I M Perfect lady

Tag: kindness

  • Wishing is a train out of Reality.

    Forceful kindness is a phrase I had used to describe how some may take your power, how they keep pushing kindness to make you believe or feel something…it isn't just kindness, it is kindness with an agenda.

    Kindness that is trying to change your mind.

    Kindness that runs over your feelings.

    Kindness that sounds one way but feels completely different.

    Kindness that wants something.

    Kindness with an abusive attitude, for it is trying too hard to convince you…it is kind.

    I have been given many aspects of my mother appearing and reappearing time and time again, showing me OR rather allowing me to see that which I thought was one thing, was literally the opposite, and I am getting wiser and catching the lessons, grabbing on to the falsehood and forced kindness in order for me to 'do something'.

    The manipulation and delivery sounds so nice, empathetic, understanding, with a 'reason' behind it.

    My latest delivery came in the form of "I am going to help you"…which actually boiled down to….I am helping myself.

    My boss said she was bringing in 'help' for me after a long Monday, by the time I was ready to bundle the mail and head out on Tuesday the help turned into a person who was there to make sure I didn't go into overtime for the week.  And since it appeared that my hours would balance out, all help was removed.

    The daily struggle on very heavy package days don't matter, unless it happens to be a Friday, and it looks like I am on the verge of overtime.

    What I told her is that don't pretend to 'help' me, when all you really are focused on is your spread sheet of hours.  I understand and I get it.  Your main job is to see that we don't go over hours.  You can't be empathetic or helpful, you have to manage hours.  Just say it.  Just be forthright and say it.  Don't call it 'helping me' when you are actually helping your self.

    I truly get it and accept, that the Post Office can't offer help, it has to watch its bottom line.  I am not upset about that.

    I am upset with the way my boss tried to sell me help, when it was really for herself.

    If someone is going to help you, it will feel like help.  It didn't feel like she was helping me, but helping herself and I told her so.

    She wanted to appear, helpful and empathetic, when the Post Office doesn't allow for it.  I wasn't going to appear helped when it didn't help me.

    I believed the first night she indeed could help me.  I was relieved.  I was disappointed on the second day, when she changed the type of help she could give me.  And in the passing hours felt the help totally disappear…and felt it, and expressed it quite expressively.

    Some may challenge me and say it was being insubordinate, but what I was actually doing was calling her on her false delivery.

    I told her, "For me, please don't say you are going to do something and then not do it, make promises you can't deliver or are even capable of doing.  Don't make it seem like you are going to help me, when you can't.  I would prefer you say Nothing UNTIL you can.  If it isn't possible, I get it.  Just call it saving overtime and not help."

    I am way okay with the reality of how things are.  I am way not okay with someone playing in front of them trying to make me believe that which isn't possible.

    I understood that I too wanted to believe in help that wasn't possible.

    I own my part, my believing and wanting it…so I grabbed on.

    We both took a day and a half ride on Make Belief….and in the end I was disappointed.

    I was disappointed I believed in that which wasn't possible…a train ride out of reality and I was let down.  Let down right where I started, overwhelmed with the work at hand….wishing for help.

    Wishing is a place that isn't reality…

    Wishing is what comprised my whole childhood.

    Wishing things were different…

    It took me a whole day to get back to acceptance.

    Accepting what is…accepting that I will be overwhelmed for the next two weeks, and that no help will be coming.  I am okay, once I get back to reality and let the wishing go…

    Wishing is a train out of reality.

     

     

     

     

  • Recognize the Real Me.

    I wonder why it is so hard to look objectively at your self, why it is so hard to see that which you are. Doesn't it seem literally impossible to overlook yourself while you are being yourself?  Why is it that we can't feel or sense our own powerful energy and it is running within our bodies? 

     

    What I believe to be true is that I was taught to not pay attention to my feelings, to disregard the pulsing emotions, to hide or pay no attention the signals of my body.

