I M Perfect lady

Tag: seeking

  • There is a way out.

    While I was learning how to live with my work changes, it came to me, that we can come to peace with things by not doing anything, but perhaps just thinking differently or by looking at someone who has it worse and then sitting back and feeling better, but not actually correcting anything in our own lives.

    That I could actually numb myself to my own life by focusing on someone less fortunate, bypassing my own feelings by being falsely elevated from their lack or worse off situation.

    While it is true, that there are many more lives in worse shape than mine, mine is the only place I live and feel.

    When I talk myself into being okay in my life without making changes, but rather by picking someone who is suffering more, what I am really doing is giving myself the license to not be responsible for my own happiness.

    On one hand I can feel better that someone is worse off and on the other hand, I can ‘blame’ my work for not being able to do this or that.

    I am in a helpless life…and if I keep focusing on what others are doing, the less I focus on what I can do.

    In life things flow in and out, grow and expand as well as shrink and lessen, it is all fluid and if we stand staunchly unchanging, we are victims of life.

    What happens instead is when life changes and we change, we are moving with the flow of life, bending and allowing answering its call.
    Adjustments are needed, not just witnessing of other folks suffering or being in a rougher situation.

    We literally have to make exchanges.

    If you fail to make the exchange, you then allow life to make it for you.

    What is the saying, “when God closes a door he opens a window”…I am thinking we have to find the window; otherwise we sit in a room feeling like there is no way out.

    Knowing that a window is possible, that it will take some creativity and changes on my end, I focus not on the closed door, but turn towards the window.

    The key is to find the window, to turn and look around, seeking answers instead of sitting down helplessly staring at the closed door.

    The closed door will not open and the answers are not to keep banging on the door with angry fists, you have to instead escape through the window rendering the closed door powerless.

    It seems many of us will not change on our own, we need to have doors banged shut in order for us to look for a new insight, or to escape an old routine, to leave old pathways for new adventures, to get out of old jobs where our learning has stopped.

    Some see the closed doors as punishment from the Universe, yet in my experience it was for my own good that the door remained closed and that I had to change in order to move and grow.

    In my experience there are no rooms without windows…for each time a door does close, there is a way out.

  • That Loving Feeling?

    “Love Must Be Tough” by Dr. James C. Dobson, is a book a friend recommended for my daughter to read, by I am reading it first.

    In chapter three called, “The Tender Trap” he states first the three conclusions he has so far.

    1. Marital (and premarital) conflict typically involves one partner who cares a great deal about the relationship and the other who is much more independent and secure.
    2. As a love affair begins to deteriorate, the vulnerable partner is inclined to panic. Characteristic responses include grieving, lashing out, begging, pleading, grabbing, and holding; or the reaction may be just the opposite, involving appeasement and passivity.
    3. While these reactions are natural and understandable, they are rarely successful in repairing the damage that has occurred. In fact, such reactions are usually counterproductive, destroying the relationship the threatened person is trying so desperately to preserve.

    In the previous chapter we explored the fears and sorrows reverberating in the mind of the rejected partner. Now let’s take the next step by looking at the husband or wife who is drifting away. In order to pull that person back from the brink, we need to understand the forces operating within. What do you believe motivates a man or woman to terminate a marriage? What thoughts are typical of one who rejects the unconditional love offered at home? What secrets lie deep within the psyche of the woman who has an affair with her boss, or the man who chases the office flirt? Is the desire for a new thrill the only enticement, or the more basic motivators operating below the surface?

    It has been my observation that the lust for forbidden fruit is often incidental to the real cause of marital decay. Long before any decisions is made to ‘fool around’ or walk out on a partner, something basic has begun to change in the relationship. Many books on this subject lay the blame on the failure to communicate, but I disagree. The inability to talk to one another is a symptom of a deeper problem, but not the cause itself. The critical element is the way one spouse begins to perceive the other and their lives together. It is a subtle thing at first, often occurring without either partner being aware of the slippage. But as time passes, one individual begins to feel trapped. That’s the key word, Trapped….

