The story line art project allows you to reflect backwards to get know those who came before you, to see whose shoulders you stand upon, who blazed the trail before you.
Immediately we all go into our memory banks to withdraw someone who was a hero, who against all odds, seemed to flourish and persevere.
As I flipped through files in my mind, I knew who I would write about.
I know her intimately for her shoes I wear; yet I have no pictures of her, nothing.
Well, I do have a family picture with a sticky note saying she is missing.
Her and I are the sticky notes, the holes in the family or the ones that got away.
Like a pair of mittens knitted decades apart, we match.
When I seen the mitten tree with all the different mittens who lost their pair, I felt a sense of connectedness.
I loved how they looked displayed so artfully on the branches, the snow, the green tree and the lights.
I wondered what drew me to that tree and its simplicity, homemade and nature.
As I drove home from the quilt meeting with my own mitten tree quilt, it took on new meaning. How the mittens were all misfits, mismatched, part of a broken set, yet when hung together make a beautiful tree.
And this morning as I sit here with the quilt in front of me, I see the lady approaching the tree…I see the tree, and I wonder how this will complete itself.
What story line will this quilt unfold for me?
Before it is even complete I feel a great sense of peace settle over me. I belong on this tree.
Tag: peace
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I belong on this Tree.
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Peace In the Present Moment
A book by Byron Katie and Eckhart Tolle
“The most important, the primordial relationship in your life is your relationship with the Now, or rather with whatever form the Now takes, that is to say what is or what happens. If your relationship with the Now is dysfunctional, that dysfunction will be reflected in every relationship and every situation you encounter. The ego could be defined simply in this way; a dysfunctional relationship with the present moment. It is at this moment that you can decide what kind of relationship you want to have with this present moment.”
Eckhart“If your relationship with the Now is dysfunctional, that dysfunction will be reflected in every relationship and every situation!” I know this is true.
The word dysfunctional almost covers up what is actually happening, it is like a cover deflecting the actual event.
People fail to notice that by not being with what is actually happening, they are having a dysfunctional relationship to what is, no matter what it is and that alone makes them dysfunctional.
They are not functioning as one with reality.
I love how simple he breaks down dysfunction.
In my head it was all one big vast tangle mess, when it happens little at a time.
A moment in time presenting itself to you and you changing it into what you need it to be…
What is so exciting about all of this is that you can stop the dysfunction by greeting what is as it is Now.
Dysfunction begins each moment in time you fail to see the beauty of what is.
The darkest beauty as well as its opposite.
“The simple truth of it is that what happens is the best thing that can happen. People who can’t see this are simply believing their own thoughts, and have to stay stuck in the illusion of a limited world, lost in the war with what is. It’s a war they’ll always lose, because it argues with reality, and reality is always benevolent. When you argue with reality, you lose – but only 100 percent of the time.”
Byron Katiearguing, byron Katie, Dysfunctional, Eckhart Tolle, ego, events, in, moment, now, peace, present, reality, relationships, The, war
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Peace with My Self.
“Language… has created the word “loneliness” to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word “solitude” to express the glory of being alone.”
Paul Johannes TillichI love that there are two ways to look at being alone.
I used feel much more alone surrounded by family than I feel now being separated from most, because at that time I didn’t know who I was.
I was always lonely…lonely for me.
What I fear more is being lonely with them, than being in solitude with my self.
Being in solitude with myself brings me great peace; being with others who seem to misread me would leave me very lonely.
Alone in a group and not fitting in…maybe you are only lonely in a group that isn’t a good fit.
So, even if I was with my family I would be alone and misunderstood, which is why I find it much easier to be alone in solitude with myself.
I am not sure if I will join the group of family, where I will leave my solitude behind, if there will come a time when I feel an opening that I can fit into, a space that will hold the new me I found.
I really don’t feel lonely but rather that I am honoring my truths and enjoying them in solitude.
In peace with my self.
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Unhappiness wants what is impossible to get.
“Happiness is a function of accepting what is.”
~Werner Erhard
I received a message from an old friend, and he was worried about me being happy, that he was sorry I felt so badly towards my mother, he hoped I would get over it and let go, he also wished me the best and a little peace.
It is hard to explain how I can be happy away from my mother/father/family.
What I have written about most is what was wrong with our relationship, not what was good.
Ask any divorced women if she is happier away from her ex or in his presence, and that is how a child feels who finally is able to exit a bad family relationship, no matter what age.
My peace inside comes from knowing I have put up boundaries, where I will not be hurt again.
My happiness is by accepting who they are and not expecting something else.
I am not sitting waiting for what they are unable to give.
