I Was Looking for Happy....In All the Wrong Places

Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!

I remember being asked...

"So when will you be happy?" by those who seemed to have some secret that I didn't know about. My life was miserable. My relationships were often full of strife, my job was never the right job, my boss never the right boss, my hair, my weight, my car, clothes....

Were never just "enough".

I used to strive to be more, have more, do more. My value, my worth and my happiness were determined by people places and things that I could have, be or do.

The thing was - my focus on doing and having really didn't have much effect on my state of being and being happy.

I was happy for a minute if all worked out the way I thought it should work out.

Likewise if there were any snafu's I was not so happy and often sad or angry but not often truly "happy" but for a minute or two - when all was sparkly shiny and new.

Learning to understand that my state of well being was dependent on things outside of myself motivated me to search for the answers to being happy when the people places and things outside of my physical person didn't dance to my tune the way I thought they should.

I sought and I found that in letting go of the outcomes I usually got the outcome that I wanted.

Learning to let life unfold naturally meant learning to recognize when I was seeking my happiness in all the wrong places....

And that when I stopped looking...under the rocks, at the mall, the car dealership, the mortgage company or the boyfriend, husband, kids...

I found it in myself. :)
~

Happiness is (Not Always) A Choice Read here about how by understanding the source of my pain I was able to finally let go of it :)

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The Issue is not the Issue

Its in the struggle that we find our strength.

"Stress" is an emotional response to external stressors. Understanding this helped me to understand the difference between being able to bounce back from life issues vs breaking under the weight of what I'd carried as a survivor of really bad things. (SRBT:))

Its like my emotional resilience is a rubber band that balances the events called "life". 

If I only have life experiences that allow me to develop minimal emotional resiliency I won't have the ability to bounce back from normal, let alone abnormal, life experiences. 

In essence I have a very thin, weak rubber band instead of a bunch of rubberbands that I'd gathered through many different life experiences that would hold heavier burdens of life.

My thin rubber band will easily bend and bow to the weight of the burden it is holding and in time become frayed or even snap. 

As a survivor of childhood nastiness and parents who did not have their own healthy, strong emotional bunch of rubber bands developed from extended and consistant use of their emotional muscles, they passed to me not only the burden of being responsible for making their emotional stress levels easier to manage but they also modeled this way of managing - ie not managing via avoiding - levels of stress.

In other words - I learned that my survival depended on my ability to do the dance and "make" my adult parents "ok" and that I was safe only when I eased their emotional stress by not allowing myself to experience any of my own emotions in response to my own life stressors and experiences. 

Because -  of course - a child's emotional needs become a stressor to parents who don't understand that emotions are normal and that their child isn't doing anything "to" them.  

My parents modeled "stress management" by the way they engaged with life through avoidance/control coping instead of embracing life experiences and learning from them.

I did did not learn of or that I was capable of developing emotional resilience because my parents modeled emotional avoidance and punished emotional expression.

So as a child, then teen and finally adult - when I felt powerless over my thoughts, feelings and emotions I saw the stressors of life - the people, places, things and circumstances outside of myself as the problem and - avoidance of stressors the solution.

Life was my problem. 

Avoidance in any way, shape or form was the solution.

The downside?

Trying to control how I feel by controlling things outside of my control created a very tight and limited life experience.

I could not tolerate the downside of life but whats more - is I typically could not engage in the positive life experiences or emotions either.

And this became overwhelmingly exhausting - to the point that eventually I completely shut down and wore myself out physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.

I could no longer cope because I had exhausted all of the coping skills I had access to.

My rubberband was stretched to the max and quickly being stretched beyond its limited capacity.

The other downside?

My efforts to avoid things I couldn't control often left me feeling even more powerless.

When I could no longer control people places and things to be "ok"....is when I created ways to avoid this stress through


acting out...

where I attempted to control others by blaming them for causing my distress and demanding that they adjust so I could continue to avoid my feelings of powerlessness or escape by running away from situations that were less than my ideal.

I blamed life circumstances for the state of my miserable life.

I could not see that I held the power to change my circumstances by changing my choices - because I did not know I had any other choices or the power to choose.

And acting in...

where I went when I was overwhelmed with trying to do this dance.

It was when I learned to see these life experiences as life lessons

that I learned that I could grow.

It was in embracing the emotional responses to past stressors that I began to live beyond the pain of the past.

