Every year at the Winter Solstice I choose a word for the year. The point is to be mindful about how the word plays out in my life and to work with the word whenever it comes up. Last year my word was "forgiveness" and I thought when I drew it I was sure I knew what it would mean in my life. After ending an abusive relationship with my ex-boyfriend obviously this year would be a journey in forgiving him for all that had happened between us. I was prepared, open to forgiveness and ready to come to a place of peace about our relationship. Surprise! It's never what you think it is and I have to say, I've struggled with the lessons of forgiveness that come my way.
It's true, I did need to come to a place of forgiveness for my ex but that was such a small piece of the work I had to do around forgiveness. The biggest hurdle, even up to a couple of weeks ago, was not forgiving my ex, but forgiving myself and not just in the context of my broken relationship but for all the hurts I have experienced and have inflicted on myself. It sounds simple, if we love ourselves it should be easy to forgive ourselves. But there's a lot that's tied up into forgiveness and forgiving ourselves is harder to do than we think.
In order to forgive myself I first had to accept responsibility for the unloving acts I committed against myself. Sounds pretty intense when I put it that way, but all lessons begin with us and we are harder on ourselves than we are on others. All the secret grudges, all the failed expectations, the betrayals, the withholding of love made it incredibly difficult to forgive myself. As I worked through the things that happened in my past relationship, I realized that I kept not only myself but my son in a hurtful and abusive relationship and forgiveness seemed to slip further and further away. And it wasn't even limited to this past relationship, but was a theme in my whole life. I realized that the journey to forgiveness wasn't just about forgiveness, but was also a journey to love.
Many of us have hurtful stories about our past and mine, in comparison with people I know and have talked with, is nowhere near as bad as it could have been. But as my first therapist said, "Pain is pain and the damage done makes no comparison with others' pain". My parents both deal with personality disorders and eating disorders, alcoholism and drug addiction run rampant in my family. It was an emotionally abusive household and to help with that we were part of a very strict and unforgiving version of Christianity. The messages I got growing up were that I didn't matter, everyone else mattered more than me, my feelings were not to be tolerated, and expectations were ridiculously high; I could never be good enough. I was a sad and lonely little girl, desperate to have my parents' love and approval and quick to punish myself at each and every failure of their expectations and desires, and I failed often.
This theme followed me into my marriage. I wanted to be the perfect wife and perfect mother. I wanted my husband to see me as an equal, to be a partner, to earn his love, respect and admiration for all that I was and all that I could do. But the people we choose are reflections of ourselves. I believed that my feelings didn't matter and everyone else mattered more than me, so I chose a man who could never see me as his equal, whose value of me only came from how I made him look in other people's eyes, who couldn't appreciate the various quirks that made me the person that I was and in that marriage I was, again, a sad and lonely little girl.
By the time I met my ex-boyfriend, I was desperate for any thread of love I could put my finger on and I was swept away by him. But in spite of four years of therapy I hadn't learned to love myself so again, I chose poorly. I was so desperate to be loved and to not be alone that I stayed in an abusive relationship and kept my son there too. We fought constantly and said horrible things to each other and I believed every criticism and every accusation. My self-worth and self-love weren't really low, they weren't even realities I could recognize. The best thing that happened in that relationship was my ex leaving me and I regretted that for a single day.
It would be so easy to say I just need to forgive my parents, my ex-husband and my ex-boyfriend and be on my merry way, but it isn't that easy. Forgiving others is so much easier than forgiving ourselves. I have to forgive myself for the choices that I made that hurt me and others. I have to forgive myself for every poisonous word I whispered in my head when I failed. I have to forgive myself for shutting out the inner voices of a hurt little girl who told me to leave so many times, for turning her away when she cried for love and I wouldn't give it, for hurting my son. And to do that, I have to love myself enough to know that withholding forgiveness of myself continues to hurt me in a way that is totally contrary to self-love.
So that has been my journey. Learning to love and value myself enough to forgive myself for the hurt I have caused both myself and those I care about. Forgiving myself for the choices I made that hurt me was hard enough, forgiving myself for the choices I made that hurt my son has been the most difficult, but I'm getting there. As I've gone through this journey I've had the opportunity to talk to a lot of people about self-forgiveness and so many of us struggle with it, but it really is a key component on the path of living an emotionally healthy life; and it's worth the struggle.
This is probably something I am going to struggle with for a long time. I learned self-forgiveness as an adult and it's certainly not second nature, but even though my year with this word is done, I am not done with this word and it is in my best interest to be mindful of it as I move through my life. When I started this process of healing ten months ago, I thought the end-point would be my healed self, and so it will be, but not in the way I was thinking. There is no end-point until I'm pushing up daisies and while healing is an important component along the way, this isn't a journey of healing so much as it's a journey of love. I know, enough with the love already! But it is.
The over-arching theme of my life has been one in which I seek union with the Divine. But how can I possibly understand Divine love if I can't even love myself? And if I can't love myself, how can I hope to draw people to my life who love me? And if I can't love myself, I can't forgive myself and I can't move forward because I'm stuck in a swamp of self-loathing and recrimination. They're all connected. So as I move along this path of love I must hold forgiveness close, understanding that love and forgiveness are inextricably intertwined.
Winter Solstice 2011 just passed a few days ago and indeed I chose another word. This year's experience with forgiveness has made me a bit wary of this process and it was with some trepidation that I chose my new word. The word for this year is "integrity". I put the word back in the bowl with the others and chose another word. But integrity is my word for this year and so I fished it out knowing that I can't avoid the lessons. I am interested to see how this word plays out in my life in the coming year, but I know it's not going to be anything I expect. I have some preliminary thoughts about places I can go with it, but that's going to be nothing in comparison with what life itself will bring about.
It is my hope, as always, to be open to these lessons and accept them with courage and grace. My eyes and heart will be open, but I have a secret hope that it won't be too hard. I guess we'll have to see. In the meantime, I am mindful that words are powerful when we work to give them meaning in our lives, they can be transformative. There is now enough forgiveness and enough love in my life to face this new word's challenge. I value integrity and am committed to it in my own life, we'll have to see where the lessons lie.
As we are in the holiday season, I'm very aware that this year the most precious gift I have received is forgiveness and I'm so grateful I could find it. I'm holding on tight to it so I don't have to go in search of it again. It's been a powerful word for me this year, transforming, and I'm grateful that attention to a single word can be so powerful if we are willing to pay attention and to open ourselves up to the lesson.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Friday, October 7, 2011
It's All About the Love
It's finally cool outside with the onset of fall. Of course, the weather could turn in a nanosecond and be up over 100 again so I'm not getting too attached to the change in weather. I went outside on my balcony tonight to enjoy the cool air and the quiet. Unfortunately, my neighbor downstairs is having a difficult time with one of her children and all I hear in the night is them yelling at one another until the mother, finally reaching her limit, spanks him and he's crying and snarling at her.
It would be so easy for me to get angry at this woman for how she treats her children, but I understand these are the sounds of a tired, overwhelmed mother who doesn't know what else to do except yell at her children and, of course, her children don't know what to do except yell back. The failure is not in the mother, but in a society, culture, town, etc that offers little to no education that would teach parents more effective means to deal with their children.
I often get frustrated with the city I live in. There are days when my interactions are with really nice, good-hearted people, and there are days when it seems this town is filled with narrow-minded, ignorant, people and I get tired of the limited mindset. I tell myself it would be so easy to give in to anger and hate, but if I do that is all I will see in the world, anger and hate...and I'm right.
That's not how I see the world, as one filled with anger and hate. I'm not a fool, I know there is an immense amount of anger and hatred loose in the world, but there's also an abundance of love. It's easy to think that it isn't present when we see horrible things happen around us, in our world, our country, our town, at our jobs. If we don't see loving action in the people around us, we don't think it exists, but it does and it's everywhere.
I've been working through a lot of my own issues lately, brought about by a difficult childhood and a difficult adulthood. My relationships haven't been good and have been filled with anger and abuse. I've worked through the gamut of emotions; anger, despair, confusion, loss, hopelessness and over and over again I have had to face the reality that the abuse and hurt I received never was the worst of what happened, what I did to myself was the worst of all.
Those of us who have lived through abuse, neglect, and pain know that the worst things you heard were inside your own head. The worst things that happened you did to yourself and the love that your own soul cried out for in desperation you denied yourself. The world is filled with hatred and pain, but the hatred and pain we see outside of ourselves is microscopic compared to the world of hatred and pain inside our own selves. What our inner world is comprised of forms our vision of the outer world.
The wounds inside of me may have been started by others, but they were nursed, continued and encouraged by me. As I have worked to heal them and allow love for myself to truly become a reality, I see the world differently. Yes, I still see that awful things happen to people everyday, but instead of seeing them as coming from horribly abusive people I see them coming from people who are hurt, lost and confused, people who are caught in systems that have become pathological and hurt those who run those systems and those who are subject to them.
A friend and I were talking about how we see the world and I told him that I see the world as being suffused with love, as though love permeates everything and is available all around us at all times. We just don't see the love available to us because our own stuff gets in the way and we hold ourselves separate from it. He looked at me with a fixed smile on his face and said, "Okay, Christi, that's an interesting perspective. That's not how I see the world at all. But we know this about you, with you it's all about the love" and it is.
I do see the world as being filled with love, but if we cannot truly love ourselves which includes accepting and embracing the parts of ourselves we find less than honorable or even distasteful, we will never get to experience that love even though it's right there. I believe that because as I began to heal and really allowed love into my heart that's what the world became for me, filled with love.
So how does this love translate into my everyday life? I'm still figuring that out, but here's what I have so far: Anyone you see acting in a hurtful way towards other people is acting out of an incredible amount of pain within themselves. They may be hurt, confused, scared, feel helpless or out of control and I know what it feels like to live that way, it's awful. If they don't have many internal resources or good role-models in their lives they may not have the tools to do things differently and I understand that too.
So instead of thinking that my neighbor is a bad mother, the city council is full of a bunch of elitist, greedy, bastards and this town is full of a bunch of closed-minded fools, I can realize these people are actually in a lot of pain and are most likely doing the best they can. I can remember that there were times when I was certainly not at my sterling best and I would have liked a little compassion thrown my way from anyone who saw me. I can be patient, caring, understanding and give them a little unconditional, positive regard because everybody deserves to at least be treated with dignity and respect and kindness goes even further.
I can forgive myself for having a moment of judgment against them and send a little loving energy their way, hoping that things get better and trying to help where I reasonably can. I can get involved in my community again and realize that those working to help people may be in as much pain or more as the people they are trying to help and they deserve my care and concern too. I can remember that we are all held by pathological systems that don't support us and do what I can to make a difference day by day, person by person. And above all, I can remember the love that is all around us and is there for me to channel to everyone I come across regardless of whether I happen to agree with their behavior or not. It's all about the love and when we can truly be in a place of love for ourselves we have boundless love to give to the people and world around us.
It would be so easy for me to get angry at this woman for how she treats her children, but I understand these are the sounds of a tired, overwhelmed mother who doesn't know what else to do except yell at her children and, of course, her children don't know what to do except yell back. The failure is not in the mother, but in a society, culture, town, etc that offers little to no education that would teach parents more effective means to deal with their children.
I often get frustrated with the city I live in. There are days when my interactions are with really nice, good-hearted people, and there are days when it seems this town is filled with narrow-minded, ignorant, people and I get tired of the limited mindset. I tell myself it would be so easy to give in to anger and hate, but if I do that is all I will see in the world, anger and hate...and I'm right.
That's not how I see the world, as one filled with anger and hate. I'm not a fool, I know there is an immense amount of anger and hatred loose in the world, but there's also an abundance of love. It's easy to think that it isn't present when we see horrible things happen around us, in our world, our country, our town, at our jobs. If we don't see loving action in the people around us, we don't think it exists, but it does and it's everywhere.
I've been working through a lot of my own issues lately, brought about by a difficult childhood and a difficult adulthood. My relationships haven't been good and have been filled with anger and abuse. I've worked through the gamut of emotions; anger, despair, confusion, loss, hopelessness and over and over again I have had to face the reality that the abuse and hurt I received never was the worst of what happened, what I did to myself was the worst of all.
Those of us who have lived through abuse, neglect, and pain know that the worst things you heard were inside your own head. The worst things that happened you did to yourself and the love that your own soul cried out for in desperation you denied yourself. The world is filled with hatred and pain, but the hatred and pain we see outside of ourselves is microscopic compared to the world of hatred and pain inside our own selves. What our inner world is comprised of forms our vision of the outer world.
The wounds inside of me may have been started by others, but they were nursed, continued and encouraged by me. As I have worked to heal them and allow love for myself to truly become a reality, I see the world differently. Yes, I still see that awful things happen to people everyday, but instead of seeing them as coming from horribly abusive people I see them coming from people who are hurt, lost and confused, people who are caught in systems that have become pathological and hurt those who run those systems and those who are subject to them.
A friend and I were talking about how we see the world and I told him that I see the world as being suffused with love, as though love permeates everything and is available all around us at all times. We just don't see the love available to us because our own stuff gets in the way and we hold ourselves separate from it. He looked at me with a fixed smile on his face and said, "Okay, Christi, that's an interesting perspective. That's not how I see the world at all. But we know this about you, with you it's all about the love" and it is.
I do see the world as being filled with love, but if we cannot truly love ourselves which includes accepting and embracing the parts of ourselves we find less than honorable or even distasteful, we will never get to experience that love even though it's right there. I believe that because as I began to heal and really allowed love into my heart that's what the world became for me, filled with love.
So how does this love translate into my everyday life? I'm still figuring that out, but here's what I have so far: Anyone you see acting in a hurtful way towards other people is acting out of an incredible amount of pain within themselves. They may be hurt, confused, scared, feel helpless or out of control and I know what it feels like to live that way, it's awful. If they don't have many internal resources or good role-models in their lives they may not have the tools to do things differently and I understand that too.
So instead of thinking that my neighbor is a bad mother, the city council is full of a bunch of elitist, greedy, bastards and this town is full of a bunch of closed-minded fools, I can realize these people are actually in a lot of pain and are most likely doing the best they can. I can remember that there were times when I was certainly not at my sterling best and I would have liked a little compassion thrown my way from anyone who saw me. I can be patient, caring, understanding and give them a little unconditional, positive regard because everybody deserves to at least be treated with dignity and respect and kindness goes even further.
I can forgive myself for having a moment of judgment against them and send a little loving energy their way, hoping that things get better and trying to help where I reasonably can. I can get involved in my community again and realize that those working to help people may be in as much pain or more as the people they are trying to help and they deserve my care and concern too. I can remember that we are all held by pathological systems that don't support us and do what I can to make a difference day by day, person by person. And above all, I can remember the love that is all around us and is there for me to channel to everyone I come across regardless of whether I happen to agree with their behavior or not. It's all about the love and when we can truly be in a place of love for ourselves we have boundless love to give to the people and world around us.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
In Memorium
Yesterday I went to a memorial service for a very special lady who was a teacher to me. I didn't think of her as a teacher while she was alive, she was just my friend. But as I listened to her oldest and dearest and her children and grandchildren talk about her, I realized how much she had influenced my thinking and my actions. She was my teacher and she taught me about love.
