Tag: self-worth

• Yoga Heals a Loveless Self

  “The purpose of yoga is to heal.

  Most people start practicing Bikram Yoga to flatten our stomachs, stretch our tight hamstrings, and/or to prevent future injuries. And yes it will do all of that, but those are the secondary benefits to practicing Bikram Yoga. The purpose of this yoga is TO HEAL and that healing takes place from the inside out. It works on a mental level (and spiritual level) to heal our minds. Only then can we begin to change our self on the outside.

  Bikram says, the yoga practice teaches us how to like our self and we start taking better take care of our self then we fall in LOVE with our self!”
  Karen Buckner

  What I didn’t know when I began this practice was how out of love I was with myself, and how my love of my self depended upon another.

  If they loved me, I was okay.

  I never loved me alone, by myself without doing for another.

  It is shocking how dependent we are taught to be on another’s good opinion, how we act/be/live/think/believe to be loved.
  To have another love us, yet we don’t stop and think what it would take for us to love us, alone.

  Doing was my self worth, which I mistook for love.

  I was worthless unless I was doing.

  Imagine this type of self-love where you give and give and give until there isn’t any energy left, until you are filled with resentment of the takers who are your love givers.

  Giving to get love?

  My damaged body is what drove me to doing yoga, with an arm hanging limply at my side, my upper shoulders and neck one huge knotted ball, I began to work on self.

  What I didn’t know was that I was actually filling up my empty tank inside and dumping out all the past beliefs about how to love, changing my inner beliefs of my self, one-second at a time, as I paid attention to my breath and body.

  Each day I brought my body to the mat, and focused on my breathing, as I twisted and bent this constricted body into unimaginable poses, I was changing deeply inside.
  It is a like strenuous physical magic, while I was concentrating so hard to change my body, my insides were healing, my sense of self blossomed, my inner strength to be me became strong, my mind sought clarity and the willingness to face what is…the list goes on and on.

  Yoga heals a loveless self.

  

  November 10, 2010

  Bikram, Buckner, clarity, Dallas, healing, Inner, Karen, love, loveless, mental, mind, physical, poses, self-love, self-worth, Spiritual, wound, Yoga

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• 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.

   
  

  June 23, 2010

  chain, co-dependency, Dysfunctional, mothering, self-esteem, self-worth, weakest link

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• How I Treat My Body.

  “There are many ways to deprive yourself:  You can deprive yourself of cookies or you can deprive yourself of feeling well after eating them.  You can deprive yourself of feeling your sadness or you can deprive yourself of the confidence and well-being that come from knowing you won’t be destroyed by feeling it.”  Geneen Roth

   

  It really struck me that we are deprived one way or the other, and you get to decide what you want to deprive yourself of.

   

  I love that there are two choices, which you can either feel good or not feel good. 

   

  When I do yoga I feel good, that I am taking care of this body, moving it and stretching it, and making it stronger. I am depriving myself the opportunity to beat me up.

   

  I have begun to also be aware of what I am putting in my body, most of the time.  When I eat whole foods, I deprive myself of feeling bad about myself.

   

  Here is another section that caught my attention.

   

  “My mother had spent years telling me I was selfish, and it was upon that nub of information that I built a monument of deficiency.  But as I widened the myopic gaze on I-me-mine, I saw my mother at age twenty-five with two small children, a loveless marriage and a desperate need to have a different life.  With the little information she had, and doing the best she could do, she called me selfish for wanting more that she could give.  And since I would have died for her, and since every child needs her parents to be right, I took myself to be the sum of her limitations.  I saw myself through the eyes of a lonely, depressed, troubled woman – and never questioned my loyalty to her vision.  And then there was my father who saw me as a ditzy dumb blonde. Add ditzy dumb blonde to “selfish, fat, and unlovable” and you have who I took myself to be for almost fifty years.

   

  Psychologists and spiritual teachers alike call this learned version of our selves “ego” or “personality” or “false self”.  It’s false because your idea of yourself is based on who your mother took you to be, and her idea of herself was based on who her mother took her to be, which was based on who her mother took her to be, your idea of yourself – the person whose feelings get hurt, who takes offense at being criticized, who is webbed to her opinions and preferences or ideas- is based on those of someone who’s never met you.  Your self-image is refracted so many times – with learned inferences and memories and conditioning- that it is nothing more than a hall of mirrors.

