IMPERFECT Lady

By Feelings.

I always knew that my quilting was Art Therapy, I just never knew how...it just was. 

I never sat down and dissected the parts or even looked closely at the process, but rather was focused on the fabric, quilts and design, but not at what was happening behind the scenes if you will or what the overall technique was doing.

I was processing my pain...while the mind was focused on the quilt, my unconscious was leaking out in the overall picture.

It was like there were two selves down there quilting.

The conscious quilter and the unconscious pain.

My quilts were a barometer of my unconscious pain, my fears and sense of self; as my sense of self worth grew, the Lady in my quilt became more alive and animated. And at times answers to fears were shown to be unfounded.

What I find so odd is that I felt I was escaping myself by quilting, and yet it was there that I was most prolific.  I wasn't running from me, but towards me.

My feelings would dictate the scene in the Art and the fabric and design.  I knew I quilted by feelings, I just never looked at what I was feeling or why I chose what fabric I did and why I felt drawn to create a lady engaged in a certain feeling.

And there were times I would start out with one feeling and then take sudden turn and a completely different quilt would emerge.

All of this is very amazing looking back at my quilted journey of feelings.

What I recall most, is the times I felt so out of sorts in real life, so lost in the now and old relationships, and how at home the Lady felt on the quilt...and how she seemed to foretell my feelings, ahead of me being aware I felt that way...perhaps ahead of my mind.

Guess that is what Art is more about, getting out of your mind and playing with feelings.

Photograph by Hannah Jukuri

A clothesline full of feelings as a woman processes her pain, her life and seeks to find hope for her future.  I was completely turned inside out and quilted from there as well.  These are my insides; my feelings and emotions.  Contrasts, convergences, waves of energy...processing who I wasn't and processing who I was...finding my way by feelings.

Quilted into My Art

Last week at Dial Help, I was given a thumb nail sketch of a few different disorders or what I guess we call Mental Conditions or ways in dealing with pain and abuse.

One of the things we talked about was Cutting.  

What I learned about self harming, is that it is a process. Yes, it is about feeling something (pain), but it is also about watching the scar etc appear...and about the special tools used to cut.  

As our trainer talked about Cutters, it came to me, that I used quilting the same way.

I was very drawn to the whole process.  It was my private space to hide in and to concentrate on the process so not to feel the pain of abuse.  And I was able to Feel, to make myself feel, except that the feelings I chose happened to be good feelings, excitement, but I was controlling how I felt.

So, when my life would get especially confusing or out of control, I headed to the basement, where I could control what I felt, but in a totally different direction...and the process of quilting was very detailed.

Choosing the fabric, playing with designs and watching the process of Art take place, the evolution from thought to completed quilt.

A process of controlling my feelings.  

I just didn't know what I was doing, but I knew I had to do this.  Imagine, how grateful I am....to have my Process (Art) on display, while cutters live in shame, hiding their scars.

My scars...are all quilted into my Art.  

Photograph by Hannah Jukuri  

Cannot Entertain Friendships

From Mark Nepo's "Book of Awakening"

"I have been blessed to have deep friends in my time on Earth. They have been an oasis when my life has turned a desert.  They have been a cool river to plunge in when my heart has been on fire. When I was ill, one toweled my head when I couldn't stand without bleeding.  Another bowed at my door saying, "I will be whatever you need as long as you need it."

"Still others have ensured my freedom, and they missed me while I searched for bits of truth that only led me back to them.  I have slept in the high lonely wind waiting for God's word. And while it's true - no one can live for you - singing from the peak isn't quite the same as whispering in the center of a circle that has carried you ashore."

"Honest friends are doorways to our souls, and loving friends are the grasses that soften the world. It is no mistake that the German root of the word Friendship means "place of high safety."  This safety opens us to God. As Cicero said, "A friend is a second self."  And as Saint Martin said, "My friends are the beings through whom God loves me."

"There can be no greater or simpler ambition than to be a friend."  Mark Nepo

 

Friends.  I have certainly had many...of all sizes, shapes and personalities and yet, very few have remained on my entire journey.  

When I look at the people who were my place of high safety, they changed over time, depending upon what I needed to feel safe.

