I M Perfect lady

Tag: trust

  • Nothing Can Sway Them…

    Today as I rode along in the mail jeep, I listened to "Sway" The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior…by Ori Brafman.

    A very interesting look at what is behind the irrational behavior. 

    In the beginning of the book, he speaks of two very compelling reasons why people don't change their minds or the direction of their lives.  

    One is the "Aversion to Loss"…where they will hold on to a sinking ship, rather than lose it.  It isn't even about what they are holding on to, it is that they just are simply repulsed by the thought of Loss. They live life from the NOT losing perspective and fail to see life from a view point of gaining something new. They literally are not even able to see a new way, for their sole focus is on NOT LOSING what they have.  This one factor will lead to all kinds of irrational behavior.

    Now couple it with an added vice, "commitment"…and you have the makings of insane behavior. 

    They made a commitment and that commitment overshadows any facts that fly in the face of that.  Their commitment binds the NOT Losing sentiment into a circle that they can't escape from.  No rational directives can penetrate the tightly woven Beliefs they hold.

    I highly recommend reading this book, if you have irrational folks in your world and you simply can't figure them out.  The experiments alone are very interesting to see how the human rationality works.

    What this has helped me see is that if your mind set is on NOT LOSING, you will not be able to see a new way.  For you are holding tight to the thought that you can't lose what you have…it isn't what you have, but losing.

    This of course brings me to my siblings and how they don't want to lose the family and even how they are committed to the roles of brother/sister/son/daughter, they acted irrationally from my point of view, because they couldn't lose.

    Loss becomes the larger meaning…than what you holding on to.

    This is why I couldn't understand why they were so dead set against letting go…they didn't want to lose…and their commitment to that family stood higher than the family they were committed to.

    I don't know if I can adequately explain this, but if you read the book, you will see how we give up being rational in irrational ways due to holding on to a secondary meaning.

    Oh, and there is one about "Value"…where if your first impression is that person or thing is valuable, you will not change your mind easily…and in fact, you will disregard information that tries to lessen the value.

    The first impression of valuable stands against all facts to the contrary.

    These three different examples dove tail in nicely to abuse and it explains how folks refuse to budge in a new direction.

    Lots of the abuse is happening in families whose 'reputations' proceed them, and it is extremely difficult to change the minds from the first impression of valuable…our minds can't be swayed.

    It works in the opposite direction too.  If you are labeled as less or worthless, you can't get people to believe otherwise. And it even works if people label you worthless, you begin to believe them EVEN if you have facts that dispute it.

    We simply can't be swayed by facts, for in front of the facts, stands our first impressions…or fears of loss…or our ironclad promise of commitment.

    Losing family….failing to honor your commitment to the family and changing your Values of them stand in the way of navigating rationally in the face of abuse.

    In my experience, this explains the behaviors of my family…they are a strong bunch; nothing can sway them.

     

  • How they teetered.

    Being in a marriage is like one long teeter-totter ride, where it takes finesse and decorum to keep it going gently up and down and up and down, a balanced movement.

    Do you remember how you can gain control in two ways on the teeter-totter? By moving your weight you can keep a person up in the air, unable to get down or by getting off he will be slammed into the ground.

    It seems that one person can take over control of the teeter-totter and in doing so gains control over the person on the other end and has the power to restore the momentum or stop it.

    We have many teeter-totter games going with all of our relationships, and we can feel or know when the momentum changes, when they have more power over us than we ourselves, and in that moment we have choices to make.

    In my past co-dependent teeter-totter rides, I was always on the end with no power, either waiting to be slammed into the ground or up in the air unable to move, and the person in charge, wasn’t concerned about me, but rather did what they needed to do, while I was along for the bumpy ride. Somehow it never occurred to me to get off to and not go back.

    We truly are in charge of how we feel in relationships, how their actions affect us on the other end, will it plummet us to the ground and hurt us, or will it leave us powerless.

    Learning how to teeter-totter in a relationship is key to having a beautiful friendship, to even know you have the power to slam them down, but don’t.

    As we teeter up and down, as we ride along with a gentle rhythm, every now and then something lands upon our teeter-totter that throws us off balance.

    A new experience has been added to our routine, and how do we balance ourselves back out?

    What I do know for certain is that a marriage or a friendship isn’t a flat line, a secure steady beam, but an up and down living breathing growing life like organism.