Dian looked for the best in every situation and in every person. Consequently she inhabited a world that was beautiful, happy, and full of possibilities because those were the things she saw all around her. Although she had great concern for the state of the world her optimism never dimmed and her energy to do what she could to improve the state of things didn't wane until her body just couldn't fight anymore. I never heard her utter a negative word about anyone, though she sometimes was troubled by the things people would do, she always gave them the benefit of the doubt. She was full of laughter, quick to smile, and you never doubted that you were loved in her presence.
As I listened to stories shared by her friends and family I realized what an amazing legacy of love she has left behind. Her children are delightful people for whom kindness and caring is as natural as breathing and the stories they shared made me cry, not because I will miss her, but because they were so beautiful and so filled with love. You rarely hear stories like that anymore, it seems we rarely get to experience people like that anymore, though they are out there. She taught her children to be that way through her constant example of love and kindness. You can see her touch on each of their personalities, she lives in each one of them, and talking with them is like finding a jewel of Dian still alive and kicking.
If you go about your life with intention anyone can be a teacher. Dian taught me about the little things one can do to express their love in the world. A great hug, a quick smile, an ability to laugh, gently taking someones arm as you walk, listening, inspiring, and offering advice and insight sometimes gently, sometimes not, and above all service. She was fiercely opinionated and viciously independent and I loved those things about her. Many of the qualities she embodied are qualities I am working to develop in myself and so she is my teacher and will continue to be so.
We don't realize the great capacity we have to leave a legacy of love and goodness in the world. It's so easy to think that things are so far out of control that there is nothing we can do, and when we look at this great big world and all the people in it one can easily feel overwhelmed, understandably so. There's no one thing we can do to change the world immediately, but there are a million tiny things we can do with each person we meet and in every situation that we are in to make a difference. Sometimes all it takes is a smile and an open heart and the possibilities to make a positive impact unfurl around us. If we open our eyes to the teachers we have before us and learn from them we are impacted by them. If we then take what we learn and apply it in the world, we impact others and the gift is passed on.
My friend Dian was a beautiful person and I am so grateful to have known her for the short time that I did. I wish I had known her longer, called her more often, talked with her more and laughed a lot more, but I'm grateful for the time I had. I will remember her hugs, her smiles, her sense of humor and her ability to celebrate when some really long, boring presentation was over with a standing ovation and a giant smile on her face as she would lean down to me and say, "I'm not clapping because I liked it, I'm clapping because it's over!" She made me laugh, lightened my heart and brought me happiness. I will apply her lessons in every aspect of my life and do so with a mental caress in her direction.
I will remember that I have the ability to bring love to the world with my actions. That I create the world I see by the things that I choose to focus on. I am only as helpless to make a positive impact as I believe myself to be. I can love people, be loving to people and still be opinionated and independent. I will remember that sometimes a totally inappropriate comment is exactly what is needed to break the tension. I will remember that there is room for multiple truths all at one time. I will remember the value of a smile, a hug, laughter, a willing ear and a caring heart. I will remember that wherever I go there is a need for love and service, even in the people and places that seem too far gone and I will do what I can to shine a light in those places and in those people. I will remember my friend with love and all that she is for me and I will take her example and carry it on in the world.
I love you Dian and I will miss you so much, but in every loving action you will be there and so you live on in all of us, in all the lives and hearts that you have touched. I'm grateful that my life was graced with your presence. Deus det tibi pacem.
Dian looked for the best in every situation and in every person. Consequently she inhabited a world that was beautiful, happy, and full of possibilities because those were the things she saw all around her. Although she had great concern for the state of the world her optimism never dimmed and her energy to do what she could to improve the state of things didn't wane until her body just couldn't fight anymore. I never heard her utter a negative word about anyone, though she sometimes was troubled by the things people would do, she always gave them the benefit of the doubt. She was full of laughter, quick to smile, and you never doubted that you were loved in her presence.
As I listened to stories shared by her friends and family I realized what an amazing legacy of love she has left behind. Her children are delightful people for whom kindness and caring is as natural as breathing and the stories they shared made me cry, not because I will miss her, but because they were so beautiful and so filled with love. You rarely hear stories like that anymore, it seems we rarely get to experience people like that anymore, though they are out there. She taught her children to be that way through her constant example of love and kindness. You can see her touch on each of their personalities, she lives in each one of them, and talking with them is like finding a jewel of Dian still alive and kicking.
If you go about your life with intention anyone can be a teacher. Dian taught me about the little things one can do to express their love in the world. A great hug, a quick smile, an ability to laugh, gently taking someones arm as you walk, listening, inspiring, and offering advice and insight sometimes gently, sometimes not, and above all service. She was fiercely opinionated and viciously independent and I loved those things about her. Many of the qualities she embodied are qualities I am working to develop in myself and so she is my teacher and will continue to be so.
We don't realize the great capacity we have to leave a legacy of love and goodness in the world. It's so easy to think that things are so far out of control that there is nothing we can do, and when we look at this great big world and all the people in it one can easily feel overwhelmed, understandably so. There's no one thing we can do to change the world immediately, but there are a million tiny things we can do with each person we meet and in every situation that we are in to make a difference. Sometimes all it takes is a smile and an open heart and the possibilities to make a positive impact unfurl around us. If we open our eyes to the teachers we have before us and learn from them we are impacted by them. If we then take what we learn and apply it in the world, we impact others and the gift is passed on.
My friend Dian was a beautiful person and I am so grateful to have known her for the short time that I did. I wish I had known her longer, called her more often, talked with her more and laughed a lot more, but I'm grateful for the time I had. I will remember her hugs, her smiles, her sense of humor and her ability to celebrate when some really long, boring presentation was over with a standing ovation and a giant smile on her face as she would lean down to me and say, "I'm not clapping because I liked it, I'm clapping because it's over!" She made me laugh, lightened my heart and brought me happiness. I will apply her lessons in every aspect of my life and do so with a mental caress in her direction.
I will remember that I have the ability to bring love to the world with my actions. That I create the world I see by the things that I choose to focus on. I am only as helpless to make a positive impact as I believe myself to be. I can love people, be loving to people and still be opinionated and independent. I will remember that sometimes a totally inappropriate comment is exactly what is needed to break the tension. I will remember that there is room for multiple truths all at one time. I will remember the value of a smile, a hug, laughter, a willing ear and a caring heart. I will remember that wherever I go there is a need for love and service, even in the people and places that seem too far gone and I will do what I can to shine a light in those places and in those people. I will remember my friend with love and all that she is for me and I will take her example and carry it on in the world.
I love you Dian and I will miss you so much, but in every loving action you will be there and so you live on in all of us, in all the lives and hearts that you have touched. I'm grateful that my life was graced with your presence. Deus det tibi pacem.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
The Dark, Crazy, Strange and Unwanted
Of course I didn't really want to hear what they had to say. I mean, sure, part of me wanted to hear what they had to say, knew it was important, knew I needed to listen, listened some but nowhere near the level to which I should have been listening. The inner voices talk of hurt, years of self-neglect, complete self-denial, abuse, rejection, shame, and despair. Every story I have to tell about my life is a sad one, yet I couldn't connect with the concept that I had lived a sad life. Who wants to admit that or look at that?
The truth is we deny these aspects of ourselves because we're afraid we won't like them, that nobody will like them. That's my fear, that embracing these aspects of myself and letting them have their space and their voices will reveal the truth that I am unlovable, that I deserved all the hurt I have received in my life, that indeed I am a misfit and there is no place here for me, but that's just my fear. I don't really think those things are true and in order to release that fear I have to allow the rejected parts of myself to come fully into the light and have their say.
I've had to come to terms with a lot of things I didn't want to such as admitting I'm wounded, that being in an abusive relationship had a negative effect on me, that my life had pretty much fallen apart and that I need a lot of help these days while I work to get back on my feet, that sometimes I'm sad because of all I have been through, that I see the world through different eyes and while I'm reconnecting with certain aspects of myself which is nice, I have to get to know brand new aspects of myself which isn't always very nice. I struggle a lot on this journey because I'm afraid that I won't be able to bear the picture I see of myself and that no one else will be able or willing to bear it either, but that hasn't happened yet.
It's hard to say that I've known the life I should have been living all along, but it's true, I've known. I've watched it roll past me like a passenger on a train staring out the window at the passing countryside, I've always been on the wrong side of the glass. I watched it going past dreaming of achieving it in some brighter future that totally eluded me. I had no idea how to get to that life, if I'd known that I wouldn't have made the choices I did which put me on a path much darker and sadder than that other happier life.
My life is certainly better than what it was, but nowhere near where it should be. There is still a lot of pain to sort through, going all the way back in my life. I'm on my way to working through it, sharing the experience as I do which is hard. I know it's going to hurt and I have to admit to a certain amount of fear. I don't like to be as vulnerable as I'll need to be, but that's part of the healing process too.
As I run around my town taking care of various errands I feel strange, realizing I look like everyone else, but feeling so different, so separate from them all. I know what it's like to breeze through life as though nothing is wrong, even when your world is falling down around you. Moving so fast you can't see the walls topple to the ground or take time to step around the stones of your life, you just fly over them pretending they aren't there, pretending that nothing is wrong. I'm not doing that anymore, I'm stopping and looking at each stone and I feel like I'm moving in slow motion while everyone around me is flying by at normal speed. I feel like I'm living in a parallel universe.
The thing is, I don't want to move like that anymore. I want my life to have a slower pace, deeper meaning, greater purpose, time and space for truth to be explored, and to listen to the parts of myself that may not always be the brightest, I don't want to step back on the crazy train of frantic living. I've realized in these last couple of days that the emotional work I am undertaking has the potential to heal a lifetime of wounds I have carried with me and that when I am done I will not be the same person as I am now. My life can be different and I will be different, no longer walking with my chest blown open, but healed and whole. That is the point of the work, but it's moved me into a place to prepare to let go and I feel the mourning begin as the door to that part of my life prepares to swing closed.
The dark, crazier, stranger and unwanted aspects of myself have been crying to be heard for a very long time and I ignored them. However, I have stepped onto a different train that is taking me down into the depths of my soul to find those aspects, like a train into Hell taking me to hang out with the tormented for a while. That's the picture I have in my head, I hope it's not quite that bad, but I'm afraid that it is. And if it is that bad? Well, they're only tormented for having been neglected for so very long, denied grace by a desperate attempt to find love. So how can I be afraid? It's just me, waiting for the love and attention I have denied myself but am finally ready to give. Yeah, it's going to hurt. It always hurts when we begin to feed a part of us that has starved for so long, but it's a precious pain and I am ready it.
Monday, August 1, 2011
State of Grace
I'm sitting on my balcony enjoying the anonymity of darkness. It is warm and there is no breeze. The crescent moon, fat, even with her hidden visage, has long since set. The silence of the night is interrupted by the hum of air conditioners and the chirping of crickets. Ah, summer in Southern California. I am reminded as I sit here that this is the best summer I have ever had.
The past year has not been easy. Next month it will be a year ago that I began a long, often painful journey and still I am walking it. Certainly things are not perfect. I'm still unemployed, which I hope to remedy soon, and that creates a shortage in my finances, and there are relationships in my life which are difficult. On the other hand, I have enough money for everything I need and there are relationships in my life which are rich and wonderful. My life is peaceful, though hectic, for the first time ever.
I've had a lot of conversations about what is important in life and how people come about finding fulfillment in the day-to-day. I've always believed that it's important to do work that makes you happy over work that makes you lots of money. Having space to be yourself, have your beliefs, live in the spiritual fashion that matches your truth, a significant relationship that is loving, respectful, meaningful and supportive of each person's growth and individuality, and of course, personal health are all incredibly important to having a happy life. All of these things take work, a lot of work, at a deeply personal level.
No one wants pain in their life, no one wants to feel hurt and sorrow, but all of these things come into our lives; they are the only real guarantee besides change. People, for the most part, would rather hold on to the hurt they know than face the hurt that will bring about change and growth. I used to be that way so I understand that and say it without judgment, but I think it's a mistake. Experiencing hurt because of personal work and growth can only help if we have the courage to face it honestly, with grace and openness, and the support of people who care about us. Experiencing hurt needlessly because our life isn't fulfilling doesn't bring us anything except pain.
I've often said that I'm willing to experience pain for a purpose, but not needlessly. That's somewhat new for me because I've experienced a lot of needless pain and I was the reason I was experiencing it. We don't have to stay in painful situations, whether they are due to physical maladies, bad relationships or a job that sucks our very souls. What we do need to do, however, is then be willing to face the pain that will bring about necessary change in our lives and that's never easy.
I'm lucky, I have a huge amount of supportive friends and loved ones who are willing and able to support me. They are my created family and I'm always somewhat stunned by their love and support whenever I see it in action. These are friends I've had for years, but never had access to because of the relationship I was in. It would be easy to be bitter about that, but in doing without them for so long I have a deep appreciation for their presence in my lives now.
I could be bitter about losing a job that had meaning for me, but the truth is that job was killing me and wasn't fulfilling in the way I wanted it to be. Losing my job was a good thing, overall, and now I have room to consider, make plans and find a job that will allow me to be home with my son until he is grown. Then I will create a career that fills my soul. The job I had kept me running so hard and fast I was never home and both my son and I suffered for it.
I could be bitter that someone I was with for 8 years, whom I trusted, would be abusive and hurtful, would walk out on me without warning or consideration, steal a lot of money from me and put me in a very bad position. But losing that relationship was a good thing, it was killing me and it was abusive. I am grateful that he is gone from my life and there is room for something much deeper, much more loving, much greater than anything I could have imagined. And now there is peace.
This gratitude has taken work, it hasn't come easily and realizing a lot of the things I came to understand was often accompanied by great pain. Spirit is kind, though. If we are willing to do the work we can reach a point, temporary though it is, of peace and love. In this moment I exist in a state of grace, loved by so many including myself, but Spirit as well. Life is hard, but there is great beauty to be had in it. Moments of grace, times when we are captured by sublime beauty, moments of laughter with people we love, gentle embraces, and deep loving emotion, are more common than we often realize. Our pain can bring us appreciation for those moments of grace and more grace comes with greater growth and understanding.
Someone said that when we feel pain, it is the pain leaving our bodies. We hold on so tight to it, fighting to keep it even when we know it is damaging us. Somehow we feel we'll be damaged more if we let it out and look at it, but we must. It means we have to understand the nature of the pain, what is causing it, its effect on ourselves and why we are allowing it to continue. Not many people are willing to admit that we are often responsible for its presence in our lives, mostly because we tolerate it, but we are responsible.
This moment is not a painful moment for me, it is a joyful one and because I have been willing to face my pain I have more joy in my life now than I have ever had. Peace, love, happiness are the rewards we get when we are willing to do the work in our lives that we must. We can all exist in a state of grace, in fact, we already do we just don't realize it. I know that more pain will come, it's inevitable, but for now I am enjoying the peace and happiness that is mine. It is here for us all.