My magical thinking from a childhood that required me to adapt to those who controlled my survival had left me ill prepared to understand the very grown up understanding that 

Life Happens. 

When my focus became learning to be ok in spite of what was going on around me is when my need to act out, lash out, run away or freeze...

simply ceased to be an issue.

When I began to see the life issues that could send me spinning...were really 

not the issue.

But that the issue was how I'd learned to see myself as powerless...

is when I began to see that I was no longer a victim and that I could learn to live far beyond survival, coping, managing and in general - avoiding life and the feelings my today life could trigger from my past life where I truly was powerless. 

What I've come to understand is that my expectation that life be perfect in order for me to be ok is a normal response to living in and coming from an environment that told me I was less than, incapable, defective, broken, never enough AND if life wasn't perfect -it was because of something I'd done; it was my fault.

This healing thing is a journey and sometimes I used to think that because I wasn't perfect I was therefore not enough; I wasn't good enough, couldn't do anything right enough to finally be accepted.

I dried up; I didn't know who I was or how to find "me" in the mess that had become my life; I'd been stuck in that dance of dependence for so long I didn't know if I'd ever find my way out. 

I was still waiting for someone to pat me on the head, toss some holy water over each shoulder and announce to the world that I was no longer broken; I was waiting for permission to exist.

What I've since learned is that in finding my power by learning to recognize why I felt so broken and how it showed up in my life is how I've come to realize that I'm not broken at all.

Just wounded.

And in finding this truth I found the power to find and heal myself by learning to recognize that when I'm lost in life's issues....

thats really not the issue.

In other words...the issue is not that life is my problem...

but in how I've learned to engage with life as it happens.

Learning to live beyond that place of broken is the hard work of this healing journey.

Its where I learned to fly.
~


The Story of the Emperor Moth tells of a man who desperately wanted to "help" this magnificent being to escape the bondage of its chrysalis. When we try to avoid the struggle is when we are most easily crippled.

This is how we do it... talks about how I discovered what the "hard work" was and how I came to understand that to go through the pain was the only way out of it.


 Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!

It is Never Too Late...

Here's something I wonder about...


We know and have acknowledged that emotional and mental distress is a normal response to abnormal life circumstances. 

Research shows the correlation of distressful environments and trauma to mental health diagnosis. 

Yet - those who suffer are labeled as "ill", "sick", "diseased" and "disordered"....while those who are the cause and source of the trauma, oppression, abuse and neglect are often not and if they are - they often use this as an excuse to continue to perpetrate this dysfunction in their families instead of as a reason for their own pain and to find a path to wholeness and healing.

Then as we enter the healing journey we are perhaps classified or identify ourselves as victims. 

and this is true - I was a victim

but I am no more.

We have learned to survive...

but often not how to live beyond that.

Diagnosis is used as an end all; a reason for

"this is why I'm messed up"

instead of the beginning of a map to take us beyond "messed up".

We are taught coping skills and avoidance tactics to manage symptoms of these diagnosis that are said to be ingrained, inbred and unchangeable.

How do I know this?

Because I've BTDT. :))

Thats been there, done that :) 

I resided in the mental health system that for nearly 2 decades told me that I was my problem; that my brain was broken.

I was also told that I was the problem why "therapy" and the drugs never worked.

I was "resistant"

"difficult, diseased, disordered and finally - dysthymic"...meaning I would never be "better". 


That forever I would have this heavy cloud and fog overshadowing every moment 


of every day. 


And because I did not know any different 

I accepted this as my "truth".

It was my "normal" to allow others to define me and direct my life and how I viewed my reality.

Today though?

I no longer accept or identify with the idea that I am sick

or ill

or diseased, defective or disordered.

And I am most definitely not

"dysthymic". :))

Instead

I've chosen a different path

one that leaves me feeling empowered and enabled.

A path that has brought me to my "best life"....

The one I choose for myself and create

every day. 

So today...

I no longer wish for a miracle

because I am one. :))

My passion is to share a message of hope, healing and self discovery that it is completely possible to learn to live far beyond that place of broken and 


that it is never too late to learn to create 


and live 


our best life. 

Every day. 

Check the archives...

To Thine Own Self Be True (links to this 3 part series is in this post as well:))

I Am Not a Can of Soup (talking about labels:))

I've Got a Feeling! (this post talks about the language we use that defines our reality:))

Def:empower-empou-r-verb (this post discusses what it means to "empower" ourselves:))

And my wish for you.....I Hope you Dance... :))

The purpose of this blog....

