IMPERFECT Lady

Consequences of the Choice

“Cycles exist because they are excruciating to break. It takes an astronomical amount of pain and courage to disrupt a familiar pattern. Sometimes it seems easier to just keep running in the same familiar circles - than facing the possibility of jumping -and not landing on your feet.”  It Ends With Us.  Colleen Hoover

 

"It Ends With Us" is a work of fiction based loosely on her mother's experience.  

 

When you are born into a cycle that holds abuse - and you don't change the pattern, you are bringing your children into that same cycle.  My childhood love allowed bad behaviors.

There is a point where you are given a hard choice - to do something different or just go along not making waves.

The cycle you are born into wasn't of your own making - however - when you recognize the pattern is about to be repeated with you - you decide to carry on - or to stop.

 

Stopping is not in the family's legacy in most abusive cycles.  It will require great courage to abruptly stop.

I don't think most understand what it takes to end the cycles and legacy of abuse. 

It isn't words spoken or truth exposed. 

Creating a new cycle is more about self responsibility.  To see the cycle you are part of - and your hand in it - and then determining how it will go from you.

Will your children see you repeat your mother's pattern.

 

My mother's role in the cycle of abuse, was to forgive it away - and then carry on as if the abuse WAS gone. She blindly and repeatedly forgave, again and again and again for decades.  Even IF she wasn't the one abusing, She was the one allowing it to go on - by simply not breaking the cycle of forgiveness.

 

I know forgiveness sounds kind.

Compassionate even perhaps.

 

But forgiveness without action of distancing your self and your children from an abuser, is not kind. It is to be an accomplice.

 

There was a moment in my life, where the cycle became crystal clear to me - I saw myself in the cross hairs of the truth and where my mother's reactions and mine had diverged.  

 

Something inside of me merged with the truth and I was unable or even unwilling to let it go. In that moment a new cycle began. I didn't wipe the truth away with forgiveness.

 

Her cycle overlooked the child and their wounds.

My new cycle was to see the wound and who did it - and set up boundaries.

 

It comes with a cost.

 

And a reward.

 

The cost is to be in a cycle that is different from my family of origin. Who have continued on - forgiving - showing other abusers that they have nothing to fear.  Our family cycle was to turn a blind eye to the abuse and focus instead on family.  Loving them - no matter what.  No boundaries are set against bad behaviors, criminal or otherwise.  

 

Forgiveness was how my family cleaned up its messes.

 

The cost of forgiveness is for the child to bear.  The abused child carries the weight of pain and grief.  Wrestles with holding on to love - where love is hurting.

 

A new cycle begins when you decide no more.

When you remove yourself from the flow of familiar.

 

The excruciating process is when you step out - you are stepping out of family.

Most will not clap for you and cheer you on.

It seems insane, that you will have to traverse alone out of the cycles of abuse.

 

You are going against familiar and truly not knowing if the new way will land you on your feet.  Or are you going from the frying pan to the fire.

You can't know, until you are far far into your new cycle, if you achieved your goal.

 

In reading her book, it made it clear the emotional and heart wrenching task it is to break the cycles. Which is why very few do.  It is a lonely road.  

 

Labor Day weekend has become a reunion of sorts for my family of origin. Rumor has it this year it came with the spreading of my mother's ashes.  

An ending of an era - it would seem.

 

She has left her pattern downloaded in many.

Her cycles continue on.

 

If I look at my life from the vantage point of her family - mine is desolate.

However when I see me in my new cycle - it is bountiful.

 

My children now have choices of my old cycle or my new.

It isn't up to me to choose.

 

My part was jumping - and figuring it out as I go.

Using my body, heart and soul to decide what is an environment where children will be safe. 

I have boundaries.

and love that doesn't come with pain.

 

I understand the cycle of forgiveness - for you get to keep family.

I understand the cycle of boundaries - you lose family.

But the cost of forgiveness within families where abuse happens - continues to create new victims. Sadly, in our case small children.

 

My life's work is to continue on creating a new pattern - knowing it will impact the generations after me. 

 

Each of my children also will find themselves at a cross road and will get to decide which road they take.  What their own legacy will be.  

We are all free to choose, but as they say we are not free from the consequences of the choice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Hollow Place.

Cognitive Dissonance - "Cognitive dissonance occurs when a person's behavior and beliefs do not complement each other or when they hold two contradictory beliefs. It causes a feeling of discomfort that can motivate people to try to feel better. People may do this via defense mechanisms, such as avoidance."