The past year has not been easy. Next month it will be a year ago that I began a long, often painful journey and still I am walking it. Certainly things are not perfect. I'm still unemployed, which I hope to remedy soon, and that creates a shortage in my finances, and there are relationships in my life which are difficult. On the other hand, I have enough money for everything I need and there are relationships in my life which are rich and wonderful. My life is peaceful, though hectic, for the first time ever.
I've had a lot of conversations about what is important in life and how people come about finding fulfillment in the day-to-day. I've always believed that it's important to do work that makes you happy over work that makes you lots of money. Having space to be yourself, have your beliefs, live in the spiritual fashion that matches your truth, a significant relationship that is loving, respectful, meaningful and supportive of each person's growth and individuality, and of course, personal health are all incredibly important to having a happy life. All of these things take work, a lot of work, at a deeply personal level.
No one wants pain in their life, no one wants to feel hurt and sorrow, but all of these things come into our lives; they are the only real guarantee besides change. People, for the most part, would rather hold on to the hurt they know than face the hurt that will bring about change and growth. I used to be that way so I understand that and say it without judgment, but I think it's a mistake. Experiencing hurt because of personal work and growth can only help if we have the courage to face it honestly, with grace and openness, and the support of people who care about us. Experiencing hurt needlessly because our life isn't fulfilling doesn't bring us anything except pain.
I've often said that I'm willing to experience pain for a purpose, but not needlessly. That's somewhat new for me because I've experienced a lot of needless pain and I was the reason I was experiencing it. We don't have to stay in painful situations, whether they are due to physical maladies, bad relationships or a job that sucks our very souls. What we do need to do, however, is then be willing to face the pain that will bring about necessary change in our lives and that's never easy.
I'm lucky, I have a huge amount of supportive friends and loved ones who are willing and able to support me. They are my created family and I'm always somewhat stunned by their love and support whenever I see it in action. These are friends I've had for years, but never had access to because of the relationship I was in. It would be easy to be bitter about that, but in doing without them for so long I have a deep appreciation for their presence in my lives now.
I could be bitter about losing a job that had meaning for me, but the truth is that job was killing me and wasn't fulfilling in the way I wanted it to be. Losing my job was a good thing, overall, and now I have room to consider, make plans and find a job that will allow me to be home with my son until he is grown. Then I will create a career that fills my soul. The job I had kept me running so hard and fast I was never home and both my son and I suffered for it.
I could be bitter that someone I was with for 8 years, whom I trusted, would be abusive and hurtful, would walk out on me without warning or consideration, steal a lot of money from me and put me in a very bad position. But losing that relationship was a good thing, it was killing me and it was abusive. I am grateful that he is gone from my life and there is room for something much deeper, much more loving, much greater than anything I could have imagined. And now there is peace.
This gratitude has taken work, it hasn't come easily and realizing a lot of the things I came to understand was often accompanied by great pain. Spirit is kind, though. If we are willing to do the work we can reach a point, temporary though it is, of peace and love. In this moment I exist in a state of grace, loved by so many including myself, but Spirit as well. Life is hard, but there is great beauty to be had in it. Moments of grace, times when we are captured by sublime beauty, moments of laughter with people we love, gentle embraces, and deep loving emotion, are more common than we often realize. Our pain can bring us appreciation for those moments of grace and more grace comes with greater growth and understanding.
Someone said that when we feel pain, it is the pain leaving our bodies. We hold on so tight to it, fighting to keep it even when we know it is damaging us. Somehow we feel we'll be damaged more if we let it out and look at it, but we must. It means we have to understand the nature of the pain, what is causing it, its effect on ourselves and why we are allowing it to continue. Not many people are willing to admit that we are often responsible for its presence in our lives, mostly because we tolerate it, but we are responsible.
This moment is not a painful moment for me, it is a joyful one and because I have been willing to face my pain I have more joy in my life now than I have ever had. Peace, love, happiness are the rewards we get when we are willing to do the work in our lives that we must. We can all exist in a state of grace, in fact, we already do we just don't realize it. I know that more pain will come, it's inevitable, but for now I am enjoying the peace and happiness that is mine. It is here for us all.
Friday, July 22, 2011
That Which Shapes Us
Someone once asked me if I were to write down the story of my life to date what kind of story would it be? I answered her honestly not liking the answer, but knowing it to be true nonetheless, my story would be a sad one. Today is a sad day for me. I have family stuff happening which is taking an emotional toll and I have spent quite a bit of time this week thinking about various sad times in my life and today the emotions hit. I'm down today, full of sorrow for all that is happening and has happened. The more time that passes the more I am able to back up and really see the picture of the life that was mine and I don't like what I see.
Everyone experiences sorrow in their life for one reason or another. We all have situations in our lives that have tried and tested us and sometimes we're so busy surviving those situations we don't have enough time or attention to acknowledge that we are impacted by what is happening to us. Our experiences shape us in the moment and the people we emerge as may not be the same as the people we started as. But once those situations are over it is up to us to decide who we will be from that moment forward and how we will allow those situations will shape us.
I don't have to solely be the product of abusive and hurtful relationships, I don't have to be a girl who feels unwanted, rejected and unloved. I don't have to be just the daughter of an alcoholic. I am or have been all of those things at one time but they aren't the sole determiners of who I am. I don't have to turn a blind eye to the hurt I have experienced trying to pretend that it didn't make an impact and failing miserably in the attempt or blame everyone else for all the bad things that have happened in my life. Doing that creates vulnerabilities and weak spots that keep me in an unhealthy place of emotional pain. I am no longer the hand steering the ship, I become controlled by the tides of unacknowledged emotions, subject to aimlessly wander without compass or guiding star, repeating the same mistakes over and over again and cursing the cruelty of life. I don't want to be that woman. I don't want the present or future story of my life to sound like that.
So while I embrace the pain that has come up today, I am mindful of how I will allow it to shape me. Instead of creating flawed, weak places I choose to become stronger and sharper. I can acknowledge the pain, the abuse, my mistakes and my choices with courage and grace. I can embrace the part of me that wants to lay my head down and cry with abandon and carefully hold my heart while I do so. I can be compassionate for the part of me that burns with shame over the things I have done that have caused pain and injury to myself and others. I can carefully cradle the little girl who wants to be loved despite the fact that I am not what my family would like me to be and despite all of the things I have done and promise her she will never be rejected or neglected by me again. I can give myself the space to accept responsibility for my choices and actions, I can incorporate the lessons these experiences have provided and, above all, I can forgive myself. In doing all of these things I will walk away a stronger and better person, forged instead of warped and able to move forward.
It seems that I come to this place over and over again in my process of healing, but as I continue to grow and learn I see the story from a new perspective and all the feelings arise again. I need to honor those feelings and I need to accept the story. That which shapes us has only as much creative control as we allow. Do I want to be shaped by my experiences or do I want to shape myself? Do I want to say that my life has been sad so that's the story I'll accept and why try for anything better or do I want to learn from the sadness of the past, accept responsibility for the part that is mine and move into a brighter future? The choice is mine. I am the creator of my future, the shape of my life is sculpted by me. I choose the form it will take and if I have anything to say about it, it will be a happier story than my past. The story of my life to date has been a sad story full of pain and sorrow. The story of my future life will be as bright as I can possibly make it. I am that which shapes me.
Everyone experiences sorrow in their life for one reason or another. We all have situations in our lives that have tried and tested us and sometimes we're so busy surviving those situations we don't have enough time or attention to acknowledge that we are impacted by what is happening to us. Our experiences shape us in the moment and the people we emerge as may not be the same as the people we started as. But once those situations are over it is up to us to decide who we will be from that moment forward and how we will allow those situations will shape us.
I don't have to solely be the product of abusive and hurtful relationships, I don't have to be a girl who feels unwanted, rejected and unloved. I don't have to be just the daughter of an alcoholic. I am or have been all of those things at one time but they aren't the sole determiners of who I am. I don't have to turn a blind eye to the hurt I have experienced trying to pretend that it didn't make an impact and failing miserably in the attempt or blame everyone else for all the bad things that have happened in my life. Doing that creates vulnerabilities and weak spots that keep me in an unhealthy place of emotional pain. I am no longer the hand steering the ship, I become controlled by the tides of unacknowledged emotions, subject to aimlessly wander without compass or guiding star, repeating the same mistakes over and over again and cursing the cruelty of life. I don't want to be that woman. I don't want the present or future story of my life to sound like that.
So while I embrace the pain that has come up today, I am mindful of how I will allow it to shape me. Instead of creating flawed, weak places I choose to become stronger and sharper. I can acknowledge the pain, the abuse, my mistakes and my choices with courage and grace. I can embrace the part of me that wants to lay my head down and cry with abandon and carefully hold my heart while I do so. I can be compassionate for the part of me that burns with shame over the things I have done that have caused pain and injury to myself and others. I can carefully cradle the little girl who wants to be loved despite the fact that I am not what my family would like me to be and despite all of the things I have done and promise her she will never be rejected or neglected by me again. I can give myself the space to accept responsibility for my choices and actions, I can incorporate the lessons these experiences have provided and, above all, I can forgive myself. In doing all of these things I will walk away a stronger and better person, forged instead of warped and able to move forward.
It seems that I come to this place over and over again in my process of healing, but as I continue to grow and learn I see the story from a new perspective and all the feelings arise again. I need to honor those feelings and I need to accept the story. That which shapes us has only as much creative control as we allow. Do I want to be shaped by my experiences or do I want to shape myself? Do I want to say that my life has been sad so that's the story I'll accept and why try for anything better or do I want to learn from the sadness of the past, accept responsibility for the part that is mine and move into a brighter future? The choice is mine. I am the creator of my future, the shape of my life is sculpted by me. I choose the form it will take and if I have anything to say about it, it will be a happier story than my past. The story of my life to date has been a sad story full of pain and sorrow. The story of my future life will be as bright as I can possibly make it. I am that which shapes me.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
The Love that Must Come from Within
I had a troubling yet revealing conversation last night which led me down a path of deep thought and some very necessary self-honesty. It has been 10 months since the abusive relationship I was in ended. I have spent a lot of this time processing through all the details of that relationship and trying to understand the effects of it on me and my son as well as the role I played in the abuse and that relationship.
I have to admit to a desire to reach a point where I am not reminded of the relationship or triggered by something because, in truth, I want to put as much distance between me and the relationship as possible. Who wouldn't? There are unpleasant realities that lie in sorting through all that happened and all that it means and being done would be nice. However, I'm finding that there is always more to understand and come to terms with and I have to release the idea of being done and accept what comes because, as I said, there is always more.
A lot of really bad things happened in that relationship as they do in any abusive relationship. It's easy to look at the person who is the loudest and the meanest and blame them for everything, but the truth is that anyone who would be seen as the victim in the relationship engages in the abuse equally if not more. I turned against myself, I did things I thought I would never do, allowed things to happen that were obviously wrong and hurtful and even though I was miserable and hurting I still made the choice to stay and participate. Common understanding in domestic violence is that there is a great deal of control and manipulation which make it difficult, if not impossible, for a victim of domestic violence to leave, but I have to understand that in my case it was the sad image I carried of myself that made me feel as though I deserved what was happening and, as was pointed out to me last night, that would lead to my ultimate self-destruction, my death.
That stopped me in my tracks. My death? I was on a road to death? I didn't want to see that, really had trouble acknowledging it but as I came to understand last night, where else does a path of self-destruction lead except to our own destruction? What is more, I was a willing participant, a volunteer. I was seeking my own end, suicide by proxy, I just wasn't willing to admit it. It boggles the mind, really, but it doesn't take much soul searching to come to understand that I thought so little of myself, had such a poor self-image and had rejected myself as worthy of love that instead of seeking the love I needed, I sought death. In my mind I didn't deserve love and I didn't deserve to live. That realization will hit you right between the eyes. There is nowhere to hide once you can accept that realization as true. You can't blame the abuser and hide under the details of all the horrible things that happened, you can only look to yourself and begin to understand.
At no time should anyone think that a person who is in an abusive relationship deserves what they get; no one deserves to be abused. But as a woman who was in an abusive relationship I cannot fail to acknowledge that I put myself in that situation, did horrible things to myself and allowed horrible things to happen. I made a choice to stay, to accept what was happening, to become complicit in my own abuse and to become a hand in my own destruction. I have to accept responsibility for the choices I made or I am doomed to make them all over again.
I have to understand that contrary to what I told myself I wasn't seeking love, I was seeking death and it came from a rejection of self so complete that I was willing to kill that self, but was too cowardly to admit it and do it myself so I found someone who would do it for me. How sad that is, how incredibly tragic and unfortunately, how common a tale that really is. Did I need love and want love? Of course, but the love I needed wasn't love from someone else, but was love from myself. I was never going to find the love I needed, wanted and deserved until I loved myself the way I needed, wanted and deserved.
As I have walked through my life I have looked for the important things like love and acceptance outside of myself, but these things must come first from within. If I don't love and accept myself first the only love and acceptance I'll find will be false. The people we are with are mirrors of how we feel about ourselves. I had to sit with that one a little bit for the full impact of it to hit me. The people we are with are mirrors of how we feel about ourselves and I was with someone who was going to kill me...damn.
I've had to do a lot of work to reclaim the self I rejected. It took a dark night of the soul to reclaim that part of me I had locked away and to learn to love myself again. The self I have reclaimed I love fiercely and deeply. No one will hurt me like that again, most especially myself. I cherish myself and my life and I have goals and dreams and desires, most importantly a desire to live a happy, healthy, long life. I deserve to be loved and cherished by me and in my relationships, but I have to remember that being loved and cherished starts with me. Without that, I really have no hope of achieving all I hope to accomplish. Above all, I cannot forget the dark potential that lies in denying myself love, it is a road that leads to a tragic end and I don't deserve that. No one does.
I have to admit to a desire to reach a point where I am not reminded of the relationship or triggered by something because, in truth, I want to put as much distance between me and the relationship as possible. Who wouldn't? There are unpleasant realities that lie in sorting through all that happened and all that it means and being done would be nice. However, I'm finding that there is always more to understand and come to terms with and I have to release the idea of being done and accept what comes because, as I said, there is always more.
A lot of really bad things happened in that relationship as they do in any abusive relationship. It's easy to look at the person who is the loudest and the meanest and blame them for everything, but the truth is that anyone who would be seen as the victim in the relationship engages in the abuse equally if not more. I turned against myself, I did things I thought I would never do, allowed things to happen that were obviously wrong and hurtful and even though I was miserable and hurting I still made the choice to stay and participate. Common understanding in domestic violence is that there is a great deal of control and manipulation which make it difficult, if not impossible, for a victim of domestic violence to leave, but I have to understand that in my case it was the sad image I carried of myself that made me feel as though I deserved what was happening and, as was pointed out to me last night, that would lead to my ultimate self-destruction, my death.
