Flowers and Hearts

We're coming up on one of the hardest times of year for me - Mothers Day. It's difficult to wade through the messages everywhere that all mothers are saintly. Some just ... aren't ... No matter what anyone else believes, nobody really knows what goes on behind closed doors ... except the ones behind those doors. Some kinds of memories can sour the pleasures of the present.

And of course, the annual event (and its hype) is also a reminder of one of my children who is not here anymore to wish me a happy Mothers Day. . . that kind of pain never goes away, but is more keenly felt on the 2nd Sunday in May.

For those of you who are fortunate enough to have had a wonderful mother, I am glad that you did. If your wonderful mother is still living, be sure to tell her - and show her (not just one day a year) - that you love and appreciate her. That means a lot more than gushy words in a card, pretty flowers or corsages, and chocolates once a year.

If your wonderful mother has passed away at any time (and especially recently) - I grieve with you for having lost someone very special in your life.

And if (like me) how you feel about your mom is "complicated" and you have mixed feelings (at best) about Mother's Day - and especially IF you are a mother with that kind of background ... might I offer my perspective?  I have learned through trial and error (mostly error) that the best way to survive the last week of April and the first half of May (with all the advertising campaigns capitalizing on guilt and shame) is to focus on the present and BE a good mom all year round. 

A good mom is one whose children feel safe to be themselves around her.
 

Photo "Dandelions" courtesy of sattva at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

"Now" is important.  Now matters. Continue breaking the cycle of bad parenting, abuse, and/or neglect. Treat your children - no matter how young - like the real people they are, not just as miniature extensions of yourself. Don't set them up to be laughed at - and NEVER laugh at them or call them names, or dismiss their "little feelings" (there is NOTHING "little" about feelings) as "cute" just because the reason for their distress seems minor to you. 

Respect their boundaries. Take their side. Celebrate their accomplishments. Go to bat for them when they are treated unfairly.  Say please and thank you to your children, and MEAN it. Say you're sorry to their face (and MEAN it) when you mess up. Teach them basic housekeeping and cooking techniques, do these tasks together, and teach them the joy of helping others for its own sake, not to avoid punishment or gain a material reward.  They will remember for the rest of their lives the way you treat them when they are little.  They will also remember how you treat others who have little or no power, and when they grow up, they will most likely treat others the same way.

And when the day comes (whether they're three or sixty-three) when they want to honour you for being that good Mom - and they will - don't rob them of that joy.  Smile and say thank you.  Even if all they bring you is dandelions, if it comes from the heart, see the heart behind it, look them in the eyes with all the love you have inside, and say thank you.

Taking Time

I've been spending some time lately looking after myself, and one important fact has dawned on me about self-care. To others it might seem to be a no-brainer but to me, it explains (in part) why I never did much of it before, and why I always felt guilty when I did do it.

It takes time. 

I would make time for my husband, for my family, for my friends, for church obligations, for my boss ... and after all that was done, there just wasn't any time for me. I'd drop exhausted into bed at night and the whole thing would start all over again the next day. The only time I seemed to take for me (and even then under protest) was when I'd get so run down that I'd get sick. Even my body was telling me to take some time for me. I wasn't listening. 

When I started therapy in early 2009, one of the first questions asked of me was this: "When was the last time you did anything for yourself, that you wanted to do just because you liked it?" 

I couldn't remember when it was or what I did. Wracking my brain, I did come up with something in 1991: I had taken equitation lessons - English riding, you know, with the helmet and the jumping over fences, that kind of thing. Wait a sec - did I say 1991? That had been 18 years previous! Yikes!

I was a lot skinnier then. A LOT. Almost a hundred pounds skinnier.

Yes, this is a photo from that day in 2003.

I remembered going on a trail ride when my kids were 14 and 11, that would have been 2003. I was much heavier than in 1991. I remembered the poor male attendant and then his assistant joining him in shoving at my hind end to help me mount up; nothing worked, and the saddle started to slip toward my side of the animal. (Shudder.) But I was there for my kids to have the fun of riding, dang-it-all!!. So I looked around and saw a platform with steps up to it. "Take the horse over there, and let me get on from that platform," I told them. It worked, and I did enjoy being on a horse again, but the experience was marred by the lead-up and the snickers of the extremely tall and skinny trail ride staff. It was NOT a happy time for me. To soothe my bruised ego and to finish on a positive note, I took the kids for a milkshake at a nearby diner afterward. They loved it. They wanted to go riding again sometime. I don't remember ever going back, at least not to that particular spot.

