Is this true? A child's reality - Where did this thought come from?

 It was a hectic week and I felt pretty overwhelmed and by Thursday I was laying in bed not wanting to go to work. This only happens to me when I can't get everything done fast enough or don't know how to solve certain problems my clients. Luckily I love what I do so this is rare.  

I combat this apathy by telling myself I can come home after my floor time or after the meeting. This never happens because once I am engaged with the now instead the fears in my head it isn't so scary. It is funny that I have to trick myself to get past the fear or dread that tries to control me. 

I think of this as the little child in me who says "I don't want to go to school". I then put my big pants on and just get out there and do something.  The mind was built in our childhood the first six years we were taught all the tools we needed to interact with the world around us. 

If this wasn't a stable nurturing time, did anybody get that, our interpretation of what we were taught can be skewed pretty badly from reality. Since I have been writing about my own childhood I can see the message I received was that I was a real problem and that I needed to keep quiet. It was important that I be invisible as much as possible. 

I am sure this wasn't intentional but with my mother sick the grownups were trying to manage the situation at hand. The good news for me is that I have used that talent to stay under the radar and do what I wanted in my life mostly without asking for permission. The drawback is that no one sees just what I have accomplished. I have been conditioned to just do things for my own satisfaction and the satisfaction of the customer now.  

This trait did cost me my career in the mortgage world because I made my job look easy and they thought anyone could do it. I was let go without notice and my job given to a friend of my boss. In the end nobody could do what I had done and they had to sell the whole division.  He did make amends later by giving my name to someone that paid me a ton of money to do that same job from home. This paid for my design degree and more.

What he didn't know is that I had been there from the beginning when there was only three of us. When I left there was 70 and what I did was like breathing to me. I just came in and did my job every day without looking for a pat on the back. It never occurred to me that I needed to promote myself that would seem like bragging but in the corporate world it is necessary. I was too busy doing the work to do that.  

This event changed the course of my life and I ended up in a field doing what I love. We are pretty independent a combination of contractor and employee. It is the perfect combination for me since I am self motivated and happy to do whatever it takes to get the job done.  

I will say that finding out my mother was sick a year earlier than I thought helps me to see that I was shaped more by her illness than I thought. This isn't to wallow in the past but it helps me to understand why I think I am a burden to other people. I can know that this idea is a child's idea and not based on fact. I can see it was just fall out from the my mother's cancer and the people around her trying to cope. 

One final thing in writing here and about my past helps my brain to sort things out. I think this is the mind always working towards healing the parts that feel broken instead of pushing them down. I am always asking myself "is this thought true?" or have I been wrong about this for a long time.  

Moving on - Do you really want to know or are you just being polite?

I am having a hard time today.  I sent a text that will end a relationship with someone I was doing business with personally. I have been thinking about it for a few weeks now and know that it will come as a surprise to them. As I mentioned in a previous post I got a text the day the capitol was attacked saying glory to God and that the guys doing it were not real citizens but hired by the government. That now history has been made and the election was truly stolen and he was forced to give that speech. 

This was so sad for me at the time and I really didn't know how to react. I don't understand how people can even try to bring God or Jesus into the political hate being spread. I can only sum it up to the situation at hand with everyone afraid and lonely wanting to be on the right side of something. We want someone to blame for what is happening. We can't blame a disease if we pick an enemy and God is on our side we can live feeling secure. Just like the movies they are bad we are good.

I wanted to say a lot of things but I do believe people are entitled to whatever beliefs they want to have unless it affects me personally like trying to over throw the government.  I also believe it is my right to spend my money where I want to spend it. You can't convince another person they are wrong if they are dug in.  I like what Al-Anon teaches attraction not promotion.

In this case I did feel that I had to express my sadness that so many people have been deceived by a man that promotes only hate and would rather try to end democracy to keep from looking like a loser. In the text I did say that I did trust God and Christ's message of love for everyone. I thanked them for their talents and wished them the best.

