This year has been an interesting year. Normally every year at the Winter Solstice I go down to my friend Beth's church and participate in the Winter Solstice ritual. Since my years in Wicca, the Winter Solstice has represented a time in my life to let go of old things that no longer serve me. It is about renewal and preparing the way for new growth to happen in the coming year. Each year we draw a word that represents the coming year.This year, for a number of different reasons, I didn't attend the gathering and I don't have a word. But I'm okay with that.
The coming year is going to bring about a lot of change in my life. I will be graduating with my master's degree in social work, I will begin a new job and a new career and my income will change dramatically which will greatly improve my financial state. This will more than likely lead to a new place to live and a new-to-me car. Some of the things I have dreamed about doing I will be able to do on a regular basis and I will be able to save money to make other dreams, like traveling, become a reality. I will be presented with many challenges and many blessings in the coming year and I imagine through all of that I will change tremendously.
For the past several weeks I have been feeling a longing in my heart to reach out to life and to live it. Over the past several months I have come to understand that I am a human being with a lot to offer personally and professionally. In coming to understand this, the value I've placed on my self-worth has increased a great deal. I have begun to see myself as being deserving of good things, good relationships, a space of my own, a life that has meaning and purpose as well as enjoyment. In the past, even though I have wanted these things, I haven't really felt deserving of them, and that change has shifted things for me radically.
In this new life I have to figure out what it is that matters to me. What will do more than just get me through every day? What will allow me time to love myself and care for myself so that I remain happy and fulfilled? How do I want to live my life so that I rejoice in it and live it fully? What do I want in an intimate relationship with someone? What do I want to give and what do I want to get? And the truth is I'm not sure about the answer to these questions yet. I want more, but in trying to put words to what that more includes, there aren't words yet.
This Christmas I've given myself the best gift I can possibly give. I am giving myself a year of dating me. Even as I write it, I can't help but think about how hokey that sounds, but for me this is a year of loving myself radically, more than anyone else. It is about giving myself time and experiences that are meaningful to me. Loving myself enough to bring into my life the experiences, time, and love that I feel I deserve, instead of pouring it outside of myself and hoping that will bring me what I want. I have a tremendous amount of love to give and I've never been on the receiving end of that love in any real, conscious way, so it's time.
I've already started a list of things I'd like to do with just me. There are movies I'd like to see that no one else wants to see, concerts, talks, dinners, weekend trips, and day trips to do. There's also time to spend whole days reading or watching movies, cooking, and spending time with good close friends. My friend JT, who is also dating himself , and I have decided to go on a double-single date, where we go on a date with ourselves, together. I know, it sounds kind of weird, but it is nice to share positive experiences with other people and to support other people in loving themselves. There will be no dating of other people during this year because I want this time to be sacrosanct. I don't want any distractions from this time I'm giving to myself and any romantic involvement would totally do that for me.
So, for the next year I am the love of my life, and I will celebrate myself and love myself in a way I have never been loved before! I will enjoy the caring of people who want to contribute lovingly to my life, who also deserve to be loved and cared for in that same way. I will be mindful, reflective, gentle and accepting of whatever comes up for me in the coming year and will maintain a consistent dose of, "I love you!" I hope to find out who I am and who I can become when I love myself enough to put myself first. It's not an easy thing for me to do; it's not how I was taught to think or live, but I feel this is the most important thing we can give ourselves: life with our self.
I'm excited about this new chapter in my life. I'm excited about being at the point in my development where I can recognize that I deserve to be loved deeply and enthusiastically and that I'm the best person I know to do that right now! I'm excited to spend time with myself and do things that bring me enjoyment and happiness. Above all, I'm grateful, that there are people who talk about the importance of doing this, which led me here. I'm grateful for all of the supportive friends who have loved me enough to tell me to do this for a really long time; who have wanted my happiness and believed I deserved it long before I did. They have all led the way. I may come up with a word for this year in retrospect, but for now this year's word is: me.
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Saturday, November 9, 2013
Honoring Meaning
I've spent most of today sitting in front of my computer editing master's theses for my fellow cohort members. Right now, I'm working on a particularly difficult paper and I've been listening to Pandora's Classical for Studying channel. Most of the songs that have been playing are songs that I played over the years I studied classical piano. I thought to myself, why didn't I pursue music? It's so much easier than writing research papers. Then I remembered, it was for the same reason I didn't pursue Quantitative Psychology, I didn't want to be stuck in a room alone for several hours every day. I wanted to help people.
The calling to a helping profession is a difficult one for people to understand if they don't feel that particular pull. I've been asked by several family members why I want to become a social worker, how can I do the work I am training to do? I'm always puzzled by that question because my answer seems obvious, how can I not? To work in a helping profession requires people to lack the ability to see someone in pain, crisis, living in poverty or oppression and turn away. It's a very specific calling and it's not for everyone.
In my macro social work class there's been a lot of discussion around people doing what they feel they were meant to do. I don't know if I'm doing what I'm meant to do. I don't know that there's anything I'm meant to do. If you go by talents, there are a lot of things I could have done and I would have been very good at them, but none of them would have given me the sense of meaning that I feel I need to be fulfilled in my life.
My plan, before I entered graduate school and even into the middle of first year, was to become a child welfare social worker and see what sorts of opportunities arose. Now, at the beginning of my second year, my plan is to spend a few years in child welfare, get my clinical license, enter a Ph.D. program and become a professor/researcher and have a part-time clinical practice. It was a difficult decision to come to because being a professor seems a bit removed from being on the front lines helping families in crisis, but it turns out I have particular talents in the areas of research and teaching and apparently the combination is rare. Not only that, there is a serious need for social work professors who actually have a background and field experience in social work. After many conversations with friends and faculty I came to the decision that helping to train the next generation of social workers, as well as contributing to the field of social work as a researcher, is helping people and the need is great.
I've often felt some level of irritation at my need to find meaning in the work I do, to have it mean something. Both my family and I have railed at my inability to get a good job and just stick with it. My mother has often asked me why I feel like I have to be Joan of Arc and save the world. I'm not trying to save the world, I'm just trying to have meaning in my life and in what I spend a large amount of time doing every day because the calling for that in me is great. I know there are other people like me, I see many of them in my classes during the week. I see them working ungodly amounts of hours investigating calls of child abuse and neglect. I see them struggle not to lose hope in the face of what seem impossible challenges and continue on, helping and hoping.
It's important to honor the call of meaning inside of us. If we don't honor that call it doesn't become silent, it pursues us every day, coloring our lives and demanding to be heard. It requires one to become still and silent so they can hear the meaning of that call. It requires one to be very honest with oneself, to understand where meaning lies, to honor that and then follow it because the call for meaning can only be heard on the inside of a person, but to find meaning requires one to move in the world and to connect with others.
One year, for my mother's birthday I gave my mom Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning" because she was searching for meaning in her life and she didn't know how to find it. One passage that stood out to me is the following, "By declaring that man is responsible and must actualize the potential meaning of his life, I wish to stress that the true meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche, as though it were a closed system. I have termed this constitutive characteristic "the self-transcendence of human existence." It denotes the fact that being human always points, and is directed, to something or someone, other than oneself--be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself--by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love--the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself. What is called self-actualization is not an attainable aim at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more he would miss it. In other words, self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendence.”
