Am I Living My Own Truth?

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This post is a continuation of this post "Seeking and Living our own "truth" that stemmed from this quote:

"Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it." ~ Andre Gide

In learning to recognize when and if I am living my own truth or if I am trying to live up to the truth of another, there are many indicators that I’ve learned to pay attention to. Today I wanted to share a few of them here….

Sharing: in living my own truth, I am free to share the parts of my life that I choose to share; my experiences are respected as my own, my feelings about my experiences are validated, I feel heard and safe.

In relationships that are based on the truth of another, it feels more like I have been questioned or am undergoing an interrogation. If I attempt to not be fully disclosing about something in my life I may be demeaned or criticized as though it is a personal affront or somehow inappropriate to have this personal boundary.

Relationships supportive of my seeking my own truth are supportive and respectful of my thoughts, feelings and choices without asking for or expecting justification.

In relationships where I may be following someone else’s truth I may feel as though I am supposed to explain my thoughts, feelings and experiences in order to make them valid or that someone else is giving them value for them to even have any value or be legitimate.

Creating change: Relationships that support me in seeking my own truth support and accept the natural changes that occur in me and my life as I grow.

When I've found myself trying to conform to or live the truth of another I've consistantly found that these relationships often discourage my growth and often send me “change back” messages that discourage change.

This can become confusing because sometimes these relationships would profess support for the positive changes in my life and choices I was making but then they would remind me that I was really incapable of doing life on my own terms by cautioning me and reminding me of my previous attempts to fly on my own and how I had failed before.

Obligation: When I am seeking my own truth my relationships support me as capable of asking for what I need whereas in the truth of another I was often told what I needed.

If I didn’t agree or adopt this truth of another I might experience some sort of criticism intended to shape my chosen truth to compliance. Guilting or shaming is often used to shape resistance into compliance.

I often felt obligated to accept the "help" that was offered, even though it was not the help or support I had asked for and that would have made the biggest difference in my own quest for my own truth.

I was often reminded that I was incapable of deciding for myself what it was that I needed or wanted; that someone else knew better and was acting in my "best interest". Sometimes this was blatent, other times more subtle; but the message was always "if you did what I told you to do this problem would go away".

In summary – when I was living the truth of another, I felt incapable and often insignificant.

I doubted my own ability to seek, discover and live my own truth because I was so invested in living up to the expectations of the truth of another. I felt powerless and ultimately hopeless that I even had my own “truth” let alone that it was ok for me to want it and seek it out.

The best way I have found to determine today if I am living my own truth vs being invested in living the truth of another?

I learned to trust that deep knowing and understanding that I truly am my own best resource; that I don't need anyone or anything to give me or my life value.

I understand the difference between seeking feedback and seeking permission.

I let go of the idea that I was somehow not "good enough" and that I am somehow broken by rejecting those thoughts and choosing thoughts that supported the idea that I am capable.

I focus on the idea and thoughts that each day I have done my best and tomorrow is another opportunity to continue to learn, grow and change as I continue to seek the knowledge that will offer me the wisdom that I truly am capable of creating and living my own best life, my own “truth”.

I remind myself daily that I am - and that is the only justification that I need.

I over-ride the old messages and shame from the past and tell myself consistently that..

my best IS good enough... and that "I am"

and that is enough.

I'd like to invite you to register for the free email notification on the top left of this page so you don't miss out on the next post in this series "To Thine Own Self Be True" and what a possible solution is if you think you may be living the truth of another.

Q: Are you living your own truth today?

Life Lessons and Zebra's

Zebra Long Wing Butterfly

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Life Lessons from a Butterfly

let go of the past
trust the future
embrace change
come out of your cocoon
unfurl your wings
dare to get off the ground
ride the breezes
savor all the flowers
put on your brightest colors
let your beauty show

— Author Unknown

Over at Zebra Sounds Judy got me thinking about the life lessons that we learn from our life experiences.

You see - in the past I had believed the lie that I was the cause of all things bad in my life...so it was pretty impossible for me to see my life experiences from a positive perspective of life lessons.

