Tag: me

• The Story of Becoming Me

  In reading the comments on the Extoots Blog, I marvel at the secrecy and how they hide their identities…while commenting freely about their religion; either why they stay or why they left.

  It is like they are talking about a government that will harm them IF they are found to be in noncompliance…or plotting to leave is punishable.  

  How is this a free religion when fear is so instilled in grown adults…where they are able to vote, drive and drink…but God forbid they speak up about a religion, so they leave their names out.

  It continues to shock me….but not surprise me. 

  Fear is what keeps them hiding their true identity….like criminals almost.  Or folks on TV, who, out of fear, distort their images and voices.  

  Isn't it odd that fear is the overlying sentiment and not enthusiasm for finding a new pathway, a truer life for themselves…or being so happy within their religion.

  I can respect their wishes, but if they only knew how self defeating it is to hide their truths.  

  By standing up and saying their names and standing with the truth of why they left or why they remain inside is very powerful.  

  It isn't about the religion itself, but the power of being proud of who you are.

  I don't know if it is like this when you leave all churches, but it sure seems that there are many people who are not willing to openly admit that they are no longer members of the FALC church and why….let alone speak it using their real names.

  However, I recall knowing I no longer matched the religion and wondered how I would tell my mother, how I would leave and what it would mean to my children to stop going. Funny, but sad…the reasons had nothing to do about me, but more to do about the folks around me.

  Once the investigation about my father happened, the door swung open easily…I didn't stay for others, I left for me.

  I didn't hesitate.  I didn't hide.  I left with the fullest of understanding, what I was leaving…even if I had no idea where I was going or where I would end up.  It didn't matter what others thought or said.  I followed my inner voice, my guts, my feelings and never, not once, have ever looked back with regret.

  How can I regret being Me?  

  How can I regret my truth?

  What I know for sure, is that you can't know what freedom is, until you have experienced being controlled.

  You could say, that religion brought me to freedom. 

  Just as living in a dysfunctional family brought me to know what love and wholeness was…I had to first learn what it was not.  

  Loving that I don't have to live anonymously!  I love that I get to live fully exposed as Me!  There is no part of me I want to hide…

  
  Part of My Story Line Quilts….the story of becoming Me!

  May 2, 2012

  art, being, life, line, me, quilts, story, truth

  ---

• Growing Me.

  There is another word that has screwed up more people than being perfect, and that is being normal.

  What is normal?

  Can you spot a normal person in a lineup?

  Inside of us isn’t there a specifically designed normal for us, one that is specially made by the path that we walked?

  Normal in the dictionary says to conform to the standard.

  What is the standard?

  Who designed the standard in each situation and can the standards change?

  I had to look up standard; it says the level of quality.

  Quality of what?

  How can we know the best quality and isn’t our best the best quality?

  Do we have to measure ourselves against others standards?

  So normal is conforming to standards of quality.

  But who are the quality makers?

  Who decides whether I reached the level called normal?

  To me, this seems like perfect recipe for failing to always be looking outward to the judges of quality for the nod of approval, instead of creating a normal for you.

  It is normal for me to run, from groups that seem to enjoy brainwashing conformity, as a newly freed mind!

  It is normal for me to embrace all things free after being held captive by a mental mind for 40 years.

  Yet is this normal?

  Perhaps I did overshoot the mark and I have landed in a land beyond normal.

  Some feel ‘normal’ in abusive situations for that is all they ever have known, to them that’s normal’.

  That is the only quality or standard they know.

  Maybe it is only when you no longer like that standard or that quality that you strive for a higher level, a new normal for you.

  This new normal for you is personal, societies standards, nor your friends or parents don’t measure it, it is an inside job.

  Inside of you, something tells you that you are ready for a new normal.

  You no longer are comfortable doing that which you have done, and want to raise the standard by which you live.

  You then move to a new normal for you.

  What is normal is conforming to standards you now have.

  I feel we re-set our standards time and time again, the more we learn the more re-setting we do.

  I had previously set standards by my parents, until I saw their standards, and then I began creating my own standards.

  What was normal for me for 46 years was their standard, not mine.

  Now I have a new normal and in this new normal, I reset my standards all the time, they seem to be fluid and life changing.

  There is no mark that I will hit and say “Bingo” I am now stuck at this normal.

  My life and me are normally changing, we are not stuck unchanging like a plastic flower, we are like a real live growing me.

  I love that I am not done growing, for I think that is dead.

  I am a normal growing me.

  January 27, 2011

  by, changes, changing, expanding, growing, learning, live, me, normal, standards

  ---