I M Perfect lady

Tag: self

  • My Rights Move Me.

    From the book, “Healing the Child Within, by Charles Whitfield. Personal Bill of Rights is compilation of rights that several groups have created.

     

    BILL OF RIGHTS

     

    1.     I have numerous choices in my life beyond mere survival.

    2.     I have the right to discover and know my Child within.

    3.     I have a right to grieve over what I didn’t get that I needed or what I got that I didn’t need or want.

    4.     I have a right to follow my own values and standards.

    5.     I have a right to recognize and accept my own value system as appropriate.

    6.     I have a right to say no to anything when I feel I am not ready, it is unsafe or violates my values.

    7.     I have a right to dignity and respect.

    8.     I have a right to make decisions.

    9.     I have a right to determine and honor my own priorities.

    10.    I have a right to have my needs and wants respected by others.

    11.    I have the right to terminate conversations with people who make me feel put down and humiliated.

    12.    I have the right not to be responsible for other’s behavior, actions, feelings or problems.

    13.    I have a right to make mistakes and not have to be perfect.

    14.    I have a right to expect honesty from others.

    15.    I have a right to all of my feelings.

    16.    I have a right to be angry at someone I love.

    17.    I have a right to be uniquely me, without feeling that I’m not good enough.

    18.    I have a right to feel scared and to say, “I am afraid.”

    19.    I have the right to experience and then let go of fear, guilt and shame.

    20.    I have a right to make decisions based on my feelings, my judgment or any reason that I chose.

    21.    I have a right to change my mind at any time.

    22.    I have the right to be happy.

    23.    I have a right to stability- roots and stable  healthy relationships of my choice.

    24.    I have the right to my own personal space and time needs.

    25.    There is no need to smile when I cry.

    26.    It is okay to be relaxed, playful and frivolous.

    27.    I have the right to be flexible and be comfortable with doing so.

    28.    I have the right to change and grow.

    29.    I have the right to be open to improve communication skills so that I may be understood.

    30.    I have the right to make friends and be comfortable around people.

    31.    I have a right to be in a non-abusive environment.

    32.    I can be healthier than those around me.

    33.    I can take care of myself, no matter what.

    34.    I have the right to grieve over actual or threatened losses.

    35.    I have the right to trust others who earn my trust.

    36.    I have the right to forgive others and to forgive myself.

    37.    I have the right to give and to receive unconditional love.

    You may wish to consider whether you have any of these rights.  My belief is that every human being has every one of these rights and more.

     

    As we transform, we begin to integrate our transformations into our lives.

                    Charles Whitfield.

     

    How interesting this was to read and to agree full heartedly that we do indeed have our own personal rights.

     

    I have the right to me, my body and my life, my choices and my feelings.  I also freely give the same rights to those who I engage with or even the folks who no longer want to engage with me.  I honor their choices; I honor their voices and their wishes.  For we all have the same rights.

     

    What I have come to see and know is that very few use these rights; instead another’s rights are using them.

     

    I was near 50 years old before I utilized my rights, before I even knew that I had a list of rights within me, that I had the option to say yes or no, to come or go, to speak my feelings, up and until then I was a robot moving by the rights of others.

     

    I am so grateful to have my own rights.

    I love my rights.

    I love that I am free to use my rights.

    I am the only one who can give up my rights; they can only be taken with my permission.

     

    It is my intention to live the next 50 years with my rights in hand!

     

    When you own your own rights, you are no longer co-dependent and being moved by another's rights.

     

    My rights move me!

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  • Sickened

    Here is another few lines from “Sickened” by Julie Gregory.

     

    “I lived my life in a bubble. First it was her bubble. Then it was of my own making.  And now, freshly stripped of the delusion that had protectively swathed me for years, I was embryonic – too raw to interface directly with the world.  People aren’t just influential to me; a thin layer of them fuses onto me like hot cling wrap.  Their words become my words, their voice inflections merge seamlessly into my own, their opinions form a transparency over the faint etchings of my own developing ones.

     

    I look back through stacks of photographs of me after the fire.  In each picture, I hold the facial tics and expressions of whoever I am involved with at the time. My face adopts the characteristics of the other, their fine lines, the exact way the jaw muscles freeze or the flex within their smile. My face morphs to take on their identity.

     

    Then I look at a baby picture of myself at six months old, lying on my belly, a natural smile lightening up my face.  My own natural smile, unbroken, intact.  This is the only picture I have of my own face, not someone else’s.  I wonder am I destined to drag around the past like a discarded placenta?  I wonder how far do I boil back in order to reclaim my self?  I was how many pieces did I lose along the way?  Where do I find them? Can I put them back? How many times do you glue a broken vase before you toss it?

