"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.
Saturday, August 31, 2013
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.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Integrity
As I have said before, each year at the Winter Solstice I choose a word to work with for the year; this year my word was integrity. I haven't written much about this word, but I have thought a lot about it. Usually when we think of the word integrity we think about in relation to ourselves; are we acting with integrity? Do our thoughts, interactions and behaviors align with our own values and ethics? Whenever I thought about this word and how it applied to my life this is what I would think about and I didn't see why I would get this word for the year because I always try to act with integrity. I might complain about it from time to time, but it is important to my being to act with integrity.
This morning I read the following, wonderful passage from "A Heart as Wide as the World" by Sharon Salzberg which helped me see integrity in a different way. "My teacher Munindra had a student, a woman named Carol, who had worked in the underground in Holland, helping Jews escape from Nazis for five years during World War II. She had been captured twice by German soldiers and tortured, and nearly all of her friends had been killed doing the same kind of work. Of herself she said only, 'I was always filled with an all-consuming pity for this world, with the injustices, wars, hunger, persecutions, and cruelties suffered by the human beings living in it. I lived my life as a fighter against all I saw as wrong and especially unjust.' The rightness and naturalness of Carol's response did not mean that the work was easy or that there wasn't a price to pay. She in fact suffered recurring nightmares and deeply ingrained fears for thirty years. But, connecting and caring were intrinsic to her vision of life, and her own integrity compelled her to act in accordance with that vision."
We don't all have the opportunity or ability to do what Carol did, but this passage makes an important point, there is something that we are all called to do, compelled to do, or deeply desire to do; for me it is social work. After graduating with my bachelor's degree in psychology I decided that the path I was on in psychology did not help me answer my call to help people, which is why I chose that major in the first place. I was on a path to become a quantitative psychologist, one who would work with statistics, developing statistical models and hopefully improving the process of statistical testing. My decision to leave psychology was not a popular one with some of the faculty and they tried to explain to me how my work in statistics would be beneficial to people, but it wasn't beneficial enough, it wouldn't help people in their day to day functioning and it wouldn't help ease suffering or unhappiness. But most importantly, it wouldn't allow me to live in integrity with the person I see myself as being.
Many people are unhappy in their lives because they choose to do things for reasons other than that it answers their deepest calling. We don't all have to want to help people, but we do have to find a way to heed the call of our own inner being. That is integrity. When we listen to the calling of our soul, whatever it is asking, we are living in integrity. When we ignore that calling, we often enter into a state of anxiety or stress because we aren't tending to our true nature and it hurts us.
The work I am doing in my master's program is often difficult and upsetting. I have a couple of cases that I would even call heartbreaking because I cannot make the situation better, I can only keep it from getting worse. That's hard for me, I want to help people, and there is a price to pay for doing this work. But to not do it, to not deal with the difficulty and do my best to provide service to people to the best of my ability would be a greater price to pay and would hurt me more in the long-term.
Finding another job, changing our lives drastically, may not be something that we can do right now, but we still have to find a way to answer the call of our hearts. I hope that whatever call you may not be answering right now, you are able to find a way to answer it soon. To live in integrity with our truest natures, to be the people we really want to be in the world is critical to our well-being. It doesn't mean that we will find happiness, and happiness is a transitory state in any case, but it will empower us to fully embrace ourselves and our journey through life. It will enhance the lives of the people around us, regardless of what that calling is, and in the end, it will bring us more satisfaction and well-being than not answering it.
It's not easy, we often have to juggle multiple roles and it may seem that doing what is intrinsic to our vision of our lives and ourselves may compromise the duties and roles we have with other people. I don't think it has to be that way, I think it is possible to find a way to answer the calling we have and still be true to the roles and responsibilities we have accepted in our lives. In fact, I believe that it will make us more effective in fulfilling those roles and responsibilities. So if you find that your life lacks satisfaction, if you find that there is always some voice inside of you calling you to do something, I hope you find a way. Because to live in integrity with ourselves, as well as other people, is one of the highest callings and is crucial to living an authentic and fulfilling life.