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Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!

Def: empower |emˈpou(-ə)r| verb

Every now and then a catch phrase comes along that it seems like everyone starts tossing around.
Sort of like the Charlie Sheen thing going on lately....
Winning!
In the self help and personal development sites one of those catch phrases that I've seen being tossed around and often tossed out as having no real meaning is Self Empowered.
Yet, when I found my way out of that dark place and began to make my way to the light that I live in today - the only word that could describe how I felt was
empowered.
So today I thought I might just suggest that if this catch phrase self empowered is one that has lost some meaning to you that it might be helpful to take a look at the literal meaning of it that perhaps we can reclaim some of the real meaning behind this journey and the hope that is our fuel that pushes us to continue when things are the darkest before the dawn. 
empower |emˈpou(-ə)r|verb [ trans. ]give (someone) the authority or power to do something : nobody was empowered to sign checks on her behalf.• enable (someone) to do (something) : cryptography will empower individuals to control their information.• [ trans. ] make (someone) stronger and more confident, esp. in controlling their life and claiming their rights : movements to empower the poor.DERIVATIVESempowerment noun
In the verb tense of the word empower we can see that the word empower on its own is to give someone authority; to enable someone to do something, to make someone stronger...
which is great if someone could give us healing, peace of mind and a sense of well being.
So when we look for the missing link from someone else to give us what we are looking for to make that shift we are dependent on other people, places and things to fall in line to provide us with our healing...
then we add the word that makes this that catch phrase that gets tossed around and if we don't look at it in its full context can lose its meaning...
Self empowered.
So if we look at creating and living a self empowered life - what we are really doing is saying that we no longer must depend on someone else to give us the authority to find our answers and create our solutions and instead can say...
I have the power, the authority to enable myself to feel stronger and more confident and...
I am taking the power that is already mine to create and live the life of my choosing.

Being self empowered to me then means many things like...

knowing my resources and using them... instead of waiting for someone else to figure out what I need and give it to me.

Being self empowered to me means learning about the tools and life skills that can help me overcome the past and create the future that I want for myself....instead of waiting for someone to tell me what to do to help myself. 

Being self empowered means learning how to recognize where I'm weak and the steps to take to become stronger in my life, my sense of self and my journey.

Being self empowered to me means taking back my life, asking for what I need, being responsible for the outcome of my journey instead of blaming or making excuses for why I can't ever have the life I want for myself...

Harsh...I know; but honestly, this is what it came down to for me. 

Being self empowered means taking the action and asking the questions to move myself from where I am to where I want to be. 

Questions like, whats missing? What don't I know how to do? Where can I get this knowledge? What actions do I need to take to obtain this knowledge? How can I apply this knowledge to my journey? 

Finding my own answers is where I found my own power.

Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!


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Practicing Living Whole by guest blogger Amy Eden (Part III of Raise Yourself Up!)

Amy Eden of Guess What Normal Is

Today the conclusion of guest blogger Amy Edens introduction to the 4 Practices of learning to live whole in Raise Yourself Up! Part III...


But first you can hcatch up on Part I here


And Part II here...

Today Part III....

4 Practices for Raising Yourself Up

Practice at Learning Who You Are & What Happened

Practice at Doing Therapeutic Work 

Practice at Taking Care of Yourself & Making Changes

Practice at Being Present in the Happiness you Create

3. Practice at Taking Care of Yourself and Making Changes

As you sort your past, you’ll come to have a clearer picture of how you want to lead your life, your interests, values, and goals. 

Practicing taking care of yourself is all about exploring new interests, creating healthy relationships, and establishing a routine in your daily life that supports your happiness and goals.  In this practice, you have the chance to learn about how to live a fully conscious life in which you take care of yourself completely in the way you discover suits you best.  And that encompasses all aspects of your life:

Eating and nutrition

Health and doctor visits

Grooming and personal habits

Exercise

Work life

Time management

Bills and finances

Household tasks

Parenting

Future planning

Personal goals

Friendships

Family relationships

Romantic relationships

Personal boundaries and action plans for protecting them

Taking trips

Developing personal interests

Socializing and networking

Your spiritual life and how to be idle

Feeling and honoring your feelings

Therapy

Cultivating your relationship with your Self

That’s a long list!  Tackling it will involve reading books on various topics, talking through action plans with your therapist and trusted friends—and a lot of trial and error!

