I M Perfect lady

Tag: knowing

  • A place for me to stand.

    The stressful thought is if my husband does nothing or if my husband supports friends of this cheating husband, my daughter will not be able to find her integrity, that he is a sign post of ambivalence.

    I looked up the meaning of ambivalence.

    1. conflict of ideas or attitudes: the presence of two opposing ideas, attitudes, or emotions at the same time
    2. uncertainty: a feeling of uncertainty about something due to a mental conflict
    The coexistence of opposing attitudes or feelings, such as love and hate, toward a person …

    Do you know, I did not know that ambivalence was uncertainty or the coexistence of opposing attitudes.

    I thought ambivalence was more like indifference or a knowing and not caring.

    Ambivalence is exactly what my husband shows, conflicting ideas or attitudes.

    And his ambivalence has me feeling uneasy and even my viewing him in a new light has put me in my own place of ambivalence towards him.

    I no longer am sure of my feelings towards him.

    My ambivalence is showing.

    It seems we feel ambivalent when there are conflicting positions both within him as well as between him and I or visa versa, ambivalence abounds.

    We can’t know how this all ends, for it all depends on what we pick and what we have to compromise on and what is being asked in front of our integrity.

    I believe it is easier to sit with ambivalence, undecided, unknowing, than it is to sit with knowing and not caring.

    I understand the wrestling match that can go on for a long while, for we continually compromise small things in order to get along, but there does seem to come a time when all bets are off, when the relationship is asking too much or we lose too much to maintain that relationship.

    My husband’s experiences in life hasn’t required him to divorce folks who were asking him to chose his innocence over the man who abused him.

    And in fact my learning how to walk away from an abusive family has strengthened my knowing that relationships can cost you your self. And sometimes in order to save yourself, you have to walk away.

    We have lived with much ambivalence in the past 6 years for sure, in fact we learned to not promise love, but I love you today, for we understood that love is an individual and personal thing, and there does come a time, when we part to save ourselves.

    I can’t predict the outcome, but I can see the ambivalence line waving in front of us, the line is there and which side will we pick?

    While my husband sits in ambivalence, I have already chosen my side, and I am not sure what or if I will be asked to compromise or if I will know it is time to go.

    Interesting to know that I am not anxious or wanting to control, but that I am feeling the feelings of ambivalence.

    The feelings of unknowing which way this will go.

    And if our relationship can handle the outcome, but what I do know is that so far I have always been further ahead leaving and maintaining my sense of integrity.

    My ambivalence is he being ambivalent and not choosing sides, but you know, this is his greatest feature, to slide and not chose sides.

    Is that possible to not have to pick?

    To live in ambivalence?

    I used to live there, so I guess it is, until the Universe asks you to choose, you can live in both places, get along with both sides, float over the line unless there are repercussions, no harm is done.

    Maybe he never has to pick.
    Maybe that isn’t his way, but it appears to be mine.

    I am grateful I am no longer lost in ambivalence, I am happy I found a place for me to stand.

  • Selfishly I Respectfully Do Not Care!

    “I respectfully do not care!” is a new quote I heard from Martha Beck as she spoke today on the Lisa Oz radio show.

    People have told her (Martha) that in order to promote and sell books and to keep her selling herself she needs to be on facebook, twitter and the like, but doing so has made her sick, physically sick with shingles.

    She found that she can talk with her daughter, and if her daughter feels her mom says something profound, her daughter will post it online.

    Martha has total trust in her body and she was getting physically sick doing what others wanted her to do, but what wasn’t natural or feeling right for her.

    When she says, “I respectfully do not care,” it means I respect what you are saying, it’s not for me.

    I love that.

    She is following and listening to her body.

    This may be my second favorite quote from her and it validates that you heard the request, but don’t care.

    Don’t care if all are doing this, me and my body are not okay with it,

    “I respectfully do not care” almost sounds like what I tell my children. I respectfully do not care if all the kids are doing it you are not. (when the other kids parents didn’t care and we had different rules.)

    This phrase actually gives you the freedom to be an individual, to follow the signals of your body, to listen to the inner knowing, to care more about yourself than others.

    Selfishly I respectfully do not care!

  • My mind’s point of view.

    Byron Katie says, “There are no mistakes” and I have to agree. We do that which we do with the knowledge and awareness we have at the time, when we know better or believe differently we do better.