Inside of the cult of religion it was safe to have similar folks.  I felt safe around sameness.

As a person who felt safe not looking for truth. I needed others to not be looking; I felt safe in the dark with others who wanted to remain in the dark.

As I broke down the walls of being 'safely' in the dark about abuse and religion, I then changed the kinds of friends I now needed.

It seems that as you change what safe means for you, your friends will change.

Safe before was remaining hidden in the dark. The more I came out, the more uncomfortable some friendships grew and then died.

Very interesting to know that friends mean "A place of High Safety."

In my experience, my feelings of being safe has drastically changed, and very few relationships have come with me.  What is also good to know, is that my husband and my home is still a place of High Safety.  

A deep friendship is a place where you can feel safe. Where it is safe to be you.  A place that accepts your truth and you are safe.

So very telling in abusive childhoods....We lose the friendship of our parents when they abuse us. For we learn we are not being kept safe.  And then it seems, at least to me, we work like hell to feel "friendly".  What I didn't know is,  we are trying to force ourselves to feel safe in an environment that is not safe.

A home that houses abuse, cannot entertain friendships.

Deviating from What is Standard.

Our training last night was so revealing to me on so many levels.  

We do role playing on the phones.  Meaning, a person is the caller and we are the liners (on the crisis line) and we then get a feel for the type of a calls and what is helpful and what is not.

What came out last night was very interesting.  How as you sit listening, you yourself and your experience history can become a block for the person on the line. Unknowingly, you are not as free to explore their pain.  

This unconscious belief is there, and it blocks you from moving, and you don't even know it...until it is pointed out.

As one person is in the hot seat (being a liner) the rest of us are watching.  And being a witness to the call and not on it, you are so wise, for your unconscious issues are not threatened.  

What I thought about as I was falling to sleep, is that we all can solve issues and problems in anothers life, especially just witnessing it and not being actively engaged in it.  However, become engaged, and your unconscious pain and wounds will not let you respond freely, you will hit a wall.

You will only explore as far as you yourself have gone...you move up to the wall of uncomfortable, but not beyond it.  And, if you are watching the dialogue, BUT not in it, you are free to explore options, for your own unconsciousness is not engaged.

But, put yourself into the scene, and you freeze.

Wildly intriguing to see...and extremely telling in how we operate in life.  Very good at knowing what to do as long as we are not engaged in real life.  

I can see as a therapist, that they will unknowingly have blocks that will block exits and pathways to healing, depending upon their own life experiences.  

If you are seeing a therapist and it feels like you are making no progress, IT very well may be because, they can only take you so far.  

And, it also came to me, that if your support system is all from the same stock, you may just stir the pot, but never find a solution or healing way out.

I can see I missed my calling or perhaps I am just entering into it.  I thoroughly am engrossed in the how abuse is spoken of, not spoken of, how it manifests in lives, how it is treated, how abused individuals act and how it is best to respond, etc.  

Widening the circle of understanding the human psyche and how abuse impacts your living and the unconscious beliefs that stunt your growth and turns your life into an anomaly.

I looked up the word, Anomaly...making sure I had the correct meaning.

"Something that deviates from what is standard, normal, or expected."

This anomaly...my father deviating from what is normal, then created in me the same.  I became an anomaly when I didn't act as expected or what is normal or standard.  Meaning, I didn't run screaming and report it.

However, I do have this one memory that I did tell...well, I showed, my private parts to my mother in severe pain...And she deviated from what was standard, normal or expected.  Nothing was done.  She didn't leave my father or bring him to the court of the land.  When they didn't act as expected, I learned that in our home, our normal was to act different from the standards or what is expected.

It wasn't that the child didn't act normal, she did, but she witnessed how abuse was dealt with, how others responded.  They didn't act like she did...while her alarm screamed in pain, they were the opposite.  No reaction.

It is this non-reaction that we notice.  That it is our three alarm fire, not theirs.  We are acting incorrectly. When my mother didn't respond in kind, I had to as a child read the message that all was okay.  No reason for panic.  Settle down, it is all right.

