IMPERFECT Lady

Women are Rising!

What I love about writing on this blog are the answers and understanding I get, that I didn't have previously. 

Yesterday, I believed that we had to change MSU, and found out the bigger and most important change will happen with the Sister Survivors.

Somehow we often believe our happiness and well being lies outside of who we are.

That we need changes to happen in order for our worlds to be better. And, this change is often see "out there".  

They need to....

Fill in the blank.

However, if you instead turn your eyes inward and see if you can indeed be the change you want to see in the world, life becomes real.

You then have to do what you wish others would do.

It will not be as easy as you picture, but way more enthralling to be part of.

When victims become empowered, they change the legacy of abuse on their limb of the family tree.

They end the cycle by showing how to live an empowered life.

This I believe is the most beautiful thing to witness and be part of.

The difference between the woman I was at 46 and who I am today, is not even recognizable.

All the systems that failed me, empowered me to become a stronger me. And, actually defined me.  I had to become a full and acting member of my life.

I wasn't able to just be a bystander wishing, hoping and waiting for others to change.

I changed, and it made all the difference in my life.

I found my own self worth and that is much more worthy, if you will, than if another raised me up.

I learned to use my voice, regardless of how it sounded to others, it was important for me to speak up. To show the world how I felt, what I thought, and what I stood for.

So now I see that 200 plus women who spoke up to Judge Aquilina, are women who are well on their journey to becoming empowered!

What is more exciting than that?

My mind has a default setting that spins around and around trying to get others to do this or that.  Yet, if challenged, the greater solution always lies within.

There is nothing more beautiful to me than seeing someone become empowered to be who they were born to be. To rise up and take ownership of their worlds. 

Dropping the chains and letting go of waiting for things to change, and fearlessly step into their worlds.

I have more character and knowing of who I am, because I challenged myself to be the woman, I wanted my mother to be.

I feel my value and understand my morals, I have earned them through facing my fears and doing what I felt was right for me.

I love the Me Too movement even more, for it is showing the world women becoming empowered. Taking back their power and standing up for themselves.

Our world is changing, each time a woman finds her voice and becomes her authentic self!

Empowered women are rising!

Place to Focus

I have tried blogging about the MSU case and the Sister Survivors and my experiences, trying to show how upside down and backwards it all is.

I feel like typing this is banging my head against the wall, that there are no words to make sense of the insensible.

And, at the same time it brings me comfort to know I am not the only one who feels the struggle for change.

Who will be the leaders of this change?

Can it be driven by the victims?

Will 200 plus women be enough to swing the power into their favor?

How many victims will it take?

I know for my case, that there is not enough public sharing of abuse from those within the church, and I am very doubtful that I will see it in my lifetime.

There is a deeper desire for the validity of their faith.  Their faith matters much more than what a child is worth.

I have seen it over and over.

When I have a dialogue about abuse within families within the church, I am accused of wanting them to give up their faith.

They truly can't see how they can hold on to their faith and save a child from abuse.

To me, this is a horrible tangle to be stuck in.

It isn't about the dialogue about abuse at all; but of faith.

And, same goes for when abuse happens within family, it isn't about abuse but it becomes about the value of family. And, the value of family so far has trumped the worth of a child.

A relationship with a sister is more valuable.

Same goes for mother etc.

The smallest most silent among us are the most vulnerable and unprotected due simply to our allegiances.

What will it take to make us value a child over our long term relationship with family and religion?

Is it even possible to get in between those ironclad feelings and thoughts?

What I know, is that there has been nothing I have written about or said that has changed anyone's mind. 

A child will not be able to make itself worth more than a parent...let alone equal.

I was able to give myself worth.

But, that doesn't make others see me as worthy.

Although, I do feel that the numbers of victims coming forth is very helpful in making it more the norm and empowering to speak up. And, if we can't change the organizations, we can become worthy victims.

We can take back our power.

I exited the places that did not value me.

They were not worthy of my presence.

Maybe the world will change by making the victims feel their worth.

Which, I believe is what Judge Aquilina did. She believes that the women who came into her courtroom carrying their pain, would be able to go out and do magnificent things. She believed in their ability to go beyond their wounds and find their worth.

Perhaps the greatest thing that can come from all of this is for the victims to find their power.

To become empowered to live their truths and rise above them.

All else seems like madness.  How can we change the very place where the crimes took place?

Our best bet is to go on and truly do magnificent things!

Thanks Judge Aquilina, it is the best place to focus.