    It isn’t a mistake it is a level of understanding.

    I even looked up the word Mistake and here is the definition,

    An error or fault resulting from defective judgment, deficient knowledge, or carelessness. 2. A misconception or misunderstanding.

    Some how we were taught that mistakes were bad, yet in reality it is a case of deficient knowledge and defective jugement.

    We can only act at the level of understanding, it is impossible to be above your level of knowing, it simply can’t happen.

    Byron Katie’s passion is to question stressful thoughts, to go after the thoughts that make us suffer.

    Mostly I think we suffer believing we are supposed to be where we are not, doing things we didn’t know how to do.

    We are where we are.

    We know what we know.

    And we can’t know what we don’t know.

    And once we know we can’t not know.

    It seems that life is all about being here and agreeing with what you know now, accepting yourself in this moment fully.

    Looking backwards you can see with your new found wisdom the places you missed the mark, but due to your level of understanding in that moment, it makes perfect sense, so no mistake, just the lack of knowing.

    On that dreadful day when I woke up to the fact that all I knew was not all there was to know, I found that I knew much less than there was to know.

    My greatest strength was being able to let go of all I knew to begin to learn about the things I didn’t.

    I simply sat down in the fact that I lived a life at the tip of the iceberg and it was to my own benefit to get to know me. Imagine living as me but knowing me.
    An incredible frightful place to find yourself living as someone you don’t know.

    My first step was to admit to myself I didn’t know me, know where I came from who the people I called family were, I began looking at my life as a stranger would.

    I began from the stance of I know nothing.

    And by doing so was able to be open to everything.

    I had lost confidence in all I knew and had no pre-sets or standards to adhere to, I was standing naked in an open space willing to see reality without my minds concepts.

    Mindless I stood.

    The landscape I then discovered didn’t match my old mind at all.

    We then danced this dance between reality and my old mind, like a game of old maid, trying to see what matched and what did not.

    In the end my mind lost only but 100% of the time.

    As Byron Katie says, reality is God and God is reality.

    I guess we could say the only mistake is believing an unchallenged mind.

    For I challenged my mind against reality, nothing was too sacred for the test, no family member, no title, no past cute deeds, all I dragged into the game of matching mind to reality.

    My mind was so far off the mark, that I began to understand that I fell into reality with a broken mind.

    Or you could say I went out of my mind on that day when I discovered a pedophile instead of a dad.

    And I did.

    My mind had a story that didn’t match reality, a story that I held sacred was an illusion, it couldn’t walk in reality.

    All my love, my life and my way was poured into an illusion that wasn’t even true.

    At 46 I awoke in the middle of a nightmare, in a play where I was the star but it was based upon lies, lies that I called truth. My fantasy world crumbled and a nightmare slid in place.

    Harsh reality boldly took over where my pretend mind stood.

    Yet this reality was actually kind to me, it affirmed my path, it resonated with my body, and it set me free from the mental mind.

    If your mind is not clear and you can’t see reality, you are then living in a foreign land, once removed from reality.

    You can live there for a lifetime and not touch reality.

    I know this seems insane and it is, to be in reality and not know it.

    I lived for 46 years in a mind that was blind to what is.

    Doing things that no one in their right mind would do.
    Saying and believing things that only an insane person would do.

    Yet there are no mistakes in my past.

    My past life was lived from my mind’s point of view.

  • Giving up Control

    I thought this blog was over when I had the realization that my daughter had my unconditional love, that when I hopped on the back of “Mr. Heart is as big as a House, that I completed my journey, that all I had to do was ride along, ducking when the shit hit the fan….

    Nope, that isn’t it at all.

    The second part of my ride has just begun.

    I now know where I have been, what techniques I use for love and how and when to apply them, when I take out my tackle box and get busy.

    It is each and every time a mess arrives and IF the mess is in someone’s life I love, well, get the hell out of the way, I am going in.

    I slip off, okay I jump off the motor bike and leave my world behind, I roll up my sleeves pull out my tongue, engage my mental mind and I am in your business up to my neck, and Mr. Big as a House heart rides alone.

    And here’s the deal when I leave Mr. Big Heart, I leave my own heart, my own love and passion and become stuck in the quick sand of your life.

    That is what I do, Miss Mental Lady loves to play in your lives, your world, and moves around and the more she moves the more stuck she gets, it is indeed like quick sand.

