I M Perfect lady

Tag: friendship

  • Our Own Worst Enemy

    I heard Self Confidence described in a way I hadn't thought of it before…I believe we have an overall meaning, but not how it is derived.  What I didn't know is that our sense of self confidence comes from our inner dialogue and promises…the ones we don't keep, are actually lies to our selves.  The more we lie, the less confidence we have in our self.

    Bob Greene and Oprah were talking about starting to make healthy changes in your lifestyle, and how we tell our selves, "Monday, I will start working out…" or "Next month, I will stop eating sweets".  The damage comes when we tell ourselves these lies, for Monday rolls around and we don't do as we said.

    It is in the follow through, or the lack thereof, that our confidence in our self begins to diminish.  The more we say we are going to start and the more often we don't, we see our selves as a liar…and just as friends who fail to follow through, we  lose our ability to trust our self.

    I hadn't considered all the times I toyed with the idea of 'starting' something and didn't that I was setting a precedence inside of me to lie.  Not only lie, but then not get upset about it.  

    It is like I was okay with lying and then even more okay at being lied to…by me.  I would never do to others what I have done over and over to myself.

    And more importantly, no one that I have respect for has ever lied to me as much as I have lied to myself.

    Somehow I discount the lies I tell myself and even have become numb or deaf to the words uttered, the promises, or plans spoken, either out loud or in my head. 

    What I know is that I would never talk that way to others, nor would I tolerate this behavior from others…yet when it is between me and me, there are no boundaries.

    Even doing the Yoga Challenge, it was helpful to have told other people, so that my word wasn't just between me and me.   Like I intuitively knew, that words to just myself were not enough.  

    Now I am debating how to create a healthy food plan, and have been off of sweets now for three days.  Yet, I haven't declared this out loud or even to myself.  There is a fear there in stating something I may not be able to suceed in.  Perhaps there is a part of me that is tired of lying inside of me.

    Just as I want to do a yoga challenge, but feel that I am not ready to commit for 60 days, and yet without a challenge, I do very little yoga.

    I am at a place of not wanting false promises, but not able to commit…perhaps in this space I can't fail, for I don't even try…but I don't lie.

    I just found this so interesting…I want to nurture a friendship with myself that is free of lies and false promises, one that I can respect and honor.

    I just didn't know my friendship with myself wasn't one that I would allow from others.  And this one lives inside and directs my life…stops starting to begin a new change that will have so many rewards.  

    Even in that alone is interesting.  How I stop myself from changing out of bad habits.  We certainly are our own worst enemy.

     

     

     

  • Bird of Truth

    I wonder about the Art of Making new friends, and does this change from when we are small children, what are our needs or requirements in wanting to spend time with each other?  How do we connect and then want to connect again or what makes us decide we no longer are interested in knowing more or finding a new depth in being acquaintances?  Is this a mutual dance, or can one person decide they have gone far enough and no longer are interested?  

    Is there ever an adult mutal exploring dialogue that goes on where you share differing views and opposing insights, and then in a almost friendly manner, say "Oh, we don't match enough for there to be common ground for us to play on…." 

    In my experience, silence is my first red flag, that something is amiss.  Silence without an explaination.  

    When I walked out on my mother, I knew that we had reached a fork in the road, and that neither of us were willing to join the other's path, and parting seemed natural.

    There was a clear and obvious difference, that neither of us could articulate at the time; but it was being played out in reality and the split was there in all its glory.  No words or fancy phrases, quotes or past sentiments could cover it up.  

    A split, a crevice opened up and swallowed what had been…what was before was no more…in its place was two ladies responding and reacting totally different to one man's abuse.

    This gigantic and obvious space didn't allow for small chit chat or table talk, it overtook us and wiped out our past relationship, leaving in its place, estrangement.

    I had similar splits with most of my siblings, where my responses and theirs stood a world apart, setting me on a pathway that would no longer converge with theirs, for I now we heading in a totally new direction for me.

    My changing has also cooled other friendships, for what had bound us together was our similarities.

    It seems like a natural separation, where neither one has to voice words or have lengthy conversations, but each feel more comfortable in the drifting away.

    In the past, I may have overlooked many red flags that popped up early, but now I honor each flag that rises, each response that is made is showing me who they are.  I no longer fight and push flags down, nor demand more then they have to give…nor will I stay for the potential of what may someday arise…I allow them the freedom to be…which in turn gives me freedom to let go.

    It is the old adage, "Birds of a feather flock together."  

