IMPERFECT Lady

Sing your own Song.

A few of the worst habits that comes with abuse and being raised in a very strict religion are the ideas that change will happen when the other person changes...or when life has the right and perfect climate.

That we will change when we can move in harmony...is how we are taught.  That it is wrong to move IF someone else is unhappy about it.

Stepping away from the old habits of harmony is very hard to do. Especially if it breaks the harmony of family.

Looking up the word Harmony, suggests a pleasing arrangement or combination or an agreement in feelings.

In dysfunctional homes, harmony was often gotten by one party being silent.

A fake harmony...not a pleasing arrangement, but a forced harmony.

And when the silence is broken, the false harmony ends...

Some would say that it is breaking up the family or going against the parents etc, but in reality, it is just showing the disharmony that has run through the family always.

Being the one to speak up doesn't break the harmony...it breaks the pretending.

I believe that the family could change its whole tune, if all would begin to sing their own feelings, own experiences and own their truths.  

Sadly however, rarely does the one who started the false harmony change...meaning the parents.  

I was given the incredible opportunity to change my own tune; by seeing who I was, where I came from, how I was raised, what I took with me, how it created me, and how I mothered from there...and how my needs impacted the lives of my children and others.

For me to sing a new tune I had to fully realize what my old harmony required of others.

My old peace was found by others doing this or that for me. 

My old peace required me to control what they did or didn't do.

My old harmony was forcing others to be a certain way for my peace, my love and my joy.

When I set them all free to be who they wanted to be, I had to learn how to find my own inner harmony.  I found it by doing what brought me peace.

I didn't need an army of folks making me happy, I found it was a much simpler deal to do this by myself.  I didn't need an army of people catering to my needs...it was up to me.

It took a great amount of time and personal restraint to let them all go.  To not require them to do what I felt I needed.

I had to work on constructing my own self image minus their voices echoing me. They were allowed to sing out of tune to my own words. We did not have to match. Their opinion of me and my opinion of me was allowed to be worlds apart.

What had to matter the most was me singing my own song.

My song.

What was my truth about me as I knew me.

I had to always have the last vote.

It is so easy to get swept away to sit on the shores waiting for someone to give you the go ahead, to cheer you on.  But, what I have found, is the one we are waiting for is your self.

I have become very aware of when it is me holding me back or when I believe it is someone else.

I know that our minds often love to settle down and do nothing for it is the easiest it seems. But when we stop because of someone else, we are letting that person hold the reins to our lives.

They are now in control of what we do and how we do it or if we do it.  And, as soon as you stop due to their lack of singing in harmony, you are now being carried by their tune of you.

It doesn't matter what you do in this life, just make sure you are singing your own tune of who you are.  Make sure they are your words, your music, your passions and desires, your experiences of you.

Many people don't like how I am living my life, how I am making my choices, drawing my lines, doing what I do.  But, at the end of the day all that matters is that I am singing for me.

Remember, Universe is One Verse.  There really is only one verse of you.  You are the only one who is standing in the way of how you sing, how you move and what you do.

Either you will let others words describe you....or you will sing your own song.

Born to do.

I listened to Jean Houston on Oprah's Soul Series speak about the Heroes Journey...how we are asked to follow the lure of our souls...or die.

I understood this.  I felt that I didn't have a choice but to follow where my soul led and it was leading me away from all that I knew...as Jean says, "somewhere over the rainbow..".  What I did know, is that I had to follow or I would have died.

Not physically, but spiritually.  I would have ceased to be engaged with life.  I truly can't even begin to begin to visualize how my life would be today, had I not followed my inner voice and knowing into the unknown.

What she describes as the heroes journey, is that we meet aspects of our disenfranchised self.  Our weakness and the places where we lost power and sense of self.

She references the Wizard of Oz....and how the tin man had no heart.  My heart too was opened up following my own path.  The yellow brick road isn't a road without challenges, but rather one that leads you to finding a stronger sense of self worth and self knowing and integrity.  The path to being you.

I feel that I am a hero in my own life for going against the voices of many and doing that which my soul needed me to do.  To walk away from family and church and so many beliefs that had distanced me from my body, mind and soul.

My heroes journey was reconnecting me with all aspects of me...bringing me back to me.  

