Working at resting

It's normal and expected to work when it is time to work, although some people play at working (that's a different topic).  But often, I have a hard time resting. 

Less so now, but when I first realized the value of resting, it was like my skin had the jitters.  

Resting can mean getting enough sleep - and although that's important, that's not what I mean here.  I mean being in that state of mind that so trusts God and so lets go of the need to fix stuff that only He's supposed to fix (no matter how long it takes) - that the worries and anxieties don't have a chance to take root.  

It took me a fair amount of time to begin to learn how to rest ... actively. Yes, to work at resting.  I still have to work at it. 

Let me give an example - something pretty close to home.  

A while ago, my daughter decided that she wanted to apply for a Canadian passport.  The reason she wanted one was because she had / still has a friend in the States and she wanted to visit.  Maybe even to go and live there.  

My reaction?  Instant panic.

I got this photo royalty-free HERE

The questions abounded, big and little. What if it doesn't work out? how much will it cost us for her to travel / move all that way? will she be able to survive down there with no safety net? what about her plans to go to school or get a job here? are those put on hold or will they EVER come to pass? What will she do to communicate with us? Will I have to take her off my cell phone plan?  What if she gets stranded with no money of her own? What if she gets sick and has to see an American doctor - how much will THAT cost? Will we survive financially? And worst - what if we never see her again?  

On and on the questions tumbled, one after the other, especially when her passport arrived - just a few days ago.  I get a bit of respite from the questions once in a while, but they just keep popping up at odd moments, usually when I am trying to enjoy something else.  The panic grows if I let it, and sometimes it comes unbidden - even wakes me up and I have to work hard at dealing with it. 

Feeling those feelings of uncertainty ... isn't wrong.  It's okay to be concerned about a loved one, to feel unsure about the future. But when it takes over my life, when I can't sleep because it robs me of peace, then it is a problem.  And when I try to manipulate the outcome by using guilt and shame, or intimidation - it ends up pushing my loved one away and giving me the very outcome that I fear most.  

Every.  Time.  

It takes a great deal of effort to force my focus back onto the basics, the most important things, the fundamental truths of faith: God is in control. Of everything.  I have no control over outcomes; only He does.  He loves both me and my daughter; He will look after me ... and her. I need to relax my grip, to learn to let go.  The work part is in the fact that I have to keep reminding myself of what is most important.  

As the time draws closer and closer to her departure (not even sure of THAT date!) it's really tempting to panic all over again.  I can admit that I'm scared. That's okay - it's okay to be scared.  What isn't okay is for me to ping all over the place and react (usually badly) and let my fears rule my behavior.  

When I work on resting, I know peace.  The knots loosen in my stomach. I remind myself that letting go of my need to have my hands on it - even if she makes mistakes - is the only way to do that.  I accept what is.  Even if I am scared.

It's a lesson that I keep having to learn with every situation.  But I have the assurance that God's not going to give up on me.  And neither should I.

Untangling

I see it a lot in some families, organizations, social circles.  It's the tendency of some people to become so involved, so personally invested in the lives and choices of the ones they care about, that they will actually infringe on the rights of their loved ones to make their own choices, even think their own thoughts - out of an intense need to be needed.  

One person I know describes it as "being up each other's noses."  It's an accurate and descriptive metaphor that speaks of not being able to make a move without the other person (people) knowing.  

I got this photo HERE.  Interesting article, too.

Psychologists call it "enmeshment." It's when one's sense of where the self stops and the other person begins ... gets blurred, tangled - the boundaries eventually cease to exist.  The other person's hurts become the self's hurts ... to the extent that it is impossible for the self to find any happiness if the other is not happy.  

It's extremely dysfunctional.  

It's like a vine wrapping itself around a tree.  You wouldn't think it would make a difference - after all, vines are a lot more flimsy than trees.  But the vine grows up close to the tree, nice and cozy, entwining itself around the trunk, tangling itself in the branches. And as it gets older, it gets thicker.  It squeezes more and more. 

The bark of the tree gets a dent in it.  The vine's growth deforms it ... the tree gives in more and more and more... and eventually the vine chokes the life out of the tree. And when the tree dies ... eventually the vine does too - because trees inevitably fall over when they're dead - and the vine's roots get ripped up; there is no way to separate the two plants. They've become too entangled.

That's scary.  It's even scarier to realize that this is what emotional enmeshment, entangling, does to humans - on both sides. There is no room to grow, to develop, to become all that each can be.  There is no room to breathe.  

Untangling - disengagement if you will - is possible.  It takes quite a while, especially after a lifetime of doing it, but ... the alternative is a life of disappointment, loneliness, bitterness, and resentment. And humans are a tad more resilient than trees AND vines.

The concept of untangling is simple.  It is based on a few simple statements.

I am me.  I have the right to have my own feelings and opinions, my own choices, apart from yours.

You are you. You have the right to have your own feelings and opinions, to make your own choices, apart from mine. 

I have no control over your choices or your consequences.  You have no control over mine. 

I can accept and respect you for your uniqueness.  You can do the same with me. We are different, but that does not need to threaten either of us.

You can grow.  And so can I.

Walking through it

I don't know if it is a function of where I live, or the times I live in, or the particular culture of which I'm a part (be it church, or just the "country" attitude that believes everybody else's business is their business - keeping the figurative binoculars by the window), or what it is.  But I've noticed over and over again how incredibly difficult it is to live the lifestyle of letting go, when all around me, there seems to be a silent, yet persistent resistance to the whole concept.  

Some people don't think that it's necessary to do the leg-work that it takes to get to the place of freedom.  They are waiting - as I once did - for God to come in and "zap" them, and suddenly they'll be free.  I don't deny that it happens.  SOMEtimes.  

But more often, He merely provides the strength, like charging the battery if you will, to take the steps that are necessary to walk through it.  Which is why, when people tell me that they're amazed at the changes in me over the last few years, I am quick to say that God gets the credit.  I would never have had the strength to go through what was necessary for me to walk into freedom if He hadn't given me the inner fortitude and strength to do it.  But there were things I had to do - given that strength - to get where I am today (and I am by no means done!)  I had to "walk through it" in much the same way as the children of Israel had to walk into the promised land (in the book of Joshua) and fight to drive out the giants.  