So today I wanted to throw out there the idea that when we can begin to see ourselves as separate from others and life circumstances we become free to be that "student who is ready"...

Here are a few life lessons I've been picking up on lately....

1. When I stop trying to figure it out I usually figure it out:)

2. Insomnia is usually caused by #1

3. Eyes really are the window to the soul

4. Every behavior is an expression of an emotion; every emotion is the expression of a thought

5. I don’t have to know it all or do it all when I simply do my best

6. Multitasking is the cause of insanity:)

Q: What are some life lessons you've had lately?

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12 Things to support you in your journey - Part 3 ((conclusion))

Photo by Sergey Chuprin on Unsplash

Today we'll tie up this series...for those of you who are just joining us, you can read up on Part 1 here and Part 2 here of "12 Things....".

Today - the conclusion of my first "list series " 12 Things to Support you in your Journey"...and again -please forgive the formatting:)...

1. 9. Separating myself from “diagnosis”. I’ve written quite a bit on this but wanted to mention it because this was vital for me to begin to see myself as a “person” who had some “issues” and that I could “learn” how to affect change in my life. “Diagnosis” is static, unmoving. “Issues” can be dealt with. Here's a link to my posts that contain "diagnosis" or you can search for yourself at the top left corner to see what else you can find.
2. 10. Recognize this is a process, not a destination. This is a process of "self discovery", not another avenue that affords a promised "fix" or "recovery" that requires constant monitoring and focus on avoiding triggers and managing compulsions. Be committed and trust the process and you will be amazed at the payoff. Think “learning opportunity” vs. failure.
3. 11. Commit to being a lifelong learner. I had to let go of the idea of being "fixed" as in "broken" and begin to see myself as a living, breathing organism that is constantly growing, repairing, changing to adapt to my environment - and with the gift of intelligence that could take me anywhere I could imagine... if I would just "imagine". There is no more viewing myself as broken, defective or "ill". I no longer think “oh, after I read this book I’ll be “fixed” and “done”. Nope. I had to commit to being just as committed about learning to live in “wellness” as I was about learning to live as whatever the “diagnosis du jour” was.
4. 12. Giving up is no longer an option. My mantra became “Giving up is no longer an option; there is ALWAYS a solution". "Acting out" and "acting in" had to at some point become inaccessible as a solution and once I understood the purpose those behaviors served I was better equipped to begin to entertain the idea that I could - here's that "magic" word again - LEARN new ways of dealing with life's issues other than falling apart or sinking into depression (or dissociation) that consumed me. Over time, one by one, I learned to recognize my “avoidant” behaviors and identify new ways of managing my thoughts, emotions, behaviors - and identifying the faulty beliefs I held in order to cultivate a new belief system...A belief system based on the idea that I truly held the power to create this new life for myself and this is where the hope began to take shape when I took the action to live the life I chose for myself based on "wellness".

**

Thanks for joining me here this past week as I offered my very first "list" post of some of the "how to's" behind my own personal journey from "there"....to "here" where I learned to create the life I wanted - in spite of the past I'd had.

IfIyou found value in this post or series - please forward the links to others who may be interested to follow along as we travel this path together discovering the wonderful world of living that self empowered life and creating our best life each day...

12 Things to support you in your journey - Part 2

"Confidence"

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Welcome to Part 2 of "12 things"...and of course - Blogger and I have not figured out what the issue is with the formatting....:) *sigh* :)

You can catch Part 1 of "12 things" here....