 

 

A friend used this term in a conversation we were having - and I had to go and look up the definition.  

"Examples of cognition include paying attention to something in the environment, learning something new, making decisions, processing language, sensing and perceiving environmental stimuli, solving problems, and using memory."

Dissonance means  - "lack of agreement. the dissonance between the truth and what people want to believe. especially : inconsistency between the beliefs one holds or between one's actions and one's beliefs compare cognitive dissonance."

 

This phrase struck a cord with me and seems to nicely encompass the land where I was raised.  

 

I was born into cognitive dissonance - where beliefs/faiths and behaviors were at odds.

Living in sea of contradictions leaves you without a solid foundation.

You build a self based on nothing.

 

The foundation of who we are lives in the connection of what we believe and how we act.  

 

What this means is integrity where our actions match who we are.

I looked up integrity to make sure.

"The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness."

 

I was raised in a church that supposedly had high moral principles and moral uprightness - same within my family.   

 

I believe - they both believed it.  

I however have come to know, they couldn't act in harmony of what they believed.

 

It is easy to believe in something.

It is much harder to walk it out.

To stand against abuse often means standing against family.  It means to hold them accountable for behaviors.  There is no 'forgiveness' that will undo certain behaviors.  

 

Being raised in the religion where 'sins' could be washed away - leaves you living in a false land.  It forces you to not see what is right before your eyes and live more in your head - in make-belief world - separated from facts.

 

I know this sounds like insanity and perhaps it is.

To be born into cognitive dissonance, left me crippled cognitively.

It was normal for things not to match.

 

I didn't doubt them or correct them.

 

This also worked for me - I could have a lazy relationship with myself and others.

I didn't hold myself accountable - or others

I didn't speak a truth or feeling or stand up.

My lack of integrity was normal coming from whence I came.

 

After leaving my family and religion, I was drawn to nature.

Nature was.

 

A tree was a tree.

A duck looked like a duck, walked like a duck and quacked.

Anytime now when things don't add up - I am pushed back from them.

 

I no longer am okay with cognitive dissonance in others.

For often the reason they don't add up is that they are unwilling to dance with the truth.

They want their cake and eat it too.

 

I understand how my family of origin wanted a family - a father and mother - and not to instead act like it was a pedophile and his accomplice.

(An accomplice is defined as a person who knowingly, voluntarily, or intentionally gives assistance to another in (or in some cases fails to prevent another from) the commission of a crime. An accomplice is criminally liable to the same extent as the principal.)

 

I feel like I am now allergic to those who live in cognitive dissonance - for there doesn't seem to be a foundation of moral strength - where they can have correct action in the face of truths that are hard to be with.

 

It is easy to be in a family where there are no hard truths to reconcile or a religion that doesn't knowingly not report abuse.   You truly can't know the foundation of someone until you are faced with ugly truths.  

 

This phrase, cognitive dissonance is the content of my upbringing - and it has colored the actions of my siblings.  It is also the reason I am not interested in having a relationship with them.  For there doesn't appear to be something to hold on to.

 

At face value, it appears to be kind to forgive and move on - but sadly you are moving on without the truth.  

After living in denial and in the land of cognitive dissonance - I am unwilling to go back there.  

Inside of me knows, back there is a hollow place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rattles Your Beliefs

"Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable." -Cesar Cruz

 

This reimagining of DaVinci's Last Supper, has hit some buttons - as great art should.

Art truly should disturb the comfortable and to comfort the disturbed.  It is there to speak in ways lots would love there to be silence.  

 

What this art form has shown most, is how narrow and judgmental some christian's beliefs are and how they are only comfortable with those 'like them'.

 

I experienced life in the narrow trenches of religion and how my own self judgment often then colored others.  I had zero tolerance, understanding or empathy for those unlike me.

When art can draw an affront - to me - it has truth woven through it.

 

If your said religion feels attacked by those - not like you - it may mean your religion isn't wide enough or open or accepting or loving or inclusive.  It may mean that there are boundaries or fences to keep "different" out.

 

Somehow what is lost is how there are billions of expressions of humanity and each are living life from their inside out.

I am always astounded when someone outside can disturb your inner faith - just by being themselves.

 

Humanity won't be healed by the exclusion of others or the fear of what seems different.

 

Great Art forms will disturb the comfortable and will show the world just who they are, and how they see this world and the human journey.

 

It is my belief, if you have a strong inner personal understanding of who you are, others on the outside can't smear it.  

