I M Perfect lady

Tag: relationships

  • 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 Katie

  • I Didn’t Forgive Her

    When women feel they have learned to forgive their mothers – and men, their fathers – all it usually means is that they've decided to allow themselves the same kind of behavior.

    ~Mignon McLaughlin

     

    The above quote caught my attention and I full heartedly agreed.  Yet someone commented that it was kinda negative, and I agree it is negative and rightly so.

     

    What is forgiveness?

    How is it applied and why?

    Who needs it and is it our responsibility to apply forgiveness upon the behaviors from someone who have hurt us, and if so, what does it change?

     

    If I hurt someone, will them adding forgiveness on top like gravy make it feel better, remove my actions, will they feel less pain and will it stop me from hurting them again?  What is my consequence for hurting them?  Them being okay and letting it go letting me be a harmful humanbeing, is that good for me??? 

     

    While the word sounds so compassionate and very loving, is it?

     

    Forgiveness is applied upon another, when I believe it was meant for personal use.

     

    I had mentioned to my mother a long time ago, that the forgiveness she seeks is of her self, and I still agree with that today.

     

    How do you apply forgiveness? 

     

    Is it a thought, a feeling, an emotion and it it possible to transfer it to someone?

     

    In my experience of how my siblings used forgiveness it is to ‘overlook’ pardon the hurtful actions and remain in a relationship with my parents. 

     

    It is seen as a more loving thing to do.

     

    More loving than not forgiving.

     

    What is not forgiving? 

     

    Is it to not overlooking the actions, not pardoning them, but holding them accountable?  Is that wrong?

     

    I am not seeing why it is bad to hold someone accountable, to not pardon their behavior, what am I missing here?

     

    It didn’t take me long to realize that IF my father was a monster, and IF I didn’t see that, and due to the fact that I had missed this fact, I had brought my girls to him, I was accountable for my behaviors, there was no pardon that would change that fact, none.

     

    I was the driver of the car that brought them to him.

    I hold myself responsible for my part.

     

    As a child who didn’t know, but feared him and was silent, I was not to be pardoned for not telling, being silent was a behavior that was not to be overlooked, for when I was silent he continued to abuse.

     

    You can’t pardon my behaviors and even if you did, they will not change the outcome of the past 45 years, nothing, absolutely nothing will change if you forgive me.

     

    Nor did it ever even once cross my mind to ask my children or my siblings to forgive me, for I knew full well, what my actions had caused.

     

    Martha Beck has a new meaning of forgiveness that I have adopted, “Forgiveness is accepting that the past will not change.”

     

    I agree.

     

    I have been working on forgiveness, (accepting) my actions and behaviors for the first 46 years of my life, and there is no pardon on earth that will change what happened.  None.

     

    No fancy words.

    No transferring energy to me.

    No emotions can be put upon me to change the outcomes, none.

     

    What was done was done.

    Many a little girl lost her innocence and there is no pardon for that, none.

     

    Pardons will not change it.

    Overlooking what happened will not change it.

    Refusing to hold them accountable today does not change it, yet all I can do is make sure today that I remain accountable of my actions today.

     

    Today I will not forgive him, that is for him to do.

    Today I will not forgive her, that is for her to do.

     

    Today I will forgive myself by accepting that the past will not change, that I can’t change who I was back there, I can’t change what happened, but I can change who I am today.

     

    Who I am today is someone who will not overlook, look around or away from a behavior that hurts, I will hold you accountable for your actions and me for mine, I will speak up instead of be silent about my feelings, and I want you to be honest with me about yours.

     

    I don’t want a repeat of my first 46 years.

     

    I am grateful I have a second chance at life.

     

    Grateful that I have been able to make corrections so history will not repeat itself in my life.

     

    I am grateful I didn’t learn to forgive my mother, for I would have allowed the same behavior in myself.

     

    It was for both of us that I didn’t forgive her.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Family is Relating.

    In the past weeks I have had sister relationships with ladies not related to me, yet we related. 

     

    And when I tried to relate to those related to me, we failed.

