Tag: powerless

• 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.

   

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

  February 17, 2012

  awareness, choices, controlling, FALC, freedom, life, old, powerless, system

  ---

• How they teetered.

  Being in a marriage is like one long teeter-totter ride, where it takes finesse and decorum to keep it going gently up and down and up and down, a balanced movement.

  Do you remember how you can gain control in two ways on the teeter-totter? By moving your weight you can keep a person up in the air, unable to get down or by getting off he will be slammed into the ground.

  It seems that one person can take over control of the teeter-totter and in doing so gains control over the person on the other end and has the power to restore the momentum or stop it.

  We have many teeter-totter games going with all of our relationships, and we can feel or know when the momentum changes, when they have more power over us than we ourselves, and in that moment we have choices to make.

  In my past co-dependent teeter-totter rides, I was always on the end with no power, either waiting to be slammed into the ground or up in the air unable to move, and the person in charge, wasn’t concerned about me, but rather did what they needed to do, while I was along for the bumpy ride. Somehow it never occurred to me to get off to and not go back.

  We truly are in charge of how we feel in relationships, how their actions affect us on the other end, will it plummet us to the ground and hurt us, or will it leave us powerless.

  Learning how to teeter-totter in a relationship is key to having a beautiful friendship, to even know you have the power to slam them down, but don’t.

  As we teeter up and down, as we ride along with a gentle rhythm, every now and then something lands upon our teeter-totter that throws us off balance.

  A new experience has been added to our routine, and how do we balance ourselves back out?

  What I do know for certain is that a marriage or a friendship isn’t a flat line, a secure steady beam, but an up and down living breathing growing life like organism.

  They are all mysteries whose ending we don’t know.

  We can’t know what will happen to make the other leave, or what will make them use their power to manipulate and control or abuse, or what will make them just sit when it is their turn to push off.

  I am all I can be sure of.

  I know when I will stay on and when I get off.

  I have learned what it feels like to be in the air with out power and slammed down in hurt, and I also know what to do to stop those feelings. I get off.

  What is the old line, “Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me”!

  It isn’t so much about knowing who to teeter with but knowing when to get off.

  What is very interesting to me is that they banned the teeter-totters from school play grounds, they were too dangerous, and in fact they were great tools in getting to know someone, you could tell how kind they were by how they teetered.

  March 14, 2011

  abusive, individual, marriage, ownership, playgrounds, power, powerless, relationships, teeter-totters, trust

  ---

• How they teetered.

  Being in a marriage is like one long teeter-totter ride, where it takes finesse and decorum to keep it going gently up and down and up and down, a balanced movement.

  Do you remember how you can gain control in two ways on the teeter-totter? By moving your weight you can keep a person up in the air, unable to get down or by getting off he will be slammed into the ground.

  It seems that one person can take over control of the teeter-totter and in doing so gains control over the person on the other end and has the power to restore the momentum or stop it.

  We have many teeter-totter games going with all of our relationships, and we can feel or know when the momentum changes, when they have more power over us than we ourselves, and in that moment we have choices to make.

  In my past co-dependent teeter-totter rides, I was always on the end with no power, either waiting to be slammed into the ground or up in the air unable to move, and the person in charge, wasn’t concerned about me, but rather did what they needed to do, while I was along for the bumpy ride. Somehow it never occurred to me to get off to and not go back.

  We truly are in charge of how we feel in relationships, how their actions affect us on the other end, will it plummet us to the ground and hurt us, or will it leave us powerless.

  Learning how to teeter-totter in a relationship is key to having a beautiful friendship, to even know you have the power to slam them down, but don’t.

  As we teeter up and down, as we ride along with a gentle rhythm, every now and then something lands upon our teeter-totter that throws us off balance.

  A new experience has been added to our routine, and how do we balance ourselves back out?

  What I do know for certain is that a marriage or a friendship isn’t a flat line, a secure steady beam, but an up and down living breathing growing life like organism.

  They are all mysteries whose ending we don’t know.

  We can’t know what will happen to make the other leave, or what will make them use their power to manipulate and control or abuse, or what will make them just sit when it is their turn to push off.

  I am all I can be sure of.

  I know when I will stay on and when I get off.

  I have learned what it feels like to be in the air with out power and slammed down in hurt, and I also know what to do to stop those feelings. I get off.

  What is the old line, “Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me”!

  It isn’t so much about knowing who to teeter with but knowing when to get off.

  What is very interesting to me is that they banned the teeter-totters from school play grounds, they were too dangerous, and in fact they were great tools in getting to know someone, you could tell how kind they were by how they teetered.

  March 14, 2011

  abusive, individual, marriage, ownership, playgrounds, power, powerless, relationships, teeter-totters, trust

  ---

• Be you alone.

  Yesterday I was asked if I felt lonely and I felt inside of myself and I didn’t, but I understood lonely and have been there often.

