I M Perfect lady

Tag: lies

  • Eyes of a Child

    While mowing the grass last night it came to me that the attacking and jousting for position isn’t about whether there is abuse or not abuse, what was right or wrong, or even the way it is treated or not treated, but rather a more subtle yet ferocious component, it is the fear of no love.

    I have mistaken this for the strength of love, but it is actually velocity of fear.

    Many of the old Masters and wise teachers have all alluded to this; you get to live your life based on fear or on love.

    What we are experiencing is as old as time, the two energies showing their true natures, two sides meeting and clashing, the polar opposites opposing each other.

    Fear is False Events Appearing Real, so what we really have is the battle between the truth and what is not the truth.

    Don Miguel Ruiz writes, “You know, most people around the world believe that there is a great conflict in the Universe, a conflict of good and evil.  Well, that is not true.  It’s true that there is a conflict, but the conflict only exists in the human mind, not in the Universe.  It’s not true for the plants or the animals.  It’s not true for the stars and the trees, or for the rest of nature. It’s only true for humans. And the conflict in the human mind is not between good and evil.  The real conflict in our mind is between the truth and what is not the truth, between the truth and lies.  Good and evil are just the result of that conflict. The result of believing in the truth is goodness, love, happiness. When you live your life in truth, you feel good, and your life is wonderful.  The result in believing lies creates what you call evil; it creates fanaticism. Believing in lies creates all of the injustices, all of the violence and abuse, all of the suffering, not only in society but also in the individual.  The Universe is as simple as it is or it is not, but humans complicate everything.”  Don Miguel Ruiz 

    Life is really this simple, it is or it is not.

    What we are arguing about is what is or what is not.

    Who is or who is not.

    It isn’t complicated or deep and children do this well.

    Don Miguel writes, “"As little children, we are completely authentic.  We never pretend to be what we are not.  Our tendency is to play and explore, to live in the moment, to enjoy life.  Nobody teaches us to be that way; we are born that way.  This is our true nature before we learn to speak."

    This is what I believe Jesus meant by believing like little children; to be in the truth, to walk with the truth, to see the truth, to be authentic.

    Read more from Don Miguel on this subject in Carl’s blog,

    www.messyguru.typepad.com  Titled, "Being Effortless."

    What Don Miguel stated, “The result in believing lies creates what you call evil; it creates fanaticism.”  Fanaticism is the key component that makes up cults or extreme religions; they are not based on extreme love.

    Fanatics are extremists, and from my experience of the FALC they all believe in lies… Lies, which create evil.

    The lies I am speaking most generally about is, that they believe they can wash away reality and that it will no longer exist, and that is one major lie.

    The mother of all lies that follow.

    They have complete faith in something that isn’t real, their faith and trust is placed fear.

    And this act alone creates the fanatical responses, the evil energies we feel attacking us.  We do not feel the energies of love, but the biting words of fear.

    And sometimes after they bite us, they come back with ‘love’ words; they try hiding their fear with kind words, for even their own evil scares them.

    What I hadn’t considered or understood was the level or degree of evil and lies they had faith in, and how frightened or terrified they are to have it disclosed and revealed…

    However, I recall vividly the moment all my true lies collapsed, when all I had faith in evaporated and the terror it left me standing in…and yet in the exact same moment when my world collapsed a grand new one was born, the world of truth.

    And I truly became like a child again.  I didn’t hear what people were saying, but I watched their actions.  Words became meaningless, actions was the true path I followed.

    This world of truth became a spectacular landscape which was very easy to walk in, it was steady and never changing, and there was nothing I had to learn, do or believe in, it was all there in front of me.

    I gave up all past beliefs and thoughts, and simply walked in life with eyes of a child.

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  • The enemy of Lies.

    Who I was the first 46 years is totally different than who I am now.  I went from being totally submissive, compliant and eager to please, while a bit of an outspoken person, I spoke for what I then believed…as long as I stayed within the party lines.

    I never strove to make ripples in life, but rather was the one who smoothed over the waters; I took out the waves…a calming force, I was the one who would settle the ruffled feathers.