I have photos of that day ... somewhere. Fortunately for me, I was the one with the camera, so there are no blackmail photos. (Thank God.)

Back in 2009, in therapy, I recall reliving these experiences and realizing that Judy had taken a back seat ever since, and not out of love but out of shame, out of a feeling of not being worthy, not being adequate. Voices from my past had been all too quick to confirm my opinion of myself. I remember feeling trapped by my physical limitations, and I wanted so badly for things to be different: for me (for one thing) to not be nearly a hundred pounds heavier than in 1991. Every time I'd tried to lose weight, I had gained it back and more beside. My therapist stopped me when I said that. "Someday Judy, when you are healed on the inside, the outside will take care of itself without you even realizing it." And I cried at his faith in me. I didn't even have that much faith in me; how could a stranger know what I was?

I did a lot of crying over the next few weeks and months as I realized how I'd put myself in a corner and let others take the center stage in my life while I wore the "fat, stupid and lazy" dunce cap, self-imposed at that. I began to understand how deep that shame was, how horribly I'd treated myself, how that had spilled out into my relationships with others.

Jack Canfield, the author of the "Chicken Soup for the Soul" series, said once that in order to change something in your life, in order to keep going and press forward instead of giving up, you need to flood your mind with statements and images that remind you of your goal. 

I learned that repetition is so very important. The self-destructive messages I picked up as a child were huge in my life. I had to lovingly parent that damaged inner child and tell her things she should have been told so many years ago: that she was important, that she was worthy, that she was smart, that she was loveable. One of the reasons I said those things to her was because part of me knew that it was true - the logical part of me. Yet the emotional part of me, where she resided, hid from this truth and pooh-poohed it - even sabotaged it. Repetition was the key. It had taken many years of others repeating the wrong message for it to get so entrenched into my psyche. It was not going to change overnight, especially because those same people were shouting those lies to me every day of my adult life as well. So, I set my sights on filling my mind with those statements, to remind myself daily, sometimes several times a day, of what I knew I should have been told and reminded of daily ... decades ago. 

From "A Letter to my Shy Girl"

It took months for that little girl to stop hiding her face behind her hands. It took even longer for her to venture a weak smile, and longer still for her to reach out to my extended hand. I got help - all the help I could use or ever want - from people who believed in me, from inspirational readings like "The Language of Letting Go" by Melody Beatty, and from Psalm 139.  Many, many readings of Psalm 139. I learned to trust my emotions to let me know what was going on inside of me, and not to deny them expression in safe ways. And, as hard as it was for me to go through - I did my homework, every day. I learned what I had to learn, examined what God placed in front of me to look at, even when I didn't want to look. I took responsibility for looking after myself and for restoring relationships I had ruined by behaving selfishly. I learned to forgive - to let go. I learned ... how to live life. 

The lessons I learned then hold me in good stead now. I still have to remind myself of what's important. I still have to talk gently to that little girl, because even though she isn't cringing anymore, she still needs to be parented, reminded that she is precious, valuable, cherished. She has gone from about 5 or 6 years old to being about 10 or 11, but she is still too young to be on her own ... yet. ;)  

However, there is progress. 

The one thing all of this has taught me is that it does take time to heal; that it does take time to do the things I need to do for my own benefit. And it's taught me that it doesn't happen in a moment. I need to TAKE the time that it takes to invest in my own growth. I can't let life happen to me anymore. I need to live intentionally, to immerse myself in gratitude-builders, to work on accepting myself so that I can accept others around me and have enough emotional energy to be able to overflow into others' lives ... in a good way.

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.

Last of his kind

He considers himself the last of his line. His offspring includes only girls.  And he's grateful for that.  

He thinks that it's unfair to perpetuate the kind of heartache that has been so much a part of his family for generations, passed down from father to son.  

In his determination to do everything the opposite of the way things were done to him, he has instead become the first of his kind  -  the first to be kind, the first to actually leave a legacy worth remembering, fond memories to look back on.  He may feel unworthy ... but so often, great men do feel that way.  

He was the first in his bloodline of the last hundred years or so, who actually chose his children over his career.  He dropped things he wanted to do - things that would wait until he got to them - so that he could sit down on the floor and play games with them, listen to their concerns (no matter how small), care about them, or thank them for their help, no matter how great or small their contribution.  His subconscious motto was (and is) "People before things."  To this day, his children know they can go to him with their problems, trust him with their feelings, and he'll listen to them without judging.  He listens because he was never listened to by his own dad and he knows how important it is for kids to feel loved and accepted, to have a safe place to land.  