What I find most discouraging (and I know that this is a failing in myself that I even LOOK at what others think or do) is that so very few are willing to take that first step into freedom.  They either acknowledge that the need is there to change, and hesitate to launch into deeper waters because it DOES involve a journey and it IS hard (but worth it, and no, I'd never go back!) - or they don't see the need at all.  

HERE is where I got this photo. Good post, too.

It is that last group that is the most frustrating for me.  I live in a culture of "country living" (as I said earlier) that believes that there are no boundaries between people, that we should all know each other's business and be prepared to jump in and give advice to others or try to manipulate the outcome in someone else's life, just because we "care".  

I hesitate to use the word codependent, because so many think they know what it is, and so few really know what it means - but the idea that I am responsible for my own actions and that so-and-so is responsible for his own actions seems to be lost, swallowed up in the teaching and attitude that is so prevalent in this culture of ... well ... co-dependency (for a definition please follow the link I placed at the first of this paragraph).  In this culture, the vices of the codependent person are lauded as praise-worthy, even adorned in the robes of religious living (e.g., "speaking the truth in love" - often a euphemism or a cloak for being controlling and invasive.  Or "selflessness" - which is usually just self-degradation and doormat-itis wearing a halo).  Why would anyone want to be freed from something that is so socially acceptable?  Isn't it the right thing to do, to look after other people? to try to help them? to tell them what they should be doing? what they should be believing?  Isn't it wrong to think of ourselves first? to say no? to keep others at arm's length?  

Well ... yes and no.  In our results-based society, which looks at the final result of a healthy personality (ie serving others out of a heart of love) as the goal and expects people to behave that way before they've even started to become healthy ... then I would say that our society has the cart before the horse. The end result of expecting people to be selfless when they don't even know what their real self IS - will inevitably be burnout, resentment, bitterness, anger, and depression.  And in a good majority of the cases, not only will that person experience those feelings, but they will also be echoed in the lives of all the people that person tried to "help."  

What I'm saying is that it is necessary to be (or to become) healthy before offering healing to others.  Otherwise, it will most assuredly backfire.  I speak from experience because I lived in that reality for decades before finally reaching the end of my own strength, with my kids and my husband shutting me out. Only then - in desperation - did I wise up.  

And then I had to give it all to God, trust His strength to empower me, and step out.  I had to walk through it.  To use an old King James expression, I had to "possess the land."  And it had nothing to do with any catch phrases or platitudes - for me it involved a lot of unlearning old habits and attitudes which I had tied into my belief structure and called it "my faith" when it was "my preference", and it also meant learning what was healthy for me and for those I cared about, and putting those lessons into practice in the everyday.  

When I had gone through and understood that process, when I had made those lessons a part of my daily living and begun to see some freedom in my own life, that was when I decided to put that process down in an e-book and describe it - not that I expect anyone to be a clone of me, but to provide a template, a guide-book to healing for those who want to be free, an easy-to-follow road-map to be adapted to the individual's own needs.  I've included a link to it on my "About Me" page.  

I know that not everyone wants to go there; I accept it.  A person has to be ready, to really see the futility of such a lifestyle as the one I had embraced and found to be void of any kind of happiness, before he or she is willing to do whatever it takes to be free.  Desperation is required.  And just a tiny spark of faith that God will be there through it all. 

A person cannot give away what he or she doesn't have.  It's only out of a place of fulness that one can be in a position to fill others. And it's only in admitting that one is empty that one can be filled.  If that sounds attractive - if your soul resonates with that and is wistful thinking about it ... then perhaps you're ready. 

Perhaps it's time.

SAFE HOME

It was a cozy, if cluttered, nook - a haven of civility in a harsh world.

My father's workshop, which he slowly (over the years) built onto the garage, housed a home-made workbench with a bench vise, several shelves to hold supplies, and piles upon piles of tools, each with its own specific purpose; he knew where each of them was. He would spend hours (sometimes days) out there, working on some project usually for a friend, sometimes for a family member - for which he would take absolutely no payment.  That was his gift, his legacy to the world, if he but knew it.  He cared for each tool like it was an old friend.  He allowed each tool to share in the gift that was his generosity to others. 

On the opposite wall of the "shop", he had installed a wood-fired stove, which kept the place toasty warm and inviting in the winter.  There was a dusty armchair by the door, pervaded with sawdust and a few tiny wood chips, another similar chair beside the stove, and in the corner there was a cot made up into a bed with a small pillow and a woolen bed-spread on it - the perfect place for him to nap, or just to lie down in a little bit of peace and quiet away from the demands and rigors of living with a nit-picking wife who preached at him on every topic from church attendance to the evils of nicotine. The clutter, I learned by osmosis over the years (because he never actually said so), was a barrier to keep her out. She never went out there unless she had to.  He liked it like that. 

HERE's where I got this photo

It was his realm, his kingdom, and he was the benevolent ruler there.  Here, I would go to spend time with him, watch him work, pass him a tool once in a while.  Or just sit by the stove with him and listen to the fire crackle.  The atmosphere was supremely peaceful, restful.  

Safe.  

He didn't expect anything of me.  He was just glad to have my company.  I knew that here, nobody could touch me, nobody could hurt me.  If I brought with me any of the drama from the goings-on inside the house, he would quell it with a sharp look and an unspoken reminder of the unwritten rule:  This is my refuge. I allowed you in here. We come here to escape the shenanigans, the manipulation, the intimidation that is so much a part of what's under the Other Roof.  This is different. This is ...

Home. 

This was where I could be myself.  To have my feelings.  To say how I felt. To soak in the restfulness - to drink in the earthy smell of sawdust, of wood smoke, of 3-in-1 oil.  To enjoy the one thing I could get in no other place (not across the yard, and not in the place with the steeple up on top of the hill): acceptance.  

He died in the fall of 1993, when our youngest was 16 months old.  

Soon afterward, a van driven by a mercenary family member arrived at his little house and literally raped his workshop; the driver took every last thing that he so lovingly cared for and used to help other people, and left an empty shell - only to take it to his own home and let it gather dust and rust.  I tried going out there to Dad's workshop once after that, tried to recapture that sense of peace, of safety.  But it had changed.  It was cold, violated, distant, void of life. 