    I wonder if we have a subconscious checklist, and we go along until we hit a spot where we no longer match, which tells us our feathers don't match…we don't belong to the same bird.

    And I wonder how many birds there are to belong to?

    I believe we can boil it down to just two birds.

    Birds of truth and Birds of fiction.

    I was taught to fly as a bird of fiction, that in order to be loved and for their to be peace in my family home, I had to not show my broken feathers…

    I fit into a flock of pretenders…until all my lies and pretending came home to roost.  It was then I realized there was and is only one bird in our family.  The bird of abuse…no matter how much we didn't talk about it, or act like it, we still couldn't pull off a new bird.

    It was when I stopped pretending that the split happened…and I began flying with the bird of truth.

  • Emotional Cheating.

    Emotional cheating definition: It is an emotional relationship between a married or a committed person with another in the opposite sex not the spouse. It does not involve sex but includes emotional feelings and attraction and it is also referred to as an “affair of the heart”. It is difficult to spot because there is no physical evidence about it and its signs are susceptible to other interpretations. Emotional affairs are more about intimacy and romance but it can also be as damaging as physical affairs.

    Emotional cheating or an emotional affair has destroyed a lot of marriages because of various reasons. The cheating spouse invests his or her emotional energy and feelings to another person instead of the spouse and this usually results to a weakened marriage. These emotional investments should have made the marriage stronger but instead, it is passed on to another person.

    The problem with the emotional cheating definition is that it is inconclusive and there is a thin line separating an emotional affair and a platonic friendship. This why there are still debates whether emotional cheating should really be considered as cheating. But experts believe that an emotional affair is indeed a form of infidelity because it involves deception, betrayal, and a lot of lying.

    An emotional affair usually begins as a simple friendship with another person who shares a lot of common interest and desires. Then they start spending more time with each other and hang out more often. They share secrets and personal stories. If two persons are telling more things about each other and building intimacy and keeping it as a secret from the spouse, they are having an emotional affair.

    The most common signs of emotional cheating include: loss of sexual interest, spouse becomes too busy and spends less time at home, spouse becomes secretive and demands for privacy, spouse becomes moody, and the spouse becomes self-conscious on his or her appearance.

    Although some do not agree with the emotional cheating definition, there are still some ways to differentiate emotional cheating from a simple friendship. If your spouse’s relationship or friendship with another person is exclusive or very secretive and your spouse does not want you to be part of it and know more about it, chances are it is an emotional affair.

    Evelyn Andersen is a writer about emotional affairs and other relationship problems.

  • A Man abusing a woman.

    I have such great admiration for the choreography of the Universe, how it manages to give to you the right and perfect set up to heal your wounded self.

    In my quest for wholeness, the main theme has been feeling and seeing. As a child of abuse, I had separated myself from my body, and what I need most is to bring up those emotions, to feel them and greet them with understanding, and they recede on their own, once I ‘get it’.

    The message.

    What I was able to feel and see is beyond what I can hope to put into words.

    It gave to me the access of feelings that I feared I had lost.

    It brought forth a visual so brightly displayed for me to witness the dance of luring and grooming of an innocent girl.

    Delivering to me, the need of the perpetrator over shining the care this innocence needed.

    Showing how innocence the friendship begins and its ultimate conclusion, where the courtship is long and subtle, their needs small at first and how they build, how we start simple and grow into a complex adult scenario long before our time.

    How we are changed slowly and you don’t see yourself change, how you gradually succumb to the tiny wishes, one at a time, trusting and going along, until one day you wake up and your no longer there, in its place is another woman.

    It showed me how a mother should respond and how a mother did respond.

    My daughter found herself in a relationship with a married man, the man she was babysitting for, a man whose children she cared for, tended to like a second mother for many years, since the time she was just a girl herself. To see her in the role of being the other woman, to see her self so changed, broke my heart.
    To see her lost of her inner self worth shattering.

    The overall picture of seeing my young and innocent daughter being courted by such a knowing man, brought me back to the way my abuse played out for me, but with a different ending.

    The dual lesson that my daughter and I danced through leaves me breathless and to feel past overlapping onto the present, the weight of the legacy and it’s vine stretching into the next generation and feeling and seeing my abuse from all angles left my mind whirling.

    I had to first feel the devastation as a mother seeing my innocent daughter in a friendship with a man who single-handedly soiled her fine reputation, without blinking an eye.

    To feel my worthlessness in undoing what was already done.