Magic in her Art

While watching my 3 year old granddaughter pick out fabrics, squealing with delight, when a certain one excited her, I realized that this is art. The way colors, designs, and how they go together, make you feel.

It is about the feeling.  Or at least this is how I do it. What ever excites me is what I play with.

She is funny, being so young and knowing what she loves. My daughter and I would try and move her in a direction of fabrics, that may co-exist together in harmony and she refuses to be led.  She knows what she feels and will not be swayed differently.

I love her knowing what she loves!

And, she has to be the one to place her art down. We can't 'suggest' a better placement, she likes how it looks to her.  Our opinions just simply do not matter to her. It is her Art.

What she has shown me, is what I have suspected, that to be a true artist is to find the most pleasure in the creative part. 

Doing art is a feeling.

It is to dance with the unknown.

To be surprised in what colors or designs make you feel alive.

She and I both love what we love and express it loudly!

And, it matters not if they are 'supposed' to go together or not - it works for us, it makes us come alive.

Her squeals and excitement are so self-empowering. 

I love her absolute knowing. 

Nothing can change how she feels.

What a great inner sense of Self she has at 3.

Perhaps we all did.

Until, we start to focus more on the outside than the inside.

I am hopeful that if she continues with Art, she will build a center core that the outside will have a hard time bending.

I can see why Artists are feared, for they typically can't be led. They have a strong sense of self and are unapologetic.

We know our selves better by doing Art.

This just be a 3 year old phase she is going through - however, we have a few fun pieces to remember her little hands creating excitement with Art!

Her eyes sees magic in her art!

 

Freedom Bus

 

This was originally posted in April of 2009 - I believe it shows the adult child learning to be her own person and how it feels to set out and try to detach from the cycle of abuse. I have been re-reading some of my earlier posts.  What I have read, I still agree with. I love how 10 years later I still agree.

 Freedom Bus

 

Once you surrender to the wave of Truth, your journey has just begun. The journey of a million sorrows!  You will be taken backwards, a life in review.  You will walk with small feet, little hands, and big eyes, walking through places most adults fear to go.

 

No one can walk with you, for most of the walking is inside, felt inside, and inside is where the only work needs to be done.

 

The outside is the cause, the affect of the not looking earlier.  If your parents can’t look the child is asked.  It seems mental to have a little one hold what a parent can’t, but that is the way of it.

 

The sins of the father onto the children rang true for me.  It seemed that not only did I carry a mess I carried generations of messes!

 

I recall saying, “I cannot fix what I did not break.”

 

What I also recall reading is IF I could correct my ‘thinking’ that my children’s thinking would automatically adjust.  That if I could do the walking correctly, their feet would fall into footprints free of the legacy.

 

I wasn’t the original sinner so to speak, however, I was taught by those who missed the mark!  I followed, I trusted, I walked as they walked, did as they did, and when I questioned, I felt like I was betraying the family crest.  And I was!

 

What we are asked to do is to change the legacy of generations of dysfunction, beliefs cemented in brains, groves worn deep due to traditions that are nearly impossible to break.

 

This is asked of the child.  An adult child, one who has never questioned freely, for the love was always attached to the affect.

If you were the one to stop the behavior, you stop love.

 

Love and disease are mixed together like a comedy of horror.

 

The child has to strike out on his own, away from his parents, away from their image of a perfect child.  If they refuse to see her damaged, refuse to see the affects, she will have to walk away alone.

Unescorted into a sea of rising gales, swells and storms of feelings, emotion and confusion.  Alone to be battered about.

 

It is hard to believe that beliefs and prior thoughts mean more than the life of a child. Feeble thoughts, I think not, for they can and do come before a life of a child.

 

Surely no knowing parent would do this. 

 

I see both sides, I see the fight that ensues, I see but I am unable to do anything.  For the child is on the outside in reality, and the parent is in the mind.

 

I have read “A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still” and that is spot on.

 

If reality can’t convince a mind, what can?

 

What seems to happen is that most children follow the lead of the parent, and if the parent can’t see, the blindness is handed down along with a funky rulebook of what not to say and do!

 

“The blind leading the Blind”…. unless you have ever seen, you think blindness is normal. 

 

Learning to see as a blind person is hard.  Learning to un-think as a blind person is harder.

 

We do this mostly alone, in our heads, while keeping our hands on reality, and using reality, reality is our Braille.

 

Pictures become our words, “pictures are worth a million words” is that how the saying goes.  It truly is.

 

The hardest part is our first glimpse at Reality is Dark.

And we are pushed back from that.  Our thoughts never allowed us to go there, so we have no clue what to do.