He wasn't there anymore.  It wasn't safe any more.  It wasn't home anymore.  

When I say that I miss him, I miss him deep in my heart, in that place within which he made a space to be himself with no apologies, and where he allowed me to be me with no shame.  I miss his smile, his deep bass voice, his smell.  I miss his hard, calloused hands that could be gentle enough to solder the broken wires in a tiny hand-held calculator so someone didn't have to buy a new one.  I miss his stories of the railroad and of his logging days with the horses and the pull-chains, his company, his acceptance ... his love.

That safety, that peace, that sense of being protected, of being at "home" is one I've only found in one other place.  I've tried to find it all my life, with different things, in the company of various people.  Sometimes I got the opposite, and other times I've gotten really, REALLY close to that "safe home" feeling.  

But only one place exudes that same ambiance for me.  

It's a little, well-secluded, somewhat cluttered place inside my heart, the one to which I go too seldom - the one with the warm hearth, with the burning fire in the little stove, with two armchairs, and about sixty-six books on the shelves.  I sit in one chair, and in the other, larger chair sits...

My Father.

The pain drain

Ever noticed that things that you would normally not mind seem to bother you more when you're in pain?

I have.  I've been in pain - not severe, but pretty much constant - for the last few months now.  Just when I think I'm getting ahead and can do more, it hits again and I'm down for the count - and the simplest, stupidest things can set it off.  Like turning to look at something by twisting around instead of moving my feet. (OW!  ... Grr.)  

And the pain (as I was saying in my opening) wears at you.  Even when other things take your attention and you forget the pain is there, one move and it reminds you that it has you. You become more irritable, less patient.  Your tolerance for everyday annoyances becomes practically non-existent.  At least mine does.  

And that can lead to some pretty stinking thinking.  Negativity.  Snappishness.  Resentments.  Or acute (and by that I don't mean clinical) depression.  

Those things creep up behind you when you've been strong (or tried to be strong) for a long time, and they grab you by the throat, sometimes through the most innocent of circumstances.  It takes a lot of acceptance and courage to let it go and to trust God when there seems to be no end in sight.  Especially when the feeling that you're being targeted, singled out, and attacked seems so overwhelmingly real.  

It's precisely BECAUSE the pain is always there, like a slow leak in your gas tank...  that when the ups and downs of life happen (as they do to everyone) they seem to require more of you or leave you running on empty.  

And you feel guilty for taking time so often to fill up, to look after your own needs instead of everyone else's. So you don't ... and the cycle starts all over again.  

I can't stress it enough.  Self-care is so very important.  You are the only you that you have, and if you're not at 100%, guess what. You're going to need rest, recharging, refueling more often.  There's no shame in admitting that you need rest, help, quiet, a hot bath, a walk (or a saunter, or a waddle in my case) in the park, a movie, a night out, or whatever it is that rejuvenates you. 

It's not a luxury.  It's an essential.

It's essential because you're you.  Okay, if you want other reasons, it's also because you can't give away what you don't have... so if others are depending on you (for whatever reason) you won't have the resources to help them if you're not looking after yourself. 

I've put myself in last place for so long that the habit is really hard to break. You know the habit I mean.  Put the food on everyone else's plate first (after all, it's polite.) Put everyone else's schedule first and fit your stuff in (if at all) at the end when you're spent from looking after their comings and goings. Spend money on everyone else at the store but not you; after all, there's no money left to spend, right? 

Carving out time for yourself is HARD.  It feels awkward.  You feel kind of guilty, ashamed of even admitting that you have needs, let alone taking steps toward meeting them.  That's the old messages of manipulation from your childhood creeping in, things you heard at school, from relatives, in church.  Silencing those voices is difficult and at first, they will be loud.  Very loud.  Attune your internal sensors to pick up the wistful whispers from your inner child, the one that always had to wait, always got the leftovers, always was overlooked. 

It doesn't mean that you're selfish.  It means that you have your priorities in the right order.  Your relationship with God. Then your relationship with YOU. THEN your relationship with others.  

And one more thing.  (This was tough for me, and it still is.)  Embrace the word "No."

I think that tonight, I need to spend some time with a few close friends in an accepting atmosphere, and I know just where to find that.  :D

Clearing the decks

A couple of days ago at work, I started gearing up for a two-week vacation that is coming up at the end of August.  I figured it would take me about two weeks to get rid of a few niggling (and time-consuming) things that I've been putting off doing and which have slowly been piling up.  Not so much work-related things (although there IS enough of that to keep me busy too!) but just little papers I never filed, notes I took at meetings and never put away, clutter I allowed to build up (okay, six empty water bottles is too many ... and how many used post-it notes can one person produce??), and general organizing, filing, and getting rid of waste and inefficiency. 

Found this photo HERE

So the last few days I've been setting a little time aside to 'clear the decks.'  I don't want to leave anything behind, sitting, waiting for my return, when it could be done before I leave. 

Two weeks doesn't sound like a long time but it can mean the world of difference for someone waiting for a decision I could make, that may bring them some much-needed cash.  So one of my goals is to finish every file that is still sitting on my desk, and then only bring one file at a time to my desk after that. Another is to be able to see at least half of my non-computer-related desk surface.  

I've made some changes to how I do things which have improved my ability to find what I want when I want it. 

The whole time I have been doing these things, I've felt guilty for "not working" ... until I reminded myself that by taking this extra time to streamline my work station and to make things easily accessible (and get rid of the non-essentials) I'm actually going to be able to work faster and better in the long run.  

And it's starting to pay off.  

Don't get me wrong.  I'm never going to be the kind of person who has absolutely NO clutter on her desk ... or in her house.  My husband and kids will testify to that!!  I've always believed that a spotlessly clean desk (or house, or garage) is a sign of a sick mind, perhaps even obsessed with control and domination.  But too much disarray can also clutter the healthy mind ... and the last few weeks, I was starting to feel hemmed in! (Which, if you know me and my high tolerance of the 'slob factor', is SAYING something...) 

And it seems that while the mess has been accumulating, my inner mess has as well. When I started clearing the decks ... I felt something resonate inside and the desire is growing - exponentially - to set my own spiritual house in order. Again.

Funny how that happens.  