Her deviation from a standard mother's response, is all it took for me to take cues in how to react to abusive behavior...calmly as if it is okay...no more than a scrapped knee.  

Her reactions programmed mine.

This anomaly is the set point for our family...deviating from what is standard.

Standing on Nothing.

I thought there was a strip of land between true and not true.   A place where folks could agree with me, but not like in total agreement.  Sorta like a path in the zoo, where you are not in the cage, but near it.  Still in the zone, but not totally committed.

Yet as I was trying to write and figure out, are there really three places?  

One being true,

the other being not true,

and then this spot in the middle between them. And if that was true, what is the middle spot called?

Supposedly, we all know what is true and what is not true and yet more often than not, I find folks living as if the truth never happened.

How is that possible? 

All I can figure out is they live in the space between true and not true.

Where they know what the truth is and what it would require....but are not willing to live there.  And they are not quite willing to be seen as totally nuts, as to believe what is not true, so they live in the space between.

In this space between, it requires nothing.

It demands nothing.

It allows all things.

You are not committed to the truth; in a cage of only one way...nor are you sitting with the unbelievers; you are strolling along a path that doesn't touch either side.

However, what I have found is the truth is very rigid and tight.  It doesn't allow for leisurely space of indecision...or waffling. You are either with it or you are not.

What I believe is that most folks don't want to openly admit they are against the truth...for that would be plain insane to say.

Instead they tell themselves many things that circle the cage, but never enter it.

Entering into the land of truth, starts an avalanche, where the land 'between' rapidly begins to slide out from beneath you...the comfortable path disappears, leaving you standing nowhere or... in the truth, the tight cage.

While many want to believe that there is an honorable place to stand outside of truth, I myself have not found it.  

In fact the only secure ground I found, was with the truth; all the rest was like a mirage.  

This mirage is built when reality is too harsh to live.

Yet it is a mirage...for when you get right up to it and look deeply, it all disappears...and reality rears its ugly head.

So, while my true story of my childhood is not so easy to deal with, it is much easier than standing on a mirage.

There is substance in reality.  

I looked up the meaning of true.

"Consistent with fact or reality; not false or erroneous."

What I believe is that I have been consistent with reality and its facts. Reality and its facts doesn't allow for any wiggle room. It either is or it is not.  That is why I see the truth as being in a cage; confined to what is.

It doesn't have the options of choice.

I see myself now as a prisoner of the truth...where my choices are no longer a choice...I walk as it dictates.  

Would this mean that if others see me with options, that they are not confined to the truth?  That they are living outside of its constraints...free to not follow the truth.

Most often the discussion is not so much about what I am doing, but rather that I am choosing this option for me, what it is right for me...it feels right for me etc.

When in actuality, what I am doing is just lining up with reality...it isn't about me, but about what is true.

It is my dance partner; it leads and I follow.  Otherwise I am standing on nothing.

 

What is it Reflecting?

In Oprah's magazine, she interviews Deepak Chopra and she asks, 

Oprah: "What is that essence?  In every conversation I've had with housewives,in Mumbai, with middle-class people, upper-class, in the slums - everyone says there is an underlying consciousnes of karma.  That people believe in karma - that what you are putting out is going to come back. If I do something to you, the energy of it is going to come back to me in the future." 

Deepak: " A child in India grows up with the idea that you have to make choices that will create a better future. In fact, your whole life is a continuum of choices, so the more conscious you are, the greater your life will be.  People live that yes."

Oprah:  "That is the thing that impressed me the most.  People live it. They don't just talk it.  It is part of their actions..  Am I correct?"

Deepak:  " You're absolutely correct.  In India you are taught that there are certain qualities that make you a divine human being.  These qualities are Joy.

Oprah: "Joy!"

Deepak: "Love."

Oprah: "Love."

Deepak: "Compassion, equanimity, truth, goodness, beauty and hamony.  And at the core of these are three words: Sat, chit, Ananda. Sat means "the truth", Chit means "consciousness" and Ananda means "Joy".  So if you are connected to truth and consciousness and joy, you're all set."

In reading this, and looking back....what are the children of the FALC taught?

And what are you teaching if you are not teaching the truth of your own childhood? How are you living life and what is it reflecting?