It was hard for me to send this message but I am at peace with it.  I have used their service for a year giving support towards a business that has been hit hard by covid but I think it was time for me to move on. I live mostly surrounded by people with opposite views from me and they all assume I am just like them. This is fine unless they ask me specifically what I think. I usually ask them "do you really want to know or are you just being polite?"

I have learned to stand up for my beliefs. I was stifled first by my parents who said I ask to many questions. Then my stepmother where any honest word would result in some kind of punishment and of course the alcoholic.  I didn't want to start a war and in the end I was scared I would get physically hurt.

I never pick a fight because I understand the motives of others really have nothing to do with the current situation. They have been formed over many years just like me and carry baggage just like me. I accept where they are coming from until it gets personal and then I have to calmly stand up for myself.

With years of practice I bring peace to where ever I am and this calms people down. I have worked hard to not take things personally and I have worked hard to communicate how I feel when someone crosses a line.  

Family matters - Getting the story straight

I have been working on my story trying to piece together a timeline of the events of my childhood where things made sense to me.  This week I was talking to my sister about that time in our lives and she added some interesting additions. This is the first time we have ever talked about my mother's death or really anything about our past together.

It was one of her late night calls and I ask her about when mama got sick. I had always heard that she was sick for two and half years but she said three and a half years. She told me that the doctors said they caught the cancer early and removed it all. It was colon cancer in the early 70's and we believed the doctors. She had a year of good health until it came back with a vengeance a year later. She also said she was with my mother when she got that news and she shrieked. This fact is disturbing my mother never showed her emotions. 

This change in my own timeline explains a lot of confusion I had about other events. I thought I was almost nine when she got sick instead of eight. Our trips in the summer and a trip to south Georgia just before her diagnoses didn't fit quite right. On that trip we all ate a ton of pecans and she got deathly sick and my Grandmother said it was because the pecans were green. Later I thought pecans gave you cancer.

It is so strange that we have never talked about this. I have tried over the years but I think she was in survival mode in her own life. Like me she compartmentalizes to survive and for the first time we are both at a point in our lives where we not just surviving. Her kids are grown and learning to survive on their own and she is accepting it. She has some time to look at the past and talk things through with me. 

I am four years younger and she has mostly dismissed me as her kid sister. She was older and wiser plus didn't want to hear how I was treated by our father and ultimately banished by choice from the family.  She had a rift too but decided to return so her own kids would have that extended family. I can respect that and I did try once to mend my own rift but doing this set me back years in my own recovery. 

I went back for my wedding after four years thinking I was adult and could deal with the indifference they had for me. My stepmother was just as angry and vindictive as ever and my father the most passive person on the planet did nothing. Today in my sister's eyes he was a god an all knowing wise man that was pleasant and loving. I loved him too but to me standing by silently while others are mistreated makes you just as guilty as the person doing the mistreating.

My sister spent the years of my mother's sickness hiding out in books. It was how she coped with the real life tragedy she was experiencing. Because of our faith we weren't allowed to even speak of the cancer winning and I am sure she knew better than me that it would end badly for us all. One of my mother's best friends died around the same time as her diagnosis so we knew what could happen. 

I was young enough to believe that God was going to heal her because Daddy told me he would.  I stayed busy and out of the way as much as possible. I wasn't close with my mother because I was a "willful child"and during that time it seemed people were happier when I was not around. I learned to entertain myself and keep my mouth shut. This was and is my coping strategy today. 

It is good to test the memories I have created in my mind over the years.  Working on the real timeline I have noticed that a lot things happened closer together than I remembered. It has also helped me to be more compassionate towards myself and others in my story. I was 21 and very naive when I returned home for my wedding. I wanted reconciliation  and a sense of family.  My sister said she tried to talk me out of having a wedding there but I thought it would heal something broken.

The wedding is really the only mistake in my life and I have made plenty that I wish I could undo. I was still a girl wanting her daddy back. When I was little we did everything together and when my parents were in separate cars I rode with Daddy and my sister rode with Mama. He was wildly patient with me and didn't seem to mind my millions of questions.  