Truly, this is the rewarding part of growing yourself up.

We all come to self-growth and healing work with lives already in-progress. So, while you might find yourself wishing that you could just start all over, fresh, the beauty of implementing change into a life in motion is that even the smallest changes you make will have immediate impact. You’ll feel the results quickly.  You’ll feel the change in how others react to you as well.  Each change will inspire the next,  and your change muscles will become strong and an inner sense of “I think I can! I think I can! I think I can!” will build.  You’ll naturally be attracted to healthier people, healthier interactions—in your personal life and on the job, you won’t be curious about people’s dramas anymore, and you’ll expect to be treated fairly (and you’ll have discovered your own, new definition of “fairly”).  Making change in your in-progress life, which might be a “messy” life right now, means you’ll get to see the impact on your primary relationships right away.

The therapist you work with may suggest, or discuss, antidepressant medication with you.  Ultimately, it’s your decision whether or not to medicate.  Depending on the life events that preceded your doing this work, it may be beneficial.  My own rule of thumb is to be sure that I’m doing three things before utilizing an antidepressant tool:  that I’m getting daily (or every other day) exercise, even if that exercise is a brisk, thirty-minute walk, that I am eating fresh, organic, healthy foods (broccoli in particular, fruit, protein, and ample water) and that I’m not abusing sugar, and, third, that I’m getting plenty of sleep.  While I do these before considering medication, I know some of you may want to medicate first, so that you can attend to those three fundamental lifestyle elements. 

I’ve written about depression and treatments on GWNI. This piece is about the similarities between being the child of child-like parents and depression http://www.guesswhatnormalis.com/2010/11/depressed-or-just-the-child-of-childlike-parents.html, and this one’s about chronic or ‘mild’ depression http://www.guesswhatnormalis.com/2010/11/dysthemia-.html 

4 Practices for Raising Yourself Up

Practice at Learning Who You Are & What Happened

Practice at Doing Therapeutic Work 

Practice at Taking Care of Yourself & Making Changes

Practice at Being Present in the Happiness you Create

4. Practice Being Present in the Happiness that You Create

Finally, be sure to enjoy your good life!

If you do a Google search on mindfulness, you’ll find a lot of resources as well as a lot of compelling research about the power—both spiritual and medical—of mindfulness practices.  Mindfulness is essential the practice of being present in the present moment—not distracted by thoughts, but truly at-attention and calm and focused in the present moment. 

This practice is simple, really:  when you’re mindful, you know how you feel, you notice colors, shapes, tastes, smells, sounds—everything. You’re in tune with your Self, your surroundings, and the universe.

And you’re OK.

Remember, these 4 Practices are not steps to take in order, nor to ‘complete’; instead, these practices are active, living stages. We’ll move between them, starting from the first, to the last, for life. 

At first you’ll spend more time going back and forth between 1, 2, and 3, but as you heal you’ll spend more and more time with 3 and 4, using 2 to keep your emotional, psychological, and spiritual mechanics tuned-up, as needed.

Be kind to yourself.

~

Thank you for reading along with us this week!

Your comments are always welcome; please share your notes, thoughts or "aha" moments in the comments below and please consider dropping by Amy's blog Guess What Normal Is.

Amy Eden, writer of fiction and creative nonfiction, has been studying and writing about issues of children of alcoholics for over fifteen years.  She has worked in book publishing and magazine publishing since 1994, and is currently an editor for a San Francisco-based book publisher. She has published nonfiction articles in city and national magazines, for educational publishers, and for the Web, and earned a BA in English and an MFA in creative writing.  Amy Eden’s inspiration for her self-improvement blog, “Guess What Normal Is” is to “help people trade armor for courage.”

~

 Thank you for reading today! Please visit Amy's blog Guess What Normal Is and let her know you found her via A Journey!

This post is property of its author; its publication here in no way implies endorsement nor should it be construed as medical or therapeutic advice. 

Practice Will Make You Whole by guest blogger, Amy Eden (Part II of Raise Yourself Up!)

Amy Eden of Guess What Normal Is

Here is Part I of Raise Yourself Up!


Today we'll continue with Guest Blogger, Amy Edens series "Raise Yourself Up!", Part II.

Practice Will Make You Whole - Practicing at Becoming You

Our parents didn’t parent us well, for various reasons.  We can wring our hands and wonder why, why, why about that truly unfortunate fact of our lives and try to extract a bit of comfort from the questioning, but—we cannot change it.  Here and now, however, today—you are in charge of your self, your wellbeing, and you are now your own parent. 