What I got from this passage is that in order to find meaning we have to get out of our own way because it's not about us. Finding meaning is about transcending ourselves and putting ourselves out into the world to help or connect in whatever way best suits what comes before us. It's not about how can we fill the need inside of us, it's about how we can fill the need in front of us. In doing this we serve humanity, the world, even ourselves. In remembering this I remember to get out of my own way, get out of my own ego and to face the need or the person in front of me with whatever it is needed to make the situation better. We can all make a situation better, someone feel better, put more kindness in the world, touch a life and heal a soul. In honoring meaning within ourselves we honor it for everyone.
I'm not going to fight the plan to become a professor anymore. There are many needs to be faced along the way, my classmates' needs regarding their theses, my future client's needs, and eventually the field of social work's needs. It's possible that new needs will arise and plans will seemingly change; but the truth is they won't change at all because my ultimate plan, the foundational plan that underlies everything I do is to face the need in front of me and offer whatever I can to make the situation better.
The calling to a helping profession is a difficult one for people to understand if they don't feel that particular pull. I've been asked by several family members why I want to become a social worker, how can I do the work I am training to do? I'm always puzzled by that question because my answer seems obvious, how can I not? To work in a helping profession requires people to lack the ability to see someone in pain, crisis, living in poverty or oppression and turn away. It's a very specific calling and it's not for everyone.
In my macro social work class there's been a lot of discussion around people doing what they feel they were meant to do. I don't know if I'm doing what I'm meant to do. I don't know that there's anything I'm meant to do. If you go by talents, there are a lot of things I could have done and I would have been very good at them, but none of them would have given me the sense of meaning that I feel I need to be fulfilled in my life.
My plan, before I entered graduate school and even into the middle of first year, was to become a child welfare social worker and see what sorts of opportunities arose. Now, at the beginning of my second year, my plan is to spend a few years in child welfare, get my clinical license, enter a Ph.D. program and become a professor/researcher and have a part-time clinical practice. It was a difficult decision to come to because being a professor seems a bit removed from being on the front lines helping families in crisis, but it turns out I have particular talents in the areas of research and teaching and apparently the combination is rare. Not only that, there is a serious need for social work professors who actually have a background and field experience in social work. After many conversations with friends and faculty I came to the decision that helping to train the next generation of social workers, as well as contributing to the field of social work as a researcher, is helping people and the need is great.
I've often felt some level of irritation at my need to find meaning in the work I do, to have it mean something. Both my family and I have railed at my inability to get a good job and just stick with it. My mother has often asked me why I feel like I have to be Joan of Arc and save the world. I'm not trying to save the world, I'm just trying to have meaning in my life and in what I spend a large amount of time doing every day because the calling for that in me is great. I know there are other people like me, I see many of them in my classes during the week. I see them working ungodly amounts of hours investigating calls of child abuse and neglect. I see them struggle not to lose hope in the face of what seem impossible challenges and continue on, helping and hoping.
It's important to honor the call of meaning inside of us. If we don't honor that call it doesn't become silent, it pursues us every day, coloring our lives and demanding to be heard. It requires one to become still and silent so they can hear the meaning of that call. It requires one to be very honest with oneself, to understand where meaning lies, to honor that and then follow it because the call for meaning can only be heard on the inside of a person, but to find meaning requires one to move in the world and to connect with others.
One year, for my mother's birthday I gave my mom Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning" because she was searching for meaning in her life and she didn't know how to find it. One passage that stood out to me is the following, "By declaring that man is responsible and must actualize the potential meaning of his life, I wish to stress that the true meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche, as though it were a closed system. I have termed this constitutive characteristic "the self-transcendence of human existence." It denotes the fact that being human always points, and is directed, to something or someone, other than oneself--be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself--by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love--the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself. What is called self-actualization is not an attainable aim at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more he would miss it. In other words, self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendence.”
What I got from this passage is that in order to find meaning we have to get out of our own way because it's not about us. Finding meaning is about transcending ourselves and putting ourselves out into the world to help or connect in whatever way best suits what comes before us. It's not about how can we fill the need inside of us, it's about how we can fill the need in front of us. In doing this we serve humanity, the world, even ourselves. In remembering this I remember to get out of my own way, get out of my own ego and to face the need or the person in front of me with whatever it is needed to make the situation better. We can all make a situation better, someone feel better, put more kindness in the world, touch a life and heal a soul. In honoring meaning within ourselves we honor it for everyone.
I'm not going to fight the plan to become a professor anymore. There are many needs to be faced along the way, my classmates' needs regarding their theses, my future client's needs, and eventually the field of social work's needs. It's possible that new needs will arise and plans will seemingly change; but the truth is they won't change at all because my ultimate plan, the foundational plan that underlies everything I do is to face the need in front of me and offer whatever I can to make the situation better.
Saturday, September 21, 2013
What Makes a Person Good?
The other day a cohort member of mine asked me what I did this summer. I told her I had been volunteering at my previous internship helping them with basic administrative stuff. I mentioned that the summer had been busier than I'd anticipated but that was okay because I like keeping busy. She turned to look at me and said, "Well, you're a saint. I guess that means you have to keep being a saint." I wasn't sure how to take that comment.
I'm never very happy when someone calls me a saint or says that I'm a good person. I don't feel like I'm a saint because in my mind saints are people who do amazing things that few people have the capacity or courage to do. Helping out a non-profit agency with a little filing two days a week isn't something that takes tremendous capacity or courage. It's simple. Almost anyone could do it.
Research has said that altruism doesn't really exist. No one does anything without some form of selfishness involved. At the most basic level, people tend to assume that people do nice things because it makes them feel good. I started doing a personal inventory about the things I do to help people and why I do them. I also started thinking about what makes a good person from my point of view.
The truth is, when I help someone it's usually because whatever they're asking for isn't asking a lot of me. It's easy to give a few days to a struggling non-profit when I don't have anything else on my schedule. It's easy to sit down with someone and help them hammer out their research question so they can get started on their thesis. Usually, in helping people, what I give is much smaller than what they seem to receive. In fact, it seems so small that I don't really think much about it. I mean really, is it that hard to give someone 20 minutes of your time to help them with something that seems incredibly difficult, or that they can't do because they're too busy with other work? I'm not really doing that much here.
The question about what makes a good person in my point of view was interesting for me to answer. Lots of people do good things and often we hear something about that person, if they're media relevant, that makes us think that maybe they weren't such good people after all. So it's not the doing that necessarily makes someone a good person. Doing something good or helpful is easy and, really, anyone could do it. So I don't feel that helping someone with something is necessarily what qualifies someone as being good. What I really think qualifies someone as being good is a combination between what they do and what they don't do.
Good people do helpful things for people, but generally that's because they don't think of themselves as too important to do certain tasks or too important to give someone else their time.
Good people say nice things to people, but they also don't say hurtful things when they have the opportunity and they value other people's feelings enough to treat them kindly and without judgment.
Good people aren't pathologically selfish; they're selfish in a healthy way so that they are taken care of and able to do what is meaningful or natural to them.
Good people live in accordance with their deepest values, they don't allow other people to set or determine their goals and values, so they move through the world with a high level of integrity and contentment giving them the energy to give something to others.
Good people don't live as victims crying out at an unjust world, they take responsibility for the consequences of their actions and they accept them with grace and dignity.
Good people do their interpersonal work, enough to have some understanding that we are all connected and we need to support each other and they do not blame their hurt and pain on others.
Good people acknowledge that they have received help or instruction many times in their lives without which they wouldn't be the people they are today and, therefore, they are motivated to give back because they don't hoard knowledge or help like it's going to disappear tomorrow and they understand the value of passing on information.
Good people are honest, most ruthlessly with themselves and more gently with others. They don't feel there is benefit in avoiding a truth, they just know how to say it or view it kindly.
