Tag: parenting

• Living Vicariously.

  In the last blog post about Authoritarian child rearing…where the child is taught to listen to the parent, always…and forget how IT feels and how the parents are not open to a new way of seeing the world, PERHAPS from the child's eyes…leads to the greatest downfall of human kind; The separation from your own feelings…your truth.

  And actually, it isn't that we are separated from them, but we are taught to disregard them.  And in the disregarding of your own feelings, you are raised to live BY the feelings of others.

  Instead of a seeing eye dog to lead the blind around, we are given a Feeling Like I, person that we follow.

  We are taught NOT to use the wonderful instrument called the human body, but to disassociate from it….and hop on the backs of someone else's feelings and live from there.

  Living vicariously through their lives.

  I had to look up the definition of Vicarious….

  indirectly, as, by, or through a substitute; "she enjoyed the wedding vicariously". 

  Imagine, we are taught to live Indirectly and not directly in our own lives.

  I spent 46 vicarious years on the backs of my parents, my church, my friends…you name them and I was there in their lives…contributing and giving to make their lives 'happier' or whatever, meanwhile, I was nowhere to be found in my own.

  I was substituting their life for my own.

  When we are raised to not be directly with our feelings, we are then taught to not feel, that which we feel and to give up our feelings for the sake and happiness of another's feelings.

  We are brought up to live outside of our own bodies…and it doesn't help when we are abused, for in that moment too, it isn't about our feelings, but the feelings and needs of our abusers.  We assume this is life as usual, for our feelings have never mattered.  

  How is sexual abuse different from physical or verbal, when our feelings don't matter?

  Abuse compounds the authoritarian parenting style.

  Or perhaps, abuse is the outcome of trying to hijack another life and make it your own.  

  My demeanor was very dark as I mothered as an authoritarian…I was stealing lives just as my mother did.  Raiding their feelings to make me feel better.  Insanity and incredibly selfish.

  The only reason I let go of being the Authoritarian, is that I learned what I had the authority over….Abuse.

  My power, my control, my high handedness was all to keep abuse flowing freely and protecting and pouring loving feelings into a dark pit…a vortex of unending demand.

  I was a key player in keeping the Play called Family alive and when in reality, it wasn't family, it was abuse.  

  So, I had taken the same power and control and worked it sadistic magic to steal my children's feelings, hijacking them to make me feel good, just as I was taught as a child.  And we called this love.

  It was only when I seen the Reality Play and the Characters without the masks I was continually providing, did I stop acting.

  It was my acting that kept this all alive…I acted differently than I felt.  I acted in ways that made my parents smile, made them happy, even if it was allowing abuse. 

  Once I seen what the script I was reading from was really doing, I was horrified.  It wasn't about a loving family, it was all choreographed to keep a pedophile operating.

  By Acting against my feelings and by keeping the family script going, I was not seeing or feeling what was really going on…and in doing so, was blind to the abuse.

  What still haunts me is the depth of my blindness and the breadth of my believability…how naively I was born upon this stage and began speaking in double speak, going the opposite direction of my feelings.

  And in doing so, gave me a life that was the opposite of reality.

  I am now an authoritarian about my feelings.

  I live directly with them and will not stray away from how they feel.

  If you can't be direct with how you feel, most likely you are living vicariously.

   

   

  December 13, 2011

  abuse, authority, direct, feelings, honestly, parenting

  ---

• Trajectory of my life.

  Going to sleep last night with tears drying on my cheeks, after feeling the feelings of being a child with no one at your back, to feel the absence of protection of safety, and feeling the feeling of free falling with screams and no landing, I awoke to wondering who has my back now.

  I understood that most of my over dramatic ways is due to the fact that I have been unhealed, and that I have been healing as I walk with my daughter in what I call abuse, and how as I watch others respond, I am again plunged back 45 years and get to see and feel the dynamics of my own childhood.

  The present day actions are bringing forth my unexpressed feelings and giving me the chance to voice them now, letting my little girl say what she needed to say, feel what she needed to feel.

  Yet, my thought as I went to sleep last night, was who has my back now?

  Who is supporting me, who is standing with me and walking my walk?

  Am I living with people who are for me or against me?

  Frightened I felt alone again, almost childlike yet with adult options.

  I can flee; I can go where no one can hurt me.

  Confused about leaving or staying, I fell asleep.

  This morning I began writing and became more confused, so I went to my room with the heater running for yoga, and was hit directly that here, this is the warm caring I need, and then quickly felt that, I am the one I am waiting for.

  I am the one who cares for me, who will bring me to places that I need to be, allow me to speak when I need to speak…

  I am my own mother, I love and care for me.