Here we go again.  :D

Being Super

It's so very tempting.  The allure of striving for perfection is strong.  It can be overpowering.  We want to be perfect.  We want to be the best, do the best, achieve the most, be super-caring, super-loving, super-capable.  We want to do it all, to fix it all, to give all.  We might even succeed ... for a while.  

But strength runs low.  We make mistakes.  We fail.  We think we know what's best, and we act on it.  And then ... disaster strikes.  We end up with the opposite of what we wanted to accomplish.  People we've tried to help get angry at us, rebel against us, and make the very choice that we warned them about.  And we wonder what went wrong - and either blame the other person / people for not doing what we knew was best, or we blame ourselves long and loud, hoping someone will stroke our egos and tell us we did the right thing and that the other person really IS at fault.  

The problem with expecting perfection from ourselves (and inevitably therefore from other people) is that we aren't perfect.  And we end up being incredibly disappointed when we prove that we AREN'T perfect.  

Of course, we give lip service to the fact that we aren't perfect ... but often we act as if we don't believe it.  And in disappointment and disillusionment, we berate others - and maybe even ourselves - when things don't pan out according to plan.

We aren't Superman.  
Trying to be Superman only leads to burnout.  And burnout is NOT pleasant!  We wind up incredibly weary, resentful, and even bitter. Been there, done that. For decades.  Not only does it make US weary, resentful and bitter, but it makes the ones we try to help incredibly weary (from fighting us off), resentful against us, and yes, bitter that we never let up or cut them a break.  Some people NEVER recover from that.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't hold high standards, or strive for excellence.  But excellence isn't the same as invincibility.  Expecting the best from someone (or believing that they[*] are capable of good things) isn't the same as nitpicking when they step out of line the least little bit, jumping all over them if they say, think, believe, or do something that is against our own standards. 
    [*um, including ourselves*]. 

Trying to rescue people - and I'm sure you've heard me say this before - is akin to trying to be God to them.  It's God's job to redeem, to save, to deliver, to rescue.  Not ours.  In a similar way, we can't expect other people to rescue us, to meet our emotional needs.  That's God's domain; we're asking our loved ones to be God to us.  They can't.  They're human.

We're human.  

But we can still be super.  Not the way we might think, though.  We can be "super" (that is, we can behave with integrity, compassion and maturity, being able to respect ourselves and gaining the respect of those we love) by:

- accepting the other person's choices, even if we don't agree with them.
- not trying to manipulate, hint, guilt, or intimidate others into a certain behavior, emotion, or belief.
- not trying to control the other person's outcome or "end result." 
- refraining from giving advice.
- NOT JUDGING.
- listening for understanding: this requires not assuming we know it all, and being quiet long enough for the other person to speak, and not jumping in to offer our two cents' worth.
- letting the other person make his or her own mistakes and also letting that person bear the consequences of those mistakes. 
- keeping the other person's confidence - that means NOT "sharing" (gossiping) with other people ... even in the guise of a "prayer request."
- privately praying for, and openly caring about, the person - but not pushing our beliefs on them.
- making sure that they know that we love AND RESPECT them.  And showing it.

The bottom line is, whether we admit it or not, we are absolutely powerless over other people.  We are even powerless over ourselves, truth be told.  We can't be perfect or expect others to be perfect.  But by letting go of our need to control them and to control their (and our) outcomes, and trusting God to look after all that, three things happen.

The incredible pressure of bearing the weight of the whole world on our shoulders, rolls away (what a relief!) and peace replaces it.

We get our loved ones' respect and trust.

And we get our own: self-respect, self-trust.

I'd say that's pretty super.

Close to home

I was doing what I normally do late in the evening: watching TV, keeping an eye on facebook, and chatting back and forth with my husband from time to time, when I heard her voice from the corner of the room.  Oh, she's home early from her night out with friends, I thought.  Slowly, I turned my attention away from my TV program to what she was saying, because her tone of voice sounded ... I dunno ... "off." 

My instincts were correct.  She was crying softly.  Her boyfriend was wiping her tears from her face.  His arm was around her.

I caught something she said about an accident with a car as she talked to her sister.  At first, I thought that she was the one who'd been in an accident. (Instant adrenaline.  Whoa Nellie, she's standing right there; she's fine.)  Then I heard her refer to "him" and "his family" - and understood that it was one of her friends who'd been in the accident.  She and her boyfriend had come upon the accident while they were out - stopped because they recognized the vehicle - and saw their injured friend, and spoke with the paramedics as they worked.  Or with the patient - I wasn't clear on that part. My daughter was understandably shaken; they both were as they stood there explaining the scene to us.

The young man wasn't killed, but could very well have been, given the circumstances of the accident: the lady driving the car and turning left didn't see him on his motorbike even though he was right in front of her and HE had the right of way because he was going straight ahead. Her car struck him on his left side and sent him flying - the impact dislocated his left hip (OUCH), gashed his left thigh deeply, missing his femoral artery by a few inches, and (at this point) the doctors are even thinking he might have gotten whiplash to his neck when he landed on the pavement. The bike was totaled, of course. They resolved the hip dislocation last evening (ouch AGAIN), and then took him to surgery to repair the damage to his thigh muscle.  He's still in hospital, and called them this morning when he awoke. And I'm sure that in another hour, his friends (including my daughter) will all be by his side during visiting hours until the hospital personnel say that visiting hours are over and it's time to go home. 

Got this photo HERE

After she and her boyfriend went to another part of the house last night to man the phones and arrange overnight visits and such, my thoughts dwelt on that young man and his family.  I couldn't stop myself from thinking about how I would feel if it was MY kid laying on a gurney, having to have his hip snapped back into its socket, and then lined up for surgery - and looking at months of physiotherapy to recover and regain range of motion again.  I began to pray for him and his family ... and to thank God intensely for the fact that it WASN'T my kid in the hospital.  

Sometimes all it takes is a tragedy (or a near-tragedy) not even happening to us, but happening that close to home, for us to realize just how much we take for granted on a daily basis.  

My husband and I were pretty somber when we went to bed last night.  And we talked about how we might complain about this behavior and that behavior, but when push comes to shove, we'd be right there beside our youngsters if either one of them needed us.  And we started counting our blessings - something we hadn't been doing for a while: long overdue, in fact. 