1. 5. Know and use your resources. This was where I started branching out and developing relationships and resources outside of those I'd become dependent on, where I could learn to "walk" before I tried to "run" independently of the "therapeutic" relationships I had come to rely on in my journey through (and out of:)) the current model of the mental health system.
2. 6. Compartmentalize your life. One skill that I was lacking in the beginning was the ability to compartmentalize my life and relationships. Everyone knew everything about me – because I wanted everyone’s opinion about what I should do next; I lacked "confidence" and had a desperate need for external direction and validation. This one goes along with #4 – I first learned how to and then started dealing with my own issues and not looking to others to “make me feel better” and instead learned to develop intimate relationships where I would practice being vulnerable and trusting others who would validate my experiences rather than trying to “fix” me or my life and recognizing the difference layers of relationships from “acquaintance” to “intimate”.
3. 7. Boundaries. Huge issue. Huge. This one will take some time to delve into – but a good place to start is paying attention to “whats mine” and “whats yours”. A quick look at what boundaries are and are not. Personal boundaries have nothing to do with influencing what others do...and everything about what I will allow into my world or share of myself with the world. One of my biggest frustrations in trying to learn how to establish and enforce personal boundaries was when they were discussed in the context of "what you will allow others to do". I found it more helpful to define boundaries as "what I will choose to reveal about myself" and "what I will allow in to my world, my personal space". This empowered me to let go of thinking I had to try to control what others did and said - and allowed me to learn to say "this is ok or not ok" and choose if I would continue this relationship or if the behaviors of another had become "intolerable". If this is a problem for you you might want to look at my post "I didn't know that I didn't know (I had been abused). Awareness is the place to start with this one and takes us to…
4. 8. Awareness. Learning to pay attention to my own thoughts, emotions and physical body - and dig down to the beliefs that fueled the entire symphony of "me". Another biggie that is way more deserving of a massive amount of space. Also – something to begin to be “aware” of:) You can listen to the Blog Talk Radio program from Heal My PTSd about "awareness" as an empowering solution here.

Thanks for reading along this week...this series will finish up this coming Monday as we look at the final 4 points in my list of suggestions to support and empower you in your own personal journey...

And if you haven't already...I'd like to invite you to register for email or RSS feed to be notified when there is new content published.

Q: Which of the tips today did you find most helpful?

"Ordinary Magic" - Meet Judy at "Zebra Sounds" :)

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"Do not tell people how to live their lives. Just tell them stories. And they will figure out how those stories apply to them." ~ Randy Pausch 1960-2008

I've recently stumbled across this blog "Zebra Sounds"...and yes, I am fascinated by the fact that it also has "Zebra" in it's name:)

But mostly I'm fascinated because the author tells such wonderful stories that are wrapped in the simple, beautiful truths of life without sounding the least bit preachy or leaving me feeling as though I sat through yet another lecture on the tenants of life.

Here is a link to a post that held my attention - and spoke gentle volumes about taking that leap...anyway.

And the sense of wonderment and accomplishment that comes with doing so.

I hope you'll drop by for a read and let her know that you came via that "other Zebra blog" :-)

Ordinary Magic.

Tree Of Knowledge

Photo credit here

"Life became my teacher, mistakes, slips and "bad days" my textbooks, the world my classroom."

Getting A Life, Finding Your Hope: Mental "Wellness"

What is it that you want your life to look like?

Let's play a game...you know, gettin' silly wi it for awhile. :) (are ya feelin' the Will Smith thing I've got goin' on?! :)

We've spent a whole month looking at and reading lots of stuff about "mental health", "mental illness". After all - May is "Mental Health Awareness Month" you know. :)

Let's change that.

Let's take a look at finding "Mental Wellness" and lose the conversation about all the other stuff for a minute. Let's just focus on finding "wellness", what say?

So lets toss down the the 'tude...peel back the protective shell, shake off the stress, blow out the anger...

and imagine............

Life is good. I can close my eyes and in my minds eye as I turn my face upward toward the sky, I'm outside in the warm spring air, standing at the top of a green knoll. I feel the warm breeze brushing gently across my skin. My cheeks are warmed by the sun, I feel my hair being tousled by the wind. My arms want to reach up to the sky and I stretch, stretch....further. My toes wrap around the the grass that is so green I can smell it's clean, fresh scent...

And I am good. I'm at peace, I feel joy that wells up within my being and feels as though it might burst from my chest. In my minds eye I'm running, free, childlike and happy; thrilled at this simple moment that is my entire life.

