IMPERFECT Lady

Behaviors will change.

In listening to a podcast, I heard a new way to look at changing behaviors that are not good for us.

The idea is, that we are triggered, we behave and then we reap the reward.

What was different this time, was the content of the reward - "Feeling Bad".

If you sit with that awhile, you will see how your behaviors often leave you feeling bad; compared to feeling healthy, excited, accomplished etc.

When I overeat on sweets, my reward isn't that I feel great.

Not like I do when I ride my bike for an hour, or hike in the woods, or kayak etc.

Somehow, I strive or seek to feel bad.

Was, or is, this my neutral state?

Is this where I like to settle back into?

Is it my home state?

My triggers to eat are often boredom, or even the need to give myself a sweet treat; which really is a dose of feeling bad.

While we may think, our minds are the ones who are controlling our habits, it may be more our feelings.

We long to feel a certain way.

I wonder how much of other behaviors leave me feeling poorly?

In the podcast, they suggested to eat with awareness, not control.  To eat cupcakes until you feel the feeling of feeling bad.  Our minds may need the experience to stop the behavior.

The distance I often feel between the taste of sweets and the sluggish feelings, leaves me not believing that the thing I ate a half hour or so ago, IS the cause of me feeling lazy.

This is one area that needs my attention. I am getting better at moving and I enjoy it.  I enjoy it while doing it and after.

With Sweets, I enjoy the eating part, but not the after.

As, I am sure it is with any addiction.

While consuming it feels fine; but the end results are not.

My goal will be to find ways that I can feel good during the whole process.

Perhaps controlling our feelings will change the way we behave.

When we focus on the triggers or the behaviors, we neglect our feelings.  

I even wonder if I had eaten poorly to mask the underlying feelings?

And, that just became a habit.

Now I need to focus on how I feel, and from there my behaviors will change.

 

The Landscape Within

From "A Mind At Home With Itself"

Question asked of Byron Katie; and her response.

"Mind is everything; mind is good," you say. Are you talking about awareness? Why do you use the word mind here? Why don't you ever use words like soul or spirit?"

"What is there to be aware of other than mind? So mind aware of itself is awareness. And when mind is aware of itself, it realizes that not only is it not personal, it doesn't even exist; its an illusion. Prior to "I" there was nothing.  The "I" comes second, out of the nameless first. The apparent mind that questions itself begins to understand where it comes from, which is pure love, or lack for a better word. So if it's not the song of love it's a distortion of the nature it was born out of."

As for words like soul or spirit, I don't use them because I don't know what they mean."

 

Her comment that she didn't know what spirit and soul meant, brought me up short. 

What do they mean?

What is my experience of them?

Where are they found?

What do they look like?

Feel like?

Compared to the engagement we have with our minds; how often are we in conversation with our souls? Can we do that?  What I have called my innocence - was that the soul?

Is the spirit equal to the awareness - are they interchangeable?

Is the soul who we were prior to obtaining a body and is that where we return?

Are Spirit and Soul words from religion?  Do we use them outside of what we call a spiritual experience?

Can we dialogue with them like we can with the mind.

If awareness can question the mind, can awareness question the soul?

This is all very intriguing to me.

 

She was also asked, "You say that the mind can never be controlled. But sometimes you say that mind is everything. Is the first mind the ego and the second mind awareness?"

"Yes, "Awareness" is a way of saying that the ego is perfectly understood. Awareness is never tricked by what the ego thinks. It always knows the difference between what is and what isn't."

I love that awareness is never tricked by what the ego thinks.  I agree.  In my experience, my greatest resting spot has been with awareness. I feel completely trusting in it. It is what I have called truth or reality. Awareness is.

 

And, this question.

"If someone asked you Subhuti's question - "How should people control their minds? - what would you say?"

"First, I would invite them to be aware of their stressful feelings.  A feeling is like the mate to a thought appearing.  They're like the left and the right. If you have a thought, there's a simultaneous feeling.  And an uncomfortable feeling is like an alarm clock that says, "You're caught in the dream." It's time to inquire, that's all. But if we don't honor the alarm clock, then we try and alter and manipulate the feeling by reaching into an apparent external world. We're usually aware of the feeling first. That's why I say it's an alarm clock that lets you know you're stuck in a thought you may want to investigate.  If it's causing you any kind of discomfort, you might want to inquire and do The Work."