    To then see the dance and the lure and the friendship and its ‘friendly like’ image have such a dirty ugly affect on the girl, left me shattered and broken as I clearly saw what she failed to see.

    And to be the one to shatter her dreams and love and to flood him in a new light, but then to also put the image on to her self and to see what she ‘allowed’ her self to be. By showing her what the other woman does.

    I was able to see what my mother couldn’t see.
    I was able to do what my mother couldn’t do.
    We both, my daughter and I, were able to stand taller and stronger in truth, than either of would be able to do in lies.

    It was an incredible and heart breaking 24 hours.
    My daughter feels she carries the shame of being the other woman, I feel she carries the experience of being abused.

    I can see how we carry forth from abuse, that we were at fault, that we allowed it, we dance too, but there usually is One with more power, more experience, more everything, that leads the dance to lowering our self worth in their blind desire for their needs being fulfilled.

    The fail to see how it affects us.

    My daughter’s reputation was damaged while his remained unchanged.

    She approached the friendship as innocent.
    A young girl who didn’t realize when you knowingly do what you feel is wrong but do it anyway, you are giving away your self worth.

    We do it for many reasons, to be liked, to please, to get attention, to feel good, and what we all fail to realize, is this feeling is fleeting, it is like a drug, we are forever needing more.

    A habit of pleasing another for our high of feeling good, while our sense of self gets depleted.

    The subtle disappearing self in the dance of friendship that has a greedy needy thirst on one side and the other willingly feeding the supply is a train wreck waiting to happen.

    How grateful am I, that my daughter was able to see and feel her sense of self being lowered, being changed, how she became a stranger to herself.

    Yet when this happens as child, we don’t even have a self established to see disappear, it is gone before we knew it.

    The lessons I was able to experience while she experienced it first hand is like a mirror image of me as a child.

    I can see how my mother’s reaction affected how I was unable to see myself. For my mother’s affection and allegiance was to my father. She didn’t see my change within; she didn’t see my self worth leave.

    I can see how my husband reacted, how she had a loving space to show her the difference between what is a loving friendship and what lowers you.

    There are a million ways this has opened my eyes and hers, how it shows us both, our own boundaries of self love matter most before any request outside.
    Some may see her as the other woman and call her awful names, judge and criticize her actions, view her as the home wrecker etc. I will see her as a victim of
    Abuse.

    Her babysitting children’s father took advantage of her.

    The lack of self worth on his part lent itself to overstep his boundaries. He took liberties that were not his to take.

    He tried to make an adult friendship and press it further with someone who was way out of his league.

    Her innocence was no equal match for him. It was like taking candy from a baby.

    I will see his strengths and her blindness and trust, see her having to lower who she was to become his friend.

    Friendships like that we don’t need.

    Friendship and love will raise you up, not lower you down.

    What a great lesson to learn as such a young age.

    The reason I was having such a hard time seeing her as the ‘other woman’ was that she was just a girl.

    An innocent girl being swept away in an adult world of lies and secrets, of being chosen for the role of ‘other woman’.

    It wasn’t that she auditioned for the part, that she was out seeking this; it came in while she was babysitting.

    The contrast to the label he put on her back and the girl who sleeps on the top bunk in our home is a world apart.

    They don’t even come close to matching.

    Imagine, she still shares a room with her sisters.

    She occupies the top bunk. How can the other woman be the girl who sleeps on the top bunk?

    I feel so fortunate that we have her on the top bunk to have her in our home, to have this wonderful loving, kind and gentle girl in our home.

    What a close call.

    She now knows that when a ‘friendship’ lowers who you are, it isn’t a friendship, you are being abused.

    It is not the other woman on my top bunk, it is my little girl.

    My little wounded girl, who we will love back to her bright sunshiny self.

    We will love her as we always have, for this family didn’t believe, was shocked to the core that our innocent girl was put in the role of ‘other woman’.

    It is abuse, no matter the age.
    A man abusing a woman.

  • Success

    Life flows with such ease and delight at times, you feel its divine orchestration, where each small detail you didn’t even know you needed is taken care of.

    I have felt this in getting life lessons, where its painfully easing you into awareness, but my day yesterday was the opposite.

    My day off prompted me to ask three friends to share the day with me, which tripled my joy.

    I was chauffeured and entertained with great conversation, and given different viewpoints as our day unfolded.

    We learned we travel well together; we seemingly flow in similar directions yet with different views, enhancing our experiences by adding a new flavor I myself couldn’t have gotten alone.

