IMPERFECT Lady

My Rights Move Me.

From the book, “Healing the Child Within, by Charles Whitfield. Personal Bill of Rights is compilation of rights that several groups have created.

 

BILL OF RIGHTS

 

1.     I have numerous choices in my life beyond mere survival.

2.     I have the right to discover and know my Child within.

3.     I have a right to grieve over what I didn’t get that I needed or what I got that I didn’t need or want.

4.     I have a right to follow my own values and standards.

5.     I have a right to recognize and accept my own value system as appropriate.

6.     I have a right to say no to anything when I feel I am not ready, it is unsafe or violates my values.

7.     I have a right to dignity and respect.

8.     I have a right to make decisions.

9.     I have a right to determine and honor my own priorities.

10.    I have a right to have my needs and wants respected by others.

11.    I have the right to terminate conversations with people who make me feel put down and humiliated.

12.    I have the right not to be responsible for other’s behavior, actions, feelings or problems.

13.    I have a right to make mistakes and not have to be perfect.

14.    I have a right to expect honesty from others.

15.    I have a right to all of my feelings.

16.    I have a right to be angry at someone I love.

17.    I have a right to be uniquely me, without feeling that I’m not good enough.

18.    I have a right to feel scared and to say, “I am afraid.”

19.    I have the right to experience and then let go of fear, guilt and shame.

20.    I have a right to make decisions based on my feelings, my judgment or any reason that I chose.

21.    I have a right to change my mind at any time.

22.    I have the right to be happy.

23.    I have a right to stability- roots and stable  healthy relationships of my choice.

24.    I have the right to my own personal space and time needs.

25.    There is no need to smile when I cry.

26.    It is okay to be relaxed, playful and frivolous.

27.    I have the right to be flexible and be comfortable with doing so.

28.    I have the right to change and grow.

29.    I have the right to be open to improve communication skills so that I may be understood.

30.    I have the right to make friends and be comfortable around people.

31.    I have a right to be in a non-abusive environment.

32.    I can be healthier than those around me.

33.    I can take care of myself, no matter what.

34.    I have the right to grieve over actual or threatened losses.

35.    I have the right to trust others who earn my trust.

36.    I have the right to forgive others and to forgive myself.

37.    I have the right to give and to receive unconditional love.

You may wish to consider whether you have any of these rights.  My belief is that every human being has every one of these rights and more.

 

As we transform, we begin to integrate our transformations into our lives.

                Charles Whitfield.

 

How interesting this was to read and to agree full heartedly that we do indeed have our own personal rights.

 

I have the right to me, my body and my life, my choices and my feelings.  I also freely give the same rights to those who I engage with or even the folks who no longer want to engage with me.  I honor their choices; I honor their voices and their wishes.  For we all have the same rights.

 

What I have come to see and know is that very few use these rights; instead another’s rights are using them.

 

I was near 50 years old before I utilized my rights, before I even knew that I had a list of rights within me, that I had the option to say yes or no, to come or go, to speak my feelings, up and until then I was a robot moving by the rights of others.

 

I am so grateful to have my own rights.

I love my rights.

I love that I am free to use my rights.

I am the only one who can give up my rights; they can only be taken with my permission.

 

It is my intention to live the next 50 years with my rights in hand!

 

When you own your own rights, you are no longer co-dependent and being moved by another's rights.

 

My rights move me!

 

 

Follow an Impulse Fearlessly.

“Every day we slaughter our finest impulses.  That is why we get heartache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and recognizes them as our own, as the tender shoots, which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty.  Every man, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths.  We all derive from the same source.  There is no mystery about the origin of things.  We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up, to discover what is already there.” 

 ~Henry Miller, Sexus

 

Slaughtering our finest impulses…is what leads us to not doing what we feel inside.

 

What stops us? 

 

I am learning to follow the impulse, to listen to the voice inside, whether it be to steer away from things or to be drawn towards them.

 

Our lives are lived from the tiny impulses that happen as we move along each day.

 

Impulses to take a new path, to speak to a new friend, to call an old one, to send a card, to make a call, to say words we fear, to try a new idea, a new hobby; all are sparked by an impulse within.

 

It isn’t so much that we don’t have impulses, but fear quickly comes between the impulse and us halting it from happening.

 

To follow the lead of the impulse fearlessly, knowing you are in fear, but to feel the excitement of doing something new, daring to express or share a part of you that needs to be voiced, to be a playmate with the impulse. 

 

Be a willing playmate, stop sitting on the sidelines of your life…get up and follow an impulse fearlessly. 

 

 

My Lady's Holiday...

My friend and I spent the past few days on the shores of Lake Superior at a little beach house my In-Laws own. 

 

Transported away from being a responsible mom and wife, allowing us to just be ourselves with ourselves and with a wonderful friend.

 

We did yoga on the deck in the sunrise and I then took my chilly bath in the lake, followed by a healthy breakfast of yogurt and fresh berries.

 

We then sat our chairs facing the water, soaking up rays and sharing our selves with each other, the books we read, the things we know, and the things we don’t know….

