The power of liking

I wrote an article on a blog of mine yesterday (not this one) - and in my internet Mail Inbox this morning was an email from the site telling me that someone had "liked" my article. 

My eyebrows raised; my interest factor spiked. "Who?" I wondered. I clicked on it and found that not only did someone like it, that person started following the blog! Further, I had no idea who it was; the individual had just been browsing and stumbled on my site ... and liked what I wrote.

Hm!! 

I got this graphic from
this site on how to insert a FB like button

"Liking" is very powerful. There is an innate human need to be affirmed, to be approved of, to have contributions appreciated. That's part of the appeal of social media sites like facebook. It feels good to be acknowledged and appreciated for what you think or believe. Or what you've done. 

It's amazing how just a "like" on FB or an encouraging comment on a blog can lift my spirits. There are times when I wonder if I should even bother continuing, and then someone will like my link to this (or another) blog when I post it on FB, or they'll give me verbal or written feedback, and then I'll rethink my rethinking. Again. 

Liking is powerful in another way too. Knowing that someone enjoys my company - especially someone in whose company I feel safe - goes a long way toward whether I have a grumpy day or one filled with gratitude. Today someone came up to me and put an arm around me and squeezed. That person doesn't normally do things like that - at least not to me. But that show of support really made my day, because I'd been feeling isolated even though I was in a crowd of people. It was good to know someone thought enough of me to tell me, to show me. 

It reminded me to make a point of giving feedback, especially positive feedback. Do you know why most people in "helping" professions (psychologists, pastors, social workers, public servants) burn out so frequently? They give and give and give some more, and people take and take and take. The only things they ever hear are the complaints when someone's not satisfied. Very rarely does anyone come back to say, "Thank you for such great service," - or "What you said really helped me today." 

It only takes a couple of minutes once in a while. The way I figure it, folks are really good about saying nice things about someone after he or she is dead. 

Why wait?

Catching my breath

From the look of my blogger interface, it looks like folks are stopping by more often, which is good, because I've not been doing much writing - at least for me. 

Life can get busy. The urgent can crowd out the important. 

Appointments (dental, bank, and physio - mostly physio) have been occupying my thoughts and my schedule for the last two weeks. I've been trying to make a little extra money, so overtime has been in the picture; fortunately it has been offered to our group of late. I've been going "flat out," trying to pair my extra time at work with times that my husband has other commitments so that I don't sit at home and wait for him to come home. I've been pinging around trying to find new ways to bring in some more bacon - by trying my hand at some Internet sources of income. So far, I've made a total of a buck forty-eight, which falls just short of slave labor. Frustration and panic have been building. 

In the midst of all that, my body was sending me messages: slow down! I didn't listen. So it rebelled. I developed a recurring muscle tear in my lower abdomen, probably associated with my back problems ... and the extra weight of course. I guess that the tear in my belly would qualify as a hernia, I don't know; I know it's hard for me to take a full breath when I'm in certain positions. (And yes, I've thought about having it checked out - and no, I'm too chicken to have a doctor poke around down there!) Add to that a 24-hour 'thing' this past Monday where all my joints hurt and I spiked a fever, and it just added to my stress because I felt that I should be up and about. After all, I'm the primary bread-winner since hubby's retirement and the realities of that are weighing down on me more and more. 

So when i woke up this morning a lot earlier than what I would have liked, I had a choice: rail against my ebbing hormones or go with the situation and use it to take some time for me - to catch my breath, to use the skills I preach and actually practice them. Accept. Pray. Take care of myself. Set boundaries. Rest. 

Breathe.

Now there was a guy who knew how to relax!
My dear old Cody - God rest his soul.

Even if my mind is going in fifty different directions, forcing it to focus on one thing - this thing - allows me to stop long enough to catch my breath and see where I've been spinning my wheels and where I just don't need to waste my time. It helps me to think about what I really want at this stage in my life and how I can be kind to myself while trusting God to do what I can't do for myself. 

It's harder than it looks. ;) But I have a few examples I can look up to, and I am learning. I don't have to be do, do, doing all the time; being precedes doing. 

One of the side effects of spinning those wheels has been the way I have been interacting with some of my friends; I've been kind of a jerk at times. I hope that they know it's that drowning sensation talking - the feeling of being trapped, flailing around in fear with no way out. 

There is a way out, of course. I just haven't found it yet (I've been too busy flailing around!)  It's like what they told folks on a commercial many years ago in case they fell into the water ... don't splash around. Swim one, long stroke. Relax into it; you'll rise to the surface.  

I can trust God. I can accept what is. I can trust myself: my real self, not that frantic reactive person that pings from crisis to crisis. I'll figure it out, as long as I make it a point to look after myself. In so doing, I will have enough of the best of me to share with those who count: my family, my friends.

