Tag: worth

Reconnected with my Soul.

I wondered about knowing your own self worth…is it possible to be full of great wisdom, love, compassion, caring, etc and not know it? Can a person really not see themselves and their gifts? Where does self worth come from and how is it so easily overlooked?

What is self worth? Is it to see your self with your own eyes and can you do this objectively, or is there a flimy residue of past neglect covering you up?

I have read that children see themselves through their parent's eyes….(in Alice Miller's books). That how our mother's look at us, is how we learn to see ourselves.

Is that true?

But, I also have witnessed people who were abused, and how they see themselves as only valuable when they are 'in use' by others. That they themselves have very little use for themselves in their own life. Their value lies strictly in how much other people need them.

So, if you come from a very self absorbed mother who didn't see you, you will not see your self either. And, if your father abused you, HE seen you as his desire…not yours.

I just wonder when or how we get to our own view of self?

What has to happen before we can see our own self worth?

I guess for me, it was when I could clearly see I wasn't seen.

I felt completely worthless in their eyes.

I was reduced to nothing.

I then had to re-build myself.

My sense of self worth was an inside job and often times I was rediculed by others, and hollered at for choices I made while creating a self that was worth something.

Even today, this self I now have, isn't always accepted or appreciated or even liked, by others, let alone understood, but inside, the way I see me…I like me. I love my strength and convictions, my knowings and my feelings. I am a peace with who I am. I feel worthy, being me.

My old view was with my mother's eyes and my worth, was how I was used…and I discovered I was solely used by her to keep her story going, to keep her 'family' together, to keep abuse far and wide from our lives, while abuse worked behind the scenes stealing the worth of each and every child.

My mother had wrote about me, "Picking up the stragglers" in our family….like my task was to make things 'right' after the damage was done, to fix things, to make them okay again. And, if I failed, I wasn't giving enough, trying hard enough, doing enough.

I recall one night laying in my bed and feeling the enormity of their (my parent's) damage, how it not only affect our lives, but our childrens lives. How it was so far beyond my reach of fixing…sobbing, shaking to the point of losing it, I let it all go.

Let go of my responsibility for fixing the mess I did not create.

I disappeared…for I was shown how helpless I really was…without a use.

Not only was I abused, but I wasn't going to be able to fix anyone…

Abuse's insidious energy had completely overwhelmed our family….leaving behind worthless feelings, rising against guilt and shame. And yet, they (siblings) rallied on, working to make their family right by not seeing yet again…or seeing it through my mother's eyes.

The cycle completes itself. Children who are not seen, will not see their children.

Children who are not seen have no value…unless they are fixing their parents lives.

This spinning hurricane of worthlessness not stopping…just seemingly to gain more energy as they worked to keep our family 'right'.

While they were busy shoring up my father's/mother's life, they neglected to see, yet again, their own.

Their sense of self worth is extracted by what they do for others…never minding at what cost to themselves.

My journey could be classified with this quote, "The path into light seems dark, the path forward seems indirect, the direct path seems long…the greatest love seems indifferent, the greatest wisdom seems childish."

Is the journey recovering your own self worth?

Who is responsible for it?

Where will you find it?

How will you know it?

When I seen my worth in my mother's eyes, I knew how empty I was…I had done very little for me.

I have spent the last 8 years filling up my self.

For, if your only value is outside of yourself, you can only see you in their eyes. It will be impossible to see your self, for you eyes are always turned outward to find your worth.

My own eyes could not see me. I only judged me by how others reacted or needed me. They owned me and gave me value.

And, coming from dysfunction or abuse or co-dependent living, you will have to disappoint and become value less in their eyes in order to regain your worth.

"If I gained the world…but, lost the Savior…" comes to mind. I reconnected with my Soul.

February 5, 2013

abuse, Alice, co-depent, dysfunction, Miller, parents, self, value, worth
Completely whole all alone.

In Mark Nepo's Book, "The Book of Awakening" for March 18th,

The Life of the Caretaker.

"Accept this gift, so I can see myself as giving."