  Yet what I failed to understand until I started writing today was that lonely is seeking that part of ourselves that were wounded in childhood. It isn’t so much someone, but a part of us that is missing. We are lonely for ourselves.

  I was writing along and discovered that my meaning or my view of a childhood wound was neglect, sexual abuse, damage, something awful, but do you know what it really is?

  If you look at this from the point of view of what the child lost instead of what happened to them you would discover that the wound is something missing, not something added to who we were.

  It isn’t that we now carry rape and its disgusting features, especially if you were a child and the man your father, but what happens is that in that instant, we felt that our innocence went missing.

  Most focus on the rape and its ugly addition to us, like it now becomes part of who we are, instead of seeing this as something our innocent self endured.

  What I believe is if we are not treated as innocent, we then believe we are not, and then leave childhood minus our feelings of being precious and innocent.

  Living life without knowing you are innocent and precious will open you up to all kinds of situations where you sell your self short, become a people pleaser, have no sense of your own value and self worth.

  The one two punch that my parents delivered left me feeling that I was no longer innocent, my value had changed, I was no longer precious to him and she was unable to see her precious husband change, so instead I had to be the one.

  How confusing this can all be. You think you have to go back and wrestle with the feelings of being abused, but actually it is feeling the loss of innocence.

  A childhood wound is a hole in our innocence.

  And we are the ones to bring it back.

  We are the ones to strengthen our weakened state.

  In the beginning of healing we find ourselves as leaky as a sieve and we slowly over time, we become a solid bowl.

  My container of self, my wholeness is more solid today than ever before, I had plug the holes by speaking up about my innocence.

  In the past few months, I have been able to witness the loss of innocence, the lure and the grooming and the way others treat my daughter after, myself included, to find the intricacies of abuse and what it actually means to be wounded in childhood without the experience of guarding your self worth and value.

  Sadly, the reason there is so much childhood abuse, is these newly arrived souls on the planet haven’t learned to protect themselves they are easy targets.

  They are loving trusting and kind individuals that get lured and groomed into letting go of their innocence for the pleasure of an abusive person, confused with the attention and courtship, they fail to see the hook, before they swallow the line.

  What makes this so hard to stop, is that the abusers knows how to lure and groom and make comfortable and when they have complete trust and faith, they then ask or move in a direction we did not see coming, and in that instant we are asked to stand by our innocence or please them.

  Comfort them, love them, allow them, do this favor, lend an ear, bring compassion and empathy…letting go of our own innocence we focus on what they are asking, and our innocence fades away.

  We become part of the dance.

  Even though we didn’t start it, we participated and that alone makes us guilty, yet all we did was let our innocence go to please someone one.

  Letting go of our innocence is our crime.

  What I also found is the steep incline it took to get my innocence back, I had to put the ‘blame’ if you will on the one who treated me poorly, they had to own their own actions and I got to own mine.

  While I balanced my self worth sheets inside, I created two columns, what was my responsibility and what was yours.

  Separating who did what to whom, what age, what experience, what was reality in that time frame in my life, and in doing so, was able to see the trend continuing forward, all the places I lost myself.

  What I have found is the characters from way back then to present didn’t change, but rather I was able to see what was actually going on, and how I felt and how they felt about me by our actions.

  I had no one to blame in my adult years but me.

  It is in owning me as an individual and not a public held entity, that I see it all begins and ends with me.

  My business is being me, being whole, and finding myself in the midst of deep lonely feelings, for you can be certain there is another hole to plug.

  Healing is removing the parts of my self that I have given away to others, pieces of my innocence, chunks of my self worth, bits of value. To see all the times I looked at other to carry me, to make me happy, feel loved, feel worthy, all are signs of my weakness…the places I let my self go.

  Each time I am lonely…it is clue, I lost my self there.

  Each time I feel powerless, well you can bet I gave myself up there.
  Each time I am angry at another’s action, I am expecting them to do something for me, carry me, love me, make me feel secure, and so I know I dropped a part of me there.

  It is amazing how fragmented we are, how may folks carry our sense of self.

  It is lonely, if you need others to be you.

  In a co-dependent society, being alone means being lonely for no one is supporting you.

  How awful to stand alone, separated, unattached…

  Being whole means needing no one to be you.

  You just be you alone.

  March 13, 2011

  abuse, alone, angry, blame, childhood, co-dependency, Finding, guilt, innocent, lonely, lost, powerless, secure, self, sexual, shame

  ---

• Fear Moves Me Away From You…

  My mother and I had lunch at the Pilgrim River yesterday.  Unscheduled, unplanned and unseen.

   

  Five years have passed since I laid eyes upon her and she looks the same, dresses the same, and seemed her old self, not at all how I envisioned her to be.

   

  Not sure what had me look in that direction, but I caught the side of her face from behind, and immediately I felt it was her, it had to be, and then she disappeared from view.