    They are all mysteries whose ending we don’t know.

    We can’t know what will happen to make the other leave, or what will make them use their power to manipulate and control or abuse, or what will make them just sit when it is their turn to push off.

    I am all I can be sure of.

    I know when I will stay on and when I get off.

    I have learned what it feels like to be in the air with out power and slammed down in hurt, and I also know what to do to stop those feelings. I get off.

    What is the old line, “Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me”!

    It isn’t so much about knowing who to teeter with but knowing when to get off.

    What is very interesting to me is that they banned the teeter-totters from school play grounds, they were too dangerous, and in fact they were great tools in getting to know someone, you could tell how kind they were by how they teetered.

  • How they teetered.

    Being in a marriage is like one long teeter-totter ride, where it takes finesse and decorum to keep it going gently up and down and up and down, a balanced movement.

    Do you remember how you can gain control in two ways on the teeter-totter? By moving your weight you can keep a person up in the air, unable to get down or by getting off he will be slammed into the ground.

    It seems that one person can take over control of the teeter-totter and in doing so gains control over the person on the other end and has the power to restore the momentum or stop it.

    We have many teeter-totter games going with all of our relationships, and we can feel or know when the momentum changes, when they have more power over us than we ourselves, and in that moment we have choices to make.

    In my past co-dependent teeter-totter rides, I was always on the end with no power, either waiting to be slammed into the ground or up in the air unable to move, and the person in charge, wasn’t concerned about me, but rather did what they needed to do, while I was along for the bumpy ride. Somehow it never occurred to me to get off to and not go back.

    We truly are in charge of how we feel in relationships, how their actions affect us on the other end, will it plummet us to the ground and hurt us, or will it leave us powerless.

    Learning how to teeter-totter in a relationship is key to having a beautiful friendship, to even know you have the power to slam them down, but don’t.

    As we teeter up and down, as we ride along with a gentle rhythm, every now and then something lands upon our teeter-totter that throws us off balance.

    A new experience has been added to our routine, and how do we balance ourselves back out?

    What I do know for certain is that a marriage or a friendship isn’t a flat line, a secure steady beam, but an up and down living breathing growing life like organism.

    They are all mysteries whose ending we don’t know.

    We can’t know what will happen to make the other leave, or what will make them use their power to manipulate and control or abuse, or what will make them just sit when it is their turn to push off.

    I am all I can be sure of.

    I know when I will stay on and when I get off.

    I have learned what it feels like to be in the air with out power and slammed down in hurt, and I also know what to do to stop those feelings. I get off.

    What is the old line, “Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me”!

    It isn’t so much about knowing who to teeter with but knowing when to get off.

    What is very interesting to me is that they banned the teeter-totters from school play grounds, they were too dangerous, and in fact they were great tools in getting to know someone, you could tell how kind they were by how they teetered.

  • With your loving support.

    My old definition of marriage was the joining of two people of like minds, and perhaps friendship held this too, but that you both viewed life from the same space and often responded to life with the same footsteps.

    Your histories and life pathways joined together for you shared similarities.

    I now find myself yoked to a man who hasn’t lived life as I have, hasn’t had to walk the same footsteps I have had to take, and we are dissimilar in the way we now respond to life as it happens.

    The yoke that held us close together didn’t matter, for we were the heading in the same direction, speaking in the same language and doing the same response.

    Now it feels odd, like our yoke is gone, and we are two separated individuals doing our own thing.

    Great freedom to be who you are, doing what you love, honoring your differences etc…all good and well, until your differences become a weak spot when combined.

    I have zero tolerance for abuse and he hasn’t been affected by it like I have so, he truly doesn’t grasp the affects, nor will he; his loving trusting belief in others is a weakness when you are dealing with abuse.

    Abuse and its manipulators can get away with what they do, for they bank on your trust and your kind nature and that you won’t hold them accountable for what they do.

    They rely on you seeing their behavior as an anomaly in their otherwise normal world.

    What we fail to appreciate is that the anomaly is the truth and all the ‘normal’ behavior is a shield to hide it.

    What I trust now, is what do they do when they are asked to stand with or against abuse, no matter who it is that is doing the abusing, be it a friend, a spouse, a father, mother, sister, brother, is who they are.

    I see who you are by who you support.

    The greatest weakness and hole that a perpetrator, or even an abusive man hurting a woman, uses is that we trust and believe that they are more good than bad.

