IMPERFECT Lady

Acknowledgement of Hurting.

"Unintended hurt is as common as branches snapped in wind. But it is the unacknowledged hurt that becomes a wound."  Mark Nepo

I believe we all will hurt others and be hurt...as long as we are living and in relationships.  It is the unacknowledged hurt that wounds us.

"Even if our awareness of being hurtful comes years after delivering the hurt, the smallest word or gesture - owning what we've done - can reopen the heart."  Mark Nepo

I was sexually abused as a child, but no one ever acknowledged that they hurt me.  It is the unacknowledged hurt that wounded me.

Even when it all came to light 40 years later, silence stood in the place of acknowledgement.

I have often felt it wasn't enough to acknowledge how I mistreated and hurt my children with my angry words and general dysfunctional mothering...this lesson today has shown me, that in owning how I hurt them, began the closing of the wound and opening of our hearts.

This is the opening I was waiting to enter...the acknowledgement of the pain they caused me...would have allowed my heart to reopen.  

That is the difference, the dividing factor between estrangement and growing closer...Acknowledgement of hurting.

 

Truth or Pretending not to know the truth.

"Peace from Broken Pieces, by Iyanla Vansant...speaks of our pathology, our patterns that we inherited from our parents and they got them from their parents; how we replicate their lives, unless we break the cycle.

I taught my children by how I lived my life. I taught them the same way my mother taught me, in how she responded to life and mimicked her self worth. 

The way she responded, shouted out her self worth, her allowance for behaviors and lack of boundaries showed she did not matter to herself.  As she continued to put others first, I too was taught that I came last, always.

When I saw myself differently my pathology began changing.  I no longer was invisible to me and others magnified...instead I began living my life as if I mattered.

I still see the old pattern emerge now and again in my children, its fragments clinging to their lives...echos of my old self still present...ghosts of my old pathology long ago recorded, still singing itself out in the now.  

I totally get the lure of this pattern, I understand completely its profile.

I had no real self unless I was doing, giving and living for the needs of other...I considered it selfish to focus on me.  I would disappear if another didn't need me in some capacity.  I needed to be needed, or I would have been left with my worthless self.  My value and sense of self came strictly from others...I had to shine in their eyes, for my eyes seen nothing in me by myself.

As my mother before me, I lived self less... as a tool for others to use.

I didn't have a me.  I didn't know what that me wanted...I was a complete stranger to myself.  I didn't know how to act if I wasn't acting for another.  

My pattern was to disappear in others lives.

The old pattern now is in shredds and a new one has replaced it.  I can only imagine how difficult it is for my daughters...with pieces of both patterns in their lives...yet hopeful.

I can't know how long or how deep the old pathology is within them and which pattern will present itself more fully in their lives...and a part of me believes they signed up to learn this complicated pattern, the reversing of dysfunction.  

All I do and feel I can do, is keep reflecting the truth back to them, for the old pattern was knitted together without it.

It truly is broken down into two distinct patterns, Truth or Pretending not to know the truth.

 

 

Lead from your Soul.

My mind can easily convince me of many things, most often things that are not for the good of my well being or are even healthy for me. I have followed it like a powerless soul for years.

I have succumbed to its wishes out of fear.  

It had me convinced that I would not be able to be without sweets, that I couldn't resist them.  I challenged that and faced the sweets with me and my mind.

It is weird to know that my body doesn't crave sweets, but my mind does.  And I don't believe this is a desire of my soul and spirit.  My mind craves things that will have a dire affect on my body and soul...and it cares less.

It doesn't care how large I get and actually will then have the audacity to then berate me for what it wanted.

Once you over take your mind, you can pretty much do anything.

My latest experiment is in doing yoga. Again, my mind will tell me I am too tired or its too hard, or not possible...and my body follows this lazy chatter and lays down.

If I set up a plan knowing that the mind's job is to be my opponent, I can then know that my body isn't too tired, but my mind is. And in yoga, the result of doing yoga is to get ahead of the mind, to control it, so it doesn't control you. So, if you make it to the yoga mat, your mind lost.

I am learning more and more about the mind/body/soul connection and I how backwards I had it.  I used to address the body like it was the problem...never challenging or questioning the thoughts and words the my mind uttered and believed in...and sadly I had zero connections with my spirit...well, maybe a few brief encounters, but they were far and fleeting.

Now, I am learning to live totally backwards...to consult my spirit, my energy, my intuit knowing and use that to question my mind...and then my body is being steered by that instead of being subjected to the mind's negative, lazy chant.

It truly doesn't take as much will power as you may think to not follow the mind, when you see the agenda the mind has...it is very self absorbed and uncaring about the body and soul.  If you can replace its agenda with a better plan, a dream, a goal...you then no longer will believe that which it begs for.

Once I no longer believe my mind, my mind loses its power over me.

"In God, all things are possible," and so it is in life, if you step around your mind...and lead from your soul.