So! What kind of parent do you want to be to yourself? 

You cannot copy the model you were given because the results—well, you already know those bad results.  You must develop a new model, and to do so you need to do some investigation.  Who are you?  Think about what it’s like to really know someone.  Can you think of a person whom you feel you really know? I bet that knowing their history, where that person came from, is a key part of your feeling of knowing them. 

Practice at getting to know where you come from—don’t worry about being perfect at it.  We tend to be perfectionists, so start thinking about self-work in terms of “practice” rather than “results.” Being in practice mode focuses our attention on the present moment—so we can not only enjoy the act of practicing itself, but also become present. (Being present is a valuable lesson because it provides us with the experience of feeling “okay” and safe, and forces us to release our need to control.)

Think of the practice of parenting yourself like yoga, learning a language, or a musical instrument, or exercise—something that needs conscious thought, repetition, and expansion into new areas, and just plain doing.

Here’s a definition from Webster’s:  Practice; (noun) late Middle English; “Repeated performance or systematic exercise for the purpose of acquiring skill or proficiency.”  

4 Practices for Raising Yourself Up

Practice at Learning Who You Are & What Happened

Practice at Doing Therapeutic Work 

Practice at Taking Care of Yourself & Making Changes

Practice at Being Present in the Happiness you Create

1.  Practice at Learning What Happened and Who You Are

First, it’s essential to understand, fully, what happened to you.  Go there.  It’s not a waste of time, it’s not “digging up old useless bones,” it’s not just “the past” that you can’t change—no, no!  It’s essential to excavate your childhood.  Find out what it means for people to grow up without having one’s self-esteem nurtured, but also what it meant for you in particular, given your unique circumstances, to have grown up as you did.  It’s essential that you dig deep to remember, articulate, and reflect on your own story and unique situation and reactions. Only if we tell what happened can we become truly free. This will begin to dissolve the burden that you carry—whether you realize it’s there on your shoulders or not (you’ll certainly feel it lifting!) 

Learning where you came from and who you are in a honest, formal, and committed way will be painful at first but will bring tremendous relief, and it will begin to provide you with a blueprint for healing on which you can actually take action. 

Be sure to examine, and address, the coping behaviors—especially addictions to food, excitement or work—that have become habits for you.

Clearly, this is something that needs to happen within a safe environment, one that will help you create borders around the old pain and present reality so that you don’t feel…well…like you’re losing your mind!  This work is best done with a therapist who you choose and with whom you feel safe, and who can help you contain the experience.

4 Practices for Raising Yourself Up

Practice at Learning Who You Are & What Happened

Practice at Doing Therapeutic Work 

Practice at Taking Care of Yourself & Making Changes

Practice at Being Present in the Happiness you Create

2. Practice at Doing Therapeutic Work

Although it’ll seem like the endpoint of looking into your past will be a pit of pain from which you’ll forever live, the truth is that you’ll arrive out in a patch of sunlight in an field—with yourself.  You’ll be light years closer to knowing who you are.  This is partly because you’ll see that who you were as a child was someone who adapted and coped to stay safe in whatever way you could.

You’ll come to realize that, while necessary, that’s not the Who you were meant to be, and that you want to get to the Who underneath all those protective survival layers.  You’ll come to have a much clearer picture of who you do not want to be, and simultaneously, begin to see (and with compassion) and feel that you have greater control over becoming who you do want to be. 

If you do this work, you will discover a lightness and freedom—and sense of your Self and clarity about what you need—like never, ever before.  It will be scary at times.  Some might think it would be “easier” to stick with the old way of denial and not feeling your feelings, but as soon as you put one foot into recovery, the rest of your body will ache to get in there, too.  Your heart will guide you. If you do this work, you WILL come through the darkness and to the other side, into the light of a life you want, that you made.

The intensity of feelings that uncovering our past traumas may bring up isn’t for the faint of mind, so you need a trustworthy therapist to help you navigate the terrain.  If you do this kind of work on your own, it’s very difficult to sort out the monsters from the angels—that is, it becomes very difficult to know whether or not your actions stem from avoidance or courage.  In truth, even the best therapist won’t be able to tell your monsters from your angels, but he or she will be able to give you the time and space within which to get enough perspective that you sure can. 