The line I had envisioned was "I am lost and I am going to go and find myself. I didn't even know that I was missing or what I look like."  Heading out, out of what was comfortable for me into the land of the unknown...leaving behind all that I knew about me.

I believe, that we are all asked to take this heroes journey...but some will pass.  And those that pass, are living lives in quiet desperation. And, some will have a life experiences that will catapult them onto the yellow brick road....that was me.

The heroes journey isn't to be a hero for others, but rather being your own hero.  To stand up and save your self.  Find your truth and speak it.  Feel your feelings and give them a voice.  Open your heart to your self and accept your unique value...to stop waiting for someone to come and complete you.

Following the lure of your soul...the desire and passion that calls to you....to leave behind what feels to be holding you down.  It is.

I believe inside of all of us is the calling....it is up to each of us to stop listening to the outside voices and tune into our inner knowing.  It is there.

The heroes journey is to follow your gut instincts, to listen to your inner child, to pay attention and be its servant.  The heroes journey is to save your unique self.  

And for me, it was to rescue me from the hold of the church and the affects of abuse.  To find a way to free me and to find the aspects of myself that I had given away or distance myself from.

What Jean speaks about is to enhance the mind, open the heart and to go deep into the soul....a heroes journey is to explore your self and find out who you are meant to be.  You doing what you were born to do.

(Jean Houston's new book - "The Wizard of Us")

Know your path.

I had wrote a post a long while back about being the bus driver instead of a passenger, and as I began doing yoga again to heal my legs...I know this to be true.

I was raised a passenger....one who served the bus driver.  That in order for my life to change, I had to please the driver...hoping he/she would take me where I wanted to go.

As I experiences the subtle changes once again in my body after three days of doing Bikram yoga for an hour and a half, I know our quality of life is directly related to what we do in our days.

If you are sitting back waiting for someone to change in order to be happy, you will have a long scenic ride in their life, but not yours.

At times the weakest part of me, wishes for the quick fix, for being allowed to be lazy and have fixes magically happen...but mostly I love that I am in the drivers seat.

I go where I feel inspired and swerve around the places that feel unkind or untrustworthy...and make detours into fearful places that return my strength and sense of self.  

Yoga has been a place where I connect with my body in a way that shows me I am the center of my life.  My life is steered by me and me alone.  My body and inner health is not being attacked from the outside, but rather from my thoughts and ideas inside.

I am so grateful to know the healing affects that yoga brings...and to feel stronger today for taking the time to move my body in ways that will allow it to heal and be strong.

When my mind fights this, the pain in my body wins.

Pain is a great motivator...so don't try and cover it up. Listen and you will know your path.

Walk Alone

My Thanksgiving thoughts fit better on this blog...they are more retrospective than looking ahead. 

I feel thankful for all the deep dark days of sorrow...all the valleys where I was able to leave all the material matters to rest, and just dwell in the emotions...where my focus attached itself to my spirit, instead of looking outward at things.

When your inner landscape collapses, the outside things mean nothing.  

Without the devastation of my life...I would not have found my soul.

I am thankful for the tragedy.

I am thankful for all the people and things that failed me.

I am thankful for having to reach deep within in me for me.

I am thankful for my awareness, a rise in consciousness to see above or beyond my old beliefs.  

I am thankful for leaping into uncharted waters and finding new steps.

I am thankful for the strength it has taken to do so.

I am thankful that in the darkest moments I found my connection to the Universe.

I am thankful that I am aware of the dance between Him and I.

I am thankful knowing He was there in the darkest moments showing me where I was not being authentic, where I had lost my truth and my hold on reality.  

I am thankful that I know, I never walk alone.

From Here.

This blog has been a great place for me to speak and to be heard.  Even if, just one person were to read it...I was heard.  

This blog has offered me a place to talk about abuse, to say what I feel needed to be said, about family and church and how both played a crucial part in my abuse.  I feel that I have done my due diligence to be one who knew and said something.  It was my intention to expose what many would love to keep hidden...I did at 46, what some feel I should have done as a child.

This blog has been a great sanctuary for my feelings, my confusions, my pain, and heartache...a place to release into the Universe the affects of abuse and my struggles to find a way to not repeat my family's legacy.

