IMPERFECT Lady

Movie of You

More from "Emotional Agility" by Susan David

"Identifying Your Values"

"The word "values" can have a scolding, Sunday-school connotation that's pretty unappealing.  It feels restrictive, or punishing, or, worse, judgmental. We hear a lot about having the "right" values (or the wrong ones), but what does that really mean? And who decides what values are worth having?"

"First off, I don't think that inflexible notions of right and wrong help us much. And they certainly don't belong in a book about emotional agility!  Instead, I see values not as rules that are supposed to govern us, but as qualities of purposeful action that we can bring to many aspects of life. Values aren't universal; what's "right" for one person may well not be for someone else.  But identifying what matters to you, whether that's career success, creativity, close relationships, honesty, altruism - there is an almost infinite list to choose from - gives you a priceless source of continuity  Values serve as a kind of physiological keel to keep you steady."

"And you don't have to settle on just one. A colleague of mine describes values as "facets on a diamond." Sometimes, he says, when you turn one to face squarely, another may have to move away - but it is still there, part of the whole, and visible through the prism."

"Here are some other characteristics of values."

They are freely chosen and have not been imposed on you.

They are not goals; that is, they are ongoing rather than fixed.

They guide you rather than restrain you.

They are active, not static.

They allow you to get closer to the way you want to Iive your life.

They bring you freedom from social comparisons.

They foster self-acceptance, which is crucial to mental health.

"Above all, a value is something you can use. It helps you to place your feet in the right direction as you journey through life, no matter what life leads you."  Susan

 

I love this part in the book.  I love how values are used to guide you, to move you and to define how you chose choices in life.  

I love how they are not imposed upon you, but come from within. 

I would say, they are the markers of our character.

I also love how values are not right or wrong - they are free and active and will not bind you- but give you wings.

Values certainly will color who you are; but you are the one holding the paint brush.

Your values are always showing, by the choices you make.

I love how values are not to be imposed.

My old church is a great example of how imposing values fail the whole community in which it rules.

It didn't allow for personal freedom to chose - shutting down the individual self.

The 'faith' and its rules were always seen first.

I recall living life with it as my ruler and value maker.

I didn't have a personal voice.  Or, if I did, it was to go against the church and its values and be a 'sinner'.

How would it ever be possible to have emotional agility while under the influence of a religion whose rules supersede your own?

You know how some people feel that being part of something makes them better or less than.  

I believe that when you are raised to value the values of the religion, over your own personal emotions/body and soul, you will always seek to find yourself in a group you join.

What I also recall, is when my family and religion collapsed, due to the lack values I thought it held, I was left without a self.

My self was in the values of what I belonged to.

I was nothing without them.

It took a long time to define my own values and to change my life in a new direction.

My new values were felt and consciously selected.

Once in place, my life was simplified and easily followed.

They have guided me and helped me live very authentically for me.

I love the freedom and how unrestrained I am.  How I am able to do my life as Me. 

My most defining value is to see reality.

Freedom

Love

Art

Originality

to name a few.

Value - what is important to me.

What is important to you are your values and are seen by what you do.  Your values are wordless; the silent movie of you!

 

 

 

Emotionally Agile

My first introduction to Susan David was here.  I know she is right and in my experience, emotional agility is the key to a life of peace, love and joy; which includes, heartache, sorrow and grief!

I then went and purchased her book.

Here is what I read today.

"Choosing Willingness"

"We want life to be as dazzling and painless as possible.  Life,on the other hand, has a way of humbling us, and heartbreaks built into its agreement with the world. We're young, until we are not. We're healthy, until we're not. We're with those we love, until we're not. Life's beauty is inseparable from its fragility."

"One of the greatest human triumphs is to choose to make room in our hearts for both the joy and the pain, and to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. This means seeing feelings, not as being "good" or "bad" but as just "being". Yes, there is a relentless assumption in our culture that we need to do something when we have inner turmoil. We must struggle with it, fix it, control it, exert brute force willpower over it, remain positive. What we really need to do , though, is also what is most simple and obvious: nothing. that is, to just welcome these inner experiences, breath into them, and learn their contours without racing for the exits."  Susan

What I love about this is that our whole emotional body is welcome and accepted.  We are not trying to override our emotions with positive platitudes and put sunny faces upon tragedy.  We get to allow all our deep brilliant raw emotions of sorrow to be just that.