That stopped me in my tracks. My death? I was on a road to death? I didn't want to see that, really had trouble acknowledging it but as I came to understand last night, where else does a path of self-destruction lead except to our own destruction? What is more, I was a willing participant, a volunteer. I was seeking my own end, suicide by proxy, I just wasn't willing to admit it. It boggles the mind, really, but it doesn't take much soul searching to come to understand that I thought so little of myself, had such a poor self-image and had rejected myself as worthy of love that instead of seeking the love I needed, I sought death. In my mind I didn't deserve love and I didn't deserve to live. That realization will hit you right between the eyes. There is nowhere to hide once you can accept that realization as true. You can't blame the abuser and hide under the details of all the horrible things that happened, you can only look to yourself and begin to understand.
At no time should anyone think that a person who is in an abusive relationship deserves what they get; no one deserves to be abused. But as a woman who was in an abusive relationship I cannot fail to acknowledge that I put myself in that situation, did horrible things to myself and allowed horrible things to happen. I made a choice to stay, to accept what was happening, to become complicit in my own abuse and to become a hand in my own destruction. I have to accept responsibility for the choices I made or I am doomed to make them all over again.
I have to understand that contrary to what I told myself I wasn't seeking love, I was seeking death and it came from a rejection of self so complete that I was willing to kill that self, but was too cowardly to admit it and do it myself so I found someone who would do it for me. How sad that is, how incredibly tragic and unfortunately, how common a tale that really is. Did I need love and want love? Of course, but the love I needed wasn't love from someone else, but was love from myself. I was never going to find the love I needed, wanted and deserved until I loved myself the way I needed, wanted and deserved.
As I have walked through my life I have looked for the important things like love and acceptance outside of myself, but these things must come first from within. If I don't love and accept myself first the only love and acceptance I'll find will be false. The people we are with are mirrors of how we feel about ourselves. I had to sit with that one a little bit for the full impact of it to hit me. The people we are with are mirrors of how we feel about ourselves and I was with someone who was going to kill me...damn.
I've had to do a lot of work to reclaim the self I rejected. It took a dark night of the soul to reclaim that part of me I had locked away and to learn to love myself again. The self I have reclaimed I love fiercely and deeply. No one will hurt me like that again, most especially myself. I cherish myself and my life and I have goals and dreams and desires, most importantly a desire to live a happy, healthy, long life. I deserve to be loved and cherished by me and in my relationships, but I have to remember that being loved and cherished starts with me. Without that, I really have no hope of achieving all I hope to accomplish. Above all, I cannot forget the dark potential that lies in denying myself love, it is a road that leads to a tragic end and I don't deserve that. No one does.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Lose Yourself in Love
Tonight I went to chant with Krishna Das in the company of my dear friend Beth and my new friend Michael. I don't know why I don't just take tissue with me when I go to these things because inevitably the performer says something profound and I start to cry. You think I would learn to expect tears of some sort, tears of joy, tears of understanding, tears of sadness but no, I still think I'll get through an evening of kirtan without crying and it hasn't happened yet.
Tonight KD shared a story about advice his guru gave to a new Westerner who had come to his temple to learn. When asked why this new person had come to the temple, in desperation to find something to say he asked the guru, "Can you teach me how to meditate?" Neem Karoli Baba told him to meditate like Christ and then sent him to the back of the room with all the other Westerners.
As the Westerners all got to know each other they asked this newcomer what Neem Karoli Baba had said to him and when he told them, none of them knew what it meant. So later, Ram Dass asked his guru what he meant by meditating like Christ. How did Christ meditate? Apparently Neem Karoli Baba became very still and silent. Then two tears fell down his cheek and he said to them, "He lost himself in love." That was it, I was undone.
I know what it means to lose yourself in love. Not in the inappropriate, pathological way, but in the deep, boundless, encompassing way that we all have access to in every moment, in every breath. I know what that is, I know what that feels like and I know how to do it. I just had so many people telling me over and over again that I shouldn't feel that way that I started thinking I was doing something wrong. I would hear, "Not everyone deserves love and compassion, some people don't deserve what you have to give them." Oh yeah? I disagree. I was called Joan of Arc, Pollyana, tree-hugger and co-dependent. My desire to love and care for people caused problems in my family and in my relationships because no one could understand why I did the things I did and I was at a loss to explain it.
Don't get me wrong, I did eventually cross the healthy threshold and go into a place where the love I felt became toxic and where I cut myself off from the boundless love of the Divine and then everything went to shambles. I lost sight of who I was, I didn't know how to be someone who didn't move from love so I put my new identity in the hands of others and let them create a Christi I did not recognize and I did not understand. Was it their fault? No, I'm the one who shoved myself aside in favor of someone else who didn't belong to me and I did it all in the name of acceptance and love. I wanted my family to love me, I wanted the guy I was with to love me. If being kind and compassionate caused so many problems to so many people close to me then maybe they had a point and I needed not to feel that way.
So fast forward to now. Here I am a 37-year-old woman, single mom, unemployed, still (always) on my spiritual quest and having to figure out who it is I am. You know who I am? I'm love. We're all love whether we are able to see it or not and that loving energy that we all seek so desperately is out there all around us just waiting for us to see it. We take it in as easily as breathing. It's not hard, we just think it is but we fool ourselves thinking we have to do certain things, achieve certain understandings, become better people, blah, blah,blah, blah. At least I thought those things. Well, we don't.
All that keeps us from love is ourselves and the lies we tell ourselves every day. We get so caught up in who we think we are and what we think we're doing that we lose that connection to our true selves. It's easy for it to happen, there's so much input every day from the people close to us, the media, our own crazy internal dialogue and we lose our connection to the understanding that we are love. That's why meditation is so important because it gives us that quiet space in which to reconnect, where all the messages that pass through our awareness have no place and have no voice, we can sit in the truth of our authentic nature.
As I sat in the hall, chanting with tears falling down my cheeks I thought to myself, why? Why did this happen and why has it taken me so long to remember? Honestly, if I hadn't gone to chant with KD tonight how much longer would it have taken me to get back here? The question of how long doesn't really matter, that's ego talking, the important question is what kept me from getting here in the first place?
So tonight I have embraced love and the loving self that is me. I know the difference between losing myself in an unhealthy way and losing myself in a healthy way, I have experienced both. I surrender to love in every way possible and I'm going to change my meditation practice to include the lovingkindness meditation because that helps me stay connected with that loving energy. We are all love, love is our birthright. We just have to stop fighting it, surrender and lose ourselves in love. It's okay, we'll still be here, we'll just be more loving, happier individuals.
Namaste.
Tonight KD shared a story about advice his guru gave to a new Westerner who had come to his temple to learn. When asked why this new person had come to the temple, in desperation to find something to say he asked the guru, "Can you teach me how to meditate?" Neem Karoli Baba told him to meditate like Christ and then sent him to the back of the room with all the other Westerners.
As the Westerners all got to know each other they asked this newcomer what Neem Karoli Baba had said to him and when he told them, none of them knew what it meant. So later, Ram Dass asked his guru what he meant by meditating like Christ. How did Christ meditate? Apparently Neem Karoli Baba became very still and silent. Then two tears fell down his cheek and he said to them, "He lost himself in love." That was it, I was undone.
I know what it means to lose yourself in love. Not in the inappropriate, pathological way, but in the deep, boundless, encompassing way that we all have access to in every moment, in every breath. I know what that is, I know what that feels like and I know how to do it. I just had so many people telling me over and over again that I shouldn't feel that way that I started thinking I was doing something wrong. I would hear, "Not everyone deserves love and compassion, some people don't deserve what you have to give them." Oh yeah? I disagree. I was called Joan of Arc, Pollyana, tree-hugger and co-dependent. My desire to love and care for people caused problems in my family and in my relationships because no one could understand why I did the things I did and I was at a loss to explain it.
Don't get me wrong, I did eventually cross the healthy threshold and go into a place where the love I felt became toxic and where I cut myself off from the boundless love of the Divine and then everything went to shambles. I lost sight of who I was, I didn't know how to be someone who didn't move from love so I put my new identity in the hands of others and let them create a Christi I did not recognize and I did not understand. Was it their fault? No, I'm the one who shoved myself aside in favor of someone else who didn't belong to me and I did it all in the name of acceptance and love. I wanted my family to love me, I wanted the guy I was with to love me. If being kind and compassionate caused so many problems to so many people close to me then maybe they had a point and I needed not to feel that way.
So fast forward to now. Here I am a 37-year-old woman, single mom, unemployed, still (always) on my spiritual quest and having to figure out who it is I am. You know who I am? I'm love. We're all love whether we are able to see it or not and that loving energy that we all seek so desperately is out there all around us just waiting for us to see it. We take it in as easily as breathing. It's not hard, we just think it is but we fool ourselves thinking we have to do certain things, achieve certain understandings, become better people, blah, blah,blah, blah. At least I thought those things. Well, we don't.
All that keeps us from love is ourselves and the lies we tell ourselves every day. We get so caught up in who we think we are and what we think we're doing that we lose that connection to our true selves. It's easy for it to happen, there's so much input every day from the people close to us, the media, our own crazy internal dialogue and we lose our connection to the understanding that we are love. That's why meditation is so important because it gives us that quiet space in which to reconnect, where all the messages that pass through our awareness have no place and have no voice, we can sit in the truth of our authentic nature.
As I sat in the hall, chanting with tears falling down my cheeks I thought to myself, why? Why did this happen and why has it taken me so long to remember? Honestly, if I hadn't gone to chant with KD tonight how much longer would it have taken me to get back here? The question of how long doesn't really matter, that's ego talking, the important question is what kept me from getting here in the first place?
So tonight I have embraced love and the loving self that is me. I know the difference between losing myself in an unhealthy way and losing myself in a healthy way, I have experienced both. I surrender to love in every way possible and I'm going to change my meditation practice to include the lovingkindness meditation because that helps me stay connected with that loving energy. We are all love, love is our birthright. We just have to stop fighting it, surrender and lose ourselves in love. It's okay, we'll still be here, we'll just be more loving, happier individuals.
Namaste.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Everyone Needs a History
The phrase "Everyone needs a history" came to my attention recently. I couldn't help but think that was a silly phrase because everyone has a history and more often than not we don't even want the whole history. We want to pick and choose the parts of our history that we like the best and which we think others will like the best while we try and discard the more painful, less pleasant aspects of our lives. I know, I've done that and it usually has to do with my inability to accept the reality of my life; I really don't like some parts of it. I want my story to be different than what it is, brighter and happier with more successes and fewer failures, more joy and less sorrow, more security and less fear. But no matter what my desires are for my personal history the story is already written and the outcome of my story unfolds now and also is currently in the making.
I think it's an important moment when you realize that you are standing at a point between, a place in which we constantly abide but with fluctuating levels of conscious awareness about what it really means to be at the balance point of our past and future. All that we have been, our experiences, our thoughts, our physical bodies, our emotions, our roles have synthesized to help shape who we are in this very moment and the life situation in which we find ourselves. If we aren't happy with the view of that past vista or our present position we only have the current moment in which to change it.
That being said, we can't effectively change our lives or ourselves without truly embracing our past. It is not only the bright, shiny things that make up who we are and denying the dark, scary things doesn't make them go away, ameliorate their effects on our lives or change the fact that they happened. You can't amputate a part of your life experience just because you don't like it and refusing to acknowledge it only makes it cry louder to be heard and to be embraced.
In my own experience I've talked quite a bit with people about my past relationship and the fact that it was abusive. I could talk about the relationship being abusive, I could talk about my partner being abusive. I couldn't talk about myself as an abused person nor could I admit that I took a hand in my own abuse. When I finally did come to see that I was angry and I thought I was angry because it seemed as though here I was kickin' down the cobblestones of life when once again an ugly reality from my past came up to bite me in the ankle. How dare that happen! I've been processing all this stuff, I've been talking about it, I've moved on. But in fact, I had just avoided taking my processing a level further and really seeing myself and my contribution to that experience. It wasn't a new piece of information that I had come across, it was the same old thing rearing it's ugly visage because I hadn't dealt with it yet and it was time.
As I work to reclaim and rebuild my life I'm aware that all I have is now and yet my history doesn't escape me. I can choose the aspects of my past that will help to shape my future only if I embrace all of my past, otherwise my past specters will silently wend their way into my future creation and undermine the foundation I am so carefully trying to build. Denying our history we become prisoners of it. Embracing our history frees us from its confines and pathological influences. Upon reflection the phrase "Everyone needs a history" doesn't seem so silly anymore.
I think it's an important moment when you realize that you are standing at a point between, a place in which we constantly abide but with fluctuating levels of conscious awareness about what it really means to be at the balance point of our past and future. All that we have been, our experiences, our thoughts, our physical bodies, our emotions, our roles have synthesized to help shape who we are in this very moment and the life situation in which we find ourselves. If we aren't happy with the view of that past vista or our present position we only have the current moment in which to change it.
That being said, we can't effectively change our lives or ourselves without truly embracing our past. It is not only the bright, shiny things that make up who we are and denying the dark, scary things doesn't make them go away, ameliorate their effects on our lives or change the fact that they happened. You can't amputate a part of your life experience just because you don't like it and refusing to acknowledge it only makes it cry louder to be heard and to be embraced.
In my own experience I've talked quite a bit with people about my past relationship and the fact that it was abusive. I could talk about the relationship being abusive, I could talk about my partner being abusive. I couldn't talk about myself as an abused person nor could I admit that I took a hand in my own abuse. When I finally did come to see that I was angry and I thought I was angry because it seemed as though here I was kickin' down the cobblestones of life when once again an ugly reality from my past came up to bite me in the ankle. How dare that happen! I've been processing all this stuff, I've been talking about it, I've moved on. But in fact, I had just avoided taking my processing a level further and really seeing myself and my contribution to that experience. It wasn't a new piece of information that I had come across, it was the same old thing rearing it's ugly visage because I hadn't dealt with it yet and it was time.
As I work to reclaim and rebuild my life I'm aware that all I have is now and yet my history doesn't escape me. I can choose the aspects of my past that will help to shape my future only if I embrace all of my past, otherwise my past specters will silently wend their way into my future creation and undermine the foundation I am so carefully trying to build. Denying our history we become prisoners of it. Embracing our history frees us from its confines and pathological influences. Upon reflection the phrase "Everyone needs a history" doesn't seem so silly anymore.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Responsibility
I had an enlightening conversation with a friend this evening in which I came to understand the part I have played in the downfall of all my relationships, romantic and otherwise. I realized that I have held others responsible for the outcome of those relationships and that I made my responsibility in working toward the betterment of the relationship contingent upon the actions of the other people involved. If they didn't behave or act the way I thought they should I didn't continue to work at. I would feel hurt and victimized and justify my behavior as a reaction to what it is they had done. The problem with that is that's not what relationships are all about. Regardless of someone else's behavior I am capable of and have responsibility to act in a way that benefits the relationship. My behavior cannot be based on the actions of others but must be based on action that is healing and loving for all concerned because I am an equal partner in that relationship, not a victim and not a bystander.