This morning I read the following, wonderful passage from "A Heart as Wide as the World" by Sharon Salzberg which helped me see integrity in a different way. "My teacher Munindra had a student, a woman named Carol, who had worked in the underground in Holland, helping Jews escape from Nazis for five years during World War II. She had been captured twice by German soldiers and tortured, and nearly all of her friends had been killed doing the same kind of work. Of herself she said only, 'I was always filled with an all-consuming pity for this world, with the injustices, wars, hunger, persecutions, and cruelties suffered by the human beings living in it. I lived my life as a fighter against all I saw as wrong and especially unjust.' The rightness and naturalness of Carol's response did not mean that the work was easy or that there wasn't a price to pay. She in fact suffered recurring nightmares and deeply ingrained fears for thirty years. But, connecting and caring were intrinsic to her vision of life, and her own integrity compelled her to act in accordance with that vision."
We don't all have the opportunity or ability to do what Carol did, but this passage makes an important point, there is something that we are all called to do, compelled to do, or deeply desire to do; for me it is social work. After graduating with my bachelor's degree in psychology I decided that the path I was on in psychology did not help me answer my call to help people, which is why I chose that major in the first place. I was on a path to become a quantitative psychologist, one who would work with statistics, developing statistical models and hopefully improving the process of statistical testing. My decision to leave psychology was not a popular one with some of the faculty and they tried to explain to me how my work in statistics would be beneficial to people, but it wasn't beneficial enough, it wouldn't help people in their day to day functioning and it wouldn't help ease suffering or unhappiness. But most importantly, it wouldn't allow me to live in integrity with the person I see myself as being.
Many people are unhappy in their lives because they choose to do things for reasons other than that it answers their deepest calling. We don't all have to want to help people, but we do have to find a way to heed the call of our own inner being. That is integrity. When we listen to the calling of our soul, whatever it is asking, we are living in integrity. When we ignore that calling, we often enter into a state of anxiety or stress because we aren't tending to our true nature and it hurts us.
The work I am doing in my master's program is often difficult and upsetting. I have a couple of cases that I would even call heartbreaking because I cannot make the situation better, I can only keep it from getting worse. That's hard for me, I want to help people, and there is a price to pay for doing this work. But to not do it, to not deal with the difficulty and do my best to provide service to people to the best of my ability would be a greater price to pay and would hurt me more in the long-term.
Finding another job, changing our lives drastically, may not be something that we can do right now, but we still have to find a way to answer the call of our hearts. I hope that whatever call you may not be answering right now, you are able to find a way to answer it soon. To live in integrity with our truest natures, to be the people we really want to be in the world is critical to our well-being. It doesn't mean that we will find happiness, and happiness is a transitory state in any case, but it will empower us to fully embrace ourselves and our journey through life. It will enhance the lives of the people around us, regardless of what that calling is, and in the end, it will bring us more satisfaction and well-being than not answering it.
It's not easy, we often have to juggle multiple roles and it may seem that doing what is intrinsic to our vision of our lives and ourselves may compromise the duties and roles we have with other people. I don't think it has to be that way, I think it is possible to find a way to answer the calling we have and still be true to the roles and responsibilities we have accepted in our lives. In fact, I believe that it will make us more effective in fulfilling those roles and responsibilities. So if you find that your life lacks satisfaction, if you find that there is always some voice inside of you calling you to do something, I hope you find a way. Because to live in integrity with ourselves, as well as other people, is one of the highest callings and is crucial to living an authentic and fulfilling life.
Monday, July 23, 2012
The Journey to Self-Love
Growing as a person has always been important to me, I want to be the best me that I can be, but I've come to remember lately that growing means letting go of things that no longer serve us, and letting go means first accepting those things about ourselves that may not be the best or most beautiful qualities. Lately, I've been reading a lot of blogs that talk about self-acceptance and self-love. It can be difficult to come to a place of acceptance for ourselves when we see things that we might perceive as flaws or even dysfunction, and that's what I've been struggling with.
