IMPERFECT Lady

No Longer Authentic

When someone you love lies to you, what does it mean?  Does it mean I am not worthy of the truth?  Do lies only work for people of less value?  What does it mean to be lied to?  And who is to blame for lies entering into a relationship?

I sat with my value.  It didn't appear to have changed, even after lies, I remained the same.  I was lied to, but it didn't lower my value.

I even looked up what lies mean..."a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive; an intentional untruth; a falsehood. 2. something intended or serving to convey a false impression..."

It appears to me, that when someone lies, they are trying to be someone they are not.  

It's about their character...trying to paint it different; a false impressionist painting.

What I also know of me, is that I have a very hard time being in a relationship when deception arrives.  I can't pretend to pretend it isn't there.  My old gullible self has died.  I now see lies as being a falsehood and I don't waver.

What I also know is that in keeping a secret it will require lies.  I am not talking about surprises and gifts, I am talking about life's choices, how when you decide to begin a secret, you are really beginning to hone your skills at lying.

You simply cannot retain your character of integrity and authenticity when you harbor a secret.  It changes who you are.  It isn't so much what you are hiding, but rather what it does to your character.

Secrets add a component of falsehood to who you are.

You are no longer authentic.

Into Reality

I am reading, "The Untethered Soul - The Journey beyond Yourself" by Michael Singer.  Here are a few paragraphs that I find so remarkable as to how it is that we are not all seeing the same thing.  Our minds are concocting a story first.

"Take a moment to examine the difference between your experience of the outside world and your interactions with the mental world. When you’re just thinking, you’re free to create whatever thoughts you want in your mind, and these thoughts are expressed through the voice. You are very accustomed to settling into the playground of the mind and creating and manipulating thoughts. This inner world is an alternate environment that is under your control. The outside world, however, marches to its own laws. When the voice narrates the outside world to you, those thoughts are now side by side, in parity, with all your other thoughts. All these thoughts intermix and actually influence your experience of the world around you. What you end up experiencing is really a personal presentation of the world according to you, rather than the stark, unfiltered experience of what is really out there. This mental manipulation of the outer experience allows you to buffer reality as it comes in. For example, there are myriad things that you see at any given moment, yet you only narrate a few of them. The ones you discuss in your mind are the ones that matter to you. With this subtle form of preprocessing, you manage to control the experience of reality so that it all fits together inside your mind. Your consciousness is actually experiencing your mental model of reality, not reality itself."

"Basically, you re-create the outside world inside yourself, and then you live in your mind. What if you decided not to do this? If you decide not to narrate and, instead, just consciously observe the world, you will feel more open and exposed. This is because you really don’t know what will happen next, and your mind is accustomed to helping you. It does this by processing your current experiences in a way that makes them fit with your views of the past and visions of the future. All of this helps to create a semblance of control. If your mind doesn’t do this, you simply become too uncomfortable. Reality is just too real for most of us, so we temper it with the mind."  Michael Singer

The reasons we believe our minds, is that we want to stay in control of the world. And I believe, that those of us who were abused as children, hide further in the mind, that we truly don't want to see reality, for reality is terror.

To stop the words and thoughts imposing on reality seems like child's play...but try it. Try entering each moment silently without a thought.

What happened to me, is that the voices who were transposing reality were found out to be frauds.  I had lived my whole 46 years in my mind...never once seeing what was really going on.  My mind transposed a literal word world for me, and I believed it.  I was in reality with my body, but living in my mind.

Each of us, who have been abused and who can't see that the abusers as an abuser and not a father or mother, sister, brother and friend...are living in their minds.

The difference between stepping out in the raw world without a mind first is to see what is...as it is.  Making no excuses or going to your mind for a nicer cover.  Just to let things be as they are...raw.

From my experience with my family and the FALC, is that very few are actually living outside of their minds.  In fact, if you live in your mind, you can pretend to have life exactly as you wish.  You can bless away any sin and return that man back into a father, you can have 'forgiveness' by staying in your mind...and never stepping into reality. 

When you live in your mind, you don't even know that you are not in reality...the mind will not let you get there, for its task you assigned it was to create a dialogue to keep you from here.

Just like in the big malls, there is a map and then a spot, "You are Here." 

The new challenge for humanity is to go out of their minds and into reality.