So that's my list of what makes up a good person. If you do more than that then you're probably a hero or a saint. I don't know what makes a saint, but I do know what makes up a good person and I feel that I qualify for that. The one thing that has run through my mind since that conversation is that in the eyes of God, every saint is a sinner too.
I'm never very happy when someone calls me a saint or says that I'm a good person. I don't feel like I'm a saint because in my mind saints are people who do amazing things that few people have the capacity or courage to do. Helping out a non-profit agency with a little filing two days a week isn't something that takes tremendous capacity or courage. It's simple. Almost anyone could do it.
Research has said that altruism doesn't really exist. No one does anything without some form of selfishness involved. At the most basic level, people tend to assume that people do nice things because it makes them feel good. I started doing a personal inventory about the things I do to help people and why I do them. I also started thinking about what makes a good person from my point of view.
The truth is, when I help someone it's usually because whatever they're asking for isn't asking a lot of me. It's easy to give a few days to a struggling non-profit when I don't have anything else on my schedule. It's easy to sit down with someone and help them hammer out their research question so they can get started on their thesis. Usually, in helping people, what I give is much smaller than what they seem to receive. In fact, it seems so small that I don't really think much about it. I mean really, is it that hard to give someone 20 minutes of your time to help them with something that seems incredibly difficult, or that they can't do because they're too busy with other work? I'm not really doing that much here.
The question about what makes a good person in my point of view was interesting for me to answer. Lots of people do good things and often we hear something about that person, if they're media relevant, that makes us think that maybe they weren't such good people after all. So it's not the doing that necessarily makes someone a good person. Doing something good or helpful is easy and, really, anyone could do it. So I don't feel that helping someone with something is necessarily what qualifies someone as being good. What I really think qualifies someone as being good is a combination between what they do and what they don't do.
Good people do helpful things for people, but generally that's because they don't think of themselves as too important to do certain tasks or too important to give someone else their time.
Good people say nice things to people, but they also don't say hurtful things when they have the opportunity and they value other people's feelings enough to treat them kindly and without judgment.
Good people aren't pathologically selfish; they're selfish in a healthy way so that they are taken care of and able to do what is meaningful or natural to them.
Good people live in accordance with their deepest values, they don't allow other people to set or determine their goals and values, so they move through the world with a high level of integrity and contentment giving them the energy to give something to others.
Good people don't live as victims crying out at an unjust world, they take responsibility for the consequences of their actions and they accept them with grace and dignity.
Good people do their interpersonal work, enough to have some understanding that we are all connected and we need to support each other and they do not blame their hurt and pain on others.
Good people acknowledge that they have received help or instruction many times in their lives without which they wouldn't be the people they are today and, therefore, they are motivated to give back because they don't hoard knowledge or help like it's going to disappear tomorrow and they understand the value of passing on information.
Good people are honest, most ruthlessly with themselves and more gently with others. They don't feel there is benefit in avoiding a truth, they just know how to say it or view it kindly.
So that's my list of what makes up a good person. If you do more than that then you're probably a hero or a saint. I don't know what makes a saint, but I do know what makes up a good person and I feel that I qualify for that. The one thing that has run through my mind since that conversation is that in the eyes of God, every saint is a sinner too.
Friday, September 6, 2013
Transforming Demons
Today is a very good day. Today I completed my goal for working out this week. This is a big deal for me because although I've completed weekly goals for working out in the past, it's been a while since I've done that and this week's goal was more intense than past weeks' goals have been. I have a hard time working out because in order to get to and get through my workout not only do I have to exert my body, I also have to be actively working with my mind and emotions to battle the demons that come out to play each time I work out.
For most of my adult life I've carried a lot of shame both around my weight and the difficulty I have with moving my body. The difficulty in movement doesn't come entirely from my weight, but just a general discomfort and lack of ease with which the commands that come from my brain translate into my body. I come from a very athletic family, but it's never been easy for me to move like they did and no one taught me how to be comfortable in my body. On top of that, many members of my family often teased me whenever I did something physical, which translated into self-talk that can be incredibly negative.
As an adult, I am responsible for the perceptions and beliefs I have about myself and my body, and although I can look back at my history and the people who have contributed to the negative voices in my head, I can't use that as an excuse for not doing what I know is in my best interest. So every day, amid an internal symphony of whining, complaining, predictions of failure, negative self-talk about myself, and fear, I gather up all of those voices in my head and I give them a big hug and tell them it's going to be all right. They can say what they need to say but I'm going to do the workout anyway and afterwards I am going to feel better. I'm going to feel happier, more fulfilled, proud, and accomplished because I did what I knew was going to be hard to do in the first place and I did it with all my heart and all of my effort behind it.
Until recently, no one has ever really supported me in my efforts for physical fitness. Sure, people thought it would be good, but they would follow that observation with the a statement to the effect that didn't really believe I would or could do it. Sometimes they would outright laugh when I would tell them that I was planning a new workout regime. I would leave those conversations disheartened, choosing to believe that maybe they were right, I couldn't do it and I would set up a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Recently, that's changed for me. I had a profound moment, sitting in a doctor's office waiting for a physical required by my internship. As I was filling out the paperwork, completely without prompting a vision of myself as I would look if I were physically fit filled my mind. I could see it and the thought that came up for me without any prompting or efforts was, "I can do that. I can become that." and I felt it through my entire body. It was a certainty, a reality, and one I'd never had before. I have never been able to see myself as a physically fit person. I didn't believe it was possible. But finally, everything I've been reading, everything that people I respect have been saying finally came together in my head and I had faith that I could do it.
Steven Barnes has a formula for successful change that I think is pertinent here. The formula is simple, it's GOAL X FAITH X ACTION X GRATITUDE = RESULTS. This is an important formula for change because if any one of these components is missing or equals zero, the whole formula equals zero. Finally, I had all of the components in place, I had been lacking faith. I knew this change wasn't going to be easy. I've been down the workout road before and I knew exactly the demons I was going to be facing, so I had to have a plan and I had to have my head on straight to deal with my obstacles effectively. I had to become a demon slayer.
It sounds more violent than it is, demon slaying. I think it's common to imagine someone with a sword or an ax, facing down a giant demon breathing sulfurous steam out of its nostrils with fire in its eyes, and it can feel that way. It can feel like the demon is 10-feet-tall and you are about one-foot-tall and you're about to be crushed but that's not true; it's an illusion. The key to demon slaying isn't about swords or axes, it's about love. Love is the only weapon that transforms our inner demons. I have to love, accept, and understand those parts of myself so that I can transform them from the belittled and hurt little children that they've remained inside of me to loved and accepted parts of myself that make up my whole. That's all those demons are, hurt little children who didn't have someone who believed in them, including myself, who left them hurt and unhealed for all of these years. But no more.
So every morning, I greet my host of doomsayers with love and acceptance. I listen to what they are saying, but I don't believe it because I know I am more than my demons and I hold more love for myself than anyone else on the planet, and I will love and accept them with everything I have, and you know what? Their voices are getting quieter. Their resistance is become weaker. And every day I am becoming stronger. I can see it.
I'm always a little surprised, still, by the negative reactions I get from people when I tell them I'm making changes in my life. My roommates think I am crazy for getting up and hour earlier each day to work out. They think I am a tree-hugging hippy for giving up dairy and reducing my sugar and wheat intake. Some of the people I know have looked at me like I've gone insane and snorted with derision over my decisions and all it does is make me laugh because I know they have their own demons and for now they don't understand. I am bigger than the criticism, I am bigger than the derision. I know the people who truly love and support me are there for me and all I hear from them are words of encouragement and I know that is the symphony I need to be listening to; it's the only music that matters.