    What I need to do most is close my eyes, shut my mouth, and enjoy the ride.

    If I am riding along and holding on and letting the Universe lead, I cannot be responsible, I cannot just jump into lives unasked, unsolicited…oh my God what a meddlesome woman, an unwelcome intrusion.

    How much can you decide if someone is in there deciding it for you? Who needs a mind if my mental mind is coming to your rescue?

    I know that Michael Brown of the Presence process says, “If you pick someone up, when you put them down, you put them back where you found them.”

    While we think we are saving, we are delaying or stealing their lessons.

    My job, my only job as I can see it now is to hold on to my business, my world, my joy, my love, my life and to gracefully sit silently looking upon my daughters and any other.

    I had said to my mother, “Silence is the kindest thing I can offer…” Silence and a loving heart is the best of me I can offer, if my mind gets involved we are off to the races, the struggle of you running your life or me running your life.

    Pick one.

    If I don’t pick running my life, I have learned nothing.

    I am back.

    I am in my business.

    Whew, another close call…

    I am holding on Universe…here we go!

    I keep forgetting I am not driving! UGH…
    Backseat drivers only annoy whose driving.
    It is best to sit back quietly and enjoy the ride.

    The second part of this blog is me learning to walk the walk
    of giving up control…

  • Felt Its Worth

    Before beginning yoga today, I cleaned the mirror I stand in front of, it was layered with weeks of dust, and I appeared fog like behind it. Today I felt the need to wipe it free, as I did so the line from a song arose in my head, “I can see clearly now the pain is gone…”

    Then into yoga I went.

    I was on the third part of the Awkward pose, where I go from standing up to squatting down, and Bikram asks us to descend slowly, and I lost my control and fell into a squat and smiled as I did so.

    This smile took up my whole face, my cheeks, my eyes and my mouth rose into a delightful bend, and inside I felt its wonderful wave of joy.

    I smiled at my rendition of his yoga; I smiled at me and the transformation of my face and received fully my smile about me.

    A smile about me isn’t something I have any memory of ever receiving.

    I was shocked first at the way this smile changed my look, and even more stunned to receive its full value inside.

    To feel myself worthy of a full-blown smile.

    I froze for a half of second to feel such sheer delight inside myself.

    My smile quickly disappeared and I struggled to smile while tears of sorrow dampened my face.

    Imprinted in my minds eye is my smiling feeling being over swept by sadness as memories flung themselves upon me, one on top of the other.

    A 50 year long life review flashed before my eyes, all the places where I mistook myself for being bad, wrong, and despicable, how I had not seen my own worth or how I had lost sight of myself inside myself.

    The simple fact that I was unworthy of a smile from me about me is so harsh and tragic; yet it was never my smile I sought. I didn’t even know I was missing my smile for me.

    The mouth I tried to change was my mother’s.

    Before putting my words to paper, I spoke to my brother and then did some mindless cleaning, and it came to me what love I had for my mother.

    I literally gave my soul, my insides away in order to bring a smile to her face and to keep it there.

    How tragic that she wanted my smile more than she wanted my tears and my sorrows, and even more dreadful for a little girl to be left with such sorrow inside, such darkness.

    In denying my abuse, she left me in the dark.

    It is funny in a sad way, how I wanted her to have a smile, more than me.

    I could cry a river of tears for the little girl who wasn’t allowed to feel her sorrow out loud, to be heard and valued as abused.

    Valued as abused and not having to hide this fact.

    I can see I took up my mother’s view of me.

    My mouth and facial images reflected hers in my mirror and even more tragically inside.

    Inside I knew my mother blamed me.

    I took away her sunshine, I stole her lovely story, I was darker than the darkness that abused me.

    I changed her smiling face to anger.

    And it was my job now to put her smile back.

    And I tried and danced, and pranced and worked and slaved and toiled to bring it back, and to keep it in place.

    When I was tired of holding up those cheeks, when I simply didn’t have anymore to give, or when I tried to tend to myself, I heard her angry response, “How dare you Beth Ann…” and up I got and began dancing again.

    Six years ago all my dancing for her was over, done, finished, the end.

    I stopped where I stood and in the middle of the darkness began to see what I did for me and what I did for others.

    Life offered up to me a million situations for me to choose again, their pleasure or mine, their smile or mine, their feelings or mine.

