I M Perfect lady

Tag: struggle

  • Go with the Flow.

    United we stand united we fall, divided we stand divided we fall…are two phrases that ran around in my head as I laid my weary brain down to sleep.

    There has been a humming of difference going on in our home, a vague and nagging two party rule.

    This split difference seemed to be two strong individuals doing what they felt was right for them and it didn’t affect the atmosphere within our home, for our individual expressions were directed to those who did not live with us.

    Sure we had awkward uncomfortable moments, but they would only arrive when say a party was to be attended and we both didn’t go…yet we both could please ourselves.

    Me by staying home, and them by going, two drastically different responses to one event.

    It seemed to be this great wide-open free space of self-expression and allowing, and it was.

    What happens if our differences fall into our own home, where a person in our relationship changes and our responses are different?

    It became crystal clear to me that we were at a cross roads, both individually and as a team.

    The individual harmony of our home is tipping and sliding and churning over the way we both deal with actions that go against our moral code.

    My daughter’s changing actions have set in motion and are displaying our stark contrasts, where we are both sitting in a very tight spot.

    A spot that we both drew comfort in and it allowed us to be ourselves, we may be asked to leave.

    What we are being asked is to stand with that sentiment or to reverse and head in another direction; it truly is a turning point in our relationship.

    If my daughter continues in the direction she seems to be heading in, she will also change the direction our marriage, it will be the trigger that goes off and we will then be asked to change as well.

    She is the key that will turn this all.

    Our response is the echo and the reply and what I know from past behaviors, we answered differently.

    Can we form as a team and come up with an answering response that will honor both of us?

    I see the looming bends in our river, the rapids that will require each of us to hold to our course and see not one boat called family, but three different canoes.

    I see how the current in each of our lives may lead us down separated journeys, how the potential for parting is strong, how our differences become stronger not weaker, how their forces propel and repel.

    Within each of us lies our sense of self, our value and self worth and that alone is the motor that steers our choices, speaks our voices, and their clamoring for individual power drowns out the unity we once had.

    It isn’t the direction that they are heading in, or the rapids beneath them, but rather the integrity within each boat, the honesty and character that directs these boats in their direction.

    It seems that the Universe pulls them toward like-minded boats; our separation isn’t what the heart wants, but rather what our actions lead.

    The freedom that I lovingly gave that had us all happy in our separate boats, is now coming to bear.

    There is a fork in the river now, a change in the stream, a curve that bends their lives from mine… what I can’t know for sure is will they take the curve or change something inside of them.

    It isn’t me, but the river of life and how you change or it changes you.

    At the end of the day, I am a lady of my own character who has no choice but to follow where it leads…reality wins only but 100% of the time, it is futile for me set my canoe against it.

    This is what happened last time, six years ago, where my canoe didn’t go where the rest all went, where the river bent, and my character simply couldn’t go with the flow against the river of reality.

    I see my daughter’s canoe swirling lost in the struggle against the rivers flow, not wanting what is and lying to make it right, twirling in the swirling waters going against life’s truth, trying to make something right out of what is wrong.

    I have seen this branch of the river before, I have watched as many family members’ canoes got stuck in the madness of seeing an illusion and following.

    My shouts fall short and are lost in the waters of time that race by, telling them it is useless to fight what is.

    Now this time, the illusion has my daughter in its grips, the fantasy that is but a mirage above the river, and I can’t seem to break the spell that will plunge her back into seeing what is.

    And I can’t know the strength and conviction she has with this mirage and how far will she follow it and for how long, and if she does, what will my husband do?

    Will his canoe ride with her?

    Will his words to fall short?

    Will she hear us as we shout; will she trust the mirage or her old reality?

    Where will these three canoes go? Which ones will fight reality and who will go with the flow?

  • The Door is Open.

    I listened today to a mother and daughter speaking about a time in their lives where the daughter wanted her freedom to do drugs and the mother wanted her daughter to stop using drugs.

    These opposing desires had them in a battle of the wills.

