Sometimes...

 Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!

Sometimes even the best intentions backfire.

Sometimes they blow up in your face.

Sometimes what is in our heart doesn't always come out of our mouth in such a way to convey our true feelings or intentions.

Sometimes we give meaning to things based on our own internal messages rather than the message that is being conveyed.

Sometimes even in the truest of intentions...

Others get hurt.

Offended.

Irritated.

And sometimes no amount of trying to "work it out"...

can work it out.

Sometimes

it works out best

to just let go.

This...

can be one of the hardest things to do

yet can be one of the best things to do

and often is the seed that will allow us to grow.

In the beginning of my journey I looked to the world and those in it to adjust and "make" me feel ok. 


I tried to "work things out", often taking responsibility for how others were feeling and the choices they made. 


I had a sense of responsibility to make others ok and that others would make me feel ok.


And recently I've had a couple of situations where I got to learn this lesson again....


that its not about what others do, think or say that makes me feel "ok'...


but its about me learning and knowing how to be ok...


when others aren't. 

I Became the Student...


Photo Credit

Ambivalence As A Survival Skill

I like looking for solutions.

But - part of looking for a solution - means that a problem has to be identified.

This past week over at Emerging From Broken Christina Enevoldsen, founder of popular website and private forum, Overcoming Sexual Abuse, shared part of her journey at our mutual friend Darlene Ouimets blog, Emerging From Broken, and how she learned to identify the dysfunctional family relationships that had shaped both her sense of self and the way she viewed and interacted with the world. 

There's tons of great information in this post (and any other of her posts at her website) but one thing I wanted to point out is how she identified that push/pull that can be so damaging to our relationships as survivors.

Here's an excerpt on this issue of ambivalence in her relationship with her mother; what it looks like and the purpose it serves:


As long as I saw her as all bad, there was nothing to grieve. 


I’d only seen her goodness when I was a child and I was seeing only her badness now.  

I was terrified that if I allowed myself to see her good side, I’d want a relationship with her and I would be exposed to more rejection.

As a child, it was normal to compartmentalize my relationships this way. It was safe; it kept me from more disappointment and pain. 

And it was normal that this would be how I would view ALL of my relationships: through the lense of expectation that others would cause me pain.

It was normal that my adult relationships looked so much like the ones from my childhood and that conflicting feeling of

I love you so much. (I need you to feel safe, to be ok)

and

I hate you, leave me alone, go away. (Usually with a few choice names thrown in:))


It was NORMAL for me to view the world in 


black


and


white.


Because that is how it was in the dysfunction that I came from. 

I was seen as good or bad based on if I'd done whatever I was expected to do and did it right enough or good enough, based on the ever changing rules that were arbitrary at best. And no matter how hard I tried 

it was never 

enough.

I was taught that I was either right enough or good enough based on someone elses determination but for some reason known only to those who modeled this way of engaging with the world as "normal"....I was never

just enough.

Raise a child in the way he should go

and when he is old

he will not depart from it. 

So

the problem was that I was stuck in that dance of seeing my relationships

and myself

through the dark lense of

all bad

or the blinders that let me see it as all good...

aka denial

and nothing in between. 

In this post by Christina over at Emerging From Broken she takes us into the process of how she was able to reconstruct her view from black and white to that place where she was able to see her past, her relationships and her life 

in living color.

~

zebras

polka dots

and plaids:)

You may also like....

The Relationships That Shaped My Life...and What I Learned From Them


Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!

Photo Credit

Back to basics when life gets messy

Aaarrgg. Piles of mail, newspapers, junk mail. Files, projects, work, phone calls. Accounting - ugh!

I don't know about you - but this journey can get messy sometimes. In more ways than one.

Often I've noticed over the years how my life and environment seem to somehow be magically connected. When my mind is racing, I'm not sleeping and I"m fighting triggers, depression and all the other nasties that come along with mental health issues - it is often reflected in my environment.

I've also noticed that during these times I had struggled more with relationships that weren't working, I felt angry at others and didn't recognize that I had fallen back into the old pattern of being passive about my boundaries, my wants, my needs. I was again sacrificing my own peace of mind in order to "keep the peace".

Often, I would find myself expecting others to meet my needs instead of living as that new stronger and self sufficient, self empowered me. I would sulk when I was ignored instead of taking some action to meet my own needs or I would rage as I fought to force someone to fulfill my need to be accepted and my existence validated.

Or the opposite would happen as I would fight back and claim power by attempting to control others as I would try to bully them into being who I needed them to be - at the price of sacrificing my own power and in the process attempting to steal theirs as I fought to control my world by attempting to control others.

But today it's different. Today I can can practice recognizing these thoughts of inadequacy, feelings of shame and efforts to validate my existence through the compliance or approval of others as indicators not as a reminder of how imperfect I am - but as road signs, as a flag waving in the air telling me that this is from the past and I am valid just as I am, with no further qualification.

I just am.

And that is enough.

So I can stop, take a deep breath. And keep my life on track, continue to choose and create my best life every day.

With this awareness of my own self, I no longer have the need to look to the world for validation and can take a step back, be ok, and open the mail, file the bills and know that I am on the right path.

That I am no longer a victim and living a life far beyond "survival" mode.