And maybe, just maybe, I'll have the courage to change what I can, and also to know my own limitations and stay within them. 

Breathe, Judy.

Those who matter

Be who you are and say what you feel, because "Those who matter don't mind, and those who mind don't matter."

This quote is incorrectly attributed to Dr. Seuss. The portion in quotation marks was spoken by Bernard Mannes Baruch (presidential advisor to Wilson and Roosevelt) regarding whether he wanted any special seating arrangements at a banquet.

In my previous post, I opened myself up to scrutiny by those of you who still read my blog... and I will admit that when I clicked "publish" ... it was with fear and trembling, even dread of being judged - much more so when I submitted it to the one who issued the challenge about which I spoke, since I have 15 followers and she has over 300. (Gulp.) 

I will also admit that I care - even after three and a half years of recovery from such things - far too much about what people think of me. Being human, I like to be liked.  I am (just like the rest of the world) hard-wired for connection. As much rejection and abandonment as I have known in my life, it still hurts to be excluded, ignored, or passed over - for whatever reason.  

But it's slowly dawning on me, this radical truth of "those who matter don't mind, and those who mind don't matter."  Married with the idea that "friends are God's way of apologizing to you for your family," I'm beginning to see that it's the heart connections that matter - whether those are blood ties or not.  That the support and encouragement of true friends ... trumps the pettiness and poison of those other toxic relationships, whether they are with family or not.  Every time.  I have a few such golden friends.  I value them ... I treasure them more than I can begin to express. And I can express a LOT.  ;)

As I was saying, when I submitted that blog post to my fellow-blogger for inclusion on her site ... it was with much fear and trembling.  I felt exposed, raw, vulnerable to attack. I think I even said to myself, "NOW what have I done?"  

Yet I was curious (morbidly or not) to know what my fellow-blogger thought.  I kept watching my inbox.

Nothing came.

HERE is a great article on hugging!

A few hours later, I once again checked my inbox.  Nothing was in there, but there was something sitting in my Spam folder.  "I wonder..." I said, for sometimes my email server mistakes real communication for spam.  

Sure enough, there it was, an email from Ellie.  And in the first two sentences, I was brimming with tears, which gradually turned to sobbing in gratitude and love by the end.  I won't tell you exactly what she told me -  but suffice to say that it started with a desire to hug me - and contained some of the most encouraging and uplifting affirmations I have heard in a very long time.  

I've already lost count of the number of times I've gone back to that email to read those incredible, supportive words, to feel that warm blanket of acceptance and kindness and trustworthiness enfolding me.  Ellie reached out to me across the miles, even though we've never met in person, to remind me of what is important -- and of what isn't. 

Her words made (and make) me feel ... heard.  Understood.  Even important, and not in an arrogant kind of way, but in the way every human being needs to feel valued.  Worthy.  Safe.  They gave me the courage to lean into, to make peace with, even to embrace, the truth of my birth family's rejection of me.  They gave me access to the Strength to do what I need to do - whatever that is - to accept "what is" ... and to move on.  They gave me enough wisdom to discern who are "those who matter" and who are "those who mind" - and enough security and whole-heartedness to embrace the former and to walk away from the latter.  As difficult as that is (and will be) it is also quite liberating.

I don't have to prove anything to anyone.  
I don't have to justify anything to anyone.  

I just need to look after what (and who) matters ... and leave the rest alone, because it's out of my hands.  If it was ever there in the first place, that is.

The soft underbelly

I just finished reading a post by my friend and fellow-blogger Ellie at One Crafty Mother, a post which has spurred me to talk about something that I don't often discuss. Especially not in a public forum.

Here is her challenge:

I want to issue you a challenge.  I want you to think of a moment, or period in your life (maybe it's still happening - even better) where you were feeling shame and vulnerability.  There is a difference between shame and guilt - just to clarify - shame is feeling badly about who you are, guilt is feeling badly for something you've done.   Vulnerability is that feeling we have when we've placed too much power in the opinions of others (oh, if they only knew how _______ I am) and shame and vulnerability feed off each other in very toxic ways.

Once you've identified a time when you have (or are) experiencing shame and vulnerability (almost always accompanied by their evil cousin fear) - I want you to write about it.  If you don't have a blog, crack out pen and paper, or a word document, and just let it pour out.  Try, if you, can, to write about it in narrative form.  Close your eyes, picture yourself in that moment, or in that period of your life, and write it like a story.  Tell the truth, every part of it, especially the little nuggets of shame, fear or guilt you've mentally edited out because thinking about them makes you feel small.

Talk about your inner shame dialogue; what did it tell you? How did it make you feel?  Writing about it - seeing your words out there - will take a lot of the power out of what is, essentially, holding you hostage.  I promise.

