IMPERFECT Lady

Right Now

“Wherever I am, wherever we go, home will always be the in-between place, a wilderness I've grown to love.” “EVERYONE WHO IS born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick,” Susan Sontag 

I finished Suleika's book "Between Two Kingdoms".

I highly recommend it.

 

What I was introduced to is the Between Space.

Where many folks live.

 

In life things happen - and we can't go back to the before, and we are not fit for normal.

Or, we have changed so much, there doesn't seem to be a place among the rest.

 

Again, hard to explain - but it feels right for me.

 

I am different.

Not the daughter and sister I used to be - nor will I ever be again.

I am not striving to fit into a new place in the family.

I am living in the between space of both.

 

No longer defined by the labels - rather living without them.

 

Life is often defined in or out.

With or against.

 

When there is the third option.

I didn't understand that what I was doing was developing the third option of in-between.

While you feel like it is an outcast position - it can also be an empowered one.

A sovereign space - where you live from.

As an individual.

Honoring your truths and experiences - being/feeling/knowing differently.

 

I am thinking there are more of us in the in-between.

And, instead of feeling like the "other" - we can make that a more normal space.

We are tossed into this space typically by a life interruption event and often strive to fit back into

something - and it is impossible.

Little did we know, the in between is a life space.

An honorable one.

 

The vast space of freedom to NOT fit in.

 

We are different.

Unique 

Outstanding

 

Subconsciously I felt less than - due to my in-between status.

Suleika has shown me the beauty of not living in the kingdoms.

 

So, if you find yourself outside of the norms or ensconced in the family - know it is not only okay but a valid

place.  

It is your land.  

A kingdom of your own. 

And, you the queen of it all.

It is up to you how you decorate and orchestrate the things that live in this space.

There are no rules to be had.

It is the space where you are free to be you.

Untethered and detached from so many of the labels and constraints of 'normal'.

A false unreachable space.

I am so grateful it is impossible for me to reach normal.

The freedom that has given me is immense.

Freedom to just be, here as I am, right now.

 

 

I will be her - until...

 

 

 

I am reading her book "Between Two Kingdoms" - well listening to her read her book. I love the way she re-frames things in order for her to really live life.

We often feel like there is a 'correct' way of being.

And, that after life interrupting events, there is a 'normal' place that is waiting for us to arrive.

 

What I know from experience, the quicker you can disregard the ideas of normal - or believing that you are 'supposed' to be this way or that, the quicker you will find a new stride.

The new stride doesn't have to feel easy or comfortable.

The new way of being means you are okay with you.

 

The 'after' you.

 

She is right in saying that the hardest part was after the trauma.  The hard part is to integrate back to a life.

A life that now holds a stranger - You.

 

It isn't as if life itself all alters and reflects your own changes.  Instead we have to adjust ourselves in order to hop back on the merry-go-round called life.

 

Some of my hardest days came long after leaving my family.

Long after the last conversation.

 

More, the hardest part of all, was becoming the new version of me that now held sexual abuse -dysfunctional family- toxic religion. How do I live as this?

 

She talks about leaving the hospital without the inner scaffolding inside of her.

THIS, I know way too well.

 

Inside of us, unbeknownst to us, is a scaffolding that holds us up.

It is who we know ourselves to be, and fit into the world around us.

You don't know know that it is there - but you will certainly know when it is no longer there.

 

Learning to re-build a life after a life interrupting event - takes time.

And, Fearlessness.

an, open heart

and the belief that you can live a life worth living again.

That you can take the heart that has been shattered, and love from there.

 

My second build of scaffolding was done by me.

It was directed by me.

It is strongly structured by things I know that strengthen me and bring me love, peace and joy.

 

Early on I realized the before me would never live again.

I had to find a way to be me, without her and what she was built of.

 

It is hard to describe the hollow scary spot you get left in - when your scaffolding collapses.

When there is very little that is holding you up.

 

I love how she sees the world of two kingdoms and how we move between the two.

Yet, in estrangement - we mostly are divided into one camp or the other.

It is rare for us to move between.

You are either in the family, or out of it.

 

So, while she worked to assimilate back into society and find a new self.

