I M Perfect lady

Tag: mothers

  • Mother for them.

    I want to say “Happy Mother’s Day” to all the mothers out there who stood up and did what was hard to do.

    Who had a voice that spoke out when their hearts were breaking, who walked away from their home and family to end abuse.

    Who were willing to leave all they have ever known to change the course of abuse in their children’s lives.

    Mothers who walk with shaky legs and confusion, but walk anyway, the ones who can see the hurt child…and then nothing in life matters more, they walk against many who demand their silence.

    The mothers who will give up her dreams for the safety of her children deserve all the accolades of this day.

    The mother who is in fear, but walks anyway, who leaps into the unknown to save her child, I cheer you on.

    These are mothers of true courage and strength and willingly walk face to face with life’s greatest fears to save a child, theirs and others. They do not sit silently and watch and not get involved, they leap when others sulk back.

    They are the heroes who this day belongs to.

    Mothers, who mother in love, walk fearlessly against evil, and are a strong secure place to be held. Who you can trust and who will lead you to your highest good.

    My Happy Mother’s Day wishes and good energy go to you.

    May you stand tall when the world is falling, when your voice is the lone one in the sea of silence, may you find your courage within you, and know that the Universe walks with you always.

    Feel inside and you will feel the strength of all the mothers who sat in fear, they are cheering for you to show them the way.

    Even mothers need heros, you are a mother for them.

  • The Door is Open.

    I listened today to a mother and daughter speaking about a time in their lives where the daughter wanted her freedom to do drugs and the mother wanted her daughter to stop using drugs.

    These opposing desires had them in a battle of the wills.

    Until the mother realized she couldn’t do this anymore and she let her go, allowing her to leave the rehab and set out on her own. She believed that in three weeks the daughter would be back home.

    Three years passed while the daughter went deeper into the drug world, selling her body to buy drugs, being homeless, until she almost died and had a near death experience, did she realize doing drugs wasn’t a good thing.

    What caught my attention was that no matter what the disagreement is, until you both agree, there will be a battle of wills.

    This battle of wills seems to make each person dig deeper and find reasons for their side and tearing up the relationship with each fight.

    I can’t even begin to imagine letting a daughter go to sink deeper into the drug addiction, but I can also see the struggle to keep her out, when everything inside of her screams for drugs and the freedom to do what it is she pleases.

    However, the mother did not allow this behavior to ruin her home; the daughter and her drug habit left her house.

    This exchange I heard this afternoon, shown me that what my daughter and I are going through is mild in a sense, and that the freedom I have given her to make up her own mind is a good thing.

    That she gets to decide what is good for her self.

    While I know my perspective is clear and she knows it, she now has to decide what is good for her, her life, and her future.

    Letting me down is the smallest of affects, for she will have to live with the choices fully just as the daughter who lived with all the things that come with the drugs, my daughter will have to live with all the things that come with a married man; the three kids, and ex-wife and the very beginnings of a divorce.

    My life, my home, my inner peace and happiness are separated.

    I will ‘think’ of her, but not experience her life, she will do that, she will feel the affects of all that comes with this man she has feelings for, he comes with a ton of baggage, all of which will spill into their relationship, but I will not feel it, she will.

    I am willing to let her go.

    Time will tell if the pull to go is strong enough to make her leave…there will be no battle of the wills. The door is open.

    “A woman convinced against her will is of the same opinion still.”

  • That Kind are not Family.

    I heard the Oprah show on the radio about the twin girls that were abused for years by their brothers and father, whose mother knew but did nothing.

    At the end of the show Oprah gives them a few words of wisdom, one about forgiveness and the other about not letting their spirits be killed by what their brothers and father did to them.

    She said her definition of forgiveness is,

    “Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past would have been any different.”

    She told them to let go of the hope for a different kind of father.
    Let go of the hope for different kind of brothers.
    Let go of the hope for a different kind of mother.

    Letting go of the hope a Different Kind…you have to then accept the kind you have.

    In my case, I had to accept a raping kind of father and a mother who also knew, but did nothing.

    We did not get the loving kind or the supportive protective kind, we got the abusive kind.

    Secondly, Oprah said, “I want you to not let the spirit be killed by what your brother and father did, to not let the spirit die.

    The toughest part is really feeling that the hope is gone for a different kind of father/mother/siblings, but at that point when you lost all, you are then left with a part of yourself that is beyond all that, your spirit.

    It seemed to me, in the darkest moment of seeing the kind of family I had, I was then able to see a small seed that wasn’t going to be defined by what they did to me, it was a part of me that separated from them.

    I then set to work on redefining me and reworking the parts of me that were confused and mixed up due to abuse.

    I had to learn how to love, to trust and to find faith within myself.

    I had to reestablish what I felt were my boundaries since I was raised in a home without boundaries, in an unsafe place, where a father can rape a child and the mother remains married to him, forgiving his ‘sins’, Sins that hurt me.

    If these twins can find the strength to fully accept that the kind of parents and siblings they have, they can then begin to make choices that will not include abuse.