    It shocks me at times to see me being the one making waves and saying things I know will not sit well, but I say them anyway.

    At times it was hard recognizing me or even allowing the new me to be me, to let her speak and write with such forthrightness. 

    Sometimes it seems that I myself no longer have a boundary or a line that I can’t cross, whereas before there were many imaginary but firm lines.

    Now there is nothing I can’t say, as far as speaking the truth goes, there doesn’t seem to be a topic that is off limits, it is like I have discovered my own personal freedom of speech.

    I guess it helped to have my personal wounds splashed across the paper; it really left little to protect or hide…my darkest secret was broadcasted on the Radio, TV, and in the Newspaper as well as word of mouth. 

    Of course the only ones who knew, knew me, the rest it was just another sad story, a pathetic man doing obscene things…I was the story behind the story.

    My life’s details were freely handed out, talked about, discussed with bits of truths and tons of speculation sprinkled with hearsay and conjecture.

    I had thought in the beginning that many people would be asking me details and wanting to know this or that, but ironically no one speaks of this. 

    “It is a hard subject to bring up,” my husband once said.

    “It is a hard subject to live through,” I told him.

    I blog about my thoughts and feelings, about what I feel and how different aspects have felt to me, how people connected acted or didn’t act and how too that felt to me.

    It is like the blog became the friend or tireless family member who would always sit and listen and bounce back ideas that rolled around in my head…we straightened things on the blog.  It is like a very intimate trusting friend.

    Now, lately my blog has been getting tons of strangers watching me talk and engage with this friend, they get to be voyeurs into my consciousness.  Witnesses to my thoughts, beliefs and how I see the world and others…

    Lately I feel that there is momentum brewing, sacred connections are joining and creating an even bigger circle encompassing and reaching further and creating a stir…

    It is like it was meant to be that my story get written, my truths be told, my life be this open book in order for it to dovetail with a family just beginning this process.

    Its purpose was always beyond me.

    For often times, the most difficult things to write seemed always to be the most important to put down…and ones I couldn't not write. 

    Those were the things that others needed to read; those are the crucial signposts along this journey, the game changers, the deal breakers, the key. 

    There always seemed to be a bigger purpose than just me that I was tugging and pulling on pieces of others stories, that by me figuring out apiece here and there, others would see and shift with me. 

    And at times even those who passed prior were cheering for me as I righted another wrong belief…we seemed to shift in knowingness. 

    It seemed some were leading and others were following me. 

    Follow me to their own truths, not my truth.

    To see that this journey I took is possible and that you will never walk alone, you will have angels of all kinds showing you the way forward.

    Angels of lies kept me from going backwards.

    Angels of truth wrote books that led me forward.

    It isn’t my intention to hurt anyone with my truths, but the old adage is there, “truth hurts”.

    It hurts the illusion.  It hurts the life built upon lies. If it hurts enough, it will propel you to change, to grow, to expand, to raise your consciousness.

    Truth arrives to change you, to be your spiritual friend. Truth is only the enemy of lies.

     

  • They speak in Lies.

    Don Miguel Ruiz said “There are two kinds of Angels, the angel of lies and the angel of truth.”

    Isn’t it odd to look at the two different kinds of angels?

    I know that my family does not like to see me as an Angel of Truth; they would love me much better as the Angel of Lies, and the way I used to be. 

    Oh was I a good angel of lies.  I was the best, I would tell you anything you wanted to hear, but never, not ever the truth…for I wouldn’t want to hurt you.

    I was a good angel of lies and my self suffered greatly. 

    For in order to be a wonderful angel of lies, you lose your self.  You turn away from your own feelings, and choose not to see others in their true colors.

    The Angel of Truth speaks with impeccable words, her actions match and she says what she has to say, no matter how they land upon your world.  

    I have lived both ways and as the Angel of Lies, I seen the world through glasses that lied to me.  I lied and it lied back.

    I pretended many things, overlooked much, and didn’t see life as it was in its naked rawness and beauty.

     While my journey has been horrific in many places, where the truth is exposed like a monster, I have also seen great beauty, love, peace and joy, that my lying angel refused to see.