The experience being that "close to home" made us incredibly grateful, mostly that:
- the young man was NOT killed.
- it wasn't our kid(s) who got hurt.  (I know, selfish, but it is what it is...)
- our daughter cared that much about her friends that she was willing to drop everything she was planning to do, in order to be there for them.
- she trusted us enough to tell us what was happening and to be real in front of us without fear of being judged. 

If more people had friends like her, if more people WERE friends like her, perhaps the world wouldn't be in the mess it is in right now.  I'm so proud of the way she has handled this whole thing: feeling what she is feeling, showing her concern, and making herself available to meet whatever need existed.  And of how she is following up with her presence, to show her support and her love.

I'm so glad SHE's close to home, too.

Let it happen

When I was younger, I had flashbacks a LOT of things that happened to me when I was a child. Horrible images, re-experiencing feelings and thoughts I thought I had buried far beneath. I was determined not to ever let ANYone get the better part of me.  Ever.  Again.  

I still have them ... just not quite as often.

But I'm starting to have flash-forwards.  Based on some more recent things that have happened.  Only this time I wasn't the victim (even though at the time I felt like I was ... a perpetual state not that long ago).  I was victimizing my kids by trying to control their behavior - through intimidation or manipulation.  

Because I'm a Christian, and because I wanted them to be as well, I would try to control their decisions by 'hinting' at the idea that they might be sinning and hurting themselves (and me, obviously) as a result.  Or I'd send them a poem that made them feel guilty for the way they were treating me (or each other.)  Or I'd quote Scripture to them.  Or ... well, you get the picture.  

The problem with that picture was that it had the opposite effect of the one I wanted.  Every time.  In fact, my kids coined a word for my behavior.  

Christianazi. 

Ouch.  That hurt.  

Still, I didn't get it. Even when they told me point blank!!  I took it as my children "persecuting" me because I was "standing up for what was right."  Or trying to "raise them right." Or "protecting" them. 

Found this photo at THIS SITE

Nothing could have been further from the truth. What I was really doing was causing them to reject me and turn their backs on everything I stood for (including Christianity, if it made me into a religious control freak) and shut me out of their lives.  I was doing it because I couldn't stand not being in control of something... ANYthing.

They hated being treated that way - as if their wishes and feelings didn't matter, just mine.  They withdrew from me and didn't confide in me (for fear of being judged/jumped all over). And they were right.  I could dress it up and I did for years: I was trying to spare them the heartache I had known by being "out there" and getting some pretty hard knocks. But I'd been unaware that whole time of something important.  In trying to protect them, I also shielded them from experiencing the consequences of their own actions.  I was hurting them, not helping them.

As part of my recovery from this addiction to controlling others, I realized one day not only what I was doing to them, but to myself for putting me through the pressure of taking responsibility for their actions, and yes, even to God for keeping my kids away from the opportunity to find Him for themselves (something He wants, very much!) ... exactly by having this "you gotta do it my [or the Bible's] way" attitude. 

I took another look at the teachings of Jesus - and discovered something rather alarming - -  actually, earth-shattering to someone who had built her whole life on trying to "make it happen" in other people's lives.  Jesus only told people who were following Him to act a certain way.  He told His followers to NOT expect other people to toe the line ... because only God can change a heart and give the motivation and the power to live life His way.

It wasn't my job to change them, protect them, rescue them, make them choose the right thing.  I was robbing that away from God!  And the result?  They ran in the opposite direction!

Can you blame them?  Nobody wants to be made to feel lower than a snake's underbelly just for having a different opinion or take on things than someone else. 

Huh.  So all of my wrangling, tears, temper tantrums, and guilt-trips were for nothing. I was pushing my loved ones away from the very thing I most wanted them to embrace!!  

In one of the hardest life-changes I've ever had to make, I decided to let go and let God have my kids (and my husband, for that matter!) and to TRUST HIM to do in them what I could never do. To stop being Jimminy Cricket and stop fearing what might happen to them if they didn't follow my advice ... and LET IT HAPPEN.  LET them walk away if they needed to.  LET them make a choice I wouldn't make.  LET them experience the consequences of said choice.  No guilt trips.  NO trying to manipulate the outcome.  

Yes, be a safe place to land. YES, forgive.  But LET them be who they were, even if it wasn't what I wanted.  LET them have their own opinions on things even if those opinions were diametrically opposed to mine. They were nearly adults at the time ... I was treating them like they were still six years old.  Letting go and learning to let it happen was one of the hardest, the most frightening, and the most rewarding things I ever did. 

Today, my kids still make choices I don't necessarily like all the time.  I'm learning to let them know what I think without telling them what THEY should think.  I'm learning to enjoy them and accept them for the way they are, and not try to change them.  They have slowly started to open up to me, like flower-buds in their proper season.  I've been surprised at the amazing variety of colours I see in them, colours that I never would have dreamed were there.  

And there is something else now in our house which was so rare before, and which is happening more and more often as I learn to let go and allow life to unfold for them without trying to force it.  It's like music to me.

It's the strangest and most beautiful sound.

Laughter.

All for one

We spent over two hours reminiscing about old times, talking about our common pasts and our hope for the future. How we appreciated each other and how our lives had changed in so many ways even in the last five years when my family and I were in crisis and the life of one of us was hanging in the balance.

The warm, easy camaraderie we have with each other (and have had for years) is impossible to manufacture.  It's organic.  It's based on layers upon layers of experience, held together by the mortar of mutual trust. 

Friendship.  There's something welcoming even about the word itself.  To me, it's not just people doing fun stuff together, knowing each other's names and a little bit about their families. I know dozens of people that way, and while they do fall under the category of 'friend' - this is not the same.  It's deeper than that.  It's knowing that no matter what, these friends will be there for you.  If you're happy, they will help you celebrate.  And if you're hurting, they will come to your aid.  And you'll do the same for them.  

It's like the old Three Musketeers motto: "One for all, and all for one."  

This friend was there for me when I needed her most - at a very low time in my life when I didn't have anywhere else to turn.  Her loving care for me gave me a soft place to land in what was a tumultuous time for me and for my family.  And now, I'm able - and happy - to be here for her.  

It's just as simple as that.

A Bigger Picture

The last few months, I've been focusing on working out my response to some burning and long-standing boundary issues with my birth family. Basically the Cole's Notes version is that (1) I have boundaries now, and that I need to look after myself, and (2) they - well - they don't get that.  