    Until the mother realized she couldn’t do this anymore and she let her go, allowing her to leave the rehab and set out on her own. She believed that in three weeks the daughter would be back home.

    Three years passed while the daughter went deeper into the drug world, selling her body to buy drugs, being homeless, until she almost died and had a near death experience, did she realize doing drugs wasn’t a good thing.

    What caught my attention was that no matter what the disagreement is, until you both agree, there will be a battle of wills.

    This battle of wills seems to make each person dig deeper and find reasons for their side and tearing up the relationship with each fight.

    I can’t even begin to imagine letting a daughter go to sink deeper into the drug addiction, but I can also see the struggle to keep her out, when everything inside of her screams for drugs and the freedom to do what it is she pleases.

    However, the mother did not allow this behavior to ruin her home; the daughter and her drug habit left her house.

    This exchange I heard this afternoon, shown me that what my daughter and I are going through is mild in a sense, and that the freedom I have given her to make up her own mind is a good thing.

    That she gets to decide what is good for her self.

    While I know my perspective is clear and she knows it, she now has to decide what is good for her, her life, and her future.

    Letting me down is the smallest of affects, for she will have to live with the choices fully just as the daughter who lived with all the things that come with the drugs, my daughter will have to live with all the things that come with a married man; the three kids, and ex-wife and the very beginnings of a divorce.

    My life, my home, my inner peace and happiness are separated.

    I will ‘think’ of her, but not experience her life, she will do that, she will feel the affects of all that comes with this man she has feelings for, he comes with a ton of baggage, all of which will spill into their relationship, but I will not feel it, she will.

    I am willing to let her go.

    Time will tell if the pull to go is strong enough to make her leave…there will be no battle of the wills. The door is open.

    “A woman convinced against her will is of the same opinion still.”

  • I feel Solo

    As I look at my self in my life today, I am so much freer than I would have ever dreamed possible.

    While I live in the same house, married to the same man, and still have four children with me, I am no longer chained by their behavior…well okay, I still get stuck for a half hour or so, but I can usually set myself free.

    Dr. Berman spoke of the triangle affect, where relationships get stuck when couples move from one corner to the next exchanging roles and manipulating feelings.

    I lived on that triangle for years and years, and I was the master at being a hero and dabbled in the victim villain roles pretty often as well.

    On the triangle you are never in control of your feelings, somebody owns yours and you own anothers, we forever go around making other people feel and feeling how other people make us…never free to feel by yourself.

    If your not moving feelings around, there is the spot of hero, where you literally take over the responsibility of another’s life, where you come in and save the day, allowing them to miss a lesson to grow and learn by experience.

    This triangle is dysfunction and it leaves you separated from your feelings, where you are forever at the mercy of another.

    My past six years have been unlearning the triangle reflexes of blaming the other, and instead look inside to see where I gave up power.

    Looking for the power leak, where I lost control of my own power.

    Any time I say, “you disappoint me” or “ you make me feel sad” I am back on the triangle as a victim.

    Instead if I say, “I am sad or I am hurt” I am in control of my feelings and I get to explore why.

    What actions did I do to wind up feeling this way?

    What can I do now to make me feel better?

    It leaves the other person out of my feelings; it frees them up to be in charge of their own.

    The co-dependency triangle leaves you so tangled up and out of control, where you never can be assured that your peace, love and joy will stick around, that soon something or somebody will come along and steal it away.

    What I love love love, is that you are the only one who can give that away. It isn’t stolen, you literally hand it over in a victim like drama way with great words and feelings.

    When I learned that my love, my joy and my peace were mine and I had right and obligation to protect them, life was much easier, I walked away from the triangle.

    Standing authentic with your feelings isn’t always easy, but always empowering.

    I no longer disappoint my feelings or cover them up or speak down to them or pretend them to be different than what they are.

    I stand up with them no matter what.

    My feelings empower me.

    The Spirit of me is alive in feelings.

    I am as I feel or I feel as I am.

    I blame no one for how I feel.

    I feel solo.