I must admit I'm a little daunted.  Especially because the first thing that popped into my head was something that I'm still going through and which I don't see any way out of except through it.  (Wow. That sounds familiar.)  But ... there's something that resonates in me with this concept - that truth makes people free, even if it's not pretty. That ugly things like shame and evil lose their power when brought into the light, when their soft underbelly is exposed.  

So ... here goes.

Many of you know that last fall, I e-published a book about my journey from the bondage of control-freaking and door-mat-itis into a lifestyle of freedom, passion, and purpose. It was a huge deal for me to have made the journey, and I wanted to write about it! 

The response I've received has been rather sporadic, actually - definitely not what I had hoped.  To be sure, I didn't expect to make much money from it; it was something that I wanted to do so that if even one person is helped by it, then it would be worth it. But I had thought I would receive just a smidgen more recognition than the large round of indifference I've gotten.  

Except from one quarter: my birth family and extended family, and anyone who is friends with them.  

For, you see, I did mention a couple of members of my family-of-origin in the book a couple of times.  I did so to highlight the "before" picture and some of the things I went through to be free of the things certain people did and said to me: things which scarred me my whole life long.  I took great care not to make that the focus, though.  I wanted to talk about the "unwrapping" that happened as a result of a day-by-day relationship with God, with myself, and finally with others.  (For more information on the book, see my "About Me" page.)

But by talking about their part in it even once, I broke the cardinal rule that was hammered into my psyche as a child: "What happens here STAYS here - we don't talk about it outside these four walls." 

I found this photo at THIS SITE

The truth about my childhood has always been a source of great shame for me.  I always thought - until I was well into my forties - that if anyone knew that I was abused as a child, they'd not want to have anything to do with me.  I'd lose everything.  Fear had me by the throat.  I thought people would blame me.  I thought that my family would disown me.  I thought that I would never be able to look anyone in the eye again.

But for the most part, people outside of my birth family have been kind, if not just tolerant. And I've experienced a great deal of healing from those traumatic experiences.

Yet, I am still ashamed.  Not for the horrors of what happened to me - God has healed me from that shame - but for telling the truth.  Ashamed for (even though it is the last thing I intended) appearing to be disloyal, ungrateful, vindictive.  For exposing the deception and no longer keeping "our little secret." For being honest ... and being called a liar. For having my motives judged and for not being able to explain to their satisfaction why I would cast such a shadow on the reputation of someone who - to friends and family - is the closest thing to a saint that they've ever seen.  

I wish I could say that it's been resolved. That would be nice, nice and pretty, all tied up in a bow and a "wonderful testimony."  But it hasn't.  This is a process.  I struggle with these feelings of shame, of feeling exposed and vulnerable to what others think, nearly all the time.  There have been many nights - even in the last six months - that I have cried myself to sleep because of the fallout, the pointed fingers, the broken relationships, the constant criticism and the lack of any kind of attempt to understand what I'm trying to accomplish. Grief over lost contact, lost favour, lost relationship, is something I deal with daily. All too often, the weight of shame and the crushing, smothering feelings of loneliness, fear and anxiety overwhelm me. 

I fight to keep in the moment; it is the only way I can survive.
 
I don't know how to get past this wall of misery.  I don't know if I SHOULD get past it.  I don't know if I'm doing any good to anyone - or if secretly I WANT them to suffer.  (Am I really that horrible? How can I ever look at my reflection in the mirror? When will this end? HOW will it end if it does?) 

I don't know.  I really don't.  I have wrestled with saying goodbye for good, with writing them off, with closing the door on that part of my life and never looking back.  

More shame. More vulnerability.  More feeling like I want to crawl into a hole and disappear.  

I am exposing my soft underbelly here - in the hope that shame has a soft underbelly too.  My friend Ellie says that shame and vulnerability hate the truth; they hate compassion.  

I hope so.  I really DO hope so.

Let Go; Let God

One of the most important things I'm learning -- and re-learning ... and re-learning, as many times as it takes! -- is the importance of living my life according to the motto, "Let Go; Let God."  I have that saying on my whiteboard right by the doorway, so it's the first thing I see when I arrive home, and the last thing I see before I leave.  

I've been focusing a lot on the letting go part, because after so many years of hanging on as if my life AND the lives of my loved ones depended on it, it's been so difficult to learn how to relax my iron-fisted grip on things I thought I had to control, know about, and monitor.  So much so that the letting God part kind of felt like an afterthought: "Oh yeah, right. That too."  

I was kind of worried about that.  I fretted a bit that I might have left God out of the equation, and I didn't want to do that.  So as I discussed my concerns with God (yeah well, some folks call that praying ... I guess...) a thought occurred to me that hadn't before, even though it was staring me in the face the whole time.  

Letting Go is PART OF
Letting God. 

Well duhhh...  How could I have missed that!