He personally considers Father's Day a useless holiday.  Yet if anyone deserves to be honoured on Father's Day and every other day of the year, he does.  He raised himself and his younger siblings.  He had no model to go by, nobody to look up to, but he's been a rock, even more so the last three years or so.  And his wife and children look up to him and would go to the mat for him... any day of the week.  He's a wonderful life partner ... and a fantastic dad.  

I just wanted him to know that.  Happy Father's Day, honey.

Demolishing the thickest wall

It's the hardest, thickest barrier to freedom from a lifetime of bondage to the addiction of trying to run everyone else's life, of feeling responsible for the bad choices of our loved ones, of trying to manage far more than we were created to manage.  And it's not what you might think.  

It's not resentment, as thick and strong a wall as that is.  Resentment can be a great hindrance to freedom, and has caused many a person to stay in bondage.  

I believe that an even stronger wall is the one built, brick by brick, from the time we are children.  It comes from the words that are said, the words that aren't said, the physical contact we are or are not given, the hateful looks and other injuries we receive from parents, teachers, peers.  It is debilitating, and it discourages us from even starting the journey.

It's shame.

Every person has that one spot in his or her life (and some have way more than one) - that tender area, where shame exists and feeds on the spirit, eroding hope.  

Just so we all know what I mean by shame, I don't mean guilt.  Guilt (whether earned or unearned -hmm, that might be a different post) is feeling badly for something that you have done.  Shame is feeling bad for who you are.  Guilt says I've done a bad thing.  Shame says I AM a bad person.  

Guilt has its purpose (if it is earned): to bring us to a place of 'repentance' which simply means changing direction (doing a 180º turn).  Shame, on the other hand, serves NO useful purpose.  None.  Zip.  Nada.  It paralyzes us, keeps us from believing we can get better, keeps us from trying to connect with our selves and with God.  It holds us back from helping others in a meaningful way: not as a rescuer, but as an equal, a friend, someone real.  

Realizing that shame was never intended for us to experience is one step toward being rid of it.  But I speak from experience when I say that it is impossible to completely rid ourselves of shame - and still have a conscience - without completely, and with utter abandon, turning our will and our lives over to the care of God.  Not only once and for all, but on a continual basis.  And after that, the greatest sledgehammer we have - one that is provided by God Himself - is truth.  

Specific truth.  

Not just 'logos', which is Greek for 'word' - but 'rema', which means 'word for me'.  

Repeated truths.  Spoken - out loud - over and over and over, sometimes several times a day ... for months. Truths spoken into the spirit, where the little child, the one who is so afraid, perhaps so angry, lives.   

Some of those truths - for me - were things like:

• God loves you unconditionally.  You don't have to earn anything.
• The abuse that happened to you as a child was the result of others' bad choices.  You did not deserve it. You do not need to feel responsible for what they chose to do. 
• You have the right to exist, to take up space, to be happy.
• You are the only person exactly like you.  People can like you just the way you are.
• You can be yourself; you don't have to pretend to be anyone else.
• What you have to say is worth listening to.
• Who you are matters.  What you do has value and purpose. 

There were/are many more truths, but these are just a few examples. They are all based on what God has already said is true.  

Not very often does the wall of shame disappear overnight.  But it does get smaller - worn away by God's love, softened by His kindness, chiseled to a pile of rubble, over time, by His truth.  It's a miracle  -  which is no less a miracle because it happens slowly.  That it happens at all is simply amazing.

And it DOES happen.  

Different and same

I just saw a video this morning that I must share.  It's about five and a half minutes long and it is about a young man named Ryan Pittman.

His story is so powerful that it stands alone.  A lot of people have tried to get across what everybody needs to know.  Ryan succeeded.  He has given hope and inspiration to so many people.



I know he inspired me.

Forgiving me

Last October (2011), in a post called Forgiveness Frees, in which I talked about forgiving others, I said I might talk some time about forgiving the self.  

When I was going through my initial journey of self-discovery, in the portion where I was writing down the names of all those people that had hurt me - and what they did to hurt me - I thought I'd exhausted the list when that little Voice inside said, "You forgot someone."  Asking whom He meant, the response came - ever so quietly and gently, " ....... you."  

Yes.  Yes I had done so much to hurt myself - ignoring myself, hating myself, talking trash about (and to) myself, and much more.  It was hard to write it all down and see it all on paper.  Yet it was one of the most useful exercises I had ever done to come to a knowledge of myself.  And yes, I had to come to a place of forgiveness for the person who had done all these things: me.  

Weird, huh.  