    We want to believe that they just had a moment of confusion, a slip of control, a ‘moment of weakness’ but that all in all, they are good people.

    If we all stopped and cut our old opinions up the moment abuse entered the picture, we would save a lot of little children and even young adults who find themselves in a relationship that is detrimental to their well being.

    It is the stopping and not continuing that is the key.

    When people show you who they are, believe them. Damn it, Believe them.

    It seems so easy, so simple and yet time and time again, abuse slips by attached to the one you love.

    Attached to the one you trust.

    Attached to the old relationship, the kind man, the loving brother, abuse is attached to them, and you just refuse to see it.

    Oh, yeah…sometimes you see it but you will not toss out the old relationship for one little act of abuse.

    Or for one little moment of supporting abuse…we overlook the supporting for they too may be someone we love and trust.

    It is this blind trusting faith in a person who has abuse attached to them that keeps this cycle going, the legacy of abuse is mostly to blame on the ones who love and trust the ones with abuse attached to them.

    I never knew that abuse thrived more because of the love and trust than it did because of the driving desire of the perpetrator.

    In my one experience with abuse, if you don’t see the abuse attached to your loved one, and you continue to have relationships with him, then abuse gets attached to you.

    You are now the carrier, the supporter and the accomplice.

    The ‘love, trust and belief’ that my family had in my father has allowed him to be a free man.

    Each one of them who didn’t not see the abuse attached to him, now are carrying his legacy forward, in love, trust and faith in a man who gives abuse back.

    So, each time I am faced with a similar type event in my world, where abuse is attached. I see abuse and let the rest fall away.

    Again, the greatest supporter of abuse is love, trust and faith.

    Imagine?

    And yet the schools are teaching, good touch bad touch.
    Stop.

    They need to teach that we have the right to revoke friendship, love and trust, we can withdraw it at any time.

    So, my loving trusting and believing husband and I are on the opposite sides of this and my behavior seems harsh and so narrow minded. And it is.

    What I needed the most as a little girl was for someone to see the abuse, to act with the abuse and to see me and not see the man who clothed and fed 14 children, a lumberman, a hardworking, not asking for anything man.

    I needed one eye to see me, one ear to hear me, one hand to hold me, and to let him go. Instead all eyes, ears and hands reached out to him and they let me go.

    Me the abused child.

    Refusing to let his image of goodness die, instead they let me fade away, the one ‘insane’ voice against many.

    The majority wins; abuse will prevail…with your loving support.

    (What happens when in one home you have opposing voices?)

  • A Liar too.

    There seems to come a time in each relationship where the titles and names do not matter, where instead lies the meat of the relationship, the giving and the taking, the feelings we feel in the wake of their actions, the way we are treated or the lack thereof, it is like we can finally see what it is we are tasting.

    I asked myself if lies was an ingredient in love and could not find one recipe of Love that included lies.

    Not the love of parents, friends, lovers or self. Lies and Love don’t match.

    I also know that all relationships no matter what kind are subject to renegotiations if and when the ingredients change of one party.

    There isn’t a relationship out there, as far as I can see, that holds this sacred space of no negotiation.

    To me, all relationships are fluid and are living breathing exchanges between two people, that will change as the individuals in them change, and in fact the relationship is only as good as the weakest one.

    The weaker one is the sum total of the relationship, for if the stronger one settles, so goes the relationship down to the lowest denominator.

    My experiences with dysfunction is the strong lower themselves to be okay with dropping down to the low level, it is seen as kind and loving and accepting, and to forgive all actions, and call it unconditional love.

    Unconditional love to some is allowing all types of negative behaviors to messy up a relationship and you are to love no matter what.

    The ingredients of dysfunctional love is that anything goes and all must be forgiven, and relationships are made of steel there is no renegotiation, and you and I are locked behind the wall of our relationship.

    The relationship between sister and sister in some is non negotiable.

    Between parent and child…

    That what started out has to remain, we are locked in forever, like a steel cage within there is no way out, we must forever and a day be held together, withstanding bad behavior for the cause of Relationship.

    Two victims behind the relationship cage.

    I say, that if one in the cage changes, the other gets to leave if the changes can’t be reversed.

    When one changes, the whole relationship changes. It isn’t a cage, but rather the dance within the cage.