 

We need more disturbing art - to create cracks in the old ways of narrow beliefs.

Faiths that can withstand art and all its expressions - is one of freedom and inclusiveness.

The Art Forms at the Olympics created a disturbance and it reached the goal it intended.

How each person views it, will also display who you are and what you believe.

While many feel art is visual - it actually speaks to your soul and rattles your beliefs.

 

A full heart.

On Father's Day it is a time for honoring those men who are great dads and for some of us this day literally catapults us back into bad memories.  

 

These holidays will automatically bring up the person in your life you called Dad.

I started calling my father by his given name, for he lost the right to the word Dad.

 

It doesn't matter that I am 65 - I watch other older folks still remembering their fathers with love, joy and wistfulness -and the little girl inside me feels its absence.

 

I think a part of me will always be sadden by the empty spot in my heart where a dad lived.

 

My memories are now so distorted and broken - false pretend dad moments.

 

When I think of his legacy and how a brother suggested to me that "Estrangement is a choice and not a life sentence", it sorta seems like I could trade him in for a new dad in my mind.

 

That you could preform some inner mental magic trick and a dad would appear where a pedophile used to be.

Blaming me for making a poor choice - and not re-writing history.

 

Inside of me the truth is resolute.

 

I know love now.

I know what a wonderful father is - and it wasn't me who created it or made that choice.

 

My husband is a loving dad.  

My children have something to celebrate on Father's Day.

When you put your children first, when you make choices based on what is best for the family, you are showing them what love does.

A father's choices are no longer his alone.  They will have a ripple effect that is felt for generations. He leaves an imprint upon their hearts. And the lucky ones feel love.

 

Intellectually I can see how my legacy could be no different.

I get it.  Patterns and cycles were repeated.  

 

Emotionally the little girl in me wishes...

 

The woman I am today - is forever grateful that the patterns changed with me.

My children will hold love in their hearts for their dad. 

When I see a man being a loving dad, a man who loves his children's mother, a man who enjoys being with his kids and helping in their raising, I get emotional - I know the child will feel his love.

 

It is hard to articulate the vast difference between what a loving dad does and what one who is not.  Those whose demons made their choices - left children in their wake whose lives were much more difficult to navigate.  

We inherit a legacy we need to course correct.

 

So many babies are now being born in nature and the mothers/fathers are quite engaged in protecting the child.  Humanity is often not that lucky. 

 

My heart aches for those who carry an empty hole where a dad should be and I am grateful for those who have a full heart.

 

Freedom Waited for Me to Act

With the freedom of speech 

comes the responsibility to 

listen

With the freedom of belief

comes the responsibility to 

accept

With the freedom from want

comes the responsibility to 

serve

And with the freedom from fear

comes the responsibility to 

act.    

 

(Summary of FDR's Four Freedoms by Darren Walker)

 

I saw this on a friend's instagram -

 

I love how each of our freedoms come with a responsibility on our part.

 

It took me a long time to understand what listening was about - in how we can learn to understand another's journey.  Maybe it was when I learned more about my own journey, I could see the wide range of possibilities of others.

 

And, I love how belief comes with acceptance.  In order to truly believe you have to accept the facts of what is.  Beliefs that are not grounded in reality or in facts, are beliefs of falsehoods. I became a believer in acceptance - more than my old religion was trying to teach. 

In fact, it wasn't often about acceptance, but more about forgiving what is.

The sins - were washed away - to change reality.

 

Serving often relieves us of what we want.  And what we want isn't often what we need.

 

The responsibility to act - truly takes away our fear. For most often is we don't want to act differently than we have in the past, for then we will change how others see us or engage with us.

 

I just love that our freedoms are hinged upon a responsibility on our end.

Freedom isn't free from the consequences of our choices.

Freedom isn't a given - or a lazy relationship.  

Our freedom depends upon our engagement with life and those we spend time with.

 

In thinking yesterday - Memorial Day - what came to me was to not squander the freedoms we have access to. To use your freedom in the small choices - and how each little choice can change your world.

 

I am so ever grateful for my ability to act freely in all aspects of my life.

These freedoms came with my intentions of authenticity and to live a life that reflects my truths.  It took courage to step out of the patterns I was raised in - and each time I was brave and made a new decision, another part of me was free.

Freedom waited for me to act.

 

 

 

Our Love.

Thirty Seven years ago today, we were married.  

A small simple ceremony - began our marriage.

Who I was then - compared to who I am today - is light years apart.