It's a vital part.  Of course! Letting God doesn't just mean that I ask Him to do what needs to be done in my life, in other people's lives.  It means that I trust Him to do the right thing, and that I let go of my need to control how He does that, suggest ways for Him to do it, or try to twist His arm into producing the outcome I desire.  He decides.  HE decides!  

Even if I don't like some of the things along the way.  Even if it's scary.  Even if I or the people I love have to go through stuff I'd rather they - or I - not go through.  I let go and give it to God and I keep my hands off it - because that's part of letting God.  Letting God means I let Him BE God - without interference.  That I get to accept whatever He decides, and sometimes, I even get to watch Him work.

That's pretty cool.

Active Voice

One of the first things that any writing coach will tell his or her students is the difference between two different writing styles: passive voice and active voice.

Passive voice means that the object is acted upon by the subject, and the object is mentioned first.  Example: "The man was licked on the face by the dog."  Active voice means that the one doing the action is mentioned first, and then the action, and then the object.  Example: "The dog licked the man's face."  

Active voice is far more direct.  It's active: it's easy to follow who did what to whom.  Passive voice implies that the action is "happening to" the main character.  

But it's not just in writing that I've seen examples of these two voices.  I actually LIVED in the passive voice most of my life.  My whole attitude was that things "happened TO" me.  I was not actively participating in my life; I felt that I was the victim of things and forces beyond my control, pushed around from pillar to post.  Therefore, I would constantly run to this person and that person asking for understanding, help, prayer, support, encouragement, validation.  My most common statement was, "I just don't know why these things keep happening to me."  And it wouldn't matter how much support or advice I got.  I'd be off to the next person, asking for the same kind of understanding, the same kind of affirmation.  

When I got into recovery from that kind of mind-set and started taking responsibility for my own actions and expecting others to take responsibility for theirs, I noticed a slow shift in my attitude toward life.  Things "happened" less and less to me.  

Oh, to be sure, life still throws me curve balls and there are situations that do still baffle me.  But they are fewer.  Or is it that my thinking has changed? 

Perhaps, even though stuff still happens, my attitude is now more like this:  I make decisions (even the wrong ones) and I live with the consequences of those decisions. People are still mean or vindictive to me, but that doesn't have to dictate how I react; I don't have to lie down and take it like I once felt I had to do in order to be "nice."  

I can ask for what I want. That's a pretty big deal for me.  

Yes, I don't have to like it when something unexpected occurs.  Yes, I am still allowed to have feelings about it and to talk about it.  But what my recovery has taught me is that God is trustworthy.  Always.  That instead of my last resort, He has become my first go-to Person.  That I don't have to ride the coat-tails of someone else's relationship with Him in order for God to listen to me.  And that I'm worth taking up space, having my own opinion, praying for my own needs, and looking after myself rather than expecting others to take care of me.  

It's a new feeling - unfamiliar even. And it's kinda scary.  But I like it.

The magnet

Everyone has one, I suspect. Everyone has a magnet hard-wired into them.

They might not have been born with it.  But it came - over time and at different ages in different people.  Some people had it implanted all at once; in others it was iron filing by iron filing over years and years.

What I'm talking about is that wounded place in each person - the place where there is great hurt, where the spirit has been badly injured. Perhaps it was a violent assault.  Perhaps it was systematic abuse.  Perhaps it came from years upon years of being criticized, made to feel stupid, or unwanted, or bad.  

Once there, this is the problem: the magnet attracts more of the same.  The very behavior that resulted in the spirit's being deeply hurt generates a desire in other people to injure that person in that exact same place.  It's uncanny. It's spiritual in nature - and I've seen it happen over and over again in myself and in people that I know, people that I love.  Even Christian pastors have remarked about this idea when talking about some counseling situations - an overwhelming desire to say something to the person that will injure him or her.  The ones who recognize it for what it is, immediately pray for that magnet to lose its power.  Of course they don't say those exact words... they might talk about an evil spirit - which is as accurate an explanation as anything else to describe the phenomenon.  

When someone smacks me in my own wounded place, my reaction is far more severe than it would be if they hit me in a place that was stronger.  And so it is with everyone - some call it a "sensitive area" or a "soft spot".  The end result is that people will jump on top of it like a hen on a June bug, like sharks in a feeding frenzy. Sometimes without even being aware of it.  It has happened so many times in my life that I have lost count.

My natural reaction to something like that is to avoid situations that will place me in danger of that happening.  (Which is why I avoid certain social situations like the plague.  But I digress.) 

What is harder, but better in the long run, is dealing with the hurt and rendering it powerless.  

HERE is where I found this photo of
acousto-magnetic strips used in many stores' anti-shoplifting systems

Like what happens at the store when you're buying some articles of clothing... they have a magnetized strip somewhere in the garment that will activate the security warning in the store if not "demagnetized" by the checkout clerk. But run a demagnetizing device right over that spot, and it changes the properties of the strip so that it doesn't react when the magnetic beam in the automatic doors hits it. If a clerk forgets, it's usually a simple matter to go back and get it done. Usually.