Be sure that you shop for a therapist just like people recommend shopping for a house—don’t pick the first one, evaluate a few (or several if you have to), and choose the one that feels most likely to provide comfort and safety.  Talk to them on the phone first, asking what their area of specialties are, and how many of their clients (not patients!) are trauma-survivors, or children of alcoholics, etc. Tell them what you’re struggling with, and ask what kind of approach they would take.  This saves your time, and theirs.  Any good therapist will spend up to 15, or more, minutes talking to you on the phone.  If you don’t like their attitude, voice, attitude, or answers—move on to the next name on your list.  Ask if they will give you a free consultation (or use your health insurance to cover it), and book a few appointments with a few different counselors—this will prevent you from feeling obligated to go with the first one you see. (Any good therapist will ask you, at the end of your first consultative session, if you feel it’s a good fit and if you’d like to continue.  Only a bad, desperate therapist will obligate you or sell you on committing to them.)  Remember—you’re the customer.

There’s reward in this:  the process of selecting a therapist is the first step in your healing!  It’s an opportunity to say what you want, and to actively choose the person who is going to collaboratively, with you, help you on your journey of self-investigation and self-repair so that you can live a life as you choose to live it.

~

Your comments, notes and aha's are invited and always welcome:)

Join us here next time for the conclusion (Part III) of Amy's series Raise Yourself Up!

Amy Eden, writer of fiction and creative nonfiction, has been studying and writing about issues of children of alcoholics for over fifteen years.  She has worked in book publishing and magazine publishing since 1994, and is currently an editor for a San Francisco-based book publisher. She has published nonfiction articles in city and national magazines, for educational publishers, and for the Web, and earned a BA in English and an MFA in creative writing.  Amy Eden’s inspiration for her self-improvement blog, “Guess What Normal Is” is to “help people trade armor for courage.”

~

 Thank you for reading today! Please visit Amy's blog Guess What Normal Is and let her know you found her via A Journey!

This post is property of its author; its publication here in no way implies endorsement nor should it be construed as medical or therapeutic advice. 

I Held the Key to My Freedom...

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This healing journey is truly a journey; there is no "event" where we can stand at the threshold of our new life and say "I have arrived". It is a process, step by step, moment by moment of developing the conscious awareness and insight that sets us free and creates the change that changes our lives....

There came a day when I realized I was reacting to my life as if I was still the helpless child at the mercy of those who tormented me. It was in this day I realized I held the power to take my life back from my abusers by refusing to let what they did keep me prisoner in my mind any longer. 


It was in realizing that today's distress was caused by the meaning and story I told myself in my mind and that I held the key to open the door to freedom that had always been there...and only I could unlock. 


In the beginning, I'd have to unlock that door many times as it would slowly close again when I wasn't looking. But in time, I came to realize that when my today life was not working it typically was because I had let yesterdays life overtake me again. 


Bit by bit, one step at a time, day by day and with practice, I've learned to recognize when that door is slowly creaking shut on me again. The "tell" is often a sense of doom, depression or dissociation that overtakes me - or a feeling of hopelessness and powerlessness as I become frozen and incapable of moving forward...


Sometimes the "tell" is that my physical life has gradually gotten out of control again, I feel overwhelmed with the simplest of life tasks. Or I become needy and am seeking comfort or to be taken care of by others as though I was still that child in need of a safe place...


In these times I've learned to acknowledge my fears and phantoms, feel and express the anger....


I hate you because __________________.


And shed the tears, feel and honor the justified anger at being violated and embrace the sadness and grief at the loss of the life I never had and will never know...

It is in recognizing that I am no longer a victim and I am much more than a survivor where I begin to see myself as an adult full of hope and knowing that I hold the power to create this change that changes my life...

time and time again. 

~

Related: The Power Within

Cultivating the Power Within

When you Have Come to the Edge...

 Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth

~

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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Abuse: I "didn't know that I didn't know"

We'll get back to the discussion on making the shift from "illness" to "wellness" mindset shortly; in the meantime...

Some of us "don't know what we don't know".

Personally, over the years when I was asked if I was "abused" I would say shamefully "no" because first - I didn't know what it was like to not be abused, this was my "normal"...

...and second - I'd been trained to believe that somehow it was my fault what the adults in my life had done to me and thus as I grew into adulthood, I repeated this pattern in my relationships not because I was "bad", "defective", "less than" or "ill" - but because it was all I knew.

I "didn't know that that I didn't know" that I was living the generational pattern of abuse in my life.