It was a process which began with realizing that damage had been done - and that it was wrong!  To allow myself to get angry at that - legitimately.  To look at all the areas that those wrong things had affected.  There were a LOT.  And then to realize that I couldn't make up for the past ... and regret and remorse could only go so far.  So at that point, I could let myself off the hook.  That - my friends - is forgiveness.  Forgiveness doesn't make what was wrong, "okay."  It isn't carte blanche for the abuse to keep on happening, either.  But it is a process that begins with a decision to become willing to forgive, and ends (after a whole pile of stuff in between) with another decision to not punish the person for whatever that wrong thing was.  (For more information see the post I referred to, above - I put a link to it.) 


Anyway, I did eventually get to that point of being able to decide not to punish myself for hurting me.

From Ten Quick Ways to Get Happy,
http://lifestyle.aol.co.uk/2011/11/15/watching-
too-much-tv-makes-older-women-depressed/

And ... to make restitution to myself (wow that still sounds weird) ... I started to treat myself differently.  I'd stop myself from putting me down (either in the mirror or in public - well, the mirror part still needs a bit more work).  I'd make a little bit of time to do something I wanted to do, rather than putting everyone else's needs ahead of mine ALL of the time.  

Slowly I found little ways to say to myself, "I'm worth being nice to."  One of the things I started doing was smiling at myself in the mirror when I saw me "in there" in the morning.  Even if only briefly! (Guess what ... people look better when they smile! even if they have no teeth!)  Something that simple - and it felt so awkward at first - helped lay the groundwork for getting to know myself ... and starting to like myself.  To encourage myself.  To take care of myself. To accept myself.

It's a funny thing about forgiving yourself, hard as that is sometimes.  It's not optional, because it's a gateway to having healthy relationships with other people.  Lots of folks try to have healthy relationships with others but if they can't stand themselves, the relationships they have will be superficial at best, and totally dysfunctional at the worst.  I can say this because this is how I lived my life for decades.  (And then I wondered why emotionally healthy people didn't want to have anything to do with me... Du-uh!)  It's like I had this built-in 'abuse magnet.'  With rare exceptions, I ended up attracting people as friends who wanted to either control me or fix me.  This wasn't good for me - or for them.  

When I learned to forgive - not only others but myself - the magnet slowly reversed its polarity.  Instead of attracting abusers, or being attracted TO fixers, I started being repelled by them - and if they got close, it didn't take long for me to repel them (okay, sometimes I had to tell them to go away, because they didn't get it the first, or twentieth, time.)  And I started being attracted to - and attracting - those who are accepting, confident without being cocky, honest with themselves and others, and sincere.  

I can barely believe it - if you'd have asked me four years ago if this was possible, I would have said no.  But it's true.  Forgiveness really DOES free.

Owning Your Power

One of the most difficult concepts I have had to understand and accept over the last three years has been what Melody Beattie, a well-known author in recovery circles, calls "owning your power."  

It did not make any sense to me.  I was painfully aware, having been desperate enough to ask for help, that I was powerLESS over others, even over my own addiction to being needed.  How could anyone - no, how could I - own any power that I was sure I didn't have?  

So I set the idea aside and concentrated on the tasks ahead - which were all about learning that people - all people, including myself - have boundaries.  Those boundaries must be respected.  Learning to let go of other people, to see and respect their boundaries, to stop manipulating, intimidating, and controlling, led me to the understanding that I, too, had boundaries.  That it was okay to say no - if no was what I felt. That certain things that people had done to me or were trying to do to me (such as intimidation, manipulation, and control) were wrong.

It was then that I started to understand what it meant to "own my power."  

It didn't mean that I had or could exert power over others.  It meant that I had a choice as to whether to allow others to exert power over me or not.  It meant that I could choose to take responsibility for my own actions, and to let others assume responsibility for theirs.  And that included their expectations of me!! I didn't need to allow them to make me feel guilty for something they expected me to do which I decided not to do.  Or to for something that they expected me NOT to do which I decided to go ahead and do.  

Owning my power has come to mean placing value on myself, the value that God places on me.  It involves making my own decisions and bearing my own consequences - and allowing others the same courtesy.  It also has a lot to do with not letting other people, their demands or expectations of me control my actions or reactions.  They have the right to their own feelings and opinions - but those feelings and opinions do not have to determine what I do or don't do - or how I feel or don't feel.  

For someone who spent her whole life trying to please people out of a sense of insecurity - that is a huge step.  I still have a tendency to not want people to be mad at me ... but when someone doesn't agree with my choices now, it doesn't bother me nearly as much as it would have - because my sense of self-worth doesn't come from them anymore. 