 

There is a direct correlation between our feelings and our thoughts.  Oddly, we often think we can just think differently, without actually doing the investigation of whether a thought is true or not.

It is very interesting that our untrue thoughts can prompt feelings.

What I have noticed in my own life, is that I don't like the way stressful thoughts feel in my body.

I have learned how to reduce and eliminate stress by questioning the thoughts and not trying to subdue them or override them with a different thought.

There is integrity of a thought that has to be explored.

Is it it true for Me?

What I had found in questioning stressful thoughts, is that it is most often a struggle between what I want and what others are free to do.

Mostly, I would say, we want to control others, more than our thoughts.

When you literally give others their freedom, you actually gain peace.

This book and her experiences may be very confusing and challenge many beliefs and thoughts we have been taught about our self, life and our minds. Yet, what she says rings true. 

When I first read her books, I was relieved and anxious at the same time. It felt like I was cheating on my beliefs and thoughts I had about being in the world. 

She, however, was the first one who brought great relief to me, when my world tipped upside down. She agreed with what I had to accept. She didn't try to change it or me.

She was the awareness I needed to see what was.

She says, that inquiry arose in her.

The ability to question our thoughts.

It awoke in me too.

I don't recall prior to 46 years old ever being able to fully see the mind.

A mind without awareness is scary to me. She says, that only a confused mind hurts others.  I agree. 

The first book I read from her was, "Loving What Is."

As I sit here pondering how my life has been changed by awareness; I can't say the same for soul and spirit.  I just might have to agree; that I don't know what they mean.

My experience of them has been thoughts.

Whereas awareness has felt like a presence, a wisdom or knowing.

How interesting to ponder the landscape within.

 

 

Who you are

"Every no I say is a yes to myself. It feels right to me. People don't have to guess what I want or don't want, and I don't need to pretend. When you're honest about our yeses and noes, it's easy to live a kind life. People come and go in my life when I tell the truth, and they would come and go if I didn't tell the truth. I have nothing to gain one way, and everything to gain the other way. I don't leave myself guessing or guilty."

"If a man wants to have sex with me, for example, I don't have to decide about my answer. I'm married and monogamous; my "No" pops out with a smile. I'm actually giving the man the greatest gift I can give: my truth. You can see that as a boundary, but if a boundary is a limitation, a contradiction, that's not how it feels to me. I see it as integrity. It's not something I establish; it's something that has already been established for me. Saying no isn't an act of selfishness; it's an act of generosity, both to myself and to the apparent other."

Byron Katie - from her new book "A Mind At Home With Itself

 

One of the greatest pieces of wisdom I heard from Byron Katie was that my No to you is a Yes to me.  

It feels so kind to me.

I love that I have the ability to say No.

It hasn't always been in my vocabulary.

 

The reason it wasn't in my vocabulary, was because I wasn't in my life.

Or, more true, the truth wasn't part of my life.

 

My ability to say yes OR no, is my greatest gift I have given myself.

I do not pretend.

For it would be a pretend Me.

I don't like how that feels inside of me.

Dishonest to me.

I can say yes to the hardest things and in doing so have created a self of integrity and it feels so good. For sure not limiting; but endlessly expanding.

What some see as boundaries are really self honoring or self defining moments.

I have said, and I still believe, that the opposite of being a victim or being abused etc, is the ability to say NO...to have the choice.

When we are in a relationship, where you can't say No, it isn't a healthy relationship.

The greatest gift we can give another is their ability to be authentic.

I love when my granddaughter says, "I don't want it".

It is her truth.

I honor it.

I don't try and change her mind. 

She is defining who she is.

The boundaries some see against them, are actually the defining boundaries of who we are.

Who you are is made clear by what you say yes to or perhaps your inability to say no.

My noes didn't create a contracting life; but they opened up the infinite possibilities of being me. I love my noes as much as I love my yeses. For they are all yes to me!

My noes are much more self-defining and feel extremely self-loving.

And, free.

I am able to freely express myself as myself.

The noes do create the outline of who you are.

 

 

 

Self Wisdom

"Curiosity and Complaining are two fundamentally different postures."

"The problem with complaining, is complaining is energy spent, that you could have spent asking questions.