Awareness of Your Unconsciousness

"I don't address Ellen as a victim or "survivor" but as a subject. She is the subject of her own unconsciousness, and, as a subject, she knows where to lead me, and she can become responsible for the havoc and suffering and choices of her own unconscious life. Even as a child, when she's eleven, this process of listening to the unconscious and becoming responsible can begin. From my point of view she is responsible for not telling, which doesn't mean she's to blame."  Annie G. Rogers

A lot is being said in these few sentences.  

Changing the words and veiwpoints from being a victim or survivor of abuse to being the Subject of your own Unconsciousness is not only huge, but accurate.

It is about exploring the deep inner workings of how you live the way you live.  

You are the subject that you are exploring and learning about, NOT the abuse.  You can't get free of being unconsciously moved about, unless and until you can see it. See it and understand the whys.

By hiding from yourself, you are in the dark about so many things.  And yet, your actions are showing.  

Somehow we believe that if we do not go deeply into our histories and delve into the actions of our parents, we will escape.  But in fact it is the opposite. You are held prisoner of your past when you fail to see it.

The words victim and survivor didn't explain me as much as an explorer of my unconsciousness.  I had to know how I was able to live a life clueless of my abuse...for 46 years.

I had to dig up what was going on in my childhood, the lay of the land, and to see who was doing what to whom and what was the response, in order to see how I grew to be the way I was.

Just the fact, that I could live for 46 years unaware of my abuse, shows that I was unconscious of the truth of my own life.

Knowing this startling fact, was where I began my search to know about me.  In learning about me, I was also learning about my family.  I wasn't created in a vacuum.

I was born into a play that was already going.  I had to learn the language of my parents home.  

In reading Annie G. Roger's book, "Unsayable"...I clearly was guided sublimibly.

In order to keep their play going, I had my part.  It wasn't about my life, but theirs.

Their play is still running, even after a few of us left the stage, the players are still maintaining the lead roles as accurate, even if the truth disputes it.

In order for me to go back into the family, I would have to become unconscious again, which is impossible.  For once you know, you can't not know.

Listening to my unconsciousness is what guided me to find me.  First I found me mental and broken, and could clearly see how I had to be in order to keep their story going. And once I seen how my behaviors were for them and for hiding abuse, I was then able to make new choices.

I also love how she says, "she is responsible for not telling, which doesn't mean she's to blame."

What is so confusing, is that if we tell, we are then accused of breaking apart a family and if we don't tell, we are then blamed for hiding abuse.  Which of the two evils do you want to pick?  Neither are the truth.  Yet somehow society has the person who has experienced the abuse, as the one who is responsible.

Never is the abuser blamed for either.  When in fact he/she holds the responsiblity of doing both.  

Tearing a family apart happens when the abuse occurrs...and it is for their personal benefit to keep it hidden.  It is their unconsciousness being exposed.

If we all can start the language and conversations about exploring our unconsciousness, we can begin to find answers to abusive behaviors.  

Abuse is our unconsciousness speaking to us. When we turn our backs or hide, or if we deny it, it doesn't go away.  It will continue to run and spread.

My father's uncosncioussness was telling a story in his actions.  Those who refused to believe what he was saying, allowed him to speak it again.  If, the courts of the land understood this.  They would put him away so his truth didn't hurt another...and begin the process of having him explore his own life to reconcile his own childhood truths.

There is only one way abuse can stop its cycle, and that is by awareness of your unconsciousness.

What I Love to Do!

Another Art FULL Sunday!  I woke up to grey skies and muggy temps.  I went down in the basement and began sewing. 

Here is last Sunday's dyed piece with borders.  I loved it as I sewed it, but now standing back and seeing the whole top with borders, not so sure. I will see what kind of Lady graces it... It has interesting potential for sure!

Up close and far away....it has a different affect.

Love the combinations!

I then worked on this one, adding a Lady.  I love the music notes...and how she is reaching it seems for her one note.  Her song to be sung! 

Dance hearing your own music... 

"When you stumble, make it part of the Dance"

I again, love the colors and how they all play so well together.

And then I came back upstairs and used up the left over dye and dyed 4 more yards of 60 wide fabric. 

Last week, while rinsing and washing, the dye, our drain didn't drain, so this week, I did lots of the rinsing out side.  

And once again a line full of hand-dyed fabric.  

