IMPERFECT Lady

Enough to Lie

Dr. Maya Angelou wrote this about her mother..."She's very intelligent and often said she didn't fear anyone enough to lie." 

Isn't that an interesting line.  

Lying is when you are afraid.  

Afraid of the other person...or you feeling your weakness with them...I guess it is the same...you are in fear.

I didn't realize that truth speaking requires strength, self power, being fearless.

It isn't so much about the other person, but about yourself. Are you strong enough to speak the truth?

And, I can also see why many lie, because their power has been taken away due to various circumstances.  Which shines a light of understanding as towhy victims lie; their power has been taken away.  

Just so interesting to me, that lying is a sign of being powerless.

I did not know this.

In fact, I misunderstood lying as someone trying to get away with something, or trying to fool me, pull a quick one etc...when in fact they were to afraid to tell their truth....see their truth, be with the truth.

I love that now, I don't fear anyone enough to lie.  

Mismatched Folks Together

Many years ago when I was talking to a therapist, she mentioned that in families where there has been abuse and dysfunction, you will have to rise to a social level with them, leaving behind the more familiar family interactions...to rise on the ladder of what you share, how you engage and become social...to politely say "Hi"...to no longer have a comfortable safe interaction.

It seemed at the time like a lofty goal and even a senseless one.  I was still in the throes of complete and utter turmoil, with many relationships crashing.  How would we climb out of the hurt, anger and distrust and arrive at 'social'. And what is social? How do you feel a steady cool detached surface level politeness with a loaded history behind you?  

What I found is that climbing the ladder out of family interaction onto the plane of social isn't comfortable or easy or even at times a desirable thing to do...complete and utter separation feels easier...and more sensible.

Too much of my body and soul knows too much...to relax among old hurts.

I would rather opt out...sit on the sidelines and not take the social ladder climb with old family members.

My heart isn't in it.

I don't know what that means?  I don't know if I care to much to settle for social or if I care even less and social is too much to ask?

If I were to be totally frank, I would actually like to dive into the deep end, where all the mess lies and sort it out.  To hack and chop and pull and yank all the discrepancies between us. To make dysfunctional functional, by not being social but being totally frank with each other.  And, perhaps we already have been....and the answers are already given....and now social is our ledge we sit upon.

A woman who lost her mother spoke of the PTSD affects grief has upon a person. And estrangement carries volumes of grief, especially, if it isn't just one person you are estranged from, but many.  

I felt the PTSD feelings when confronted with family members I had not seen face to face in years....at my son's graduation party.  

Heart racing, mind scattering, thoughts disjointed, jumpy, nerves near the surface, almost touchable...like danger was near, is how I later thought of it.  Which seemed odd...that I was unsafe.  Again, why these feelings?  It felt Iike I was being asked to be social to a rabid dog, a bitting snake....to pretend to pretend to pretend all was well. To be calm and gracious...when bells and whistles were screaming inside.

I think, I thought, I could rise above it. I could be calm if my mind worked at it, I could overome and find a comfort feeling to be in. I could not.

It seems the body's barometer works without regard to what I would find more comfortable, that its nervous system sends alarms all on its own.  I could not participate as a smiling hostess inside.  Inside was a three alarm fire code being announced...and I had to pretend it was not.

Could I have spoken what was going on?  Could have responded authentically....or perhaps I did.  I steered wide and clear of what my body said was danger.  I instead sought out places of comfort with folks I felt comfortable with.

Interesting how the body knows what it wants...regardless of what social etiquette demands.

What was dangerous for me? Why did my body respond like that?  Why was my mind not able to convince my body to calm down and relax?  I truly do not get it, except to say that, "the body doesn't lie".

It felt like my core was unprotected, vulnerable, open...or maybe that I had to protect and guard it.

Not like being unseen or them being indifferent, but rather arrogant and challenging...pushing into my family. And yet they received the invite.  

For my children have their own social life, they intermingle with their cousins...it was all appropriate...except for how it made me feel. Just interesting to witness and experience the social interactions with previous comfortable folks.