The problem with blaming other people and blaming them two months later, and two years later, is that Blaming takes energy. Blaming takes energy and its energy that you could spend asking questions.

What did I Learn? What will I do differently. How will I recognize it the next time it comes around?

Needy, draining people, rarely have questions.  Because if you have questions and you're curious, then you have entered into the accumulation of wisdom, and you probably won't be as needy and draining as you used to be." Rob Bell

 

What I love about this idea, is that it truly flips around your focus from the outside back to you.

And, it is so empowering.

I know, that when I was able to ask myself, for example - "Why am I waiting on a call from someone who doesn't call?" It freed me to no longer wait.  I wasn't complaining about why they didn't call, I was more looking at why I was waiting.

Asking questions of yourself is so liberating and you get to know who you are and why you do what you do.

It leaves others doing their own business and you are too busy asking questions to complain.

I have found, that most often complaining is wishing others would do something. Being curious about our relationships is so enthralling. It brings you to the present of how the relationship is. Which, I guess is why most don't ask. They truly don't want to know if and when a relationship is over.

For most often, when you stop complaining and start asking questions, the relationship ends. But, it was most likely over a long time ago.  You are just now catching on.

Curiosity doesn't try and make things how you would like them; but rather how it is.  You may lose family and friends when you become curious.

Curiosity is looking for what is.

It is a reality seeker.

Or, perhaps curiosity only works if you are interested in seeking the truth, authenticity and reality. 

Otherwise, complaining keeps you engage in something that is no longer working.

You are connected, but complaining about it.

I have very little to complain about. If anything.

If there is a complaint, that means I have to research what I am doing and why?

In moments where complaints seem appropriate, most often, there is an imbalance. 

Some imbalances are okay short term.  But, if they go on too long, 'something' needs to change.

Either the way you think about it or literally doing something different.

Complainers really are energy suckers.  And, they appear unwilling to change their life situations and feel that complaining is doing something - I guess.

Complaining is a waste of time - it doesn't spark the creative energies of change.

It doesn't change you and it certainly doesn't change someone else.

You can ask for what you need. You might get it.

But, I am more curious as to why you don't move, change, begin, etc.

I see complainers as standing in one place "hoping" things will change.

Life passes you by as you complain in hope.

There truly is wisdom when you begin to question. Often that wisdom is not welcome.

We don't want to know know know, that our sister doesn't care.

Nor do we want to know how we settle for so little.

A crumb; now and again.

More often, we don't know who to create a relationship that has mutual respect and the pendulum swings from giving and receiving.

Question asking brings awareness.

This awareness often feels sad and hopeless.

But, it is only the state of the relationship you may have with yourself.

You are not asking for more.

I didn't get more from my family of origin.

I got more from myself.

With that, came boundaries and expectations for me.

I began creating an authentic relationship with myself.

The freedom I have to be me, say what I need to say, do what I need to do, and allows others to do the same.

I no longer wait for a phone call that didn't want to be made.

Nor, do I wait for a caring mother.

I mothered Me.

If you haven't questioned yourself or are curious as to why you do what you do, I highly suggest trying.

Curiosity truly is the entrance to self wisdom.

S

 

 

 

One by One

Below is a link to a podcast about a Laestadian woman's experience leaving her childhood religion and how abuse was weaved in.  Here is the link to the site.

https://www.culturechatpodcast.com/helenalucia/

It is always helpful to hear another person echo your experience. While the First Apostolic Lutheran Church isn't the same one she was raised in, they are quite similar.

She makes reference between the affects from being raised in these type churches AND being abused, that both leave you with a damaged psyche.

So, you are already damaged, and then abused.

This is what I believe as well.  It makes the most sense in how so many will not report or leave relationships after abuse.  They are not with healthy boundaries prior to the sexual and or physical abuse.

It does take a great effort to right your upside down psyche, and to leave family and the close knit circles.

I love too, how she says that those who leave are worse than the worldly folk. We are evil.

Thanks Helena for sharing your story.  Little by little we will poke holes in the fabric of what is presented to the public, as religions and families of high morals and values.

Today, and actually for the past few weeks, I have been wondering what is my purpose, what would be the story I need to tell?  What has my experience been for?  

Listening to her talk has shown me that it is important to tell a story different from the ones that so many families want to keep front and center.