I've been trying very hard to figure out what is the right thing to do, praying about it, talking it over with people I trust.

It all boils down to this.  What I've really been trying to do is the same old thing: trying to get these people to think better of me.  It is difficult for me to accept that the people who are supposed to be my safe haven - just aren't.  How sad is that? not only for me, but for them?

About two weeks ago, I got a relatively long letter ready to send to one family member in particular, explaining my reasons for pulling away and setting a boundary based on her behaviour.  But I didn't send it.  As loving a tone as I tried to set for what I thought I had to say - deep inside I knew that what I had to say would hurt this person, because she doesn't understand in the least and would take anything I said as a personal attack.  I know this because that is what has been done so many times in the past by this permanent citizen of the continent of Victim-land. (I know the terrain well; I used to live there, right by the river of Denial next to the over-inhabited city of Martyrdom.  It's a sad, pitiful place.) 

I just shredded the letter this morning. 

Found this photo at THIS SITE

Last week, on a totally unrelated matter, I sent a second letter to someone else - in response to an inner prompting that didn't have anything to do with me.  It was only a couple of paragraphs, and it was to someone I care for very much - who is NOT a family member.  As it happened, (and as God usually does) the letter arrived just at the right time, and met an emotional need that went beyond anything I could have imagined.  The timing was ... well, it was perfect.  And God worked it out perfectly.  I was humbled - awed - by it all and I still am. 

As I pondered this morning about those two letters, the differences between my motivations for writing them came crashing through.  The second had nothing to do with myself but only with the person to whom I sent it, and only to build up and encourage. 

The first, on the other hand, had more to do with justifying my choices and my feelings to someone who could no more understand them - than a person completely blind from birth could understand the colour red.  Different universe. As Someone wise said once, "[Don't] cast your pearls before swine, lest they turn on you ... and tear you apart ..."  Basically that means that if someone couldn't possibly understand - don't give them ammunition to use against you. Because they will.

Point taken.  :s

Comparing the two letters, I realized that I felt about each of the intended recipients in opposite ways, too.  The first was written to someone with whom I have never felt and still do not feel emotionally safe, nor do I trust that person around my children or my husband.  She would find a way to end up making me look like the villain, a classic case of projection (attributing to another person one's own motives and character while hiding those very things from oneself).  

If I can't trust her with my own loved ones, what makes me think I can trust her with words on paper conveying my innermost thoughts? No, as difficult as it is for me to refrain from self-justification, I must.

The second letter recipient, though, has been a friend through a lot of ups and downs - and has been a safe place to land and be myself when I needed to be loved and not judged.

She is a kindred spirit.  A sheltered harbour.  A welcoming soul.  

When I prayed for clarification as to my motivations and whether to send that first letter (to the unsafe person), I was shown - given a bigger picture from higher up - how I don't need to chase after the approval of someone who will never approve of me.  

And conversely, I don't need to keep asking for approval from someone who already loves me anyway (wouldn't it be insulting after a while if your spouse or your child came to you every single day and asked if you approved of him or her?) I can accept that I am already accepted. I don't have to prove anything. 

As a people-pleaser in my natural state, I would normally be blind to that sort of thing.  It's not something I would have seen on my own. So I am grateful for this epiphany.  Even though it might not seem like a big deal to someone else, it's a lesson I never learned in active codependency, and I am thankful. It's simply this, in a nutshell: seeking approval from anyone but God only leads to heartache in one way or another - for me, or for the person from whom I am seeking approval.  Or both. 

And in the final analysis, God's opinion is the only one that matters anyway.

What a relief!!

Out of the mire

I had an experience today that was a little challenging.

I'll not go into details but it was a touch upsetting because someone misunderstood my motives and went behind my back to someone else instead of coming to me.  In trying to understand what went wrong and what I could have done differently, I did learn some lessons about human behavior and also about how insidious my desire to please people (or should I say "people-please" as a verb) really is.  

I'm learning - and relearning - and relearning - that I am a distinct person from others, and others are separate from me.  I don't HAVE to feel bad (or glad, or sad) because they feel that way.  I shouldn't expect them to feel a certain way just because I do.  I keep relearning it because ... well, it's new to me and I need practice.

This separate-ness is a hard lesson for someone whose whole life revolved around having everyone approve of me, and not making anybody mad, and wanting desperately for someone to give two hoots about me - to the point of changing myself into what I thought they wanted ... just to be accepted.  And not letting people know (out of fear they'd reject me) that they'd crossed a line. 

The truth is, I lived in an amorphous liquid mass, a pool of mire in which my identity was tied up in everyone else's - and I assumed that everyone else's identity was tied up in mine.  

In some cases it was more than in others, and I believed that that state of being - that miry homogenous existence - was called love.  

It isn't love.  It's dysfunction.  It's unhealthy: a collective consciousness in which I become swallowed up in the wishes and thoughts of others and no longer have an individuality of my own.  It's - well, for Star Trek TNG and Voyager fans, it's the Borg!  

I am a unique person, created with God-given gifts and talents.  So is this person, and that one, and all of them individually.  Learning that they exist apart from me (although our lives may touch each other in some way) has been so freeing for me.  And it is equally liberating every time I relearn it too... because it's when I start to slip back into that black, oily mire in which nothing is distinctive and it all melds together - that the lesson of detachment is the strongest and most life-giving.  It helps me to take responsibility for my own actions, and allow other people to take responsibility for theirs.  It takes the burden off me that was never intended to be there, and allows me to respond instead of react, to have compassion and confidence rather than cringing at what someone else might think. 

And that's a big deal.

Miracle Grow

Recently a friend paid me a compliment - that I'd been growing so fast lately that she wondered if I was using Miracle Grow.  

It made me laugh - and it made me think. 

The product Miracle-Gro® is plant food - pure and simple - and if you use it in the soil your plants grow in, it will make them grow faster and better than without plant food. It's remarkable the difference it makes.  

I remember a part of a conversation that I had with my counselor along about the end of the one-year process that changed my life so radically.  He also remarked about how much progress I'd made since I first sat in his office, a broken person whose life was falling down around her ears.  He rejoiced that it had taken as little time as it had.