     

    What I failed to focus on were the ladies who related to me, and instead part of my head was with those who I could no longer relate to, struggling to find the words or phrases to make us match.

     

    I failed. 

     

    We don’t match.

     

    It isn’t them or it isn’t me. 

     

    They are fine alone and I am fine alone, but put us together and negativity pops out of them and out of me.

     

    We are not what some would call each other’s better half.

     

    Last night I was with two women who are not related to me, and we related beautifully. 

     

    We tossed conversation back and forth and held each other’s truths easily, we matched, I fit in their worlds, there wasn’t a struggle to find a little glimmer of commonality, and we flowed with each other effortlessly.

     

    It was as one said, ‘family that is not family’.

     

    I believe that we match or we don’t match and there isn’t anything we can do to force a relationship against reality, any more than we can stop one that grows organically.

     

    As I sit here today and look backward upon all the wonderful spirited wise individual ladies I have had the privilege to share my journey with, I am in wonder of these relationships.

     

    Some are just forming, others were formed a while back and are growing deeper and more meaningful to me, some seem to have gone ahead and were waiting for me to arrive with open arms and hearts.

     

    How grateful am I for their journeys that coincided with mine, yet years apart.

     

    Ladies of strength and willingness to participate in life fully not shying away when their truths lead them from their comfort zones. 

     

    Ladies of integrity, who use their voices to speak for themselves always, these are my sisters, the ones I relate to, the ladies whose footsteps I am following, who give me energy and hope.

     

    These sisters are bold and follow their north star no matter where it leads and who they have to leave behind; they are willing to let go to hold on to what they know is their truth.

     

    How lucky am I to have them sprinkled along my journey to share this experience, to enhance my life, to lighten my load, to brighten my day, to inspire me and cheer me on as I continue to build a stronger me.

     

    Thanks to each of my soul sisters for the relationship we have, the braveness you show in sharing yourself with me, and the inspiration your story lends is hope to me.

     

    Family is relating.

     

    My chosen families are those that relate to me.

     

     

     

     

     

  • Bubble Of Pretend

    I was told yesterday that hypochondria was a disease, that somebody with an imaginary illness, is ill.

     

    I had never considered that just believing in something nonexistent made you sick.

     

    It is a belief in something that isn’t there, an imaginary idea, and the belief is what makes you ill.

     

    In denial you refuse to acknowledge existence of something and being a hypochondriac you believe in something imaginary.

     

    The two seem like kissing cousins, related in an odd way, where both are removed from what is truly going on, and both cases, it is a belief that keeps them ill.

     

    Within a dysfunctional family we have relationship hypochondriacs (or the opposites), for they believe in something imaginary; believing things to be better than they truly are, and unable to see the illnesses that surround them.

     

    The coorelation between the two is remarkable.

     

    I am surprised I didn’t realize that just believing in something imaginary is in itself an illness.

     

    While the hypochondriac is convinced things are worse than they are, a person in a dysfunctional relationship are convinced things are much better than they are.

     

    I wish they had a name for the opposite of a hypochondriac.  When I looked it up on Yahoo here is what I found.

     

    “The opposite is a MAN! Most men will think nothing is wrong with them even if the tumor is growing out of their head!”

     

    I guess the opposite is thinking nothing is wrong in the face of evidence to the contrary.

     

    Both sides are caught in a belief that keeps them from seeing what is true, and that in itself is the illness.

     

    Stuck in a belief that doesn’t exist in real life.

     

    Living in a bubble of pretend.

     

     

  • The Cost of my Peace!

    I finally figured out what I can’t accept in having to accept.

     

    I can’t accept that someone can’t change.

     

    And I guess that is not the meaning of acceptance.  I want acceptance with a clause.

     

    I want to accept who you are, but that you can change.

     

    This is incredibly insane. 

    This isn’t acceptance it’s conditional acceptance.

     

    It seems to be hopeless to accept others as they are.

    I am not sure if you can follow this, but in my head it makes sense as to why I am forever waiting and hoping, for I believe to the depth of my being that changes are possible.