    Sampling a small Quilt display to browsing Art books in a Library, Lunch, shopping for fabric, chocolates and clothes, each of us arriving and leaving with what we love.

    The energy of the ladies mingled with the energy of what we saw built within me the desire to be better, to expand my quilting techniques, to explore more, play more, enjoy more, be more.
    The day was much more than I dreamed it would be.

    Thanks Ladies for sharing yourselves so abundantly with me.

    With renewed energy, exciting fabric and filled with ideas, I am ready to play in an Artful way. The first road trip a great success….

  • My Lady’s Holiday…

    My friend and I spent the past few days on the shores of Lake Superior at a little beach house my In-Laws own. 

     

    Transported away from being a responsible mom and wife, allowing us to just be ourselves with ourselves and with a wonderful friend.

     

    We did yoga on the deck in the sunrise and I then took my chilly bath in the lake, followed by a healthy breakfast of yogurt and fresh berries.

     

    We then sat our chairs facing the water, soaking up rays and sharing our selves with each other, the books we read, the things we know, and the things we don’t know….

     

    From floating on inner tubes to paddling kayaks, our day and evenings slipped by.  By sharing and talking we come away more alike and less alone.

     

    It came to me that I would like to do this with all my Lady friends, all the wonderful woman that I am in contact with, old friends, new friends, young friends and old friends, a Lady’s get together, bringing together many Ladies in one place, all getting to know themselves and each other in a place filled with natures gifts.

     

    While talking to my friend we decided this should be an annual event.

     

    We talked and dreamed and schemed and planted the seeds for a “My Lady’s Holiday”.

     

    A weekend event that all you need to bring is your wonderful spirited lady within, to come and share, to come and meet, to come and play and be.

     

    My Lady’s Holiday has reconnected me to me, and has given me a gift of a deeper friendship.

     

    Take your Lady on a Holiday; take her for paddle on the Lake, a refreshing swim, lay on an inner tube, share an afternoon with a friend, do yoga stretching her body, open her up to the wonderful opportunities of a great friendship.

     

    Expand her horizons, learn new things, meet new people, learn new things about old people, sit and enjoy a lazy afternoon, bring your Lady on a Holiday from being so responsible in life, give her time to play with a friend.

     

    I look forward to many more “My Lady’s Holiday”.

     

     

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    My buddy….

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    The wonderful dinner she made…

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    and me by our Artful Fire Pit…

    Life is good!
     
     
     

  • Looking at her…

    I went online and did some reading on the statistics and reseach on pedophiles, for some reason I hadn’t done this before.

     

    Pedophile.

    The word comes from the Greek: παιδοφιλία (paidophilia): παῖς (pais), "child" and φιλία (philia), "friendship".

     

    Child friendship, wow, I would have thought the root of the word would be monster, predator, but not child friendship!

     

    Imagine!

     

    Child friendship, which is exactly what I have been trying to warn my sister from allowing to happen, a friendship being formed with her little granddaughter and my father. 

     

    Below are a few paragraphs from another article I found interesting. That being a pedophile is similar to performing magic tricks…

    In 1992 while living in Los Angeles, actor and magician Steve Valentine invited me to be his guest at the world famous Hollywood Magic Castle.  The Castle is a private club dedicated to the promotion of magic as an art form and hobby.  Club members perform their illusions up-close, chair-side, right under your nose.  Afterward, our group ended up at my apartment where Steve was gracious enough to show us more magic.  Amazed at how easy it was to fool us, I asked him point blank, “Why can’t we figure it out?”

    His answer has stuck in my mind for almost 20 years. “Magicians can get away with it,” he said, “because we know how you think.”  Having a degree in communication and psychology, I was riveted by the idea that the majority of humans (myself included) process the world through a homogenous lens that others can easily manipulate to fool us into seeing exactly what they want us to.  And what’s truly discouraging, as anyone who has ever been privy to the workings of a magic trick can attest, is how mindlessly simple the bending of reality needs to be to completely fool everyone.  I had always believed the wonder of magic rested within the skill of the magician.  Come to find out, it’s more accurately rooted in the conformed ignorance of the audience.

    The answer is simple; like a magician, predators get away with it because they know how children think, and as a result they’re able to convince adult eyes to see exactly what they want us to see; an ILLUSION that nothing is wrong.