The narrative that doesn't have abuse, or ill effects from being raised where you believe your core center is sin. Where you have been controlled by fear and guilt.  There are serious negative outcomes from these religions. 

When the voices are silent, only one voice is heard. The narrative that is minus abuse.

We need to keep breaking the silence; one by one.

 

 

 

 

 

The Body Keeps Score

"The Body Keeps Score" by Bessel Van Der Kolk M.D. is the most comprehensive book I have read about the affects of childhood trauma on our lives.  And, how the medical community is in the learning stages of how to effectively deal with adult children of abuse.

I am listening to this book, but ordered the hard copy to use as a reference.

Here is about the brain and trauma...  This is long but so insightful as to what happens in the brain.

"SHIFTING TO ONE SIDE OF THE BRAIN"

The scans also revealed that during flashbacks, our subjects' brains lit up only on the right side. Today there's a huge body of scientific and popular literature about the difference between the right and left brain. Back in the early nineties I had heard that some people had begun to divide the world between left-brainers (rational, logical people) and right-brainers (the intuitive, artistic ones), but I hadn't paid much attention to this idea.  However, our scans clearly showed that images of past trauma activate the right hemisphere of the brain and deactivate the left."

"We now know that the two halves of the brain do speak different languages. The right is intuitive, emotional, visual, spatial, and tactual, and the left is linguistic, sequential and analytical. While the left half o the brain does all the talking, the right half of the brain carries the music of the experience.  It communicates through facial expressions and body language and by making sounds of love and sorrow: by singing, swearing, crying, dancing, or mimicking. The right brain is the first to develop in the womb, and it carries nonverbal communication between mother and infants. We know the left hemisphere has come online when children start to understand language and learn how to speak. this enables them to name things, compare them, understand their interrelations, and begin to communicate their own unique, subjective experiences to others."

"The left and right sids of the brain also process the imprints of the past in dramatically different ways. The left brain remembers facts, statistics, and vocabulary of events. We call on it to explain our experiences and put them in order. The right brain stores memories of sound, touch, smell, and the emotions they evoke. It reacts automatically to voices, facial features, and gestures and places experienced in the past. What it recalls feels like intuitive truth - the way things are. Even as we enumerate a loved ones virtues to a friend, our feelings may be more deeply stirred by how her face recalls the aunt we loved at age four."

"Under ordinary circumstances the two sides of the brain work together more or less smoothly, even in people who might be said to favor one side over the other. However, having one side or the other shut down, even temporarily, or having one side cut off entirely (as sometimes happened in early brain surgery) is disabling."

Deactivation of the left hemisphere has a direct impact on the capacity to organize experience into logical sequences and to translate our shifting feelings and perceptions into words. Without sequencing we can't identify cause and effect, grasp the long-rem effects of our actions, or create coherent plans for the future. People who are very upset sometimes say they are "losing their minds." In technical terms they are experiencing the loss of the executive functioning."

"When something reminds traumatized people of the past, their right brain reacts as if the traumatic event were happening in the present. But because their left brain is not working very well, they may not be aware that they are reexperiencing and reenacting the past - they are just furious, terrified, enraged, ashamed, or frozen.  After the emotional storm passes, they may look for something or somebody to blame for it. They behaved the way they did because you were ten minutes late, or because you burned the potatoes, or because you "never listens to me." Of course, most of us have done this from time to time, but when we cool down, we hopefully can admit our mistake. Trauma interferes with this kind of awareness, and over time our research demonstrated why."

"STUCK IN FLIGHT OR FIGHT"

"What happened to Marsha in the scanner gradually started to make sense. Thirteen years after her tragedy we had activated the sensations - the sounds and images from the accident - that were still stored in her memory. When these sensations came to the surface, they activated her alarm system, which caused her to react as if she were back in the hospital being told that her daughter had died. The passage of thirteen years was erased. Her sharply increased heart rate and blood pressure reading reflected her physiological state of frantic alarm."

"Adrenaline is one of the hormones that are critical to help us fight back or flee in the face of danger. Increased adrenaline was responsible for our participants' dramatic rise in heart rate and blood pressure while listening to their trauma narrative. Under normal conditions people react to a threat with a temporary increase in their stress hormones. As soon as the threat is over, the hormones dissipate and the body returns to normal. The stress hormones of traumatized people, in contrast, takes much longer to return to baseline, and spike quickly and disproportionately in response to mildly stressful stimuli. The insidious effects of constantly elevated stress hormones include memory and attention problems, irritability, and sleep disorders. They also contribute to many long-term healthy issues, depending on which body system is most vulnerable in a particular individual."