The pain between us.

In writing the post for Mother's Day, I felt or seen the completed picture of what might have been, had I continued in being a 'kinder' daughter.  

We think of the legacy of abuse as handing down repeated behaviors such as beating our children or sexually abusing them. We don't think of the legacy being unable to face the truth and the negative emotions from hurtful things traveling along and being handed to our children to feel.

It is the feelings and emotions that get passed on.  The action is a byproduct.

The legacy isn't the behavior, but the way you don't feel upward, but you can express downward.

They pass you, you dont' feel them, but your children surely do.

I don't know if I can articulate this in a way that those still not truly facing their own true stories can appreciate.  I totally get how harsh I was looked upon for standing up to my mother, but the alternative is that you unconsciously give your children all what you don't feel.

Some think, that being kind to an abusive mother, will make them a kind person. Instead what happens is that you are only pretending to be kind, for inside of you is a very hurt child.  A hurt child forced to be kind. 

I can totally feel the tight spot a child is put into.  Where morality, society and religion all are wanting you to honor thy mother, who beat you, who didn't protect you, etc, by being kind. And this kindness comes with a price you alone have to carry; being silent about how it made you feel.

In order to do as society dictates, you have to lie to yourself.  So, you look good in society and are affirmed in religion, but have lost yourself.

This weird place you asked to stand in is the road of pretending. And on this road, the true emotions will arise, just never directed in the right direction. Like a wild shooter, they never hit the correct mark, and instead land on the innocent.

By focusing on my truths and the root cause, I was shut the gate downward towards my children and opened the gate that morality and religion had closed to me.

The actions of my children never ever deserved the treatment they received.  Yet, the only avenue I had left open to me was them...until, I turned to the source and root of my pain.  My abuse in my childhood.

Going against the moral codes of society and religion were not popular for me, but it was the only way to stop the legacy.  My truthful expressions being expressed to the parties who inflicted the damage had to happen. And, to be followed through with actions that represented my truth.  

My mother wasn't able to see what she did to us, for she wasn't able to see and fully accept what happened to her as a child.  

Just seeing clearly your past will clear up the dysfunction for your children. 

The countless families of abuse within the FALC, blessing away the truth, is exactly what abuse needs.  To keep abuse alive and strong is to not see it.

It has been said that I am totally mental for staring at abuse and not seeing the good that rode with it, but the good I had seen and paid attention to, it was the dark colors of abuse that got shoved so far back in the recesses of my mind, that I needed to address.

Now I see the total picture. And in understanding how abuse is handed down, I can see how my parents treated us, had nothing to do with us, but said volumes about their childhoods.

When parents who are unable to reconcile their own lives, unconsciously treat their child badly, it isn't because the child deserves it, asked for it, is bad, etc...it isn't about the child, IT is because the parent never healed their own childhood wounds.

Healing them is seeing them, expressing them, dealing with them. And putting up boundaries towards the hurtful parent.

Many think I am punishing my mother.  When in actuality, I know that my mother is hurting from her childhood and can't but help hurt me, for she hasn't been able to express her self upward.  I know she is doing this unconsciously. And I am able to spare her hurting one of her children by staying away.

As a mother...I would want my children to get out of the way of me, IF I was hurting them unconsciously.  

I can't change my mother, but I can stop her from hurting me, by stopping the relationship.  The only way she can continue to hurt me is for me to stay.

My leaving stops the pain between us.

Face Her Own Truth

Mother's Day always comes with a cocktail of emotions.  I feel the estrangement to my own mother and the void of being an adult child outside of that relationship, with the juxtaposition of being in changing relationships with my children. Mother's day for moms with moms, is multi-layered, especially when the relationships are the complete opposite.

IF I hadn't separated myself from my relationship with my mother, there is a very good chance, that the relationship between my children and I would be very different, let alone the relationship between me and myself.

Alice Miller is an author who writes about children and parents, but mothers mostly....and how we see or don't see our true mothers.