"I have been learning that the life of a caretaker is as addictive as the life of an alcoholic. Here the intoxication is the emotional relief that temporarily comes when answering a loved one's need. Though it never lasts, in the moment of answering someone's need, we feel loved. While much good can come from this, especially for those the caretaker attends, the care itself becomes the drink by which we briefly numb a worthlessness that won't go away unless constantly doused by another shot of self-sacrifice."

"It all tightens until what others need is anticipated beyond what is real, and then, without any true need being voiced, an anxiety to respond builds that can only be relieved if something is offered or done. At the heart of this is the every present worry that unless doing something for another there is no possibility of being loved. So, the needs of others stand within reach like bottles behind a bar that, try as he or she will, the caretaker cannot resist."

"I have experienced this even in the simple issue of calling a loved one while away from home. Even when no one expects to hear from me, I can agonize over whether to call. Often, unable to withstand the discomfort of not registering some evidence of my love, I will end up going to great lengths to call."

" In truth, caretaking, though seeming quite generous, is very self-serving, and its urgent self-centeredness prevents a life of genuine compassion. In all honesty, to heal from this requires as rigorous a program of recovery as alcoholics enlist, including sponsors who will love us for who we are."

"Within one's self, the remedy of spirit that allows for true giving resides somewhere in the faith to believe that each of us is worthy of love, just as we are." Mark Nepo

This is my disease. This is where I felt my greatest hits of love and self worth, by how and to whom I gave. I gave to get…I needed to be needed in order to feel worthy.

When I discovered this within me, I had to quit cold turkey…to stop giving with an agenda in hand. I truly and completely felt the sentiments of "Accept this gift, so I can see myself as giving."

I was unable to sustain my own self worth without a second party gushing or being grateful for what I had done. My inner well of worthiness was nonexistent. Without doing for others, I was empty.

It was very hard to purposefully not give. I felt horrible and mean and uncaring. The worse I felt, the more I knew how backwards I had giving.

To give with the freedom of no returns was not something I had ever done.

All my giving came with very fine print…."I give to make me feel special".

I had to turn all my giving inward, to become a self contained container of worthiness, without using other people's needs to keep me afloat.

My greatest sense of self was gained by giving…and my biggest hits of love came from what I did, not from who I was.

It was horrifying to see that all or most of me was built outside of me…and the only way to find my true love of self, was to no longer give to be worthy.

I had to become worthy by doing nothing for others…until my own well of worth was full.

The freedom of having your own well of worth is hard to explain…to be a self contained unit. To have an inner source, a well spring of worthiness inside, to have it fed from the inside out…is to live a life completely different.

One is empty…and forever seeking a new hit of worth.

The other is full of self worth…self love and completely whole all alone.

March 18, 2012

awakening, book, get, giving, Mark, Nepo, of, self, The, to, worth
You can feel its worth.

While tossing around in my head conversations about the differences between going into the Light and heading into the Darkness boggle my mind.

How it is that a person loses direction, how do their maps get turned upside down, how instead of growing brighter they can actually become very dark and NOT even know it or maybe more true, is not know how to stop it.

That their life blood is drained and they are actively involved in the letting go and letting it drip out, drip by drip, bit by bit.

Their vital life energy leaves and they don’t even know it.

The passions die, the love changes, inside of them has been an energy transplant and they are totally unaware.

This is very scary to me and yet very much understandable.

For if a perpetrator or abuser does his job well, you will not even feel your self leave, his sweet words and wonderful attention dances before your eyes, and like a magician, he switches your energy to his.

Once the switch has been made, you have to work like Hell to bring back your bright energy, your innocence, your passions, good energy, self worth, self esteem, love.

I see my daughter now as one who is lost in the sea of darkness inside of her, and she doesn’t even know who is the bad man who stole this, who came in and courted her while draining all that was good from her.

If after the first time you do not tell, you believe you are now his equal, and his lure and charm hard to resist, his needing you a drug that keeps you dumping more and more good into.

I am not certain, but feel that only abuse does this.