     

    I had been taken to the bone.  My mother had fingered into me like the hollow of a melon and scooped me out.  And now, years later, you could press belly to backbone.

     

    Books are my friends, where it’s okay to be silent….

     

    All my time is spent slipped silently between their pages, finding some truth to go with the mirrors. They are self-help gurus who parent me positively and show me how to believe in myself.  They suggest underlying spiritual philosophies:  That each soul chooses its parents and all its experiences in order to learn the lessons it needs to develop fully.  That if the soul’s human form knew what it was supposed to learn beforehand, the ego would short-circuit the process of discovery.  They tell me that, because of this double blind experiment, where you find yourself in this painful process is exactly where you need to be.

     

    That if you lived in a dark cave you’d need time to adjust to the light when the rock was rolled away.

     

    That Hawaii had to be a volcanic eruption of toxic goo and ash before it became so lush and beautiful.

     

    That if you watched the clothes in a washer, it would look like they’re getting dirtier as they slosh through filthy water.  But it’s only after this agitation cycle that you can pull out fresh, clean clothes.

     

    I bolster myself with platitudes: “We are who we are not despite adversity, but because of it” and “They say the truth hurts, but the only thing truth hurts, are illusions.” I sink the studs into soft dirt, and bank my new foundation.

     

    My books talk to me like the child I am and coax me into developing autonomously.  They metaphorically hang all the colored pictures I make on the fridge when I race home with them.  They never tell me: Lighten up, you think too much.  If anything, they say, Hey, you, with the frontal lobe, turn off the TV, stop the noise, and consider this deeply.  They never dismiss me with Get over it.  Or if I turn to my father: What are you talking about? My brother: I don’t remember anything. Or my mother when I squeak out that I was too young to be taking the gun out of her mouth: “Jesus Julie, where is a mother supposed to turn to for support if not to her own daughter?  You think the sun rises and sets on you, like you don’t have any problems?  I can think of a hundred times you…”

     

    I pile my books around me before I sleep and they are the psychic guardrails that keep me from falling out of bed at night.”   Julie Gregory

     

     

  • Perfections of Me.

    I think trying to define love is like trying to define our unique personalities; we all have a love definition, which we formed through our experiences in life.

     

    Love for me is on the inside and is more about me, where before it was an outside need and all about you.

     

    There has been a total switch in my definition of love.

     

    Before I felt love by what others brought me, I was empty of love unless and until another showed me some love. 

     

    I was empty and I would do almost anything to get some love.  I was a people pleaser to fill my container called love. 

     

    Now I feel love from the inside out.

    I am full of love inside.

     

    Love of me and all the different layers, stages and ages that make up me.

     

    I sit with great compassion and empathy of my journey to love me.

     

    It has taken many years to look at me, all the nooks and crannies, the dark side and the light, to see all the facets of myself and to become friendly with them or at least meet them with understanding, little by little trusting and loving me.

     

    I am sure there are still parts of myself I haven’t explored, even sections of my past that lay buried, yet with each new lesson returns another aspect of my self that was long ago sacrificed.

     

    Sacrificed for another’s love, another’s happiness, another’s dream.

     

    Each sacrifice took away a part of me.

    Until there was nothing left for me to love.

     

    I will no longer sacrifice my feelings for you, my happiness for yours, or my truths for yours.

     

    Love without sacrifice means loving myself enough to move away…

     

    To steer clear of things that hurt me then and now, to speak my truths, to be honest with my feelings, to protect my happiness and my dreams.

     

    Love is the freedom to be myself.

    Love loves my imperfections until they become my perfections of me.

     

  • 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

     

     

  • Respect Your Self First.

    During yoga today I wondered about the difference between self-respect and the respect of others.  So I went ahead and looked up the meanings.

     

    Self-Respect.

    proper respect for oneself and one's worth as a person.

     

    Respect.

    1.   esteem: a feeling or attitude of admiration and deference toward somebody or something.     

     

    I had to look up the word ‘deference’ and here is what I found.

     

    noun. Submission or courteous yielding to the opinion, wishes, or judgment of another. Courteous respect. See synonyms at honor.

     

    Correct me if I am wrong, but is this meaning of Respect saying that I am to yield to their opinion and wishes when they are different than mine?

     

    That to hand out respect is to be dismissive to my own feelings and experience?

     

    This seems like a fancy word for lying.