    The mind control – the trick – the reason victims are not reporting the crime, is simply this: Fear.  Predators use the most powerful human motivator—Fear—to trick our children into silence.

     

    It is not the skilled mastery of the Predator that allows them to molest and rape our children and get away with it; rather it is the conformed ignorance of our children.  We must therefore make every effort to arm our children with pragmatic information to help them to fight back and destroy the monsters who would hurt them.

     

    You can read the full articles at www.ezfame.com

     

    Amazing to read that pedophiles are magicians who befriend our children and then put the seal of fear around the whole incident and call it ‘our secret- our BAD secret’ bringing the child in on the act, owning the shame and blame and fearing exposure to the loss of their innocence.

     

     

    Here are some statistics I read.

     

    1 in 4 girls is sexually abused before the age of 14

     

    1 in 6 boys is sexually abused before the age of 16

     

    Like rape, child molestation is one of the most under-reported crimes: only 1-10% are ever disclosed.

     

    More than 90% of all sexual abuse victims know their perpetrator. Almost 50% of the offenders are household members and 38% are already acquaintances of the victims.

     

    The average serial child molester has between 360-380 victims in his lifetime.

     

    This magic trick and the magicians who perform them on our innocent children will continue to play out as long as we continue to see them as normal fathers, grandfathers, and great grandfathers.

     

    The Illusion is the perfect environment for my father to perform his tricks.

     

    He is being supervised while he begins his next act, and being hand delivered his next partner to perform with him.

     

    For without a partner his magic dies.

     

    The magic of taking a child’s friendship and tainting it with sexual abuse, of taking our love and trust and using it to entrust us with his secret.

     

    He needs the ignorance of the adults in the room and he needs a child’s friendship, its these two main ingredients that will make the whole act.

     

    The magicians rely upon you looking at one thing while something else is really going on.

     

    As my sister is looking for a pedophile, while a pedophile is looking at her.

     

     

  • True Feelings.

    The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere. ~Anne Morrow Lindbergh

     

    This word Insincere has rung a bell with me, its meaning is to be hypocritical, not genuine and not reflecting true feelings. 

     

    Reflecting true feelings is so not done, we are taught to deflect our true feelings with something more palatable for others to swallow, like our own genuine feelings are too harsh, bitter or strong for others to swallow. 

     

    A watered down version is expected and seen as kindness.  Some how sparing another’s feelings are seen as a higher endeavor than speaking our truth.

     

    Meanwhile, these feelings sit inside of us festering unexpressed. 

     

    Inside of our bodies where no one can see, feelings lay in their genuine expression.

     

    Betrayal sits as betrayal, fear as fear, unloved as unloved, neglect as neglect, no magic happens inside, no dissolving of emotions as we make ourselves easier to be with.

     

    But who does this make us? 

    Who are we?

     

    Acting loved while feeling unloved are we not insincere?  Trying to muster up feelings of trust while our whole body reverberates no trust?  Who are we fooling does anyone win here?

     

    The latest movement is into whole foods, and I am thinking that we need the same movement in relationships, to only give out our whole feelings!

     

    No more watering them down and masking them with artificial ingredients.  Let us let anger be anger, deceit be deceit, and let relationships fall that will not hold true feelings.

     

    “Half a truth is often a great lie.” Benjamin Franklin

  • You Be You

    “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 or 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."

               Byron Katie

    An old friend surfaced and I felt myself not being seen or validated, and what instead was happening, is that I wasn’t validating her. 

    The stress inside of me was that I wanted her to be where she wasn’t, to speak and think in a way that was impossible for her to do so.

    I wanted her to have my relationship with God, my experiences of life, and my views and to feel what it is like to be in my shoes.  Insane?  How unkind of me to not understand that she simply can’t, for she is in her own life doing her own thing. 

    How awesome we each get our own life, our own business and our own pathway to God.

    There is an article “Seana Corn’s First Lesson in Yoga, (on Oprah.com click on Spirit) which again expresses that all people are on their own path, which is what I needed to read today, it cemented in me, that her and I are both right in our own way.

    I no longer feel the need for her approval or validation, I allow her to be on her own pathway, but without resentment towards her.

    So quickly I get lost in the community approval thing, where I seek another’s validation, like that will make my life better, easier or more than it already is.

    I truly honor her path, wherever IT leads her, and I am sooo grateful that I am not a ‘leader’ for her, for I have no clue what is best for her, like not even a little.

    It is amazing the way the resentment dies as soon as I accepted her as herself.

    You be you…

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