This blog has been filled with huge affirmations, epiphanies, insights, clarity and knowing... A place where I could bring my angst and come away with answers.  I was the most surprised most often how the post would end.

I didn't begin this blog with an agenda or a goal in mind.  It was just that I felt I wanted to share my journey, in hopes that someone out there would find comfort in knowing they were not alone.

I wrote for myself, but always felt that maybe what I discovered, would help another.

This post is number 1278.  Somedays I wrote two, but for the most part I have been writing on here for over 3 1/2 years.  That in itself seems incredible to me.

I have thought of quitting the blog from time to time Or that I have come to the end of what I can possibly say about abuse and living with it's affects....and now I am thinking that day has come.

I will not shut this blog down or delete it, I will let it be here.  I will come to it when I feel I have something to share...when it fits the subject about sexual abuse.  When my wounded self once again needs to explore and know what troubles it.

What I aim to do is begin a second blog, "Imperfect Too".  

I see Imperfect Too, being more about the creative expression...about my artwork and stretching and growing that.  I want to create a blog that will have inspiration of the Artful kind.  I want to work on marketing My Lady and her quilts and put her artwork on cards and canvases....letting her great energy move out into the world.  I want my daughters photographs to have a portal to pass through.  I want her and I to work on learning how to make a shopping cart, etc to become the power behind marketing our Art.

I feel it is time now to change the focus in my life towards being more artful and less reflective. 

Now, that I know fully who I am...I believe I can now be me.

I feel that this blog holds who I am and how I became to be....and "Imperfect Too" will be about finding a way to express artfully Me. 

Both the light and dark are who we are.  I have explored and dug and felt and purged the darkness for almost 8 years.  I have written to find me and now I will write as I try and live the artful free life of My Lady.

"Imperfect Too"....will be My Lady and I...how we both grow forward.

Just like my art quilts....I first create the background and then I add the lady...so too is my life.  My background is now firmly in place...who will I now be from here?

In Order to Live

Here is a post from Facebook that I found intriguing and very familiar.

"~Tina H

How to Identify Being a Narcissistic Extension

Narcissism is a complex and often misunderstood character disorder. Less attention has been paid to the person who supplies what the narcissistic need. This person is known as a narcissistic extension, and can suffer tremendous trauma and abuse while feeling blameworthy. It is a difficult dilemma to solve, and is often perpetuated in adult relationships when children have had narcissistic parents, and less so, parents who act as narcissistic extensions. This article discusses the role of the narcissistic extension, and its development, and how people who are narcissistic extensions, like narcissists, "see" what is not there, but, unlike narcissists, blame themselves for this, and the resulting relationship and familial problems.

