Tag: speaking

  • Cover Your Truth.

    The phrase, “The Elephant in the Room” what does that really mean and how is it used properly?

    Have we been taught to not speak about things that are there, due to the reaction they bring?

    What are Elephants in a room?
    What is that?

    Is it a truth that is too much to bear?

    It seems to me that IF all know the Elephant is there and will not speak of it; we are all playing a game called, ‘lets pretend’.

    And ironically, it isn’t the Elephant we are pretending about but ourselves.

    A silent unspoken agreement that states, I will pretend to like you when I know you do things I don’t agree with, if you pretend to like me for pretending to like you.

    It seems to me that allowing an Elephant/truth to sit unspoken about is to pretend to pretend to pretend that there is a common ground that slipped away with the truth.

    And in order to maintain this false relationship, the Elephant/truth must not be mentioned, we skip around the mountain, and reach the summit of social niceties.

    We then form a new relationship that requires us to not go near the Elephant or truth.

    So what are we really preserving by being so courteous?

    Isn’t it just an old relationship minus the new and changing truths?

    This Elephant in the room that no one speaks about or entertains, to me is just dancing in denial with another.

    Being in a relationship that dishonors both.

    If truth isn’t allowed into a relationship, then I have no interest there.

    I am almost positive that the Elephant that arrived in the room with my father is he is a pedophile. If many adults in my youth had spoken of this Elephant, perhaps a few little girls would have been saved.

    It isn’t so much about the Elephant, but the ones who sit silently and allow it to be there.

    Elephants don’t disappear, don’t change, aren’t healed or treated in silence, nope, instead they continue to live out their sickness in full living color, while many courteously look on, being much to kind to speak of such ills about another person, to kind, to much into the social niceties, preserving a family, saving a father, sparing a brother, keeping sweet, that which isn’t.

    An Elephant in the room is showing you what is wrong and you will either see it and respond or look away.

    Pretending there is no Elephant is denial.

    And denial doesn’t heal, cure, erase, etc to the Elephant, it says much more about you than them.

    They are being their true selves; you are not willing to see it.

    You want to preserve a relationship of old, like good memories, and not willing to be present with who they are today, for it will crack, shatter, and explode the person you need them to be.

    At some point in time, it will be harder and harder to be in a room with an Elephant, it will simply cost you too much.

    My silence is not for sale, it cannot be used to cover your truth.

  • Stand Up!

    Yesterday Oprah had the second part with the 200 men who stood up against abuse, I have only seen small segments on her website, but the few I seen offered this, “Standing UP against abuse”.

    Standing up and speaking up with courage, releases the shame, the blame and the rage that live in silence.

    Standing up is not a victim stance.

    Standing up takes courage.

    Standing in the truth of your life and your life experiences, standing and speaking of the deeds of evil you survived as a child, the mixed messages, the bad definitions, the path it set you upon, all stop when you stand up.

    You then pick your own path.

    A path free of abuse.

    I believe to the depth of my soul, you either are sitting down with abusers and letting the legacy continue, OR you are standing up and speaking out and walking away from the abuse.

    It takes courage to stand up, but standing up is the only thing that will stop abuse.

    Sitting and remaining in relationships where the abuse lives is sitting down in abuse.

    I Stand UP!

    I applaud these strong men and the courage it takes to stand up and I am standing with you!

    It will change your whole life, from being a victim to becoming a survivor.

    Standing up and speaking is the only way to end this.

    It is never too late to stand up!

  • Boundaries are the Key to Healing!

    Putting up boundaries to keep someone out is where I still get a little shaky.  Yet it’s those times when I feel toxic energy seeping in, that I must erect a boundary in place.  It is imperative to my healing.

     

    Set up the space to keep me safe.

     

    Peter Levine says on his CD, “Sexual Healing” that boundaries are key to healing.

     

    He explains how if you have no boundaries you get stuck in that place, that trauma that abuse, the hollering, and the drama.  But if you can erect a boundary, it is the opening to which you flow into.

     

    It is the stopping power that I lost as a child that I can now use as big person, one that will restore my leaking boundaries.  

     

    Stopping them from coming into my world.  I have the power to keep people out, where as a child I had none.

     

    Who knew that trauma is about being boundary less, which is why the world seems so scary, you are unable to protect yourself.

     

    Or you have the reverse, still no boundaries and no contact with feelings, so anyone can stomp all over you, again powerless to more and more abuse.

     

    What I failed to realize is that healing is having boundaries.

     

    Actually stopping toxic people from walking on you is healing.

     

    In fact he says, having memories or not doesn’t matter, it is the process of completing the action where the healing stops.

     

    Traumatized people get left in the trauma energy, the tightness, and the constricted fear with no way out.

     

    He teaches you to flow between being comfortable and going into the tightness or stiffness of neck and places where you are stressed and then into places where you feel comfort, the ebb and flow.

     

    It is so exciting when you find that you can exit a place, a feeling, a stressful moment, a relationship, a situation, and a conversation, to be the one to ask for space.

     

    Space between you and harm. 

     

    Asking for space is the healing.

     

    When you are the one who stops the harmful interaction you are healing, you are completing the cycle of abuse.

     

    You are getting out of the way, instead of being frozen unable to move, unable to speak, to have a boundary.

     

    “Boundaries are the key to healing.” 

     

     

  • Being imperfect has set me free….

     

    “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”   

               Martin Luther King

     

    ‘…the silence of our friends’… it’s the silence that keeps gnawing at me.  I will get secret messages from family, but not in public, silence, why?

     

    It just dawned on me; it isn’t the silence that’s the problem it’s ME!

     

    It is Me?

     

    I am shocked and amazed that it is Me that keeps them silent, that I am the problem.

     

    I am the one that silences their voices, they don’t want to join theirs with Me.

     

    Me, it’s me…wow.

     

    In a past blog about silence from family, I discovered then that it was easier to be with my father, most actions and words were in support of him, and it is still the same today.

     

    Although I have a few secret members whispering to me, and I did ask them to join me publicly, and all declined.

     

    Declined in fear or in shame of being with me, being seen like me, being grouped with me???

     

    It did feel like I was being denied a friendship…a space remains between us and silence is the wedge that keeps us apart.

     

    At this point I want to acknowledge those of you who bravely stand with me, who are willing and able to raise your voices with mine, to link your names with mine, to publicly be with me as I speak of sexual abuse.

     

    Me a daughter of a pedophile, a victim of abuse, a confused at times, adult woman of incest; that is me!

     

    That is who I am. 

    I can’t change it.

    I am just being myself.

    I am publicly writing about how it is to be an openly abused woman.

     

    I understand your silence now and I honor it.

     

    I M perfect, and it’s impossible not to be.

     

    Being imperfect has set me free…