I M Perfect lady

Tag: sirius

  • A broken heart is an Open Heart.

    I marvel at the synchronicity of my life…after writing about my Mothering Test, I turn on Sirius and I hear Iyanla Vanzant talking about three generations of women, who are working on relating to each other.  She has a new show called, "Fix My Life" that will be on OWN Network this fall.

    The oldest generation abandoned her daughter, by not seeing her disability….the second generation abandoned her daughter while seeking attention she never got from her mother, abandoning her own daughter when she came along.  Now thirty years later, they say, "I love you, but I don't like you…"

    I was given an audio image of how the legacy continues…

    Iyanla worked with them to say their true feelings, to call it like it is…for the reason they are so far apart, is that the truth wasn't part of their relationship. She says, "Without the truth, there is no relationship," and that the healing cannot begin, till you name your truth.

    She had to keep reminding them to "call a thing a thing"….and not skirt the feelings and call it something else. 

    Those who really want to know the truth and say the truth, will be helped by her.

    Iyanla also said, "A child whose mother is not emotionally available, cannot feel safe."  This really hit home for me…with my own mother.  I never felt safe, that she had my back.  

    The youngest daughter could not get close to her mother, for she did not feel safe…I totally can relate both in being the daughter and having my daughters shy away.

    She also worked with the youngest to say to her mother, "I am angry, because…."

    The daughter had a hard time going deep into her feelings and emotions.

    And Iyanla said, "Go ahead and let your heart break….for when it breaks, it will allow compassion and empathy in."  "Go ahead, you will not die, you will be okay, let your heart break."

    This was another huge moment for me.  For, I understood the anger and the heart breaking.  

    It is heartbreaking to feel the abandonment.

    Iyanla said, that the Mom's neglected due to the absence of knowing better.

    I again loved that.  

    It isn't intentionally….they loved by how they were taught.

    What struck me was the timing of this being aired on the radio, along with how grateful I am to be far into the healing process….being with my truth and naming it like it is… and also letting go of my original position, of being out of control and controlling.

    There was sadness that I was not able to work with my mother on this, but extreme gratitude, that I was able to work with my girls.

    I felt the emotions of the mother and then, those of the daughter, and could totally see the avenue, that Iyanla was trying to take them.  She is bringing them to the road of their truths.

    The road of the truths.

    Naming it as it is and not giving it names so as to 'not hurt' the other…

    We hurt others more by keeping our truths to ourselves.

    I love that I am able to let my truths out and that I was able to let my heart break.

    It is trying like hell to not feel the broken feelings, that keep you from your own emotions, and thus be emotionally unavailable.

    What a day…oh, and it came to me, I will not be graded on my Mother Test, until my daughters have daughters of their own….and I can see the pattern of mothering.

    It broke my heart in so many places to see how my mother tried to mother and its result and how I took that and tried to mother…and then the struggle to be an abandoned daughter, without knowing how….mother my daughters differently. 

    This too, you can't see while you are in it….you can only see it as you emerge on the other side.  And you can't know if you are making progress…the evidence is down the road…not to be seen as this time.

    I felt different when my daughter left, and thought it was to be one woman less in my home, but what I really feel it is now, is the completion of my exam.  I completed that section.  

    An abandoned child (woman) with a broken heart, opened herself to be emotionally available to her children.  In order to save my own daughters, I had to name my truths, feel my broken heart and feel my own emotions.

    What I also feel, is that this is a work in progress….just because I am open, it will take time for my daughters to feel safe with me.  A broken heart is an open heart. 





  • Covering Up my Truth.

    I listened to Jane Fonda speaking about her life, and I wasn't able to write it down word for word, but what she had to say struck me.

    How our survival self stands in the way of us growing up and becoming whole.

    I know this is true.  

    She said, "I stepped out of myself to live next door to me, in a shell of perfection."

    This shell is pretending to not be hurt and abused, but to be 'okay' and 'normal'. We have to act like this, in order to maintain the family's image and good front.  It soon becomes who we are, it grows thicker and thicker, the longer we live this way.

    She also said that the tool we use to survive, becomes the tool that is the obstacle for becoming whole.

