I M Perfect lady

Tag: old

  • Seek to Become more Aware.

    Jason Torola put it so clearly, "

    Beth, You'll get the last word. You always do. But know this; I've seen what you wrote. I've seen what you tried to do.

    A wise man told me, "You can fool the fans, but you can't fool the players." Beth, we are all players here.

    I don't have to get the last word, but people usually stop talking and I can't make them talk, so is it really my problem that I get left in silence?  

    His reference to what I wrote isn't something I feel would be beneficial to post on my blog…it isn't my journey…I myself have no problems with airing it…but it isn't mine to air.

    And he is very correct in stating "We are all Players here."

    Yes we are. And how you play the game will define your integrity and your authenticity.  And I love that there are no fans to fool.  For you truly are not fooling anyone…you only look foolish.

    I know what my intentions are and how I personally play the game and furthermore, who I like to play with.

    I am not interested in the struggle of convincing someone to do or say or be a certain way.  I used to.  I mothered that way.  I gave it up five years ago…and in its place granted freedom to all who have a relationship with me.

    You Jason get to be Jason…please do and say and be exactly as you feel.  I truly would not want you any other way. The same goes for the rest of your family and each person and family in the church and out.  

    I have no desire to change a hair on your head.  However, IF it is YOUR desire to change and want a cheerleader, I will cheer you on as you play this new game.

    But, if you want to continue in the old system of seeking power and control…we part ways.  I don't play there anymore.  And I will not tell you you can't play there.  Play away.  Demand, rage and work to bend and control OR give up your power and people please and play that way…either way it is a game I no longer play.

    It is my goal, my intention to completely take myself out of that old game. Certainly there will be times when I slip and fall and veer off course and find the old me wanting to control, or feeling above others by making them feel less…but it doesn't feel good inside of me no more.  I have lost the taste for that old game.

    It has taken a great deal of work to get out of that game and its cost to my life were way too much…If and when I find myself playing that old game, I quickly work to exit out.

    Jason I was a very forceful player in the old system….and I can certainly see how you can see me that way.  But in the past 7 years I have been feverishly working to remove all desire to play that way.

    I am making choices that are the opposite of how I used to live life. I was completely exhausted and totally without a clue as to how to change and control so much dysfunction….I walked out.

    I gave up control and found freedom.

    I concentrated on my self.

    I began to save only me.

    To control only me.

    To play only for me.

    And it worked like magic…I became a player that no longer needs to find its power by controlling other people.  My power is gotten by being free.

    I truly, truly wish for you and all…the experience of being free.  It was not then or is now my intention to break up families. It would be my greatest joy to see one family make it through this journey intact.

    It wasn't to be that way for me.  It is not now or ever a walk I want for one other soul…but It isn't up to me.  Remember Jason, we are all players…and what we put out comes back into our lives.

    Play well…there is no fooling the fans.  We are aware of the truth, whether we show it or not…it is there.  Each of us will have the choice to follow our awareness or to sit this round out….but awareness is yours to pick up…or yours to ignore.  

    Awareness is the Gift I have discovered…placed there for when you get tired of being in the old game.  It is automatic, you don't have to be cute enough, good enough or wise enough….it is just there.

    It is there waiting for you to glance its way…to begin to see life in a whole new way.  You lose the fight and seek to become more aware.

      IMG_3376

    This is a quilt I titled, "Awareness"  my daughter owns it.  Photograph by Hannah Jukuri

  • The Stranger Among them.

    At times it is very interesting to be me, to actually watch reactions to me while being me.  I have changed my ideals and the way I live my life.  I have totally flipped and it shows in the reactions folks give me.

    It is like certain people have an allergic reaction to me.

    I seen a brother I haven’t seen in a year.  The last time, we were on ‘friendly’ terms, but he was a fence walker; he would visit me and then be with my mother. 

    He said he was okay with everyone, to each their own, it mattered not to him.