I was more learning to live without a family and be that girl - in society.

 

Our society has placed great value in family.

With reason.

 

I too believe in family.

When family has a pure core.

 

It is funny, in a peculiar way, that in order to save my own family - I had to leave my family of origin.

 

If we live long enough, all of us will face some kinds of interruptions in our lives.

 

The lives we believe will go on forever will, at some point, be changed.

And, when that happens, you will have to change - in order to live whole.

 

Accepting the unacceptable - is to live whole.

Bringing with you all the broken parts and live and love from there.

 

I have felt that the cost of leaving my family had to equal the value of my new life.

I needed and sought out a life worth having.

I intentionally brought in what made my heart happy. 

I wasn't interested in doing or being fake for the sake of someone or something.

I needed/wanted a scaffolding of value - as this new me.

 

The biggest lesson we can learn from her, is that we don't need to be defined by what happened to us, and that we can change who we are when life changes us. And, that all life dark times don't last forever and we can have a wider broader and deepened sense of self - after.

 

We should teach more of how life can change us.

How we can live more than one self in our life times.

 

I love the 2.2 version of Me.  

I will be her - until...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Freedom to be you

One of the easiest and hardest things to do is be yourself. To be an individual and to live life from the inside out. To seemingly be immune to the good opinions of others. To find your lane and stick to it. To be relentlessly you, no matter how others trend into new and different ways. And, most importantly allow others to do the same. To live life outside of group mentality.

I was raised in a religion that loved conformity and actually shunned those who didn't believe the same and see the world through similar eyes. Taught to leave the self and its desires, and follow the group.

Group mentality and group think was where my comfort was found.

Being part of.

Being accepted by.

 

What I didn't realize is that I had left me, the individual, the self - behind.

Silently following the masses.

Isn't there a saying about following the masses, "be careful the M is often silent."

 

Anyway, being raised without a self focus and instead being taught to do things that will please the group or at very least not get you shunned, is a lonely existence for your self.

I truly had no idea who I was outside of group mentality.

For 46 years I lived contorting myself in order to blend in.

To not stand out as Me.

 

I would say and be things that didn't align to my feelings - in order to be compliant and accepted.

Being accepted and liked mattered most.

Rejecting my own feelings was normal  - back then.

Not knowing thoughts outside of the group think.

 

Each decision and choice I made, was first measured against what others "might think".

Their response to my actions mattered.

Their opinions of me needed to be favorable. I cared too much.

I needed them to like me, cause looking back now, I had no idea who I was or even if I liked me.

 

As I looked back at the 34 years of marriage and my husband. What stuck out most, was his ability to be himself; no matter what.  The consistency in which he has lived his life according to his very own moral code and standards, is quite remarkable. He has rejected all things that are not in line with how he feels and what he believes.

There is no pretending to pretend, even for a moment.

His realness of who he is, and how he presents himself in our lives, is a solid core to trust.

I trust who he is.

I trust him to be himself.

 

What beautiful gift he has given us, by simply being himself.  

It allows the rest of us to follow our own paths.

 

Love to me, is allowing the other person to be fully themselves.

Love is freedom.

 

I was never a good pretender.

Life was much harder living to fit into a group - even when I sought comfort there.

 

I also mothered from two different perspectives.

One being of teaching children to conform and fit in. Raising children to be part of a religion, means you follow its rules; and not the self. You are raising them into something; not following who they are.

After leaving the religion, the world actually opened up to my children to be themselves.

To not have to fit in a set of ideals.

 

The difference of mothering with an end goal in mind - compared to letting the child show you, who they are is a world a part. There is no common denominator between the two.

 

Mothering with love was not an option.

Mothering was more about them fitting into a mold that was already formed.

It had things that were acceptable and then things that were not acceptable.

 

Opening the space up to be whatever, was a freedom I call Love.

I could then relax and let them be.

Be who they want to be; not what I needed them to be.

 

Imagine a world where we all were allowed to just be ourselves.

Where no groups were formed and rules to be followed.

Wars would end.

Humanity would thrive.

Love would naturally flow between us all.