 

From floating on inner tubes to paddling kayaks, our day and evenings slipped by.  By sharing and talking we come away more alike and less alone.

 

It came to me that I would like to do this with all my Lady friends, all the wonderful woman that I am in contact with, old friends, new friends, young friends and old friends, a Lady’s get together, bringing together many Ladies in one place, all getting to know themselves and each other in a place filled with natures gifts.

 

While talking to my friend we decided this should be an annual event.

 

We talked and dreamed and schemed and planted the seeds for a “My Lady’s Holiday”.

 

A weekend event that all you need to bring is your wonderful spirited lady within, to come and share, to come and meet, to come and play and be.

 

My Lady’s Holiday has reconnected me to me, and has given me a gift of a deeper friendship.

 

Take your Lady on a Holiday; take her for paddle on the Lake, a refreshing swim, lay on an inner tube, share an afternoon with a friend, do yoga stretching her body, open her up to the wonderful opportunities of a great friendship.

 

Expand her horizons, learn new things, meet new people, learn new things about old people, sit and enjoy a lazy afternoon, bring your Lady on a Holiday from being so responsible in life, give her time to play with a friend.

 

I look forward to many more “My Lady’s Holiday”.

 

 

  

My buddy....

 

The wonderful dinner she made...

 

and me by our Artful Fire Pit...

Life is good!
 
 
 

A Caring Ear.

“Healing the Wounded Child Within” by Charles L. Whitfield MD.  Story Telling as part of the healing process, he writes.

 

“Telling our story is a powerful act in discovering and healing our Child Within.  It is a foundation of recovery in self-help groups, group therapy and individual psychotherapy and counseling. 

 

Each of our stories when complete contains three basic parts: separation, initiation and return (Campbell, 1949).  Twelve-step self-help groups describe their stories as “What we were like,” “What happened,” and “What we are like now.”  People in group therapy may call it risking, sharing, participating, and ‘working’ in group.  In individual counseling or psychotherapy we may describe it by similar names and psychoanalysts may call it “free association, working through transference and through unsolved internal conflict.”  Among close friends, we may call it “baring our souls” or “having a heart-to-heart talk.”

 

In sharing our story we can be aware that gossip and wallowing in our pain are usually counterproductive to healing.  This is in part because gossip tends to be attacking rather than self-disclosing and it is generally incomplete, following the victim stance or cycle.  Wallowing in our pain is continuing to express our suffering beyond a reasonable duration for healthy grieving.  There is a danger here that maybe observed in some self-help meetings: When a person tries to tell a painful story that has no apparent or immediate resolution, the other members may unknowingly label it as “self-pity” or a “pity party.”  In this case, while self-help meetings are generally safe and supportive, the bereaved may wish to look elsewhere to express their pain.

 

Simos (1979) said, “Grief work must be shared.  In sharing however, there must be no impatience, censure or boredom with the repetition, because repetition is necessary for catharsis and internalization and eventual unconscious acceptance of the reality of loss.  The bereaved are sensitive to feelings of others and will not only refrain from revealing feelings to those they consider unequal to the burden of sharing the grief but may even try to comfort the helpers.

 

Our story does not have to be a classical “drunkalog” or long in length.  In telling our story we talk about what is important, meaningful, confusing, conflicting, or painful in our life.  We risk, share, interact, discover and more.  And by doing so we heal ourselves.  While we can listen to stories of others, and they can listen to ours, perhaps the most healing feature is that we, the story teller, get to hear our own story.  While we may have an idea about what our story is whenever we tell it, it usually comes out different from what we initially thought.” 

                Charles Whitfield

 

My story telling began in journals to myself, and eventually I was daring enough to have a blog.

 

I do know the ‘risk’ it takes to stand and speak about your journey, and also the benefits to being heard.

 

The biggest part of the storytelling is to have compassionate, caring, listeners.

 

My blog seems to be that.  It is always available for me to place another bout of confusion down, a new wave of understanding, a twisted and unraveled past hurt, a present moment of disbelief, my blog is my group therapy.

 

I also love that I have some faithful group members that willingly share parts of themselves with me and give me feedback so that I know I am being heard.

 

All it takes is one ear and you can begin to unload mountains of grief even if the ear is online and it changes from day to day.

 

I want to thank all the faithful ears out there who read, comment and allow me to share my story as my life continues forward, as I learn about my past and how it still affects my nowadays.

 

A storyteller with out a listener will not work.  We need the listener, we need to know another soul is hearing us, can see us, and understands.

 

The healer is a caring ear…

 

 

Triumph....

In Carolyn Jessop’s book, “Triumph, she writes about Mind Control.

 

“I started studying mind control after I escaped.  I truly had had no idea that I’d been in a dangerous cult.  I’d seen the FLDS referred to online as “the largest polygamous cult” in the United States and dismissed that as ridiculous. But as I read and studied more, I realized that’s exactly what I was born into.