We don't camp there; but we learn from what our emotions are telling us.  I learned so many incredible things about myself, and life, in the years of my darkest days.

Imagine art with just one tone; where there is no contrast or wild surprises, no dark and light to help express life's beauty?

She goes on to say:

"A good question to ask yourself when you're trying to learn from your emotion is, "What the func?"

"No, that's not a typo for a more explicit question.  "Func" is short for "function," so "What the func" is shorthand for "What is the purpose of this emotion?" What is it telling you? What does it get you? What is buried beneath that sadness, frustration or joy?"

"Once you stop struggling to eliminate distressing feelings or to smother them with positive affirmations or rationalizations, they can teach us valuable lessons. Self-doubt and self-criticism, even anger and regret, shine light into those dark, murky sometimes demon-haunted places that you most want to ignore, which are places of vulnerability or weakness.  Showing up to these feelings can help you anticipate pitfalls and prepare more effective ways of coping during critical moments."

"If you confront both your internal feelings and external options - while maintaining the distinction between the two- you will have a much better chance having a good day, not to mention a meaningful life.  You'll make important decisions in light of the broadest possible context. This requires honesty and integrity to incorporate our experiences into a narrative that is uniquely our own, as well as one that will serve us, helping us understand where we've been so that we can better see where we want to go."  Susan

If we allow our emotions to steer us, I believe, we will live a life that is completely authentic to who we are. 

When I began listening to my body and its emotions, I was overwhelmed by them.  However, there was a huge backup of negative emotions that I had not felt.  They were all eager to be heard, expressed and then released.  

Now, my body knows, there is nothing I will not feel. My emotions are greatly valued and honored by me.  I follow where they lead. 

The term "emotional agility" portrays a person who is nimble and flowing with life.

Can there be personal integrity IF you never show the full range of emotion?

What I know about myself, was when I was unable to show my real feelings and follow them, I had rage at things that were innocent; like my children.

Meaning, I needed to first and foremost, express my feelings of being abused by my parents.  I had to go deeply into this in order to come out to peace.

Peace isn't to be loving and kind to those who hurt you.

That is a false peace.

A peace sign laid a top of wound.

It doesn't make the wound heal.

By following my emotions, I was then able to steer myself free from those who don't value me.

What the func, is a great ask.

What is this emotion saying?

I followed my body...and still do.  

Most children of abuse, are abused as children by someone they know and love.  This adds to the unwillingness to believe our bodies over our hearts and beliefs.

This sets us up to be inauthentic in order to be safe.

To leave the wisdom of our bodies and try harder in order to be loved without pain, for we are incapable of leaving and taking care of ourselves. We then, in our minds, try to create a world that discounts our emotions completely.

We are not born separated from our emotional body.

Abuse and not having anyone who will listen to our truths, makes it the only thing to do.

Leave those feelings buried, unheard and unseen, to live removed from our body.

Being a whole being, is when we can go back and rescue all of our emotions, so we have the ability to steer our lives in all directions, not just to happy or positive or joy!

I followed the dark shadows and became emotionally agile!

Matters More

What are facts and how do they impact your world?  How many facts have you tossed out due to their content or perhaps that go against your ideals?  Are there more than one set of facts? Do we each get our own and do they have to match anyone else?

How many relationships end due to the fact that we don't agree on the facts?

Who gets to decide the validity of facts?

It seems life is made more complicated by the facts or perhaps by the fact we don't all accept the facts.

Not only not accept them; but live a life unchanged by them.

What does it say about a person who can hear a new fact, that changes the character of someone, and it doesn't create change in their world?

In the conversations that I have had with my family about my father and his crimes, is that most agree on the facts, and yet most did nothing to change their lives after.

It was as if the fact itself had no real power.

That something was stronger than the facts themselves.

However, in my life the facts carried the ability to upend my whole life.

Why, remains the million dollar question.

I lived my first 46 years without the fact that I was abused by my father, that my father was an abuser, that my mother knew and remained married, faithful to him and her religion.  A religion that blessed away his sins of crime.  Yet, I was dumb to these facts.