It almost leads me to wonder or begs to be scrutinized, what did I truly feel with them before?  Were we really comfortable?  Did we fit comfy cozy together?  Did my body feel at ease with them or did we always have disjointed connections? 

I can't see how we fit, except in a dysfunctional way, coming from such an abusive backdrop. Even on a good day, we were not normal. Perhaps we fit better, for we were all doing basically the same thing.  Now I am doing things differently...or they are different from me, regardless we are facing two different ways....as I see it.

I wonder if their insides would feel better with me re-joining them....as much as mine feel better separated?  Do they feel better away from me?  

I believe our body and soul know where its match is....birds of a feather flock together, except for graduation parties, showers, weddings and funeral, and then we push all sorts of mismatched folks together.

A Tough Pill to Swallow!

I finally finished listening to "The Center Cannot Hold - My journey through madness" by Elyn R Saks.  

A very interesting perspective between the woman, the illness, and her career self; how to deal with them all without having them bleeding each other.  

And the stigma that is still attached to illnesses of the mind...and yet we 'normal' folks are dancing around the lip of insanity as well, each time we con others into believing things that are not true about ourselves...or when we are not truthful and authentic as we live our lives, and make our daily choices.

What is considered a mind disease?  Is it not when our thoughts and our words don't match?  How often do we lie to ourselves and others, knowingly, making a choice to appear better than we are?

From what I understood by her book, is that her psychosis was illusionary...it wasn't real.  How then can we say we are not psychotic when we step away from reality?

It almost seems like her psychosis is equal to ours, neither of us are in reality...except she can take a pill that will push back the illusions. Is there a pill that will make us speak the truth?

When you look at the mind illnesses and even mood illnesses, you have to wonder what causes the imbalance?  Is it reality or the way we were taught not to be there?

I know that some in my family of origin believe that I have gone over the edge, that I have lost my mind, when I am in fact standing hip to hip with reality.  I will no longer pretend to pretend to pretend.  I am unwilling to join them in illusion, and I am seen as the problem...not that there is a real issue in reality.

What I also found so striking in her book is her fight against the illness, due to its stigma and consequences in her life IF it were known.  Mind illnesses are so frightful to us all, we like to believe we all are always standing steady in reality, when we more often are unwilling to go there, BUT are not considered insane.

Insane means, "not of sound mind".  What is a sound mind?  Or what is an unsound mind?

For myself, I would say, that I was more comfortably accepted in my first 46 years of life, while I lived in illusion about many things....my family, my church and my self, compared to when I flopped out of the illusion or insanity.

Perhaps for each family or individual, 'insanity' is objective and selective.

What is the cost of aligning your life and your illusions? Would it cause you to feel anxious or fearful if the two were to collide and not match? How many of your friends and family are with you in the illusion?  Would it cost you your life as you know it to step out and into the truth of what you feel?

Each time we ignore what we feel and do the opposite, we are dabbing our toes into illusion.  We are asking our minds to join us outside of reality. We do this often enough, that eventually we live there more than in reality. We have left reality and there is no magic pill to get us back. The only way back is to stand with our feelings...to honor our inner knowing, regardless to the cost or the uncomfortableness of those outside of us.

I believe it would be harder to find folks who are one with their mind, body and soul...those who are living authentically.

And yet we look down upon those with mental illnesses, while daily we preform all acts of mental gymnastics to spare us from reality.

Insanity; a deranged state of mind...unsound.  I believe we are all on the spectum of being insane...and while most will not speak of it openly, but will profess behind your back your lack of stability in reality.

Whether you will admit it or not, most of us are more comfortable with the insane than with those who are standing as one with the truth of what is.

It appears very few want to know the truth, its sounds and echos, its feelings and knowings, more are at ease in the land of pretend.

To bad there is not a pill that would make us all live authentically.

An awareness pill.

Reality...It is a tough pill to swallow!

Turn down the Volume on Responsibility.

I see the finish line, the last few feet, and I already want to sit down and FEEL the absence of daily caring.  It isn't that you have to do this or that, but that you are on call, that it is your responsibility to wash clothes, to clean behind, to feed, buy groceries, pay attention to their schedule, to urge, remind, remember, deal....the active daily mothering is about to end.