     

    Even if the other person has yet to make one step, I am of thinking, ‘they can’.

     

    Yet can they?

     

    It almost seems like I have to become a pessimist or at very least, a realist and see who they are, not their potential with change.

     

    Imagine, “their potential with change” that is so not accepting who they are in this moment, but dreaming and believing that who they are isn’t who they want to be.

     

    Instead who they are ISN’T who I want them to be.

     

    I want them to be different.

    I want them to change to satisfy my ideas of what would make them a better this or a better that.

     

    This is an ongoing problem with me living in the land of potential changes, instead of being real right now.

     

    It is what it is.  I had said a million times.  But what I felt is, ‘it is what it is, until it isn’t’!

     

    Living in a hopeful state that someone will change, leaves you feeling hopeless.

     

    Somehow I have to work on accepting others not ever changing, and by seeing it is I with the problem, not them. 

     

    They are quite happy being as they are.

    As Byron Katie says, “who are you to ruin a good buzz, they are happy drinking!”

     

    I am the one that struggles with accepting that they are okay where they are, that they have no thoughts of changing, and have told me so repeatedly in words, thoughts and deeds!

     

    UGH.

     

    This will sit with me today.

    I accept who they are, but that they can change.

    Which is totally counterintuitive!

     

    I will only accept what is if what is changes!

     

    It would be funny if it wasn’t such a tragedy and if it hadn’t cost me so much peace.

     

    Believing in changes at the cost of my peace!

     

     

  • The Way You Move!

    “A long marriage is two people trying to dance a duet and two solos at the same time.”

      ~Anne Taylor Fleming

     

    My solo dance has changed and it has affected our duet, for I am a new dancing partner.

     

    In the duet I am the odd one and we both feel my differences.  In places where I used to go, he goes alone, and in my new ways I go alone.

     

    Perhaps we are both learning new solo dances.

     

    The relationship is what the dance looks and feels like when we are together.

     

    I feel that it is my fault that we keep stepping on each other’s toes, tentatively trying to learn new moves, or feeling unsure as to where to step.

     

    We are out sync and out of tune, and it leaves you feeling uneasy and unsure.

     

    It isn’t like investigating a new relationship, for we have 28 years of being together, of growing and sharing.  It seems harder to make changes within an old dance.

    How easy it would be to bail out and go solo, where you can twist and turn and not bump into someone’s feelings, put up boundaries where you are the only one affected, where my actions only matter to me.

     

    For no matter what I do there is a ripple into those within my house.

     

    I took for granted the smooth dance moves we had, the rhythms and comfort we had knowing each other so well, I wonder how long it will be for my new solo moves to seem normal within the Us.

     

    What cuts to my core is I am not doing this on purpose, upsetting our world for something to do, I am just moving the best I can under the cruelest of circumstances.

     

    I didn’t set out to disrupt our dance, to step on people’s toes, to ruin the duets; I am just a dancer in reality, where in the past I was dancing to a song in my head.

     

    Our moves are awkward at best, stilted and unrehearsed, and sadly at times, more at ease alone.

     

    I was trying to shield the impact of my world imploding and the fall out it caused, but in the end it was felt anyway.

     

    I guess this is what it looks like when a family is impacted by tragedy and when one person changes so drastically that it splashes on everyone.

     

    This is what life is, changes change the way you move!

     

  • Real Me.

    “Some people will not tolerate such emotional honesty in communication.  They would rather defend their dishonesty on the grounds that it might hurt others.  Therefore, having rationalized their phoniness into nobility, they settle for superficial relationships.” 

    ~Author Unknown

     

    When I began following my truth and spoke with emotional honesty, it really never occurred to me that I was sealing the deal on having no relationship.

     

    How sad and telling that most of my past relationships were based upon phoniness, either theirs or mine or both.

     

    When I could no longer tolerate the absence of emotional honesty and the other side wasn’t ready for the full exposure to emptiness, our relationship ended.

     

    Our phony relationship lay exposed.

     

    It is funny how you can miss what wasn’t there, how you ache for the closeness you falsely created, incredible to grieve a loss of something you did not have.