So when I work out I listen to the last movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony because it is the most triumphant music I know. I listen to it because every day when I wake up and work out I am triumphant. Every day I choose to eat healthy organic food I am triumphant and I know it. I face my inner demons with love and patience, I love them throughout the whole process, and when I am done with my workout I am grateful that I have the courage to face them, that I have the courage to love them, and that I have the courage to transform them. I'm not a demon slayer, I am a demon transformer. Hear me roar!
For most of my adult life I've carried a lot of shame both around my weight and the difficulty I have with moving my body. The difficulty in movement doesn't come entirely from my weight, but just a general discomfort and lack of ease with which the commands that come from my brain translate into my body. I come from a very athletic family, but it's never been easy for me to move like they did and no one taught me how to be comfortable in my body. On top of that, many members of my family often teased me whenever I did something physical, which translated into self-talk that can be incredibly negative.
As an adult, I am responsible for the perceptions and beliefs I have about myself and my body, and although I can look back at my history and the people who have contributed to the negative voices in my head, I can't use that as an excuse for not doing what I know is in my best interest. So every day, amid an internal symphony of whining, complaining, predictions of failure, negative self-talk about myself, and fear, I gather up all of those voices in my head and I give them a big hug and tell them it's going to be all right. They can say what they need to say but I'm going to do the workout anyway and afterwards I am going to feel better. I'm going to feel happier, more fulfilled, proud, and accomplished because I did what I knew was going to be hard to do in the first place and I did it with all my heart and all of my effort behind it.
Until recently, no one has ever really supported me in my efforts for physical fitness. Sure, people thought it would be good, but they would follow that observation with the a statement to the effect that didn't really believe I would or could do it. Sometimes they would outright laugh when I would tell them that I was planning a new workout regime. I would leave those conversations disheartened, choosing to believe that maybe they were right, I couldn't do it and I would set up a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Recently, that's changed for me. I had a profound moment, sitting in a doctor's office waiting for a physical required by my internship. As I was filling out the paperwork, completely without prompting a vision of myself as I would look if I were physically fit filled my mind. I could see it and the thought that came up for me without any prompting or efforts was, "I can do that. I can become that." and I felt it through my entire body. It was a certainty, a reality, and one I'd never had before. I have never been able to see myself as a physically fit person. I didn't believe it was possible. But finally, everything I've been reading, everything that people I respect have been saying finally came together in my head and I had faith that I could do it.
Steven Barnes has a formula for successful change that I think is pertinent here. The formula is simple, it's GOAL X FAITH X ACTION X GRATITUDE = RESULTS. This is an important formula for change because if any one of these components is missing or equals zero, the whole formula equals zero. Finally, I had all of the components in place, I had been lacking faith. I knew this change wasn't going to be easy. I've been down the workout road before and I knew exactly the demons I was going to be facing, so I had to have a plan and I had to have my head on straight to deal with my obstacles effectively. I had to become a demon slayer.
It sounds more violent than it is, demon slaying. I think it's common to imagine someone with a sword or an ax, facing down a giant demon breathing sulfurous steam out of its nostrils with fire in its eyes, and it can feel that way. It can feel like the demon is 10-feet-tall and you are about one-foot-tall and you're about to be crushed but that's not true; it's an illusion. The key to demon slaying isn't about swords or axes, it's about love. Love is the only weapon that transforms our inner demons. I have to love, accept, and understand those parts of myself so that I can transform them from the belittled and hurt little children that they've remained inside of me to loved and accepted parts of myself that make up my whole. That's all those demons are, hurt little children who didn't have someone who believed in them, including myself, who left them hurt and unhealed for all of these years. But no more.
So every morning, I greet my host of doomsayers with love and acceptance. I listen to what they are saying, but I don't believe it because I know I am more than my demons and I hold more love for myself than anyone else on the planet, and I will love and accept them with everything I have, and you know what? Their voices are getting quieter. Their resistance is become weaker. And every day I am becoming stronger. I can see it.
I'm always a little surprised, still, by the negative reactions I get from people when I tell them I'm making changes in my life. My roommates think I am crazy for getting up and hour earlier each day to work out. They think I am a tree-hugging hippy for giving up dairy and reducing my sugar and wheat intake. Some of the people I know have looked at me like I've gone insane and snorted with derision over my decisions and all it does is make me laugh because I know they have their own demons and for now they don't understand. I am bigger than the criticism, I am bigger than the derision. I know the people who truly love and support me are there for me and all I hear from them are words of encouragement and I know that is the symphony I need to be listening to; it's the only music that matters.
So when I work out I listen to the last movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony because it is the most triumphant music I know. I listen to it because every day when I wake up and work out I am triumphant. Every day I choose to eat healthy organic food I am triumphant and I know it. I face my inner demons with love and patience, I love them throughout the whole process, and when I am done with my workout I am grateful that I have the courage to face them, that I have the courage to love them, and that I have the courage to transform them. I'm not a demon slayer, I am a demon transformer. Hear me roar!
Saturday, August 31, 2013
Reflections on Love
"As you dissolve into love, your ego fades. You're not thinking about loving; you're just being love, radiating like the sun." - Ram Dass
Recently I contacted Steven Barnes, a trusted acquaintance (check him out here and here here), for help with my relationship. I needed clarity about some things that had come up and I wanted an objective opinion from someone I deeply respect and who is outside the relationship. In a very short amount of time we were able to get to the heart of the matter and Steve gave me some very useful suggestions which I have been implementing since we talked. In doing these things over the past couple of days, I have seen a drastic change both in how I perceive love and how I give love.
This morning, as I was drinking my coffee and enjoying the not yet hot, but very humid morning air, I did a quick little check-in regarding my feelings for myself and my boyfriend. This morning I felt a deep and gentle loving awareness of him as a whole person which included every aspect of him. I just love him, exactly as he is in every way. There was no thought about how I would like him to be, or what I would like him to do. He could sit in front of me all day doing absolutely nothing, saying absolutely nothing and I would love him with my whole being. My ego had faded away and I was just being love.
I messaged my boyfriend and told him that today I saw each part of him and love those parts unconditionally, with no thought or expectation of tomorrow. That just today, he was loved as a whole being by my whole being. His response was very touching and I was surprised by how moved he was by my message. It occurred to me, then, how little I must communicate this kind of love for him, although I feel it often when I think of him.
I try to tell my boyfriend that I love him often, because I do love him. But I have also told him that he isn't invested enough in this relationship and he isn't working hard enough in this relationship and I wonder if those words drown out the words of love as criticism so often does. My boyfriend and I are very different in how we approach relationships. Our relationship and family histories are very different and we have both had very different lessons in love over our lives. I have a difficult time being understanding of and compassionate toward those differences.
His perspective in relationship is to just let it be. He wants us just to be together and enjoy our time together and while I see the wisdom in that, my perspective has been that relationship takes work and effort and if we are not working both on our own stuff and on the relationship then it will stagnate and die. Neither perspective is wrong but neither perspective can work entirely on its own. There needs to be both action and inaction. I forget that sometimes the only action needed is loving each other and being love for each other and that has been my challenge in this relationship.
So here is my morning ritual that I've been practicing for the past two days. I check-in with myself and I ask myself these questions:
Do I love myself? Yes, I love myself.
Do I see all parts of myself, including those that are not as developed as I would like? Yes, I see all parts of myself.