Without the facts, my life was in direct conflict with the facts.

That is denial.

Just because I didn't have the facts, it didn't mean they didn't exist.

Can you bring in life altering facts and be unmoved by them?

Isn't that in itself denial?

I am watching the exchanges about facts and ponder the fact, that if you yourself haven't embraced all your truths, can you be a discerning person about truths.

Truths of all kinds.

I looked up the definition of facts.

"a thing that is indisputably the case." 

Synonyms are Reality, Actuality and Certainty.

What happens when you play in life without facts?

When they come in and have the power to destroy what you love, can you merely turn them away?

I am a recovering person of denial.  My wellness, or peace, depends upon accepting all facts, regardless of their content to upset my world.

Anxiety to me, is to live a few steps from reality.  I want to walk hand and hand, step by step with the facts, no matter where they lead.

So, as people discuss this fact or that fact, I am more interested in how they themselves live out the facts of their lives.  Can you really see the truth in others, before you know your own?

I think you can see, or not see, at the same level of your own personal blindness.

And, that has nothing to do with the facts themselves, just our ability to truly see them. Let alone our ability to act in kind.

What happens when you find out you were abused by your father?  Do you keep the relationship or let it go?  What is more important, the fact OR what you do after the fact?

Just as marriages often crumble after affairs, what happens to the reality of your relationship when a new fact arrives; one that is directly opposing love, trust or respect?

If you continue on, regardless of the new fact, do you get a relationship of value?

What changes; the fact itself or you?

Oddly, I became stronger for accepting what is, and allowing the facts to change my life. They allowed me to define my boundaries and self-worth.  Even while knowing I was abused by my father, I grew in self-worth, when I set the boundary against him.

My self-worth grew each time I set a boundary with the arrival of new facts.

For, I truly understood, the consequences of discarding facts - denial.

Denial of me, and the facts that made me.

My actions Are the facts of who I am.

They are my reality.

My old self was undefinable. She was unchanged by facts.  She withstood an onslaught of things that insulted her soul.  But, no more.

Facts matter, and your response to them, matters more.

 

 

 

Resides in reality!

In listening to the different sides, opinions and views, it strikes me how it often seems impossible for the other side to see what you see; to be heard or understood.  It almost seems like we are experiencing life it two drastically different realities.

Is there more than one reality?

This mad dance is so reminiscent of my dialogues between myself and my family.

Where it almost seems that there is a blindness to wrong doings.

A man's moral character is held up regardless of his actions.

And, that those of us pointing out the shortcomings are the 'bad' ones.

Finding the ground zero in these conversations feels like insanity, where we are left defending ourselves when we have done nothing wrong.

The women's march for women's rights, are wrong and not that our country has been okay with the less than equal rights. 

Even that some don't feel its injustice, makes it less unequal.

That it can only be unequal IF ALL women feel it is so.

This goes back to the dysfunctional family, where a family is okay, unless the majority call it abusive.

I don't have answers for this. 

I just find it hurts my head trying to find the words or language to speak to those who see reality so differently.

What I am finding it isn't even about morals or values, but that the facts are set aside as if they don't matter.  

If you don't bring in and hold tightly to the facts, then you can actually have a life you want, not one that is there.

How can you have a conversation where someone lets truth be a fact that can be taken in or released based upon its potential to change a life?

How easy it is to be less resentful, if you can release a fact.

Kinda like forgiving a sin in the old church's way of forgiveness. To live as if that action never happened.  Forgive and forget - to keep sweet.

It almost feels that if one side doesn't see the victims, then there is no inequality...or visa versa.

Pretending or acting like there is a equal and balance in our humanity, that race and gender are not an issue, that there isn't a dominating white male overtone, IT will not be so.

Do we need people to believe it to make it so?

Are we more a belief based culture than fact/truth based?

I know there women who truly believe that they have free will with their bodies, while having none.  

They believe it, regardless of the facts and rules of their religion.

They are free in mind only.

The facts are, they do not own their bodies.

They don't even see who does own them.

I know this, because I was one of them.

I had no clue that the church owned my body.