    When I first began to see without my lying eyes, I saw things that brought me to my knees, okay flat in bed. But those same eyes bathed my body in nature’s beauty.

    I seen the sunrise and felt God looking upon me.  The night sky was filled with loving angels, the moon another loving presence.

    I watched the flow of the river and knew that same energy flowed through me.

    My truthful eyes saw God everywhere.

    So, while it was hard to get used to my truthful eyes, especially seeing that which prior I covered with lies, it was also the biggest blessing in my world.

    I love that I can see now as God sees.

    I love that there are angels of lies and angels of truth.

    I love that I have been able to be both in this lifetime.

    What I know is that many in my family are loving their roles as Angels of Lies, and they are being rewarded by staying close to their mother, their siblings, a family of lying Angels, all resuming life after a bit of truth blew in, they quickly got back to life as it was before.

    And it is very different when you begin to see truth; you are set aside from the liars. Our words and actions don’t match; our wings clash.

    I flew alone for a while and slowly I am finding Angels of Truth to hang with.  We are a rare bunch, seen as mental by some, cold and bitter by others…(hey, isn’t it said that truth is often times a bitter pill to swallow.)  We are often depicted as home wreckers, spoil sports, insane, crazy, mad…

    What I know to be true for me is that life as an Angel of Truth is magnificent, easy, peaceful, wise, perfect, and it walks hand and hand with God.

    I do recognize that when I speak as the Angel of Truth, I will get feedback that isn’t kind or supportive or loving from the Angels of Lies.  They are first to spread lies about me, that is their role.  They are only doing what Angels of Lies do…they speak in lies. 

    Don Miguel says there is only one conflict in the human experience; the conflict between truth and lies.

  • Sit and hear Why.

    It almost seems like my father’s life and its impact it had on so many little girls is the classic case, the textbook example of what happens when you ignore the truth.

    What happens when you feel a certain way, but tuck it away and not address it…for I had very strong feelings of not trusting him and certainly never wanted to be near him…this was just the way it was from the time I was so little.  I just never questioned myself or delved deeper in to why.

    The truth of my fear was never explored.  And in fact I grew to become accustomed to just being a person who didn’t have warm feelings towards her parents.  I never questioned why, I just lived this way, it was my normal set point.

    My parents determined my set point, and I never challenged why we were this way, it just was.

     When you are not able to discuss the whole truth of our lives, you are then living in this weird spot way above truth in a place called pretend.

    They pretended to be loving parents and I pretended to feel love…and I never felt I could challenge them, nor was there a great urge to do so, to blatantly just flat out want to lay it all on the table.  I am thinking subconsciously, I knew that once I crossed the line of no longer pretending, all hell would break lose…and it would have.

    Just by tugging on one little string, the whole ball of wax would have come undone.

    While I can understand that inside of our house how we would have had so much to lose by seeking the truth of our fears and suspicions, I am not really clear as to why the outside wasn’t able to be reckless with abandon and come in demanding the truth to be exposed.

    How is it that the parents of the neighborhood were not picketing outside of our driveway, demanding his arrest for what he did to their daughters?

    What stopped them? 

    Keeping them away from Ray is what I did.  I tried to stay back from him. My sisters tried to stay back from him…and I can understand the kids without an option to just stay away, but I still can’t comprehend how a parent who hears their child’s story…doesn’t take it to the law.

    My mother’s reasons were clouded in love and wanting to keep the family together at all costs. Her facing the truth would have destroyed her whole family as she knew it.  Her pretend loving husband and untouched girls would have come tumbling down.  She would have to face things she ignored for years.

    But what did the neighbors have to lose by prosecuting Ray?

    What stopped them from taking this to the 9/10’s of the law? 

    And this is being done in three separated homes and during the span of many years.  It didn’t all happen during one bad month…or a particularly awful summer, it went on for years in the same neighborhood.  Different girls and different parents same perpetrator and similar reaction.  No law was involved.

    Again, I can see what my mother would have to lose, she would lose everything…but as a neighbor what would you have to lose?