    I see it as the shell has to be taken down in order to get back to your own self, and this shell is the facade we lived as to be normal and okay.  Removing this wall brings us to our truth.

    Our truth is scary on many levels.  For one it is not accepted by our parents and others who want to remain in their shells.  And it was terrifying knowing that I lived as a shell, but not me. That my truth wasn't who I had lived as.

    I knew my shell much better than I knew who I was and my history.  As a shell I constructed things to look better than they appeared. Friendlier, kinder and more loving.  Outside of the shell it was like all my friends became enemies.

    Yet, without ever leaving the shell of pretend, I would not have grown up…I would have remained stunted and as immature as a child inside; a wounded child.

    It is funny, in a peculiar way, that we believe we can add things to cover up our abuse, and that we can grow around it.  But, in the end, we end up with a pretty, perfect shell, and a yucky inside.

    Our outer appearance can't change how we feel inside.

    This is the mad dance and marathon…forever adding something on the outside to help boost our self esteem.  I couldn't be good enough, smart enough or cute enough to erase the abuse.

    Once I sat down with my wounded child, I was able to begin growing as me.

    No more shells.  

    No more pretending.  

    Instead I began falling in love with me…broken, abused, but real.  

    I loved my real self and had to say good bye to the shell.  

    The shell that helped me survive my childhood had followed me into adulthood.  

    Jane is right, the shell that kept me surviving my childhood, also kept me from being whole and me.

    So in order to become me, I had to leave my shell behind.

    My shell was the shield that kept my real feelings from showing.

    Kept me from pleasing myself, but always pleased others.

    It shielded me from becoming too emotional and loving, from being open and vulnerable.  My soft spot remained behind this thick wall.

    I remember my husband commenting, in the very early days of my father's exposure, that I was like a scared rabbit.  And I was.  I was walking around fully exposed without my shell.

    God, those early days were brutal.  Living life without a shell had me feeling extremely naked…and bloody.  The image of a wound.

    I was walking around as a wound…without a shell. No longer able to pretend that I wasn't abused.

    Until you can heal the wound you are very sensitive…with your nerves exposed.

    Now, I feel my wound is healed.

    Shell long discarded…and I am growing up. 

    My insides are matching my body.

    I no longer am a grown woman, wearing a shell, to cover up my wounded child.

    I am now grown woman who was wounded as a child…who grew up as I mothered my own wound, by no longer covering up my truth.



  • Life with no words?

    I listened to Deepak Chopra talk to John Francis who wrote a book called “The Ragged Edge of Silence”. He didn’t speak for 17 years. Yes, 17 years, but he did journal and he also gave up riding in gas vehicles. But what he said about silence is that when you are silent it is impossible to lie or argue.

    Isn’t that interesting?

    He also said that once he stopped talking he felt his authentic self arise and his ‘social’ self disappear.

    Imagine your day or week minus all the chatter?

    How much of your self is only known through what you say and not what you do, how you act or where you go.

    Would you be afraid to live in silence?

    I wondered if he talked to himself at all?

    Perhaps I will have to read this book and see what other insights come when you are silent with all people.

    And you know, I wonder how many people would be comfortable with you being silent, for many are uncomfortable in silences, awkward pauses would be frequent!

    It is interesting to know how you use language is it to share your insights, to reprimand, to command, to demand, to cheer, to delight, to ignite…imagine a life with no words?

  • Love after Love, by Derek Walcott

    The time will come

    when, with elation,

    you will greet yourself arriving

    at your own door,

    in your own mirror,

    and each will smile at the other’s welcome

    and say, sit here. Eat.

    You will love again the stranger who was your self.

    Give wine. Give bread.

    Give back your heart

    to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

    all your life, whom you ignored

    for another, who knows you by heart.

    Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

    the photographs, the desperate notes,

    peel your own image from the mirror.

    Sit. Feast on your life.

    —Derek Walcott

    I heard this recited by Kim Rosen on Sirius Radio with Ed Bacon, she wrote a book called, “Saved by a Poem”. I have it on hold at the library. Until then, I have browsed her website and found this poem.