Sometimes, though, one of these strips doesn't get demagnetized at the checkout ... because it's buried so deep and doesn't respond to the demagnetizing device - and then it sets off Every. Single. Alarm. 

That happened with a winter coat I had once. It was poly-fiber-filled (the technical term, I believe, is "poofy") and the store at which I bought the coat didn't succeed in demagnetizing the strip; it was buried too deeply.  So ... the magnet was still active in it.  Every time I walked into a store (any store with a similar security system) wearing that coat, I couldn't get out of the store without setting off the alarm.  Try as I might, I couldn't find the strip; it was lost in the poly-fibers.  It frustrated not only me, but store security personnel too. They knew me, they knew my situation and that I was not a shoplifter - and they had even tried to demagnetize the coat for me, a couple of times.  Nothing worked.  Finally ... I stopped wearing the coat!!  A couple of years later, when I was taking it out of the closet to make room for something else, I grabbed it in an odd spot - and felt the short, thin strip through the material - it had slipped down into a spot that was unusual. Nobody would have thought to find it there.  

The process of demagnetizing those hurt places inside ... takes time.  It's not like Someone waves a big demagnetizing wand over the spot and it's all better.  Layers upon layers of "poof" builds up over it - in an effort to protect that soft spot - and makes it inaccessible.  The key is finding that spot and bringing it into the open. It might take a while. It might even take opening up the facade and ripping out the protective layers. 

It does not happen without pain, sometimes a lot of pain.  But once a move is made to put God at the helm of the process, it WILL eventually happen as long as He stays at the controls. Healing WILL happen, from the inside out.  And the alarms will eventually stop going off.  Life will become normal.  Happiness will not be so rare anymore.  

I know because it's happened in some areas of my life and it continues to happen in others.  Like I said, it's a process.  And in spite of the sometimes messy beginning, in the vast majority of cases, it is worth the mess, even before the journey is halfway through.

The Gift of Acceptance

When I was growing up, I was in survival mode.  I spent a lot of time just making it from one day to the next without drawing attention to myself.  I didn't think I deserved anything good because I was told I deserved the opposite. I was the heir to a generational curse that began two to three generations back - one that sprang from poverty at the turn of the 20th century and the subsequent depression.  My parents (especially my mother) were bullied as children and never got away from the bullies - who had kids who in turn bullied me.  Of course, so did my mom, but that is a different story.  

As a result, friends were hard to come by.  I rarely had any friends, because hardly anybody wanted to befriend someone with a bull's eye painted on her back.  (Those that did, already had targets on their backs.)  And because friends were so scarce (I never had any more than 3 friends at a time and even then, not until high school), the title of "best friend" became fiercely competitive, sought after, and a source of great distress if someone else won it. It left the others feeling like losers. Less than.  Rejected.  The next step in that parade was that the one who chose a different best friend would eventually gravitate away from me, get other interests, move on and leave me friendless. 

Again. 

After I married and moved away, that mentality followed me.  Any friendships I had were with one, at the most three people at once. And I cringed every time one of my friends referred to another person as his or her "best friend".   To me, it meant that I wasn't good enough.  That I was being rejected.  That I would be abandoned.  

When I got into recovery from codependency back in February 2009, I learned a whole new lifestyle - a lifestyle of letting go with love.  Much of that lifestyle is based on accepting what is - and that is something that I cannot manufacture. 

It is a gift.  It's a gift I pray for and that God gives.  I don't have it in me to accept what I can't change.  In fact, everything in me rails against it.  I STILL cringe when I hear a friend say that someone else is their best friend.  It triggers all those old feelings and fears in me, feelings of inadequacy, and fears of rejection and abandonment ... even though I know that it's probably not true.  I pray for the strength to accept and I pray for the acceptance itself.  And I have to keep praying for it - because it kind of leaks out or gets used up, I haven't figured out exactly which. 

But acceptance is the key to enjoying today (that is, not letting the 'what ifs' rob me of being happy today), the key to evicting stress from my life.  Once I started (with God's help) accepting that other people not only make their own choices but are supposed to do so without my input, and to bear the consequences of their own actions without me rescuing them, the burden of caring for them in that unhealthy way ...  just lifted. 

It doesn't mean that I'm not ready to lend a hand when God asks that of me.  It just means that I no longer consider myself obligated to do so "just because" I'm that person's spouse / mother / sister / daughter / friend. I'm learning that I am me and that everyone has boundaries, including me.  Crossing those boundaries without permission is a recipe for disaster.  