    My father wasn’t the cement that held the neighborhood together to make it this wonderful place to live, he made it a living hell for the girls, and yet the outside wasn’t willing to prosecute…and it just doesn’t make sense to me.

    Even the minister… why would he ask about motives for telling on a man who seldom, and I mean seldom sat his butt down on a church bench?  And not be stricken by the fact that a little girl is telling him of her wounds…instead to immediately go to the defense of Ray.

    Most it seems seemed to care more about what would happen to Ray, than what was happening to the girls, like they immediately swing their heads in the wrong direction, instead of moving heaven and earth to protect the child, they first consider what this information will mean to Ray and even perhaps to themselves. 

    It is the lack of police reports on this man for over 40 years that is so telling…and I am sure the reasons are varied and complex and believable by each person who did what they each did at the time.

    I am sure they understand their decisions.

    While I had feelings of being afraid of my father, I had no pictures, so I couldn’t know why…and when I heard that he molested my niece I immediately had my answer…But what I hadn’t expected was that others knew.

    I was blown sideways by the fact that I felt I was the last to know, like a wife of a cheating husband, it seemed that everyone knew and talked about what I didn’t know.

    No one but me seemed to be too surprised.

    While I was sent reeling and tumbling into an abyss others continued on with life as normal, for they had this information now for 30 to 40 years.  It wasn’t new news, but just the same old story coming around again.

    I was 46, and as incredible as it seems this information had been in place in other people’s homes and minds…the answer to my puzzled life.

    And I could tell immediately by the reaction of so many, that I was the last to know…and they now began turning away from me.  Which seemed even weirder.  We are all on the same page so let’s talk.  And yet, by this time…I knew who my friends were and what they kept from me and the cost. 

    I wasn’t really open to listening…and I am unsure today, I would still want to sit and hear why.

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  • Voice of my truth.

    Today I listened to the CD of The Voice of Knowledge, by Don Miguel Ruiz and Janet Mills.

    Here is how the book is described.

    "In this audio version of the fourth book in the popular series, don Miguel Ruiz reminds readers of a profound yet simple truth: The only way to end emotional suffering and restore joy in living is to stop believing in lies – mainly about ourselves."

    "Ruiz refers to the forbidden tree of knowledge, likening the abandonment of the true self to the fall from heaven. This fall, he says, occurred because of the loss of "the impeccability of the word," that simple yet potent prescription for countering the judgmental inner "Voice of Knowledge." Adhering to "the word" – saying only what one means, refusing to speak against one's self – allows anyone to quiet those inner tyrannical thoughts so that we can become aware of our Voice of Integrity. Knowledge then becomes an ally, and life becomes an expression of the authentic self."

    As I listened to him, I could see how my own life was based upon lies and how I had great faith in those lies and had little or no faith in my own truth and integrity.

    What this blog has been mostly about is re-discovering my truth and letting go of lies.

    I have tried my level best to rid myself of inauthentic parts of me, the beliefs that kept me from my own love, peace and joy…and in doing so I oftentimes uncovered lies that many don’t want displayed openly. My truth-seeking mission has upset many an apple cart for me, but it seems it has little affect on others unless they are ready to receive the truth…if they are not ready, the truth will slip on by…and their cart of lies will remain steady.

    I am not here to upset your cart of apples, but rather to find the rotten parts of myself, my lies.  Sometimes my lies and your lies match and at others you will not agree…that is okay, I am here only to seek my own truth.  Each of  you will find yours in your own time. This is my journey towards truth in my life.

    It was just great to listen to him speak about the conflict of lies and truth we all have within, and how in some the truth voice is louder than the lies.

    If you have never questioned your mind, or explored how you came to believe this or that, your lies remain unchallenged…or your truth unearthed.  Your lie voice may be louder for it has had free reign.

    I had buried so many truths, so much hurt I piled into a hole not to be touched, emotions shoved aside, etc…all to be more comfortable I lived lies.  My lie voice liked it that way.

    We think lies are bold and in your face, but they are not.

    Mostly what I think is truth comes in and we push it away, not wanting to deal, to see or feel.

    So we lie.  We lie to ourselves and say everything is okay.