Do I love all aspects of myself including those that are not yet as developed as I would like? Yes, I love all aspects of myself.
Do I see and love unconditionally the dark and the light on the full spectrum of positive and not-so-positive? Yes, I see and love unconditionally the full spectrum of myself.
Do I have compassion for the parts of myself that are hidden in darkness or are wounded and need healing? Yes, I have compassion for those parts of myself and I love them.
Do I support my goals and my efforts to live in accordance with my deepest values? Yes, I support myself in those ways.
Do I know that I love myself and how I love myself? Yes, I know that and how I love myself.
Then I ask those questions in regards to my boyfriend:
Do I love him? Yes, I love him.
How do I love him? This is a way to check-in with that love in my body, mind, emotions, and spirit and see how it feels.
Do I see all parts of him, including those that are not as developed as they could be? Yes, I see all parts of him.
Do I love all aspects of him, including those that are not as developed as they could be? Yes, I love all aspects of him.
Do I see and love unconditionally the dark and light parts of him on the full spectrum of positive and not-so-positive? Yes, I see and love unconditionally the full spectrum of him.
Do I have compassion for the parts of him that are hidden in darkness or are wounded and need healing? Yes, I have compassion for those parts of him and I love those parts of him as well.
Can I support his goals and his efforts to live in accordance with his deepest values? Yes, I can support him in those ways.
Do I want him to know that I love him and how I love him? Yes, I want him to know that I love him and how I love him.
Do I want him to love me in these ways? Yes, I want him to love me in these ways.
Then I tell him that I love him and how I love him and that I want him to love me.
Please understand, these answers are not pre-determined. When I go into this ritual I don't know what the answers will be. Each day I search for them being as honest and open with myself as I possibly can and when I tell him that I love him and how I love him, that I want him to love me, I tell him that it is just for today and that I have no expectation of tomorrow. And I truly don't have an expectation of tomorrow. I do this because today is all we have. Today is the most important day of my life; the one day in which I can actually do something. If he doesn't love me tomorrow he is free to walk away, no penalty, no anger, no judgment, because we can't promise each other tomorrow, only today and only if it is true.
This morning as I did this, I thought about how often love is a secondary reaction, sometimes after anger, fear, or frustration, and we're more likely to express those other emotions first and then come back to love after we have settled down, received what we wanted, or realized we were wrong. In doing this ritual I become love and I lead with love, not just love for my boyfriend and for myself, but love for my son, love for my family, love for all beings, and that means loving them exactly where they are with no expectation that they will be different. When I lead with love then there is understanding, compassion, patience, and humor. More importantly, when I lead with love there is no me, only love, and that is a beautiful thing.
Recently I contacted Steven Barnes, a trusted acquaintance (check him out here and here here), for help with my relationship. I needed clarity about some things that had come up and I wanted an objective opinion from someone I deeply respect and who is outside the relationship. In a very short amount of time we were able to get to the heart of the matter and Steve gave me some very useful suggestions which I have been implementing since we talked. In doing these things over the past couple of days, I have seen a drastic change both in how I perceive love and how I give love.
This morning, as I was drinking my coffee and enjoying the not yet hot, but very humid morning air, I did a quick little check-in regarding my feelings for myself and my boyfriend. This morning I felt a deep and gentle loving awareness of him as a whole person which included every aspect of him. I just love him, exactly as he is in every way. There was no thought about how I would like him to be, or what I would like him to do. He could sit in front of me all day doing absolutely nothing, saying absolutely nothing and I would love him with my whole being. My ego had faded away and I was just being love.
I messaged my boyfriend and told him that today I saw each part of him and love those parts unconditionally, with no thought or expectation of tomorrow. That just today, he was loved as a whole being by my whole being. His response was very touching and I was surprised by how moved he was by my message. It occurred to me, then, how little I must communicate this kind of love for him, although I feel it often when I think of him.
I try to tell my boyfriend that I love him often, because I do love him. But I have also told him that he isn't invested enough in this relationship and he isn't working hard enough in this relationship and I wonder if those words drown out the words of love as criticism so often does. My boyfriend and I are very different in how we approach relationships. Our relationship and family histories are very different and we have both had very different lessons in love over our lives. I have a difficult time being understanding of and compassionate toward those differences.
His perspective in relationship is to just let it be. He wants us just to be together and enjoy our time together and while I see the wisdom in that, my perspective has been that relationship takes work and effort and if we are not working both on our own stuff and on the relationship then it will stagnate and die. Neither perspective is wrong but neither perspective can work entirely on its own. There needs to be both action and inaction. I forget that sometimes the only action needed is loving each other and being love for each other and that has been my challenge in this relationship.
So here is my morning ritual that I've been practicing for the past two days. I check-in with myself and I ask myself these questions:
Do I love myself? Yes, I love myself.
Do I see all parts of myself, including those that are not as developed as I would like? Yes, I see all parts of myself.
Do I love all aspects of myself including those that are not yet as developed as I would like? Yes, I love all aspects of myself.
Do I see and love unconditionally the dark and the light on the full spectrum of positive and not-so-positive? Yes, I see and love unconditionally the full spectrum of myself.
Do I have compassion for the parts of myself that are hidden in darkness or are wounded and need healing? Yes, I have compassion for those parts of myself and I love them.
Do I support my goals and my efforts to live in accordance with my deepest values? Yes, I support myself in those ways.
Do I know that I love myself and how I love myself? Yes, I know that and how I love myself.
Then I ask those questions in regards to my boyfriend:
Do I love him? Yes, I love him.
How do I love him? This is a way to check-in with that love in my body, mind, emotions, and spirit and see how it feels.
Do I see all parts of him, including those that are not as developed as they could be? Yes, I see all parts of him.
Do I love all aspects of him, including those that are not as developed as they could be? Yes, I love all aspects of him.
Do I see and love unconditionally the dark and light parts of him on the full spectrum of positive and not-so-positive? Yes, I see and love unconditionally the full spectrum of him.
Do I have compassion for the parts of him that are hidden in darkness or are wounded and need healing? Yes, I have compassion for those parts of him and I love those parts of him as well.
Can I support his goals and his efforts to live in accordance with his deepest values? Yes, I can support him in those ways.
Do I want him to know that I love him and how I love him? Yes, I want him to know that I love him and how I love him.
Do I want him to love me in these ways? Yes, I want him to love me in these ways.
Then I tell him that I love him and how I love him and that I want him to love me.
Please understand, these answers are not pre-determined. When I go into this ritual I don't know what the answers will be. Each day I search for them being as honest and open with myself as I possibly can and when I tell him that I love him and how I love him, that I want him to love me, I tell him that it is just for today and that I have no expectation of tomorrow. And I truly don't have an expectation of tomorrow. I do this because today is all we have. Today is the most important day of my life; the one day in which I can actually do something. If he doesn't love me tomorrow he is free to walk away, no penalty, no anger, no judgment, because we can't promise each other tomorrow, only today and only if it is true.
This morning as I did this, I thought about how often love is a secondary reaction, sometimes after anger, fear, or frustration, and we're more likely to express those other emotions first and then come back to love after we have settled down, received what we wanted, or realized we were wrong. In doing this ritual I become love and I lead with love, not just love for my boyfriend and for myself, but love for my son, love for my family, love for all beings, and that means loving them exactly where they are with no expectation that they will be different. When I lead with love then there is understanding, compassion, patience, and humor. More importantly, when I lead with love there is no me, only love, and that is a beautiful thing.