 

One of the books I encountered early on was Robert Lay Lifton’s  “Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalitarianism: A Study of Brainwashing in China.  It was a revelation.  Lifton articulated the most common criteria of mind control.  When I considered them in the context of the FLDS, I knew all of them applied.  Just as in a totalitarian system, the FLDS took steps to control our environment, demand purity, claim scientific and moral truth for the cult dogma, destroy personal boundaries, require confession, and insist on the supremacy of the group belief over individual thought.  Language was manipulated to keep everything in black and white.  We were to follow the teachings of our leader and no one else- least of all women, whose submission was essential for polygamy to thrive.

 

Arbitrary limits are the horizons beyond which we cannot see.  Sometimes they are self-imposed, but in my life the FLDS controlled everything.  For years, I accepted the limits and assumptions without question.

 

Keep Sweet!  It is a matter of life and death. You have had the teaching regarding what is required in order for us to survive the judgments, sufficient of the Holy Spirit of God that we can be lifted up and then set down when it is over.  That will be the remnant which will go to redeem Zion.  The wicked will be swept off the face of this land.  The wicked are they who come not unto Christ. There is only one people who comes unto Christ, and that is this people under His servant.    FLDS Profet Rulon Jeffs, Sandy Utah, December 4 1992

 

This religious doctrine created and enforced the arbitrary limits that defined who I was.  With no genuine and sustained exposure to the outside world, I had no way to challenge my indoctrinations, which is how mind control thrives.  I believed I was being protected from the destruction of God and a dangerous, frightening world.  It never occurred to me that this ‘protection’ was in fact destroying me.”

 

Further on she writes,

 

“In the ‘keep sweet no matter what’ world of the FLDS forgiveness meant that you accepted what had been done to you, you weren’t angry, and you trusted the perpetrator not to do it again.  I’d no idea there was another way to forgive. But now I am learning it:  by letting go of anger, never trusting my abusers again, and by seeing them for who they truly were, I achieved genuine forgiveness.

 

In the FLDS, if someone harmed you and you refused to have anything further to do with that person, you were the one committing a crime by holding on to bad feelings.  If you ever complained again, you were the offender.  This twisted logic created a kingdom of sociopaths, because no one was ever held responsible for harm except the victims.  The FLDS notion of forgiveness had been used in such hurtful and damaging ways that it became a way for an abuser to maximize the damage he or she could inflict without any consequences.  It certainly guaranteed that the victim would remain powerless. To forgive in the FLDS seemed to be masochistic.  Now I was wrapping my mind around a new reality:  forgiveness had nothing to do with trusting a person who’d injured you. It involved letting go of the anger you felt and making space for new emotional growth….  I wanted vengeance and vindication, which are driven by a craving for justice. But that craving had trapped me in an out of control cycle: I wouldn’t let go of my victim status until justice was done.

 

I wanted Merrill to stop rationalizing cruelty as ‘necessary.’ I wanted him and the other wives, especially Barbara, to understand that there was absolutely not justification to their treating me, or anyone else, the way they did.  I wasn’t naïve enough to think that Merrill Jessop would ever apologize to me.  But I wanted some acknowledgement that what had happened to me was not my fault.  That fact that this was never, ever going to happen didn’t make me stop wanting it.  The truth, my insistence of justice in an unjust world was really holding me hostage.  Forgive? Me? I thought forgiveness might make me more vulnerable to my abusers because it might make me appear pliant.

 

I was beginning to grasp that forgiveness is about breaking the chains that bind you to your captor.  Being in a relationship with someone that is dangerous is self-destructive. Holding on to your anger at someone is self-destructive. The only way to break free is to sever all the emotions you have toward that person.  For so long I had thought that unless justice was done, I could never heal.  But sometimes justice is impossible, so the choice becomes to remain unhealed or to let go of the anger that the lack of justice has aroused.  It came back to exercising the power I had: I couldn’t control whether justice would be done, but I could control my attitude toward the injustice.

 

It’s been said that desiring revenge is like swallowing poison and waiting for someone to die.  I believe that.  It took discipline and work for me to release all the anger I felt toward Merrill. But nothing I’d ever felt compared to the relief of dumping one bad emotion after another. Go. Goodbye. Gone.  I had no more expectations.  I no longer had to fix anything…. 

 

Let me be clear about the kind of forgiveness I’m talking about. Sometimes one forgives in order to remain in a relationship with someone she cares about, even if the person has caused her pain and anguish.  It’s not a blanket pardon; it’s the trade-off one is willing to make when preserving the relationship is more important than correcting justice.  Allowing people to be human and make mistakes, even thought those mistakes hurt you, is important.  You don’t want to eliminate that person from your life simply for hurting or disappointing you.  This kind of forgiveness is far more common than the kind I used to change my life.

 

Forgiveness I practiced enabled me to move ahead and start making my life more about me. It renewed and deepened the strength I needed to deal with the challenges facing me.  Most dramatically it changed my need to remain in Merrill’s family. From that point on, I was no longer emotionally or psychologically engaged with them.  Justice was up to a higher power; my job was to discover a way to protect myself and my children. This meant, of course, that I’d eventually have to leave the FLDS."

                Carolyn Jessop