    I only stopped lying to myself when all my lies came home to roost at one time.  There was an avalanche that I couldn’t stop…all my lies lay at my feet exposed for the traitors they were.  Their powerful deceit was bigger than any lie I could conjure up.. to cover them all up again. It had grown too huge.  My lie voice died and my weak truthful voice started to speak.

    It gained power with each truth I told. 

    I am wondering if there is a room where lies go and will it explode on everyone at one time or another? 

    When my life of lies exploded I was left with my soul eyes.  My body seemed to have eyes in feelings; intuitively I sorted out my life…I began speaking from deep inside, paying little heed to the outside disputes.

    While it seemed like the worst day of my life, it was actually the first day of the rest of my voice of integrity life.  A life without lies.  

    No more lies. 

    Not to me and not to you.

    Not to make you feel better or more at peace for your comfort or for your ease.

    No more lies to my self.

    For I lost myself behind a sea of lies…and it took me years to unhook myself from the beliefs and faith I had in these lies. 

    My voice is the voice of my truth. 

     

  • Reasons to Spin

    While dialoguing in the comment section on the Post, “Where Your Best Interest Lies” a few posts back, I am feeling like I am a reporter trying to get my story out and they are working like crazy Spin Doctors or the Public Relations Department of the FALC to prevent that from happening. 

    They are trying so hard to convince me it wasn’t their ‘faith’ or the church or its members or any of that religious stuff, and that my abuse stands alone, like a rogue virus.

    I feel people are working so hard to spin my story off into this lonely little section called abuse where religion never touched it, blessed it or had ANY thing to do with my abuse. 

    There is abuse, AND there is religion and never shall the two touch each other.

    It is sounding like a political debate where they want there to be two sides. 

    And I am here to tell you in my experience, Religion had a huge part in keeping abuse in my family home.  It did not stay there on its own and without the knowledge of the church.

    There is no way I can speak of my abuse without including the church. 

    In fact, if I had good faith in the forgiveness of sins, I could have had a normal dad.

    If I had good faith in the power of the forgiveness of sins, the sins would be washed away never to be heard from again…

    Maybe you all want to blame my weak faith on the fact that my father kept abusing little girls.  For damn it IF only I could have believed more deeply he could be washed whiter than snow and not hurt one more little girl.

    Do any of you know what it is like to call your childhood friends, now 40 years later and say, “I wish you would not have been my friend, for honey it cost you way too much.”

    Have you?

    Do you know that I recall one bright memory of me being on a huge white pole swing in our yard on a bright sunny summer day, and my dad came to me crying asking ME for a blessing.  Why?  What did he do to this young young little girl whose feet couldn’t even touch the ground.  What???  I don't know if I did it properly…I was way too little. 

    Did I not bless him properly?  Did I not believe it, IS that why he continued on molesting, raping and fondling little girls?  Was my faith to weak in strength to erase it correctly?

    Am I going to hell for being a bad blesser???

    When you question my story, you are saying to me, that I am wrong. Tell me where I am wrong?  Tell me, please and USE your name.

    I believed in a father.

    I believed in a mother.

    I believed in the power of the forgiveness of sins.

    I believed in order to be good, I had to bless bad people.

    I believed wrong…

    And did my ‘faith’ in the forgiveness of HIS sins spare one little girl?  Did it?  Can you put the blame on me?  Did I bless him wrong???

    Oh yeah my faith is weak now, it is actually nonexistent in the power of forgiving and blessing away the sins of the fathers.

    Yes it is.  I believe 100% that it does not work. 

    I am living breathing proof. 

    Where do you all believe these piles of sins are?  Look behind you they walk with you everywhere.  It is only in your mind, that you think they are gone.

    Each and every action you have made is written down in the book of reality seen by God…nothing gets erased ever.

    The only thing you can do is do better when you know better. 

    In the past, I was a good Christian and spoke of it not, not my feelings of terror towards my father, nor my deep down resentment towards my mother, I sucked in and asked to be blessed for being such a bad child to feel unloving toward her parents. 

    I kept trying to be a better child, never even stopping to see if I had parents I should be loving toward. 