 

WE are asked to come in cold turkey, no aids to make it better.  Nothing can we bring on the Bus to Reality.

Again naked we walk on, we are the bus driver heading to God knows where, naked, alone, without one secure thought.

Yet on we go, no maps, no begin point and we surely can’t see our destination.

 

Yet we go.  Why?  For it is either keep moving or die.

 

I somehow felt better alone on the bus, like I had gotten off of one driven by really mental people, and now even if I was mental, I was driving.

 

I drove, like a two year old handling a big city bus! 

 

Destination?  The Land of Peace Love and Joy!

 

A student driver in the seat of awareness, consciousness, I drove on.

Amazed, delighted, horrified and filled with grief.

The two sides merged, flowed together, apart, intertwining until the darkness receded in the Back Mirror. 

 

My brother says “Look back but don’t stare” and I say especially if it is in the rearview mirror and you are driving the bus!

 

My bus is fueled by hopes, dreams, sharing my experience, doing what I love to do. 

 

Every now and then I pass the bus from hell, and I look skyward with

Thanks and Gratitude, with reverence, I swerve around.

 

With my hands firmly on my wheel, I never know what is around the next bend, but know that I will always be given just what I need for this journey.

 

My bus, I love my bus, my bus of Freedom.

 

Cycle of LOVE

Tomorrow is the 10th Anniversary of this Blog. It is amazing that I have been coming here to discover more about me. It has been a place to sort out my confused mind and leave more aware.

I am proud of its content, and the author.

I have touched on touchy subjects, shined light into dark places and spoke from my heart - often displaying brilliantly tragic emotions and self-discoveries.

It's the journey of leaving a family of abuse, a cult-like religion and learning how to be empowered, free and self-loving; learning how to be imperfectly Me!

Often the blank sheet of paper, a keyboard and Me, worked to find answers I couldn't see. It was a place for me to sort out my confused mind and to honor my feelings.

I always left better after publishing.

I would never have suspected that I would be coming here for 10 years, and that I would still be finding things to blog about. 

Life moves on.

Changes come.

We grow.

Our awareness expands the more willing we are to see.

To see all things, most importantly the hard things.

The ones we would rather leave untouched, for we know it will cost us something. That we will be expected to change our perceptions of ourselves or the world around us.

I am grateful for the opportunity I gave myself to explore my world and who I am.

In the early days of journaling, I wondered how would I accept me; when so many rejected me and my truths.  And, maybe because they didn't accept me, I had to be the change I wanted to see - first.

I had to love and accept the darker parts of who I was.

When I loved myself more, automatically I began making boundaries.

Many people over the years marvel at my ability to be outside of my family, like I have a choice.

The choice was to stand by Me or to leave me behind.

It wasn't really about family - they were the residual cost.

A brother walked with me for many years, 8 or so. And, then he turned around and went back to family.

He silenced his life from me, so I can't know why.

It is very odd to see him once again standing in family photographs.

Being part of their worlds.

I often wonder about his soul.

He and I began blogging on the same day.  

We spent millions of hours speaking about the effects of abuse and how upside down our childhoods left us. I can't imagine how his mind brought him to where he once belonged. 

His blog has been mostly silent since he went back.

What I know for sure, sitting here 10 years later is that our minds developed in abuse and steeped in a cult like religion, are not our friends. They were created to serve needs that don't mutually serve us.

In order to be healthy and self loving, I had to most often do the opposite of what the mind believed.

The greatest divide between myself and my family is how we dance with our minds; how we challenge and/or believe our thoughts.

In my last text conversation with my brother, I suggested that the only thing that changed between us was our perceptions. We see ourselves, the world and our families differently.

I know that I have changed, when my perception of who my father was changed. Like a domino affect, little by little I saw life completely differently. And, when you see differently you act differently.

The cost of living in denial was too much - it is my intention to stay aware.

And, hopefully I will know when I turn and leave myself behind. I will feel the loss of Me.

As a child, I don't believe I had a big enough sense of self; before she was stolen away by outside needs. I left me to be a good religious girl, a servant daughter etc. Now, that I have her back, I am unwilling to easily shrug her off.

I'm perfect and it is impossible not to be.  

When I tried to be perfect, I lost me. Being imperfect fit me like a glove and embraced all of me - leaving nothing behind.

10 plus years of being imperfectly perfect!

Hearing the little footsteps behind me has kept me striving for authenticity.

The more I can love myself just as I am, the more my children and granddaughter will see a role model to look up to.

My greatest achievements in this lifetime, has been to end the cycle of abuse in Me.