   

  Talk about a hoax.  You are not who you think you are.  Hardly anyone is.  Because although kids come into this world with an implicit understanding of who they are, they have no self-reflective consciousness.  They know who they are, but they don’t know that they know.  And the only way to find out is by seeing themselves in their parent’s eyes.  We become what and who are parents saw.  Figments of their imagination. 

   

  Then, as my teacher Jeanne says, we spend our lives following instructions given to us ten or thirty or fifty years ago by people we wouldn’t ask for street directions from today.”  Geneen

   

  In my experience my whole self was designed from my mother’s point of view and how my father treated me.

   

  Here is more from Woman Food and God,  “The obsession will end when you love discovering your true nature more than you love being loyal to your mother or father.  The obsession will end because you care enough about yourself to stop damaging yourself with food.  Because you love yourself enough to stop hurting yourself.  Who doesn’t want to take care of what they love?

   

  If you pay attention to when you are hungry, what your body wants, what you are eating, when you’ve had enough, you end the obsession because obsessions and awareness can’t co-exist.  When you pay attention to yourself, you notice the difference between being tired and being hungry.  Between being satisfied and being full.  Between wanting to scream and wanting to eat.

   

  The more you pay attention, the more you fall in love with that which is not obsessed: that which is blazing itself through you.  The life force that animates your body.  Food becomes a way to sustain the blaze, and way of eating that keeps you depressed or spaced out or uncomfortable loses its appeal.  When that happens, you slowly realize that you are being lived by that which is God and you wouldn’t have it any other way.”  Geneen

   

  I love how she writes this, for it is exactly true in my experience…. Once I had redefined myself, I then began to treat myself better to the point I love myself enough to take care of how I treat my body.

   

   

  April 25, 2010

  addictions, compulsive, food, Geneen Roth, God, mothers, obsessive, self -defining, self-love, self-worth, woman

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• I am worthy of being Me!

  Worthy or Worthless, who gets to decide our worth? 

  How do you tell if you are worthy or worthless, will people tell you the truth and if so which people?

   

  Which truth matters more, that of the folks outside interacting with you or your sense of self?  What is a sense of self and where is this determined?

   

  Is it our thoughts, our actions, our words, our feelings, just where is the value held?  Is there a value system in place where you get so many points for doing this good thing and then so many minuses for doing that?

   

  What makes a ‘bad mark’ and then what constitutes a good one.  What has value and what is worthless, what was a lesson and for our wisdom and then what was just junk?

   

  What in my life was all for naught and added up to zero on the worth scale?  Which part could I take out and call worthless?

   

  Which part of me is no good?  Is there a portion that I could live without?

   

  Who decides all of this?  Is there that ‘final judgment day?’

  Is there a final report card where we will fall short of the mark and then what?  What happens if our value didn’t hold up?

   

  The phrase, “two wrongs don’t make a right” so how do we right a wrong or do we live with wrongs forever?

   

  Do many wrongs pile up and make us a worthless person?

  If so, how do we then do ‘right’ to tear down the pile?

  What is right and what is wrong?

   

  I recall reading a while ago, that sin was when you missed the Mark. 

   

  I was raised in a religion that really kept score, they had a worthy or a non-worthy scale and put the fear of God in you.

   

  That religion told us there was this very judgmental God sitting up there calculating just how good you were and just how bad.  And they even had scales to weigh you and rules that would make you worthless.  In fact if you were human in a human body and living, you were pretty much doomed.

   

  This religion along with the abuse of my father kept me in a state of worthlessness.

   

  I feared God, for so much about me was wrong, I didn’t measure up to his wholeness that he needed and wanted of me.

   

  As I sit here today I view myself with much different eyes.

  I see my life experiences especially in the formative years and see how it was I grew.  There is no judgment there, just a knowing.

   

  I see myself as “forgive her she knew not what she did.”

   

  Einstein was right, “you can’t solve the problem at the same level it was created.”

   

  I couldn’t solve my problems within that religion for that religion created many of them. 

   

  I couldn’t solve my abuse staying with my father I had to leave. 

   

  Learning to love had to be found away from those who loved me wrong.

   

  I see now where I missed the mark many times, but I can also see why. 

   

  Maybe worthiness comes with understanding or with empathy towards yourself, and when you can see clearly that you did the best you could given what you knew, you will find yourself worthy.

   

  I see myself, as a work in progress, a life being experienced moment by moment, and the final project will be complete upon my death and not a moment before.

   

  I get excited when I get to try and do something differently than I did before, when I get to try and be a different me.

   

  Not a better me or not so good me, but a different me.

   

  I am and will always be just me. 

   

  So, is there such a thing as a worthless Me? 