    When my father’s name was spoken as being the one to molest my niece, I became a very bad child.  I stood with the little girl and somehow I knew I was standing with me. 

    I stood in reality and refused to bless it away, like I even could.

    This little girl isn’t going to be ‘unabused’ if I utter the magic phrase.

    I am bad, a bad ass, and a bitter, cold, vengeful woman some say.  I will be alone and lonely for saying what I say.  I will be ridiculed and not believed…all the same things I felt as a child.

    As a child I believed them, now as woman who is speaking her truth I do not.

    I have faith in God and me.

    I have faith in truth.

    I have faith is using my real name.

    I have faith in others who can reveal themselves to me.

    The rest, I have no faith in.

    For if you can’t say your name, you are not standing with me, you hiding like my father behind the front of being normal.  Good people don't hide.

    Only those in truth will say their name.  This is my belief and this is my blog.  If you feel differently you can blog yourself and have a great conversation and sharing anonymously.

    Oh and one more thing.

    Someone mentioned I lost the faith in God.

    No honey, God has been with me all along.

    He was the one who erased my memory of the event.

    He kept me being a little girl with out such a horrific thing to remember.  And did however keep my truth in my body, to keep me from going near the man who did such awful things to such a sweet innocent BELIEVING girl.

    Your church doesn’t own God; he is not applauding your spinning my story to make it kind.  He was there and he knew I would not have survived life living in that house with a visual memory, sadly I would have went insane.  Only a child who didn’t know could support that family. 

    I didn’t know… and I put my faith in the folks who were spinning my life to be normal.

    Now I am no longer fooled by the spins, I only see what is behind. 

    Only anonymous have reasons to spin.

     

     

  • The Raw and Perfect Truth.

    As I thought about the way we paint people, how we are taught at a very young age to temper our truths, what we see and how we feel, how we not only learn to paint ourselves in false colors, but others as well. 

    We tell little children it is ‘not nice’ to call a fat person fat.

    It is not nice to say that someone who is mean is mean.

    That it is not nice to say grandma made you feel bad.

    We are teaching them, It is not nice to speak your truth…

    And, speaking your truth will make others feel bad.

    Is that right?  How can that be?  How in the world are the child’s words and feelings put aside to protect the mean or fat person?

    And then we wonder why they don’t come and tell us when a mean Uncle so and so did bad things to them.  They have been taught that their feelings don’t matter and that the truth is not kind.

    I am quite certain the fat person knows she/he is fat.

    And perhaps it may be better for us to engage in a conversation about it. 

    When I began speaking my truth, it felt like I was doing something bad.

    Like I had broken the ‘golden’ rule of kindness, that I had turned a corner into the forbidden territory, and all hell would break lose.

    And it did, the pretty painted picture shattered and crumbled.

    I lost friends and family when I spoke out loud and became like a very very stubborn child. I refused to give up what I had seen, how I felt and how the other person’s actions affected me.

    For once in my life, I looked at me in truth and how the world around me felt to me, looked to me…and my coloring people crayons disappeared.

    And the paints I used to tone down what I saw and how I felt…completely dried up. 

    I then discovered an incredible freedom and how easy it was to not have to come up with an excuse for others or worry how my truth would make them feel.

    Byron Katie’s book, “Loving What is” showed me how it was okay and actually a very sacred place to be.

    I was walking with God in reality. 

    I saw what God saw.

    He didn’t paint a sunset over to make it into a bird, nor a tree into a river.  He kept them all in their natural states.  I could then see the perfection in everything. 

    A mean person is mean.

    An unhappy person is unhappy.

    A homeless man has no home.

    A biting dog bites.

    A pedophile abuses children.

    A drunken person drinks.

    A neglectful mother neglects her children. 

    I didn’t try to make any of the above different, it was impossible and not my job.  I retired as the painter to make their lives appear kinder and feel better to me.

    Instead I felt them as they were…I opened myself up to feel all the things I had previously painted, I stripped them down so only their truths shone forth.

    I felt what it feels like to have a pedophile father, a neglectful mother.  I felt it all wash over me removing my own paints of being normal and okay.