I asked him why he thought that was, why it had taken such a short time according to him.

Found this picture at this site

His answer sort of surprised me - not because I didn't think it was true, but more because I didn't expect it to come from someone who made his living from working with people in crisis. I guess I had thought he might be jaded, I'm not sure.  

I can't remember his exact words, so I'll paraphrase:  "I've been doing this for a long time.  And I'll tell you that in the vast majority of cases, people who have God in their lives and form a real, daily relationship with Him, tend to heal more quickly because they realize that He's the one doing the healing, changing them as they get to know Him.  They just get to come along for the ride."  He went on to say that yes, it does take hard work, but the rate of change is so much faster in people who recognize and submit to the role that God plays in transforming them.  "Some of the most difficult cases I have, are people who refuse to allow God into the picture.  It's sad, really.  As hard as it is to go through this process even with God in one's life, it's many times harder without Him."

It's like a relationship with God that's daily, alive, and honest is the Miracle-Gro® of the soul.

And it IS a miracle.  Everything ABOUT it is miraculous.  Just the ability to smile when all I knew before were tears and frowns - that's simply amazing.  The reactions I have now that I never dreamed possible, reactions to things that would have driven me around the bend in my "before" life - are completely the opposite.  

Letting go when I once hung on for dear life shows that trust has replaced fear.  Huge.  

Speaking out and setting boundaries, when I once would clam up and shove things down inside of me - this is confidence replacing dread.  Wow.

Trying new things and admitting when I make mistakes (and I really DO!!) then moving on with lessons learned - instead of wilting into the background out of perfectionism and fear of failure - displays freedom rather than bondage. 

These Miraculous Transformations are sponsored by the all-powerful, all-knowing, ever-present One. And HE is my Miracle Grow.

Somebody poisoned the water hole!

One of the greatest Disney-Pixar movies I've ever seen is Toy Story.  It's about friendship, loyalty, honesty, integrity, and so much more.  So many lines from that flick have come to my aid to describe various experiences that I've had.

The character Woody the Cowboy (played by Tom Hanks) has quite a few of them. Woody is an action figure with a pull string that allows him to say certain phrases.  One of those phrases is today's blog post title.  I got to thinking about that particular saying, and how it applies to some situations I've been going through lately.  

HERE is where I found this photo

Start hanging around poison situations and pretty soon the air reeks of it.  It leaves a bad taste in your mouth.  You feel dirty, used. Start hanging around poison people (everybody knows at least one) and their attitudes and speech will rub off on you. You feel "less than" - like something is wrong but you don't know exactly what.  Watch depressing or disturbing TV shows or movies on a regular basis, and eventually you'll be depressed or disturbed.  It's like I used to tell the kids when they were growing up, "GIGO - garbage in, garbage out." 

The fact of the matter is, if I don't want to turn out dirty, used, depressed, angry, if I don't want to be rolling around in the cesspool of life and get the stench of it all over me, I need to make some changes in what I read, what I watch, what I listen to, and who I hang around with.  I need to stop letting people use me, and establish (and enforce) some boundaries in my life.  I need to start believing (instead of just saying) that I can do nothing to change anyone else, to fix anyone else.  Changing people is God's job, NOT MINE.   The only person whose behaviour I must be responsible for ... is me.  Anything more will be self-defeating because I can NEVER do God's job.  Not even in myself.   The only thing I can do is trust Him and let Him fix me.  Me.  Not you, not him, not her, not 'them'.  That said, at the same time, I need to let people know where my boundaries are - and let people know when they've crossed them.  Too long I spent as a doormat, letting people scrape the muck from the barn off on me - if you catch my drift.  

Which brings me to the water hole.  The water hole is a safe place to come and drink, to be replenished, to be refreshed.  If that place is corrupted by dishonesty, betrayal, hypocrisy, and selfishness - mine or others'  - the place that was supposed to be a refuge, a haven in the storm, can become the opposite.  I've seen it happen in families, in friendships, and in church (or other social groups which are supposed to be "safe.")  The water hole is not the place to clean your dirty, manure-covered boots.  If people use it like that - the water is no longer drinkable. It's poisoned.

The only two things that can be done when the water hole is poisoned is to get rid of the poison... or dig a new water hole.  Either option is going to require a great deal of work.  But it's the only way to not get sick.  

And I'm sick of getting sick.  Aren't you?

Breaking the cycle

Hurting people hurt people. 

It's a saying I've heard before - and I use it frequently, because it's true.  If all a person has ever known is abuse, ridicule, abandonment, and betrayal, it's all that person expects, and after a while it is seen as normal, just the way the world works.  

But it doesn't work like that.  There are people who wake up in the morning and don't wonder how many times or how deeply they'll get hurt that day.  For many years I didn't know that, because it was the way I lived life.  And I thought it was normal.  It WAS normal - for me.  

But it wasn't right.

The problem with that cycle of abuse is that once it's seen as normal, the tendency is to react to things the way the abuser did, even if the abuser is long gone.  

I remember an incident that happened when my first child was about 8 months old.  The poor kid was teething, and it hurt a lot. And she cried just about non-stop. Nothing I did helped: ice in a facecloth, Anbesol, bread sticks to chew on, the list went on and on.  I was getting more and more exasperated as the days wore on interminably; my patience was wearing thin.  

I'd taken about six hours of trying to ease her suffering one day, and it seemed to me that she just WOULD not stop (not could not: my perception, another danger sign).  I felt a wave of irrational anger build up in me and I knew that if I stayed in the room with her for one more second, I'd do something I would regret later.  I fled to another room, laid my back and my head against the wall, as if the wall somehow would give me the strength I needed to keep from losing my temper and terrorizing my child.  Before I knew it, one of my legs drew forward and I kicked the wall behind me with my heel, hard, in frustration.  And my heel went through the wall and stuck there ... until I wiggled it out.  

I turned around and saw a five-inch gaping hole in the drywall where my heel had gone into it. 

Found this picture HERE

The sight of that hole, and knowing that if I'd stayed in the room with her... well, it wouldn't have been good ... sobered my thinking.  The anger was replaced with a healthy dose of awe mixed with fear.  I left that hole in the wall and didn't want it to be repaired.  For years it stayed there as a reminder to me that people have feelings and things don't, that I was capable of the same kind of evil that I experienced as a child from angry parents, and that it was wrong to take out my frustrations on my kids. Period.  