"We now know that there is another possible response to threat, which our scans are't capable of measuring. Some people simply go into denial. Their bodies register threat, but their conscious minds go on as if nothing has happened. However, even though the mind may learn to ignore the messages from the emotional brain, the alarm system signals don't stop. The emotional brain keeps working, and stress hormones keep sending signals to the muscles to tense for action or immobilize and collapse. The physical effects on the organs go on unabated until they demand notice when they are expressed as illness. Medications, drugs, and alcohol can also temporarily dull or obliterate unbearable sensations and feelings. But the body continues to keep score...."

He goes on to say further on:

"For a hundred years or more, every textbook of psychology and psychotherapy has advised that some method of taking about distressful feelings can resolve them. However, as we've seen, the experience of trauma itself gets in the way of doing that. No matter how much insight and understand we develop, the rational brain is impotent to talk the emotional brain out of its own reality. I am continually impressed by how difficult it is for people who have gone through the unspeakable to convey the essence of their experience. It is so much easier to talk about what has been done to them, to tell a story of victimization and revenge - than to notice, feel, and put into words the reality of their internal experience."

"Our scans reveal how their dread persisted and could be triggered by multiple aspects of daily experience. They had not integrated their experience into the ongoing stream of their life. They continued to be "there" and did not know how to be "here" - fully alive in the present." Bessel

 

What we call mental illness, often is the affects of living through a traumatic childhood.  Our brains are literally affected - while our bodies truly keep score.

I highly suggest listening to this book, if you want to understand your own traumatization or that of someone you love.  This book makes complete sense to me and how inept our medical system is to help us navigate through our affects of early childhood trauma! 

Often the diagnosis isn't childhood trauma, but the effects of it.  

How our body responds and not the cause of it.  We often treat the symptoms but not the cause. And, how do we treat childhood trauma, compared to how we treat depression???

I love this book on so many levels!

Incredible information - The Body Keeps Score! What an amazing human body we live in!

 

I disagree

Kindness can often mean "Excessive Tolerance" - Danielle La Porte

I love this.

I have felt that I am asked to be tolerant, more than being kind.

Tolerant of behaviors that are hurtful or unkind.

When does one get to decide their own level of tolerance?

Is kindness truly being excessively tolerant?

I have felt that I am unkind, due to my lower levels of tolerance. 

I had to look up the definition of Tolerance.

the ability or willingness to tolerate something, in particular the existence of opinions or behavior that one does not necessarily agree with.

This is why I sometimes struggle with 'kindness'.

 

We are asked to ignore the behavior and "be kind", regardless whether we agree with it or not. 

It has always seemed like a victim stance to me. 

A powerless place to be in.

Being kind can often mean excessive tolerance with bad behavior.

How can we maintain our own integrity and not tolerate something we do not agree with AND, still be kind?

What is kind to poor behavior?

Or, what is healthy and respectful to you?

And even respectful to the one who is doing something wrong?

Is it kind to ignore bad behavior?

Is our kindness dependent upon our tolerance?

If this is so, I am not very kind.

I have a very low tolerance for agreeing with something I disagree with.

 

A few days ago, I had someone comment on one of my blog posts...and wanted to chat via email; but remain anonymous.  My disagreement to chatting with a faceless, nameless person was seen as me having "negative assumptions".

Really?

They wanted to place responsibility of our 'lack of communication' on me. 

I am the problem, cause I didn't agree with them being faceless; I am unkind.

In my world, I get to decide who and how I communicate.

I may be seen as unkind, but it isn't kind to me to agree when I disagree.

Love and truth are one.

Martha Beck wrote about honesty check-ins.  Where you set a timer and when the buzzer rings throughout your day, you see if what you are doing is in agreement with your truth.

"At your first few honesty check-ins, you may notice nothing at all. Or you may feel only a twitch of nerves, a wisp of sadness. Ask yourself, What could this sensation be trying to tell me? If no answer arises, that's okay. Just write "I don't know," set the timer again, and repeat.  Your truth is like a wild animal; if it's been attacked or suppressed, it may take some time to show itself. Be gentle. With time and repetition, you'll eventually connect."