    Each and every time I found the strength to disappoint my mother and chose me; I opened up inside, made room for that smile.

    Today, I feel that I have made it to the other side, to the side of worthiness, or at least I have felt the wave of joy lap at my feet, I feel that I am worthy to now frolic in the ocean and swim to its depths.

    I look forward to seeing another one come out of me and shine upon me and for me to welcome it in!

    I have been waiting in vain for her to arrive and tell me that I am a good girl, that I am of value, and that the abuse didn’t change who I am, in her eyes.

    I wanted her to smile that it was okay that I was abused, it didn’t matter to her, and she loved me any way.

    Again, the smile I sought was hers and the one I found was mine.

    What I love is that the first smile I was able to receive was mine!

    A smile in full acceptance of all of me, the darkest dark and the brightest bright.

    I smiled at me and felt Its worth.

  • A whole You.

    I listened yesterday as Dr. William Petit talked to Oprah about the evil that came into his life that destroyed his wife, his two daughters, and his home, that when it left, there was very little of himself standing, he was a man he didn’t even know.

    A few points struck me as he talked, one is how evil feels looking at it from the inside, and how he used to see evil somewhere out there, a distant thing. He was introduced to evil in a very large way, and it totally changed who he is and how he sees the world.

    There is a huge difference between understanding intellectually what evil is, in comparison to living in the throes of what it destroys, what it takes away and what lay in the aftermath and how you will deal when it comes knocking.

    Feeling evil and its energy and knowing how it tromps into life with no regard to life and feelings, is to feel evil’s blindness to another human being.

    Oprah asked him about forgiveness and evil, and I can’t remember his words, but I understand his feelings on this. That forgiveness is no match against evil.

    Forgiveness always seems to take on the image of being able to negate what happened, to find a place of peace in spite of the hole that evil left behind, or perhaps not even acknowledging the hole it left behind.

    Society has this unchallenged ideal that forgiveness trumps evil, that forgiveness can change evil.

    I believe what he is saying is that evil is an actual phenomena that we can’t change by forgiveness and that we are to acknowledge its power.

    The energy of evil is to destroy; to hurt, to deliver pain, it isn’t warm and fuzzy.

    I thought he sat in the middle of what is, in the center of what happened and described what evil feels like and how it changes who you are.

    The challenge left behind is who will you now become?

    I watched a few clips, and you can see he is still freshly wounded, that it pains him to talk and how he is trying to wrap his mind around such sudden drastic changes in his life.

    Holding on trying to focus on the good, bringing more good, trying to not succumb to the negative pull of drowning or giving up.
    He describes closure, as the hole will eventually lose its ragged edges that waves of goodness will wash over those rough spots leaving them smooth, but the hole will always remain open, a hole in his heart and soul.

    I agree.

    It is also an opening to find your authentic self, a you that stands behind the roles and titles, a you that lives beyond the surface of life; the hole drops you into the center of your being.

    Being a whole you.

  • 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.

  • Postal Pressure Cooker

    My five days of work is done this week, my weekend begins on Sunday. Yesterday the man who will begin doing Saturdays for me rode along on the mail route.

    It is interesting to see how a man looks at the route, compared to a woman. He sees the route, but not what his is going to be delivering.

    He is a bus driver during the week, so he was concentrating on the route, thinking that knowing the route and learning to drive on the right is the hardest part of the job.

    He failed to understand you don’t get to do the driving until you get all the mail sorted, and in order to sort quickly, you practice and practice and memorize and memorize.

    He kept going back to his strengths… his knowing bus routes and driving a bus.

    And I would focus on what he doesn’t know yet…sorting mail.

    The sorting sets the tone, sets the pace and will slurp up many hours of daylight, if you don’t know where the letter in your hand goes, and you have three trays of mail, each holding 300 plus pieces.

    Overlooking this part puzzled me, and I quickly learned that the only way he will learn is by doing, so I left him at the end of the day with a tub of catalogs, each needing to find their home in the 469 slots.

    Nothing teaches like experience.

    Nothing shows you how much you don’t know than by standing with one small catalog searching for its home, and watching the time slip away, while you hunt and hunt and hunt again, the name not meaning anything, the road seeming lost among the many small dirt roads, and you trying to remember which part of the route it was on, the beginning middle or end, and looking upon the pile yet to go…the 469 slots all seem alike, the names printed below unfamiliar, the five digit fire numbers mocking with a mysterious sequence, the roads failing to click in route formation, now you know what you don’t know!