 

I have lived life from both sides now and I know - love is the freedom to be you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inner energy

"If you focus on what you have, you gain what you lack. And, if you focus on what lack, you lose what you have."  Greg McKeown (on Tim Ferris's podcast)

 

Greg and Tim were talking about gratitude - on being grateful for what is in our lives right now.

Especially when things are not going according to plan.

To not get swept up in the worst case scenario thoughts our minds love to play with. But instead to see, really see, what is in your lives in this moment in time.

Right here, right now, as they are.

 

In another part of their conversation they talked about the weight of things we carry with us; in our minds and hearts.

Heavy things - like unresolved relationships, or resentments, anger etc.

We don't realize how much these things use up our energy and vitality.

I sat with that.

Trying to feel my body to see where I may still carry things I need to put down.

 

Things that are not mine to carry.

Or, things I carry because I didn't get to resolve them in the manner I would have liked.

 

These things will show up as anger, stress, worry, etc.

Holding on to resentments weigh you down and make it harder to live lightly.

With a light heart.

 

I am going to pay attention to where my mind goes and what slurps up my energy with unsettled thoughts in my mind.

 

We are responsible for the energy we bring in the room, as Dr. Jill Bolte-Taylor says, but we are also responsible for the energy we carry with us.

I want to carry more thoughts, and images, and good energy, of the things that make my heart sing, and less sorrows and weight, of things I cannot change.

 

I am responsible for how my insides feel.

I notice when toxic thoughts and energies are inside of me.

I work to find ways in calming them down and removing them.

Mostly I have learned that, "When I believe my thoughts, I suffer..." as Byron Katie says.

Especially if those thoughts are not true in reality.

 

I lived a very weighted life for many many years.  

I am so ever grateful for the way my insides feel inside.

 

Each time you can remove a stressful thought, or drop a resentment; you rise and live a lighter life.

I am not sure I ever thought of thoughts having a weight to them

But, even if we can't physically weigh them, they will make our lives feel heavy.

Our bodies feel less energetic.

 

I am going to keep my eye out for things that weigh me down.

And, more seek things that make me feel lighter!

I am responsible for my inner energy.

 

 

 

 

 

The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True Self

The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True Self by Martha Beck is a huge affirmation of my journey.  

Her definition of Integrity.

"...the word comes from the Latin integer, which simply means "intact".  To be in integrity is to be one thing, whole and undivided."

I love that our true nature is to be intact. 

 

Here are a few highlights at the beginning of her book.

"You're trying to act in ways that don't feel right to you at the deepest level. When ever we do this, our lives begin to go pear shaped. Emotionally, we feel grumpy, sad or numb. Physically, our immune systems and muscles weaken; we might get sick, and even if we don't, our energy flattens. Mentally, we lose focus and clarity. That is how it feels to be out of integrity."

"And, because our true nature is serious about restoring us to wholeness, it hauls out the one tool that reliably gets our attention: suffering."

"Integrity is the cure of unhappiness. Period."

"Of all the strategies and skills I've ever learned, the ones that actually work are those that help people see where they've abandoned their own deep sense of truth and followed some other set of directives. This split from integrity is almost always unconscious. The people who experience it aren't wicked; in fact most of them are perfectly lovely. They strive to cooperate with every rule for living they've learned from their respective cultures. Which is a terrific way to run your life if you like to look good and feel bad."

 

This book will be on my top ten list of non-fiction books.

 

The best part of the way to integrity is that we get to be ourselves.

We get to feel what we feel, and to act accordingly.

When our intention is to live intact, we use our insides as our guide.

Truth and seeking it out is what will bring us peace.

 

She does talk about the pain truth can cause; but how it often is more painful to live not fully intact.

When I was discovering so many ugly truths, I used to say brilliantly tragic. The brilliance would come after the darkness of truths that were so opposite of what I believed to be true.

There are many things we don't want to truly know; but when we are brave enough to live in harmony with all truths, we actually become happier. It seems like an oxymoron - but it was true in my experience.

I highly recommend this book.

The Way of Integrity, is the way to happiness.