    Now it seems I matter…something has changed. 

    He and I used to stop by and call etc, but in the last year silence.  I don’t know what I have done, nor did I bring it up when I seen him this evening while out to dinner with my children and husband.

    He chatted with my kids easily, and sent me a glance and quickly looked away…I am used to those kinds.  I didn’t probe either or ask what happened. Didn't make him uncomfortable or put him on the spot, I let it go. 

    He has a new wife now maybe she is the change in us.

    I can’t know, and I don’t want to make him come or call or care.

    His actions are asking for space…I honor that.

    It makes me wonder why he was so free to come before, to fish, to eat, to get mending done, to vent, to rage and for me to hear, and now nothing.

    Perhaps he doesn’t need me anymore.  How odd it is to have these relations fade into nothing, to watch me fade away. 

    The old me would have forced and pushed myself in…maybe even by offering more and more for him and now her.

    The new me watches them with me, how I have nothing that they need anymore.  How I am just a wall flower or just a casual hi and few pleasantries, and the old familiarity has turned to strange.

    I am strange. 

    My actions are strange…I am the stranger among them.

  • To be me…perfectly.

    There seems to be a time in life, where you get off the karmic wheel of your childhood, where you finally come to the end of the road where old beliefs, thoughts and ideas run dry, where you have uncovered, discovered, and recovered all parts of your self.

     

    And you have decided what stays, what goes, what has value or no value, what is something I will use in my future and what is best left in the past.

     

    As each old thought and belief came to surface, I had to replace it with a new one, one more suited for my self and was often less comfortable for the ‘other’.

     

    Most of my replacement ideas, thoughts and beliefs are much more flexible and fit my spirit. They are filled with potential growth and expansion, unlimited space for creation.

     

    The purging of my old self was difficult and painful at times and extremely liberating as well, the dying and rebuilding co-existing, the undoing and the re-doing.  Each loss I mourned came with a new birth.

     

    Just as they flip houses, I flipped myself, changing me from a worn out pattern into a more creative one.

     

    I can’t imagine getting left in the old mind patterns and beliefs, stuck and unable to step out line, locked by fear and unable to shake off the chains of conditioning.

     

    I feel at times I have forgotten from whence I came, and have a hard time remembering the darkness with so much Light, forgetting what it is like to live under the shadows of others, never finding your own spot in the sun…

     

    My thanks all go to the Universe whose wisdom I seen in every lesson, gift and miracle, and who synchronized it all.

     

    As I continue forth with my awareness my artist’s prayer is;

    to remain faithful to the wisdom of my body,

    to always pay attention to the gut feelings,

    to stand with the truth no matter the cost,

    to have faith and follow my own feelings,

    to reach towards new experiences fearlessly,

    to be a student of the Universe,

    to accept all lessons with grace,

    to never lose sight of what is,

    to find my purpose,

    to know who I am,

    to be me…perfectly! 

  • We poured ourselves out for them.

    The two main things I have been striving to achieve are to mend a broken heart and to find my sense of lucidity.

    There are times when the brokenness obscures my vision of sanity.

    Perhaps a broken heart causes insanity.

    It is impossible to discern the cause and affect.
    What came first?

    As I head into each situation, past memory, old relationship, investigating and probing, I usually become more lucid and sane and find no love.

    What is so unsettling is that I can have my sanity back, but can’t find love there.

    It seems the wires of insanity are laced with love, wrapped and wound tightly together, like white on rice, that you can’t separate the two.

    Trying to leave love unaffected while becoming lucid, is to maintain a loving family amidst the evidence of dysfunction.

    I see the love change before my eyes, as my eyes grow clearer and clearer, its to see the secondary picture emerge that has always been there, just obscured by my love.

    My insanity fades into lucidness, my love I see was poured into containers with holes.

    Leaking out not held dear.