1.Know what narcissism really is. Narcissism is a character disorder which causes the narcissist to "look outward" for a view that will reflect him/her as wonderful. Rather than having good self-esteem, the narcissist lacks it, and feels empty, and therefore must gain his pseudo-"self-esteem" from external sources: family, friends, lovers, workmates and children. Success is measured by over-inflation of one's achievements, and by more concrete examples that seem to "prove" achievement: money; praise; status; promotion; being liked; being powerful; being overly nice, etc. Objectification of people mirrors their need to show themselves as having "objects" that conventionally define success. They desire the best and are perfectionists. Their perfectionism derives from their internal, sublimated sense of worthlessness, envy and shame. For the narcissist everything and everyone is, in essence, reduced to an object, and some work together quite usefully: i.e. a wealthy partner; a good physique in yourself or in another (partner). These objects are known as "supplies" which the narcissist feeds off and ultimately drains of their own self-worth. The definitive guide for the signs of sub-clinical narcissism is the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, which is a self report test but if you take it and think about your answers you will be able to apply those categories to others. The NPI is available online in many places (e.g. http://personality-testing.info/tests/NPI.php).
2
Analyze your behavior around the narcissist. Do you tend to pay more attention to their needs than to your own? Many people assume the role of a narcissistic extension, which means they are used, or allow themselves to be used, as a supply to keep the other person "on track", or in control, or feeling okay. Often the person who extends the narcissist does not recognise what is happening as the narcissist (unconsciously or consciously) uses strategies that trick the narcissistic extension into believing they have certain invaluable traits. Narcissists can be excessively loving, due to their need for a supply of love, but their needs outweigh any real love, and the extension is simply that, a part of the narcissist, not a full human being.
3
Think outside the box. Don't compare yourself to the stereotypical narcissistic extension; narcissistic extensions are not only trophy wives for well-paid executives. They are more often targeted by the narcissist for traits that the narcissist (possibly reflexively) realises he can manipulate. He thus always plays a game with his extension, turning them gradually from the beloved, elevated "person of their dreams" into an object who is debased, found wanting and "not good enough." That is because the extension can never fill the narcissist's ever-empty hole inside, and like an addiction, the narcissist's need to feel whole always requires more and more. Being a narcissistic extension does not necessarily mean boosting the narcissist's self-esteem, though it may include that. It might also involve being critical but engaged with the person. If there is withdrawal by the extension, the narcissist will panic and run.
4
Understand that the narcissist often makes use of some psychological games to get what they want. At the same time, they never succeed in their never-ending quest for new ways to prove to themselves they're worth something. Thus, sooner or later, new material acquisitions or new people (or both) become necessary especially at a time of insecurity, or work and/or family problems, and particularly if the extension stops playing his or her inculcated role. The narcissist finds it exceedingly easy to devalue one previously "adored" narcissistic extension, and replace him or her with someone he ranks higher. This ranking is not rational, as it is the thrill of the new and exciting that keeps him from feeling empty and addressing his own weaknesses. He would rather move on, and, in a way, that is good news for the narcissistic extension. Once that often kind and benign person has been dropped, often callously, cruelly, silent treatment, desertion, etc (contradicting the entire positive spin he used to trap his "victim"), the next one will inevitably fall into the trap.
5
Be careful and use your intuition. It is not easy to spot a narcissist, as mentioned, as they can equally be "Mr Nice Guy" as "Mr I am.' The signs are subtle, but one guiding rule is trust your immediate intuition, and do not believe his or her words; focus entirely on their actions.
6
Know that the narcissist can leave you at the very moment you stop making them feel important. No surprise when you know, but when you don't it is a huge and traumatic shock, he/she leaves, usually without warning or explanation, or with lies, and has another person waiting in the wings. If asked about their earlier professions of love/friendship, they'll shrug it off: "I meant it at the time." Just like they mean it this time; to a greater or lesser degree they really believe 'this is it! The perfect love which will complete me' but they are deluded. The narcissist's needs are insatiable and in time, this new extension will be dumped and replaced, just like all the others.
7
Be strong and patient with yourself. It often takes the person who has played the role of narcissistic extension some time to recover from the shock of being dumped. The narcissist may also go through a normal "bad patch" but cannot bear the feelings that arise, so he finds, easily enough, another to fill the place before he or she has a chance to feel empty. The narcissistic extension is in shock, and goes through the stages of grief. The poignant and problematical issue is that the narcissistic extension is grieving for what never was, and this means that it takes longer to get over the relationship. They have to miss out twice, in a sense, while the narcissist does not grieve, and just moves on, until, perhaps, one day, he exhausts all avenues and has to face himself, but, by now, he is metaphorically "unseen" and unknowable to his or her non-self.
8
Heal your wounds and rise again, liberated from that person's negative influence on you. The narcissistic extension does his or her grief work and the grief work of the narcissist, and then has to accept that the narcissist never cared about or loved them, as the narcissist simply substitutes them with "other supplies" for love, and the extension must come to terms with the fact that their life with that person was a lie. It is difficult and painful work but it is work that eventually enables growth and the reintegration of the extension as an "I," the antithesis of narcissistic and a person of true empathy and compassion. So, if you identify yourself playing this role, recognise it, do something, go through the harsh grief and recognition of the truth, and know that you will be a happier and healthier person who knows they can and do love."  Tina H

I wasn't familiar with the word narcissistic extension, but I was very familiar with this role. 

It is no different than those who support alcoholics or drug addicts...enablers.

I wasn't a bystander I was a narcissistic extension...and then I was grooming my children to become one too; for me.

While many feel that abuse is an event, a moment in time, it is a complete lifestyle.  It is not something to forgive, forget and move on...it is something to unlearn...and to stop with how you interact with others.