There are so many messages that bombard us from the outside that tell us we are not as good as we could be. As children, many of us received messages from our families that we were not good enough, or that who we were was unacceptable, or even incomprehensible; I know I did. These messages have created in me an inner critic whose voice becomes quite loud especially when I am tired or stressed. This critic tells me that I need to do better, that I need to get rid of these qualities, that I'm not developed enough and that I need to grow, but what it doesn't tell me is that first, I have to love those parts of myself.
It's difficult to stop and love the parts of ourselves that we need to change. On a path forward it seems counter intuitive to stop and embrace the things within us that we see as holding us back, but it's so necessary. Any journey is a combination of action and inaction, something I sometimes have a difficult time remembering, but we do need to stop and not only smell the roses, but the skunk weed as well.
Taking the time to embrace ourselves, exactly as we are, without judgment, is a profound act of self-love. It helps us really see all that is within us and understand how all of our experiences have helped to inform the person we have become. When we don't do this, when we judge ourselves harshly, when we decide we just need to let go without first embracing each part of us, we exile those parts we want to have growth in. Always looking ahead to growth means that we aren't looking at where we are now, and without doing that, we cannot accomplish the growth we desire.
I'm a big fan of structure. I like having structure in my life because I feel as though I have some sort of framework to grow in, but lately I've become aware that too much structure, or too much rigidity in the structures I create can actually hamper growth. In order to embrace myself as I am, I have to come to place of self-love and love needs space to move freely. When we can allow this space to exist, love moves us into places within ourselves that we have not been able to access previously. We can then touch each thought, each wound, each perspective, each emotion gently and lovingly. We can observe all of these things and see how they move and act within us, and then we can move into a place of healing and loving growth within ourselves.
Over and over again, in the blogs I have read the past few days the writers have been searching for a way to be more loving in the world. Over and over again, the writers of these blogs have discovered that they can not love all those around them the way they would like until they learn to love and accept themselves. In many spiritual traditions we are reminded of this lesson. "Love your neighbor as yourself", the Golden Rule, Buddhist teachings, Hindu teachings how many times have we heard these reminders, agreed with them and never thought more about how we actually love ourselves?
I've spent much of my life trying to get my ego out of the way so I can be more loving, but I never thought to love my ego exactly as it is, to understand it, to allow for it to exist. I just pushed everything away that I thought was unworthy to be a part of me, without understanding that it already was. This is a path to pain. The parts of ourselves (which I talked about in the Dark, Crazy, Strange and Unwanted blog post) more than anything need our love. They need to be heard, understood, observed, accepted and loved, only then can we heal those parts of ourselves and allow them to transform into something beautiful and valued within us.
This is what I am working on now. I find it difficult because although there are things I can read, meditations I can do, reminders I can give myself, there's no actual task that is going to bring me to self-love and acceptance. I just have to relax into it and relax into the loving arms of the Universe. Acceptance is not a task that can be checked off on a to-do list; acceptance is a sinking into love, a sitting back and observing without judgment, without criticism, it is something of a passive act that creates the space for love and wonder to come in.
I realize I write a lot about self-love and all I can say is that it is something I keep working on, I haven't got it yet and I think it's one of the most important things we can do for ourselves. I think that a lot of people think that they love themselves, but don't acknowledge all the ways in which they withhold love. Since this is on my mind, I'm sharing this process, hoping to reinforce what I already know, hoping to deepen in the understanding that I have and hoping that in continuing to talk about this and acknowledge this process it will stay in the light and not become hidden in the shadow.