     

    It seems counterintuitive to my own sense of self-respect to yield submissively in a courteous way to allow their opinions and judgments to trump mine.

     

    I practiced this type of respect for 46 years, being courteous to my parents, being submissive and yielding to them,  while it eroded away my own self worth and respect.

     

    I no longer wish to play the game respect, to honor the other when there is nothing there to honor.

     

    My own sense of self-respect is the freedom to no longer be submissive, courteous and yielding to another’s wishes, but instead be free honoring who they really are.

     

    I am very pleased that I no longer respect another’s wishes above mine.

     

    This meaning of respect leaves you powerless and without worth.  So, if you want self-respect, respect your self first!

     

    “Self-respect cannot be hunted.  It cannot be purchased.  It is never for sale.  It cannot be fabricated out of public relations.  It comes to us when we are alone, in quiet moments, in quiet places, when we suddenly realize that, knowing the good, we have done it; knowing the beautiful, we have served it; knowing the truth we have spoken it.”   

                Whitney Griswold  

        

     

  • I Have A Life!

    “To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves — there lies the great, singular power of self-respect.” Joan Didion

     

    Today was the 78th day in a row of doing Bikram yoga, and I am still stretching into places I have never been before, with my body, mind and inner knowing.

     

    It is crazy to have ridden around in this body and not really used it to its fullest potential; I have lived backwards in so many areas or upside down and sideways.

     

    I am feeling freedom and innocence that I have never felt before 

     

    My previous relationship with self was for others, and had little do with me. Imagine I was not living for me!

     

    I was living for your good approval, your wellness, happiness, comfort and the whole while neglecting my self!

     

    Abandoning it while using it.  Which seem really pathetic.

     

    How can I save you while I am dying?  How can I teach you to take better care, while I am a wreck?

     

    Doing this yoga each day for the last 2-½ months, has brought my attention, focus and care back to me.  I am for the first time ever spending time each day for my body.

     

    A few days ago, I realized “I have my own life!”  I said it out loud and more than once, “I have a life!”   

     

    Feeling that I have my own separated life is like being cut free from a bossy Siamese twin!  I am free!

     

    Yoga turns you right side up and sets you free.

     

    I have a life!

     

  • Testimonial for Bikram Yoga Dallas

    Karen calls me her Remote Student, because I live hundreds of miles from a Bikram yoga studio, and without stepping into a Studio, I have completed the 60-day Bikram challenge.

     

    My remote studio is my basement.

     

    There isn’t a set class time, no teacher to monitor my comings and goings, no one making sure my room is heated, I am all things in my home studio.

     

    The hardest part is keeping my word to myself, making sure I get out of bed to stoke the fire, moving around while the rest of the family sleeps, stealing the first section of the day for Bikram and myself.

     

    I stand alone in the mirror, just my body and me; no one is there to see my humble renditions of each pose, as I struggle valiantly to hold my balance, and fail, only to try yet again.

     

    In silence my amazement rings out when I am successful and some times tears in moments of sorrow or tears of gratitude that my body still responds.  In this quiet time, I am forming a new relationship with my body, my mind and Soul.

     

    How exciting it was to feel for the first time muscles I didn’t even know existed, and to feel the steadiness grow in my balance, to witness the affects of releasing unexpressed emotions that seemed to pour out of screaming joints. 

     

    Each day there is a morsel of difference in a pose, a snippet of improvement, a bit of hope and the thrilling feeling that I am doing it.

     

    I am leading the charge.

     

    I am bringing my body to the yoga mat, and following Bikram and my body is responding in spades!

     

    The 60 days have given me a great foundation, a second chance at a relationship with my body, a way to be kinder and more aware of what it really needs to be at its optimum health.

     

    In all areas of my life these improvements follow me, for I am the common denominator in each thing I do.

     

    Being a ‘remote student’ isn’t for everyone, but it is for those of us who do not have access to a studio.

     

    When I was inspired to do the challenge, I mentioned it to a few people, and soon we had a yoga buddy email list.  It is those inspiring individuals on the list that is my source of motivation and inspiration, when my own fails.

     

    What I want you most to know is that 60-days of yoga will change your life, and there is no excuse for not doing the yoga, all you have to do is get to a mat, a teacher or a Bikram CD, and begin!