    This intense desire to escape from a marriage can occur on the first day of the honeymoon or fifty years thereafter. For men, it is the primary ingredient of a midlife crisis. But these feelings of constraint are by no means unique to men. For women, they usually (but not always) occur in response to an unromantic relationship that refuses to be energized. A wife may ‘reach’ for her husband for years, beg for his attention, nag him when he fails to notice, and the scream to herself, “Help! I’m suffocating in this loveless marriage! Somebody get me out!”

    How sad it is, furthermore, that this trapped partner who is fighting an impulse to run is rapidly sinking deeper and deeper into a form of marital quicksand. Why? Because the more he struggles to gain his freedom (or even secure a little breathing room), the more his panic stricken spouse clutches his neck. Even the fluctuating emotions of the rejected party are interpreted as attempts to grab and hold.
    For example:

    The response of grief: “Please don’t hurt me. Come and meet my needs.”

    The response of anger: “Get back in line, stupid! How dare you try and walk out on me!”

    The response of blame: “How could you do this to me and the kids?”

    The response of appeasement: “Name it and you can have it. Just don’t leave me.”

    The response of servility (the doormat): “No matter what you do, I’ll go on smiling ‘cause you’re mine.”

    The common denominator between these varied responses is one of entrapment. They each restrict the freedom of the less interested party. For someone in the trapped syndrome, love then becomes an obligation rather than an incredibly wonderful privilege. Perhaps it is now obvious why the natural reaction of the panic-stricken spouse typically drives the cool partner farther away; the more he pulls back from the relationship to gain desired space, the tighter the bonds close around him. He sometimes becomes almost claustrophobic in his desperate attempts to breathe – to get the noose off his neck. He may even resort to infidelity as a vehicle to escape from his partner’s clutches.” Dr. Dobson

    How affirming this book is to my experience. He is explaining how the trapped feelings don’t work, while I am experiencing the joys of the free-range children and I love you today.

    What is sad though, is that the ‘other woman’ is used to escape, an excuse to leave the place he feels trapped.

    And I bet that she feels like freedom to him, but the other woman is actually a bridge across the moat to freedom, but not what he is seeking. He wants his freedom and he will use her to get it.

    She is being used to set him free from a marriage he feels trapped in. Incredible.

    Of course he has this death like grip on her, for she is the answer or his way out!

    And I can see how she does feel like she is ‘saving him’ or rescuing him from a ‘broken marriage’ etc, for she is saving him, but little does she know, it isn’t so much about her, but a way out.

    Not sure if my daughter will read this book, but it has given me a clear view of the dynamics she is in.

    Freedom or trapped what gives you that loving feeling?

  • Free to be you.

    At the end of Dr. Jill Bolte’s book, “My Stroke of Insight”, she writes what she needed the most to heal, and I too would like to share what was most beneficial to me as I made my way out of the legacy of dysfunction.

    When you wake up and find that you lived in denial for 46 years, you are smack dab in the middle of a pretend life and you need to begin finding truths everywhere and living truth.

    Here are some things in no particular order…

    The book, “Loving What is” by Byron Katie helped me embrace the idea of acceptance and how it is much easier to walk with reality and to separate whose business is whose. My lines of responsibility blurred and I was lost in other people’s lives and absent from my own.

    “Be Here Now” by Eckhart Tolle helped me live in this moment while unraveling the past. Showed me how to not deny but to embrace the moment right here and all that it delivered.

    Martha Beck’s book “Leaving the Saints” showed me the way abuse blinds you and how the family situation and religion has a great impact on how you then go forward, abused and confused.

    My brother’s ears listened, his eyes sought the truth like I, and his hand reached forward in healing always. Together we bravely walked deeply into what we had experienced to find where we lost ourselves, felt the pain or discovered the things we missed, clues that led us to our self. It greatly helps to have one family member in a dysfunctional family that wants to get out as bad as you, that wants to end the legacy in their life. His understanding of dysfunction as well as his desire to be free was the perfect companion on my journey. His willingness to bravely let go of family in dysfunction to be whole gave me strength.

    My husband bravely walking with me in the unknown, of me and the future, of allowing me space to figure it out, of hearing the truth and not fighting it. He made no demands for me to Not change, nor did he make demands on how I should be, he simply stood by and let me find me. We both had no idea if when I healed if there would be a we. Love is letting go and being free. We found a love that has no strings, you be you and I be me kinda love. His freedom was key.