  "I use the word "unconscious" exclusively to refer to repressed, denied, or disassociated content (memories, emotions, needs).  For me, a person's unconscious is nothing other than his/her biography, a life story that, although stored in the body in its entirety, is accessible to our consciousness only in a highly fragmentary form.  Accordingly, I never use the word "truth" in a metaphysical sense. The meaning I give it is invariably that of a subjective entity, related to the actual life of the individual concerned.  This is why I frequently speak of "his" or "her" truth, meaning the true story of the person in question, as evidenced by and reflected in his/her emotions.  In my terminology, emotion is a more or less unconscious, but at the same time vitally important physical response to internal or external events - such things as fear of thunderstorms, rage at having been deceived, or pleasure that results from a present we really desire. By contrast, the word "feeling" designates a conscious perception of an emotion. Emotional Blindness, then, is usually a (self-) destructive luxury that we indulge in at our cost."

"MY MAIN CONCERN in this present book is with the effects the denial of our true and strong emotions have on our bodies. Such denial is demanded of us not least by morality and religion. On the basis of what I know about psychotherapy, both from personal experience and from accounts I have been given by very many people, I have come to the conclusion that individuals abused in childhood can attempt to obey the Fourth Commandment only by recourse to a massive repression and detachment of their true emotions.  They cannot love and honor their parents because unconsciously they still fear them.  However, much they may want to, they cannot build up a relaxed and trusting relationship."

"Instead, what usually materializes is a pathological attachment, a mixture of fear and dutiful obedience that hardly deserves the name of love in the genuine sense of the word.  I call this a sham, a facade.  In addition, people abused in childhood frequently hope all their lives that someday they will experience the love they have been denied.  These expectations reinforce their attachment to their parents, an attachment that religious creeds refer to as love and praise as a virtue.  Unfortunately, the same thing happens in most therapies, as most people are still dominated by traditional morality. There is a price to be paid for this morality, a price paid by the body."

"Individuals who believe that they feel what they ought to feel and constantly do their best not to feel what they forbid themselves to feel will ultimately fall ill, unless, that is, they leave it to their children to pick up the check by projecting onto them the emotions they cannot admit to themselves."  Alice Miller

In feeling emotions that were not easy for me to admit or feel about my mother, fear, rage, resentment, her lack of care...etc.  I spared my children, and myself, a relationship that they carried what I could not....I gave them years worth of rage and resentment....that needed to be directed upward at my mother.  Once I was able to feel the true story of my childhood, my children didn't have to feel what I couldn't feel.

I know there are vivid memories of me being totally out of control enraged...and at pretty minor incidences with my children.  What I didn't know is that these emotions were traveling in the wrong direction.  My unconsciousness, my denial of my true childhood story, was spilling forth in my nowaday world, I just didn't know it.  Like a child, a very angry child I mothered.

So, as I sit here on Mother's day, I am fully understanding how leaving my mother saved my relationships with my children, in that I didn't give them what I couldn't hold.   

It isn't that I am still in rage towards my mother.  Rage served its purpose.  It was the exact emotions a child should feel in the midst of sexual abuse being so very young and helpless and having a mother refuse to change her ways.  All the bundles of emotions that go with sexual abuse were felt by me, so that I did not deliver them to my children, unfelt.

What is between my children and I is the present.  

My past is with my mother.  

I am so grateful that I was able to turn and face my mother with the truth of me, so that I can experience mothering without spewing forth emotions I didn't want to feel.  In feeling the worst emotions a child fears, I spared my children a very angry mother.

What I know to be true...is that my mother didn't mean to be angry at us, she just didn't know how to turn around and face her own truth.

Just be Me.

Last night I had my second class of Volunteer Training at Dial Help.  We went over different types of individuals who are part of the human population that have been labeled "different" and seem to be chosen unconsciously by the majority to be targeted, due to not being 'normal'.  

Like there is the template of perfect and if you don't fit into the size, shape and color, then you are rejected.

This is the Perfect shape we all believe is there, but it isn't who we are.  

Some of us feel 'closer' to the model than others, but it seems that most folks are not allowed to be themselves, that they are expected to change to fit.  Fit into a slot that allows society to feel better...maybe even look better.

This image society holds up...and we are all to contort ourselves to match.  Failing to do so, means you are the failure.  Not society.