I can't even remember, at least not clearly, what it feels like to just have my husband and I living without the added weight of children.  It isn't like they are constantly in need, but you are not free either...like an invisible tether, you feel them holding on.

I am ready to be free as he is ready to be free.  Which is the natural evolution of parenting, to be there until they can fly alone...and flying solo is our goal.

I am sure, I didn't think, think, THINK about the consequences in life about having children, they seem so cute and little and cuddly and nice and easy...like adding sunshine to your life.  You don't see the whole picture, until they are leaving...or feel the weight you signed up for until it is gone.

We have had children living with us for almost 26 years.  During that time I have undergone a huge emotional upheaval and many estrangements...and made inner changes that deeply affected my children. Some for the good and others made their lives more complicated.  Mostly, my role as mother changed as much as I did....for how could it not.  

Being a mother is you being you....with children who look up to you and toward you for their needs...and how you respond will impact their worlds.

I recall the vivid turning point in the relationship with my son...and I can recall the old me and me trying so desperately to change in how I mothered him.  How much of his life was damaged by me and then how I learned to do things differently, at least most of the time.

Even in his last week, he does what teenage boys do and I do what mother's do...meet head to head wanting completely different things.  Passing through me is the old rage flavor, but I don't even dip my toes into it.  I go and do something I can control, like make tea.

It seems that I could not have gotten over the finish line of my healing without the children I have given birth to, they are my greatest teachers in changing the pattern. 

Now, it is time to see the patterns taking form in their lives.  Where they are picking up the baton and beginning their lives...well He is picking up the baton.  He doesn't even know how much of the first part of the race his father and I have run, but he will certainly become aware he is on his own...when he is living in another state.

And, we will feel the empty hands and hollow space of responsibility.

Our list will be shorter....and the tasks not so crucial, nor will they have the same impact that parenting has.

I am not sure that I will ever have this type of responsibility again, that compares to mothering.  It is a 24/7 job, you are never not on call.  

With the children now being out on their own, I feel a distance between me and their needs.  I can see that in the future, we will be the second string, we will come in when the big guns are needed.  And, it is my dearest hope, that we will be spared knowing that kind of tragedy...and yet I also know, we both will gladly take back the baton, when crisis arises.

Until then, we can turn down the volume on responsibility.

(photo taken quite a few years ago....)

Useful and Beautiful.

There was a criteria for organizing your home by which each item has to be useful or beautiful, and the rest released.  (from the book, Simple Abundance, by Sarah Ban Breathnach)

How interesting to look at your home from those lenses.  I have way too much stuff that is just simply stuff.  I will reduce the useless energy and extra work that the stuff adds to my life....It is like clearing out weeds to see the beauty that you enjoy.

I will be able to see the real things I love and use, when I get rid of the things that have a weak reason to be in our home.

I have emptied walls and drawers for cleaning purposes, but will take the time to filter out the things I no longer find value in.  

Our home will then be easier to be in.

I wonder how much of the rest of our lives are cluttered with things we do not find joyful, beautiful or useful?  Will this technique work as well on that?

It was amazing to me how much I had around that didn't matter.

I think I hung on to things out of being lazy, being afraid that I may need them at some point, or maybe not wanting to take the time to ask if it was useful or did it carry a connection to me.

How many relationships do I have that are no longer useful or beautiful?  Are we too afraid to look closely at them?  How much of a drag do they have on our lives?  Is it truly possible to filter our whole lives by useful and beautiful?

Step through the Fear?

How much does fear play a role in your life? How many things do you do, that you don't want to do, because of fear of not doing them? Or, how many things do you want to do, but fear is standing in the way?

Back on the Ex-Toots blog, there is a list of 44 things that are a sin in the Old Apostolic Lutheran Church.  And, there are questions as to why?  Who decided doing this or that is a sin?

It wasn't the insane things on the list that caught my attention, but rather how many adhered to the rules without knowing the basis of why it wasn't okay to do them. Like women not being allowed to wear pants....men, neckties...for example.