We had to focus less on what marriage is - and more on who we are.

 

I have come to realize a marriage is only as wonderful as the two people within it.

Its value is in the character of who we are and the truths we live and the love we have to share.

 

Thirty Seven years seems like a lifetime and yet like yesterday.

We have both met life where it is at and have done our best to live in the moment and to always do the right thing, even if it isn't the easiest.  

Our imperfections make us perfect together.

Love is being free to be yourself always.

My heart is full of many emotions - heart strings of reality - and the ones with my husband hold so much of my love, joy and peace. I love our love.

 

Where she used to stand.

I often wondered how I would find out - who would be tasked with "telling" me.  

Social media is the informer.

I never considered - I would not be told.

She passed.

 

I can't know their reasons, I can guess - they feel my estrangement doesn't require social graces.  

 

My journey with her, isn't theirs.

My interactions or the lack there of - and why - is not theirs.

My grief a long while ago - is now theirs.

I am sorry they lost a mom.

I lost a ghost, who I used to call Mom.

 

I feel peace in the space where she used to stand.

 

 

May She rest in Peace.

There is a humming in the backdrop of my life - a ghostly echo from the past. Most often nowadays, it is barely perceptible - and then voices come in.

Words carrying the wishes, for the lack of a better word, from my estranged mother who is actively dying.

When my answer is different than her wants - it appears that I have turned judgmental.

 

"Hopefully you are never judged by people who never walked in your shoes." A brother.

 

If and unless, I do her bidding, then I am seen as judging her.

Is it judging to want to do something opposite of her wants?

 

Others seeing me as judging her - based on my opposite choices - has always confounded me. For I don't feel that I am in judgement - in fact, I am more concerned about how my choices affect me - inside - and how they sit right with what I know my truth and reality is.

 

I had to google, What motivates people to judge someone, just to see what came up.

 

"As with projection, feelings of inadequacy tend to be closely related to insecurity, as are many reasons for a judgmental mentality. If someone feels inadequate about something, they may be more likely to mock or belittle others who have a healthier—or simply different."

 

"People judge others to avoid reckoning with potential feelings of inferiority and shame. Since judging others can never give a person what they really need, they feel like they have to keep doing it. One can choose not to perpetuate the cycle of judgment."

 

What is interesting to me about this - is that judgment is coming from the lower place of feeling shame and inferior.  It doesn't come from the place of being healthier and more aware of yourself and self-love.  Which of course it wouldn't.

 

After reading that I wonder who is judging who?

 

Parents write upon the clean slate of a child.  They will either raise their self worth or lower it.  In my case my slate lowered my worth.  I was eclipsed by their needs.

 

It has taken me many years to wipe that slate clean, to right if you will their wrongs.  I no longer carry the shame that is theirs to carry.  

In separating out what actions are theirs and what responsibilities are mine - I began re-defining me.

I wasn't who they wanted me to be.

 

In my heart of hearts I do not feel I am judging.

I am instead making choices based on what feels right for me, what actually will raise my level of integrity.  

 

What I also know to be true, is that my choices - are not viewed as kind, loving or with a heart.

I get it.  

It isn't the right choice for you.

 

As she lay dying - it doesn't change how I feel inside of me - or want me to make a new choice.  

 

In the end of the end, I continue to honor our estrangement.  

For us, it will be a life sentence.

It was a choice.  A healthy response for me. I found my soul's worth on the outside.

 

As they hold vigil close.

I will be outside.

 

Two generations of women - each of us are walking our own path.

We each carry our own legacy and the past littered with a million choices.

We will reap what we sow and our hearts carry what we love.

 

She is now a stranger I once knew, and her path, one I used to walk on.

May she rest in Peace.

 

"I don't know what's best for me or you, or the world. I don't try to impose my will on you or anyone else. I don't want to change or improve you or convert you or help you or heal you.  I just welcome things as they come and go. That's true love...." Byron Katie

 

 

 

Strings

"Oh the Heartstrings of Reality" was in a message from a soul sister friend.  

There are feelings that tug on our heart strings, stirring up memories and crushing dreams - both loving and not so loving.

 

I wondered about the content of my heart - and the memories it holds. 

I often say, "I hold you in my heart" as if it is a sacred place to keep cherished beings.

 

It feels different than "I will keep you in my thoughts".

 

I also wondered if having feelings means you are suffering.  

 My brother commented that "Emptiness and loss is a state of suffering in my experience."

But is it?

