Kindness v. Friendliness

RE: Greg’s kindness:  S2 asked  “Is he that way because his parents are like that?”.  My response segued nicely into expansion of my own “family” experience.  Any excuse at all will do!  Feigning diplomacy, I shared how having grown up with the intense harshness of my childhood home left me lacking any understanding of authentic kindness and gentleness.  I still cannot help but marvel at kind, respectful, gentle natured people.  Intentional and undiscriminating kindness is a rare practice which I strive daily to bring into our focus and existence.  Kindness is in the little things we say and do(or not).  Before recovery, I believed that kindness was reserved for the “worthy”.  In recovery, I have learned we are each worthy of kindness and connection, even at our worst, especially at our worst.  Kindness is always the answer, and has nothing to do with tolerating abuse or being friendly/flattering(gag).   “There is nobody on earth more important than you…and there is nobody on this earth less important than you.”  I find myself repeating this regularly to my children and to myself.  (more…)

Speak Your Heart – Listeners Will Listen

Hello Friends,  I have recently discovered what I consider to be the perfect artist.  Perfect, maybe because she doesn’t confuse me- because each of her pieces is deeply personal and relatable with its aesthetic simplicity and raw emotional complexity.  It is not only  “fun” but moving; igniting my neeeeeeed for creative self-expression that connects, soothes, and stirs others, as well as myself, to better, more emotionally honest living.  You can click on any of the text to see Mari Andrew’s complete brilliant collection@ http://bymariandrew.com

Some of my personal favorites:  Thank you  Mari Andrew, for gracing my tiny world!  Just for today, it feels a lil less tiny.  Your willingness to totally own yourself speaks volumes to those of us who have been asked not to—and listened.  xo

 

 

 

 

 

 

We Are Only As Sick As Our Secrets

Hello Friends,

“I’m 44. I’ve been recovering for years in xxxxx meetings for adult children of xxxxxx. With your help, I now own my past. I live in the present with a God of my understanding, and I face the future without fear. I tell you about the pain. I tell you about the anger. I tell you about my shame. I tell you my secrets. With each telling, I heal. I tell and tell and tell, and I’m not sorry. I’m grateful! You accept me as I am, and I find the hollowed-out places fill up with love. With each telling my heart mends and I begin to want to live again.”

That is an excerpt from one of my daily readers.  It says perfectly what I have never managed to articulate for myself.  Coming from a long line of people-erasers and silencers, I am having to learn the truth of what it means not only to be me, but to be my most peaceful, healthy, complete ME.  I can always benefit from more affirming words like these– from those who have gone before me, down the road of recovery.  If you have any similar words, quotes or resources, please feel free to share them in comments or share in an email.

 

Thank you for being with me.

 

Here is one of my favorite songs that resonates with my feelings and life experience in general.  Enjoy

 

Being Heard v. Being Erased

In my upbringing I learned all about shutting down–trying to erase you or at the very least, make you feel erased when you differed from,  or maybe even were similar to me, in ways that illuminated my imperfection wrongness.  Generous efforts were dedicated to my own erasing of myself—trying hard to not feel what I felt, to not know what I knew, and to not say what needed to be said.

I see how it was not possible for me to lovingly relate while concerned with erasing and being erased.  Erasures are for mistakes.   If I were a religious person, I might say that “God doesn’t make mistakes, only humans can do that.”  So grateful for a loving God that allows my brokenness to be mended and mistakes amended.  People and the past are for loving and learning, not for erasing.

Listen Listen Listen Love Love Love-Kind Benevolent Gentle

100% WBA

People are for elevating, not erasing.

 

It is not Impossible, but UNpossible

Dear Sister, After watching Alice Through the Looking Glass tonight, I see my continued lack of acceptance for your current arrangement.  Whatever motivates your crusade to have me banished makes a healthy union UNpossible.  This  is what I would say to you, if you were listening for anything but your own voice.  My only regret in this matter is having brought my ex around, knowing the two of you would extract righteous solace from a bond at my expense.  How dare a person like myself walk away from people like you?   Right?    What to do when someone you think so little of, actually rejects the relationship with you…..Achey heart, head and shoulders up, I walk away from unkindness(and that is putting it gently).  For my mother, I am willing to show up for healing with you, no abuse, and no pretending that things are different from how they are.  Healing is badass.  I wish it for you. You cannot feel good about what you have done and said.  You can still make things better.  It is not impossible.  Many times in my life I have made big messes.  Nothing has freed me more than cleaning up after myself.  I wish that for you.  This is a mess!  Too big to go neatly under the rug and the clock is ticking.

Bless Them, Change Me

So,  I have become increasingly aware of a dynamic, a pattern of behavior that feels icky to me. Because I have been guilty of this, I am inclined to judge it harshly; little tolerance, given the choice. It is true; some days our attitudes and behaviors are better than others.  However, to be cold, diminishing in one moment and then in the next, shower with flattery or  gifty gestures- perhaps to clean the slate??? WHAT IS THAT?? Whatever it is, it is too much for me- confusing, dangerous, and foul.