It also means that I can be okay with my friends having other friends that they consider closer to them than they consider me to be.  Any success I have on that front is more a function of how well I like myself rather than how much they like me, anyway. If I keep focused on accepting people, places and things as they are, praying for the serenity to do so - I fare better.  I don't go off pinging into the danger zone and sabotaging relationships that are important to me by giving in to my fears.  I LET.  With God's empowerment ("to want to, and to do"), I let life happen to me, and accept it on its own terms.  

It's His gift to me.  And that is a gift for which I am repeatedly grateful.

Let it go

Let it go.

But what if it does something I don't want it to do?

You can't control what it does anyway.  Let it go.

But I've held onto it for so long!

Then it's time.  Let it go.

It's going to be so hard!

I know.  I'll be there.  Let it go.

But I'm afraid!

I'll be holding you and I'll never let go of you; you can lean on Me.  Let it go.

But if I let it go, it'll be like saying I don't care - and I DO care!

I know. The best care you can give right now is to yourself.  Let it go.

But if I let it go, it'll be like I am saying that what happened is okay, that I'm okay with it - and I'm not!

I know how you feel in your heart.  Really.  Let it go. 

But I CAN'T!!

I CAN.  Trust Me.  Let it go.

From THIS SITE

The Road to Forgiveness

I want to say at the outset that forgiveness is not, repeat NOT, a one-time decision.  You don't wake up one day and say, "I think I'll forgive ____ for hurting me."  It just doesn't happen.  If someone has told you it happens, that person was lying to you - and probably lying to him or her self. 

No.  Forgiveness is a PROCESS.  I've said it before on this blog and I'll say it again because it bears repeating. 

I'll also say (again) that forgiveness is NOT:
- making excuses for the person,
- saying "there's nothing to forgive,"
- ignoring the problem, or 
- medicating your feelings with whatever makes you (temporarily) feel good.

The process of which forgiveness is a vital part, is as different from one person to another as their personalities.  The length of time it takes is as varied as a day to a lifetime. But even though the journey is different for each person, it always goes through certain stages (the length of which depends on the severity of the wrong committed and whether or not it was a one-time thing):
- hurt (the initial emotional response);
- anger (the God-given protective response);
- grief (releasing what you have lost - what the offender took from you or poisoned);
- acceptance (of the offender's part and of your own);
- forgiveness (letting go of your right to punish the offender); and
- healing (moving on).

Link for this photo is HERE

This cycle can be repeated with the same person for the same offense (especially if the hurt is deep or has taken place over a long time) - or a new hurt can piggyback onto an older one and start the process all over again. It doesn't mean that the person in the forgiveness process has failed.  

A person does not need to feel guilty for having feelings that are normal and healthy to have, while going through this process.  It is what it is WHILE it is, and God is in charge of the process.  (Or did I forget to mention that at the outset?) 

It's humanly impossible to forgive a deep or long-standing hurt. In human strength, well, you can never do it by yourself.  Other human friends can help, but the process is supernatural in nature and as such, requires divine help. 

It takes as long as it takes. 

And it is not, nor should it ever be, equated with walking back into an abusive situation just because you've "forgiven."  You can forgive without being foolish. Certain people are just plain poison.  Forgiveness won't change them; in fact, they'll take advantage of you if they can, and will try to convince you that "forgive and forget" is in the Bible somewhere.  It isn't.  The only One who forgets (and that, by choice) is God.  It is not a human trait.  One day, after we've shed our earthly bodies, all tears will be wiped away from our eyes - - but until then, it will be impossible to forget the deep hurts.  It doesn't mean that we've not forgiven.  That's not what forgiveness is.  

Forgiveness - when you get there and not before - is a releasing of your right to expect the other person to repay you for whatever it is he or she took from you, whether that was self-respect, trust, possessions, innocence, or whatever. One thing that helped me come to this place toward my abusers was a statement that a speaker came out with in one of her talks: "The moment that person took whatever it is from you, it flew away, never to return.  That person can NEVER give that back to you because he or she doesn't have it anymore.  It's gone.  So you have a choice now.  You can hold onto something that doesn't exist anymore - or you can let it go." 

The alternative is what one dear old recovering alcoholic said once: "Not forgiving is like drinking poison and hoping the other person will die."

All it takes is a willingness to begin the healing process, and a simple request made to God to walk you through it.  

The Comfort Zone

By definition, a person's "comfort zone" is that realm of living in the everyday that feels comfortable, right.  At ease.  It's a combination of social circles, circumstances, individual relationships, job duties, and other miscellaneous expectations, routines, and habits to which a person has become accustomed.  It's the place in life where one feels safe.  

That makes a major assumption.  It assumes that the person has an inner comfort zone.  Such is not always the case.

The comfort zone I mean is the one where one feels comfortable inside - at peace with one's self.  The French call it "être à l'aise dans sa peau" - or "being at ease inside one's skin" - and it involves one very difficult - but essential - relationship. 