The pure joy of living life as your whole self.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

UBEEU

My granddaughter asked me, "Grandma what is an heirloom?"  We were going through some of her stuff and re-organizing her room.  Our day then was spent looking at all the stuff in our house, with new eyes. 

Heirloom - "a valuable object that has belonged to a family for several generations."

 

She wondered how things became heirlooms, and how others did not.  There are things she sees value in that would not be classified as an heirloom. 

 

The juxtaposition was not lost on me, how one week I am getting rid of family art and the next weekend looking at heirlooms.

 

Homes of couples, usually have two families blending together.  Our pasts flow with us into our present.

Each of us have values we want to pass on, and others we want to cast aside.

 

My focus in the past decade and a half has been to re-cast the pattern that is me.

To do my best not to pass on what was given to me.

My intentions were to create something of value to hand down.

The heirlooms I was most concerned were not things.

I wanted to hand down family values.

Values with real value.

Love that holds truth, honesty, integrity, freedom, authenticity, courage...

Love that has boundaries and limits.

Love that honors who you are, what you feel, and will challenge beliefs that feel wrong.

Love that is deep and ever changing - while being the same in substance.

Love that will hold the difficult moments as well as the beautiful joys.

 

Love that allows each to be true to themselves.

To not have to wear a mask to fit in.

 

I believe the heirlooms will mean more, if they come from a person of substance. Someone who lived their life unapologetically, and remained true to themselves; always.

No matter what life gave them, they did what was true for them.

My heirloom is of emotional intelligence, to know who you are and be that.

Be that in all ways.

 

The saddest life to me, is one where you cannot be yourself.

We all know our own truths, they live within us.  The grandest life, is when you can live out loud.

May my legacy be "You be You" or as my license plates read "UBEEU".

 

 

When our hearts understand.

As I cleaned my living room in preparation for some new to us furniture; I was very cognizant of what I do have in my home. What I am able to not only hang on - but what I love and what brings me good energy.

This was a quick shot of my girls laughing together. I LOVE this picture. 

It is not so much the composition or the frame or the color etc - but the girls in the picture and the joy they have with each other. And, the free and easy connection I have with each of them. My heart is happy with this art.

And I have an artful basket of rocks.  Omars and Yooperlites - rocks my granddaughter and I have gathered as we walked along the shoreline.

 

So, I have come to the conclusion that we are connected not only to the art; but the story and memory and relationship we have with the artist behind the art.

 

I am not so much in my Art; but I am with my art.

I am connected to it.

We are not separated.

 

As I looked around my house, there is joy everywhere. And warm hearted connections to art and the artist behind the art. To gifts and the givers of the gifts.  

 

We travel along with our art. 

Our energy flows in and around what we give, what we do and into each relationship.

As Dr. Jill Bolte-Taylor said, "You are responsible for the energy you bring in the room."

 

I would add, and responsible for what you bring into your home.

 

I love this latest lesson in art and what I choose to have in my home.

Removing the art that carries with it, bad energies will lighten my home in many ways.

And, make room for things that make my heart sing.

 

We let go - when our heart understands.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keep or discard

I was in a discussion last week with a few artists, and we were talking about doing art; but not Art that would be for sale.

 

I always had this impression that if you did art - the next logical step was to sell Art.

Especially when you did fabulous art.

That doing art would lead to selling art and teaching art.

That the circle of art, when done well, would lead to selling art.

And, some may even believe you are not an artist, until you sell your art.

 

What never occurred to me was that many do art for personal reasons.

It isn't for others, it is something they choose, to add to their lives.

They do so for reasons we can't know.

Art is an additive to their lives.

It brings them something.

 

Art is a land without many rules.

How then did I place so many rules upon it?

 

Art began for me as therapy, and often still is.

 

The pull to the basement and fabric was like a drug.

A calm down drug.

An anti-anxiety drug.

The place where I found the essence of myself.

The lone self - that wasn't tied to anyone and our complicated relationships.

 

Art found Me.

 

The me I was before I joined others.

 

I can see how it would be easy to escape life by being immersed in Art.

And, not really deal  with the choices you have made or failed to make.

I can understand how you could live almost split lives.