    It seems mental to feel separated and alone when a phony relationship dies. 

     

    How can I grieve something phony?

    How can I love something phony?

    How can I have a relationship with phony?

     

    Phony was the only family that I knew, was the only me I knew.

     

    It is funny that you can crave a false thing, something that has no substance, like a drug.

     

    It isn’t the drug itself, but the feeling.

     

    I felt like I belonged.

     

    Now I am standing separated from them.

     

    I am different, perhaps no longer co-dependent.

     

    Feeling strange at being totally alone and separated, yet totally connected to feelings, my emotions and me!

     

    The phony me died, the phony relationships died and they gave birth to a real me.

     

    “It takes two to lie.  One to lie and one to listen.” 

    Homer Simpson

     

     

  • Our time together

    Twenty-seven years ago today, my husband and I began dating.  We had talked to each other almost daily on the phone for 6 months, before we went on a date.

     

    We began talking, sharing and enjoying each other’s differences. In some things we have gotten more alike and in others more different, and through it all maintain our sense of separateness as well as togetherness.

     

    The phrase, “you complete me” doesn’t apply to us, for we are each standing strong alone.  He is not a man who is lacking something that I need to carry, nor does he have a part of me.

     

    In the beginning I was much more lost then him, and I served him always before myself. 

     

    The past five years has been about recovering me, about finding a sense of self that I never had before.

     

    I had told him often in the first years of my recovery that he would be getting a new lady but with the same lady if that makes sense to you.

     

    He didn’t have to leave his marriage, but he is now with a totally different lady.

     

    It took him a while and he grieved for the Me he first fell in love with, but over time and with patience and courage, we both fell in love with the new me.

     

    Our relationship is special and neither of us takes it for granted.

     

    A love that allowed me to be me, a love that flourishes in the good times and in the bad, one that can withstand the changes of life no matter how they appear.

     

    When I think back to the early days of discovering who my father was, to see his picture in the papers, on the radio and on TV, my husband never once considered me too soiled to be with.  He never once dropped my hand.

     

    He never once considered leaving me behind.

     

    I held his hand while I had to do the bulk of the work inside.

    His hand gave me the strength I needed to walk alone.

    Like a good set of training wheels!

     

    As I look back on our journey together, it is one that has allowed us to become more of our selves. 

     

    Neither of us is lost in the relationship, instead we bring our full selves to the relationship called Us.

     

    We are complete alone, but enjoy our time together.

     

  • Willing to try.

    We agree to disagree.  What does that mean?  And can you use that same phrase or sentiment when talking about huge issues?

     

    My sister eloquently wrote about the time that she “flipped my switch to OFF”

     

    Yet they too don’t understand that they hold half the responsibility, that I didn’t just flip the switch unprovoked.

     

    And it wasn’t done lightly or with out pain.

     

    Switching the father to off was done a long time ago, and by him, it just took me 40 years to catch up.  Switching the mother off happened at the same time, or maybe on and off over the years.

     

    Switching the switches of brothers and sisters was much more painful.  And sometimes I am tempted to let them come in even in their disheveled state, but know that it would not serve either of us well.

     

    My switch from having a family to not having a family was not an easy or desired switch, but one I had to make in order to heal myself.

     

    It is odd that I get a whole self and a fragmented family. 

     

    What we are trying to do is to get back together, but how can my sister and I join up again without unflipping the switch.

     

    I will not flip back around, it is not that simple.

    And I am not certain she wants to flip either.

    To join back in the stance of “agree to disagree” seems near impossible.

    How do two sisters do that?  Especially one who embraces the father and the other runs in terror, who will flip?

     

    She comments on ‘having to agree’ in order to have a relationship, and sometimes I do understand that you can get along without agreeing, but on this???

     

    I am an open-minded person, but not that open-minded.

    What she seems to be asking is for no boundaries on my part.

     

    This saga will continue.

     

    I am standing in total befuddlement as to how to mend this broken fence. 

     

    I stand in awe that she is willing to try. 

     

     

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