    Friends. Well, I lost some old friends and old family members who were unable to bear the new me and my new found truths, and I am way okay in letting them go, for I don’t want to make them believe that which they don’t.

    New friends arrived, deeper, wiser, more understanding and caring, they match my new me.

    Playing in Art was my saving grace, a place where I still could play with colors designs in fabric, creating and letting go of the heaviness of dysfunction, there I felt free to be. My Art carried messages to me, like letters from the Universe, showing me I was on the right path and that I would be okay.

    I M Perfect Lady blog, is a key component as well, it has be a sacred space for me to bring my truths, to lay them on the white sheet and to dissect each morsel and to find answers. While I often hoped it would help another person, I have selfishly gained the most. It has beautifully displayed all aspects of me, the broken wounded little girl, the mental survival woman, and the sprouts of the real me. I grew to love this imperfect me and know that each part is perfectly me! There is no part you could take out, for each part hold up a section of my life, each part has a hand in making me me!

    What we need the most is freedom and for others to hold the space of our innocence until we can find our way back.

    We need to use reality like Braille watching all actions as they brilliantly say what words can try to cover; we need to have narrow vision staying with the evidence of actions.

    As we tear down our life of denial, we need to build a life in reality, we need to build up our strength, add wholeness to support what we want to become, while saying good bye to the things that kept us down.

    We need to find the stamina to go against old beliefs and life patterns.

    We need the courage to face all we turned away from.

    We need to reconnect to our bodies and yoga is a spectacular way to join, the mind, body and soul.

    Mostly we need the space to be free.

    Abuse steals our power; we need to become powerful again from the inside out.

    Abuse steals our love; we need to become loving of self.

    Abuse steals our faith; we need to become faithful to self.

    Abuse steals our trust; we need to learn how to trust our judgment, our value, our morals again.

    Denial or dysfunction or abuse has us living from the outside in, where we will please other before self.
    We have to turn ourselves inside out and begin living from inside. Listening to our quiet inner voice, and following our feelings inside.

    Mostly become one. Separated from the leagues and groups and piles of folks that wanted us to be something for them. We need to become a sovereign nation of one. One wave in the Ocean of the Universe.

    What is great about victims is that they bring love, trust and faith and give it to another. In order to heal, they now need to use all those great gifts to heal themselves, to now treat thy self, turn inward.

    All my strengths I had for helping others, I used to help me. I became my biggest cheerleader, my strongest friend; I learned to love my self.

    It is like having the wounded heal the wounded.
    The ultimate healing, I who was broken healed myself.

    The blind learning to see.
    The deaf learning to hear.
    The dumb wanting to know.

    The desire begins with you.

    “Ask and yea shall receive.”

    Seeks the answers of who you are and you will move into being you.

    It all begins in wanting to know the truth.

    The truth shall set you free.

    Free to be you.

  • This Path of Life.

    “What do you want the book to do for you?” was a question I had asked of someone.

     

    It struck me as an odd question, but I needed to know what the person was seeking.

     

    What are you looking for the book to do for you, what problem will it solve, what part of you will it make better, can it correct a wrong and make you a better person, will it be a map to follow, a way out? 

     

    How much of our well being are we hoping to find in these books?

     

    I am not talking about books for pleasure, we use for escaping reality, but rather the ‘self help’ books, the books claiming to change your life.

     

    Maybe it helps you see yourself from another’s point of view; like seeing your truth written by someone else.

     

    Our body feels the truth as we read it, somewhere a bell rings, the truth of our experience is echoed by someone else, perhaps it is this that we are searching for, to find a like minded spirit, someone who is walking our same path but is much further ahead.

     

    This same concept can pertain to yoga as well, that it helps us all to hear the stories of others, to feel the camaraderie of fellow yogis as we traverse this path of Bikram Yoga.  It is always nice to see and hear of others doing more yoga or better yoga or overcame this obstacle or that and still was able to continue on.

     

    Storytelling is a way to weave the common thread among all people.  We are much more alike than different.

     

    Mostly we are on the same path, just in different places! 

     

    I am here and you are there, I have walked differently my beat was for me; listen to the sound of your life, what it wants from you now.

     

    Express  yourself uniquely on this path of life.