As I write this, I am filled with wonder for the marvelous opportunities that we have to observe and participate in love and growth. I am grateful for the experiences I perceive as challenges and those that I perceive as blessings. I am reminded that for me, the Universe is a place of love even though the world can sometimes seem to be a place of pain, and I am grateful for my pain which keeps me awake to the process of living and becoming. I also feel sadness for the places in me that are still unloved and not healed, but I know that I will get to them in time. As much as I would like to snap my fingers and be instantly filled with self-love, it is a journey, a process that will probably never be completed. I will hear that inner critic all my life, but I know that in learning to love myself I will hear what my inner critic says in a different way and I will allow it touch and inform my soul differently. The inner critic doesn't need to be shut down, it needs to be understood and heard and I can learn to do that with love.
There are so many messages that bombard us from the outside that tell us we are not as good as we could be. As children, many of us received messages from our families that we were not good enough, or that who we were was unacceptable, or even incomprehensible; I know I did. These messages have created in me an inner critic whose voice becomes quite loud especially when I am tired or stressed. This critic tells me that I need to do better, that I need to get rid of these qualities, that I'm not developed enough and that I need to grow, but what it doesn't tell me is that first, I have to love those parts of myself.
It's difficult to stop and love the parts of ourselves that we need to change. On a path forward it seems counter intuitive to stop and embrace the things within us that we see as holding us back, but it's so necessary. Any journey is a combination of action and inaction, something I sometimes have a difficult time remembering, but we do need to stop and not only smell the roses, but the skunk weed as well.
Taking the time to embrace ourselves, exactly as we are, without judgment, is a profound act of self-love. It helps us really see all that is within us and understand how all of our experiences have helped to inform the person we have become. When we don't do this, when we judge ourselves harshly, when we decide we just need to let go without first embracing each part of us, we exile those parts we want to have growth in. Always looking ahead to growth means that we aren't looking at where we are now, and without doing that, we cannot accomplish the growth we desire.
I'm a big fan of structure. I like having structure in my life because I feel as though I have some sort of framework to grow in, but lately I've become aware that too much structure, or too much rigidity in the structures I create can actually hamper growth. In order to embrace myself as I am, I have to come to place of self-love and love needs space to move freely. When we can allow this space to exist, love moves us into places within ourselves that we have not been able to access previously. We can then touch each thought, each wound, each perspective, each emotion gently and lovingly. We can observe all of these things and see how they move and act within us, and then we can move into a place of healing and loving growth within ourselves.
Over and over again, in the blogs I have read the past few days the writers have been searching for a way to be more loving in the world. Over and over again, the writers of these blogs have discovered that they can not love all those around them the way they would like until they learn to love and accept themselves. In many spiritual traditions we are reminded of this lesson. "Love your neighbor as yourself", the Golden Rule, Buddhist teachings, Hindu teachings how many times have we heard these reminders, agreed with them and never thought more about how we actually love ourselves?
I've spent much of my life trying to get my ego out of the way so I can be more loving, but I never thought to love my ego exactly as it is, to understand it, to allow for it to exist. I just pushed everything away that I thought was unworthy to be a part of me, without understanding that it already was. This is a path to pain. The parts of ourselves (which I talked about in the Dark, Crazy, Strange and Unwanted blog post) more than anything need our love. They need to be heard, understood, observed, accepted and loved, only then can we heal those parts of ourselves and allow them to transform into something beautiful and valued within us.
This is what I am working on now. I find it difficult because although there are things I can read, meditations I can do, reminders I can give myself, there's no actual task that is going to bring me to self-love and acceptance. I just have to relax into it and relax into the loving arms of the Universe. Acceptance is not a task that can be checked off on a to-do list; acceptance is a sinking into love, a sitting back and observing without judgment, without criticism, it is something of a passive act that creates the space for love and wonder to come in.
I realize I write a lot about self-love and all I can say is that it is something I keep working on, I haven't got it yet and I think it's one of the most important things we can do for ourselves. I think that a lot of people think that they love themselves, but don't acknowledge all the ways in which they withhold love. Since this is on my mind, I'm sharing this process, hoping to reinforce what I already know, hoping to deepen in the understanding that I have and hoping that in continuing to talk about this and acknowledge this process it will stay in the light and not become hidden in the shadow.