"When a new truth comes up, it may be a simple yes or no, or a flood of realizations: Maybe you don't want to say no to your mother for fear of losing her love. Or you hate business trips (that's why you always get migraines on planes!) Or you're dying to be outdoors, not cooped up inside. Write down everything without judgement.  If your smack-dab in pure authenticity, write about the joy.  If you've been lying until your pants burst into flames, write about the misery and anger."

"An honesty day is a hero's saga. With each check-in, you'll come closer to your real moment-to-moment truth. As the Good Book says, that alone is enough to set you free. Over time, when you become more aware of the ways you deceive yourself, you may begin making subtle (or not so subtle) behavior shifts. You may choose authenticity more often. Obligations may become unbearable. Unwanted relationships will wither; better ones will blossom."

"This is addictive stuff. My own honesty day led to another, then a week, a year, and then an indefinite commitment. Take it from me: You're about to change your life. The more honest you are, the more you'll find yourself doing what you love, with people you love, in places you love.  You'll realize that nothing really true is unloving, and nothing unloving is ever really true. That wild creature, your true self, will come to meet you, then guide you home, one day at a time. Honestly."  Martha

 

What I LOVE about this concept is this one line. "That nothing really true is unloving!"

And, she is so right. The more truthful I became in my life, the more there was to love about it. 

If you are not loving your life, there is a real good chance you are not being your honest self as you respond to life. 

I will try and make checks today, to see what I am doing and how I feel about it.

I don't like how I feel when I am doing something I don't want to do.  There truly is a huge difference between what I love and what I don't love.

My body feels completely different.  

Between light and excitement and weight and dread.

What is true for you, is loving.

And, "nothing unloving is ever really true".

You simply can't love yourself if you are unable to be true.

Love and truth are one.

 

Joy is Living!

While listening to a podcast, "Finding Mastery: Conversations with Michael Gervais" as he spoke to Chade-Meng Tan on Joy... they spoke about thin slices we can experience during the day.

His one example, was when your throat is dry and you take a sip of water, feel that!

I do this on my first few sips of Tea!  

Joy

We often think it has to be big grand and expensive; that we have to travel far and strange and do adventurous things.  But, you literally can feel joy, crawling into bed after a full day and laying your head on your pillow.

Or, the taste of chocolate, the sound of birds singing, the color as you paint a gourd!

Watching for tiny slices of joy will increase joy in your world.

One other thing that caught my attention was when they were speaking of peace.

How, when we are craving or desiring something, it steals our peace, because we can't be at peace until we have it.  Whatever IT is.

Mine are simple cravings. Sweets.  I am fine if they are at hand, but not so fine when they are not.  Mostly, it would be thinking of what you 'should' have; but don't.

It is the absence of wanting, where peace is found.

Another thing that I am learning is how self care means taking time out for your self.

What I am finding, is that the more there is to do, the more 'needs' there are, the less I take care of me.  Which is the opposite of what needs to happen.  In the midst of busyness, is where I need my space the most.

A recharge.

A retreat.

Ask for a timeout!

As a busy mom, I rarely stepped out of being a mom and did something just for me.

Now, as a busy working, mom, grandma, I am finding it still applies.

Solo time, is key for me to stay in balance.

Sometimes we need to make waves in order to maintain balance and love, peace and joy in our worlds.

Joy is knowing it is up to me to design my life.

Today I will seek joy in simple things and see how many slices I find!

Slices of Joy is living!

 

 

 

Disconnecting

Yesterday I listened to this podcast about the value of boredom. I found it very enlightening and something I will now pay attention to.  

 

I loved how he is back to notebook and pen.  When I was at my most stressed out, I would not go anywhere without paper and pencil.  Sharpened pencils and a journal captured many years worth of releasing emotions and expressing feelings.

My job and the rural nature of my route takes me off the grid.  

I do use my phone as a listening device for podcasts and books.  I listen a lot.

I also use my phone as a camera.

What I do find though, while listening is often an emotional bubble arises. 

I am wondering now, if I am processing life moments and not letting them pile up.

I love this idea that boredom and down time have a very important role in our lives.

I am betting that while I am out in nature, this too is an opportunity for our bodies to speak to us.

Another way to listen to your life, by disconnecting.