of the lives of my parents and siblings and into my own.  My own was a big enough mess and I carried only that.

    I handed the batons of guilt and responsibility back to my parents.

    I handed the batons of guilt and responsibility back to my siblings.

    And only sat with what I was responsible for.  

    In the past, in the present or in my future.  Holding that damn baton in order to keep my parents guilt free, had done nothing to clean them up, but in fact dirtied me.

    I see sins being forgiven the same way.  "Here hold my guilt for me…carry the burdens of my bad choices!"

    Quitting the relay team of guilt has set me free…I carry only me.

    I take responsibility for what I do, what I say and how I act.

    My children don't have to carry any part of me.

    I am a self contained container…a free me.

    Innocence is being free to be me…baton-less!

    IMG_2364
    Photograph by Hannah Jukuri….

     

  • To Be Fearless.

    Inside of me resides the shadows of a very mental woman; she lurks in the background of my life.  I have worked very hard to keep her back there and not let her come roaring to the front wreaking all havoc.

     

    When my children make choices that are not my choices, or what I would like for them, she is BEGGING loudly to get involved.

     

    She would love nothing more than to toss a few choice words around, belittle, berate, and demean them.  She loves to rant and rave and direct others to do things to make her happy or feel safe or right or in control… she is the queen of all bitches.

     

    My mind gets crammed full of what her desires are, she eclipses my present moment like a very dark cloud, her wants and desires are mostly her fears and they rain down within me.

     

    I have to wrestle inside of me to shut her up.  To not weaken and let her have her way in my world, for when she does, it doesn’t come out sounding sweet nor does it fall gently upon my children.

     

    For almost 7 years now, I have fought to gain a foothold in front of her, to shut my mouth and keep her inside, to face my fears of abandonment alone, to not let escape even one sentence of hers.

     

    If she speaks, it is only to control others for her own happiness; she steals their lives and makes them her own.

     

    My hardest walk ever is to be silent, to give my viewpoint and then let go.  To release each and every person, related or not, into their lives, no matter how their choices make me feel.

     

    If my happiness is found by their choices, I am dependent upon them for my happiness.

     

    It can’t matter a bit if I am sad, devastated, lonely, or unhappy.  My state of being is about me, not them.

     

    If they make choices with a gauge on how it makes me feel, I am teaching them to be a co-dependent, and that their choices should NOT hurt others or make others feel bad.

     

    That is how I raised my children until they were in their teens, and now I am teaching them the opposite. To do what they want, no matter how it makes me feel.

     

    Instead their decisions have to be what they want and they are to be gauged by their own happiness not mine.

     

    And the way I am teaching this is to let them make choices that fill me with fear, trepidation, anxiety, loss, etc.  I have to let them learn who people are by themselves.  I am unable to forbid them; I have to let them go.

     

    My childhood home reflected the ways of the church, that our lives were not our own to live.  Our lives had to please and conform to another’s happiness or fall into the category of what a good Christian does and what a good child does.

     

     

    When I sit with the thoughts still about how many are unable to move independently, I greatly understand, for I too used to live this way.  Frozen unable to move for the fear of wrath to go against the mainstream of how we were raised.

     

    Unable to go against them for we are seen as bad and we fear that if we are bad enough, they will push us out and away.

     

    How binding to live this way. To be too afraid to move knowing it is going against the ideals of people in charge.

     

    As you sit, you teach your children to sit.

    As you act to please others, you teach your children to give up their lives.

     

    I know how hard it is to find a voice and use it that doesn’t match what others want or need. 

     

    But the only way I began to live free of the mental woman inside of me was to go against all that I was raised to be.

     

    To say and do things that make others unhappy for my own peace of mind, for doing what was right for me.

    To speak of things I used to be silent about.

     

    It wasn’t that I wasn’t afraid.  I was terrified, but I did it anyway.  Being fearless is knowing you are afraid, but doing it anyway.

     

    As I see so many silently sitting and knowing…I wonder when they will decide independently, that now is the time to be fearless.