That I did this causes me a great deal of pain because I have wrongfully blamed everyone else for my own behavior and for all the things that went wrong between us. As was pointed out to me I was in a position to heal and help others but I didn't do that even though I had the capacity to do so. I am especially saddened because in any relationship we are quite vulnerable and to have treated these people in this way must have hurt them considerably and I was the person delivering that hurt. I have talked about the love I have to give and my desire to ease the hurts of others as well as my own, but I must pay attention to my behavior and be aware of the quality of love that I am offering while understanding that my own behavior could contribute to their pain.
To satisfy my own sense of obligation I would work on the surface issues and would change my behavior somewhat, but certainly not in any sustainable way, only on the surface. As Ken Wilber discusses in "A Brief History of Everything" however, working only on the surface, without including the interior pathway lacks depth. There is no interior truth and that is exactly what was going on with me. I was so busy looking at everything but my own internal process that I would not see how I was hurting the interaction and the other people involved.
To say that this is not the person I wish to be is an incredible understatement. I don't wish to treat the people I interact with, work with and care about like this and I deeply regret my behavior. My love should not be conditional based on my judgment of another person's worthiness. I am no one to judge a person's worthiness and it doesn't figure into the equation in any case. Love is a gift given freely and any relationship in any context takes authentic effort on each person's behalf.
So now the work is about understanding all of this, seeing the entire picture, accepting and forgiving myself while truly embracing my forgiveness of the other people because I have no right to hold them accountable for actions in which I was complicit. That I acted in such an unhealthy way is awful and completely unacceptable to me, but to continue to behave in this fashion would be worse. So I must bring the work deeper to the interior pathway and through that process the exterior behavior will be more authentically congruent with the person I am working to become. Above all, I must accept responsibility to always work to find the better path when the road gets rocky because that's the deal in a relationship. This is exactly what I must do because chances are if the other person is behaving in a hurtful way they are hurting and to do otherwise only exacerbates the pain for everyone involved.
That I did this causes me a great deal of pain because I have wrongfully blamed everyone else for my own behavior and for all the things that went wrong between us. As was pointed out to me I was in a position to heal and help others but I didn't do that even though I had the capacity to do so. I am especially saddened because in any relationship we are quite vulnerable and to have treated these people in this way must have hurt them considerably and I was the person delivering that hurt. I have talked about the love I have to give and my desire to ease the hurts of others as well as my own, but I must pay attention to my behavior and be aware of the quality of love that I am offering while understanding that my own behavior could contribute to their pain.
To satisfy my own sense of obligation I would work on the surface issues and would change my behavior somewhat, but certainly not in any sustainable way, only on the surface. As Ken Wilber discusses in "A Brief History of Everything" however, working only on the surface, without including the interior pathway lacks depth. There is no interior truth and that is exactly what was going on with me. I was so busy looking at everything but my own internal process that I would not see how I was hurting the interaction and the other people involved.
To say that this is not the person I wish to be is an incredible understatement. I don't wish to treat the people I interact with, work with and care about like this and I deeply regret my behavior. My love should not be conditional based on my judgment of another person's worthiness. I am no one to judge a person's worthiness and it doesn't figure into the equation in any case. Love is a gift given freely and any relationship in any context takes authentic effort on each person's behalf.
So now the work is about understanding all of this, seeing the entire picture, accepting and forgiving myself while truly embracing my forgiveness of the other people because I have no right to hold them accountable for actions in which I was complicit. That I acted in such an unhealthy way is awful and completely unacceptable to me, but to continue to behave in this fashion would be worse. So I must bring the work deeper to the interior pathway and through that process the exterior behavior will be more authentically congruent with the person I am working to become. Above all, I must accept responsibility to always work to find the better path when the road gets rocky because that's the deal in a relationship. This is exactly what I must do because chances are if the other person is behaving in a hurtful way they are hurting and to do otherwise only exacerbates the pain for everyone involved.
Friday, May 20, 2011
A Gift of Love
This one's gong to be a long one, I've got a lot to say.
As I mentioned in my last post I was let go from my job on Tuesday, May 10th. It wasn't a surprise, I saw the action coming. I had been watching the whole plan unfold in front of me from the time I took the position in January until it was finally done. It's been a week and a half and I haven't wanted to talk about it with anyone at all. I didn't want to talk about what happened because I was angry and upset, felt the action was unjustified and part of one person's plan to control and manipulate the Board of Directors by continuing to bring specious claims against me so I would look bad in their eyes. I was angry, understandably so.
One of the things a therapist I worked with used to say to me was that anger was a secondary emotion, it never occurs alone. If you look past the anger that you're feeling you will find another emotion hiding underneath the anger, fueling it so it will burn bright enough that you don't see the primary emotion sitting there. Today I was presented with that primary emotion and it all became clear to me why I hadn't wanted to talk about what happened. I felt hurt for so many reasons and now I am able to embrace it and understand it.
Here's the thing, I studied psychology because I was clear that I wanted to make a difference by helping people. Through the process of my education I became disillusioned about the current perspective of modern psychology and therapy in particular, and its ability to actually help people in any sustainable and meaningful way. By the time I graduated I was looking at going in a completely different direction because I understood that anything I chose that conformed to an academic or corporate standard was going to be compromised from the get go.
During the course of my studies I began volunteering at a local rape crisis center. When I first heard you could do that I immediately wanted to volunteer because what better way to help people than to be there to offer support throughout a person's worst possible night? Being a rape crisis advocate was a labor of love for me and I felt privileged and blessed to have found the organization and the work because it definitely filled a need for me. After volunteering there for about a year and half I was hired to work there doing prevention and education in the community schools to educate kids about keeping themselves safe and how to recognize the dangers of sexual assault. This job was a dream come true for me. It was an opportunity to make a difference in my community and to serve an organization whose whole purpose and mission was the healing of survivors of sexual assault and the prevention of sexual assault for individuals in the community and the community at large. It was a house of healing and empowerment and I got to contribute a little piece in making that vision a reality. I felt blessed.
About a month into my working there I was given an additional job as the bookkeeper because I had a huge amount of experience as a bookkeeper and it was nice that those skills could be put to use again for a mission I believed in and supported. Since the organization was 98% grant funded accurate bookkeeping and responsible fiscal management were absolutely required to help keep the doors open. Every community needs a rape crisis center and when the doors shut on them it hurts everyone.
A month later, I decided to apply for the Executive Director's position. I did so with some hesitation and concern because I didn't have a lot of management experience, especially in terms of a non-profit. I hadn't much grant writing experience and no grant management experience. I wasn't sure I was up to the job and I didn't want to fail an organization that I felt was a vital asset to the community. However, looking at the applications that were coming in I felt I would be the best person to take leadership of that organization because I had an intimate understanding of how it was supposed to work. So I applied and got the job.
I have a rather non-corporate view of management. My default is to manage from an empowerment model, offering staff opportunities to develop their own skill sets so they can grow and move upward in their career path. I feel the best supervisors do not supervise from the top down but support from the bottom up giving their staff all that they need in order to do the jobs they have to do. In any crisis center it can be a very stressful and emotionally demanding environment. My job was to ease the stress as much as I could, give them all the resources at my fingertips and know where to get more if need be. From my perspective my staff shouldn't worry about how they are going to do their job and shouldn't have to worry about caring for themselves or their family because that takes away from their ability to perform well and everyone needed to be at the top of their game.
But moreover, my position as the Executive Director was my opportunity to pour all the love I bear for humanity into our volunteers, my staff and our survivors. I've taken a lot of criticism over the years about my desire to help, my deep love for humanity and the joy I get out of lending a hand without expectation of anything in return, people don't understand that. In this position and in this place I didn't have to explain that I could just give it. My own heart would be healed when I could see that something I did fed a piece of someone's soul. I have to admit it was somewhat backwards because I would give to them what I couldn't give to myself, but it was also deeper than that. It is the fact that we are all connected and when one of us is healed, all of us our healed to some degree. It took the hurt and pain caused by a horrible injustice and righted it a little not just for a survivor or a staff member or a volunteer but for all of us.
Shortly after I took the position it became clear that accomplishing my own personal mission and the mission of the organization wasn't going to be as easy as I hoped. Some members of the Board of Directors, a volunteer to the Board and a staff member didn't like the way I managed, didn't agree with my priorities and began a slow but steady campaign that ultimately led to my termination. The Board began to micromanage and dealing with some of them began to take on eerie similarities to my recent abusive relationship. Their treatment of me and the actions of one staff member who was tightly connected to certain members of the Board hurt not only me but other staff members, volunteers and clients as well. The situation was not good and ultimately led not just to my termination but two others as well, equally unjust and totally without cause.
Today, I ran into a friend and a previous co-worker who was also a casualty of this sad and unfortunate action. She shared with me the words that others have shared with her upon hearing about all that happened to us. It was the words words of volunteers and clients about their hurt over my termination that brought me to realize the pain and the hurt I have felt over all that has happened. I didn't want to acknowledge the pain because I didn't want the Board and this staff member to have the ability to hurt me. But here's what I've learned about that thus far. It's not really about the emotion I experienced as a result of their misguided actions, that's not what is important here. What is important is the statement their actions make about the environment that operates not just in my sad little community but in communities and corporations all over the world. We are all hurt by injustice and it happens on a daily basis everywhere.
When any one of us experiences hurt or injustice we are all hurt. We are all connected by Spirit and what happens to one of us happens to us all. What has been really profound for me is not what I experienced specifically but what I have heard from other people once they realized I was gone. They say the organization is not the same, that you can feel the spirit of me all over that organization and that the love and care that I poured into the organization and the people in it, volunteers, staff and survivors alike is only a memory, that is the greatest tragedy of all.
What was ultimately a power play for a few select people on the Board was a labor of love for me and for the other staff members who were let go. The Board has allowed their myopic, group-think perspective to dominate their actions so much so that they didn't bother to even investigate the claims that were made against us. They have taken people away who worked from their heart, who would have done the work for free, who sacrificed time with their families, their own needs and sometimes their own well-being in light of their dedication to easing the pain of another, that did not matter to them. That people who truly loved what they did, who they served and who gave their love and support in a place where love should be paramount was not of any consideration. The care of the clients didn't figure at all in their actions, only the preservation of their power and that is what hurts me more than anything.
This is such a common problem and is not the first time I have run afoul of it. Previous times, however, it happened in corporations where I'm sad to say I rather expected it. I didn't expect it in an organization that is supposed to be dedicated to the empowerment and healing of other people. I didn't expect injustice to reign in an organization that was supposed to support survivors in their own quest for justice. I didn't expect a house of healing to cause so much hurt and to continue to let the actions of one insecure, inappropriate person rule the adequately working brains of people whose job it was to support that organization.
Maybe I'm naive for not expecting these things, but in my mind we shouldn't expect them, we should be motivated to action by them. We should not take the stance that this is the world we live in and these things are just going to happen, because the power hungry overlords will cannibalize anyone for their own personal gain and run roughshod over the rest of us who are trying to make this a better place. Part of taking self-responsibility is taking responsibility for the world we live in and realizing that our actions and inactions make an impact on what that world looks like and the environment in which we all get to live.
Have they taken away my ablity to pour love out to people and make a difference in my community? Of course not. But I am deeply saddened by the actions of those who don't have the welfare of their fellow humans uppermost in their minds, and instead value their own personal power and welfare above all that is decent and good. And I am saddened for those who have been hurt by all that has happened at my former place of employment, including my friends and co-workers and yes, even me. It was a gift of love and for the sake of power they just threw it all away.
So I am continuing to process this, ensuring I sit and reflect upon it and am trying to walk away with as many lessons learned as I can so this experience does not go to waste. My heart hurts for the survivors who were going to call me and let me know the outcome of their situations. Will they find someone they can trust enough to talk with there? I hope so. Does this change who I am? No, I am so much more than my job or my feelings or even my desire to help. Those things come out of who I am, they don't define who I am. So for now I mourn the loss of a dream and a vision that made it possible for me to get up, go to work and give it my all even when the environment was abusive and hurtful because it was for the sake of the people I served, volunteers, staff, clients and community members alike that I did it and I found meaning in it. We all have a gift of love to give, we should be able to give it.
As I mentioned in my last post I was let go from my job on Tuesday, May 10th. It wasn't a surprise, I saw the action coming. I had been watching the whole plan unfold in front of me from the time I took the position in January until it was finally done. It's been a week and a half and I haven't wanted to talk about it with anyone at all. I didn't want to talk about what happened because I was angry and upset, felt the action was unjustified and part of one person's plan to control and manipulate the Board of Directors by continuing to bring specious claims against me so I would look bad in their eyes. I was angry, understandably so.
One of the things a therapist I worked with used to say to me was that anger was a secondary emotion, it never occurs alone. If you look past the anger that you're feeling you will find another emotion hiding underneath the anger, fueling it so it will burn bright enough that you don't see the primary emotion sitting there. Today I was presented with that primary emotion and it all became clear to me why I hadn't wanted to talk about what happened. I felt hurt for so many reasons and now I am able to embrace it and understand it.
Here's the thing, I studied psychology because I was clear that I wanted to make a difference by helping people. Through the process of my education I became disillusioned about the current perspective of modern psychology and therapy in particular, and its ability to actually help people in any sustainable and meaningful way. By the time I graduated I was looking at going in a completely different direction because I understood that anything I chose that conformed to an academic or corporate standard was going to be compromised from the get go.
During the course of my studies I began volunteering at a local rape crisis center. When I first heard you could do that I immediately wanted to volunteer because what better way to help people than to be there to offer support throughout a person's worst possible night? Being a rape crisis advocate was a labor of love for me and I felt privileged and blessed to have found the organization and the work because it definitely filled a need for me. After volunteering there for about a year and half I was hired to work there doing prevention and education in the community schools to educate kids about keeping themselves safe and how to recognize the dangers of sexual assault. This job was a dream come true for me. It was an opportunity to make a difference in my community and to serve an organization whose whole purpose and mission was the healing of survivors of sexual assault and the prevention of sexual assault for individuals in the community and the community at large. It was a house of healing and empowerment and I got to contribute a little piece in making that vision a reality. I felt blessed.
About a month into my working there I was given an additional job as the bookkeeper because I had a huge amount of experience as a bookkeeper and it was nice that those skills could be put to use again for a mission I believed in and supported. Since the organization was 98% grant funded accurate bookkeeping and responsible fiscal management were absolutely required to help keep the doors open. Every community needs a rape crisis center and when the doors shut on them it hurts everyone.
A month later, I decided to apply for the Executive Director's position. I did so with some hesitation and concern because I didn't have a lot of management experience, especially in terms of a non-profit. I hadn't much grant writing experience and no grant management experience. I wasn't sure I was up to the job and I didn't want to fail an organization that I felt was a vital asset to the community. However, looking at the applications that were coming in I felt I would be the best person to take leadership of that organization because I had an intimate understanding of how it was supposed to work. So I applied and got the job.