It really sat with me how backwards this all is. Where the image of what you must be, overrides who you are.

Imagine a society that didn't want anything from you, but you. Where there is no mark to hit, no hole to fit into, but rather being different is being normal.

I just felt how telling it is, about individuals that work so feverishly to be 'normal' and 'perfect' and how much lying this must entail.  How much effort it takes to pretend to be normal, to feel perfect, in order to slide under the marker called Perfectly Normal.

This means reaching for a target, instead of Being you.

Being you is not acceptable...or good enough.  We are taught to behave for society, but not behave as ourselves, or to live our truth, but to live how society deems it to be.

Imagine... Being you is not enough.  You have to pretend to be something better than that.  How is that possible?  What does this do to you inside, to hide yourself...and pretend otherwise?

When perfectly normal is considered normal, then if anything out of the ordinary happens, you must hide it. Push it aside and away OR you will be pushed aside and away.

Real life is not allowed.

Normal Society only accept you if you pretend to be that which you are not.

There is no way the Majority of Society is normal...they are just pretending they are. 

If the majority would stand in their imperfections, there would be no perfection to reach.  Normal then would be imperfect.

And in an imperfect world, all individuals would be perfect...accepted for being truthful and not discarded because of it.

Discarding perfectly normal, would free us all to be.  What I feel is the biggest Disease, is that we have moved that far from our own truths.  We did this to please an image, a church, a family... 

That is the price we pay for not walking our truth.  

In the FALC, there was no room for being you.  There was an image to aspire to, and all good christians worked to reach it. Conformity was applauded. We all had to look and act the same.  Control happened when we acquiesced.  It mattered not at what cost to the individual. The image of the FALC came first.  Same as with families...within the church. There is no room for imperfections in their perfect image.  Controlling the image, they control you.  If you don't measure up to the image, out you go.

What is so tragic, is that those who dare walk their truth, are seen as anomalies...instead of the perfect human being, being themselves.

I have lived both ways now...and noncomforming for society feels better within me. It was so hard to live trying to measure up to a moving target.  Perfect was never reachable, until I decided to just be Me.

"I M Perfect, and it is impossible not to be."

 

Arrived at a New Place

Well, the day finally arrived. With some trepidation or perhaps curosity in how it would all go, I walked into the Sweet Water Cafe, with a carpet roll of quilts.

A group of Weavers, were in the process of taking their work down. It reminded me of setting up a craft show.  You arrive with your things, and are given a space and you just work with what you got. 

The owner of the cafe was so excited with my art, which immediately set me at ease.  

She was very decisive and knew her space and where she wanted each piece. And she knew her hanging system, which isn't the best, but works. She said that a few folks over her 19 years of having revolving art shows, have made comments to improve her system. Her response, "With great Art, you don't notice," and she said to me, "All they will see is your art."

Here is a space near the cash register - Before

And with my art.  Her favorite was the Lady in the Hammock.  She said, "I want to be her, I want to be there."  

This is overlooking the back, as you walk in the door and that is Ursula. Sorry for my lighting, but you get the idea.  On the left near the windows, three more will hang.

 This is also near the cash register...my colors seemed to work with her space.

She had a meeting, and so I left before it was totally done.  In fact, only 6 pieces were up. So who knows how the finished Cafe looked when it was all said and done. But, I took pictures of the before....you can see what the space looks like empty.

This wall can hold very large pieces...and I would have my own dowel on them when I dropped them off.  It would speed up the hanging process.  She picked three Lady quilts that will hang on this wall.  And the opposite side, near the windows, will have more...Just hanging them on the backs of the booths, brightened up the place.

 I was happy to get the "before" shots, and it is best that I wasn't able to get the final After, for that you have to stop in at the Sweet Water Cafe.

As I was leaving, I reached out my hand in thanks...Ursula says, "I feel I need to give you a hug, for you are leaving part of your self here." And so we did.  I felt good leaving my Lady there. (And she gave me a loaf of their bread...it is delicious)

It was a very positive experience.  And I love that my Art is now out of the dark basement and being appreciated by others...creating a welcoming atmosphere while they dine.  

My Art and I...what a journey.  We both have arrived at a new place.