I didn't spend much time folding or twisting etc, I pretty much just stuffed in the fabric and poured the dye.  I am happy with the colors and know that I will use them to brighten up a Lady quilt.  Some will make cool backgrounds, sunrises etc.

A full day of fun...doing what I love to do!

Care to Know.

I finished Annie G. Roger's Book, "The Unsayable" and I found it had tons of information packed into it in a wildly compact messy way...not unlike how abuse feels in the body.  How she is trying to show clearly that which isn't clear.

It is very complex and hidden...how it begins, how it is disguised and how it repeats and appears behind the facade of illusion we create.

I believe we, as humans, would like to put abuse into a tiny package and keep it separated and isolated; so it not drip into our own lives. We would like to see it as only the issue of the perperator...that evil exists out there, and not see the strains within our own lives.  To see that our lives are weaved by those who came before us...all their unresolved issues, become our DNA.

What I learned most from this book, is that way abuse flows from generation to generation.  How it appears and how it is overlooked, due to the blindness of what abuse is or how to read the language of the unsayable.  And even more importantly, how we continue to look outward and blame others for our own language...and how we don't pay attention to the signals and signs of our unconsciousness...screaming to gain our attention.  

I do know that it takes great courage to go inward. Especially where abuse is.  You have to see where it came and how it grew you.

I find her work remarkable in its accuracy and how it seems to settle her clients when they are being seen in their true natures. Even as Annie helps to show them their unsayable language it makes sense. 

Highly remarkable, and not an easy read.  But, then so are we who have been abused.  

Annie's closing remarks.

"I've written this book with the hope of making some concepts clear to any reader, but especially to people who have clinical practices and those who come to us to trust us with their suffering. And, in the end, there are at least three things to glean from this book." 

The first of these is that in America we've watered down and neutralized Freud's concept of the unconscious to such a degree that we no longer know how to listen as he listened. What's taken its place is a practice that in fact closes down the unconscious and its great gifts to us. We diagnose, medicate, remove symptoms, change cognitions, change behavior, and understand relationships, and yet we ignore the unconscious—its otherness—because we're frightened of it and have no access to it in the way we practice. I hope my efforts here awaken an interest in Freud, the original, daring Freud, and his idea of the unconscious.  

The second idea is close to the first: The unconscious insists, repeats, and practically breaks down the door, to be heard. The only way to hear it, to invite it into the room, is to stop imposing something over it—mostly in the form of your own ideas—and instead listen for the unsayable, which is everywhere, in speech, in enactments, in dreams, and in the body. And the third idea is the simplest and requires the most courage: to befriend your own unconscious—its signifiers, symptoms, and quirky logic—or it will play havoc in the work you do with patients, no matter your intentions, no matter your degrees and qualifications."  Annie

While she is writing this for her fellow therapists, I would like to encourage others who have been abused to read this.  It will make you feel normal in how you came to be, having lived unseen.  And how it was impossible for you to speak, when there was no one there capable to hear.

She clearly shows how untreated incidents of abuse manifest in our lives. How the trauma doesn't go away, it is in plain view for all to read and hear...if they are willing.

What she clearly shows as well as the deafness of the parents, how they too are contributing factors in our having to make a second hidden language...which appears not so hidden, if you care to know.

 

Language of Abuse.

I am reading "The Unsayable" by Annie G. Rogers.  It is her view of how abused children live their lives after the trauma, when it goes unnoticed, unheard and unaddressed, how we live our lives in code, repeating the abuse over and over to be heard.

I know it sounds insane, but the unconscious wants to be seen, to be reconciled with the reality of what was, and is relentless so that you and your life are at peace, where the columns are in harmony; where negative is in the negative column and positive stands under positive.

"Trauma is so much like tipping a snow globe and watching the snow descend on the same scene in the same way. Whatever is unresolved and unsayable repeats."  Annie

This is what is so tricky and so relenting, that it doesn't matter if you accept and acknowledge and fully bring in the abuse; you will repeat it, until you fully understand all the nuiances of it.  

What is incredible to me that even if you are not willing to talk about it, and will not resolve your life, your life will reflect that which you are not wanting to see.  It is there in full view.

You are living your unconscious truths, even if you your self are not willing to know you.  It is there in full living color each day. 