Where one is happy and free in their art - and the other is trapped into a life out of control.

Unable or unwilling to course correct, when relationships are toxic.

 

Art for me walked with me as I made course corrections so that the self in Art, and the self in life, both had freedoms.  

My life became like my art, where I had choices.  Where, when with whom, and if I went and if I didn't go. What I said or what I didn't say.  Boundaries and choices created a life I wanted to be in - not one I want to escape.

 

Yesterday I looked at my brother's art and my father's.

Art's legacy is in our family.

It flows through generations.

Wood solidness carved.

Changed.

The simple, and the intricate.

 

It is funny, in a peculiar way, how wood carving was the modality used.

Taking something solid and changing it.

 

I was young when I got these carved hearts from my father.

I cherished them - at the time. A clue to my unawareness.

I think the hearts and spoons were the only gift I ever received from him.

 

They made it from the shelves and into a box.  Now what?  I don't know. 

 

These were the only two things I wanted from my parents and my childhood home.

The plates were my mothers.  

Are the best parts of them in their art and what they cherish.

Is that the best part of me; my Art???

Do we all put ourselves in our art?

More to explore with art and the artist, and what the things we chose to keep or discard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cleaning Out the Past

As I think of the de-cluttering I have to do in my basement, there are a few items that I struggle with. 

Art.

That was given to me.

By my estranged family.

 

I don't believe there is a way to separate the art from the artist.

It doesn't stand alone.

The art includes the artist.

 

And, can you separate the toxic from the person in art?

 

I am inclined to burn.

The art.

 

And let it go.

 

I also have albums and albums of pictures.

Siblings I haven't seen in so many years.

Memories now tainted.

Can you distill the good from the dysfunction.

The 'normal' from the abuse?

 

I shoved lots of things to the deep recesses of our storage area - not wanting to toss 

and not wanting to see them.  

 

These mementos are not like when you lose someone.

Where you hold on to things - to save the memories.

It is the opposite, or so it seems.

The things now hold the person.

The person you no longer want to be with;

to remember - to know.

 

I feel like a traitor thinking of burning old pictures and art.

An act of savagery against family.

Ripping and tearing it to shreds

And, yet abuse did that.

Not I

 

Abuse destroyed - what I now have left to destroy.

 

Perhaps it is the last vestiges of hope that there was a family there - and a good one.

The last hold out - will be gone.

 

It is not like getting rid of old junk, or things you won't use, or haven't used.

These items are different.

 

The good energy - it seems from them. The good from the bad.

Yet too many bad memories in the items, for me to hold on to them.

 

In the early days of my discovering my sexual abuse.

I often said, "for now".

Not saying forever.

 

I couldn't think of the long empty road of loss being endless.

It has been 16 years now.

 

It is time to let it all go.

 

Reality has changed the value of these treasures.

Just as abuse changed the integrity of our family.

The meaningful turned meaningless.

 

There is sadness in my heart, to know there is nothing there worth holding on to.

Nothing.

"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." Janis Joplin

Cleaning out the past!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sisterhood of friends

I have been having cravings for deeper friendships - feeling like I was missing a piece of life - when I realized, what I am actually missing are friend dates.

Times where you can sit and just visit. Whether it is over a cup of tea, a meal or just visiting in person in a home. 

Shared close times with friends - where we could explore many different topics, share our lives and experiences, our dreams.  Getting to know each other in new ways. 

 

During the past many months, I have been able to meet with many outside. We have been able to go on adventures and be together; but there is something about sitting and just being and sharing our lives.

The luxury of time and sacredness of close being.

We can give the bullet points of our lives as we hike along or paddle etc -but we don't get down to the deeper levels of where our souls lie.

Levels where I long to be.

 

While life has slowed and spaces are wide open - but the virus has kept us cautious, apart and in the bullet points in many lives.

I feel we are getting close to the end game - in the last many miles of this marathon - and soon we will go back to living closer to each other.

AND, I will be retiring, and life will really slow down and open up - and I am so eager for friend dates.

In fact, I am going to start this friend dating soon, one on one outside - as the temps warm up.  

 

Friend dating - it is all part of the sisterhood of friends!