As I write this, I am filled with wonder for the marvelous opportunities that we have to observe and participate in love and growth. I am grateful for the experiences I perceive as challenges and those that I perceive as blessings. I am reminded that for me, the Universe is a place of love even though the world can sometimes seem to be a place of pain, and I am grateful for my pain which keeps me awake to the process of living and becoming. I also feel sadness for the places in me that are still unloved and not healed, but I know that I will get to them in time. As much as I would like to snap my fingers and be instantly filled with self-love, it is a journey, a process that will probably never be completed. I will hear that inner critic all my life, but I know that in learning to love myself I will hear what my inner critic says in a different way and I will allow it touch and inform my soul differently. The inner critic doesn't need to be shut down, it needs to be understood and heard and I can learn to do that with love.
Friday, June 22, 2012
You Can Do it Afraid
I remember the first time in my adult life that my mother said those words to me, "You can do it afraid." I'm sure she said them to me a lot in my childhood because I remember that fear was not considered a reason not to do something, for the kids at least. But as an adult she said it to me when I had to start walking without crutches after a very bad kneecap dislocation. I was terrified, afraid it would hurt again, afraid I would dislocate it again, and that would hurt very badly, afraid that permanent damage had been done and I would never walk right again. It didn't matter, in the middle of a busy parking lot she grabbed my crutches from me and made me walk to my car and I did it. I did it afraid.
There have been many times in my life when fear has stopped me from doing something I really wanted to do or knew I needed to do. Fear seems to be a colossal obstacle to overcome. It looms large in our consciousness, it whispers poisonous thoughts into our head, "What if you fail? What if you get hurt? You'll never overcome that and everyone will know..." But something I've learned over the years, whenever I've had to face something that generated fear inside of me, is that I am bigger than the fear.
Looked at logically, if the fear resides inside of me, then by definition I am bigger than it because something that is inside of me must be smaller than me to fit in that inner space. From a neurological standpoint fear is a combination of chemical and physiological reactions generated by various parts of my brain and I'm bigger than that too. Yes, it's true, the fear response in me is triggered by past experiences when I have been hurt before or when I have failed before, but they don't necessarily apply to the present situation.
Currently, in my life, I am preparing to go back to graduate school and get my Master's degree in Social Work. It is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream to be able to have a career in which I get to be of service to people and my community. As I was talking with a friend the other day, after my internship interview, it occurred to me that some of the pieces of my life I have dreamed about for many years are coming together. My first response, fear. I have chosen an educational path that will have a very specific outcome. No longer will I be relegated to clerical jobs that have little meaning for me and very little importance in the company I work for. I will be changing lives, the decisions I make could have very serious outcomes for the families I work with, and I will no longer be able to justify not giving my all by saying to myself, "It doesn't matter, I'm just a secretary." But this is what I want, this is what I have worked for and although I have fear over the journey I am about to take and the outcomes that lie in my future, I can do it afraid.
The other piece of my fear comes from the understanding that if I want to make drastic and positive change in my life, I can do it. It's easy to sit and dream about doing something and then let the fear stop you, to give in to those treasonous messages in your brain that tell you you can't do it. Then I get to see myself as weak and ineffective and I never actually have to do anything, it's an easy way to keep my life safe and small. But I'm better than that, and eventually the little voice that has been playing counterpoint to my fear the whole time gets louder and louder and I begin to hear, "Of course you can do this. Just try and maybe you will surprise yourself. You are capable, intelligent and strong. You have overcome fear far worse than this." and then a quiet little harmony comes in and I hear my mother's voice saying, "You can do it afraid." and I know I have no more excuses.