It actually owned my mind, in a way that I wasn't even aware of that I wasn't free, let alone equal to any male.

How can you have a cognitive conversation about freedom and equality with someone who is in bondage and being treated less than, AND they don't know it...

It is like a prisoner talking from behind the bars of how there are no jails in the land.

This blows my mind and interests me immensely.

The land is seen from two minds. 

Or, perhaps the mental mind and the awareness of one who resides in reality. 

 

 

March on Being You!

Today there are many marches, to decry inequality.  

Today many will gather in solidarity and with diversity. 

Marching for their rights within humanity.

Marching against the ideals of many who neglect to see them in their perfection.

Will the march awaken or stretch the narrow minds?

Will the millions be enough to change a mind?

"A mind convinced against its will is of the same opinion still."

Do they know the mind they are marching against?

It is like a program that has been indoctrinated into them since birth.

A landscape that excludes many; but saves them.

They don't see the exclusion; only what saves them.

All that truly matters IS their entrance into heaven.

The indoctrination is very deeply imbedded into their whole lives.  There is no part of it that is untouched.  This belief that separates them from others is built upon fear and hell will be their reward if they deviate from the program.

They will lose their place in heaven IF they allow women rights to their bodies, or same sex marriage, etc. It isn't about you, it is about them, and the God and Jesus they believe in.

While you march to be seen, they march blindly towards their unearthly goal.

The Marches will not hurt.

Gathering with others whose experiences match yours is empowering.

I don't know the tipping point, where there will be more open minds than closed, where it will be only the fringe with the narrow mind...but, the numbers are growing.

We can march each day in how we live.

In what we let our lives reflect.

Who do we present to the world and in the places we gather.  

Are we an open mind or a closed one?  

Do we entertain critical thinking and inclusion?

Are our minds the same as when we were young?

Are we just a tool in the same narrative that has been handed down for generations?

Who is in our circles; who do we include or exclude?

What evil do you allow due to family connections?

March today, and march tomorrow. 

We all March either with an open mind or a closed one.

We either march towards equality and inclusion or against it.

What is funny, is that those against equality already have it. 

The privilege will find no need to march.

Which is telling.

Yet, some women have willingly given up their rights to their own bodies.

And, do so in the name of God.

That to me is so scary.

They also hate, fear and exclude in the name of God.

A mind that has turned on humanity.

Attacking its own, as well as its self.

My march has been to reclaim my free mind.  I have lived on both sides of this march...the blind and the seeing.

My old God would have stopped me from being free...and was judging and denying those who were not like me.

I march now with a new God.  

A loving God.

Open and including all...God.

Imagine a world minus the religious mind?

This song comes to mind.  Let it play today, as the millions March!  I am cheering you; march on being YOU!

Imagine

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace, you
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people sharing all the world, you
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one.

 

 

 

 

 

Authentic Life

As I broke trail today while snowshoeing, I thought of how easy it is to follow a path, to repeat what you did yesterday and how much harder it is to veer off and go a new way.

Dogs intuitively learn to go where the going is easier; and we do too.

Mindlessly and effortlessly we step where our feet have already stepped.

 

Until you are aware of where your path is leading you and it isn't how you want your story to end. Then, you have to step in a new direction...off the beaten path of your comfort zone.

I lived for 46 years on a well beaten path that excluded deep personal truths.  

The silence that sexual abuse demands, left me stepping in the footsteps of my mother.

Forgiving the truth along the way.

Accepting less and doing more.

In the past 12 years, I have taken a new path.

One where the truth is followed; no matter what.

What came to me yesterday is how life is so complex when the truth is ignored or hid.

When it is silenced to stay on the path of belonging.

To belong many will twist it around to make it fit into their spiritual journey.

For raw truth is hard to live by.

But, very easy on the mind, body and soul.

It just is.

Accepting the truth is very rare.

Many will look around it to be loved.

A path of truth always breaks new ground.

Goes where few will follow.

It is personal.

To you.

Like great art; there is no pattern to follow or script to repeat. 

You walk it organically as it rises to meet you.

Solid

One song.

or voice.

Universe.

Each path is uniquely you...when you know your truth

and follow.

My life has become more alive, and I, more present, when I meet reality as it is.