 

And in large families, there are huge supplies of narcissistic extensions....when when stops, another will quickly fill their shoes.  It matters not to the narcissistic who is doing this job, for they don't see you anyway, JUST WHAT YOU WILL DO FOR THEM.

In seeing, feeling and knowing how I operated with my mother, I was able to stop expecting my children to act like I acted.  I was able to set them free...They are not an extension of me, they are their own person.

They are free to chose and to live and to be as their souls dictate.  Their lives are not mine to live. 

This disconnection, this separation was extremely hard on me for I was detaching from my mother and my children at the same time, and then finding a me that existed without doing or having someone define me.  I was being peeled on both sides while growing or finding me.

The Narcissistic Extension is a huge affect of living in a dysfunctional home...you are not able to discern how to engage in relationships.  You have no self if you are not doing or having someone define you.  You by your self amounts to zero.

It was wildly frightening to disconnect everyone, to unplug their responsibilities in defining me and to be motionless in caring for the needs of the narcissistic....to just be a separated unit....and to find love there...with just me.

I still hear the rumblings of others wanting me to do something...to reconnect in some way....and all I want is for all to be separated and free.  

Being a narcissistic extensions is to be a flea on a dogs back...you are at the mercy of the narcissistic always. And, ironically, the narcissistic is at the mercy of the extension.  Both are held prisoners of each other.  Both need the other in order to live. 

 

End abuse

The greatest tragedy of abuse isn't that you were abused, but rather that you never get your self worth back, that somehow the seed that was planted of you being less, grows and flourishes; and you never know your innocence again.

Having been abused wasn't what wrecked my life for 46 years, but rather that no one stepped in and said it wasn't okay...that my father was wrong.  In the absence of this, I grew up believin I WAS.

Something was wrong with me, not that something wrong happened to me.

It is this vast landscape of apathy and ignorance that feeds into the child's system, for no one is opposing their abusers.  Silence is for the benefit of the abuser, always.

A comment was made to me by a Defender of the FALC in the Extoots blog, that not everyone has to be so public to be against abuse, and I agree.  My first steps were not public steps, but private ones.

I stood up for myself against my family. This is where the real work is done.  I have been ridiculed by family members for this.  They do not believe that you have to separate from family in order to heal. 

And, if I could have found a way to honor my body, mind and soul by staying with the ones who abused me, I would have. There didn't seem to be a way.

The reason I believe that I was able to do this, was that my life no longer was easy...the discontent was building up between my mind, my body and my spirit...and I began stirring for my own voice, my own life...and it just so happened, that then is when the truth about my father entered into my life.

I was given, I feel, a second chance to dance with abuse.  To either be silent again and to forgive and overlook this behavior and to allow another little girl to lose sight of her innocence.  

The more folks sought to help and support him, the more lost the little girl gets...based on my experiences.  As a child, no adult dared to stand up and speak out in 'public' or in private about who my father was and how his actions affected their lives.  I did.

I would do it all again...for my little girl, for my innocence and for any one out there looking for someone to see abuse...and not try and build up a story around it...making excuses and working to forgive and forget it.  For what they are forgetting is your innocence.

My whole intention was to speak out from my point of view...to shed some light upon the actions of the past and the actions today.  The same Defender of the FALC, said that he doubts that today, the same shoving under the rug tactics are still being used by the members of the church.  

Again, it isn't to outwardly report and to speak out in public, but to do the hardest steps of all.  Step away from the members of your family who are abusive.  To no longer associate with them.  

I have had first hand knowledge of abuse from other families and the family unit stands strong. So, don't tell me, that abuse is being handled differently, it is not.

Sure, there may be talk about abuse, about other people abusing other people, but silence about their own family secrets and certainly no action to step away from family of origin or relatives not to mention friends. And silence about their own story...

But, I am hopeful the dialogue refuses to be quiet and there are stirrings and other folks becoming restless, a greater awareness and a higher level of consciousness is in the wind....we are learning that silence and forgiveness is not the answer to end abuse.