Over and over again we hear the messages that we are ineffective and powerless, but there are also messages out there that we are more powerful than we can ever imagine. It's simply a matter of which messages we pay attention to, which window we choose to view the landscape of our lives, that determines what we are going to believe about ourselves and our abilities. If there is something that calls to us over and over again but we are too afraid to do it we will never see the capacity we have to be effective in our lives and, ultimately, in the world. We can accomplish our dreams, we can achieve success, we can have healthy and loving relationships, but we have to get past the fear.
I'm not saying it's easy, it's not. It would be much easier to stay in my safe little world and never venture out, but I wouldn't be happy or fulfilled. It certainly won't get me what I really want, health, financial stability and the relationship I am working to create. If I want to create the life I dream of, I have to face my fear, I have to find the courage that waits inside of me, I have to do it afraid, and I HAVE to do it because deep down, in the most honest place inside of me, I know I can and to not do it is to betray the person I have come to know that I am.
So what is it that keeps you from doing the things you know will bring you happiness? What are the insidious voices that feed your fear? Listen to them and understand them and know that you are bigger than them. No matter what shape your fear takes, that keeps you from taking the steps to a happier life, know that you are bigger than the fear inside of you. And even though that won't make the fear go away, it's okay, because you can do it afraid.
There have been many times in my life when fear has stopped me from doing something I really wanted to do or knew I needed to do. Fear seems to be a colossal obstacle to overcome. It looms large in our consciousness, it whispers poisonous thoughts into our head, "What if you fail? What if you get hurt? You'll never overcome that and everyone will know..." But something I've learned over the years, whenever I've had to face something that generated fear inside of me, is that I am bigger than the fear.
Looked at logically, if the fear resides inside of me, then by definition I am bigger than it because something that is inside of me must be smaller than me to fit in that inner space. From a neurological standpoint fear is a combination of chemical and physiological reactions generated by various parts of my brain and I'm bigger than that too. Yes, it's true, the fear response in me is triggered by past experiences when I have been hurt before or when I have failed before, but they don't necessarily apply to the present situation.
Currently, in my life, I am preparing to go back to graduate school and get my Master's degree in Social Work. It is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream to be able to have a career in which I get to be of service to people and my community. As I was talking with a friend the other day, after my internship interview, it occurred to me that some of the pieces of my life I have dreamed about for many years are coming together. My first response, fear. I have chosen an educational path that will have a very specific outcome. No longer will I be relegated to clerical jobs that have little meaning for me and very little importance in the company I work for. I will be changing lives, the decisions I make could have very serious outcomes for the families I work with, and I will no longer be able to justify not giving my all by saying to myself, "It doesn't matter, I'm just a secretary." But this is what I want, this is what I have worked for and although I have fear over the journey I am about to take and the outcomes that lie in my future, I can do it afraid.
The other piece of my fear comes from the understanding that if I want to make drastic and positive change in my life, I can do it. It's easy to sit and dream about doing something and then let the fear stop you, to give in to those treasonous messages in your brain that tell you you can't do it. Then I get to see myself as weak and ineffective and I never actually have to do anything, it's an easy way to keep my life safe and small. But I'm better than that, and eventually the little voice that has been playing counterpoint to my fear the whole time gets louder and louder and I begin to hear, "Of course you can do this. Just try and maybe you will surprise yourself. You are capable, intelligent and strong. You have overcome fear far worse than this." and then a quiet little harmony comes in and I hear my mother's voice saying, "You can do it afraid." and I know I have no more excuses.
Over and over again we hear the messages that we are ineffective and powerless, but there are also messages out there that we are more powerful than we can ever imagine. It's simply a matter of which messages we pay attention to, which window we choose to view the landscape of our lives, that determines what we are going to believe about ourselves and our abilities. If there is something that calls to us over and over again but we are too afraid to do it we will never see the capacity we have to be effective in our lives and, ultimately, in the world. We can accomplish our dreams, we can achieve success, we can have healthy and loving relationships, but we have to get past the fear.