Friday, May 31, 2013
An Open Letter to my Cohort
My Dear Classmates,
I want to write this letter to you for several reasons. I want to share my story with you because I think you deserve to hear it and because I have a perspective that I hope will be helpful to you. This comes from our class discussion following the movie we watched Wednesday. In the discussion I said that if you hadn't lived in a domestically violent relationship you wouldn't be able to understand what it is like to try and survive every day. I want you to know that I understand your anger at the father in the film, I truly do, but as social workers we have to rise above our anger to see the picture in its entirety and I hope my story will help you do that.
After my divorce I was in an emotionally abusive relationship for eight years and my son lived with me. It didn't start out that way, but it didn't take too long before the red flags started to show and I ignored them. It's difficult to describe how warped your thinking becomes in an abusive relationship because it happens slowly and insidiously. If you enter into a relationship with an abuser your thinking is already warped, I know mine was. It's common for people like me to have had abusive childhoods, which I did. I had little self-worth, no self love, and I desperately wanted to be loved by someone because I had never been consistently loved in my life and that's the only love I knew how to get.
The person I fell in love with made me feel beautiful and amazing in a way I had never felt before. He seemed to understand me and take me into consideration like no one else. He was kind and patient with my son, in the beginning, and kind and patient with me and I became addicted to that love in a very real sense; I lived for it. It's not an over-statement to say I was addicted. I would have done anything to experience that love, just like a drug addict would do anything for a fix, because I felt that I needed it like I needed air to breathe.
Eventually little things started to cause fights, like where I was standing in the grocery store aisle, how I was driving, if I woke up grumpy; little things. The fights became consistently out of proportion to the situation and I thought if I could just make the changes he wanted everything would be okay. The cycle of abuse began. We had our honeymoon periods, then tension would start to build, and then there would be the explosion. Afterwards he would be remorseful, apologetic, affectionate and kind, and the honeymoon period would start all over again.
As time went on the explosions became more violent and more frequent. He started targeting my son, indirectly. The last two years we fought almost constantly and my son could hear it and was sometimes the target of his anger. I kept trying to do everything he wanted, the way he wanted and tried to make my son behave the way he wanted because I believed if we just did everything right the fighting would stop and everything would go back to that honeymoon period; but the things that would set him off were unpredictable and changed constantly. There was no way I could do anything right in his eyes because the problem wasn't with me, but I couldn't see it.
There were times when I thought about leaving, but I didn't feel that I could because I didn't have the money and moving in with my parents would have been an equally abusive relationship. Things got really bad. He became paranoid and messed with the locks so that there was only one way in and out of the house so he could hear if I left or when I came home. I went almost nowhere alone, if I spoke to my family he would get angry and going to see my brother who lived just down the street from me caused huge explosions.
I became very depressed and I found out later that my son had contemplated running away and committing suicide. I knew it was bad but I still couldn't leave. I thought that by trying to make him happy I was protecting my son. See, that's the warped thinking I was talking about. You become afraid that doing anything that might make the abuser mad will only make the abuse worse, so you keep trying and keep trying and it never stops. I had no dignity, no self-respect, and by that point I figured no one would ever love me. All of the value I could see in myself was dependent on him seeing it in me. If we broke up I felt that I would disappear, that I would be nothing and so I stayed.
It's true that I failed my son, just like that father failed his children. I can say that openly because I have owned it and I continue to work daily to repair my relationship with my son and to atone for not protecting him. I thought I was protecting him and I was afraid if we left that things would just get worse. That's the thing about having children in an abusive household. The non-abusing parent does all of these crazy things to try and placate the abuser because they think if they do that they will protect their children. What we don't know is that there is no way we can protect our children or ourselves because we never know what is going to set off the abuse. We aren't thinking clearly.
That's the point our speaker was trying to make Wednesday with the story he shared about that lady. Why did she leave her kids? Because at that point she had hit survival mode and she wasn't capable of making rational decisions. That's what survival mode does to you when you live in it day after day. I compare it to trying to run through a minefield without a map and with live ammunition flying over your head. You keep your head low, you try not to set off any mines, all the while knowing that the odds are you're going to get hit with a bullet or step on a mine and set off an explosion. That's what every single day is like; it never ends. You don't have the ability to think about anything else, because it's survival at that point. That's what it was like for me.
I guarantee you that the mother from the movie was abusing the father; abusers rarely discriminate between victims. In this case the kids got the brunt of the abuse and in mine I got the brunt of the abuse, but everyone ends up trying to survive a really horrible situation. That doesn't make what the father did right or okay, but when we start judging a parent about what they are doing or aren't doing we are judging them by our standards and we aren't looking at the whole picture systematically.
When you look at a non-abusing parent who has failed to protect their children I hope you will look at them with the eyes of a social worker. The eyes that are open wide enough to take the whole picture in. Those kids are really going to need your help because the non-abusing parent just isn't capable of helping them at that point; that's why we're there. But if we really want to help this family we have to help the parents too; the whole system has to be fixed.
That non-abusing parent is going to need your help because they are going to have to make the journey from self-loathing to self-love if they're ever going to be a functional parent, and it's a long, hard walk; they can't do it alone. They'll need a lot of therapy so recommend a good therapist for them because they are going to have to rebuild themselves from the ground up and the only thing they're going to have left are the tattered remnants of dignity and hope, which you might have to show them.
We can hate the horrible things that parents do to their children, but let's hate those things in an educated way that understands that the family is a system and when a system is sick, everyone is a victim to it. Everyone needs help to fix it and that is a big part of our job; giving not just the children, but the parents resources to fix the situation. Hopefully they can, but if they can't it's important that we understand that maybe they are just too broken down, have too little left, have no hope left and only despair.
I've been there. I know how hard it is to get back up from that point and start moving forward. Even feeding the cat seems impossible. I would not be the person I am today if everyone who knew my story judged me as a failure and walked away. I was lucky to have and find people who cared enough about me to understand where I was as a person and why I did the things I did. They didn't judge me; they could have. They didn't get paid to help me, but they helped me anyway and through their eyes I began to see a person who could have self-respect, dignity and self- love and I began to build that person. Do you see why one of our core values is the dignity and respect of every person? Because if you don't have dignity and respect then it is very difficult to even continue living, much less make things better. And sometimes the only place you can find dignity and self-respect is through the eyes of another until you can see it for yourself.
We're going to get angry, I get angry but I try to make my anger an educated anger. One in which I become angry at the environmental factors that helped create the situation because when I do that, I can help. We can't change people, but maybe if we can change the environment in which they live they'll have a little more room and a few more tools to change themselves.
I'm a different person today. I still wake up every morning facing the reality that I did not protect my child; I'll never get over that. Instead of beating myself up though, what I do is remind myself that I was doing all I was capable of doing at that time and if I could have done better I would have. It's not an excuse, it's not a platitude; I know where I was then and why. I know what I was capable of doing and what I couldn't do and all I could do was survive the best way I knew how.
Those of us who have wronged our children don't need judgment. I guarantee we judge ourselves more harshly and more personally than anyone else ever could. Any external voice of judgement is drowned out by the internal monologue of self-flagellation we have going on all the time, until we begin to do our work. I don't judge myself anymore, I accept what I have done and I take responsibility for it every day but I will always be sad about it. I respect myself now, I love myself now, I smile and laugh more, and I have good people in my life. My life is better now than it has ever been but that's because I was willing to do the work and I had people to help me.
I hope you take this letter as it is intended, not as judgment over your reactions Wednesday but as a different set of eyes to look through. The more we learn the wider our eyes open; and the wider our eyes are open the more we can see.