At my core is self -love and worthiness.

The more I value me, the more value I can see in others, OR their lack of self-worth.

Giving my child and grandchild the gift of feeling worthy just as they are, is beyond what my heart can hold

There is nothing they have to do to earn my love; but be themselves.

This blog is ultimately how to find love of Self after abuse and to begin a new cycle of LOVE.

 

Freedom Beyond Measure

Living life in the slow lane.  At home I thought I was doing so well, that I was moving around very well.  Bring me to the open world of life and there I was slow.  I mean slower than slow.

I think we unconsciously move about the world, we walk at a pace that we chose and not one that choses us. We speed up to make up time and slow down when we see something of interest.

I had one speed.

Slow.

The hallways and skywalks and sitting rooms and distances to the bathroom stretched out like 5Ks. The world grew bigger as I was slowed down.

Maybe not even bigger - but I was consciously aware of its depth.

In the past, I think I traveled through these spaces to get to the destination, not even paying attention to them.  Now, I was very keen on just how far.

One of my concerns was being able to reach bathrooms in TIME.

To time it so that I didn't have to hurry, when I couldn't speed up.

So, I became more aware of my body, its needs.

When it is hard to get in and out of vehicles, you don't just jump out at every stop. You have to consider the worth of the trip.  How much do you need to go?

Driving along the shoreline, there was a great photo op.  A windblown pile of snow with brown grass waving in tufts out of it and the backdrop angry waves of gunflint grey! Like a beach scene but in the snow.  In the past, I would have told my husband to stop and I would have made my way over to it. With a walker, it wasn't feasible.

It is amazing how disabilities can hold you back.

And, "killing time" by shopping seemed way too hard. There is no stopping and running in quick to see or browse etc.  Again, there has to be a great need to exit. 

With healthy legs you really never consider what you are going to be walking on and the ease of just running in somewhere to grab an item. Or the luxury of being curious and walking endlessly into cool shops.

A walker changes that.

Ice, curbs, cracks and irregular surfaces are not that easy to navigate. Let alone any place with steps.

My world looks so different from a walker.

Today I feel like a hero athlete, to be able to just use a cane. 

I may be slow, but most places are reachable!

And, in slowing down I have gotten a better look and feel of our world.

My new hip will give me much gratitude for all that I can do!

The world is accessible!

The old adage still applies.  "You don't know what you have until its gone."

If you have your health, you truly have freedom beyond measure!

 

Riding Topless Again!

I made my first trip out of the house in almost two weeks using my walker.  It felt good to get dressed and climb into the Jeep. It was a stretch getting in, and a nice slide out! I wasn't driving, but a happy passenger!

I noticed people not looking at me with my walker. Like looking away from my "handicap". Odd.  I caught a snippet of what it feels like to be a tad off physically. 

There I was me as Me can be, but invisible behind the walker; like it was a sign to not look out of politeness.

I know I have done this, letting the person be in their privacy, not really understanding, we leave them alone - unnoticed.

I am not sure I can articulate the little glimpse I had in this world. But, from now on I will make sure to acknowledge folks regardless of their helping device.

And, then I was with a cane, and I was treated like an older person who needs help.  And, yeah I guess I do. But, it again felt so weird to be seen in this manner.  People opening doors, holding doors, giving you patience. 

I had another run in with a space that didn't allow enough aisle room for the walker, so I had to leave it with Paul to carry and I had to use the tables and booths to navigate this space.

You see the world different depending upon your own needs. And, you take for granted how easy the world is to navigate with just your legs.

Healthy strong legs.

Today I asked why my knee is so sore and found out they torque it pretty hard to dislocate my hip during surgery. I didn't want to know more. I have one more hip to go in the future someday.  

Each day the pain feels more like soreness and less like pain if that makes sense.

I am free now to walk my home without an escort on the stairs! I feel so liberated!

I can drive again.

However, I will most likely stay home for the week I need the cane and when I venture out use the cane.  The outside world seems full of ways that will trip me up!

I look forward to going down in the basement, the doctor approved me sewing. I still have to rest half of each hour this week. Next week a bit less. I have many weeks off of work to fill with art and fun things - and naps or just reclining. I am catching a sneak preview of retirement - I know I will handle it without a hitch!

Yet, with the pain getting less and less, I don't feel that it will be a struggle to make it to retirement; but I will actually be too busy to worry about when that will happen.

It is amazing how pain can cloud a life and make your world smaller and smaller.

And, then to see it open back up...it is amazing.

Feeling very grateful to be Me!

Soon, I will be riding topless again!