Writing about my past is healing me in places that I didn't know needed healing. It is good to face it one last time and a bonus to get my sister in on it. 

Mental Health - Denial - Lives are wasted

This is the moment when we find out what we are made of and if the tools we have picked up along the way will sustain us. It is natural to feel shocked and overwhelmed by the people around us that don't feel the same way we do or worse they assume we believe the way that they do.

I got a pretty outrageous text from someone that said the people on TV were hired by the government to impersonate normal flag waving patriots despite the fact that their leaders have been identified. I did not reply because I wondered if I had given them the idea that I would be be happy to get this message. I thought it might be a group message but it was only for me.

Our chemistry dictates that we feel better when we belong to a group. Our serotonin goes up and stays up when we feel like we are some how part of a special group. That need is strong especially now when we have to rely on our own emotional stability to survive. Hours and hours alone with the our media of choice pumping us full of fear we want to feel like we are right and they are wrong. This is our brain at work. 

We aren't feeling stable and safe enough to take a time out and be okay not knowing what will happen tomorrow. Our brains want more information so we can solve the fear and uncertainty we are feeling or to make easy we just choose black or white. 

I have had a lot of experience with feeling so insecure and scared that my mind literally took a time out. It broke and I felt blank for awhile. You know this if you have been here before. 

The good news is that we will make it. The world and politics moves slowly whether we like it or not. Healing moves slowly whether we like it or not. All we can do is control what we are letting into our brains. We have to stop feeding the fear and find peace for today.

The text made me sad and I am not sure what I will say about it but for now I am putting that relationship on hold until I decide what needs to be said.  Although the relationship is casual it feels dishonest to me to just pretend I am on the same page. 

Denial is our way of coping with when we can't come to terms with the truth. This is why we stay in relationships too long or ignore the abuse in an alcoholic relationship. The thought of facing the pain that comes with seeing the truth is too terrifying. We get stuck thinking things will change. 

I do think we stay denial until something bad happens and then we either say enough is enough or we dig in deeper. I am a coward when it comes to this and something bad has to happen to make me snap out of it. In relationships this hurts everyone and the end result doesn't change it just gets postponed and lives are wasted. 

I have a lot experience with denial and it saved me on more than one occasion. It has it's purpose and while our sub-conscious is sorting things out it is a nice place to visit. Living there will alienate you from the people that want to help you to get better and to move on. You are left with those that are like you that feed the sickness and keep you stuck. Only we can only decide when to face the truth and go from there. 

When faced with the denial of others we can only watch. We have to wait until they are ready to move on but can't pretend to go along with it. This prolongs the inevitable awakening or in some cases the loss of someone we love. 

This post is mostly about relationships and not politics but the denial of another does force us to choose our own sanity over trying to change another person. We can still love them from a distance and not banish them from our lives but we have to protect our own peace.  

Shutting out the noise - Choose Peace

I could write about state of the our nation but I will leave that to others let's face it we have address our own lives and decide whether to let these things control us by filling us with fear.  I don't believe in the good old days every decade has sucked for someone somewhere. Life is full of scary things.

We have to just decide how to move on with the world that is presented to us today. Every intelligent awake person could see this coming a mile away.  I told someone that if he loses it will take tanks to get him out of the White House. He lives only in his mind and has no connection to reality. Surrounding himself with only people that agree with him. The "emperor's new clothes"comes to mind. 

Okay just a little politics.  I have been easing back into work and enjoying the little quiet time I have left and doing a lot of writing. Like I have said before I am writing my life story because it helps me to know where I am emotionally and what areas are still buried. 

In this process I have been doing a little fact checking and realized that my mental timeline has been off. Things actually took months not years. I believe that everyone has their version of the truth. When we have been hurt deeply we make up the story of that hurt and we carry it with us for as long as it serves us. We repeat the story to ourselves and depending on how creative we are we smooth over the details and maybe embellish them.