     

    In fact, the body was so full of sin, just disregard it completely, or pray hard that you can overcome ITS urges.

     

    I was taught to become the enemy of my body and I did such a wonderful job, I created a life separated from my body.

     

    I never spoke of my bodies signals, the fear that raged or the rage and anger and fear or injustices, the overwhelming immobility of choice, I used my body but never truthfully connected to it.  Well not in words or actions.

    I had a life and my body came along for the ride, but we were each other's enemies.

     

    Its needs and mine were at odds.

     

    What I discovered is that the signals of fear that my body put forth matched the reality of my childhood, compared to the actions that I had displayed.  I acted like nothing had happened…that my father's rape hadn't occurred.  My body however, never, not once forgot. Each and every time I was in his presence, I felt uneasy…pushed back, like an invisible wall arose.

     

    Yet, my actions showed none of that happening in reality.  I pretended to pretend to pretend that all was okay.

     

    What strikes me so is how I was able to NOT join with my body, but to live a life once removed.  That my outward display shown none of the signs from within. 

     

    Like a bad dashboard, all my readings were false.

     

    While I understand in order to survive, I had to have a false dashboard, it now seems totally crazy.  People didn't know me, all they really knew was the false readings I was displaying.  But, underneath a whole different story waited to be told.

     

    The story of the body.  Its emotions and feelings are rarely displayed accurately on people's dashboards, instead we say Yes when we mean No.  We feel its unkind to speak what we feel, not realizing we are disowning our own bodies…creating a chasm that we may or may not get back across.

     

    This space between what we feel and what we say widens each time we speak against our feelings or act in opposition to what we feel. 

     

    My life and my truth were an ocean apart.

     

    The life I was living in comparison to what I was feeling were two distinct drawings…and my feeling inside that I ignored carried my truth…and the false dashboard I presented out of 'kindness' crashed to the ground, for there was nothing holding it up but pretend.

    Pretending that I had different emotions than I did.

    Pretending that I was okay, alright, fine, perfect…

    Pretending overshadowed my truth…until I couldn't recognize the real me. 

     

    (As Alice Miller's book states, "The Body Never Lies.)

     

  • Quiet Strength of Kindness

    I watched my daughter with Finn, how gentle and quiet her voice was and how he listened and followed her lead.  He has an ear infection in both ears and needs twice daily drops. 

    I was prepared for a struggle of holding him down and wrestling to get a few drops in.

    The first few times we did have two people…but he showed us quickly that one person was enough.  One gentle quiet speaking trusting loving person…was all that he needed.

    He isn't happy or eager, but resigned.  We can't know if he intuitively knows this is helping his ears or is he simply following what his soft spoken master is telling him…

    I have been given the gift of watching her mother him with soft hands and a calm voice of love and steady kindness.

    My unnatural instinct has been the opposite. 

    Driven by fear and out of control inside…I mothered without the quiet strength of kindness.

  • Disguised as kindness.

    The word compliment and its twisting definition is trying to find true meaning in my head, for I feel that compliments are an outside expression we are trying to own, like hand-me-down self worth and self esteem.

     

    When I looked up the definition I found this.

     

    “Something that fills up, completes, or makes perfect.”  

     

    Or

     

    “An expression of praise, admiration, or congratulation. An expression of esteem, respect, affection, or admiration; especially: an admiring remark b: formal and respectful recognition.

     

    The first meaning seems odd, that ‘something is going to make us complete or perfect and fill us up. I know that this isn’t possible, that we can’t fill up another person or complete them in any way. 

     

    And yet compliments are noted as being kind.  Really???  How is it kind to pretend to fill up another?

     

    If I give you a compliment how do you wear it?  How do you then bring it inside and own it as your own meaning.  Isn’t it second hand?

     

    I then thought that the truthfulness or the authenticity of the compliments lay within the receiver not the giver.

