Shame Shifting
No matter how much spiritual and emotional work I do, I am not able continue in this cycle and simultaneously work toward recovery. The only sane choice is self-preservation. My Good Orderly Direction tells me so. A third way would be nice. Based on patterns of behaviors and attitudes of my abusers sister and mother, there is no reason to consider that a possibility. I no longer accept diminishing and divisive words and behaviors as things that I have earned. Nor will I be demanded to take responsibility for the behaviors of others. That would oppose my primary purpose. I will continue being mindful of my own words and behaviors and clean up, after myself, when I make a mess.
Coming from long lines of mental illness and untreated addiction, where every non-happy feeling is perceived as anger and responded to with anger, I picked up some unfortunate coping and operating styles. This wall of tools is the perfect metaphor for the tools for life before and now, with recovery. The left side needs little explanation.
The dustpan and brush, I need for for cleaning up little messes I make. Tape for repairing things that are fixable. Soft gloves, for handling of fragile or prickly things with care. A measuring tape and timer to help me give space and time between an incident and my response. Knee pads for the time I spend on my knees waiting and asking for guidance. A flashlight for times when it feels dark for me or a trusted other. A needle and thread for sewing back together those things which can be mended. Love is always the answer. Accepting my full range of emotions and developing healthy tools for coping are miracles of recovery. And not accepting shame shifting and continuing the cycle of abuse is wholesome and I think very badass. Maintaining a habit is much easier than breaking one- 100%
Recovery tools are wholesome and 100%badass. What are some of your metaphorical tools for life?
For Mother’s Day, I want for my mother to stop allowing and participating in activities that exacerbate tension between my ex-husband/father of my young sons and me. Children suffer enough in divorce. What sort of people knowingly and unnecessarily add to that? We experienced miracles in our ability to work together as co-parents, prior to this. Why snatch from my children their innocence and their serenity– two parents working together, at times gladly, rather than through the constant divide and tension born out of unfortunate triangulation, as an easier alternative to a difficult reconciliation. Reconciliation is our only chance at wholesome connection, in place of forcing and feigning. Why must I beg or even ask that two people so sure of their strong value for love and family, to behave with basic love and compassion for young children?
open to listening to thoughts about what has happened and what amends would be considered helpful by me. To that end, I also must voice how my experience of the collective annihilation of me, as a defense to having arranged a covert dinner with my ex, his sister, and my children.
say diminishing things. I am responsible only for my words and actions. 100% As I look over the last two years, since moving here, I really do not see my contribution to this highly predictable outcome. But I sure am willing. I am worthy and capable of of fierce love and protection. Anyone believing otherwise, for obvious reasons, is not welcome near my young sons OR me.
Ugh…my boys deserve much much more than they are being allowed. Deep sigh. I am more tired of this grief than anyone is of hearing 
about it. The most painful part is that my family denies that there is anything to grieve and that my need to do so, is further proof of my well-earned banishment, and overall defective and troublesome existence. I have committed to the process of releasing my family, all of them. I don’t know why I thought my mother’s cancer or my move here would have changed anything. It really did not, it changed my geography and my willingness to show up– to be of service at a critical time. And it allowed for my ex and my sister to get to know each other and to enjoy(while denying) a shared contempt for me. They both get the ultimate triumph at the expense of my innocent young sons. I divorced myself from each of them for identical reasons and now they are affirmed and gleefully(no joke) united. Seriously, is it acceptable anywhere for a woman to bond with her sister’s ex at sister’s children’s expense? I cannot help but judge. I see why my ex is into it. Totally. He is far more forgivable here than she is..I guess because she claims to care so deeply for family and my sons-but these actions are so diametrically opposed to family values or any values, really. When I asked him to step away so that maybe we could heal, he laughed and said; “Why should I? They have zero intent to work it out with you.” I suggested that he might then for the sake of our children. Deep sigh. 
I had believed myself smart enough and fully capable of being treated with indifference bordering on disdain while maintaining a strong sense of self-respect. I was wrong also in thinking myself practical enough to separate what they say I am from what I know I am. I have allowed myself to be treated as disposable. Believing I could fulfill this role while still protecting that sacred place inside myself that I know deserves better, more, different. But it doesn’t work like this. When someone shows you repeatedly how little you mean to them and you keep coming back for more, before you know it, you mean less to yourself.
Shane Claiborne’s amazing passage