I had to let go of my image or idea of a father and have accepted that he is sick and is a pedophile; he is unable to be a dad. Happiness is no longer wanting what he isn’t able to give. Happiness comes in letting go of the Hallmark picture, and instead seeing what I have.
I had to let go of my thoughts of who my mother was, and had to replace them with reality.
Peace comes in knowing there is nothing I can do to change who they are, but rather change how I react.
Even though much of my writings are struggles to figure out all the nuances of abuse, the traces and hooks that have me mixed up inside, each time I unravel a new strand I am more peaceful.
Writing is my therapy, it allows me to work out what I fail to see, what part of me is still confused, lost and unsure.
What part of me is still in the illusion of a loving family.
I am not happy until I have full disclosure of what is.
Happiness is being at one with reality.
Unhappiness wants what is impossible to get.
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Loving What Is…
We would rather be ruined than changed;
We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
And let our illusions die.
~W.H. AudenWhat is so unreal is that we believe we can stop change that it is up to us to keep things the same, and it is viewed worthy if we remain unchanged.
Not only unchanged, but that if you change it is somehow seen as bad, wrong or that you succumbed to a new circumstance, instead of standing hard against change.
I have come to see that change happens often and mostly for my benefit, and the more I get used to letting go of rigid beliefs about my life and how it is supposed to flow, I am much more relaxed and willing to bend with the next thing that changes.
Our bodies change, the days change, the seasons change, our roles change, our attitudes change, our energies change, our feelings change, our world simply doesn’t stop changing.
I think we can accept change as long as it goes according to our vision of our futures, but as soon as it changes and creates a kink in our plans, we then stand strong against that change.
Standing against change feels stronger, yet it is actually a weakened state. The strongest is to surrender and accept with grace whatever is happening, for it is happening.
Accepting what is, as Byron Katie says…is really loving what is, and if you are not accepting it, you are fighting with reality and you only lose, but 100% of the time.
I think we think we are good at navigating the changes in our lives, until the unthinkable happens, when we are forced to look upon something that certainly goes against our dreams, or our plans, and then see how you accept change?
I have found that it is in accepting the most difficult things that we truly see ourselves; see where we truly are, how we are and how we are really living.
Are we living in reality or in a dream about reality?
Are we flowing with the Universe and living in a love hate relationship with it?
Loving the Universe when our plans are going according to plan, and despising that same God, when things fall through?
It has taken lots of disappointments, lots of changes, and lots of moments of utter disbelief to finally see the gifts in all the changes that have happened in my life.
I was forced to look for gifts among the piles of changes and in doing so always found the thread that lead me to understanding the change.
In seeing a bigger picture or seeing that which I failed to acknowledge, it was my perspective of change that was needed.
Instead of sitting in the land of ‘expecting no change’, I now live knowing all life changes…I am comfortable with change, and if not, I know that it is my mind that has to be changed, not reality.
Reality changes whether we agree or disagree…it is up to you how long it takes.
I have found the quicker I change my mind, the more peaceful I am.
Byron Katie says there are three little words that cause suffering…should, could and would.
And there are three words that bring peace, Loving what is…
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Loudly in Peace.
“If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.”
Virginia Woolf
As a child who has been abused, our truth changes before we can really grasp our real truth, our innocence is stolen and in its place sits responsibility and guilt, shame and embarrassment, confusion.
This mountain of confusion become our ‘natural’ state inside, it is all we have ever known, especially if the abuse began at a very early age.
It is our truth of who we are. We can’t see ourselves without the aroma of abuse.
That flavor saturates our every pore, there is no part of ourselves that we feel is good or untouched and innocent.
I had to work harder, be more responsible, carry others, and strive to be overly good, just to be able to hold my head up. I alone, all by myself, was never good enough; I was a mess and I had to cover up.
Ashamed embarrassed crumpled mess inside, forever having to make it look better, is like adding lace and bows to a worn out stained t-shirt and calling it a party dress.
It was when I stopped trying to fix it, that the whole mess righted itself.
I stood in the truth of who I was. I was an abused girl a wreck and a mess. I then had the first glimpse of my innocence.
When I seen myself as being innocent, a flip happened and the responsibility flopped back onto my parents where it has rightly belonged.
When no one stood by me and proclaimed my innocence, yet worked harder for him to keep his, we switched identities.
Little did you know you were transferring his bucket of filth into the child, while taking our innocence and draping it over his filth.
The truth lay beneath, untouched.
I finally made the transfer back. I gave him back his bucket of filth I have been carrying around inside of me.
I can never undo the abuse, or the toll it took on my life, but I have my own life back, my own reality, my own truth, and for that I am very grateful.