That you come in as Light and can have it stolen away…

The little boy with Oprah who was overly sensitive to the darkness, knew that Darkness FEEDS off of the Light.

This sounded weird to me, but it literally swallows whole, kindness, love, compassion, caring, it has a voracious appetite.

Darkness doesn’t see who you are, just your good energy that it needs to survive.

I had to stop feeding the monster, to stop giving up my life for its happiness, its peace and its joy.

The Light energies try feeding the monster to make it brighter, to make it happier; to make it more loving, and all it does is suck you dry.

That little boy also said that the dark energies can come to you as Father, brother, sister, friend, that it isn’t some monster.

Dr. Jill Bolte-Taylor also suggests that we are responsible for the energies we bring into a room.

I believe that abused people abuse people, that hurt people hurt people.

What seems we need is to heal our own pain, to be the one, to be the caretaker of our own energies, to stop blaming others for how we feel, and to harness our own Light.

As well as being responsible for another’s happiness, peace, love or joy.

If we can separate ourselves and not be sucking the life blood from each other, and instead be Light keepers within ourselves, the world would be a much brighter place.

My daughter seems to have allowed another to extinguish her Light and what I want most is for her to be her own Light keeper.

To hold it dear.

Yet, maybe you have to lose something before you can feel its worth.

February 27, 2011

abuse, blood, bright, caretaker, childhood, dark, energies, good, keeper, life, love, monster, passions, self, self-love, steals, worth
My next move.

As I walked along these past six years, I only ever had two choices, not three, not four but two, and I could only carry forward one.

Just one, not two, only one!

Two would have grown me into a multi personality.

There would have been two aspects of me, two types of me, two sides of me, a multiple me.

Each side leading totally different lives sailing between and over boundaries like mixing colored water from glass to glass, until I would have been colored murky, muddy undetectable, where you would not know who is the real me.

This murky colored water is where I believe I sorted myself out from, I had to re-visit each relationship and see who the real me was.

To see where I moved from glass to glass not paying attention to how it colored me.

In each glass I had to see what it required of me to swim there, what side of me shone in that space and what side of me lay in the dark?

It was literally like running around holding up the old side and the reality side looking for a match, seeing what had integrity that could stand test of truth.

Time and time again, I was surprised and horrified that most of my life was for the darker side, the side of me that came forth from abuse.

There was very little in my world that was the real deal.

Those things left standing are few but precious.

And it is my belief I will grow from here, gain from here, thrive from here, for I was dying in the murky darkness, unable to know me, find me, see me, be me.

This personal that lived in the murkiness shone in other’s lives and dimmed in my own.

Now I am a like a dim light bulb, a faint teeny glow to them, but very colorful and bright inside.

I see my daughter heading into the murky waters, trying to blend herself in both glasses, trying to appease the truth and the dark, the love and the fear, I see how I lost myself as I watch her go.

What do I say? Do I tell her to stay out of our glass so she is not confused, so she is just one way to her self?

What did I need to hear back then?

What was the key that would have stopped me from losing myself in both worlds?

Is there a shorter path than what I took?

A less painful one?

As she loses her self in like/love she doesn’t see the murky waters swallowing her like quick sand…

But I do. I see her going in where I just left.

What I find deeply disturbing about all of this, is that while my mother didn’t seem me slip into the quick sand I do, I see her going deeper and deeper. It seems unfair for me to watch this play out.

To see the innocence blend with deceit, lies, until all that is left standing is this murky sense of self, this dim light.

Why do I need to see this?

What is my lesson yet again?

To see the power and the lack of control, the submissiveness, the equal partnership between abuser and abusee?

Is it more right to see two folks dancing in the quagmire?

Will they save themselves while tossing more dirt upon each other?

Who will save them from themselves?

It seems in my murkiness, one day I saw the whole scene, the whole dreadful scene of filth and dirt, the lies and the deceit, is that what flips you out?

Do you have to go in and swim, taste and feel the darkness; you can’t know it from the shore?

It is like just curing yourself from cancer and turning around and seeing all you tossed off has landed on your child.

I am just not sure what my next move is.