    Some put high regard on the titles, Mom, sister, daughter, father, and I see the individual behind the title, and I believe that the sister is only as good as her actions in the cage.

    Lies are lies no matter whose mouth utters them.
    Abuse is abuse no matter whose bodies are delivering it. It is convenient only for the one who is doing the bad behavior to use the trump card sister, to put that out in front of the poor behavior.

    Well, in my world I have taken down the cages that held me in and I am free.

    I no longer will be victimized or blinded by a title.

    Actions are actions, lies are lies, and deceit is deceit.

    Setting aside the relationship and seeing you as you, lies are not becoming.

    No good can be grown from a lie.
    No self worth can be gained from a lie.
    No love can be sown from a lie.

    In my childhood family they live among the lies and are not even aware that who they are playing with isn’t so, raised in the darkness full of lies, it is their normal. They don’t even know they live a lie for they never lived outside of it. Lies is all they ever knew. They have said and do say, that my parents did the best they could, and they did. But their best is to present one thing to the front while doing something else behind the scenes.

    A lie I call it.

    Most will not deal with the ‘thing’ behind the scenes; they would rather just play with what is in front, the pretend relationship label. Father, Mother instead of really looking at the actions within the cage.

    What happens in the cage is what you have a relationship with.

    Action to action is how we dance and relate to each other.
    If one says a lie and the other does not see it, the lie still happens, one is just denying it.

    It changes the dance from love to love and trust to trust… to lie to love and what they want is for us to continue to trust them while they lie.

    How?

    What is the point?

    Who trusts someone who lies?

    I can trust that I will not trust you when you lie.

    I trust that I will tell you I don’t believe you.

    I will say love doesn’t lie.

    I wonder why you lie?

    I wonder if you know that our relationship can’t hold what you do?

    It almost seems that if you have to lie, you know that if you spoke the truth, that it would change what we have.

    Yet sadly the lie does the same thing.

    Whether you do something that would jeopardize our relationship or you lie about doing it, it matters not.

    You have breeched its integrity, you have changed its value.

    As a child, my relationship with both my parents changed at a very young age, the seed of mistrust, conditional love was planted. In order to remain in the relationship, I had to keep their lies.

    Keeping lies changes who you are.
    Keeping lies of another doesn’t make them better, brighter, loving, happy, kind and compassionate.

    Holding a bag full of lies makes you a liar too.

  • Feminine Self

    My 40th yoga session followed right behind a two-hour Oprah interview with 4 sexual predators and a book I was reading called “The Flying Boy” by John Lee.

     

    As I began yoga and on the Standing Head to Knee pose, as I went to pick up my left leg, which is weak and unbendable the thought came to me, “my feminine side was crippled or broken” and tears began to flow.

     

    It was like my body felt relieved that I could acknowledge this.  I felt such compassion for the wounded feminine parts of me as I lovingly stood there on one leg holding my left/feminine side.

     

    This alone would be a huge gift on day 40, but on we go. 

     

    I get to the Balancing Stick pose and as I raise my hands above my head and I begin to breathe, another profound thought comes in, “I am only responsible for love and trust,” and again tears come and a huge lightness to my shoulders.  As I was breathing in I was feeling only being responsible for bringing trust and love to my relationship with my abuser, my father.

     

    I am innocent of being responsible or guilty for the abuse.

     

    I then proceed to hold the pose of Balancing Stick for all but the last one, for on that one, again I was eager to tell you about this, and lost the connection.

     

    Those are two gifts this yoga gave me today, the realization that my feminine side is damaged, but with good reason, and that I am free of carrying the weight of guilt and shame or blame.  My shoulders literally felt lighter yet again.

     

    As I went into the floor Separate Head to Knee, where my left hip usually screams, I told it, “it is okay I understand your hurt,” and I was able to do this without pain, not perfect, not farther, but with ease and more tears. 

     

    It is like I am recognizing the physical manifestations this body has held.

     

    An overwhelming sadness came in knowing that I have lived so long without this side, this softness, this trusting openness, how hard and stiff it has left me, struggling to be stronger, tougher, when what I needed was to be more relaxed and soft. 

     

    Bikram is right, “you have no idea what yoga can do for you, Yoga makes you you.”

     

    As one predator stated, “I killed the person she could have been.”  And he is right.  But they only win if we don’t bring her back!  I intend to return to my full healthy loving trusting feminine self!