"She tacked back and forth between resistance and speaking and I saw that it wasn't simply that she didn't want to speak or remember. Tasha wanted to speak and to avoid speaking (and remembering) simultaneously.  I began to hear the "unsayable" as something that moves toward speech and away from speech at the same time."  Annie

What Annie is so briliant at, is to hear and discern what isn't being said and to read the code by behavior and even the words that are repeated in the context of talking about that which you don't want to talk about.

I do get this.  I notice what excuses are being used, how we speak but don't say...yet say by what we do.  What people are drawn to and away from...all are messages.

If this sounds confusing it clearly is. But, it also clearly shows how most of us live.

I found great comfort in that the actions after the trauma are here to be heard, that we don't repeat this behavior for no other reason.  That the truth is working its way into our awareness, if you are willing to see who you truly are.  How you were built and why.

She also says how we are born into this language....

"While every child is assigned a place in language by being given a name, and every child is born to fill what Lacan calls a "Lack", an unconscious hole left by a previous generation, the lack Ellen was required to fill was born of horror.  Her very name, its "el" sound, pointed back to Helen and Helene. Ellen arrived to fill a hole or lack in her mother, passed down from her mother, by her grandmother."

This does make sense to me.  I saw and felt that we were there to serve thy mother...and not to have our own life.  It is that there is a gapping hole that needs to be filled and taken care of, before you are free to live your life.  But, only to find out while you are filling her hole, your own hole is left empty.  And her hole will never be full. She will always need. That is the language.

Not only is there a hole to fill, but we use our children to fill it up.

My emptiness was my children's problem. My insecurities were theirs to make better. The insanity would have continued, if I hadn't become aware of my unawareness and what it was trying to tell me.

I lived the language I was born into until I understood the language. Once I understood that my actions were serving to keep abuse alive and well, and that I was an active participant by not seeing etc....I had to begin speaking differently in all my words and deeds...and to be extremely aware of what my feelings were and what I expected of others.

I wasn't free until I was free from believing that others need to fill my hole.

Until I recognized that I was responsible for building me...and for tearing down the old me. 

Her books are brilliant not only in showing how we were built, but also in de-coding and how to live differently.

I love how it explains me...and how it explains how abuse thrives.  It is the language of abuse.

Welcomed there!

Each new beginning comes with growing pains and a new perspective, as well as knowing what to focus on and what to let go.

The first meeting of the WIND was beautiful, and yet when it was over, we tossed around who the focus would be on and how they would be defined. 

A victim group? 

A survivor group?

What was the direction of the WIND?

I am quite certain this isn't an issue in most groups that are formed, for they are formed around a mutual interest...and it is pretty narrow, EVEN if the individuals in it are varied.  The focus is the action, NOT the make up of the women involved.

The WIND on the other hand, seems to be flipped around, due to the fact that I, a victim of abuse, a survivor of abuse...who wants to give back by starting this group... The focus is on who will attend, NOT what we will do.

The twist is, if you advertise as a victim's group or one for survivors it will kill the group before it starts.

What hit me like a tidal wave tonight, was that the very thing people are pushed back and away from are the labels I was given as a child.  Victim of abuse.

It feels like I am wrong, due to a wrong that was done to me...when we have to hide those words.  For shame...that they are not attractive.

Once again, I am on the outside trying to make it pretty....when in actuality it isn't me.  I can't make incest, rape and sexual assault pretty and inviting.  I can't.

And nor do I want to.  

I want it to be uncomfortable. BUT, I don't want me to be uncomfortable.

I want victims to feel that the words don't make them bad, that by speaking out and using them in the correct context, you can get out behind them and stand tall proud of who you are...even if you happened to have experienced abuse.

The fight that I feel pushed up against is to USE the words and to change the perspective.  

For up until now, victim and survivors of abuse are seen as less than. No one one wants to OPENLY associate with them.

In the past 7 years I have had many people contact me in secret, and some who will silently endorse me.  

But, now I guess, I am asking to openly support and stand with women who are victims of abuse.  Come and join me, a victim and a survivor and help others become proud of who they are and that they are not the experience. They are not the rape...and incest etc.  Let us mentor them back to feeling who they are beyond the shame of abuse.

It took me a while to understand that by not using the words victims and survivors, I was disowning a huge part of my truth.

I, who exemplify a victim, can't speak it?  I will not use the V word?  Really?