It's the relationship with oneself. For, as I understand the two most essential commandments of the Jewish law, identified by Jesus, it is necessary to have three relationships in life - and in this particular order of importance: with God, with oneself, and with others.

LINK for this photo

I've said a lot about relationship with God on this blog, so I'll leave that one alone in this post. Besides, I think that most people would agree that it's necessary to have a friendship with the Creator.  But I've seen a lot of people skip over that relationship with the self ... thinking it's somehow selfish ... and focus on other people exclusively.  Then they wonder why their caring for other people seems difficult, or forced, or why they are continually burning out and becoming resentful of the people they are nurturing.  I did that - for years.  I still fight the tendency to do it.  There seems to be a collective / cultural guilt surrounding the idea of being a friend to oneself. Perhaps it's that whole religious thing - the idea that paying attention to the self is egotistical, arrogant, and selfish. (Absolutely not the case. Just saying.) But as I keep telling my friends, "You're the only YOU that you have. Look after YOU ... please." I guess I need to keep reminding myself of the same thing, too.  Self-care fills my emotional tank and allows me not to get burned out as quickly (if at all) when I need to show compassion and caring to someone else.

Notice I said to show caring.  That doesn't mean that I rush in without permission into someone's life and start dispensing advice or (worse yet) barking orders - something I need to keep reminding myself about because that's what I used to do --- and on a regular basis.  It means that if someone needs a little help getting their bearings, I give them a soft place to land, to rest, to get their feet under them, to believe in themselves, and to learn to fly on their own.  It doesn't mean I create in them a dependency on me, on my advice or whatever else I think they might need. If I do that, then the relationship with the other person becomes about me.  That's not healthy.

But showing compassion and caring is the end result.  It will naturally flow out of relationship with God and then relationship with the self.  Many people focus on the end result of caring for others and showing compassion to them, - give, give, and give some more - and end up frustrated over time because ... well, there are any number of reasons but they all stem from a desire to have some sort of acknowledgement from the other person for their self-sacrifice.  It's been my experience that if I am looking after myself, I don't NEED that acknowledgement (I won't turn it away or be unthankful if it happens, but that's not my motivation or my goal) because I'm operating out of a place of fulness rather than running on empty all the time. 

As a matter of fact, when I actually DO start feeling edgy or resentful of someone else, that's my warning sign that I haven't been looking after myself. That's the time for some "me time" - to look after myself and be at ease inside my own skin - to find my own "comfort zone."

Refuge

The sun's heat baked into my skin as I trudged up the steep mud driveway.  I could smell wild roses in full bloom in the ditches, could hear the distant song of crickets, could see to the right, more and more of the barn - first the roof, then the walls - as I got closer to the top of the hill.  At the top of the hill and to my left stood the old farmhouse.  

But what caught my eye first - and every time without fail - were the soft brown eyes of my friend Princess as she trotted toward me from the barn.  Princess was a dog - a yellow Labrador and border collie mix, most likely, with a few other things thrown in.  Nobody had purebred animals in this backwater community.  Her doggie grin welcomed me; her liquid brown eyes sparkled in excitement.

She turned, knowing I'd follow her, and trotted to the barn.  I'd never seen a dog before or since climb the built-in ladder to the hayloft, but she could.  She led me slowly over to a spot about twenty feet or so from the edge of the loft, well away from the place where anyone could fall off and get hurt.  She gingerly circled a spot in the floor where a pile of puppies lay sleeping, tangled and nestled up in each other's bodies.  She laid down and looked up at me, eyes ever expressive.  It was like she was saying, "These are my babies. Aren't they something?"  I'd pet them for at least ten minutes - this part I didn't want to rush.  In fact, I didn't want to rush ANY part of this... this refuge from my usual world.  

I'd gotten permission to walk up and go visit this place - with the understanding that I be back at a certain time.  There was so much to see there, that it would be a few hours before I was expected back. 

Reluctantly, I climbed out of the hay loft and made my way out of the barn and toward the house, dodging free-range chickens and their chicks bunched around them as I crossed the yard. Prince, the old retired guard dog, a Keeshond - Shepherd mix, wagged his tail at me from the side porch.  I turned and headed toward the back porch entrance.  I could have gone in the side where Prince was, but he was resting, and I wanted to see what was in the back hallway.  

Got this picture of cuteness HERE

There was usually a cardboard box half-way up the forty-foot hallway, which was a gigantic mud-room in today's terms.  In the box I would invariably find a litter of kittens and their mother.  I could visit with them for a little while too.  The animals soothed my soul.  They never asked anything from me but my presence. I needed that.  

After the kittens had gone to sleep - I got up and tip-toed toward the door that led to the kitchen.  The oil stove was on one wall and the wood stove - pressed into service for larger crowds - was to my right as I came in the door.  I could smell wood ash, galvanized steel (buckets), and something delectable that made me close my eyes in bliss. 