    The stance of ineptness is so clear it feels overwhelming. And the knowing that you have 469 houses waiting for their mail.

    We are one of the small offices who get their mail that is mixed up and needs to be sorted, most mail comes to the carrier presorted to the route, and you just take it out and deliver.

    In our office you can only deliver what you know.
    Isn’t that a great metaphor for life that we have to be willing to not know until we know, and that we can’t give out what we don’t know?

    It takes a certain person to be able to do this job, and we don’t know until they are placed in the postal pressure cooker.

  • Faith

    I never thought I would step into a church again, yet I found myself there. In fact I really didn’t see the church, until months later. Like how can you walk into a church sit in a pew, listen and not see the Church? Isn’t that simply impossible to do?

    How about if you go to the church without going to church, instead you go for the message? Would you then see the building? What if you go because of all the interesting people you find there? What if you go because it seems this is where your people are, this is where you might fit in, this, is where you hope to find the answers?

    What if you have a burning question you want answered? Would you see the church, or instead would you look closely at what was said, who said it and you got to decide if that fit you. If it fit your experience of what you know to be true. If you went to find a perfect match, would you see the church?

    I even did like most loyal members, I found a seat, and it became my special spot. Imagine I have a special seat. This time, I was tentative, unknowing, very much aware, and listening closely and then I would let the words come real close and see if I could find how that could be true for me too.

    Suspicious at best, discerning of all, I literally felt like I was a fly on the wall, just watching, listening and soaking up words. What was also so weird to me, I did not feel inclined to speak, and better yet no one expected me to. Shy smiles, little nods, a room full of strangers, or to me at least, yet I slowly became comfortable there. No one acted like I didn’t belong….yet I was still unsure.

    Months went by, and I eagerly awaited each week, each new message, and each time I walked away unsure. Not really buying the message, the faith I wanted seemed to just outside the fence, freely dancing, twirling in joy of its assuredness. The general theme seemed to intrigue me, but when I measured myself, I seemed lacking, I didn’t have what it took, something was missing, something just didn’t ring true. But each week I entered and had no clue what the message would be, each week a new insight came out. I learned a lot by listening, just sitting and hearing words.

    One day, a day that would be my last, I heard what I wanted to hear. I finally heard the one thing that would set me free, to show me that I indeed did belong to this group. I heard her speak, and before the hour was over, I knew.

    My Writer’s Journey Class was held in St. Mathews Church on the Campus of Finlandia University. My writing class did not speak of God. Get this, the last Author to speak wrote a book called Sundays in America. A year long road trip in search of Christian Faith! And she gives this talk to me, in a church, a church I vowed I would never ever enter.

    She and I are not even aware of all it took for this to come to fruition.You see, she was supposed to arrive here in February, but a snowstorm kept her literally circling above unable to land. What she didn’t know was that it was my fault. I wasn’t ready to hear her message. I first had to begin doing what I wanted her to teach me.

    I had to start writing. Now get this, get what Day was her first day she entered a new church? Easter. Guess what day this Blog started? Easter. Now I am not a real good religious girl, but even I know that it is the day of re-birth a day that means a new beginning. Ok, and guess where she gives me the message….a Church. 

    And I am sure you have to be asking what could this Suzanne Strempak Shea have to say? What did she do? What was the secret I needed revealed? What was right in front of me all the while? What again, did I fail to see?

    She stood there and began to just tell us how each book was created from her life experience! Oh she was a fast talker, you could not squeeze a word more into that hour! Animated, excited, colorful and with humor she looked at her life simply as the seeds of another great book! It was like she wasn’t personally involved, but yet she was. Like her life was there for her to write about, and the more interesting the better. She looked at people like Characters, places a new scene in a future book, a nagging thought the inspiration for whole book.

    I sat there and smiled knowingly. I was looking into my future. Ironically or not, she is the mentor of the lady who started the Writer’s Journey. A full circle moment for me and I wasn’t even there in the beginning, yet some how I was.

    With her signed book in my bag, I opened the door and walked into a whole new world, with a whole new me, with my Faith restored.

    Suzanne’s husband is very encouraging. He is known to say. “Write about it.”

    I think I am.

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