I M Perfect lady

Tag: groups

  • The Unofficial First Member

    I am part of a group of women who are in the incubation stages of forming a place where women can meet and share their journeys.  While its focus or its intentions is to help women travel their personal journey after abuse, it truly can be for any women who has something to share or needs a hearing ear and a helping hand.

    Sometimes groups tend to be 'victim' groups, but I know that while I was part of a quilter's group, I found it helpful to see role models that encouraged me to find a voice and to utilize a wider variety of choices.

    I see this women's group as being a two way street, where all are welcome…the abused and those who mentor us out of the darkness, we will teach each other the contrasts of life's journey.

    I am in the group as a free spirit, not connected or affiliated with a group or agency, perhaps, unbeknownst to me….the first official member.  For, behind my name is the experience of being abused, of living 40 years in denial…being without access to my personal voice, feelings or choices in my own life.  A victim without knowing it.

    I want to walk with others who are walking behind me.  I hope my experiences will offer hope.  

    The other women in the group are different than, and yet they too are traveling their own personal journey as well as being in the profession of victim services.  They have a wider view than I, and are seeing the victims from the outside.  My view is inside out.

    Together the combinations so far, are very different and extremely helpful, like many points of light…a lighthouse for women; we can see each situation from muliple views.

    All women are welcome, for we need good role models and mentors as well as creative artful women, and those in need.  We need victims in various stages on the journey of abuse, who can utilize and grow in our midst.  A community of ladies, each bringing their unique journey to teach us about their path.

    I want this group to be a place where all truths are honored.  

    Where it is a must to just be you.

    We accept only originals.

    I am excited that the seeds are planted….the beginning as begun.  I do love that I am the first member…or at least I see me as such.  For now, "The unoffical first member."

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    Ladies on a Journey!                                               photograph by Hannah Jukuri

  • I was Missing?

    One theme of fear that has nagged at me in the past six years is; I don’t belong.

    I don’t match, I don’t fit in, I am different, I am at odds with those around me. I stand out; I walked away, leaving behind many.

    I see them fitting together and me fitting out.

    I see a flock of people being in life in harmony and then me, singing off tune.

    The feeling inside was one of separation, loneliness, not belonging, forever standing on the fringe.

    What I failed to do was take one more step back and see the completed picture.

    My focus has been on the group, not on me, my view is from this odd angle of group mentality.

    Understandably so, for I was raised to be a group member, but not an individual and I excelled at this.

    I was a superior group member, outstanding in blending in, merging my life into the group, that I simply disappeared.

    Each time I felt the separation I felt lonely and not whole and grew smaller and smaller.

    I seemed to disappear from their life while my own life seemed to loom larger and larger.

    If you could see me from both views, you would see me growing fainter in their light but if you stood on my side you could see me growing bigger and brighter.

    My success or failure depends on where you are standing.

    If you are expecting me to return and become a group member, you will see me fading, growing weaker and farther away.

    And if you jump over to the side of individual your view will totally change.

    You will see a person standing up for her own feelings, her own passions and truths, a separated soul finding its own self worth.

    I too fall victim to the group view, to see me in their eyes and each time I do, I feel less.

    However, when I stand inside myself and witnessed my life from the inside out, I feel my uniqueness and my independence of free will.

    A group no longer owns me.

    As a child I was taught to give up my body, my feelings, my life and my individual stakes for a group called family, which was governed by religion and undermined by abuse.

    They took ownership of me piece by piece.

    Or I gave them pieces of me little by little, believing the more I gave the more I would become.

    I gave til I was gone.

    It has taken me a long while to remove the sense of self from the views of a group and see myself within my self, to feel my self as self.

    To weigh and measure myself by my own ruler, to no longer feel my value is defined by the Ruler of the group.

    This separated wholeness I see of me outside the group is to see and feel something I am not familiar with, a self beyond the group.
    My favorite image or saying is, “I am going to go find myself, and I don’t know who I am or even that I am missing…”

    I had no idea who I was separated from a group.

    I had no individual view of self.

    I was nothing out side alone.

    My whole composition of self was defined by their needs of me.

    My fear of being alone was that alone I am nothing.

    I recall being scared spit less to the point of frozen immobility, to be naked without a group.

    The group I had woken up in was filled with filth, untruths, lies and cover-ups, forgiveness of sins, a mess.

    It was me!

    The group looked liked me, talked like me, walked like me, it was a direct reflection, a bird with the same feathers.

    There was no dividing line between it and me.

    I found me, lost, brainwashed, blind, abused, broken, confused, mental…I was upside down and tilted away from reality.

    It’s denial and mine were equal.

    My long walk back to find myself and see myself in reality has not been an easy road, but one that has set me free to stand alone belonging to me.

    Isn’t it funny I found myself exactly as I felt, Lost but not knowing I was missing?

  • A group of Individuals.

    What is the reason we join groups? What is the benefit and what makes some groups thrive and others fail? Is the group more than a reason and can the reason change? Is it a purpose or is it the people and can it be both?

    In my experience there is a feeling in a group, or energy, an actual unseen thread that flows to keep all of us connected, and that unseen thread seems to be strung by a leader and the leader’s energy is what we tag onto.

    But yet the group also is like a chain and we are only as strong as our ‘weakest’ member.

    If there is passive aggressive behavior toward one, it weakens the group.

    It is very interesting how you can all join together for a common good, yet individual energies can undermine the original intent.

    I am a member of two different groups and I can feel the energies in both.

    The freedom of one leaves me being free to be me.
    The obligation in the other feels heavy.

    A weight to carry my weight, and not so much mine, but I feel the ‘weaker’ ones feeling unworthy for it is impossible to do what the leader wants.

    Groups I believe are only as strong as the person who attends. If you make them feel less, the group is less.

    If you have an unconditional welcome, allowing each person to travel at their own rate, they are allowed to be free.

    In my life experiences, I have given up trying to conform others to where I am. I simply allow them to be where they are, and it isn’t where I am.

    This sometimes leaves me being a group of one.

    Yet better than dragging folks who are not where you are to where you are, unhappy and not willing.

    It is interesting too, that we are drawn to groups with similar energies and propelled away from others.

    My religious experience was very cult like and you and to be a certain way to stay in the group.

    My Art group is wide open…you are free to come and free to go, you are free to create, or free to just watch, there is no agenda, except being free to be you. Well maybe one…you can’t tell another what to do.

    It is more like a group that isn’t a group, just individuals arriving together, sharing common but uncommon pieces, all original works of art.

    In an art group, the people and the objects are allowed to be unique, different, and individual.

    A group of individuals.