It's amazing how much energy that frees up to devote to other, more important things that I actually WANT to do.

Forced to Fit

I hate being "pegged."  That statement that starts, "Well, knowing you..." raises a teeny red flag with me especially if it comes from someone who doesn't know anything about me and only thinks they do because they know me in one context.  

There have been times I have done things just to upset the applecart of someone else's preconceived notion of me.  And there have been things about me that have come to light which have made others who think they know me, absolutely shocked.  Like the time a few years back that I got one of the 3 highest marks in the country for a leadership screening test.  I was "just a clerk."  The other clerks around me were (hee hee) shocked (and yes, that pleased me for some reason).  Some were angry.  Others were jealous.  Still others were happy for me and championed my cause.  It's funny - I could easily tell which ones were which. 

People are multi-faceted.  

You know what's annoying?  the whole concept of "fitting in"!!  Conforming to a set bunch of social rules just because someone - usually an extravert - has deemed that this is the behavior desired and that if you don't like it, you're "weird."  

It's like trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole, the peg is forced to fit, and is irreparably damaged.  Of course nobody thinks of it that way; "fitting in" is paramount.  (My question is always, "WHYYYY?")  If everybody was the same as everybody else, we'd be in a sorry state!  And how unutterably boring would that be??   

The apostle Paul recognized each person's individuality within the church, saying that each person had a part to play, each needed the other - just like members of a physical body need each other.  Just because my sense of humour is not like sister so-and-so's, and just because I am more hesitant to socialize, doesn't make me bad or wrong.  I am a unique and precious creation and was created this way for a reason.  If I become like someone else and sacrifice my own unique talents and gifts, then I've sabotaged my own purpose in the world.  

It's not a hard concept to grasp.  Square holes are hard to find, but they exist.  God created them too; He'll lead me to them. 

Shoulds and Oughtas

Ever said "fine" when someone asked you how you were, even though you weren't?

I have. Lots of times.

It's taken me a long time to figure out why. It's fear. Fear of rejection, fear of judgment, fear of not appearing as spiritual as someone else, fear of ... being real.

I grew up in the church. My first words weren't words; I tried to sing. My mother was a Sunday School teacher. Every time the church doors were open, she was there; I used to say I had a drug problem (she drug me to church, she drug me to Sunday School, she drug me to church suppers, she drug me to Ladies' Aid and Women's Missionary meetings, she drug me to choir practice and prayer meeting and all kinds of church events.) And everywhere there were people who expected me to be the perfect little darling. I knew all the right words to say, all the catch phrases. I lived in the land of Denial. And it wasn't Egypt. (Okay, bad joke.)

After my teenage rebellion, Jesus rescued me from my reckless behavior. But surrounded again by the atmosphere of the church, and embracing its call to a better life, I was sadly ruled by the great Should and its close cousin Oughta. And their alter egos, Shouldn't and Mustn't. Ughh. So controlled, so afraid of stepping outside the boundaries placed on me by everyone around me. Spouting all the Christian catch words that made those who weren't saved look at me like I had two heads. Carrying a five-pound Bible in my purse. Being obnoxious about my faith. Nobody in my sphere of "influence" gave a rat's behind. They wrote me off as going through a phase from which I would easily recover and then I'd be back to the same old person they knew. And they wished I'd hurry up about it, because if this was what Jesus was like, they'd just as soon go shopping.

I was so bound up in those shoulds and oughtas, shouldn'ts and mustn'ts, that I didn't even know who I was and couldn't enjoy just being alive in Jesus. For decades!! Spinning my wheels, in overdrive with the parking brake on, wondering why I didn't get anywhere, stressed out about my family and all the world around me, thinking I had to save them, I had to tell them, I had to be the one to fix them. After all, time was short.

God was even more desperate - to deliver me from that horrible existence. It was never His intention to riddle me so deeply with guilt that I couldn't enjoy His presence. He never meant for me to take on His job (that of convicting people of sin and bringing them into the Kingdom). He just wanted me to be free. And He was willing to do anything to do what He does best and has been so faithful to do every time: rescue me.

Let me share with you part of my journey, the part of it that alerted me that there might actually be a place of bondage in my life. It was before I even knew who I was, perhaps around 2004. I stumbled across a children's book by Max Lucado. It touched me so very deeply. And it was part of the preparation that God put in place that would kick into high gear over 4 years later.

The book was called "You Are Special." Click here to read a blog entry that includes the text of it.

Maybe, just maybe, you need to read it today.

... to be continued....