I didn't know how to deal with the intensity of my pent-up emotions; I was afraid of them and shoved them down inside of me, and sometimes they'd boil over and I'd scare myself again.  It wasn't until after my children were both in their teens - and had already shut me out of their lives - that God showed me the root of the problem and I knew that I had to break that cycle, that self-perpetuating message I'd heard ever since I was a kid ... and that if I wasn't careful, I'd continue to pass that message on to my own kids without even being aware of it.

You know the message I mean. Or perhaps (lucky you) you don't.  It's the one that comes from a person that thinks he or she knows what love is - but doesn't.  It's the one that says,
- You're no good.
- Nothing you ever do or say is good enough.
- Go away, you bother me.  My problems are more important than yours are. Than you are.
- Your feelings don't matter.  Get rid of them. I don't want to listen to it.
- You don't deserve my protection; I'm not ever going to take your side.
- You were put on this earth to make me look good.  Shame on you if you don't.
- All I need you for ... is to do chores. 
- You don't deserve a "thank you."  Not even once.
- You deserve to be beaten. Hard, fast, and repeatedly. With whatever object is handy (and if no object, a hand.)  Until my arm is tired. And without a chance to tell your side. Not once.
- If you EVER tell people about what goes on here, I'll make sure you suffer for it.  You'll end up looking like the worst liar or the worst ingrate that ever lived. 
- Nobody will ever love you.
- You'll never amount to anything.  If you do, though, I'll take the credit for it for "raising you right."
- What you think doesn't matter.  YOU don't matter.

It's hard to break that kind of cycle.  It took a long time to build - generations in fact - and it took concerted and sustained effort to break it.  Every message I got as a child, even though it screamed in my mind, I had to frequently and immediately counter with the (new-to-me) truth I was learning:
- I have intrinsic worth.
- I can contribute to a conversation and not be ridiculed.
- What I feel matters.  Shoving my feelings down inside of me and denying their existence is hurting me.  I can express them safely.
- I can trust my own judgment. I can be wrong, and I can start over.
- I have a purpose.  I deserve to have a life, to exist, to occupy space.  I don't have to apologize for it.
- I can find pleasure in doing things for people.  It's okay if they thank me; (I should say "You are welcome" when they do, rather than deflecting their praise with religious platitudes.)
- The abuse was WRONG. IT WAS WRONG.  I did not deserve it.
- Children are people too.  Doing something to hurt their feelings and then laughing when they cry ... is sick and wrong. 
- The truth is the truth, whether or not people believe it. I can't change what other people do, think, or say.
- I can be loved for who I am, not just for what I can do. 
- I can take pride in my accomplishments because I worked hard for them. 
- I matter.  I am entitled to have an opinion.

My kids - by the way - will be the first ones to tell you that their mother, while far from perfect, has undergone a radical transformation in the last three-plus years. They feel more comfortable telling me things - confiding in me, because they know I won't "freak out" like I once did and that I'll actually listen.  

Yes, breaking the cycle is hard.  But when I remember what that vicious circle was like - there's NO WAY I'd want to go back to it.

The right diagnosis

I've been going to physiotherapy sessions for the last few weeks after I "put my back out" one weekend.  

When I first got to physiotherapy, my therapist started treating my most problematic symptoms - in my lumbar area.  She gave me exercises to do. The pain started to become more manageable.  She got me to sleep with a pillow between my knees.  Sometimes the pain would be better, sometimes worse, depending on how I turned in bed or moved at work, getting in and out of the car, going up or down stairs.  The pain - when it came back - settled in one hip or the other and there were days it would radiate down the outside of my thigh.

This diagram I found HERE

About two weeks into treatment, my physiotherapist started talking about my sacro-iliac (SI) joint when I described the pain. 

I thought she was way off base, because for years my chiropractor had been telling me that the problem was in my spine.  Perhaps part of it was.  But this felt a bit different ... and I did the exercises she suggested, and things started to improve, as long as I did them correctly.  But I didn't quite understand what I was supposed to feel, where that "pull" she talked about was supposed to happen. 

I just knew that I hurt, and I wanted it to stop.

Out of curiosity (or was it desperation?) I looked up the SI joint online and found that it is the joint between the sacrum (just below the vertebrae, above the tailbone) and the ilium.  A dysfunction there will pinch the sciatic nerve.  And voilà - pain! A little more searching and I discovered a specialist's site which talked about a way to correct SI dysfunction through targeting that specific joint in a series of similar exercises which one could do one way lying down, another sitting, and another standing. I spent about ten or twenty minutes studying the mechanics of the exercises so I could be sure I knew how to do them.

And then I tried them.  What a difference!  I suddenly knew exactly what I was supposed to feel because I felt it!  Deep inside - I felt the stretch exactly where the pain originated.  It was difficult to get into that position.  But SO needed. SO worth it.  

It's amazing.  But if I had operated on the assumption that this was a lumbar spine problem rather than an SI problem - I might have wasted a lot of time and been in a lot more pain for a lot longer.  It's so important to know what the REAL problem is.  Going on a wrong diagnosis might fix something (more by accident than anything) but knowing what the issue is, goes a long way toward dealing with it. 

True in physical pain... true in emotional pain.  

I've been in emotional pain, a lot, and thought it was because the people in my life wouldn't listen to me, or because I needed to have this or that one need me or thank me or ... whatever.  And I imagine (because I am human and as such, selfish) that I'll experience that kind of pain again.  Hopefully not as often. :)  

I found the information I needed to be able to heal inside.  And it was hard.  But I started to heal.  And that was far better than just doing the same old thing and getting the same old results.

Being able to be honest with myself, and targeting the source of the pain, rather than dealing with just the symptoms and what I THOUGHT it was ... even though it might have been harder ... resulted in healing.  It still does. 

It appalls me sometimes that it took me this long to find what I needed to heal from the inside out, to be able to have the right emotional diagnosis so that I could do what I needed to do to stop the pain.  That's a big part of why I wrote my book: I don't believe that a person should have to wait until he or she is 48 years old (like I did) before starting to get better.  

But regardless of how long it took to start .... I'm so glad I did.  So glad.