And, it isn't that folks want to follow, but they are afraid NOT to follow....for each rule has a fear attached to it, mainly Hell if you don't follow and shunning or ridicule for standing out and doing the said fashion sin.

Fear is being put into them, not a reasonable reason as to why not.

What I find funny, is that without fear, the rules would be silly.

Can fear really take the silly and make it scary?

Can fear make people do things they normally would not do?

Is it possible to make a large group of people conform without fear being the impetus?

If it wasn't so tragic it would be laughable, to so many.  How they have given up the rights to their bodies, their fashion sense, their right to have or not have children, to move around the world curious and follow their inner delights and excitement....and instead of frozen in place with fear.

I know many will suggest that they are choosing this lifestyle, except that they have not been allowed to choose.  It isn't a choice if only one way is offered...and fear separates the choices.

Fear seems to be an energy that is standing in the way of freedom...a gate that feels impenetrable.

If you don't leave out of fear, are you really free?  Or are you just afraid to step through the fear?

Change in our Homes.

Real signs of Spring along the mail route!

You can see the brown that surrounds them, but tuffs of green sprouting up!

Love the surprise and changes I see...each day, if you look closely it's a new painting...nature, doing what nature does...Change.

A mind game at its worst.

In the extoots blog I follow and comment on ( http://extoots.blogspot.com ) a response from Finland caught my attention...or a few sentences, where the church is once removed from the congregation in times of trouble.

"The sexual abuse scandal was badly managed by the SRK leaders, it looked like they got everything wrong in communicating it to the media, right from the start. However, for those who want to go the truth behind the headlines, it is also quite obvious that there never was any institutionalised abuse (such as in e.g. the Catholic church) but the incidents occurred inside families. In those circumstances, it is difficult to hold the congregation responsible especially when the official teaching has always been that crimes do not go away by the forgiveness of sins. (Unfortunately there were exceptions to this rule, and in a few cases, the congregation lay preachers were involved in hiding such crimes and criminals from the police, and also preventing the victims from getting help. This is not acceptable and I am very sorry for this ever happening in my religion.) 

What makes the FALC or other like minded religions different from the abuse within the Catholic Church, is that the abuse is happening within the families. It isn't the "leader" of the church so to speak. So, the church can't be held accountable.  It isn't the institution that is doing the abusing, but rather the members of their organization, not the organization.

Like "the church" somehow gets to escape, that "the religion" isn't where the crimes are occurring, but outside of it.  Like church and religion are actual entities....one stepped removed from family.  Yet it is infiltrating each family with its teachings.

To me, it is like preserving the integrity of "Family" while abuse is happening by my father...as if he isn't part of family.

I can't see how they can separate one from the other.

Where in the church is there actual accountability to the law of the land, to the safety of the children, to the integrity of its message of high morals and values when it wants to keep its distance between It and the People?

It rules the people, but doesn't want to be affected by the actions of people.

It controls the people, but will not take control for the people's actions.

I am not sure if others can see this slight but wide gap between their responsibility and the lack of owning it.

While telling folks what to do, they fail to see what they are doing...and then totally disappear when $%#@ hits the fan.

The powerful energies that preach these rules become silent and apathetic in the face of tragedies...'not responsible'...when those they control go out of control.

Hard to hold the church responsible as much as it is hard not to.

How interesting that the church boards are free of all negligence, while dictating how so many live their lives.  

While I wanted to blame the church, I also had to see    how much of my life I had given over to the church.  I just didn't know it would NOT take responsiblity for the aftermath of what it preached. It is like it is only responsible for the out flow, not the backlash.

I had to own my lack of self care and my own rights I had reliquished to the church...AND, I had to see what they did with me. They didn't care for me, they didn't protect me, they didn't even seem to notice they were holding all of me. 

Again, not sure I can articulate the disappearing church we gave our self to.

Giving up our lives, our choices, our freedoms to this thing. And this thing disappearing right before our eyes and us with it.

How the church doesn't want to be seen in the families its controlled...when the church was such a large seen force that molded many families....how can it then disappear?

And what happens when it does?

A mind game at its worst.

Unplugging and Being Free!