I have a rather non-corporate view of management. My default is to manage from an empowerment model, offering staff opportunities to develop their own skill sets so they can grow and move upward in their career path. I feel the best supervisors do not supervise from the top down but support from the bottom up giving their staff all that they need in order to do the jobs they have to do. In any crisis center it can be a very stressful and emotionally demanding environment. My job was to ease the stress as much as I could, give them all the resources at my fingertips and know where to get more if need be. From my perspective my staff shouldn't worry about how they are going to do their job and shouldn't have to worry about caring for themselves or their family because that takes away from their ability to perform well and everyone needed to be at the top of their game.
But moreover, my position as the Executive Director was my opportunity to pour all the love I bear for humanity into our volunteers, my staff and our survivors. I've taken a lot of criticism over the years about my desire to help, my deep love for humanity and the joy I get out of lending a hand without expectation of anything in return, people don't understand that. In this position and in this place I didn't have to explain that I could just give it. My own heart would be healed when I could see that something I did fed a piece of someone's soul. I have to admit it was somewhat backwards because I would give to them what I couldn't give to myself, but it was also deeper than that. It is the fact that we are all connected and when one of us is healed, all of us our healed to some degree. It took the hurt and pain caused by a horrible injustice and righted it a little not just for a survivor or a staff member or a volunteer but for all of us.
Shortly after I took the position it became clear that accomplishing my own personal mission and the mission of the organization wasn't going to be as easy as I hoped. Some members of the Board of Directors, a volunteer to the Board and a staff member didn't like the way I managed, didn't agree with my priorities and began a slow but steady campaign that ultimately led to my termination. The Board began to micromanage and dealing with some of them began to take on eerie similarities to my recent abusive relationship. Their treatment of me and the actions of one staff member who was tightly connected to certain members of the Board hurt not only me but other staff members, volunteers and clients as well. The situation was not good and ultimately led not just to my termination but two others as well, equally unjust and totally without cause.
Today, I ran into a friend and a previous co-worker who was also a casualty of this sad and unfortunate action. She shared with me the words that others have shared with her upon hearing about all that happened to us. It was the words words of volunteers and clients about their hurt over my termination that brought me to realize the pain and the hurt I have felt over all that has happened. I didn't want to acknowledge the pain because I didn't want the Board and this staff member to have the ability to hurt me. But here's what I've learned about that thus far. It's not really about the emotion I experienced as a result of their misguided actions, that's not what is important here. What is important is the statement their actions make about the environment that operates not just in my sad little community but in communities and corporations all over the world. We are all hurt by injustice and it happens on a daily basis everywhere.
When any one of us experiences hurt or injustice we are all hurt. We are all connected by Spirit and what happens to one of us happens to us all. What has been really profound for me is not what I experienced specifically but what I have heard from other people once they realized I was gone. They say the organization is not the same, that you can feel the spirit of me all over that organization and that the love and care that I poured into the organization and the people in it, volunteers, staff and survivors alike is only a memory, that is the greatest tragedy of all.
What was ultimately a power play for a few select people on the Board was a labor of love for me and for the other staff members who were let go. The Board has allowed their myopic, group-think perspective to dominate their actions so much so that they didn't bother to even investigate the claims that were made against us. They have taken people away who worked from their heart, who would have done the work for free, who sacrificed time with their families, their own needs and sometimes their own well-being in light of their dedication to easing the pain of another, that did not matter to them. That people who truly loved what they did, who they served and who gave their love and support in a place where love should be paramount was not of any consideration. The care of the clients didn't figure at all in their actions, only the preservation of their power and that is what hurts me more than anything.
This is such a common problem and is not the first time I have run afoul of it. Previous times, however, it happened in corporations where I'm sad to say I rather expected it. I didn't expect it in an organization that is supposed to be dedicated to the empowerment and healing of other people. I didn't expect injustice to reign in an organization that was supposed to support survivors in their own quest for justice. I didn't expect a house of healing to cause so much hurt and to continue to let the actions of one insecure, inappropriate person rule the adequately working brains of people whose job it was to support that organization.
Maybe I'm naive for not expecting these things, but in my mind we shouldn't expect them, we should be motivated to action by them. We should not take the stance that this is the world we live in and these things are just going to happen, because the power hungry overlords will cannibalize anyone for their own personal gain and run roughshod over the rest of us who are trying to make this a better place. Part of taking self-responsibility is taking responsibility for the world we live in and realizing that our actions and inactions make an impact on what that world looks like and the environment in which we all get to live.
Have they taken away my ablity to pour love out to people and make a difference in my community? Of course not. But I am deeply saddened by the actions of those who don't have the welfare of their fellow humans uppermost in their minds, and instead value their own personal power and welfare above all that is decent and good. And I am saddened for those who have been hurt by all that has happened at my former place of employment, including my friends and co-workers and yes, even me. It was a gift of love and for the sake of power they just threw it all away.
So I am continuing to process this, ensuring I sit and reflect upon it and am trying to walk away with as many lessons learned as I can so this experience does not go to waste. My heart hurts for the survivors who were going to call me and let me know the outcome of their situations. Will they find someone they can trust enough to talk with there? I hope so. Does this change who I am? No, I am so much more than my job or my feelings or even my desire to help. Those things come out of who I am, they don't define who I am. So for now I mourn the loss of a dream and a vision that made it possible for me to get up, go to work and give it my all even when the environment was abusive and hurtful because it was for the sake of the people I served, volunteers, staff, clients and community members alike that I did it and I found meaning in it. We all have a gift of love to give, we should be able to give it.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
The Illusion of Busyness
It starts out innocuously enough, you don't mean to over schedule you just want to help a friend out, you don't realize how much time it's going to take. Then you haven't seen another friend in a really long time so you make time to go see them. Next you're working on something with some other friends and that needs your time and attention so you attend to that. Your other friends are moving and this is the last chance to see them so you take off to go see them. Family is complaining you haven't been very available lately so you go see them. You have a child, or two or three and they need attention so you attend to them. Then all the household stuff needs to be done so you aren't living in a bug-infested heap so you go and attend to that. You don't mean to get so busy there's no time to think, reflect, study, read, consider, meditate, sleep...it just happens.
Last Tuesday I lost my job and you would think I would have a lot of time on my hands. I don't. I'm home more than I was when I was working but often those are in five minute increments between other things I have to run off and do. Being busy isn't necessarily a bad thing but when it keeps you from doing important, self-care type things the busyness becomes an obstacle to our development.
On Sunday I spent time with my dear friend Beth who is one of the most deeply spiritual people I know. She is a UU minister so it's not much of a surprise that she is deeply spiritual and we have some of the best conversations about our own spiritual and emotional processes, life and everything else. At one point during our conversation I looked at her and said that I felt as though I had hit a plateau in my spiritual development. We talked about why I felt that way, what I needed to do to resolve it, reasons why that might have happened, etc. but after talking I still didn't feel that I had a clue.
Today I finally took some time to sit and reflect on what is going on. I realize that spiritual development isn't something that just happens because we want it to or in the time frame we would like it to, but when you are working on any type of development at all there is a sense of the task at hand and I don't have a sense of the task at hand. Thankfully, a friend posted Steven Barnes' blog about adult responsibility and it was exactly what I needed to see. Okay, my busyness hasn't gotten completely out of hand yet, but it could if I continue to operate the way I have been.
Really it comes down to a matter of prioritizing. I did a little dialogue with myself to process through what is going on and the first thing that I realized was I'm not home enough to give myself the time I need to be still and quiet so I can process everything that is going on with me. When I was working 50+ hours a week that was a bit more understandable, but now I don't have that excuse. My job isn't requiring this crazy schedule, I'm creating it for myself. The other thing I realized is that there is an element of fear at work here that has been stopping me from creating the time and space I need to develop the life I really want. But fear can't stop me, because if I let fear stop me every time I need to do something I'll never get anything done.
It was time to take myself in hand and have a firm conversation with myself which is exactly what I did. Steve Barnes pointed out that we often accept excuses from ourselves that we would never accept from our children. Well, that can't continue to happen. However, instead of coming down with righteous wrath on myself I need to deal with myself in the same way I would deal with my child, with a good balance of firmness, humor, acceptance and love. So in my dialogue I did that and although I didn't let myself get away with any lame excuses I also laughed a lot at the illusion I had created.
I've made a lot of commitments this week and at this point letting go of any of them would let people I care about down so I am going to ride out the rest of the week knowing that as I begin scheduling for next week my priorities must come first and cannot be shoved aside for something more pleasant or easier to do. Is it difficult to do this? Yes and no. We all struggle with doing things we don't want to do, but really, in the end, if you step back from all the feelings you are having and look at the bigger picture it's not hard to do. Either you are going to create the life you want or you won't, it's up to you not some magical intervention on your behalf. God isn't going to reach a hand down from the Heavens and rearrange everything for me, I have to do it. It's about accepting responsibility for my life and mine is the only hand that can create the life I want.
Am I going to screw up? Inevitably, but that doesn't mean you throw the whole thing out the window and decide you just can't do it. You get as many chances as it takes until you stop drawing breath. Sure, some opportunities get lost if you don't move quickly enough but others come your way, you just have to be open. So now, I am going to accept responsibility for the schedule I have created and really look at what my life needs, what I want and how to accomplish it. It's not that difficult to do. Getting past the feelings such as the fear, the inadequacy, the guilt and whatever else comes up is really the hardest part because that's the part that messes with our brain. Ultimately though, they're just feelings, a chemical dump of neurotransmitters that don't necessarily represent reality or truth. So dive in, shake yourself by the scruff of your neck if you need to and then give yourself a hug afterwards but take up your life. I'm taking up mine and I accept the responsibility for creating it and maintaining. It's supposed to be what I want, right? So, go for it!
Last Tuesday I lost my job and you would think I would have a lot of time on my hands. I don't. I'm home more than I was when I was working but often those are in five minute increments between other things I have to run off and do. Being busy isn't necessarily a bad thing but when it keeps you from doing important, self-care type things the busyness becomes an obstacle to our development.
On Sunday I spent time with my dear friend Beth who is one of the most deeply spiritual people I know. She is a UU minister so it's not much of a surprise that she is deeply spiritual and we have some of the best conversations about our own spiritual and emotional processes, life and everything else. At one point during our conversation I looked at her and said that I felt as though I had hit a plateau in my spiritual development. We talked about why I felt that way, what I needed to do to resolve it, reasons why that might have happened, etc. but after talking I still didn't feel that I had a clue.
Today I finally took some time to sit and reflect on what is going on. I realize that spiritual development isn't something that just happens because we want it to or in the time frame we would like it to, but when you are working on any type of development at all there is a sense of the task at hand and I don't have a sense of the task at hand. Thankfully, a friend posted Steven Barnes' blog about adult responsibility and it was exactly what I needed to see. Okay, my busyness hasn't gotten completely out of hand yet, but it could if I continue to operate the way I have been.
Really it comes down to a matter of prioritizing. I did a little dialogue with myself to process through what is going on and the first thing that I realized was I'm not home enough to give myself the time I need to be still and quiet so I can process everything that is going on with me. When I was working 50+ hours a week that was a bit more understandable, but now I don't have that excuse. My job isn't requiring this crazy schedule, I'm creating it for myself. The other thing I realized is that there is an element of fear at work here that has been stopping me from creating the time and space I need to develop the life I really want. But fear can't stop me, because if I let fear stop me every time I need to do something I'll never get anything done.
It was time to take myself in hand and have a firm conversation with myself which is exactly what I did. Steve Barnes pointed out that we often accept excuses from ourselves that we would never accept from our children. Well, that can't continue to happen. However, instead of coming down with righteous wrath on myself I need to deal with myself in the same way I would deal with my child, with a good balance of firmness, humor, acceptance and love. So in my dialogue I did that and although I didn't let myself get away with any lame excuses I also laughed a lot at the illusion I had created.
I've made a lot of commitments this week and at this point letting go of any of them would let people I care about down so I am going to ride out the rest of the week knowing that as I begin scheduling for next week my priorities must come first and cannot be shoved aside for something more pleasant or easier to do. Is it difficult to do this? Yes and no. We all struggle with doing things we don't want to do, but really, in the end, if you step back from all the feelings you are having and look at the bigger picture it's not hard to do. Either you are going to create the life you want or you won't, it's up to you not some magical intervention on your behalf. God isn't going to reach a hand down from the Heavens and rearrange everything for me, I have to do it. It's about accepting responsibility for my life and mine is the only hand that can create the life I want.
Am I going to screw up? Inevitably, but that doesn't mean you throw the whole thing out the window and decide you just can't do it. You get as many chances as it takes until you stop drawing breath. Sure, some opportunities get lost if you don't move quickly enough but others come your way, you just have to be open. So now, I am going to accept responsibility for the schedule I have created and really look at what my life needs, what I want and how to accomplish it. It's not that difficult to do. Getting past the feelings such as the fear, the inadequacy, the guilt and whatever else comes up is really the hardest part because that's the part that messes with our brain. Ultimately though, they're just feelings, a chemical dump of neurotransmitters that don't necessarily represent reality or truth. So dive in, shake yourself by the scruff of your neck if you need to and then give yourself a hug afterwards but take up your life. I'm taking up mine and I accept the responsibility for creating it and maintaining. It's supposed to be what I want, right? So, go for it!
Thursday, May 5, 2011
I Choose Peace
I had a rough day yesterday. It was a good thing I got up early to walk and meditate because I was better prepared for it than I might otherwise have been. Not to say I didn't have my moments of getting caught up in all the emotion that was flying around, I did, but overall I have to say I did better than I would have a month ago.
Historically, taking criticism hasn't been an easy thing for me. Mostly because I would take it all in, accept it all as true and feel defeated by the whole interaction. My own desires to be perfect in the eyes of the world, and in my own eyes, certainly contributed to that. Other people's perspectives were taken in as completely true without me considering my own perspective on the matter and because of both those things I would never defend myself, or speak my own truth. That was not the case yesterday.
Yesterday in a series of meetings I was taken to task for various situations that have recently come about. In many cases I was told how I felt, what I was thinking and what my intentions were by other people. Before now that would have devastated me because the picture they were creating was not a pleasant one, but it also wasn't accurate from my perspective. This time I wasn't devastated, I was determined and I think I'm finally beginning to understand the difference between stress and strain. Through this process I am becoming stronger. Through this process I am learning the value of considering other perspectives but not just accepting them as true. Through this process I am learning about myself, what is important to me in the work I do and just exactly who I choose to be in these situations.
Today, I choose peace. Regardless of what comes my way today I can choose to respond in a peaceful way, which doesn't mean just sitting down and accepting whatever is said, but that when I do speak I come from a place of peace even if I don't agree. Today I choose to let my love shine for all of the people I work with, even the ones who are sometimes a challenge to love. I choose a smile over a frown, laughter instead of cynicism, understanding in place of condemnation while remembering that we are all unhappy with the situation before us and the best thing we can do is work to make it better. I understand who I am and what I am trying to accomplish even if no one else does and today, that is enough.
Oh yeah, another 5:00am walk with my son and some really good meditation time. I really like doing this.
Love to you all.