I'm embracing my "now", living my life...

Instead of wishing I could "get a life" as I did for such a long, long time.

This is the dream that kept me going over those years where I was lost in that dark place. This dream was buried beneath a lot of stuff, issues, pain.

But as I reached deep within myself and began to peel back the layers, one by one, I was able to grieve the losses, the hurt, the pain. To let go of the rage at the injustice of what I had survived - without justice no less. To release and no longer relive the life experiences that made me who I had been - a person doing the best I could with what I had to offer the world....

And I heard someone tell me that the only way out, was through...

That I could learn to do better, be better...

Be whole.

There were no short cuts, no doctor, pill or therapist that could magically make me "better", stop the panic, the nightmares, the flashbacks that I would shut out by dissociation as the drugs and alcohol had lost its luster long ago.

Depression, dysthymia, mania, psychosis, paranoia, racing thoughts, isolation, rocky and abusive relationships - this was the life I'd been living and told was my "lot" in life. There was no way to fix whatever was "disordered" in my life or to turn it around and make me - my life - ordered.

I heard for the first time that I had the power to learn to change these things that had made my life the hell I had survived all these years in that mind numbing state that I called the "land of the living dead".

And I was pissed.

Pissed off at the world, that I'd never even been close to creating the fantasy life I'd lived in my head all those years. At the providers I'd gone to for "help" and who told me that there was no solution, no "cure", that this was to be my life forever - that I needed their help, their "treatments" to survive, but that I would never thrive or grow beyond what I was.

Broken.

And I took that anger and directed it, with purpose, into becoming my own best resource. I drew my own map, discovered my own learning process and set off on the most amazing journey of my life. I did this with purpose and intent; with awareness and finding the insight that would set me free...

And found my way here.

To the life that I choose...every day.

Q: What is your dream? What do you want your life to look like? Close your eyes for a moment and reach back to that place that you loved - or create a new one if you lost or haven't had your own dream before. What does it look like? What do you feel? Freedom? The sound of the ocean? The heat of the desert?

Where do you find your hope?

Where do you find your own empowering solutions?

Choosing to Trust Life

let life unfold naturally...

The first time I heard this I had absolutely no idea what it meant.

"Let life unfold naturally"...yeah, right.

But as I committed myself to this new path of a life of insight and awareness - living life consciously - it began to make sense.

I began to notice just how much I had to control things - people and circumstances - in order to feel safe and validated.

I started noticing how often I tried to influence others lives and choices.

I became more aware of how easily I could become irritable when someone or something interfered with a carefully laid out plan that didn't go exactly the way I intended.

So, with gentle awareness of the many ways I was attempting to influence and orchestrate people and circumstances, I was able to begin to let go a little here...

and a little there...

And I also became aware of and was pleasantly surprised at how much less stressed I felt when I was able to relinquish control of situations and circumstances that were not mine to influence to begin with.

I realized...that I was learning to trust life, trust myself and to "let life unfold naturally".

That Long Road Home...

Is travelled by putting one foot in front of another.

I have been really enjoying fiddling with the photo's I took the other day! You probably noticed that I put one of them in the masthead here...although I haven't quite figured out how to do the sizing and placing of it, I kind of like having it there. If you have an opinion it or suggestion on sizing/placement to get it to fit across the frame... I'd sure like to hear it in the comments below...:)

I snapped this photo the other day at the railroad crossing near my apartment. I thought it was an interesting shot. After some brief (like a few seconds) of editing in my iphoto software I realized that this is such a good portrayal of this journey of self discovery and healing from trauma's past.

I don't know about you, but there were and have been plenty of times that I thought I should be done with this already...yet in hindsight, I can't believe just how far I have come in such a short amount of time.

And it all began with putting one foot in front of the other.

Whoops! I did it again! Using Creativity...

Whoops! I did it again!

Well - sort of!

Finding creativity after a lifetime of "stuffing" anything about me that expressed my individuality or and sense of “self” has not been the easiest part of this journey (you can see my bio here). But - I have taken some steps to do that through a variety of mediums throughout my journey.