    If you don’t see the monsters you will continue to have ‘father/brother’ like relationships with a men who rape you.

    The greatest work that needs to happen is that you have to pick only one. A father OR a Monster, you can’t have both.

    And at that time you will also pick which one you will be.
    A daughter who allows this behavior or one who will save her spirit and walk away free.

    Also at the end of the show, Oprah said that 99% of abuse is from family members or someone we know, and we have to be willing to put fathers, brothers, uncles and friends in jail. And this is huge. This is key, this is very had for most to do, which is why mothers don’t see and sisters don’t tell etc, no one wants to put family in jail, families that rape and abuse children! Families of that kind are not family!

  • You Break the Chain

    Grand Traverse Women Magazine was asking about articles on Motherhood, and immediately I felt that I had a unique perspective in how my mothering changed as I unraveled my life of abuse.

    It is like my children had two different mothers without going through a divorce, the changes in how I mothered are totally opposite.

    The woman in motherhood is the key component, how she is built and operates, is how she will mother.

    Who I was as a woman is where I began mothering from and I brought to mothering, the skills I learned from my mother, a legacy that flows into us like breath.

    Mothering doesn’t change us; we bring to the child who we are.

    All of our past lands upon the child in the way we relate to them and how we expect them to relate to us, we began building a relationship.

    A relationship of dysfunction or one with healthy boundaries, and it all depends upon the adult.

    Whether this is motherhood or fatherhood, the adult is the operator of the relationship and how they conduct themselves is how healthy or unhealthy the child will grow.

    My father was a pedophile and I one of his victims. My mother stayed married to this man for 49 years, this is the pattern I had to follow.

    I mothered as she did, until at 46, I found out that my childhood of no memories was due to the fact I was abused, I then had to re-look at who I was and how I lived.

    An adult woman of abuse is very co-dependent, she expects her children to make her shine, to make her happy to live for her.
    A woman who is clear and separated from abuse knows her children are free to live and be themselves, and will monitor but not control their lives.

    The dysfunctional co-dependent way of mothering is hell to do and tragically damages children to the extent that they don’t know how to live a life separated from others, they are groomed to be parasites.

    Living off of what makes others happy.

    My children, all four, were set free the moment I knew I was abused and that I had serious work to do on getting me back to ‘normal’.

    I allowed them to be themselves and we worked on separating them from me and my demands and my wishes and my dreams.

    As I separated myself from my mother I then could allow my children to be separate from me.

    Mothering is to nurture and to love and respect WHO they are and not hijack their lives to become arm candy and self-esteem boosters.

    My children were an extension of me, not individuals.

    The more I became an individual the more I could allow them to be individuals too.

    Motherhood to me now isn’t so scary, for I would now allow them to enter onto this planet as wonderful curious loving souls and let them explore and learn to be who they were meant to be.

    My children experienced two kinds of mothers within one woman; the changes in our home are extreme.

    My rages and violent screaming rampages have disappeared and in its place a woman who seeks to find a peaceful solution, a way to co-habitat that honors all who live here.

    Motherhood is only as happy as our childhood…the legacy will repeat itself unless and until you break the chain.

  • An Accomplice to the Act.

    Would you know a pedophile, would you be able to spot one, can you tell his moves, when he is engaged in the dance? 

     

    It seems to me that we all as a world are expecting to see him ‘in the act’ that if you are ever watchful you will see the monster appear.

     

    What we all fail to realize is that it is crucial to their existence that we see them as harmless.

     

    What child would go with a monster?

    What child would trust a monster?

    What child would play the games if they were not made to be felt safe, secure and loved?

     

    My sister is being vigilant while her first grandchild is in the presence of my father.

     

    Vigilant for what? 

     

    Do you expect to see his penis or his hands making a move towards your grandbaby?

     

    Oh honey, it will not be easy to catch, he is a master manipulator, for he is on his third generation.

     

    You think you can outmaneuver this man?

     

    What are you watching for?

     

    Do you know his lure, his dance, the way he makes his latest victims feel special, that his attention will be very friendly, jovial, and playful while he sees the ultimate treat.

     

    As you watch are you watching for friendship?

    Are you watching for kindness and playful attention?

    Or are you instead waiting for a monster to arrive at your dinner table?

     

    He will not show you the monster, which is special and only for little girls.

     

    You will only and always see kindness and playful attention as he lures your granddaughter into a relationship with him.

     

    YOU say you know who he is, than why in the world would you allow your granddaughter with him, why?

     

    You say you will be vigilant, honey, you have no idea what to watch for.

     

    While you are forever looking for the monster, a master manipulator posing as an old grandpa is in your presence, it is from that role he will attack.

     

    His dance continues due to your lack of knowing what to watch for.  He is free to play his games while you all look on.  You will only see a grandpa, but your little girl will see the monster.

     

    Trust me on this.

     

    Instead of watching for unwanted advances, see instead his thrill each time he sees her, see him totally engaged in playful entertainment, see him gaining her trust, her love and her respect.