It can't be.

I want there to be a movement that will right this wrong.

Victims are not the ones who are wrong.

They have had a wrong done to them.

I want victims to be able to live loud.

To say the unsayable...that abuse is wrong, not them.

I truly do not believe that we can fool anyone that the WIND is 'just a women's' group.

And why should we.

Victims have spent centuries being seen as the villans.  While the abusers live large, we hide behind what was done to us.

If I can't be the example of being a women who had the experience of abuse and how it affected me and then what I did to get out from beneath it...who will?

There are no victim groups out there now that are being headed by a victim.  One who has walked 7 years of gaining back my sense of self...who can help steer them along the way.

But, I can't do this if I can't say what my group is about.

It is my belief, that we are all victims of something.  We all have barriers and walls that hold us back.  

WIND is there to help you reach beyond...to push and encourage you to be authentic, and truthful in accepting all of you.

How can I do that IF I hide the victim parts of me?

I want my victim parts to be the stepping stone that has brought me to who I am today.  And it has.

I would not be the person I am today, had I not walked the past 7 years out of dysfunction.

I can't take the victim out of me, but I can no longer let myself be defined by what happend to me.

There is no part of me that I am ashamed of.

I will stand in WIND as me!

All of me.

No parts will not be welcomed there!

Harness the WIND!

We had some very young inspiring energy at the WIND last night, they came in with my friend...as a reminder of the free spirits within us all.

Seeing an open window display in need of human expression, they jumped right in and took up a pose! 

Each moment we are on the Stage of Life, what is your pose?

This is a rock that Teddy painted for me.

And here it is with the Artist, Teddy!

Both beautiful works of ART!

And here is another rock, a gift from Laura Z.

I love them both!  

All the extras added spice to an already wonderful night.  Good energy and great inspiration!  Women in new directions....feeling the eagerness to try new things with the courage and freedom of the youth!  Escaping the confines of rules and all the things women have to do each day....to come together and play!  

In our play, we will find all the things we love to do!  What we have forgotten to express, the spontaneity of life.  I looked up the word spontaneity and found, "Voluntary or Undetermined Action"  a great definition for WIND!

The uncontrolled open space for us to be...is my intention.  Where you come and play voluntary without a definition of what our actions need to be.  Play can't be defined or put into a box....nor can you harness the WIND!

 

We All Get to Play!

And so the WIND began... 

It was perfect.  

Inspiration, words, images, ideas, women, conversation, creativity, connection, visions, self, expressions, friends....

In comfortable ease, we cut, we glued, we read, we searched, we found, we pasted, we listened, we talked, we dreamed, we shared.  

We were all students of the Collage.  And collages we made!

Dreams, goals, ideas, wishes, desires.

Sharing our selves with each other in Art...it was comfortable fun.

 

This one is mine, before I glued it down.  It was fun.  I will add to it as I now read magazines.  Looking for the one right word, the sentence that catches you, the place that you long for, the idea that nags to be done....

The WIND was exactly as I had envisioned and more.  It was ease and like great Art, moved without effort.  What I love is that we all get to play!

Next meeting is September 4th at 6pm.  We will be painting with pastels! 

Organically Like Art.

Tonight is the first meeting of WIND.  I am excited.  I have no idea how this will go, where it will bring us, but my intentions are for it to be a mentoring women's group, with lots of action.  

Due to my own background and speaking out about Abuse, leads some to think it will be the typical support group for victims. But, it will actually be my greatest intention to make it a complete opposite.  

I envision a very active and inspired bunch!

I see us as a group of women of all ages and in different parts on this journey called life...meeting and doing new and different things.  Expanding and growing and reaching towards exciting personal goals.  Defining our selves from the inside out!

It matters not where you are, where you came from, but it does matter that you are eager to move in a new direction.  To wiggle free from what is holding you back...and we will cheer each other on as we stretch into new areas.

You can come and play twice a month with us...it is a play date for women!

Who knows where the WIND will take you!

This is my latest quilt design, one that I am using my hand-dyed fabric.  I love the way the dyed fabric adds art to art.  I can't know how this will end, but I love the beginning!  

This is how I see the WIND moving...organically like Art.  

I can't know what this piece will look like, but I am fully excited about its beginning. Just as my feelings about the WIND!