     

    The state and condition of the receiver makes all the difference in the world.  If your self worth and self-esteem are wanting and you are not whole and healthy, than compliments are desired to make you so. And this leads to the compliments being more powerful than you.

     

    Compliments come from other people and they usually come after we have done something, so then this makes us work to gain our self worth, we have to do something to feel good.

     

    I used to work hard to gain pieces of my self worth, to be perfect, for I had very little sense of self inside, I needed their opinions and expressions to show me who I was, in their silence I disappeared.

     

    As I dropped the folks who used to give me their expressions and praise, I also dropped my need or desire for what they felt about me.  I then was able to feel first hand about my self.

     

    Isn’t there a ‘backhanded compliment’?  What is does that mean?  Is that an unkind compliment or one with an agenda?  Is it a compliment that has a hidden meaning?

     

    To me, if compliments are meant to make you feel better then they are dangerous, for you have to first feel great in order to receive them and then you don’t need them for you are full already.

     

    They seem like ego mist to me…something the ego feels is good for us and that it lies within others and not within ourselves…something we can’t ourselves grasp or hold on to, yet others seem to carry for us.

     

    Another co-dependent chain disguised as kindness.

     

     

  • Protected me.

    For six years I have been saying that I have no memory, and I have lied. I have no mind memory, but my body has always had its memory.

    I don’t have actual vivid stories to recount, but I do have the physical reaction within my body’s mass, its nerves and muscles…it knows what I forgot to remember.

    For years I wasn’t pleased with my ‘cold’ body, how it chose not to get close to my parents, how it literally would feel unease in their presence, never the desire to snuggle close or lean in and get into their aurora.

    It was like I wasn’t driving this body, that this body had a life of its own…it craved things and repelled things on its own volition.

    Now with hidden truths and untold stories known, I now am supportive of this living organism that has a beautiful memory, a trusting articulate knowing and isn’t fooled by flimsy masks.

    It never pretended to pretend it always reacted accurately aligning itself to the experiences of its past.

    Me inside was always disappointed in its lack of warmth for my parents, its lack of trust and faith and its inability to recognize and feel their love.

    My body stood strong and resilient to all my longings and childish wishes…it would not give up what it knew.

    It knew my father’s imprint, my mother’s indifference…it never once changed its way, lost its courage or grace.

    It just was…

    An abused body and it knew its source.

    Its memory carried me when I was to blind to see, to wounded to know, It always has protected me…

  • Gate to love

    Fear… this incredibly small word is extremely powerful and it has led my life and all its decisions.

    I am not sure I can articulate the difference of living life from a position of love compared to fear.

    Unless you see your fear driven life, you may not even know how much of your life has been absconded by fear.

    I looked up the word absconded, for it isn’t my usual word, but it felt right to express my sentiments, but I wanted to make sure I was using it properly.

    Do you know its meaning?

    It means – “To depart in a sudden and secret manner.”

    It fits perfectly. Fear absconed with my life.

    Here is what I know for sure, is that if you are left untreated after abuse, you will live from that day foreward, not as love, but fear.

    Fear replaces love. A young girl living in love, becomes a young girl living in fear.

    How to explain this. I go into a situation with my father filled with love for him and I come out filled with fear. I go to my mother in love and with fear of my father, and she doesn’t do anything, I then leave in fear her….

    My love, or those who love me are absconed and replaced with fear.

    Dr. Maya Angelou has a quote about the endurance of a child suffering is born out of the lack of alternatives.

    I didn’t have a loving place to go, so I had to live as fear.

    This fear mode of living is hard to describe, but it leaves you with the knowing that the world is not a safe place to be, that at any time terror will jump in front of you, that those you love will do something fearful…and you have to prepare and plan to dodge these bullets.

    My whole view of life was geared toward protecting and a very defensive way of living.

    I was on guard. A Fear Filled guard.

    The small pint of love that lived within me was toward objects and things, items that had no power of hurting me.