“When in doubt, don’t.” Don’t move, don’t speak, don’t act. Just don’t.
Again, great Universe this is up to you…let me know my next move.

January 28, 2011

blending, changes, denial, legacy, lies, life, losing, of dysfunction, pleasing others, power, quagmire, self, sorting, worth
A Man abusing a woman.

I have such great admiration for the choreography of the Universe, how it manages to give to you the right and perfect set up to heal your wounded self.

In my quest for wholeness, the main theme has been feeling and seeing. As a child of abuse, I had separated myself from my body, and what I need most is to bring up those emotions, to feel them and greet them with understanding, and they recede on their own, once I ‘get it’.

The message.

What I was able to feel and see is beyond what I can hope to put into words.

It gave to me the access of feelings that I feared I had lost.

It brought forth a visual so brightly displayed for me to witness the dance of luring and grooming of an innocent girl.

Delivering to me, the need of the perpetrator over shining the care this innocence needed.

Showing how innocence the friendship begins and its ultimate conclusion, where the courtship is long and subtle, their needs small at first and how they build, how we start simple and grow into a complex adult scenario long before our time.

How we are changed slowly and you don’t see yourself change, how you gradually succumb to the tiny wishes, one at a time, trusting and going along, until one day you wake up and your no longer there, in its place is another woman.

It showed me how a mother should respond and how a mother did respond.

My daughter found herself in a relationship with a married man, the man she was babysitting for, a man whose children she cared for, tended to like a second mother for many years, since the time she was just a girl herself. To see her in the role of being the other woman, to see her self so changed, broke my heart.
To see her lost of her inner self worth shattering.

The overall picture of seeing my young and innocent daughter being courted by such a knowing man, brought me back to the way my abuse played out for me, but with a different ending.

The dual lesson that my daughter and I danced through leaves me breathless and to feel past overlapping onto the present, the weight of the legacy and it’s vine stretching into the next generation and feeling and seeing my abuse from all angles left my mind whirling.

I had to first feel the devastation as a mother seeing my innocent daughter in a friendship with a man who single-handedly soiled her fine reputation, without blinking an eye.

To feel my worthlessness in undoing what was already done.

To then see the dance and the lure and the friendship and its ‘friendly like’ image have such a dirty ugly affect on the girl, left me shattered and broken as I clearly saw what she failed to see.

And to be the one to shatter her dreams and love and to flood him in a new light, but then to also put the image on to her self and to see what she ‘allowed’ her self to be. By showing her what the other woman does.

I was able to see what my mother couldn’t see.
I was able to do what my mother couldn’t do.
We both, my daughter and I, were able to stand taller and stronger in truth, than either of would be able to do in lies.

It was an incredible and heart breaking 24 hours.
My daughter feels she carries the shame of being the other woman, I feel she carries the experience of being abused.

I can see how we carry forth from abuse, that we were at fault, that we allowed it, we dance too, but there usually is One with more power, more experience, more everything, that leads the dance to lowering our self worth in their blind desire for their needs being fulfilled.

The fail to see how it affects us.

My daughter’s reputation was damaged while his remained unchanged.

She approached the friendship as innocent.
A young girl who didn’t realize when you knowingly do what you feel is wrong but do it anyway, you are giving away your self worth.

We do it for many reasons, to be liked, to please, to get attention, to feel good, and what we all fail to realize, is this feeling is fleeting, it is like a drug, we are forever needing more.

A habit of pleasing another for our high of feeling good, while our sense of self gets depleted.

The subtle disappearing self in the dance of friendship that has a greedy needy thirst on one side and the other willingly feeding the supply is a train wreck waiting to happen.

How grateful am I, that my daughter was able to see and feel her sense of self being lowered, being changed, how she became a stranger to herself.

Yet when this happens as child, we don’t even have a self established to see disappear, it is gone before we knew it.

The lessons I was able to experience while she experienced it first hand is like a mirror image of me as a child.

I can see how my mother’s reaction affected how I was unable to see myself. For my mother’s affection and allegiance was to my father. She didn’t see my change within; she didn’t see my self worth leave.