Historically, taking criticism hasn't been an easy thing for me. Mostly because I would take it all in, accept it all as true and feel defeated by the whole interaction. My own desires to be perfect in the eyes of the world, and in my own eyes, certainly contributed to that. Other people's perspectives were taken in as completely true without me considering my own perspective on the matter and because of both those things I would never defend myself, or speak my own truth. That was not the case yesterday.
Yesterday in a series of meetings I was taken to task for various situations that have recently come about. In many cases I was told how I felt, what I was thinking and what my intentions were by other people. Before now that would have devastated me because the picture they were creating was not a pleasant one, but it also wasn't accurate from my perspective. This time I wasn't devastated, I was determined and I think I'm finally beginning to understand the difference between stress and strain. Through this process I am becoming stronger. Through this process I am learning the value of considering other perspectives but not just accepting them as true. Through this process I am learning about myself, what is important to me in the work I do and just exactly who I choose to be in these situations.
Today, I choose peace. Regardless of what comes my way today I can choose to respond in a peaceful way, which doesn't mean just sitting down and accepting whatever is said, but that when I do speak I come from a place of peace even if I don't agree. Today I choose to let my love shine for all of the people I work with, even the ones who are sometimes a challenge to love. I choose a smile over a frown, laughter instead of cynicism, understanding in place of condemnation while remembering that we are all unhappy with the situation before us and the best thing we can do is work to make it better. I understand who I am and what I am trying to accomplish even if no one else does and today, that is enough.
Oh yeah, another 5:00am walk with my son and some really good meditation time. I really like doing this.
Love to you all.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Out of the Mouths of Babes
This morning I had one of those forehead smacked moments. It actually started with a conversation I had with my son last night before bed. He was asking me about ways that he could become more healthy and more fit. This is something I have been working on myself but have been finding difficult to incorporate into my own life. We talked about changes we could make in our diet, incorporating exercise and as we continued to talk I realized this was a perfect opportunity for me to bring in the changes I have been wanting to make while including my son in the process. So we made a deal. We would get up at 5:00AM, take a 2 mile walk, fix a healthy breakfast and get on with our day.
This morning 4:30 came and I woke up, ready to get started with our plan. I got my son up at 5:00 and we went for our walk. As we were walking, we talked about various things. Iain was his usual jovial self and I found myself relaxed and enjoying the conversation instead of stressing about time and getting everything done as I usually do in the morning. It was wonderful. Taking the time to walk together meant we were spending time together without the distraction of the television, internet, video games and phone calls that usually get in our way. It was exactly what we both needed.
Needless to say the morning flowed beautifully from there. I had time to meditate, get ready, fix a healthy breakfast for both of us. Iain got to school early, which he likes to do, and I got to work early which I like to do. I was energized, relaxed, focused and excited about my day and so was Iain.
The thing is, I understand that children learn best from modeling. I want my son to feel empowered in his own life and understand that he has the capacity to make the changes he wants and to get results. The only way for him to learn that he can do this is to show him, he has to do it. In order for him to do it he needs my help and support. Now I have been able to make all the stupid excuses I want about my own life, I'm too busy, there's not enough time, I'm too tired and all can be justified because I work a lot. But the truth is, they're just excuses and I know it. Do I want my son to learn to make excuses to stay in a place he doesn't wish to be? Of course not. So now I'm motivated to change because the truth is our lives will only change if we make the changes we want.
Would it be better if I could have made these changes on my own behalf? Of course! These are things I've known I needed to do for a while now, but I haven't been doing them. So now, I'm given the opportunity to do so through my son. Make no mistake, I realize this is an opportunity for me as well. The time has come to stop making excuses and to fully embrace this part of my life as well, to move closer to living the life I want to have, to be the person I say I am and from that my son will learn that he can be the person he wishes to be, but I will learn that to.
So tomorrow morning we will wake up at 5:00AM, have another wonderful walk and conversation, a healthy breakfast and another start to a day full of opportunities. These are the changes I've needed to make and the solution came from my son. Out of the mouths of babes...
This morning 4:30 came and I woke up, ready to get started with our plan. I got my son up at 5:00 and we went for our walk. As we were walking, we talked about various things. Iain was his usual jovial self and I found myself relaxed and enjoying the conversation instead of stressing about time and getting everything done as I usually do in the morning. It was wonderful. Taking the time to walk together meant we were spending time together without the distraction of the television, internet, video games and phone calls that usually get in our way. It was exactly what we both needed.
Needless to say the morning flowed beautifully from there. I had time to meditate, get ready, fix a healthy breakfast for both of us. Iain got to school early, which he likes to do, and I got to work early which I like to do. I was energized, relaxed, focused and excited about my day and so was Iain.
The thing is, I understand that children learn best from modeling. I want my son to feel empowered in his own life and understand that he has the capacity to make the changes he wants and to get results. The only way for him to learn that he can do this is to show him, he has to do it. In order for him to do it he needs my help and support. Now I have been able to make all the stupid excuses I want about my own life, I'm too busy, there's not enough time, I'm too tired and all can be justified because I work a lot. But the truth is, they're just excuses and I know it. Do I want my son to learn to make excuses to stay in a place he doesn't wish to be? Of course not. So now I'm motivated to change because the truth is our lives will only change if we make the changes we want.
Would it be better if I could have made these changes on my own behalf? Of course! These are things I've known I needed to do for a while now, but I haven't been doing them. So now, I'm given the opportunity to do so through my son. Make no mistake, I realize this is an opportunity for me as well. The time has come to stop making excuses and to fully embrace this part of my life as well, to move closer to living the life I want to have, to be the person I say I am and from that my son will learn that he can be the person he wishes to be, but I will learn that to.
So tomorrow morning we will wake up at 5:00AM, have another wonderful walk and conversation, a healthy breakfast and another start to a day full of opportunities. These are the changes I've needed to make and the solution came from my son. Out of the mouths of babes...
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Embrasse-Moi
Today was an amazing day for me. My family got together for Easter at my brother's house. I was tired from staying out too late last night, which can make me a little bit grumpy and I was just a little bit grumpy. It was a communal event, I handled the Easter baskets as I am the coolest person in my family so I get the coolest stuff for the three boys. My parents and brother handled the food and the beverages. I was happy watching my family hang out together relaxing and taking it easy.
At one point my dad and I were alone in the house and he looked at me and asked if I was okay. I started to cry. I don't know why I started to cry, I really had nothing to cry about and I said I was fine. He came over and started petting my head. We started talking about the path my life had taken in the recent past, the breakup, my job, starting a new life all on my own. He told me how proud he was of me, about what an amazing job I have done as a mother and with my work, how drastically I have taken control of my life and am beginning a new one. My dad has NEVER talked to me that way, in my entire life. He told me how he worried about me being alone because I'm someone who needs to have a person to love in my life, he said he understood that. It was the sweetest gift I have ever received and something I certainly couldn't have expected.
My mom followed him with loving, caring, supportive words of her own. My brother had words of encouragement of his own to give. None of them were aware of the other conversations they were all completely independent of each other, it was amazing. My family has never been so supportive, proud, loving, caring and understanding to me in my entire life. It was a glorious experience but it was also somewhat like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" if you know what I mean. Great, but definitely surreal.
This has come on top of a week of incredible interactions with people coming forward and sharing the effect I have on their lives. The person that I thought myself to be is not the person I see reflected in their eyes. The person I believed myself to be was someone who didn't have much value, wasn't worth much fuss, didn't deserve to happy, healthy or successful, someone whose place was serve others, support others, assist others in obtaining their goals, but not worthy of goals of her own. I am no longer that person.
Today the picture came together of the person that I truly am. Today, unexpectedly a piece of my heart was healed because I can embrace myself as that person and not push her away with fear that I could never live up to her, I am her. I've been living this crazy double life trying so hard to become someone I already am and rejecting every effort as never enough, what a tragic irony. I don't have to keep doing that.
So today, I can reconcile the conversation I had last week, you knew you were right about who I was because you see who I am and they aren't so different. Today I can see the light that shines in people's eyes when we smile at each other and know that I am part of that light, I shine. I can see that how I choose to react to unpleasant situations empowers others to react in similar ways, that I inspire people, that my kindness is more that public civility but is an expression of deep love for all of the people around me, and more.
Today, I stepped into the light and took hold of who I a really am. To find myself so different from who I believed myself to be is like being unplugged from the Matrix, I hate to use that analogy but I really have no other way to explain it. Realizing you aren't at all the person you thought yourself to be but are instead something much more wonderful than you ever could have imagined is magical in one sense and like waking from a very long nightmare in another sense.
My negative perceptions of myself were all donations from other people and three of them apologized to me today for contributing to those beliefs and for how terribly untrue and hurtful those perspectives were. I have a rule that when you hear the same thing at least three times in a relatively short amount of time it's the Universe trying to tell you something, you should pay attention and believe it. Today I heard the message three times, I heard countless wonderful things throughout this whole week. The messages I have consistently gotten are messages of love, acceptance, joy and gratitude for the person that I am. I am equally grateful and full of love for the people who have shared these messages with me, they are an equal blessing in my life and as light shines in their hearts for me, light shines in my heart for them.
I know that I will lose sight of this of this wonderful vision of myself at least temporarily. I know that it will be challenged, it always is, but I will continue to work to hold tight and true to it so if I do forget it is only for a short time and I'll be able to come back to it more quickly on my own. My mom likened the place in my journey to the transition from Book One to Book Two. Of course, there is more work to be done and I will continue on with the work I have to do, but I get to leave behind the unnecessary baggage that weighs me down and makes it difficult to move forward. I get to move forward knowing I am loved, supported and cared about and the abuse of the past doesn't have to follow me into the future if I don't want it to. It will always color my storyline, but it doesn't have to dictate it. Book One is always a part of my story, but it's time for a new story now.
Today, on Easter Sunday, I stepped into the light and began a new life. I released the darkness of the past and embraced the light of the present. I feel the love that is a gift for me and a gift from me and I embrace the brightness of that love as a part of me and part of those around me. Today, I embrace me.
At one point my dad and I were alone in the house and he looked at me and asked if I was okay. I started to cry. I don't know why I started to cry, I really had nothing to cry about and I said I was fine. He came over and started petting my head. We started talking about the path my life had taken in the recent past, the breakup, my job, starting a new life all on my own. He told me how proud he was of me, about what an amazing job I have done as a mother and with my work, how drastically I have taken control of my life and am beginning a new one. My dad has NEVER talked to me that way, in my entire life. He told me how he worried about me being alone because I'm someone who needs to have a person to love in my life, he said he understood that. It was the sweetest gift I have ever received and something I certainly couldn't have expected.
My mom followed him with loving, caring, supportive words of her own. My brother had words of encouragement of his own to give. None of them were aware of the other conversations they were all completely independent of each other, it was amazing. My family has never been so supportive, proud, loving, caring and understanding to me in my entire life. It was a glorious experience but it was also somewhat like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" if you know what I mean. Great, but definitely surreal.
This has come on top of a week of incredible interactions with people coming forward and sharing the effect I have on their lives. The person that I thought myself to be is not the person I see reflected in their eyes. The person I believed myself to be was someone who didn't have much value, wasn't worth much fuss, didn't deserve to happy, healthy or successful, someone whose place was serve others, support others, assist others in obtaining their goals, but not worthy of goals of her own. I am no longer that person.
Today the picture came together of the person that I truly am. Today, unexpectedly a piece of my heart was healed because I can embrace myself as that person and not push her away with fear that I could never live up to her, I am her. I've been living this crazy double life trying so hard to become someone I already am and rejecting every effort as never enough, what a tragic irony. I don't have to keep doing that.
So today, I can reconcile the conversation I had last week, you knew you were right about who I was because you see who I am and they aren't so different. Today I can see the light that shines in people's eyes when we smile at each other and know that I am part of that light, I shine. I can see that how I choose to react to unpleasant situations empowers others to react in similar ways, that I inspire people, that my kindness is more that public civility but is an expression of deep love for all of the people around me, and more.
Today, I stepped into the light and took hold of who I a really am. To find myself so different from who I believed myself to be is like being unplugged from the Matrix, I hate to use that analogy but I really have no other way to explain it. Realizing you aren't at all the person you thought yourself to be but are instead something much more wonderful than you ever could have imagined is magical in one sense and like waking from a very long nightmare in another sense.
My negative perceptions of myself were all donations from other people and three of them apologized to me today for contributing to those beliefs and for how terribly untrue and hurtful those perspectives were. I have a rule that when you hear the same thing at least three times in a relatively short amount of time it's the Universe trying to tell you something, you should pay attention and believe it. Today I heard the message three times, I heard countless wonderful things throughout this whole week. The messages I have consistently gotten are messages of love, acceptance, joy and gratitude for the person that I am. I am equally grateful and full of love for the people who have shared these messages with me, they are an equal blessing in my life and as light shines in their hearts for me, light shines in my heart for them.
I know that I will lose sight of this of this wonderful vision of myself at least temporarily. I know that it will be challenged, it always is, but I will continue to work to hold tight and true to it so if I do forget it is only for a short time and I'll be able to come back to it more quickly on my own. My mom likened the place in my journey to the transition from Book One to Book Two. Of course, there is more work to be done and I will continue on with the work I have to do, but I get to leave behind the unnecessary baggage that weighs me down and makes it difficult to move forward. I get to move forward knowing I am loved, supported and cared about and the abuse of the past doesn't have to follow me into the future if I don't want it to. It will always color my storyline, but it doesn't have to dictate it. Book One is always a part of my story, but it's time for a new story now.
Today, on Easter Sunday, I stepped into the light and began a new life. I released the darkness of the past and embraced the light of the present. I feel the love that is a gift for me and a gift from me and I embrace the brightness of that love as a part of me and part of those around me. Today, I embrace me.
This Hero's Journey
Today is Easter Sunday and I can't help thinking about the Hero's Journey at this time of year. Today is the day when the hero emerges from his or her dark night of the soul and steps into the light of new life filled with wisdom and bearing gifts of great meaning for the entire world. Gifts of hope, wisdom, greater understanding, compassion, etc. It makes me think about my own journey and the process I have undertaken.
The road to self improvement is a long and arduous road. We must be willing to explore areas of our life which are difficult to look at. It requires honesty, courage and a willingness to continue even when it seems that the existence of a happier side of the journey is a fairytale someone told you just to see if they could get you to take on this crazy process. It requires dedication and faith. I am not on the other side of this process, I am right in the middle of it and sometimes I'm not very happy about where I find myself. I want to be further along, I want to be stronger, healthier, happier, more stable and not always looking at some inner issue that gets in the way of me being the person I want to be.
Part of what I am realizing is that this larger, overarching journey that I am undertaking, the journey towards a happier, healthier, more successful Christi, is not one journey with a road that seems to stretch endlessly in front of me in a dark and frightening landscape. It's made up of countless little journeys that each have their particular difficulties and are trying in some way or another, but also have their particular victories and heal a piece of my heart a little at a time. Many little journeys are the ingredients of this larger journey which is ultimately called life. If we take them one at a time it's much more manageable to move forward on our life path in a way that gets us closer to being the person we want to be. Will I ever run out of things to work on? I doubt it. I'm sure I will always see room for improvement, my journey will continue on until the end of my days. There is no time limit on our ability to grow as long as we have the capacity to do so.