   

  Maybe we should throw away the words worthy or worthless along with that religion.

   

  The me I am is because the road I traveled, not in spite of it.

   

  I am worthy because I am me!

   

  My body is worthy, it is a fabulous vehicle, my brain is worthy for it can rewire itself, my feelings are worthy for they show me reality, my eyes are worthy for they see all things, my ears are worthy in all they hear, my worthiness goes on and on, in fact I dare you to find one part of me that isn’t worthy of being me!

   

  I am worthy of being Me!

   
  

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

  October 8, 2009

  life experiences, self-worth, worthiness

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• Grace of God go I!

  “Failing to Appreciate” I thought was such an odd term to use for the meaning of psychic blindness, for it seemed so kind.

   

  But as I pondered that word yesterday, we use that word appreciate when we speak of value.

   

  If a house is getting run down it depreciates in value.  When you really appreciate what someone has done, you are giving value to what they do, and if you feel unappreciated, you feel less than, so it does make sense to use the word appreciate.

   

  We failed to see the value of an action.  Our value scale was skewed and we valued the wrong stuff.

   

  It is like finding out diamonds are worthless and rocks have a high value.

   

  Appreciation, noun: gratitude; thankful recognition: They showed their appreciation by giving him a gold watch. the act of estimating the qualities of things and giving them their proper value.

  I am just getting the word, “Self Worth”…and low self esteem.

   

  Self Esteem, self-respect: confidence in your own merit as an individual person.

   

  Self Confidence, confidence in self: confidence in yourself and your own abilities.

   

  How tragic is the nervous disease called ‘psychic blindness’ it literally has you living life feeling worthless, due to your inability to see what is worthy or not on the outside, you can’t recognize your own self worth.

   

  Imagine, if you have the value system backwards, you inner values too are backwards.

   

  It is quite a ride for sure, to witness the changes occuring, like Fall Leaves changing their color, we now put credence on the correct things.

   

  Going from dark to Light, from sad to appreciation, from despair to joy, from fear to love, responsibility to freedom, from control to allowing, letting go instead of holding on, not breathing to breathing…..

   

  Even while losing family and friends, I understood why, and there was sadness in what could have been, but there was gratefulness in walking beyond the dysfunction, which we now know as Psychic Blindness which has our ‘relationships’ how we relate to people and things.

   

  I failed to appreciate, oh boy did I ever.

  I failed in so many ways.

   

  I was blind, but now I see.  Isn’t that a line in the song, “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, I once was lost, but now I am found, was blind but now I see.”

   

  The gratitude that comes forth is overwhelming, to be the one to experience the joy, the love and peace, by the Grace of God go I!

   

   

  September 2, 2009

  low self esteem, psychic blindness, self appreciation, self-worth

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• Soul Trail

  I was in her home today, way in and able to see so much.  All the insides to the many many packages I had delivered over the years.   

  I am not sure what I expected, but how fun to see there was very little practical stuff.  Instead there were things that made you smile.  There was bright glass in wonderful odd shapes and in many colors.  Dishes that would add such character to dinner parties and quiet evenings. There were oodles of stuff, birds of all size and shapes and designs.  A flower that was a huge bowl that made me laugh out loud. I was able to run my hands over expensive warm glass that was signed by the Artist, and it felt alive. There were counters filled with jewelry that would add interest to each outfit, just that special touch. 

  As I walked about it all made me happy, intrigued, and interested, wondering and present. 

  She purchased with love, not need or guilt.  She purchased to enhance her experience of life. She purchased just because she liked it.

  In the expensive things you felt her self worth.

  In the whimsical you felt her young years.

  In each piece you understood what she meant to herself.

  In her house you felt the remains of a happy soul.

  I brought home a bowl, small and purple, odd shaped one, to sit on my mantel as a reminder; if I were to die today, what would I leave behind, what clues to how I lived, how I loved and what made me smile. 

  Would people walk around picking up my stuff and understand me?

  In life we hear of a paper trail, but what of a soul trail?

  What part of you do you leave behind?

  What trails behind you as you leave a room, a job, or relationship?

  What feelings do you leave behind?  What lingers after you are long gone.

  This woman lived to be 100 years old, and there are 100 years worth of delightful treasures which will be passed on like good memories.  Another eye to enjoy, another hand to caress, another woman to feel worthy.

  She inspired me to live without looking at the end, but instead believing that there is no end. 

  Her trail leaves you wanting more.

   
  

  April 24, 2009

  art, hundred years, life, memories, self-worth, soul trail

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