Parent's False Image

"I was not drawn to this quote because it helped me to understand narcissism or narcissistic behaviour but because it reminded me of how much I was willing to see myself as ‘the problem’ when I first began the healing process that I write about here in ‘emerging from broken’.  So many ‘victims’ of dysfunctional family systems or any type of abusive or one sided relationship see themselves as the one who might be the narcissist.  Narcissistic people groom their victims to always look at themselves and make every effort to avoid letting anyone look more closely at them.  They make sure the flashlight of self-examination is always firmly on the victim both from the view of the narcissist, AND from the view of the victim."  Darlene Ouimet - Emerging from Broken 

It is interesting to read this and see myself as being 'the problem' and how many others point their fingers at me as well; leaving my parents actions and lives out of the spotlight, while they focus intently upon what I am doing or perhaps not doing with the family.

Very interesting to note.

I am a classic case of being a victim who is blamed while the narcissistic mother escapes the glaring light upon her.

I can't tell you how many times she has been defended and her faults explained away and forgotten, while I am being subjected to treatment that should fall on either of them, but not me.

Tell me why again I am the problem???

The second part of this article that was so helpful was the equal value.  

"Finally understanding what equal value is, was the most freeing and important concept that I learned in the process of emotional healing.  I was never treated or regarded with equal value and therefore I had never considered that I actually had it or even that it was an option ‘for me’.  I had to change this false belief. I found out how to repair my self-esteem and take my value back by finding out where and how it got broken and falsely defined as ‘less than,’ in the first place.  I had to see the truth about who the abuser actually was and what false messages that I had been given and that I accepted as the truth." Darlene Ouimet

This disparaging viewpoint of self in comparison to others is the key source of remaining a victim.

I completely agree that you will not see or feel your own self worth, until you first see and feel their truth.

Until I had seen and felt the complete truth of my father being a pedophile and his treatment to me as well as feeling the lack of caring from my mother, was I able to see me.

I know it seems counterintuitive, but you can't get your whole self back until you tear down your parents false image.

We have a false image of our selves based upon the treatment our parents shown us...

So many want to move on and forget about the treatment my parents issued us, to just let the past remain, the past, to go forward with the positive. You can try.  But what you are taking forward is their definition of you...not your own.

Until you see who they truly are, you will not see who you truly are.

While you see their false image, you will have a false image of self.

What I hear most is their children protecting the images of the parents, and in doing so they are blocking their own value.

In order to shine from the inside out, you have to see that which you are unwilling to see.

I am grateful to have read this article for it shows an overview of how we get lost and then how we are found.

I found my true self when I lost my parents false image.

Survival Mode and an Alternate View of Narcissism

Survival Mode and an Alternate View of Narcissism.

Please read this article....it is amazing in how it sets up the frame work that disables the child and hides the abuser....and how it continues on into the present day within my family of origin.  Amazing.

Below are a few paragraphs from the article.  

 "So many ‘victims’ of dysfunctional family systems or any type of abusive or one sided relationship see themselves as the one who might be the narcissist.  Narcissistic people groom their victims to always look at themselves and make every effort to avoid letting anyone look more closely at them. "

"It is easy to groom children to regard the adult with reverence. And if that child grows up in the belief system that the child is always the one at fault, it is easy for any other adult to step in and continue inflicting this insistence upon ‘reverence’ on this now grown up child.  Children don’t just reach a certain age and suddenly the blinders fall off. If no one ever empowers the child to realize that their worth is equal to all others, the child (adult child) will never come to realize it. If the false belief remains operating as ‘truth’, then the adult child will continue to believe dysfunctional relationships are ‘normal’. "

Around My Little Girl

"Being true to who we are means carrying our spirit like a candle in the center of our darkness." 

"If we are to live without silencing or numbing essential parts of who we are, a vow must be invoked and upheld within oneself. The same commitments we pronounce when embarking on a marriage can be understood internally as a devotion to the care of one's soul: to have and to hold … for better or for worse … in sickness and in health … to love and to cherish, till death do us part."

"This means staying committed to your inner path. This means not separating from yourself when things get tough or confusing. This means accepting and embracing your faults and limitations. It means loving yourself no matter how others see you. It means cherishing the unchangeable radiance that lives within you, no matter the cuts and bruises along the way. It means binding your life with a solemn pledge to the truth of your soul." 