Gram was there.  She was making a pan of new-potato hash: these days I guess people call them hash browned potatoes.  My favorite.  

"You must be hungry.  Why don't you wash up and we'll sit and have a bite to eat."  It was more of a statement than a question.  Nobody dared turn down Gram's new-potato hash, made in an iron skillet with boiled new potatoes, and chopped fine using a "hash can" - an old tomato sauce can with one end open and honed sharp around the circular edge, and a hole in the top to let out steam, placed there by the kind of can openers you open a can of apple juice with.  The rhythmic "chock, chock, chock, chock, chock [pause] tap-tap-tap" of Gram chopping the potatoes and then tapping them out of the can is so vivid I can almost still hear it.  She served the steaming hot hash on a fluted old china plate and placed it on the table. I pulled a fork out of a cup of clean utensils on the table.

I'd sit and tuck into my food, and Gram would just talk about everything and nothing to me - as if I mattered.  Nothing she said was ever a criticism of me or of anyone else, as I recall.  I remember feeling as though I wanted to be there, to stay there.  It was so different from the home life I knew.  I offered to help her with the dishes and she accepted.  But it didn't feel like a chore. It was another way to interact with her, to experience the atmosphere that was this house, this refuge away from feeling like I was nothing.

I knew to stay out of her husband's way of course - he was that crotchety and mean, so I usually visited when he was away at work - but often Gram would give me the run of the house and let me play in the tiny upstairs bedrooms -there must have been about six of them - and peek through the rails in the banister into the parlor, where she would have a quilt set up in the frames ... or perhaps a card table for games with the neighbors later that evening.  

At the foot of the stairs, right beside a large black and white reproduction of a print of Queen Victoria, sat a large table on which was the biggest birdcage I'd ever seen with finches - at least four finches in it. Heep, heeeep, they would call to each other in thin, reedy voices.  I could listen to them and feel my muscles relax.  

When it was finally time to go, I would linger on the walk home - back to the normal world where there were expectations, and nothing I did pleased her - away from this one where Gram reigned with grace and gentleness.

I knew I would be back.  Again and again.

Caught unawares

It was 2:40 p.m.  I'd spent the day doing housework, listening to music, watching TV... nothing spectacular.  It was a day like every other day before it and like many days after it would be as well.  

I heard the roar of the school bus going up the road.  "Won't be long now," I murmured to myself, a slow smile on my lips.  

Five minutes later, the storm door slammed.  I heard a thump as her kitbag hit the floor, a couple of flubbling sounds as the winter boots came off and rolled a bit - and, wait for it - everything drowned out in a sound that was so common now that I didn't jump anymore.

"YYYYIPPEEEEEEEEE!" she whooped at the top of her lungs.  

I smiled.  She'd held herself in all day at school and it just HAD to come out.  

She's what a lot of parents might call a "difficult" child. I'd say rather that in comparison to other children, she's always been "more." More perceptive, more intuitive, more intense, more sensitive, more adventurous. I can't say that nurturing her hasn't been a challenge when she and I are so different in personality, but I CAN say that she has brought a never-ending source of variety and spice to my life.  Her positive attitude, her faith, her humour have brightened my days and inspired me, even given me strength to face some of the hardest times in our lives. There have been times that I don't know what I would have done if she hadn't been there to say that everything was going to be okay.  

And it was.

I don't know quite how or when it happened.  I think it might have been while I was dealing with finding myself after decades of being wrapped up in other people (and not in a good way), but she just ... grew up.  All of a sudden I looked around and I was ten years older - and - so was she.  It caught me unawares.

Got this photo at THIS SITE

And now she's talking about leaving.  Not just to get her own apartment in the city, but to go half a continent away into another country.  Never mind the travel cost, the price of health care, or the rules and regulations surrounding visitors to that country and how long they can stay, or whether they can work there (I've heard the job market is fiercely competitive!) 

No, never mind all that. I will miss her presence... that indomitable, relentless, boundless optimism.  And the funny things she says and does - she's had me laughing so many times - so hard the tears stream down my face and my stomach muscles ache.  I will miss knowing about her day, her friends, her hopes and fears. I will miss watching her care for her friends, witnessing her tenacity and her loyalty first-hand.  In my mommy-heart, I still hear her coming home, shouting at the top of her lungs from the sheer joy of living, of being home.  And I wonder where that little girl went, and at what point she said goodbye.  Part of me - the part that wasted so many years - wonders what I could have done or said differently.

I hope she knows that she is loved, so very much!  I trust that she knows that her father and I believe in her, want the best for her, and will always stand our ground if we need to defend her.  I hope she understands that she can always come to us - that our door is open.  I hope that she will always WANT to come to us.  

To come home.