I can see how my husband reacted, how she had a loving space to show her the difference between what is a loving friendship and what lowers you.

There are a million ways this has opened my eyes and hers, how it shows us both, our own boundaries of self love matter most before any request outside.
Some may see her as the other woman and call her awful names, judge and criticize her actions, view her as the home wrecker etc. I will see her as a victim of
Abuse.

Her babysitting children’s father took advantage of her.

The lack of self worth on his part lent itself to overstep his boundaries. He took liberties that were not his to take.

He tried to make an adult friendship and press it further with someone who was way out of his league.

Her innocence was no equal match for him. It was like taking candy from a baby.

I will see his strengths and her blindness and trust, see her having to lower who she was to become his friend.

Friendships like that we don’t need.

Friendship and love will raise you up, not lower you down.

What a great lesson to learn as such a young age.

The reason I was having such a hard time seeing her as the ‘other woman’ was that she was just a girl.

An innocent girl being swept away in an adult world of lies and secrets, of being chosen for the role of ‘other woman’.

It wasn’t that she auditioned for the part, that she was out seeking this; it came in while she was babysitting.

The contrast to the label he put on her back and the girl who sleeps on the top bunk in our home is a world apart.

They don’t even come close to matching.

Imagine, she still shares a room with her sisters.

She occupies the top bunk. How can the other woman be the girl who sleeps on the top bunk?

I feel so fortunate that we have her on the top bunk to have her in our home, to have this wonderful loving, kind and gentle girl in our home.

What a close call.

She now knows that when a ‘friendship’ lowers who you are, it isn’t a friendship, you are being abused.

It is not the other woman on my top bunk, it is my little girl.

My little wounded girl, who we will love back to her bright sunshiny self.

We will love her as we always have, for this family didn’t believe, was shocked to the core that our innocent girl was put in the role of ‘other woman’.

It is abuse, no matter the age.
A man abusing a woman.

January 19, 2011

abuse, child, courtship, friendship, girl, innocent, lure, Man, self, woman, worth
Felt Its Worth

Before beginning yoga today, I cleaned the mirror I stand in front of, it was layered with weeks of dust, and I appeared fog like behind it. Today I felt the need to wipe it free, as I did so the line from a song arose in my head, “I can see clearly now the pain is gone…”

Then into yoga I went.

I was on the third part of the Awkward pose, where I go from standing up to squatting down, and Bikram asks us to descend slowly, and I lost my control and fell into a squat and smiled as I did so.

This smile took up my whole face, my cheeks, my eyes and my mouth rose into a delightful bend, and inside I felt its wonderful wave of joy.

I smiled at my rendition of his yoga; I smiled at me and the transformation of my face and received fully my smile about me.

A smile about me isn’t something I have any memory of ever receiving.

I was shocked first at the way this smile changed my look, and even more stunned to receive its full value inside.

To feel myself worthy of a full-blown smile.

I froze for a half of second to feel such sheer delight inside myself.

My smile quickly disappeared and I struggled to smile while tears of sorrow dampened my face.

Imprinted in my minds eye is my smiling feeling being over swept by sadness as memories flung themselves upon me, one on top of the other.

A 50 year long life review flashed before my eyes, all the places where I mistook myself for being bad, wrong, and despicable, how I had not seen my own worth or how I had lost sight of myself inside myself.

The simple fact that I was unworthy of a smile from me about me is so harsh and tragic; yet it was never my smile I sought. I didn’t even know I was missing my smile for me.

The mouth I tried to change was my mother’s.

Before putting my words to paper, I spoke to my brother and then did some mindless cleaning, and it came to me what love I had for my mother.

I literally gave my soul, my insides away in order to bring a smile to her face and to keep it there.

How tragic that she wanted my smile more than she wanted my tears and my sorrows, and even more dreadful for a little girl to be left with such sorrow inside, such darkness.

In denying my abuse, she left me in the dark.

It is funny in a sad way, how I wanted her to have a smile, more than me.