We are dancing off the path and patterns. 

It can be harder to travel off the beaten path, but its returns are so much greater.

Self-worth, confidence and empowerment are strengthened when you dare to follow what is true for you.  

What is important to me, is walking the path of truth.

No matter what that looks like.

What parts are broken, ugly and damaged.  

To walk down the truthful path, until you understand how it came to be.

Most are walking a path blind to where it came from and where it is going.

They are on it, because their parents walked it.

It is all they know.

Fear is the wide open field of awareness.

A place that I seek.

Once you leave the well trodden path of unbroken cycles, it is impossible to return.

For, once you know, you can't not know.

Where I was blind; now I see.

Blind to me, is not living the truth.

How many are really living their truth fully?

The dark secrets exposed?

Rare is the individual who will break trail with their truth.

A path that leads you to your authentic life.

 

 

I love this question!

"What is most important to you, is a good first question to start learning about who you are." Jonathon Fields

Some may not even know what is important, for we are so busy just living a repeat day from the one before.  Life on cruise control.

Do you ever stop and ask what is most important in your life?

Have we been handed down "importance" and believed it?

Is your "importance" different than that of your parents

and, friends?

Based upon your actions, the 'important' thing to you is how you are living.

The choices you make and why.

Once you recognize your importance, you eliminate choice.

For what is most important has a certain path.

There is a word, a feeling that leads your every move.

Can you name it?

You defend it always by your choices. Rarely are you disloyal to this importance.

This importance is how you see you.

It becomes you.

What is most important to me...has its markings in all facets of my life.

It is the trace of me that I bring to all that I do.

I love this question!

 

 

 

 

 

Norm in my world.

"Evil only prevails by making it the norm" Maria Popova

Doesn't it seem insane that this could actually happen, that we can with our words and actions, literally make evil seem the norm.

So many times, I have heard apathy where sexual abuse against a child is concerned; that it is everywhere.

Meaning, it is not that unusual that the church has it.

The catholic church has it.  

Many churches have it.  

Families have it.  

It is everywhere.

So, then what?

No point in fighting?

Or no reason to walk out of a family for something that is so normal.

What would make it criminal enough to take action and what action would make it less normal?  

Or perhaps what is the abnormal reaction to hearing about sexual abuse against children within your family/church/organization?

When would you leave?

Do you have a drop dead idea of your exit?

I believe it is the non-action upon hearing of abuse, that makes it so normal.

If you don't change the way you respond, it is life as normal.

How many other evil behaviors are you non-responsive to and why?

The lack of treating evil like it is really evil, neutralizes it to appear non-evil.

Evil doesn't change to non-evil nor does it lack the truth. 

Evil is.

A crime is a crime whether we treat it as the norm or not.

We are the ones changing it potency...to something more palatable.

What I feel mostly, is that I am the odd duck, the resentful non-forgiving person that holds evil accountable. That I am full of bitterness. And, that is not normal.

I looked up bitterness...for it lies at the heart of resentment.

"Anger and disappointment in being treated unfairly." 

Ironically, I believe I had more bitterness about the way I was treated when I didn't respond and make abuse the norm; rather than the act of being abused.

Does this make sense?

Sexual abuse by your father is unfair.

We were all treated unfairly.

I however, got a double blow of 'unfairness'.

I looked up unfairly.

"in a manner that is not in accordance with the principles of equality and justice."

What seems most abnormal to me was the way the treatment of me, does go against the principles of equality or justice.

I was treated WORSE than the original evil doer.

Insanity.

The original criminal was taken care of.

He was treated with equality and justice.

Literally respected by the actions of many.

This, my friend, is how evil is made the norm.

And, how the victims who rise against it are treated NOT in accordance to equality and justice.

When you withdraw your feelings of injustice; you are now a full collaborator.

Me, I will hold on to the injustice of sexual abuse of a child.

It will not rise to the norm in my world.

 

 

To Be

 

 

I loved this conversation.  

The tone and its ideas.  

I too, knew it. 

And I could really relate to this segment about the three responses when something is crumbling or broken.  And, agree about the crumbling of religion...and that it is needs a cosmic shift.