I just thought something was "wrong" with me; that I was "defective" and as I entered the mental health system in 1992, the abuse was ignored and I accepted that I was actually "ill", "diseased" and "defective"; somehow I was "genetically" broken.
That something was "wrong" with me...not that I'd been raised in an environment that left me ill equipped to face the world as an individual.

This article I'm referencing addresses male to female abuse but truth is....these are indicators of men to women, women to men,male to male or female to female, adult to child, perpetrator to victim in any situation, any relationship.

Abuse of any kind is not restricted to "intimate" or "domestic" relationships but can be seen in all societal relationships in various degrees. It doesn't matter what we call it...."dating violence", "domestic violence", "gay or lesbian" violence, "sexual discrimination" in workplaces...

...it all boils down to one thing: a perpetrator needing to validate their existence through the control and oppression of another.

Think globally as in war and prisoner of war camps. Same idea, different people, places and circumstances.

Abuse is often tolerated as "normal" although in truth is an indicator of that struggle of "power and control" and that power imbalance in oppressive relationships and may often precede physical abuse and violation as the victims are "groomed" to tolerate the intolerable.
Knowledge is the beginning of the truth that will set us free.

Often, abuse issues are looked at as if controlling the "abuser" will change things yet we hear over and over how those who were once the victim repeatedly find themselves in abusive relationships and environments.

So while becoming informed and learning how to identify abuse is the beginning - the cycle of abuse doesn't "end" by focussing on the "perpetrators" and we know this because we frequently will leave one abusive relationship and find ourselves in another.

Escaping the pattern of abuse for me began with identifying what it was within myself that attracted me to and was the basis to repeat this pattern in my adult relationships - not by living in that state of hyper-vigelance where I had to be "on guard" to catch the next perpetrator.

As long as I lived my life "on guard" for the next "abuser" I was focussed again on finding my "solution" in something or someone outside of myself instead of concentrating on learning how to no longer be a victim.

This was that "false sense of power" that came from an environment where I learned to "be" good enough or "do" right enough to avoid being hurt or to be "loved" by manipulating situations and circumstances in order to be "accepted" in an environment where being "me" wasn't allowed. (I.E. if I could "spot" the abuse, I could "avoid" it someway or do or say something to make the abuser "love" me...or at least stop hurting me.)

We can't change other people or the choices they make... but we can gain the knowledge that will empower us in our own lives and help us to change things for the next generation.
You can read the article here.

Q: Thoughts?

What is Love?

Recently I posted a touching story about the "Sting of Stigma and Unconditional Love" here.

And for the longest time I've thought about writing a post on the idea of "What is Love"? Well, Mel's story about her friend Julie's journey and death following her diagnosis of "mental illness" seemed the right prompt for this post as we approach the end of "Mental Health Awareness Month" for 2010.

There are two things that truly suck about this struggle to maintain psychological integrity - the first is being given that free, lifetime membership to "Club M.I." without asking for it. That stigmatizing "mark" that goes with the label of "diagnosis" that often leads to discrimination or being treated differently, sometimes as "less than".

The second is how this label affects relationships with the people who could make the biggest difference in the life of someone who is struggling with mental health issues from family and friends - to Medical Providers, Doctors and Therapists.

These are often the people we turn to when we are needing that "soft place to fall" when life's journey hits a rough patch. Unfortunately these are oftentimes the same people who can compound the problem by offering "conditional" love and acceptance vs the unconditional love that Mel gave her friend, Julie, as she was dying from a disease that may have been curable - had she not been labeled "mentally ill" and her physical needs gone unmet. (In the comments of this post you can read how Suzanne nearly died when her physical complaints were attributed to her being a "hypochondriac" and "delusional" - click here to read.)

In Mel's story I noticed first her attitude toward Julie as being one of acceptance of Julie as she was with no inkling of judgement or attempt to minimize Julie's experience or effort to influence her in order to make Mel feel more comfortable...

"She was so amazing. Funny thing was I always told her I didn't think she was bipolar, some would view her as acting crazy at times but strangely I saw it as being in another dimension or something."

And I saw compassion for her friend's situation...."I never told her that seeing men in trees was her imagination, just that I couldn't see them."

So what is "love" - I mean true, selfless love? Love that put's another's needs before my own?

It's the love that says "in all your muck, your crap, your issues....I will stand beside you through it all..."

Q: What does "unconditional love" look like in your world?