     

    Will you warn her of his past deeds?

    Will you tell her what he does to little girls?

    What age will you tell her, will she understand?

    Will you tell her of this ‘after’ she has a playful relationship with a man and now you have to ‘convince’ her he is sick and hurts little girls?

     

    What is your plan of action?

     

    Our mother, to my knowledge, did not at any time warn us of him, of his disease of him being a man who molests. 

     

    I am wondering how you will do this, what is your strategy and how you will implement this and at what age. Hurry, for he loves LITTLE girls!

     

    Most will not talk to little innocent girls about things such a penises or of touching of bottoms, so how are you going to warn her of his behaviors?

     

    When and how?

     

    Now you are allowing her to be charmed by a pedophile. Know it and own it. 

     

    She is not getting to know a grandpa, but instead she is the latest victim and four adults, who claim to love and protect her, are watching her be groomed. 

     

    You are all watching as she forms a relationship with a known sexual predator.  Know it and own it.

     

    Oh my God, my frustrations are endless!

     

    Why oh why does another little girl have to be with him, why????

     

    Why do you silently vigilantly watch?

    Why?  Just know you are an accomplice to the act.

     

     

  • How I Treat My Body.

    “There are many ways to deprive yourself:  You can deprive yourself of cookies or you can deprive yourself of feeling well after eating them.  You can deprive yourself of feeling your sadness or you can deprive yourself of the confidence and well-being that come from knowing you won’t be destroyed by feeling it.”  Geneen Roth

     

    It really struck me that we are deprived one way or the other, and you get to decide what you want to deprive yourself of.

     

    I love that there are two choices, which you can either feel good or not feel good. 

     

    When I do yoga I feel good, that I am taking care of this body, moving it and stretching it, and making it stronger. I am depriving myself the opportunity to beat me up.

     

    I have begun to also be aware of what I am putting in my body, most of the time.  When I eat whole foods, I deprive myself of feeling bad about myself.

     

    Here is another section that caught my attention.

     

    “My mother had spent years telling me I was selfish, and it was upon that nub of information that I built a monument of deficiency.  But as I widened the myopic gaze on I-me-mine, I saw my mother at age twenty-five with two small children, a loveless marriage and a desperate need to have a different life.  With the little information she had, and doing the best she could do, she called me selfish for wanting more that she could give.  And since I would have died for her, and since every child needs her parents to be right, I took myself to be the sum of her limitations.  I saw myself through the eyes of a lonely, depressed, troubled woman – and never questioned my loyalty to her vision.  And then there was my father who saw me as a ditzy dumb blonde. Add ditzy dumb blonde to “selfish, fat, and unlovable” and you have who I took myself to be for almost fifty years.

     

    Psychologists and spiritual teachers alike call this learned version of our selves “ego” or “personality” or “false self”.  It’s false because your idea of yourself is based on who your mother took you to be, and her idea of herself was based on who her mother took her to be, which was based on who her mother took her to be, your idea of yourself – the person whose feelings get hurt, who takes offense at being criticized, who is webbed to her opinions and preferences or ideas- is based on those of someone who’s never met you.  Your self-image is refracted so many times – with learned inferences and memories and conditioning- that it is nothing more than a hall of mirrors.

     

    Talk about a hoax.  You are not who you think you are.  Hardly anyone is.  Because although kids come into this world with an implicit understanding of who they are, they have no self-reflective consciousness.  They know who they are, but they don’t know that they know.  And the only way to find out is by seeing themselves in their parent’s eyes.  We become what and who are parents saw.  Figments of their imagination. 

     

    Then, as my teacher Jeanne says, we spend our lives following instructions given to us ten or thirty or fifty years ago by people we wouldn’t ask for street directions from today.”  Geneen

     

    In my experience my whole self was designed from my mother’s point of view and how my father treated me.

     

    Here is more from Woman Food and God,  “The obsession will end when you love discovering your true nature more than you love being loyal to your mother or father.  The obsession will end because you care enough about yourself to stop damaging yourself with food.  Because you love yourself enough to stop hurting yourself.  Who doesn’t want to take care of what they love?

     

    If you pay attention to when you are hungry, what your body wants, what you are eating, when you’ve had enough, you end the obsession because obsessions and awareness can’t co-exist.  When you pay attention to yourself, you notice the difference between being tired and being hungry.  Between being satisfied and being full.  Between wanting to scream and wanting to eat.

     

    The more you pay attention, the more you fall in love with that which is not obsessed: that which is blazing itself through you.  The life force that animates your body.  Food becomes a way to sustain the blaze, and way of eating that keeps you depressed or spaced out or uncomfortable loses its appeal.  When that happens, you slowly realize that you are being lived by that which is God and you wouldn’t have it any other way.”  Geneen

     

    I love how she writes this, for it is exactly true in my experience…. Once I had redefined myself, I then began to treat myself better to the point I love myself enough to take care of how I treat my body.