1. Denial of it - it is not falling or we are not in trouble.
2. Yes, we are in trouble, but we need more of the same.
3. The third, is to ask, what is trying to be born.

This explains the differences between my family and I, in our response to our family crumbling, in the aftermath of my father's crimes coming to light.

My response was allowing the birth of something new. A whole new look at the content of our family and most important, the content of Me.  The birth of a new Self. Letting truth crumble our family. And, to allow my old self to die with it, and to be fearless in letting the new me arrive with each new truth.

This is the kind of shift that needs to happen to a dysfunctional family in order to save the family unit itself. A cosmic shift.

Instead of feeling we are in trouble, but to continue doing more of the same. 

He also speaks about the oneness and the essence of sacredness in each of us, compared to the idea of "original sin" that is most often taught.

One is easily controlled and the other is empowered.

It is interesting that the less you believe yourself to be, the easier you are to control.

What I see again, is the correlation between the religion who believes in the original sin, and a dysfunctional family; where the children are often seen and treated as 'bad'.

There is no way a person would abuse another IF they believed that the other was sacred.

What I find so intriguing and knowing, is that the way my old religion saw humanity as sinful and how I was treated as a child, are the same.

In neither place, was I seen as the essence of God; but rather the devil's spawn.

The rebirth of Me, came with a new definition of my content.

My core changed completely.

From being sinful, to being innately good.

Just a pure as when you look into the eyes a newborn child.

Church, and the treatment from abusive family, changes who we were born to be.

As I listened to the conversation, I thought, these are my people. They are saying what I know to be true.  I know where I was led astray from my own sacred essence.

In the beginning, back in 2004, I had proclaimed to the skies, "This will not define Me." 

My journey, was going back to find the essence within me.

To do away with anything that didn't honor my worth.

I am so grateful there are people out there who are willing to speak up against the majority, to dare to stretch and be part of a new cosmic change. Who speak against old definitions that are not empowering; but controlling.

The main objective of abuse is to control.  

Empowerment and seeing humanity as the essence of the Divine, is my passion.

For women (and men) to feel their worth and be empowered and free!

To believe to the depths of their being their Holiness.

The flow of God; everywhere in everyone.

To eliminate the idea of being sinful, wretched and in the need of being saved and changed. But rather to get rid of all that insults your soul.

 

 

I am Perfect, and it is impossible not to be!

Happy New You!

I don't think you can expect Change from a year.  Yet, so many have 'hopes' that this new year will deliver better. 

A year is just time passing. It is the blank space we reside in.  It doesn't have the power to change how you live; you do.

To passively hope for a better year, is to place the power of your world in the hands of time.  An innocent bystander who is waiting for you to use your free will.

Time is time.

It equals the same for everyone.  

I listened to a podcast on Ted - "How to gain control of your free time" by Laura Vanderkam

She spoke about the 168 hours we have in a week, and how we use them?

Change will happen when you use them differently.

How we spend time, decides how our year will look upon its completion.

When you say, 'it was a bad year' you are blaming the passing of time.

Changing the way you see yourself and the relationship with time, will create a different view of a year.

As I sat here this morning with a new calendar day, everything seems the same as yesterday.  I have zero expectations of the year giving me anything.

I expect that I will engage in my life with heart, mind and soul.

I will accept what comes and that I will know how to manage it.

I will dare to try new adventures.

I will make plans and follow through.

I will be the one who determines how my year flows.

My year, the passing of time awaits for me to dance upon it.

It is the gift of life, the present.

How I engage with it, is up to me.

It simply cannot give me a better year.

It is just minutes, that grow into days, and weeks, months and a Year.

How I spend the minutes, will add to the contents of this year.

To expect pure happiness isn't realistic.

We will have pain and sorrow.

We will have struggle and hardships.

A good Life isn't just living with positive feelings.

The wealthiest of lives, is to live the full spectrum of our emotions.  To feel deeply and express freely all that we are.

I want to be more me, deeper, fuller and more complex.

Our character continues to have opportunities for becoming.

Worry less about the passage of time and more about the opportunities that define you.

Maybe we should be saying "Happy New You!"

What wonderful new things will be added to you this year?

I am excited to see how life unfolds this year and what it will change in me.

Happy New You!