I'm not saying it's easy, it's not. It would be much easier to stay in my safe little world and never venture out, but I wouldn't be happy or fulfilled. It certainly won't get me what I really want, health, financial stability and the relationship I am working to create. If I want to create the life I dream of, I have to face my fear, I have to find the courage that waits inside of me, I have to do it afraid, and I HAVE to do it because deep down, in the most honest place inside of me, I know I can and to not do it is to betray the person I have come to know that I am.
So what is it that keeps you from doing the things you know will bring you happiness? What are the insidious voices that feed your fear? Listen to them and understand them and know that you are bigger than them. No matter what shape your fear takes, that keeps you from taking the steps to a happier life, know that you are bigger than the fear inside of you. And even though that won't make the fear go away, it's okay, because you can do it afraid.
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Forgiveness
I just recently read a wonderful newsletter about forgiveness, by Robert and Diane Masters. Forgiveness has been a powerful topic for me in the last year, it was a word I worked with intentionally and consciously. Having worked with rape victims and experiencing abuse in my own life, I know how difficult forgiveness can be, but I also know how important it is.
Forgiveness is directly related to love; eventually love for the other person, but ultimately love for ourselves. It is also a two-sided coin as we don't just have to forgive the people who have hurt us, but we also need to forgive ourselves for putting ourselves in situations where we were hurt. That doesn't mean we deserved what happened to us, or even that it was our fault, but we do have to take responsibility for the actions we took that put us in the position to be hurt in the first place.
It's easy for me to look back on my past relationships and feel angry, hurt, and justified in holding on to those feelings, but the truth is I am hurt more by holding on to those feelings because I am blocked from the self-love and Universal love that is always there for me. If I can't forgive those who have hurt me, I cannot forgive myself for allowing myself to be hurt and therefore I cannot move into a place of self-love that the hurt parts of my psyche so desperately need.
My dear boyfriend once said, and I'm paraphrasing here, that all people, even those who hurt others, are trying to achieve grace. There are those who have better tools than others to seek grace, but it's really what we all want. When people are hurtful, abusive, violent it really speaks to their inner pain and their inability to find that grace within themselves; that alone is a reason for compassion. How horrible it is to crave that divine love, the beauty and peace of grace, and never feel as though you can achieve it.
The people who have hurt me in my life are all people who are in deep pain and probably always will be. They caused me pain out of their own deep pain, not because they are evil. As someone who strives to bring love and healing to others, I cannot ignore the cries of pain that their actions belie. My own heart hurts at those expressions of pain and because of that, I can forgive.
I don't have to hold on to my pain and anger as a way to continually punish them (and ultimately myself), their lives are punishment enough. Instead I can forgive them and even love them in a certain way, knowing that they are doing the best they can with a very poor and unsuitable tool kit with which to do better. Has it been easy? Certainly not! In my weaker moments, when I am tired, stressed, overwhelmed or just a bit down, those feelings of anger and hurt can easily come creeping back in. But then I remember who I am and who we all are, that we are all beings on a journey trying to reach grace. In my worst moments, my own inability to achieve grace hurts. I understand that pain and then, I can understand their pain.
Forgiveness is one of the many paths to love, for ourselves and to others. It provides a deep healing that doesn't excuse the pain others have caused us, but allows us to see it in a different light. When we can forgive we move from a place of victimization, a place stuck in the past, into the glorious present, where hopefully, we are not being hurt anymore.
I will never be able to change the fact that I have been hurt, but I don't have to live there anymore, because that is no longer my life. In my journey to heal I have come to a place where I am loved and cared for by many people, and although I still have contact with a couple of people who have hurt me in the past, I am no longer hurt by them anymore, because their path to causing me pain has been paved over by the love and forgiveness I have worked for. Do they still annoy me sometimes? Yes, but that is more about my expectations that they be different than anything they do.
The power to not be hurt by others ultimately lies in our hands. When we are taken by surprise, or have specific expectations of another's behavior we can be hurt; I can still be hurt. But what I am no longer is a victim, because now I have the tools to understand where that hurt comes from within me. The focus is no longer on those who hurt, but how I am vulnerable within myself to be hurt. That's actually an empowering perspective. When I understand the source of that within me, I then have the power to transform that hurt into deeper understanding and strength, which ultimately leads me to forgiveness and love.