  I have my back.

  While inside I felt the desperate need of wanting to be cared for, it would actually be relying on others for my needs, wanting them to take care of me, to be a child again.

  Wanting to feel like a child being taken care of is going backwards, reverting to childhood…

  It is my job to heal me, to feel and separate the emotions from childhood and those from today, to not mix my anger towards my mother with my husband, to keep the plays in their own era.

  The degree of separation is huge.

  Knowing that I can set the stage, make my life comfortable, that I am strong enough to watch my own back, and have the courage to speak my words, always, is huge. That I can withstand deep sadness, grief and sorrow, that I can still find my inner balance and core, that I can muddle through until clarity can be found, that I am healing and dealing and being who I am coming from whence I came.

  A woman whose childhood left scars she now has to deal with along with the raising her children, even when they dovetail, and I am asked to flow between child and mother, the wounded and the healer, the caretaker and the needy, I make it, I deal, I survive the ride down the rapids of emotions and character changes.

  What a dance, to be playing all parts, and feeling their psychological damage and or healing, repairing as I go…while growing new emotional strength leaves me exhausted and exhilarated.

  My inner body feels like it has been churned up and shot through with huge holes, bruised and achy in the feelings that run through me.

  I feel inside like I ran back-to-back marathons and carried my daughters and generations with me, that I was solving the puzzles and correcting movements, re-writing my life’s script.

  And in doing so, will change the trajectory of my life.

  March 12, 2011

  abuse, anger, behaviors, changes, child, childhood traumas, choices, emotions, life, parenting, parents, past, present, repairing, separating, sexual abuse, spouses, Unexpressed, unhealed, untreated

  ---

• My mind now knows it.

  My feelings are like energy magnets and they seem to either be drawn to someone or pushed back, I am unable to steer my feelings, they have a life of their own.

  I can be friends with someone, and then they do something that changes who they are, and I don’t even have to wonder what to do, inside of me the desire to be with them changes and I move away.

  Some will say the friendship or love began to cool, and what I believe happens is new information comes in and it changes the ingredients of their energy system. And then we act differently, it isn’t a conscious thought, but unconsciously our body is leading us.

  I am now very astute as far as my body’s signals are, even a slight change sends a ripple across the water inside of me.

  In the past I believe my insides were very choppy waters so I couldn’t tell if an outside stress was stressing me, for the insides were already such a mess, it is like looking for ripples on 8ft waves.

  Each time a new ripple comes in I stay with it, I discern where it is coming from, what is going on in my world, and who is carrying it?

  My body doesn’t lie; it knows when something in my world is off kilter, when peace has been disturbed, when an untruth has walked into my space.

  Hints to my dis-ease float to me, unannounced and land like odd objects in an otherwise normal world, beckoning me to notice. If I miss one, a second one appears like messengers relentlessly waking me up.

  Once you notice these mess enders, the mess in my understanding clears up, and I see clearly.

  What I see isn’t always what I want, but what I need to see.

  I used to dismiss these signals and over sedate my body so I didn’t feel their uncomfortable truths, now I know if I don’t get the first message the problem doesn’t go away, I am just wanting to play in denial.

  The land of denial is only a temporary home, a respite on a journey towards the truth, and it seems the longer you put it off, the more you have to face in the end.

  I now prefer to face things one at time and as they happen, and to see the nuances and changes in people’s personalities and stay recent with the affects of their behaviors, so that we are not familiar strangers.

  My daughter’s face is familiar but everything else is getting stranger and stranger, my body no longer is comfortable with the ‘truth’ that she presents, it seems to be a token or crumb tossed my way to chew on, and bit by bit I am being fed a book full of lies to deflect me away from who she really is.

  To be honest, I wish my body believed what my ears are hearing, it would be so much easier, but they disagree and there is dis ease inside of me.

  My body is a lie detector and my mind now knows it…

  March 8, 2011

  body, children, detector, familiar, feelings, honesty, lies, messengers, parenting, relationships, ripple affect, truth, unfamiliar

  ---

• Pedals of his Life.

  What a great visual for co-dependency to see a person peddling a bike pulling a trailer with someone sharing the seat, but dragging their feet, a third person giving orders as where and when to stop.

  The life of a people pleaser perfectly depicted.

  While I have been working on removing the trailer and kicking off the people, they are finding it difficult to know how to walk or manage their own lives, that life isn’t done by telling someone else to get you there.

  They have a right to be mad when I suddenly decide to ride solo, to unhitch their lives.

  My son has been riding on and off, there are many things he does without my assistance, however, I have also let him ride longer than necessary for simple things.

