Tag: self-esteem

  • Learn to catch it.

    I have missed 12 days in the 32 days that have passed of this 60-Day Yoga Challenge, and I have no desire to try and catch up, but to continue on.

    The days I missed were days when I was too emotionally traumatized to even begin to focus on yoga and my body, what I needed to do was find my balance inside, to seek my peace and find where I stood mentally.

    What these past few weeks have shown me is how far I have come, how close our family is, how when one is suffering it affects us all, and it is at that time it is crucial we all maintain our strength so we can help the wounded.

    I heard a woman speak to Oprah yesterday who wrote the book, “Simple Abundance, Sarah BanBreathnach on you can tell how a woman feels inside by how she feels inside her own home.

    It is interesting to know that how at peace you are in your home, how comfortable and what is allowed in your home all represents your state of self inside.

    It came to me in Yoga today, that my mother didn’t have boundaries and our home didn’t have boundaries, she overlooked or failed to see when bad energies stole in.

    And even when informed of them, she didn’t stand up for integrity of home, for inside of her she lacked her own sense of value.

    Sarah also told Oprah that the greatest wound that women suffer is the lack of self-esteem.

    And this self-esteem seems to be the first tragedy of abuse, that it is stolen in the first act and if you fail to tell, you then commit the next act to yourself.

    You continue to give away your self until there is nothing left to give.

    What I was doing for the past few weeks instead of doing yoga, was to find my way through a sea of abuse, wrestling with my emotional wounded self and the woman I had been, to find a new way of dealing when tragedy strikes.

    To not deal emotionally as a wounded child nor even as cold hearted dictator controlling self, but to reach beyond and find a new way to interact.

    By keeping my view on me, what I can and cannot do, what I can and cannot partake in, and speaking about my feelings and my view of reality, I was able to navigate myself into acting much more reasonable and as an adult.

    I was able to witness myself as a loving adult dealing with abuse, and also as a loving adult dealing with abuse and its affects, seeing how my daughter wasn’t able to stop abusing herself, I stood my ground in not taking responsibility for her actions and handing them back.

    The lessons and gifts I have gotten are so multi-faceted and how my daughter was my greatest teacher.

    She now stands alone and separate a young woman who will now set forth and make choices that will define her life.

    It isn’t the mistakes we make but how we walk from that moment on.

    Each day is a new day to begin making a new choice.

    Choices are the only way the soul grows, is another thing that Sarah said.

    I may have to look up this wise woman and read her words.

    Life isn’t about the big stuff, but in each little choice we make, we are either building up our self or giving it away.

    You know Sarah also stated that the givers have to also receive that if you can’t get something back from those you give to they will eventually drain you.

    So, as we give we have to learn how to receive the same energy back.
    Like a boomerang we have to learn to catch it!

  • Ladder of High Self-Esteem

    While I intuitively knew that my actions would have an affect on my children that they would respond to however I moved that we were joined together as one unit and that if I always thought of them when I moved, we would remain connected.

    I also believe that this holds true for husband and wife, that when you start operating as a sole proprietor you will soon be single.

    My boss made a decision based upon her own needs and in doing so left us without a leader or feeling part of the team, it put us on her same agenda…being selfish, operating on our own.

    This carried a strong resemblance to my mother’s behavior when I was a child.

    I also felt like I was the problem for expecting a different action that my standards were too high…

    As she openly admitted to her own selfish needs, she also seemed disappointed that my sense of respect for her was lowered.

    And I felt almost guilty for not overlooking her decision to overlook the poor conduct of one of her employees.

    Funny how sometimes life returns to explain itself by displaying behavior of the past and how I find myself back in the same role of being the one with a selfish leader.

    And isn’t that an oxymoron?

    Not only having a selfish leader, but my failure to be okay with it.

    When the head of any outfit loses sight of the group, we are immediately disbanded until another leader is formed.

    It is amazing that the leader has the power to undo the team.

    I can see where I tried to take over and ban together the family as a young girl, yet with out any power or decision-making rights, it was impossible to do.

    At the end of the day, I am left with my own standards and without a leader to lead me, which leaves me once again to lead myself.

    I am grateful that I was able to witness this in her to better see my childhood, to see where it was that the team fell apart.

    My sister had said of us, “we were left alone in our minds without adult supervision.”

    Children raising children.

    I can even see the weakened run down state that preys upon the easy choice, and how decision-by-decision self worth evaporates, each time making it harder and harder to climb back up the ladder of high self-esteem.

  • Chain of Co-dependency

    “The moment a child is born, the mother is also born.  She never existed before.  The woman existed, but the mother, never.  A mother is something absolutely new. “          

    ~Rajneesh

     

    It is incredible that a mother is born the same day a child is born, that is all it takes to be a mom.  Most never stop to think that we are handing over children to be mothered by someone who has never mothered!  Up and until then she was just a woman.

     

    And this woman is now in charge of another being beside herself. 

     

    We mother from the self we are.

     

    The same woman who arrives at the hospital to have a baby is the same one that mothers; we are not given any magic potion to make us a mother. 

     

    How I treated myself, how I was in relationships, was how I mothered.  I mothered with that same self.

     

    I simply didn’t have a separated self that mothered.  I mothered as me!

     

    All my deficiencies fell onto my children, all my fears trickled into their worlds, and my insecurities were filled by how they behaved.

     

    To totally raise a child that is balanced and independent, you yourself need to be balanced and independent.

     

    My co-dependent nature didn’t allow them to be separated from me.  I had a voice in every choice they made.

    It was like we were the oddest set of Siamese twins.

     

    Attached by an emotional dysfunctional tether, like a layer of skin we lived in each other’s lives connected always by how the other behaved, how they felt affected us, very little degree of separation.

     

    Somehow subconsciously I was weaving us together to be totally dependent upon the other, which deprived both of us from living independent strong lives.

     

    It was scary cutting the ties and letting go of control and not being the most important voice in their lives, and allowing them to be themselves, but I did it.

     

    Instead I focused all my attentions on my self and learning how to mother, or more importantly how to be a strong separated self.

     

    It is incredible to me how we focus on the children, how we want the children to be this and that, so than we can claim we were a good parent.

     

    If you instead focus on the parent, you will see that the lacks in the child all are flowing from the parent.

     

    They are as strong as our weakest link.

     

    It is easier to blame the child than it is to fix our weak link.

     

    I had many weak links, a chain that was falling apart.

     

    Each time I repaired a section; I give my child another link to freedom and self worth.

     

    My chain and my legacy pattern are to be a separated self and to break the chain of co-dependency.

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