With deepest respect,
Christi
I want to write this letter to you for several reasons. I want to share my story with you because I think you deserve to hear it and because I have a perspective that I hope will be helpful to you. This comes from our class discussion following the movie we watched Wednesday. In the discussion I said that if you hadn't lived in a domestically violent relationship you wouldn't be able to understand what it is like to try and survive every day. I want you to know that I understand your anger at the father in the film, I truly do, but as social workers we have to rise above our anger to see the picture in its entirety and I hope my story will help you do that.
After my divorce I was in an emotionally abusive relationship for eight years and my son lived with me. It didn't start out that way, but it didn't take too long before the red flags started to show and I ignored them. It's difficult to describe how warped your thinking becomes in an abusive relationship because it happens slowly and insidiously. If you enter into a relationship with an abuser your thinking is already warped, I know mine was. It's common for people like me to have had abusive childhoods, which I did. I had little self-worth, no self love, and I desperately wanted to be loved by someone because I had never been consistently loved in my life and that's the only love I knew how to get.
The person I fell in love with made me feel beautiful and amazing in a way I had never felt before. He seemed to understand me and take me into consideration like no one else. He was kind and patient with my son, in the beginning, and kind and patient with me and I became addicted to that love in a very real sense; I lived for it. It's not an over-statement to say I was addicted. I would have done anything to experience that love, just like a drug addict would do anything for a fix, because I felt that I needed it like I needed air to breathe.
Eventually little things started to cause fights, like where I was standing in the grocery store aisle, how I was driving, if I woke up grumpy; little things. The fights became consistently out of proportion to the situation and I thought if I could just make the changes he wanted everything would be okay. The cycle of abuse began. We had our honeymoon periods, then tension would start to build, and then there would be the explosion. Afterwards he would be remorseful, apologetic, affectionate and kind, and the honeymoon period would start all over again.
As time went on the explosions became more violent and more frequent. He started targeting my son, indirectly. The last two years we fought almost constantly and my son could hear it and was sometimes the target of his anger. I kept trying to do everything he wanted, the way he wanted and tried to make my son behave the way he wanted because I believed if we just did everything right the fighting would stop and everything would go back to that honeymoon period; but the things that would set him off were unpredictable and changed constantly. There was no way I could do anything right in his eyes because the problem wasn't with me, but I couldn't see it.
There were times when I thought about leaving, but I didn't feel that I could because I didn't have the money and moving in with my parents would have been an equally abusive relationship. Things got really bad. He became paranoid and messed with the locks so that there was only one way in and out of the house so he could hear if I left or when I came home. I went almost nowhere alone, if I spoke to my family he would get angry and going to see my brother who lived just down the street from me caused huge explosions.
I became very depressed and I found out later that my son had contemplated running away and committing suicide. I knew it was bad but I still couldn't leave. I thought that by trying to make him happy I was protecting my son. See, that's the warped thinking I was talking about. You become afraid that doing anything that might make the abuser mad will only make the abuse worse, so you keep trying and keep trying and it never stops. I had no dignity, no self-respect, and by that point I figured no one would ever love me. All of the value I could see in myself was dependent on him seeing it in me. If we broke up I felt that I would disappear, that I would be nothing and so I stayed.
It's true that I failed my son, just like that father failed his children. I can say that openly because I have owned it and I continue to work daily to repair my relationship with my son and to atone for not protecting him. I thought I was protecting him and I was afraid if we left that things would just get worse. That's the thing about having children in an abusive household. The non-abusing parent does all of these crazy things to try and placate the abuser because they think if they do that they will protect their children. What we don't know is that there is no way we can protect our children or ourselves because we never know what is going to set off the abuse. We aren't thinking clearly.
That's the point our speaker was trying to make Wednesday with the story he shared about that lady. Why did she leave her kids? Because at that point she had hit survival mode and she wasn't capable of making rational decisions. That's what survival mode does to you when you live in it day after day. I compare it to trying to run through a minefield without a map and with live ammunition flying over your head. You keep your head low, you try not to set off any mines, all the while knowing that the odds are you're going to get hit with a bullet or step on a mine and set off an explosion. That's what every single day is like; it never ends. You don't have the ability to think about anything else, because it's survival at that point. That's what it was like for me.
I guarantee you that the mother from the movie was abusing the father; abusers rarely discriminate between victims. In this case the kids got the brunt of the abuse and in mine I got the brunt of the abuse, but everyone ends up trying to survive a really horrible situation. That doesn't make what the father did right or okay, but when we start judging a parent about what they are doing or aren't doing we are judging them by our standards and we aren't looking at the whole picture systematically.
When you look at a non-abusing parent who has failed to protect their children I hope you will look at them with the eyes of a social worker. The eyes that are open wide enough to take the whole picture in. Those kids are really going to need your help because the non-abusing parent just isn't capable of helping them at that point; that's why we're there. But if we really want to help this family we have to help the parents too; the whole system has to be fixed.
That non-abusing parent is going to need your help because they are going to have to make the journey from self-loathing to self-love if they're ever going to be a functional parent, and it's a long, hard walk; they can't do it alone. They'll need a lot of therapy so recommend a good therapist for them because they are going to have to rebuild themselves from the ground up and the only thing they're going to have left are the tattered remnants of dignity and hope, which you might have to show them.
We can hate the horrible things that parents do to their children, but let's hate those things in an educated way that understands that the family is a system and when a system is sick, everyone is a victim to it. Everyone needs help to fix it and that is a big part of our job; giving not just the children, but the parents resources to fix the situation. Hopefully they can, but if they can't it's important that we understand that maybe they are just too broken down, have too little left, have no hope left and only despair.
I've been there. I know how hard it is to get back up from that point and start moving forward. Even feeding the cat seems impossible. I would not be the person I am today if everyone who knew my story judged me as a failure and walked away. I was lucky to have and find people who cared enough about me to understand where I was as a person and why I did the things I did. They didn't judge me; they could have. They didn't get paid to help me, but they helped me anyway and through their eyes I began to see a person who could have self-respect, dignity and self- love and I began to build that person. Do you see why one of our core values is the dignity and respect of every person? Because if you don't have dignity and respect then it is very difficult to even continue living, much less make things better. And sometimes the only place you can find dignity and self-respect is through the eyes of another until you can see it for yourself.
We're going to get angry, I get angry but I try to make my anger an educated anger. One in which I become angry at the environmental factors that helped create the situation because when I do that, I can help. We can't change people, but maybe if we can change the environment in which they live they'll have a little more room and a few more tools to change themselves.
I'm a different person today. I still wake up every morning facing the reality that I did not protect my child; I'll never get over that. Instead of beating myself up though, what I do is remind myself that I was doing all I was capable of doing at that time and if I could have done better I would have. It's not an excuse, it's not a platitude; I know where I was then and why. I know what I was capable of doing and what I couldn't do and all I could do was survive the best way I knew how.
Those of us who have wronged our children don't need judgment. I guarantee we judge ourselves more harshly and more personally than anyone else ever could. Any external voice of judgement is drowned out by the internal monologue of self-flagellation we have going on all the time, until we begin to do our work. I don't judge myself anymore, I accept what I have done and I take responsibility for it every day but I will always be sad about it. I respect myself now, I love myself now, I smile and laugh more, and I have good people in my life. My life is better now than it has ever been but that's because I was willing to do the work and I had people to help me.
I hope you take this letter as it is intended, not as judgment over your reactions Wednesday but as a different set of eyes to look through. The more we learn the wider our eyes open; and the wider our eyes are open the more we can see.