  They are little things, little boy things that he now as a young man can take over; it is time for him and I to let the little boy go.

  As a mother you have to know when to get rid of the wagon.

  Some worry about the empty nest, I worry about a full wagon.

  Resentment grows when you allow them to ride longer than needed, when you get used to doing for them, and forget to allow them to do for themselves. Resenting my own lack of removing his chores from my life.

  What I am experiencing is his weakness in places I carried him, and how it is hard for him as he learns to take control of his own life, and the consequences in failing to do so.

  It is hard to know when to let them ride and when to kick them off, but I am thinking we under estimate their power.

  And the lightness of my load is hard to explain, it is like coasting down a hill feet off the pedals, at least the pedals of his life!

  January 10, 2011

  along, control, expectations, letting go, parenting, riding, spoiling

  ---

• More from Deepak Chopra….

  " Children's brains have neurons that mirror the brains of adults in their surroundings.  These so-called mirror neurons are responsible for the way children learn new behaviors, so the theory goes. As they develop, young children don't have to imitate their parents in order to learn something new; they only have to observe them, and certain brain cells will fire in a way that mirrors the activity.  For example, a baby being weaned from breast-feeding watches how her parents eat.  As they reach for food and put it into their mouths, certain areas of their brain light up.  Simply watching this activity leads the same areas to light up in the infants brain.  In this way the newly forming infant brain learns a new behavior without ever having to go through trial and error.
   
  This model has already been tested in monkeys and theoretically extended to humans.  It provides a physical explanation for something as mysterious as empathy, the ability to feel what someone else is feeling.  Some people have this ability; others don't.  A few saintly individuals have so much empathy that they can hardly bear it when someone else is suffering.  Research with MRI's and CAT scans suggest that brain function plays a major role in empathy.  A child's neurons mirror the emotions of the adults around him, leading the child to actually feel what their parents feel.  So if a youngster is surrounded by unhappy adults, his nervous system will be programmed for unhappiness, even before he has any cause for unhappiness himself.
   
  Why doesn't every child learn empathy?  Because brain development is wildly complex and never the same for two babies.  When we were infants, all kinds of brain functions were being programmed at the same time, and for some of us empathy was only assigned a minor role.  This is a troubling inequality, and it extends to happiness.  When you see the brain has a set point for  happiness, traceable either to genetics or childhood influences, it's all too easy to conclude that nothing can be done about it.  However, this would be a mistake, because neither the brain nor your genes are fixed structures; instead, they are in process every minute of your life, constantly changing and evolving.  You are still being influenced at the genetic level by new experiences.  Every choice you make sends chemical signals coursing through your brain, including the choice to be happy, and each signal helps to shape the brain from year to year.
   
  In the overall picture, research has shown that the brain's set point can be changed by the following:
   
  Drugs that act as mood elevators, which work only in the short term and have side affects.
   
  Cognative Therapy, which changes the brain by helping us change our limiting beliefs.  We all tell ourselves stories in our heads that provoke unhappiness. Repeating the same negative belief over and over, ("I am a victim, I am unloved, Life isn't fair, something is wrong with me. etc" creates neural pathwayss that reinforce negativity by turning it into a habitual way of thinking.  Such beliefs can be replaced by others that are not simply more positive, but are a much better match with reality (I may have been a victim in the past but I don't have to remain that way; I can find love if I chose better places to look for it, etc)  In treating patients whose lives are dominated by negative beliefs, psychologists have found that altering really fundamental beliefs can be as effective in changing brain chemistry as prescribing drugs.
   
  Meditation, which alters the brain in many positive ways.  The physical effects of sitting quietly and going inward are amazingly extensive.  it took a long time to unravel the puzzle.  Researchers had to work against the Western assumption that meditation was mystical or at best a kind of religious practice.  Now we realize that it activates the prefrontal cortex  the seat of higher thinking- and stimulates the release of neurotransmitters, including dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and brain opiates. Each of these naturally occurring brain chemicals has been linked to different aspects of happiness. Dopamine is an antidepressant; serotonin is associated with increased self-esteem; oxytocin is now believed to be a pleasure hormone (it's levels also elevate during sexual arousal); opiates are the body's painkillers, which also provide the exhilaration associated with runners high.  it should be obvious, then, that meditation, by creating higher levels of these neurotransmitters, is the more effective way ofchanging the brain's set point for happiness.  No single drug can simultaneously choreograph the coordinated release of all these chemicals.
   Deepak Chopra – book "The Ulitmate Happiness Prescription"

  February 27, 2010

  brains, children, Deepak Chopra, neurons, parenting, Ulitmate Happiness Prescription

  ---