The worst thing we do is let the story we tell ourselves create a permanent scar on us emotionally. We then have to walk around as wounded adults that need to be fixed. For me I have carried the burden of my own story all my life and I have the embellished facts of my story to back me up. My story was the idea that I was not lovable.

Writing it all down even though very emotional and painful at times. Painful enough that I had to stop and take a break also lets me place these memories outside myself. It is more like a character in a novel and not really me anymore. It puts distance between the part of me that gets stuck in the past. 

Holding on to what hurt us keeps it alive while those that hurt us live on without a thought about what they did. Most of the people I have loved never really saw me and weren't capable of shared love. They couldn't show love or emotion except maybe anger. This is how I grew up and this kind love felt so familiar to me and I have picked it again and again. I know how to be invisible and I know how to be autonomous. In the past decade I have learned to love and take care of myself. I am no longer waiting for others to value me to value myself.. This has felt like freedom.  

When I write about my life I sometimes feel it is totally narcissistic but I get a sense of healing. I chance to see just how far I have come. I guess it takes a lifetime.

I know the world is an overwhelming place right now but we can only live minute to minute. We can  choose peace by finding a quiet place even if that sitting in car somewhere to just soak in the silence.Turn of the the news and our phones for 15 minutes and just soak up the silence.  Of course I recommend writing without censoring what is being written. The mind is always trying to heal itself. 

 

Politics - Mourning - Scars - my tribe - loss - rebuilding

There is a lot to be said about this year but I don't think I need to be the one to say it.  For some reason yesterday I was weeping on and off first watching a segment of news that showed the famous people that died this year. They were mostly actors and in some cases really old their 90's and some over 100. I thought about how lucky they were to do what they loved until the very end of their lives. 

I then went on to watch a special called The Way I See It by Obama's personal photographer. It was an incredible chronological depiction of the the eight years in office. Not staged just him with full access good and bad of the presidents every day actions and emotions. From Sandy Hook to meeting children that had written him letters. The compassion and dignity he gave to the office of the president made me overwhelmingly sad for what we are going through now.

The fact he was willing to be so open and inviting to have this judged. He was an incredible man who was both intelligent and showed his human side. He didn't pretend to know everything and brought experts together to weigh all sides before making hard decisions. This is a true leader who respects what other people bring to the table but ultimately takes responsibility for the final decision that has to be made. 

He had road blocks from the beginning and you have to wonder who wouldn't want someone like this running the country. Who would be against someone that intelligent, and treated people equally and with compassion?  

I think that people are generally good but we are all susceptible to the influences of our own tribe. It is easier for the mind to go along and fit in than to question the status quo.  To be an outsider in your own tribe leaves you vulnerable to the unknown wild elements. Safety in numbers if you get hurt you will have someone to take care of you. It is better to follow the crowd than to have your own beliefs.

I have been opposite of my own tribe since I could talk not really agreeing with anyone unless they could explain why.  I have spent a lot of time in the wilderness alone but it has also given me time to know what I believe for myself. I can accept the beliefs of my family and don't challenge them unless they challenge me..  At this point I am more than willing share why I think it is better to have a leader that is intelligent and compassionate that will give people hope and respect. One that listens to the experts and knows that they represent all the people.  Someone that is not flashy and willing to do the work.

This wasn't intended to be political in any way but I needed to understand my own sadness at this time. I am a strong person emotionally and have weathered this storm pretty well and for that I am grateful. I am an optimist and with my own experience know that in the end good will ultimately prevail. This will happen after the scars have healed and we find the courage to return to the fight. Every set back forces us to dig deep and see what we have learned and find our inner strength to move on.  

2021 will be a year of clean up, re-grouping and mourning for the loss we have suffered. It is like after a storm when everyone emerges from their homes to assess the damage and do the job of cleaning up. We can help comfort those that have suffered more than we have and begin to rebuild. Yes we can.