With deepest respect,
Christi
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Being an Adult, Being a Parent
My son got mad at me this morning. It's not really surprising or notable when a teenager gets mad at his parents, it's part of their emotional development and really appropriate, but this was notable because I've been waiting for this to happen for a few years. Last night my son had a dream in which he confronted my ex-boyfriend from my long term abusive relationship and it made him re-examine his feelings about what happened. He wanted to protect me from him and he couldn't do it. Underneath his anger there is fear and sadness, from the little boy who watched his mother get hurt over and over again and could do nothing about it. He couldn't protect himself and he couldn't protect me. He can't see it right now all he can see is the anger and that's okay, that's his vehicle to get to the deeper emotions that accompany the anger.
That being said, it's important to acknowledge that he has every right to be angry with me; I blew it. I failed to protect my son and I failed to protect myself, these are inextricably intertwined. When we fail to protect ourselves and allow ourselves to be abused we hurt our children. Research has shown that for children it's actually less damaging to be abused than it is to witness another family member's abuse, especially a parent's a abuse. I can agree with that. If I just ignore the anger and try to get to the underlying emotions, I will do him a disservice.
There is a lot that I need to be aware of as a parent and as a person. To say this isn't about me is on the one hand true, it's about my son and the effects of his experience during this abusive period in our lives. But it is about me inasmuch as if I am not present, if I don't take responsibility for the what happened during that time, and if I don't do my emotional work so that I can be an effective and protective parent then I am failing him all over again. There is no wimping out here, that is not an option. His anger is both justified and appropriate. He needs to be able to express it and he needs me to be able to listen and to accept responsibility for the choices I made that drastically affected his life. Basically he needs me to be an adult about this. That means there's no room for denial or self-pity. It means that when he expresses his anger I have to accept it with my eyes wide open and provide a safe place for him to express it, acknowledging the truth of what he is saying.
He's a smart kid. He doesn't need platitudes, he doesn't really even need an apology right now. He needs to know that I love him through his anger, that I'll keep walking right next to him, that I know what I did and that I accept responsibility for my actions and their affect on him, and that I'll never let that happen again. Will he believe me? No, he doesn't trust me and why would he? I've given him no reason to believe what I'll say, I threw that opportunity out the window when I let my ex come back into our lives and hurt us again. I have to earn that trust every day by being an adult and a responsible parent and providing him the resources to process his hurt and his anger in a way that will allow it to become a strength and not a poison.
The work I have had to do on myself is separate from the work that lies between my son and I, but it's part of the foundation of being able to be the parent he needs as he seeks to come to terms with what he experienced during this time. It's really easy to try and hide from all of this, it doesn't feel good to look at the child you created and know that failed him. People have told me I didn't fail him, I had issues, there were reasons why I stayed in that relationship and allowed both of us to be abused, I shouldn't be so hard on myself. Bullshit. I failed my kid and that's not a statement made as a martyr, that's a statement made with full understanding of what it means to be a parent and the responsibilities that come with that role when we accept it.
Being an adult means that I don't beat myself up for what happens and indulge in a lot of guilt and self-pity. It means I look at what happened honestly, I accept what that means and the consequences that created and I get up, dust myself off and I face the problem. I can't take my son's anger away and I shouldn't. I can't go back in time and fix what happened, it's done. But I can be the parent my son has always needed every single day, right now, and never forget the lessons learned from that experience; and when we mess up as parents that's exactly what we need to do.
Be angry, my son. Tell me how I screwed up and what that did to you and what it means to you today. Tell me why all of those experiences make you so angry; explore it, express it, let it be real because you've hidden it away too long trying to protect me. I don't need you to protect me, I'm an adult I can protect myself, but I will not protect myself from your anger because it's real, it has value and it is justified. I will be there for every word you have to say. I will accept the truth of your experiences, I will accept responsibility and I will do better. I will love you through it all, I will not hide and I will provide the resources you need to craft the expression of your anger into a healing process so you can be free of the hurt and become an adult yourself in the true sense of the word. And when your anger has run it's course I will still be there loving you. And above all, my son, I will never forget for one moment that I wasn't the parent you needed me to be and I will never let that happen again.
That being said, it's important to acknowledge that he has every right to be angry with me; I blew it. I failed to protect my son and I failed to protect myself, these are inextricably intertwined. When we fail to protect ourselves and allow ourselves to be abused we hurt our children. Research has shown that for children it's actually less damaging to be abused than it is to witness another family member's abuse, especially a parent's a abuse. I can agree with that. If I just ignore the anger and try to get to the underlying emotions, I will do him a disservice.
There is a lot that I need to be aware of as a parent and as a person. To say this isn't about me is on the one hand true, it's about my son and the effects of his experience during this abusive period in our lives. But it is about me inasmuch as if I am not present, if I don't take responsibility for the what happened during that time, and if I don't do my emotional work so that I can be an effective and protective parent then I am failing him all over again. There is no wimping out here, that is not an option. His anger is both justified and appropriate. He needs to be able to express it and he needs me to be able to listen and to accept responsibility for the choices I made that drastically affected his life. Basically he needs me to be an adult about this. That means there's no room for denial or self-pity. It means that when he expresses his anger I have to accept it with my eyes wide open and provide a safe place for him to express it, acknowledging the truth of what he is saying.
He's a smart kid. He doesn't need platitudes, he doesn't really even need an apology right now. He needs to know that I love him through his anger, that I'll keep walking right next to him, that I know what I did and that I accept responsibility for my actions and their affect on him, and that I'll never let that happen again. Will he believe me? No, he doesn't trust me and why would he? I've given him no reason to believe what I'll say, I threw that opportunity out the window when I let my ex come back into our lives and hurt us again. I have to earn that trust every day by being an adult and a responsible parent and providing him the resources to process his hurt and his anger in a way that will allow it to become a strength and not a poison.
The work I have had to do on myself is separate from the work that lies between my son and I, but it's part of the foundation of being able to be the parent he needs as he seeks to come to terms with what he experienced during this time. It's really easy to try and hide from all of this, it doesn't feel good to look at the child you created and know that failed him. People have told me I didn't fail him, I had issues, there were reasons why I stayed in that relationship and allowed both of us to be abused, I shouldn't be so hard on myself. Bullshit. I failed my kid and that's not a statement made as a martyr, that's a statement made with full understanding of what it means to be a parent and the responsibilities that come with that role when we accept it.
Being an adult means that I don't beat myself up for what happens and indulge in a lot of guilt and self-pity. It means I look at what happened honestly, I accept what that means and the consequences that created and I get up, dust myself off and I face the problem. I can't take my son's anger away and I shouldn't. I can't go back in time and fix what happened, it's done. But I can be the parent my son has always needed every single day, right now, and never forget the lessons learned from that experience; and when we mess up as parents that's exactly what we need to do.
Be angry, my son. Tell me how I screwed up and what that did to you and what it means to you today. Tell me why all of those experiences make you so angry; explore it, express it, let it be real because you've hidden it away too long trying to protect me. I don't need you to protect me, I'm an adult I can protect myself, but I will not protect myself from your anger because it's real, it has value and it is justified. I will be there for every word you have to say. I will accept the truth of your experiences, I will accept responsibility and I will do better. I will love you through it all, I will not hide and I will provide the resources you need to craft the expression of your anger into a healing process so you can be free of the hurt and become an adult yourself in the true sense of the word. And when your anger has run it's course I will still be there loving you. And above all, my son, I will never forget for one moment that I wasn't the parent you needed me to be and I will never let that happen again.
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