Cleansed and free inside of me the truth echoes loudly in peace.
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‘Their inner knowing….’
I decided I was doing my 75th yoga class at 7am this morning, my nosebleed said, “It will be later.”
Last night I went to bed to go to sleep, my mind went to bed to wrestle with other people’s lives, and we were both losers.
The mind likes to be the party planner, the event coordinator, and the one in charge, when it is only the guest.
Yoga means ‘to yoke’ and what I feel it is doing is trying to yoke the mind.
“To bring your mind back to the body for 20 seconds, which is the hardest thing to do…” Bikram
Bringing the mind back to the body is to bring the mind to reality, to this present moment and your body, not somebody else’s body, to yoke it to your life.
It seems impossible that the mind isn’t with you and for you at all times, but watch.
Watch and see how often you miss what is in front of you while you are off in another’s land.
And once your mind looks about in their land, you want to decorate, plant, arrange, toss out, add, do many things YOU feel they are lacking.
I am so damn grateful that I won’t allow those foolish ideas to pass my lips, now.
The old me would have tossed out orders like a drill sergeant to get that persons life in order.
What is equally insane is this mind comes into my world and does the same to me, trying to move me out of my present moment.
Oh and you know when someone else has lost their yoke (mind), for they will come into your world with great orders of things YOU need to do.
Inside of us is this inner knowing, which doesn’t live in the mind, that will lead us where it is we need to go.
Trust that inner knowing, trust that it will lead the way, for it is always about you, never about another. It moves you! It is not our job to move another!
Otherwise it would be called ‘their inner knowing’….
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Back to Peace.
“I am responsible, but not in control!”
Isn’t that an oxymoron? How can you be responsible for something you don’t control?
That is what happens when you feel responsible for another’s behavior or action or inaction even. You feel responsible, yet unable to control them!
As a little girl in my childhood home, this is exactly how I felt, that I was responsible yet not in control.
It is like being responsible to stop a waterfall half way down, knowing those who will get hurt below as the water falls from above, yet unable to stop it.
The parents at the top keep dumping stuff over the falls, and it rains upon us all. Instead of being down on the bottom, I stood mid way, trying to stop the rain!
As a child and then an adult child I carried this hopeless responsibility and made it my life’s work.
This job was so time consuming, it kept me from my own life, but firmly into yours racing between your behavior and the affects.
Since it never really stopped the abuse and neglect, this midway kinda sorta life I lived was all for naught.
The only way you can stop abuse from raining down is to stop the man at the top of the falls, or get the children out of the way.
Neither happened in our family.
Somehow the children in the falls believe it is their responsibility to stop the top, to work harder, be better, do better so this bad behavior wouldn’t fall down upon them.
Little do they know they are not the cause, just the ones who get rained upon, the residual collateral damage.
This collateral damage then sets forth in life trying to control things that are impossible to control and giving responsibility for their happiness to others.
A life set in motion without control, just like a flimsy doll in the rush of Niagara Falls.
It is only when you can separate this all out and put control and responsibility where it belongs do the falls turn into a millpond.
A millpond, which emotions pass through, ripples arise now and again, and settle back to peace.
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You Be You
“I don't know what is best for me, or you, or the world. I don't try to impose my will on you or anyone else. I don't want to change you or improve you or convert you or help you or heal you. I just welcome things as they come and go. That's true love. The best way of leading people is to let them find their own way."
Byron Katie
An old friend surfaced and I felt myself not being seen or validated, and what instead was happening, is that I wasn’t validating her.
The stress inside of me was that I wanted her to be where she wasn’t, to speak and think in a way that was impossible for her to do so.
I wanted her to have my relationship with God, my experiences of life, and my views and to feel what it is like to be in my shoes. Insane? How unkind of me to not understand that she simply can’t, for she is in her own life doing her own thing.
How awesome we each get our own life, our own business and our own pathway to God.
There is an article “Seana Corn’s First Lesson in Yoga, (on Oprah.com click on Spirit) which again expresses that all people are on their own path, which is what I needed to read today, it cemented in me, that her and I are both right in our own way.
I no longer feel the need for her approval or validation, I allow her to be on her own pathway, but without resentment towards her.
So quickly I get lost in the community approval thing, where I seek another’s validation, like that will make my life better, easier or more than it already is.
I truly honor her path, wherever IT leads her, and I am sooo grateful that I am not a ‘leader’ for her, for I have no clue what is best for her, like not even a little.
It is amazing the way the resentment dies as soon as I accepted her as herself.
You be you…
I M Perfect lady 