The vacillating insult,flattery,gifting modality seems a disturbing need to be in charge of how others feel about themselves- controlling and highly non-benevolent-   The “You don’t matter, You are bad, or You are amazing- worthy of gifts and flattery”—with noooothing in the middle resembling authentic kindness.  Kindness is comforting and unconfusing.

Regarding unkindness:  detachment is my only sane solution.  I am unavailable for the guessing who is showing up today-the punisher or the rewarder.  I am either vulnerable and authentic with you or guarded and distant– based on behavior patterns over time.  Patterns don’t lie.  Ideally, they can be changed.  Changing is for badasses.  Punishing and rewarding, as a way of connecting, is a little effed up. More bad and assy than badass and pretty unwholesome.   I will keep praying the prayer: Bless them, Change me.  Please Gawd!  And please oh lawdy, can they just be over there (No Contact) until either they have been blessed enough or I sufficiently changed, please?

Lord of the Flies- Yikes

This morning, I woke from awful and rigorously engaging dreams of being on an island with others. One by one, we were singled out to be collectively and randomly brutalized.  And maybe it wasn’t random at all.  Unable to discern my fellows from those working for the “guy” calling the shots, made it especially terrifying.

There were bizarre things one could do to avoid being the next one- like standing or attending a specific way or wearing a certain type of shoe-only there was some sort of code in place that you needed to understand. Witnessing the “handling” of others was required.  My fear of being killed was less than the horror of watching helplessly what was happening to others.  Some appeared unafraid, unaffected, others were aroused.  I was one of “the losers” trying to contain hysteria that would guarantee my place as next in line for brutality or death.  If I could’ve assured my death and not the abuse, my hysteria would have been lessened.

Totally reminds me of Kurt Cobain quote.  I believe that he too, was a highly sensitive person whom, for not nearly long enough, found relief in his gifted musical expression of things to difficult to speak.  Click on Kurt below to hear and read the lyrics to Smells Like Teen Sprit.  Love that man and his pain and music!

Valentines Day Perfection- Until….

Nearing the end of a beautiful Valentines’s Day with my sweetheart, I posted this Vlog to Facebook in an effort to share something light and fun as I have been advised as best practice…light and fun.

And then, I was prompted by a tv commercial to initiate a heated political conversation in which I know we will strongly disagree. I was a beast trying to beat him into submission. I see that it was my fearful thinking that his ballot meant he was a selfish racist,bigot, fucker, while no part of his behavior has ever indicated anything close.  In the end, I just asked him to promise me that we will always be people that help those most in need.  And he said Of course, that is who we are. So no matter who the president is, it does not change the man I know him to be. It was my fear that made me behave poorly and unkindly. Thankfully, a program friend talked me down from that place of judgment.   My behavior was deranged.  I am so grateful to know and do better, even more so when I remember to.

Paying it Forward

This post was prompted by one of the volunteer Jiu Jitsu instructors gifting Gi pants to each of my sons.  When I asked if I could pay him the next day, with more grace and ease than I am accustomed to, he responded:  “Absolutely not, just pay it forward”.  What a BADASS!

In my family of origin(FOO) we are vexed by brittle and unspeakable resentments for broken, secret emotional contracts. A result of differing ideas about paying and being paid back for agreements that have not been knowingly or mutually entered by all parties.  So, if you have less or need more, you OWE for life.  I do not abide.

Because of my spiritual program, I now understand that my freely and humbly giving service to someone with less connects me to the world and life of my choosing.  Paying it forward without expectation and  recognition heals and connects me to God, myself, and others.  Connection and Paying it forward are BadAss.  Needing recognition and repayment and credit…not so much.   Love is for paying forward!

For mutually contracted deals, payback is the expectation, different from wholesome gifts and gestures.

Trying to earn worthiness and alleviate shame of feeling indebted is not love or goodness. It is void of generosity and kindness.  That thinking is sick bondage and entanglement – I am unlearning it One Day at a Time.  Today, I will pay it forward by……

 

 

 

Insanity is…

…doing the same thing and expecting different results.  By this measure, I am insane.  Less so, after attending a church service focused on love for neighbors, our fellows in need:  not turning a blind eye or avoiding.  You want to know what else is insane making?  — pretending that someone has not spoken.  I was raised by and in this and I married it.  My family and ex are not unique in this way.

Ignore it and maybe it will stop.  Why oh why would I elect to sit for a meal with people who collectively do this—and stay married and have kisses and sex with someone who shows no regard for my actual existence outside of how it serves them.  For someone like me, it will not do.  Sweet sweet Greg.  Tuned in and present, responsive- not reactive.  Where he learned this, I do not know.  His way of knowing and being make him literally divine–unlike most humans.  Thank you for teaching me Greg, for acknowledging me, believing in me, and loving me and all of my Maggie-ness, or at least kindly laughing with me about the parts of me that are less easy to love!  You are love!  I love that we never pretend or hide ourselves from each other.  xoxoxo