    I can see clearly now where I poured all my love, see now where it lay abandoned and betrayed, my efforts long forgotten, my undying faithfulness cheated upon, like a used container tossed aside after its contents enjoyed.

    I see the me that was so faithful to the unfaithful.
    I see the me that was so trusting to the untrusting.
    I see the me that was so giving to the ungiving.

    I see me doing the right thing to the wrong people.
    That no matter how much I gave, I couldn’t change the people in front of me, that it is impossible to add love, trust, faith and a giving spirit to someone else.

    And I also think, I came really close in losing that spirit within me, that when the outside doesn’t change, you believe that your love isn’t good enough.

    Your faith isn’t strong enough.
    Your trust isn’t trusting enough…you are the problem, you didn’t try hard enough.

    Insanity is trying to make a loving person by loving them more.
    Insanity is trying to make a giving person by giving them more.
    Insanity is trying to make a trusting person by trusting them more.

    When, evidence showed the first time you walked up to them and handed them, your love, trust and faith, they tore them up.

    Somehow someway, as a child, we keep bringing them more and more, believing that if only we could be good enough, they could see love and kindness within us.

    We look to them to find the value in us.

    What is so shocking to see is the emptiness there, I see them not seeing me at all, and perhaps it is the empty container in front of them.

    We poured ourselves out for them.

  • Hand and Hand.

    All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. ~Anatole France

    Somehow I missed the melancholy of change, the loss, the death of one life, in order to be in a new life.

    And felt that I was doing change wrong, for I was sad as I changed.

    Leaving behind myself I had known for 46 years, I grieved losing that part of me, as I embraced a change that would become the new me.

    In the case of divorcing my parents, I had to the let the daughter in me die. There now stands a hole where daughter use to be.

    My daughter role is no more.

    You forget to remember the old you is gone, like a phantom limb it takes awhile to feel the new normal, and there is a grieving period, where sorrow can arise in odd places, unannounced sadness pours out.

    That view of self is unrecognizable for a while, you feel strange to yourself inside, and your movements are awkward for you don’t really know what it is the new you will do.

    Even when change is for the better, for a healthier you, you still have to let go and let die the old you.
    For some reason I kept forcing my thoughts to look towards the good things, and felt like I was a failure when I looked back and grieved.

    Now I know that grieving is a natural part of change.

    And with the overwhelming amount of change I have experienced in the last 5, well almost 6 years, it is no wonder that there has been lots to grieve.

    Who knew change and grieving go hand and hand…

  • Birthing the New Me.

    “How often in life we complete a task that was beyond the capability of the person we were when we started it.” ~Robert Brault

    This paragraph sums up how it is that I began my journey to find myself, in a state of total mentalness, upside down and backwards, emotionally and mentally in need of something bigger than I.

    I recall early on in my writing, when I was driven to paper for my head couldn’t hold the juxtaposition between what my old beliefs wanted me to do, and the new emerging me challenged, how incredible inept I was at being me.

    Two drastically different approaches to life, one driven by the outside the other by the inside.

    The new emerging inside me seemed to have this amazing and tantalzing connection that was beyond anything I had ever experienced, its orchestration would leave me speechless and totally supported.

    No matter the most dire of situations, I found humor and incredulousness at the audacity it expressed to bring me awareness at just how off base I had lived my life.

    The condition of my old self was unstable at best, blind and totally caught in a web of religious and family restrictions, tied down and gagged.

    There is no way in hell, this girl should have been able to extricate her self from that old life with no self esteem and self worth. She had nothing within her to guide her, yet she set out anyway, poorly packed, no destination, alone on a trail she had no clue where it was leading, and if that new person would be someone she would even like.

    I am not certain how far into this journey I am, or who I will be when it is all said and done, but I am totally amazed that someone like me has gotten this far.

    It is indeed by the Grace of God, go I.

    What is so thrilling to me is that the person I started out as and who I am today don’t even resemble each other.