     

     

    (My brother introduced me to Bikram yoga in 2001, when my arm hung useless.  In doing three weeks of Bikram yoga, the neck and shoulder muscles unknotted and I had zero pain.  I then began an on and off again practice.  When pain arrived, I knew where to go, to Bikram yoga.  I am happy to have the time/space and energy now to devote myself to working this into my every day life. At 51, this body was showing signs of neglect.  In the 60 days of doing the challenge, all aches and pains have disappeared, I am not stopping now, I have just begun!)

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Time for me.

    “Fall down Seven times, stand up Eight!”  Japanese Proverb

     

    As I look backward over the 54 days, I can see the pattern of yoga and me; I see me doing this each day, making it my priority, and even when I felt weak, sore, tired, uninterested, I did it anyway.

     

    This reminds me of the attitude I sometimes had doing for others, when I didn’t say no.  I love how the same tenacity is working for me!

     

    Interesting that I am saying yes to me, often at times when I am feeling no; no I can’t, no I don’t want to, no I don’t feel like it, but I headed downstairs and do it anyway.

     

    Our patterns emerge behind us, as they gather in numbers we can see the overview or as they say, ‘hind-sight is 20/20’.

     

    As I look in my rearview mirror I do so with much pride, to see that I have kept my word to me, I see a 54 days of doing yoga stretched out like a magnificent winding path, complete with no spaces, no empty slots of where I stopped.

     

    Amazed that I continue on, adding to the ever-growing pathway of taking care of me.  It is so unusual for me to put me first, to take the time, to make the effort, to just do it, for me. 

     

    Me, I am taking the time for me!

     

    "You cannot believe in anything or anybody if you do not believe in yourself".     Bikram

     

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  • I walk the Balance Beam called Life!

    Enlightenment maybe just finding out who you are, to see yourself as yourself, with all the bumps and bruises you have gotten along the way, up to this point called today.

     

    You get to see yourself as the total character, a composite of all who touched you along the way, the good, the bad and the ugly, and to see what each imprint made upon the Master Piece called YOU. 

     

    It is like you began as an innocent piece of clay and then molded and formed into the person who is standing here today.

     

    Each person who you come in contact with, leaves a structure change, leaves you leaning more this way or that way, able to stand tall, or walk bent.

     

    How exciting to read that my mind literally was blocked due to a stress hormone overload to one area, that I couldn’t see because of a physical malfunction, not just that I ‘decided’ to deny that information in my life. 

     

    This body holds and stores information that the mind couldn’t bring in, that the cells in my body along with organs are capable of storing all our experiences for our benefit.

     

    How wonderfully intricate, so sensitive and knowing this body is! 

     

    Amazingly brilliant in all that it knows, the way it works and how it is all there for us to use as a guiding system in our world, to navigate and lead us to a life of peace, love and joy.

     

    I think I lost my ‘owner’s manual’ at birth, for I sure didn’t know how to use this body correctly!  I guess this is learned with trial and error!

     

    My world, my body and I were not walking together, or at very least were at odds.

     

    What I didn’t know was that my mind was incapable of carrying the trauma, and that it never picked it up!

     

    Impossible to know what you were incapable of receiving!

     

    So there I was walking along with a mind that didn’t record all of my life, and with a body that did, and me in the middle.

     

    There was a disagreement inside of me, dis-ease!

     

    Disease is the body screaming at you, that what you have been doing is causing DIS EASE inside.  It is a huge wake up call after years of subtle whispers.

     

    According to Dr. Mona Lisa, there are 7 emotional centers in our bodies, or she even called them seven warning lights that will go off if you are not balanced.

     

    She has two sides of the body, the power and the vulnerable.  You have to learn to be in both, a graceful balance.

     

    Our bodies are so sensitive that as soon as we fall off the mark of middle, they respond. 

     

    It seems that I had this all backwards as well, that this body just came along for the ride, I so discounted it, now I am fully aware of it and it’s subtle whispers, we have a relationship now that is much more in tune, and we are teaching the mind to come along, to fill in the gaps that it couldn’t grasp.

     

    A few days ago it dawned on me, the reason I am learning my 5th mail route is to strengthen the minds memory muscles.  I am working out each and every time I learn a new route, I am building stronger and stronger memory muscles.

     

    This great Universe has me in the perfect job for healing a mind that was weak in memories!

     

    How cool is that?

    I marvel at my body, my mind and how the Universe seems to know all I need to heal and rebalance myself.

     

    I just had a thought of a ‘Balance Beam’ and I was in gymnastics, but could never stay on that beam!  Now I can see why!

     

    Reality is my balance beam, and I walk it with as much grace and beauty as I can muster, with my arms out wide, my head high, one step at a time trying to stay balanced as I walk the Balance Beam called Life!