    Stripped bare I stood with a family minus the pretty paint.

    Its unvarnished rawness of glaring truths…

    It wasn’t pretty but it was my truth…and I didn’t have the strength or the desire to pick up a brush and cover it up.

    I let it lay there in all its ugly perfect glory… the raw and perfect truth. 

     

     

  • Half Dead

    There are two ways to look at relationships and what is defined as kind or unconditional will depend on which side you are standing upon.

     

    Most of my old relationships had the relationship as the ruler and I as its servant. 

     

    Now I arrive in each relationship as the ruler and the relationship serves me or doesn’t.

     

    In the past, I was a martyr in relationships.

     

    I looked up the meaning of Martyr.

     

    1.                   somebody put to death: somebody who chooses to die rather than deny a strongly held belief, especially a religious belief

    2.                     somebody who makes sacrifices: somebody who makes sacrifices or suffers greatly in order to advance a cause or principle. 

     

     Wow, is that right on or what.  I definitely was a martyr in my relationships…I made sacrifices of my self, my feelings and my truth to remain in relationships.  I suffered greatly to advance the cause…the family.

    I may not be adequately framing this, but in my old relationships it required me to be dead in order for me to be there.

     

    An aware, alive and responding me shattered the relationship.  I no longer suffered for the cause.

    It was kind to the relationship for me to remain dead and unresponsive, yet very unkind to me.  I have now reversed that order.

    I also feel that a thriving whole relationship requires two alive people…

    Otherwise it is half dead.

     

     

     

     

  • The Responsibility lies within you.

    In the past week, I have heard two different ladies tell me that God wants them to be kind to people who are not kind to them…that being kind to unkind people is pleasing to God.

     

    Both say, it isn’t what they would do, but they truly feel this is what God wants them to do.  So to please God they act differently than how they feel.

     

    They put on a God Smilely Face, when inside they are feeling quite the opposite and believe this is what God wants them to do.  God likes them to be fake.

     

    I find this very interesting and quite unsettling that they, when they find themselves in a spot of where their real feelings would have them move away, that they instead put on a smile and blame it on God.  He wants me to do this…

     

    What kind of God is that, I asked?  I am sorry, but the God I know, would not want me to be fake nor have me be with folks who are unkind… For Him.

     

    To which I am met with silence.

     

    Oddly enough by blaming God and ‘acting’ in a manner you assume he appreciates, leaves you without having to make a tough choice.

     

    It leaves you not having to move, nor speaking up or presenting your inner truths.

     

    In fact Martha Beck in this months O Magazine, wrote about the problem with asking “What would Love do”…for many of us have the wrong definition of love.

     

    I would say the same of God.  What would God do, usually is what you feel is your highest option.

     

    And if your highest option is to be fake, I am uncertain who you are.

     

    Again, it leaves me wordless and shaking my head…to hear these adult women having to be false, to be unable to walk their own truths, to present their own feelings and move away.

     

    They stay to please God. 

     

    In fact one lady told me this was the meaning of ‘unconditional love’ to remain kind no matter what.

     

    I told her I have found that this is the meaning of abuse.

     

    That if you are unable to make a choice, to turn around, to leave, to speak your truths …you remain a victim.

     

    And the God I know would not want me to be without free will.

     

    It is easier to blame God and plaster on fake kindness than it is for them to face them and say what they truly feel.

     

    Instead of holding God responsible for your acting inauthentic, the responsibility lies within you.

     

     

  • Grace and Courage

    As Alice Miller’s book comes to a close, she encapsulates her thoughts.

    “In this book (The Body Never Lies) I express hope that , as psychological knowledge grows, the power of the Fourth Commandment will wane in favor of the appropriate respect for the vital biological needs of the body, including truth, loyalty to oneself and to one’s perceptions, feelings and insights. If I seek genuine expressions of my feelings in a genuine form of communication, everything that was built on lies and insincerity will fall away from me. Then I will no longer strive for a relationship in which I pretend to have feelings that I do not have, or suppress others that I do have. Love that excludes honesty does not deserve the name of love.

