Tag: Maya Angelou

  • Normally intolerant of Abuse

    Addiction is an uncontrollable compulsion to repeat a behavior regardless of its negative consequences. The condition of being abnormally dependent on something…being abnormally tolerant to and dependent on.

    My brother brought to my attention that addiction is to be abnormally tolerant.

    Abnormally tolerant regardless of its negative consequence…to me it is to be addicted to negative results.

    Imagine being addicted to negative outcomes!

    Being abnormally tolerant of negative results.

    Dr. Maya Angelou says, “Children’s talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives.”

    What she calls our talent to endure, becomes our abnormal tolerance to negative consequences.

    We have a unique talent to tolerate bad behaviors or treatment to ourselves. I find this highly intriguing, that it isn’t the substance, but the abnormal tolerance to the substance that is our demise.

    Abnormal tolerance…to negative outcomes.

    What a cycle.

    When we have this abnormal tolerance we can withstand and endure what most normal folks couldn’t begin to fathom, and the rougher of a childhood, the stronger this endurance is the more negative treatment we can withstand.

    And mixed in the mix is love. In fact we endure for love.

    We are taught that parents love, that families love and we endure all treatment for the sake of love.

    What I know in my experience is that I tolerated a lot in the name of love.

    What is so striking as well, is that when I began separating myself from the bad behavior I couldn’t find the love.

    I guess what is the most tragic of all is you suffered, endured, tolerated, and withstood huge amounts of pain, in order to be loved, and in the end all that lay on the ground is abuse.

    The negative consequences to abnormally tolerating or being able to live under such dire circumstances is that we don’t know how to be normal. To rise up to the tolerant level, to know what is normal treatment, to thin out our thick skin, to make boundaries from a normal point of view.

    I was tough and I could endure and tolerate lots, but I had to find out how to become weak and vulnerable, to soften and feel the slightest insult and own it.

    I had to become aware of my softness inside and protect it, refusing to tolerate again for the sake of love.

    I had to become normally intolerant of abuse.

  • What Isn’t There to See!


    To be upset over what you don't have is to waste what you do have. 

     ~Ken S. Keyes

     

    We have two eyes and I am thinking we need to use them for two separate things; one to see what we have and the other what is missing.  I also suggest keep one eye working more than the other, perhaps even wear a patch over the one who is a forever counting what is Not here.

     

    Our train of thoughts need to keep the track to the positive eye well used, and abandon the tracks to the one that is forever reporting the doom and gloom, the worrier, the spoil sport, the one that is adding up a long column of negatives, when there is a whole world of good to be calculated.

     

    I know that by switching how I look upon my job makes a difference, if I can see all the positives, the downsides will fade from neglect.

     

    I heard Dr. Maya Angelou say of people who whine, ‘stop you will let them know a Victim is in the area.’

     

    So in the vicinity of your voice how is it being heard?

     

    What are you mentioning most often, the things going right or what is going wrong?

     

    We are either a victim commentator of life or one that sees things as they are and rolls by accepting, being enthusiastic or having enjoyment in what is, as Eckhart Tolle suggests.

     

    If you can accept what is going on, you are no longer a victim.

     

    When you fight it, you become a victim to It, no matter what It is.

     

    It is raining and you want sunshine, the rain will victimize you.

    Just by wanting what is not there, IT takes your power; your eyes are on what isn’t happening.

     

    When you keep your strongest eye on what isn’t happening, you waste what you have in life.

     

    Can you have what you don’t see?

     

    Yet we believe we can have what we don’t see by focusing on what isn’t there.

     

    How backwards this all is…What we can see, we don’t and what we don’t we focus on.

     

    Seeing what isn’t and not seeing what is.

     

    Like a trick mirror, reporting back what isn’t there to see!

     

  • Victim to Victor.

    Maya Angelou spoke of the differences between whining and protesting, that it is okay to stand up and speak up and take actions against those that harm, but not to sit and whine about them.

     

    When you whine she said, ‘you attract more predators, for they hear your weakness.’

     

    And the phrase, ‘don’t whine about it, do something about it’ comes to mind.

     

    What I know for sure, my whining about my parents and their behavior would not have set me free. The only thing that would, was to protest by walking away.

     

    I am not whining about my past, I am protesting the behaviors and or treatments that were handed out. 

     

    Your actions are all it is needed to protest.

     

    Whining is speaking without actions.

    Only actions will move you from victim to victor.