Do we suffer with feelings or do we simply express them?

I wondered how many feelings we have and how they land on the scale.

"Plutchick believed that humans can experience over 34,000 unique emotions but, ordinarily, they experience eight primary emotions. These primary emotions include anger, fear, sadness, joy, disgust, surprise, trust, and anticipation. These emotions are arranged as opposites on the wheel: Sadness and Joy."

I love that there is an emotional wheel - kind of like the color wheel 

 

What surprised me was the imbalance if you will between what we'd call positive over negative.  

Yet are they?  

It seems more they are just messengers about our reality as well as a way for us to communicate what we feel inside. 

 

I have been pondering his words and my world and my experiences - with emotions.

In my early life, I repressed emotions - and neglected my feelings or even allowed myself to feel.  Let alone feel and speak how I felt. Then I believe I suffered. 

Suffering feels restrained and tight.

 

Feeling the emotions of estrangement - is just that - feeling what its content is.

Perhaps IF I stood in the estrangement space all day - I would be in suffering. But, it is a place that I visit; but I don't live there.

 

I live in the wider space - for the relationships or non-relationships I have with my family of origin - only pop up from time to time.

Almost two decades have passed by, my world has been filling up with new relationships and shared memories, they are not a part of.

They are a heartstring from long ago.

New strings grow and old ones fade and get tattered.

There are fanciful ones and sorrowful ones, like a heart of many colors.  If you look at the color wheel, we can only hope our heart carry more sunshine colors.

Our heartstrings are personal and carry the language of our journey.

I was inspired to do a heartstring heart.  And I was waiting to add words after I blogged. 

I am thinking now my heartstring heart would carry more color.  I will see where today's art takes me. 

My heartstrings, today are not suffering.

I love the content of my heart and all its strings.

 

Heaven on Earth

"As long as you think that the cause of your problem is “out there”—as long as you think that anyone or anything is responsible for your suffering—the situation is hopeless. It means that you are forever in the role of victim, that you’re suffering in paradise."  
Byron Katie, Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life - another comment from my brother.

 

My recollection of doing the Work of Byron Katie, is you only do the work on things that are causing you suffering.  And her work is to bring you back to reality.  

I love her quote "When you argue with reality, you lose, but only 100% of the time.

 

My brother who is commenting now, is the one who introduced me to her books and work and many other authors. She however, was one that really helped me in the beginning as I was awakening to the realization of my brainwashing, and how skewed I was in seeing the world, my life, my self, and others around me.  My mind was fickle at best and a liar most of the time. 

I used to trust my thoughts and how I saw the world - until my world imploded - and I was shown how off the mark I was.

 

There are hardly words to describe the terrifying moment, when you realize you have been living a lie, you are a lie, and the world you created, was created by a you  - you don't really know.

 

I had said, "It was like I was lost, and I had to go find me, and I didn't know who I was or that I was missing."  The fear that arose felt immobilizing.

 

Byron Katie's simplicity - made this so much easier.  

Her phrase "I am a lover of what is, not because I'm a spiritual person, but because it hurts when I argue with reality."

 

Reality became my religion. My only task was to not argue with it.

No matter what appeared or what action someone made etc, it was my job to accept it.

There is peace in this method, for no matter what is in reality, it is.

The mind doesn't get to play and distort it. 

 

What some may fail to appreciate, is that accepting reality is not always kind things.

I was being asked to accept a father that was a pedophile.

I was being asked to accept that family members were going to support him on various scales.

I was being asked to accept the volume of things that unfolded into reality of there being sexual abuse within our family - for generations.

 

Suffering wasn't  in my mind.  

Reality was displaying things that blew my mind.

 

Even Byron Katie would agree - a pedophile does what a pedophile does. He abuses children.

 

Having this information allowed me to make new choices.

I also had new labels.

I no longer expected father type behavior from a pedophile.

This actually brings peace to your body and mind.

I would suffer - IF I believed he should act fatherly.

I didn't.

And I was free from being his daughter. 

 

So while my brother comments and believes that I am suffering. I am not.

I am processing the aspects of being estranged at the time my mother is actively dying.

I am processing the emotions that it brings up.

I am not suffering.

I am living with the reality of my orientation with my family of origin. 

 

 

I know that Byron Katie's methods work. For each and every time - I was brought to reality, peace arrived with it.  

 

I am open to suffering. For when I suffer and I seek to find what thoughts are upside down and backwards, I am brought back to reality.

Reality is for me, Heaven on Earth.