    The following points may serve to sum up these ideas.

    1. The “love” of formerly abused children for their parents is not love. It is an attachment fraught with expectations, illusions, and denials, and it exacts a high price from all those involved in it.

    2. The price of this attachment is paid primarily by the next generation of children, who grow up in a spirit of mendacity because their parents automatically inflict on them the thins they believe “did them good.” Young parents themselves also frequently pay for their denial with serious damage to their health because their “gratitude” stands in contradiction to the knowledge stored in their bodies.

    3. The frequent failure of therapy can be explained by the fact that most therapists are themselves caught up in the snare of traditional morality and attempt to drag their clients into the same kind of captivity because it is all they know. As soon as clients start to feel and become capable of roundly condemning the deeds, say, of an incestuous father, therapists will probably be assailed by fear of punishment at the hands of their own parents if they should dare to look their own truth in the face and express it for what it is. How else can we explain the fact that forgiveness is declared to be an instrument of healing? Therapists frequently propose this to reassure themselves, just as the parents did. But because it sounds very familiar to the messages communicated to them in childhood by their parents, albeit expressed in a more friendly way, some patients may need some time to see through the pedagogic angle of it. And even once they finally have recognized it, they can hardly leave their therapist, especially if a new toxic attachment has already formed, if for them, the therapist has become like a mother who has helped them to a new birth (because in this new relationship they have started to feel). So they may continue to expect salvation from the therapist instead of listening to their body and accepting the aid it signals represent.

    4. Once clients, accompanied by an enlightened witness, have lived through and understood their fear of their parents (or parental figures), they can gradually start to break off destructive attachments. The positive reaction of the body will not be long in coming: its communications will become more and more and more comprehensible; it will cease to express itself in mysterious symptoms. Then clients will realize that their therapists have deceived them (frequently involuntarily) because forgiveness actually prevents the formation of scar tissue over the old wound, not to speak of complete recovery. And it can never dispel the compulsion to repeat the same pattern over and over again. This is something we can all find out from our own experience.

    “In The Body Never Lies, I have tried to show that some widely held views have long since exploded by scientific research. Among them are the convictions that forgiveness has a salutary effect, that a commandment can produce genuine love, and that feigning feelings that we do not have is compatible with the demand for honesty. But my criticism of such misleading ideas is by not means to be equated with a refusal to recognize any moral standards or with a wholesale rejection of morality.”

    “On the contrary, Precisely because I staunchly uphold certain values – such as integrity, awareness, responsibility, or loyalty to oneself – I have difficulty with the denial of truths that I consider self-evident and have in fact been empirically substantiated.”

    “Inability to face up to the sufferings undergone in childhood can be observed both in the form of religious obedience and in cynicism, irony, and other forms of self-alienation frequently masquerading as philosophy or literature. But ultimately the body will rebel. Even if it can be temporarily pacified with the help of drugs, nicotine, or medicine, it usually has the last word, because it is quicker to see through self-deception than the mind, particularly if the mind has been trained to function as an alienated self. We may ignore or deride the messages of the body, but its rebellion demands to be heeded because its language is the authentic expression of our true selves and of the strength of our vitality.” Alice Miller

    What I find so affirming is are the major factors that Alice believes will help a person heal from abuse is what I discovered as well…

    Honoring thy Mother and thy Father…is no longer valid when they don’t honor you. This is a two way road and that love without honesty isn’t love.

    Secondly, the forgiveness to keep them ‘sin’ free…will not put scar tissue on our wound; it will not help heal us at all. In fact, we eventually will hurt our children, for we are still unhealed and hurt.

    From what I am hearing in my old church based upon the premise of forgiveness, this is self evident. If forgiveness worked, it would have stopped a long time ago. But when you hear that the grandparent was a perpetrator, the parent was perpetrator and now a child is, Forgiveness doesn’t stop abuse!

    And I love how she uses the body as a gauge for our barometer to our honesty. Your body simply does not know how to lie, it just responds in kind to the climate in which it is forced to live.

    How easily our world troubles could be solved if we all were brave enough to speak our truth and walk behind it with grace and courage…

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