    But live living creatures, yikes, at anytime a friendly face could turn and bite you…and many did.

    The most sad and tragic part in being a fear filled maniac, is that my children were mothered from this position.

    Instead of teaching them the wonderful loving kind beautiful amazing things, my mantra was what was out to get you.

    Understandably we all know how I was raised to become this way, and gratefully with a lot of fearlessness, I have been able to learn how to love and not fear AND to fear those who rightly needed to be feared and not loved.

    What an amazing ride.

    There is a a poem that Kim Rosen speaks of in this months Oprah magazine, called Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye

    “Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things,
    feel the future disolve in a moment
    like salt in a weakened broth.
    What you held in your hand,
    what you counted on and carefully saved,
    all this must go so you know
    how desolate the landscape can be
    between regions of kindness.
    How you ride and ride
    thinking the bus will never stop,
    the passengers eating maize and chicken
    will stare out the window forever.

    Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
    you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
    lies dead by the side of the road.
    You must see how this could be you,
    how he too was someone
    who journeyed through the night with plans
    and the simple breath that kept him alive.

    Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
    You must wak up with sorrow.
    You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows and you see the size of the cloth.

    Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
    only kindness that ties your shoes
    and sends you out into your day to mail letters and purchase bread,
    only kindness that raises its head
    from the crowd to the world to say
    it is I you have been looking for,
    and then goes with you everywhere
    like a shadow or friend.
    Naomi Shihab Nye

    What I know for sure, is that without the years and decades of sorrow, I would not recognize kindness.

    Kindness, again such a simple word, but it is the gate to love.

  • Act of Forgetting.

    I was greeted at a mailbox yesterday by a bundled up smiling lady, her eyes bright and her cheeks rosy, I handed her her mail, commenting on one letter.

    It was a card from her to someone, and I had brought it back for her.

    She had just put the person’s name, but no address or stamp. I said we didn’t know where her friend lived and that usually we needed a stamp.

    She chuckled with delight at herself, finding her error funny and looked at me shyly.

    I told her we brought it back for her to finish; she smiled and said, “thank you, I am glad you did,” clutching it to her chest.

    I explained to her that we didn’t know her friend or where she lived, but that if she could help us out with a few more hints, we would deliver it….

    I left her standing there, arms full of mail, smiling at herself…”keep warm”, she said as I drove away…”I will, and you too” I hollered back.

    Her energy and spirit rode along with me in my jeep, amidst the boxes and packages, bringing a smile to my face every now and then…picturing her delight when she seen her half written card and her eyes as they met mine.

    A kindred spirit.

    For I recalled my daughter’s comment to me that morning, “Mother you left all the cupboard doors open.”

    I smiled that same smile seeing the evidence of me making a cup of tea, caught in the act of forgetting.

  • Celebrate your differences!

    What would be good advice to offer a new couple who just got married, what pitfalls or blind corners do you have to warn them of, when does reality overtake love, and what then is the best thing to do?

    In my experience of 23 years I would have to say, is to be truthful with your self first and then with him/her.

    That if you give away parts of your self in little lies, soon the you they fell in love with will be gone.

    And it is in the most scariest of situations where there is the most at stake, it is then you need to be honestly truthful.

    By honoring your self first, the other person will always be with your most authentic self.

    While it may seem kind to bow down to the comfort or spare a feeling of hurt, what you are really doing is lining your relationship with lies.

    I had heard Dr. Phil say yesterday to different couples who were either too comfortable (no spice) or those in a power struggle of control, etc…that you are either contaminating the relationship or adding to its strength (I forgot what word he used, but meaning adding to its integrity).

    In each situation, all you are responsible is for your self.

    The union of two people will be only as strong as the weakest individual.

    A marriage made in heaven is where one is strong the other is weak and visa versa.

    If we were exactly alike, there would be no need for the other.

    Celebrate your differences!