"It is interesting that the nautical definition of marry is “to join two ropes end to end by interweaving their strands.” To marry one's soul suggests that we interweave the life of our spirit with the life of our psychology; the life of our heart with the life of our mind; the life of our faith and truth with the life of our doubt and anxiety. And just as two ropes that are married create a tie that is twice as strong, when we marry our humanness to our spirit, we create a life that is doubly strong in the world." Mark Nepo

I totally get this, how we have to weave our soul's passion and truth into our human experiences.  I don't even believe that I knew my soul, until my life fell completely apart.  

When the truth shattered my world, it didn't shatter my soul...and it was hanging on to what I called my little girl or my innocence...that I began weaving the essence of me into each situation.  If it wasn't good for my little girl (my soul), I did not do it.  

I love this line "If we are to live without silencing or numbing essential parts of who we are, a vow must be invoked and upheld within oneself."

It was hard to start living at 46 without silencing or numbing the essential parts of who I was...and I vowed to myself, to always do what was right for me and my soul, no matter what. In doing this, it has made me strong beyond belief.

I also, like how he suggests to "interweave the life of our spirit with the life of our psychology; the life of our heart with the life of our mind; the life of our faith and truth with the life of our doubt and anxiety."

I believed that prior, I lived in shattered fragmented pieces, never letting myself be joined together; for often my mind and my heart were at odds; that I would do what I felt I had to do, but not what would bring me peace.

There is complete freedom and strength when you can weave all parts of you together so there is no inner turmoil.  I wonder, if what creates so many mental illnesses is due to the inner discontent between our mind and spirit...or heart and psychology etc?

When I began the task that has taken 8 years and counting to weave my self back together, I had to exit relationships that would cause a war inside of me...and being okay with it being disruptive outside of me.  Meaning family being upset with my line in the cement etc.  I had to have my inner peace at all costs...for, in the past, I had allowed my insides to be a total mess while trying to clean up the outside world and IT DIDN'T WORK. 

You can't change someone on the outside to bring you peace inside.  

The only real change that will give you last peace, love and joy, is to weave together all parts of you....your mind, body and soul.

That is what they say Yoga does, it brings the mind back to the body.  And I see it as bringing the mind into reality, to see what is, so that the body can move inkind.

It is so easy when you can clearly see reality and when you have given your body/mind and soul permission to live with the truth and not run from it or cover it up or work to change it etc.  But, to be a seeker of the truth in all things and knowing you will be able to handle what it will ask of you.

Truth will ask to respond to what it sees.

Somehow there is great peace for me to be with the truth no matter its ugliness or how painful it can be...it allows me to be in the flow of life weaved together with strength inside of me.

I literally have watched and marveled at the way I have grown up inside by knowing it was important to have no strands of disagreement inside.  I would work up a solution that we could all agree on. If one part of me wasn't happy...it wasn't done.

In the beginning, before I understood the total affects of abuse, I had to envision inside of me this little girl and if this little girl wouldn't be happy, I did not do what others wanted.  For, I could see clearly now, a part of me that I had dumped years worth of duty upon, neglecting her needs, her desires, her passions and her fears.

I no longer could care to care about what others needed or thought about me.  My only concern was the little girl inside.

And, as I mothered myself, I was weaving together all parts of me bringing us all forward in peace, love and joy.

I can see how we can have parts of us who are left at the age of our abuse, how we parts of us get left behind. These wounded parts need to be brought forward....to be expressed and then honored.

What I feel deeply, is that my little girl was abused by my father, and it would be dishonoring to her, to then 'forgive' and forget and move on and continue in a relationship with him.  I instead forgave by accepting that the past could not have been any different, and in doing so moved away from this hurtful man.

I also could see my mother's hand in helping to keep abuse in our home, by her lack of being able to do any different.  I too, forgave this by accepting her limitations that she could be any different....and in honoring my little girl, kept her away from my mother.

It was a struggle at times, for the little girl and her needs were not what I had driven my life by before. And most often they were in a direct opposition of what I had lived by before.  But, now I honored her and only her.

I gave up the fourth commandment.  I gave up "unconditional" love and had conditions for my little girl inside.

The line I drew was around my little girl.