One of the first that I posted online was my storyboard. There are 5 collage cards and the interesting thing is that when I set out to do this activity, I had no plan in mind. Yet - when it was finished, I realized that I had told my story in this series. The first I titled "Disconnected".

The second in this series portrays how I felt in the midst of the worst of this part of my journey. "A Shadow" of who I might have been - but in hindsight...I see that also was only a shadow of all that I could - and will - become.

"Fragmented" is an expression of how I felt I had no defined sense of self; no "me" to speak of. This is during the time when I made the choice to take my journey into my own hands as I stepped to the top of the mountain, my arms open to what may come, trusting the process as I stepped off the edge. I was ready to do the "hard work"...the emotionally wrenching grieving of a life I would never know. Little did I know that this healing process would take me to the life I never knew that I could have.

Grieving...what was...and wasn't is the process that I have followed to find my way out of the legacy of hopeless and helplessness that comes so often with trauma of any kind. It was a time of finding the "how" behind learning to "let go" of all that I could not change in my past or control in my future. It was where I began to find the peace that passed all of my understanding. The joy of living that comes with living in the truth that set me free.

"I Am Free" exhibits the freedom I have found as I have followed this simple although not easy process to claim my right to exist, to breath, to stand tall. And it all began because I believed that I would "find something to stand on...or learn how to fly" ...I am now in flight:).

My post, "Was it worth it?" is where I posted one of my first "self portraits" as I began to use charcoal drawing to begin to learn how to express what I was feeling. I drew this portrait near the beginning of a new leg of my journey as I entered that place of willingness to step out of my shame and begin to claim my world, my life...as my own. This was that place within the process of my storyboard where I learned that it was safe...and I learned how to grieve the past and embrace rather than avoid the pain as my path to freedom from the darkness. This is what the "hard work" looked like for me...Today I cried...and was set free. This drawing is now in a frame on my wall where I am reminded each day of that sacred place where I found - and took - my freedom.

"Haiku" is my journey into poetry. This poem is the simplest and most beautiful description of the healing path that I have followed. Tears...wash the soul free.


I Believed is my version of the wonderful Patrick Overton poem that inspired me to keep moving forward when I thought I could not take one more step or endure one more moment of pain.


I have also done some writing of fiction based on my experiences as well as I have some non fiction things on the stove that are not quite ready to be served just yet:) And today...I wanted to post/share what I did yesterday with my iphone camara and the photo editing software on my mac. Nothing fancy schmancy - but it just goes to show that we all have some sort of creativity within us and it doesn’t have to be museum quality to qualify as “expressive”.

And, for me anyway, my creative expressions will typically connect me to whatever it is that I am focused on at the moment; whether I am consciously aware of it – or not. I can use my creative forms of expression to identify how I am feeling when I do not understand why I am being sullen, sad, irritable or even ecstatically happy. I can use my creative work to indicate and learn to identify an emotion or resolve a triggered situation that I cannot yet name.

So - yes; I guess I "did it again" as the story goes:) I used photo's to live in my now and build a bridge from my past pain to my present awareness and acceptance. 


What's the story behind these pics?

I have my story but you may have one too; what do you see when you look at these photos? What story from your own journey comes to your mind?

This is where your beginning may be. This is the story you might find a way to express today that will be your catalyst to finding your own freedom and creating your own new story.

And while we might hope and wish that doing this once or even twice might be the “end”…oftentimes each story takes us to the next and the next.

So how do I know I am done – or at least making some progress?

When my expression became less of pain and more of joy and peace and acceptance of what is instead of rumination over what never was or what “could” have been. When I could begin to sit with mine or another’s anguish instead of trying to “fix” things that are not broken but need only to be experienced and expressed. When my energy became my own, when I could claim my life power and create with intention my best day each day, even when it’s raining or storming around me. When I could think of the past…yet stay in the present.

It will be the truth that sets you free.

visit my photo album on facebook here...