I could cry a river of tears for the little girl who wasn’t allowed to feel her sorrow out loud, to be heard and valued as abused.

Valued as abused and not having to hide this fact.

I can see I took up my mother’s view of me.

My mouth and facial images reflected hers in my mirror and even more tragically inside.

Inside I knew my mother blamed me.

I took away her sunshine, I stole her lovely story, I was darker than the darkness that abused me.

I changed her smiling face to anger.

And it was my job now to put her smile back.

And I tried and danced, and pranced and worked and slaved and toiled to bring it back, and to keep it in place.

When I was tired of holding up those cheeks, when I simply didn’t have anymore to give, or when I tried to tend to myself, I heard her angry response, “How dare you Beth Ann…” and up I got and began dancing again.

Six years ago all my dancing for her was over, done, finished, the end.

I stopped where I stood and in the middle of the darkness began to see what I did for me and what I did for others.

Life offered up to me a million situations for me to choose again, their pleasure or mine, their smile or mine, their feelings or mine.

Each and every time I found the strength to disappoint my mother and chose me; I opened up inside, made room for that smile.

Today, I feel that I have made it to the other side, to the side of worthiness, or at least I have felt the wave of joy lap at my feet, I feel that I am worthy to now frolic in the ocean and swim to its depths.

I look forward to seeing another one come out of me and shine upon me and for me to welcome it in!

I have been waiting in vain for her to arrive and tell me that I am a good girl, that I am of value, and that the abuse didn’t change who I am, in her eyes.

I wanted her to smile that it was okay that I was abused, it didn’t matter to her, and she loved me any way.

Again, the smile I sought was hers and the one I found was mine.

What I love is that the first smile I was able to receive was mine!

A smile in full acceptance of all of me, the darkest dark and the brightest bright.

I smiled at me and felt Its worth.

January 16, 2011

abuse, adults, and, bikram yoga, changes, children, inside, knowing, outside, self, smile, soul, unworthiness, view, worth, worthiness
In My Mother’s Eyes

Being in this moment of time and healing my childhood wounds requires me to make changes now what I was incapable of doing back then.

It is like living in two places at once, or being a grown woman and a little girl at the same time, my past is brought to the present to be healed or the presence goes back to the past to feel, heal and deal.

What I failed to understand about the term, “healing your childhood wounds”, was that you literally are bringing forward the stuck emotions.

Meaning you are made to revisit emotions that are stuck on, or places you are stuck and not free.

Where you carry fear that is unreasonable as a mature woman.

It is incredible to be a big lady in her own home, feeling feelings of being a ‘bad’ little girl, disappointing or displeasing, hurting her mother.

How I don’t have this right. This option is not available.

How the fear of her reaction seems to overshadow my independence and freedom.

Yet, if I capitulated to the fears, I get stuck in the place emotionally being afraid of my mother’s reaction.

It is her reaction that I fear.

This is a very strong iron clad idea that I am not to upset my mother’s world, but what I also didn’t want to see is her reaction.

It is twofold.

That there is an unspoken rule, “thou shall not displease thy mother, for there will be a consequence IF you do.”

It is perhaps the consequence… of what will happen or what do I not want to know?

There seems to be more than just fear of her reacting badly, but rather seeing what’s beneath.

In a dysfunctional home, I bet we know that the depth of love for us is very shallow, that we can’t push them very far and we will fall off the ledge of love.

For in a dysfunctional home, the love of child seems to be last, the very last, in the furthest reaches, out beyond selfish needs, addictions and desires, and what we don’t want to know for sure is that this is true.

That it is true we are barely seen.

That we come behind a long list of things that matter more, that even with all the physical evidence to the contrary, we just don’t want to know, our well being comes second, third, or tenth on the list.

Speaking up, making my wishes known, is to go against our usual dance.

I am putting down my co-dependent wand.

My greatest fear is that when I stand and offer to her that my well-being come before hers, that I will be seen as useless to her.

That my value drops to zero.

In My Mother’s eyes.

December 1, 2010

abuse, child, daughter, Dysfunctional, mother, self, value, worth