Forgiveness is difficult, but it is also vital to our well-being and our own growth. It takes time and a lot of work, but the love and grace we receive and then can give, through forgiveness, is worth every effort we can make. Love yourself enough to forgive and eventually you will find enough love to embrace the world.
Forgiveness is directly related to love; eventually love for the other person, but ultimately love for ourselves. It is also a two-sided coin as we don't just have to forgive the people who have hurt us, but we also need to forgive ourselves for putting ourselves in situations where we were hurt. That doesn't mean we deserved what happened to us, or even that it was our fault, but we do have to take responsibility for the actions we took that put us in the position to be hurt in the first place.
It's easy for me to look back on my past relationships and feel angry, hurt, and justified in holding on to those feelings, but the truth is I am hurt more by holding on to those feelings because I am blocked from the self-love and Universal love that is always there for me. If I can't forgive those who have hurt me, I cannot forgive myself for allowing myself to be hurt and therefore I cannot move into a place of self-love that the hurt parts of my psyche so desperately need.
My dear boyfriend once said, and I'm paraphrasing here, that all people, even those who hurt others, are trying to achieve grace. There are those who have better tools than others to seek grace, but it's really what we all want. When people are hurtful, abusive, violent it really speaks to their inner pain and their inability to find that grace within themselves; that alone is a reason for compassion. How horrible it is to crave that divine love, the beauty and peace of grace, and never feel as though you can achieve it.
The people who have hurt me in my life are all people who are in deep pain and probably always will be. They caused me pain out of their own deep pain, not because they are evil. As someone who strives to bring love and healing to others, I cannot ignore the cries of pain that their actions belie. My own heart hurts at those expressions of pain and because of that, I can forgive.
I don't have to hold on to my pain and anger as a way to continually punish them (and ultimately myself), their lives are punishment enough. Instead I can forgive them and even love them in a certain way, knowing that they are doing the best they can with a very poor and unsuitable tool kit with which to do better. Has it been easy? Certainly not! In my weaker moments, when I am tired, stressed, overwhelmed or just a bit down, those feelings of anger and hurt can easily come creeping back in. But then I remember who I am and who we all are, that we are all beings on a journey trying to reach grace. In my worst moments, my own inability to achieve grace hurts. I understand that pain and then, I can understand their pain.
Forgiveness is one of the many paths to love, for ourselves and to others. It provides a deep healing that doesn't excuse the pain others have caused us, but allows us to see it in a different light. When we can forgive we move from a place of victimization, a place stuck in the past, into the glorious present, where hopefully, we are not being hurt anymore.
I will never be able to change the fact that I have been hurt, but I don't have to live there anymore, because that is no longer my life. In my journey to heal I have come to a place where I am loved and cared for by many people, and although I still have contact with a couple of people who have hurt me in the past, I am no longer hurt by them anymore, because their path to causing me pain has been paved over by the love and forgiveness I have worked for. Do they still annoy me sometimes? Yes, but that is more about my expectations that they be different than anything they do.
The power to not be hurt by others ultimately lies in our hands. When we are taken by surprise, or have specific expectations of another's behavior we can be hurt; I can still be hurt. But what I am no longer is a victim, because now I have the tools to understand where that hurt comes from within me. The focus is no longer on those who hurt, but how I am vulnerable within myself to be hurt. That's actually an empowering perspective. When I understand the source of that within me, I then have the power to transform that hurt into deeper understanding and strength, which ultimately leads me to forgiveness and love.
Forgiveness is difficult, but it is also vital to our well-being and our own growth. It takes time and a lot of work, but the love and grace we receive and then can give, through forgiveness, is worth every effort we can make. Love yourself enough to forgive and eventually you will find enough love to embrace the world.
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