    One was lost in the darkness without awareness.
    The other became aware of the darkness.
    “I was blind, but now I see.”

    It is like heading out blind for a destination unknown and finding it. Who is more amazed than me? Oh my God, if you only knew how big a task this has been, to tear your life apart while you are living it.

    And I am not done, my journey isn’t over, and actually it feels as if I have just begun.

    As my friend said, “it is like having a life review while alive…”

    It is like watching the old me die while a new me is being born, or the old me birthing the new me.

  • The Life of Me

    About 5 years ago my daughter received in the mail a manila envelope from my mother, inside were pictures of me.

    Baby pictures, school pictures, snapshots of me alone and me with siblings, even my high school graduation picture, all stuffed in one envelope.

    There didn’t seem to be any care as to which way they were put in, I remember seeing me at various ages all jumbled up.

    At the time I was in shock and didn’t know what to think, and my mother had note on there for my daughter to create a scrapbook for me.

    Like it was her task to put together my mother’s memories of me. I told her don’t worry honey, I will do this myself someday.

    As I sit here today with the latest request still fresh in mind and me pondering how to articulate a restraining letter, this hits me with great sadness.

    Sadness that my mother didn’t want any pictures of me at all, that she sent them all back.

    I looked at them just now and was struck by my innocence, my trusting eyes, my faithful smile…how cute I was, how awkward too, how caring, for I was always holding a child or a hand. The evidence is all there of me, and she sent them all back.

    I may find the time this year to put together a book of me, to get them out of the envelope she shoved them in, to bring them out and honor them by making a book of me.

    Carefully putting back together the life of me.

  • Cover Your Truth.

    The phrase, “The Elephant in the Room” what does that really mean and how is it used properly?

    Have we been taught to not speak about things that are there, due to the reaction they bring?

    What are Elephants in a room?
    What is that?

    Is it a truth that is too much to bear?

    It seems to me that IF all know the Elephant is there and will not speak of it; we are all playing a game called, ‘lets pretend’.

    And ironically, it isn’t the Elephant we are pretending about but ourselves.

    A silent unspoken agreement that states, I will pretend to like you when I know you do things I don’t agree with, if you pretend to like me for pretending to like you.

    It seems to me that allowing an Elephant/truth to sit unspoken about is to pretend to pretend to pretend that there is a common ground that slipped away with the truth.

    And in order to maintain this false relationship, the Elephant/truth must not be mentioned, we skip around the mountain, and reach the summit of social niceties.

    We then form a new relationship that requires us to not go near the Elephant or truth.

    So what are we really preserving by being so courteous?

    Isn’t it just an old relationship minus the new and changing truths?

    This Elephant in the room that no one speaks about or entertains, to me is just dancing in denial with another.

    Being in a relationship that dishonors both.

    If truth isn’t allowed into a relationship, then I have no interest there.

    I am almost positive that the Elephant that arrived in the room with my father is he is a pedophile. If many adults in my youth had spoken of this Elephant, perhaps a few little girls would have been saved.

    It isn’t so much about the Elephant, but the ones who sit silently and allow it to be there.

    Elephants don’t disappear, don’t change, aren’t healed or treated in silence, nope, instead they continue to live out their sickness in full living color, while many courteously look on, being much to kind to speak of such ills about another person, to kind, to much into the social niceties, preserving a family, saving a father, sparing a brother, keeping sweet, that which isn’t.

    An Elephant in the room is showing you what is wrong and you will either see it and respond or look away.

    Pretending there is no Elephant is denial.

    And denial doesn’t heal, cure, erase, etc to the Elephant, it says much more about you than them.

    They are being their true selves; you are not willing to see it.

    You want to preserve a relationship of old, like good memories, and not willing to be present with who they are today, for it will crack, shatter, and explode the person you need them to be.

    At some point in time, it will be harder and harder to be in a room with an Elephant, it will simply cost you too much.

    My silence is not for sale, it cannot be used to cover your truth.