   

  A ghost from my past…a shocking sight.

   

  My body immediately responded, without a thought in my head, it needed no direction from me.

   

  The friend who was with me knew something big was going on, for all my emotions rushed to my face, our conversation evaporated, she could tell something was dreadfully wrong.

   

  We each spoke at once, her asking and me telling.

   

  What I told her matched my emotions.

   

  Mother and fear.

   

  When I knew she was exiting the dinner and not staying for lunch, I felt much better, my tight chest relaxed, the heart slowed down, the nausea settled, and the lump felt like it had been bruised, squeezed and twisted. 

   

  This visceral fear that my body displays leaves me shaky and vulnerable, as well as embarrassed that it responds this way, that I appear as a frightened child instead of the adult that I am.

   

  My body and soul were wanting nothing more than to disappear, there was not one teeny part of me that wanted to holler and run out to reconnect with her, not one. 

   

  I was pushed into my seat, caught like a rabbit in a snare.

   

  In less than a minute she reappeared outside in front of our window where a pane of glass now separated us, I in the shadows and her in plain view.

   

  Her chatting and smiling, reaching and touching this stranger, not knowing her estranged daughter looked on.

   

  It was odd to see her there, like I was now a ghost in her life watching and her unaware.

   

  It was only a few minutes and she and her friend parted and she was gone. 

   

  As I started to feel my body relax, she once again came into view.  Driving by in her van and slowly make a u-turn in front of me.  My last view was of her driving away hand to cheek, and then she was gone. 

   

  What is so enthralling to me, is how my body responds just being in the room with her.  How it isn’t a thought in the head or a mind full of reasons and excuses, for before I could gather my thoughts, my body was in full fledge panic mode.

   

  It has its own visceral reaction far ahead of me, and I scramble to catch up.

   

  How to explain this? 

   

  What I know to be certain is that my body language speaks for itself, there wasn’t a word I needed to say to my friend, she knew by the look in my face how I Felt about my mother.

   

  It isn’t anger, it isn’t resentment, it isn’t judgment, it isn’t a myriad of things I have been accused of, IT is fear and sheer panic.

   

  I fear my mother.

   

  I don’t like the way my body feels in her presence.

   

  I feel like an addict in a meeting, putting this out on paper…”I fear My Mother.”

   

  I fear what she stands for.

   

  I fear what she supports.

   

  I fear what she loves

   

  I fear her weakness.

   

  I fear her strengths.

   

  I fear her religion.

   

  I fear her forgiveness. 

   

  I fear what she fails to remember, but remembers to forget.

   

  I fear her.

   

  And my body agrees. 

   

  Perhaps fear is like love, you don’t get to decide, it happens to you don’t get to choose, it is chosen for you, you just get to ride along. 

   

  I don’t think I started out fearing my mother, it happened instant by instant and over time, I grew to fear my mother.

   

  Somehow it feels like a weakness that I fear her, that I want to stay away.

   

  That it has her in a higher spot, that she has control over me, that I am powerless.

   

  Powerless to me is being without  the power to get out of the way.

   

  Powerless is not moving away when you fear.

   

  Fear moves me away from you…

   

   

   

   

   

  September 9, 2010

  daughter, encounters, estranged, fear, mother, panic, power, powerless, relationship

  ---

• Free

  “When you live in reaction, you give your power away.  Then you get to experience what you gave your power to.”   

     N. Smith

   

  To be in the experience of what you gave your power to can be a life changing moment, it can make you feel victimized, and you are.

   

  It is now very uncomfortable for me to lose my power, to lose sight of reality, to be a puppet in their reality. 

   

  In the past I was more comfortable being a puppet and it seemed normal to be moved by others needs and desires, I called it loving; I loved them so much, I gave up my freedom.

   

  I laid down my life and my power and became powerless for love, and lifeless.

   

  A victim of conditional love.

   

  The condition is you are their puppet, you do what they want you to do, you say what they want you to say, and then you can be with them.  Otherwise you are set aside, discarded and useless, they have no use for a puppet that is in its own power.

   

  My daily routine of Bikram yoga is cutting the old strings, disconnecting the lines and I get to see where I used to come alive, how I moved and why.

   

  It is an interesting and scary endeavor to experience the old ways with awareness, but when it is all said and done, I have found a part of myself that was being drained by fruitless actions.

   

  I get a reality check as to what my puppet actions actually did, and it is the opposite of love.

   

  Their indifference to my life while I served them is remarkable, what is more shocking is my indifference to my own.

   

  I picked up my life at 46, and every now and again, I drop it for an old love, yet I soon learn their indifference to me is still there, and on I go, grabbing up my life again, a little shaken, a little bruised, but free.

   

  (A survivor of a concentration camp said that the opposite of love is indifference, now I fully know what he means….)

   

  
  

  March 29, 2010

  conditional love, freedom, powerless, puppet

  ---