"When you are a mother you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice - once for her self and once for her child."  Sophia Loren

As I look upon Mother's day, I see my mother and I see me mothering.  I see how mothering doesn't come with a clean slate, that the child doesn't make you a better mother depending upon his or her life, but rather it is all set in place by your life experiences.

What you fear will infect an otherwise normal response.

Where you are weak, will be challenged time and time again, urging you to shore up those weaknesses by choosing different...most often our failure is the most strongly felt by the child.

Sadly, we are asked to be the mother our mother's couldn't be, and tooled with dysfunctional tools she gave us.

When I seen the errors of my mother, I tried to do the opposite in hopes of sowing different results in my children; breaking the chain of dysfunction.

Dr. Maya Angelou says, "When you know better, you do better."  Which sounds so easy...and simple.  Stopping the harmful reflexes are not always easy.  

Children who come from mother's who are still wounded from their own childhood, know that hurt people hurt people.  You then begin motherhood hurt.

A hurting, wounded woman often looks to the child for comfort and happiness, to make her feel loved...the child's behavior then is to either make her happy or make her sad.  They become the happy switch....or anger switch. They control the mother's life.

When others celebrate Mother's Day, I feel oddly detached and maybe shameful for having such a complicated, hurtful, detachment from my own mother...the flowery singing of phrases seems foreign to me. And, my own rocky mothering to my children don't fit the phrases either.

It is almost like it is a false holiday...a day where we overlook all the failures and hurt and concentrate on the good.

I guess I just have complicated feelings about mother's day.

When I look towards my mother, there is a mountain of twisted hurt....when I look at my mothering, I see transformation.  But, at the same time I know the hurt I caused while not aware.

My reflections on mother's day are not in cards and quotes.

For those mother's out there who are trying to unravel or turn off the switch attached to our mother's feelings....I wish you strength.  

The hardest job you will ever do is to unplug your self from your mother's happiness. To no longer be responsible for her happiness or disappointment.  

This disconnection is crucial.

A mother who is unhurt will have plenty of space to allow her children the freedom to be who they were meant to be.  

May Mother's Day be a day of unplugging and being free!

 

I love you today!

Twenty-Six years ago today was our wedding day...I was 28, he 32. Hard to believe 26 years have gone by.  Our magic is that we didn't always agree or see life from the same view, but we always respected each other...even when mad...or more importantly when we disagreed.  We had to work into our life our differences. 

The greatest thing I learned from my husband is how to be your self.  

How to stand up for what you feel and to be stubborn about it.  The things that used to really upset me, are the same things I admire.  He was un-bendable....and still is...about who he is.

Once I stopped trying to change him or wish he was different... we got along much better...or I got along much better...I lovingly accepted.

I learned to respect his uniqueness and his unabashedly being himself, regardless of fashion, political correctness, other's wishes etc, he just lived life guided by his own inner sense of being.

What I can always count on is him being himself...peacefully so. Honestly. He doesn't expect others to think, feel or care like he does.  He just does himself, by himself, outstandingly...with reckless abandon.  A man with his own mind and sense of personal morals and values.  

Perhaps the only time he questions himself, is as a father.  A role that no man can know, but only can learn by doing, without knowing.  And can know better in hindsight. And yet, the greatest gift a father can give his children is to model being a strong individual, to love yourself by being yourself...and to love and respect their mother.  He has.

He has taught me love by being himself...and by respecting who I am. We both are allowed to be different...without consequences.  We respectfully go our own ways. 

Our love is unbound, free and strong...due to our personal freedom.

We don't complete each other, we are complete standing alone.

In the midst of my greatest breakdown, when I didn't know who I was or if our marriage would survive, I told him we will put our marriage on the floor, that we will work on each of us finding our center; on being who we are...and if in the end, we ended up with two people who no longer cared to be together, one of us would be strong enough to let the other go. That we both had to be strong and authentically our self...and not stay for the sake of the other's happiness, but we were free to stay or to go, if need be.  We ended up with "I love you today..." for we didn't know in the midst of so many changes, how this story would end.

And we still don't know.

What I do know, Is...I love you today!