I often feel as I go through this process and face my own dark nights of the soul that I am a wounded creature, more hurt than whole, who has little to give and needs so very much. I think sometimes that's true, at various times in our lives we are all that way, but that is not the sum total of me. I am so much more than that, we all are, and to limit ourselves to our weakest qualities is to do ourselves a grave injustice. There are times when I rail against this process, this journey, that I know is so important. I feel resentful at all the work I seem to have to do and wish I was further along, but I know that the work makes me stronger, better, wiser, more compassionate and better able to help others when they find themselves in a similar place. I am forged by this process, not defeated.
If all that we are is our weakest qualities then we wouldn't have hero myths where the hero returns victorious. We are meant to return victorious aware of all we have to offer the world and ourselves. I don't have to wait to find the end of the road before I find that I do have gifts to give, we all do, and I get more every time I take another journey within and come out into the light. Am I a wounded creature? Undoubtedly, but I am also many other things and a visit with my friends yesterday reminded me of that again. I am so much more than my wounds and my scars. I am also light, joy, wisdom, compassion, a helping hand, a loving heart, a loyal friend, a dedicated mother, a musician, a statistician, a leader and a human being in process just like everybody else. I can choose to stay in my cave and focus on the darkness never embracing the new life that awaits or I can come out into the light and celebrate all that I am, all that I have learned and all that I still have to learn. This Easter, I choose the light.
The road to self improvement is a long and arduous road. We must be willing to explore areas of our life which are difficult to look at. It requires honesty, courage and a willingness to continue even when it seems that the existence of a happier side of the journey is a fairytale someone told you just to see if they could get you to take on this crazy process. It requires dedication and faith. I am not on the other side of this process, I am right in the middle of it and sometimes I'm not very happy about where I find myself. I want to be further along, I want to be stronger, healthier, happier, more stable and not always looking at some inner issue that gets in the way of me being the person I want to be.
Part of what I am realizing is that this larger, overarching journey that I am undertaking, the journey towards a happier, healthier, more successful Christi, is not one journey with a road that seems to stretch endlessly in front of me in a dark and frightening landscape. It's made up of countless little journeys that each have their particular difficulties and are trying in some way or another, but also have their particular victories and heal a piece of my heart a little at a time. Many little journeys are the ingredients of this larger journey which is ultimately called life. If we take them one at a time it's much more manageable to move forward on our life path in a way that gets us closer to being the person we want to be. Will I ever run out of things to work on? I doubt it. I'm sure I will always see room for improvement, my journey will continue on until the end of my days. There is no time limit on our ability to grow as long as we have the capacity to do so.
I often feel as I go through this process and face my own dark nights of the soul that I am a wounded creature, more hurt than whole, who has little to give and needs so very much. I think sometimes that's true, at various times in our lives we are all that way, but that is not the sum total of me. I am so much more than that, we all are, and to limit ourselves to our weakest qualities is to do ourselves a grave injustice. There are times when I rail against this process, this journey, that I know is so important. I feel resentful at all the work I seem to have to do and wish I was further along, but I know that the work makes me stronger, better, wiser, more compassionate and better able to help others when they find themselves in a similar place. I am forged by this process, not defeated.
If all that we are is our weakest qualities then we wouldn't have hero myths where the hero returns victorious. We are meant to return victorious aware of all we have to offer the world and ourselves. I don't have to wait to find the end of the road before I find that I do have gifts to give, we all do, and I get more every time I take another journey within and come out into the light. Am I a wounded creature? Undoubtedly, but I am also many other things and a visit with my friends yesterday reminded me of that again. I am so much more than my wounds and my scars. I am also light, joy, wisdom, compassion, a helping hand, a loving heart, a loyal friend, a dedicated mother, a musician, a statistician, a leader and a human being in process just like everybody else. I can choose to stay in my cave and focus on the darkness never embracing the new life that awaits or I can come out into the light and celebrate all that I am, all that I have learned and all that I still have to learn. This Easter, I choose the light.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Spiraling in to Self Love
Self love has been the subject I have been mulling over most recently. It's been an issue that has come up numerous times in my life, which makes sense since it's so very crucial to living a happy, healthy life. It's not that I don't have any self love, I actually do, it's just that I'm not always in touch with it and my actions don't always reflect it. That's the key. Love of any kind is not an intellectual concept simply to think about and consider. Love is an action and for it to be expressed action is required on our part.
We learn how to love through modeling, we watch other people close to us and see how they show love. Unfortunately I didn't get many good examples of it growing up or in either of the significant relationships I was in. But thankfully, it's never to late to learn and we continue to learn through modeling all through our lives. As an adult I have seen many beautiful examples of love and I learn from them every chance I get. I do understand what it means to love myself even in terms of the action I must take for myself every day, unfortunately it is only now that I finally feel free to do so.
Like any person in an abusive relationship I didn't realize how insidious the thought process is that breaks you down from the inside out. In order to continue to stay in an abusive relationship the abuser must get the cooperation of the abused, it's a dance and it only works if both parties participate. Before I go further, I want to be very clear that no one deserves to be in an abusive relationship, ever. It's not the abused partner's fault, actually fault shouldn't really even come into it. It is a dynamic that is created between abuser and abused. It is equally unhealthy and destructive for all the people involved and everyone is equally trapped by the situation.
Self love can't exist in an abusive relationship because anyone with an ounce of active self love would never allow themselves to remain in a destructive, unhealthy relationship as I did. I couldn't love myself, I couldn't even respect myself. I couldn't honestly look at myself because the vision I saw of the tiny, hurt, powerless creature I became was entirely too disturbing to behold and the worst part is I had a hand in its creation. But I am no longer in that relationship and I no longer need to be the powerless, unloved creature I became.
I know what self love feels like and looks like, I know how to be loving to myself but I have held myself separate from that love for so long that it takes great effort to keep it uppermost in my mind. It is much easier for me to set myself and my own needs aside in the face of other people's needs, wants and expectations. So now I am circling, spiraling in to self love. Every day I move ever inward, ever closer to maintaining self love above all. Love that doesn't radiate from me first as a foundation is very shaky and that is not the love I want to put out in the world. So each day I do something else that is loving to me. It's not always easy, I struggle with some things but I get there a little bit each day.
The Universe has been gracious and generous in its demonstrations of love for me, especially through other people most recently. I really am so loved by my friends and family it's ludicrous to continue to deny my worthiness for love. The belief that I ever was unworthy doesn't come from me, it came from others and was empowered through my abusive relationship, but it's not true. We are all worthy of love and most especially we are worthy of love from ourselves.
We learn how to love through modeling, we watch other people close to us and see how they show love. Unfortunately I didn't get many good examples of it growing up or in either of the significant relationships I was in. But thankfully, it's never to late to learn and we continue to learn through modeling all through our lives. As an adult I have seen many beautiful examples of love and I learn from them every chance I get. I do understand what it means to love myself even in terms of the action I must take for myself every day, unfortunately it is only now that I finally feel free to do so.
Like any person in an abusive relationship I didn't realize how insidious the thought process is that breaks you down from the inside out. In order to continue to stay in an abusive relationship the abuser must get the cooperation of the abused, it's a dance and it only works if both parties participate. Before I go further, I want to be very clear that no one deserves to be in an abusive relationship, ever. It's not the abused partner's fault, actually fault shouldn't really even come into it. It is a dynamic that is created between abuser and abused. It is equally unhealthy and destructive for all the people involved and everyone is equally trapped by the situation.
Self love can't exist in an abusive relationship because anyone with an ounce of active self love would never allow themselves to remain in a destructive, unhealthy relationship as I did. I couldn't love myself, I couldn't even respect myself. I couldn't honestly look at myself because the vision I saw of the tiny, hurt, powerless creature I became was entirely too disturbing to behold and the worst part is I had a hand in its creation. But I am no longer in that relationship and I no longer need to be the powerless, unloved creature I became.
I know what self love feels like and looks like, I know how to be loving to myself but I have held myself separate from that love for so long that it takes great effort to keep it uppermost in my mind. It is much easier for me to set myself and my own needs aside in the face of other people's needs, wants and expectations. So now I am circling, spiraling in to self love. Every day I move ever inward, ever closer to maintaining self love above all. Love that doesn't radiate from me first as a foundation is very shaky and that is not the love I want to put out in the world. So each day I do something else that is loving to me. It's not always easy, I struggle with some things but I get there a little bit each day.
The Universe has been gracious and generous in its demonstrations of love for me, especially through other people most recently. I really am so loved by my friends and family it's ludicrous to continue to deny my worthiness for love. The belief that I ever was unworthy doesn't come from me, it came from others and was empowered through my abusive relationship, but it's not true. We are all worthy of love and most especially we are worthy of love from ourselves.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
It's Just One of Those Days
Today is a challenging day for me. Today is a day in which I am straddling the line between strain and stress. That's okay, at least I have that awareness for which I thank Steven Barnes from whom I am learning about the difference between stress and strain and my friend David for bringing Steve's words to my attention. It is coming in handy.
This is one of those days that I have to be very mindful of the window I choose to view my world. I must remember to breathe consciously, I must be careful where I let my thoughts go...it's all a choice and only I have the power to make it. Today I am physically challenged with pain and fatigue, emotionally challenged with personal issues that have risen to the surface, socially challenged with very upset and overly stressed people and I have to choose to respond to it all in the best way that I possibly can. Thank goodness for awareness because without it I would simply be reacting and my reactions probably wouldn't be very good.
I've been thinking about embracing the pain a lot in the last couple of days. It's difficult to embrace pain, sorrow, fear, and anger. Much easier to embrace joy, love, peace and happiness, but life is not all about the good things. I used to think that transcending pain was an issue of attachment, that I just had to let go of my desire for things to be different and all of my angst would just fall away, but that's not enough. I have to embrace that I have a desire for things to go a certain way and when events don't play out the way I would like sometimes it hurts. The amount of pain I experience is a direct correlation to how much value I place on the outcome. A great deal of value can mean a great deal of pain.
So today I am choosing to embrace the fact I hurt in a number of ways, that I am tired (nothing new there), that I am not at my best cognitively and that my first response is probably not the best response. I am quiet today knowing that I need to reflect before I respond and above all I must be easy on myself and how I feel. Today isn't a bad day, it's a challenging day and the difference lies in how I choose to respond to the challenges. Having that awareness means it's going to be a better day than it might have been two weeks ago and that is a blessing for which I am extremely grateful.
This is one of those days that I have to be very mindful of the window I choose to view my world. I must remember to breathe consciously, I must be careful where I let my thoughts go...it's all a choice and only I have the power to make it. Today I am physically challenged with pain and fatigue, emotionally challenged with personal issues that have risen to the surface, socially challenged with very upset and overly stressed people and I have to choose to respond to it all in the best way that I possibly can. Thank goodness for awareness because without it I would simply be reacting and my reactions probably wouldn't be very good.
I've been thinking about embracing the pain a lot in the last couple of days. It's difficult to embrace pain, sorrow, fear, and anger. Much easier to embrace joy, love, peace and happiness, but life is not all about the good things. I used to think that transcending pain was an issue of attachment, that I just had to let go of my desire for things to be different and all of my angst would just fall away, but that's not enough. I have to embrace that I have a desire for things to go a certain way and when events don't play out the way I would like sometimes it hurts. The amount of pain I experience is a direct correlation to how much value I place on the outcome. A great deal of value can mean a great deal of pain.
So today I am choosing to embrace the fact I hurt in a number of ways, that I am tired (nothing new there), that I am not at my best cognitively and that my first response is probably not the best response. I am quiet today knowing that I need to reflect before I respond and above all I must be easy on myself and how I feel. Today isn't a bad day, it's a challenging day and the difference lies in how I choose to respond to the challenges. Having that awareness means it's going to be a better day than it might have been two weeks ago and that is a blessing for which I am extremely grateful.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
"You're Worth It"
This morning after my meditation I was peacefully relaxing, petting my cat and quietly reciting my gratitude list. I added a new item to my list today, I'm grateful that I have been protected even when doing something completely stupid. In the next breath the words "You're worth it" filled my being. You're worth it, I've never felt that way. Most of my life I have felt unworthy, unwanted, unloved and above all unacceptable. The words took my breath away and while my head began wondering my heart was busy accepting.
There have been times in my life that have been extremely troubling and full of sorrow, it's true, but I wasn't thinking of those times. I was thinking of times when I really could have been hurt physically, financially, emotionally in ways that I can't even begin to comprehend or was prepared to deal with when I was making those incredibly bad and, I'll say it, stupid choices but I wasn't hurt. I was protected.
The other day I was challenged on self-love and that challenge reminded me that while I grasp the concept of self-love intellectually I haven't been so good at implementing it. In order for self-love to occur I can't turn away from the things in my life that need to be fixed; instead I must turn towards them and face them head on with honesty and courage. I have to open up to my shortcomings, accept them and then work to change them with all the love and patience a parent gives a small child. In the process of transformation one must be both parent and child - providing the structure, guidance and understanding needed to create lasting change while at the same time being open to the structure, guidance and understanding and taking it all in with a solid dose of love and humor.
Far too often I have been an accomplice in my own destruction but, sadly, I think that's true for many people. We are a punitive society that has unrealistically high expectations of ourselves and of others so it's hard to be loving and understanding when we find ourselves falling short of where we think we ought to be. As I have said, I have a lot of work ahead of me but I can say, without doubt or fear that I am wrong, I'm worth it. I'm worth the effort, I'm worth the love and forgiveness, I'm worth the humor and the support of my friends. I'm worth it, so are we all.
There have been times in my life that have been extremely troubling and full of sorrow, it's true, but I wasn't thinking of those times. I was thinking of times when I really could have been hurt physically, financially, emotionally in ways that I can't even begin to comprehend or was prepared to deal with when I was making those incredibly bad and, I'll say it, stupid choices but I wasn't hurt. I was protected.
The other day I was challenged on self-love and that challenge reminded me that while I grasp the concept of self-love intellectually I haven't been so good at implementing it. In order for self-love to occur I can't turn away from the things in my life that need to be fixed; instead I must turn towards them and face them head on with honesty and courage. I have to open up to my shortcomings, accept them and then work to change them with all the love and patience a parent gives a small child. In the process of transformation one must be both parent and child - providing the structure, guidance and understanding needed to create lasting change while at the same time being open to the structure, guidance and understanding and taking it all in with a solid dose of love and humor.
Far too often I have been an accomplice in my own destruction but, sadly, I think that's true for many people. We are a punitive society that has unrealistically high expectations of ourselves and of others so it's hard to be loving and understanding when we find ourselves falling short of where we think we ought to be. As I have said, I have a lot of work ahead of me but I can say, without doubt or fear that I am wrong, I'm worth it. I'm worth the effort, I'm worth the love and forgiveness, I'm worth the humor and the support of my friends. I'm worth it, so are we all.
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