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<blockquote data-quote="Scent of Cedar *" data-source="post: 657254" data-attributes="member: 17461"><p>I remember your posting that this child was adopted, Copa. His life has been very hard, and now, that awful mix of addiction and/or illness on top of everything else. He will be very strong, when he comes through this.</p><p></p><p>Has he changed the nature of his responses to you, now that you are reacting to him differently? I don't know whether you were here with us when we were posting about detachment parenting seeming to result in our children being able to reclaim their senses of efficacy and personal power. I think that is what happens though, once we stop believing they cannot walk through the hardness of their paths without us.</p><p></p><p>They can. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>It is my mother's voice I hear running those negative tapes from KFCD. (That concept is from Anne Lamott. It has been helpful to me in tracking down hidden negatives and self-sabotage.) That is why you should take the tango classes, Copa. Ballet classes and martial arts classes taken as an adult have been instrumental in self reclamation, for me. Yoga classes, too. </p><p></p><p>But especially ballet.</p><p></p><p>It has to do with facing the parts of us we were taught to be ashamed of and reclaiming ourselves. </p><p></p><p>I started a karate class last week. (This is not a new thing. Just another series of classes in the same kind of thing. I enjoy martial arts.) I am looking into dressage stables. There is one near us, and I am thinking of taking lessons. I have always loved the idea of horses, but have never learned to ride with courage and joy.</p><p></p><p>I think that will be next, for me.</p><p> </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I am sorry that happened, Copa. It is a difficult thing, to have been put on display and assessed, and judged. We are so vulnerable when we are young, and everything to do with being a young woman ~ with the incredible wonder of it ~ is new and uncertain.</p><p></p><p>You are here now, Copa.</p><p></p><p>You lived; you can choose to re-mother, and to nurture yourself, now.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>That is why we are creating mentor mothers. So we can know how it looks and feels to internalize positive, strengthening affirmations from women who are wise and loving and kind. Once we can know the feel of that, we can know we are here on purpose. We can identify the negatives our own mothers left us with, and counter them. If we can identify the trauma in the memories that come up, if we can witness <em>through our own eyes, or through the strong, compassionate eyes of the woman we have chosen as our mentor mother instead of siding against ourselves and seeing what happened to us through the eyes of our abusers, we will heal.</em> </p><p></p><p>From the moment we are born, human beings are hard wired for challenge. Brene Brown says that. I find it strengthening to think that way. For me, and for my kids, too.</p><p></p><p>There is a way. Find it. That is a good way to think.</p><p></p><p>As we have discussed here before, one of the women I am plugging into those places where I miss my own mother is Maya Angelou. Because she has worked through this herself, because she has written extensively on all things that matter, because we can access her thought processes to help us confront our negatives, and because she understands and holds a compassionate heart for those experiencing mother hunger ~ that lost child feeling ~ I suggest Maya Angelou for you too, Copa. And for SWOT and for all of us with these issues. Maria Harris and Karen Armstrong are excellent mentor figures.</p><p></p><p>So is Charles Williams.</p><p></p><p>Ettie Hilesum will be for later, when we are healed enough to risk seeing our mothers with compassion. For right now, while we are healing mother wounds, we need to put those feelings of compassion for our mothers aside. So, that will be later, for me. For today, I am seeing the abuser through Maya's eyes when I cannot make that switch of point of view, when I am lost in the hurt of it and can only see from my abuser's perspective. That is helping me witness appropriately for myself regarding every traumatic incidence of abuse.</p><p></p><p>Maya is helping with KFCD, too.</p><p></p><p>I can only tell you what is helping me, Copa.</p><p></p><p>I am not posting about how it felt to call the shame of the traumas. That material was on the post that was lost. It is a difficult thing to have those feelings. I did it, I am doing it.</p><p></p><p>So can you.</p><p></p><p>No one has to live shame based. Not once we know it was wrong, not once we understand in our bones that our abusers points of view had no validity. And for our children, we should do this, learn to refute the shame-based negatives we were taught to believe was our only legitimate reality. We do not want to pass down that toxicity, that certainty that at some level, we are not strong enough. </p><p></p><p>We do not want to pattern that for them.</p><p></p><p>We do not want to pattern that somehow, we deserve not to be strong enough.</p><p></p><p>My daughter knows about Maya, about the strong, mentor mother and about being her own best mother. So do my grands. My son and I talk about this kind of thinking ~ about learning how those we admire go about creating their lives, but I have not talked with him about plugging in a mentor father or a mentor mother in the hurt places. I am just learning that one, myself. I think he does not need that in the same way my daughter and grands do.</p><p></p><p>He is so much like his father. D H mom was a great grandmother, too.</p><p></p><p>:O)</p><p></p><p>I see you.</p><p></p><p><em>I see you back.</em></p><p></p><p>That is where we heal. Right there.</p><p></p><p>:O)</p><p></p><p>Here is the difference when I am weak and imagine Maya Angelou witnessing what happened: The Maya figure, the strong female mentor figure, carries no resentment over what happened. So there is no shame for me, no bargaining the rightness of the healing.</p><p></p><p>Or, the black woman from Matrix. Smoking cigarettes and baking cookies and very, very powerfully present.</p><p></p><p>Black women seem very strong to me.</p><p></p><p>I like that about them.</p><p></p><p>Lisa Vanderpump ~ that is my white woman mother. </p><p></p><p>The mentors I've chosen have in common the utter lack of resentment. They are able to see what is without flinching, without taking that on, that judgment against the self that is what lives under resentment.</p><p></p><p>"That is unacceptable." When confronting inappropriate things, those are the words Lisa Vanderpump used. Those are the words I will choose, once I am through the hurt of it, regarding my sister's betrayal.</p><p></p><p>"Unacceptable."</p><p></p><p>It is what it is.</p><p></p><p>Simple.</p><p></p><p>And that is all I know, about that.</p><p></p><p>It is working well, for me.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>A therapist told me once (it was that first therapist, as a matter of fact, before whatever happened there happened) that all the good things I had given my children would still be there for them to access, all of their lives. In beginning to see how difficult it must be to become addicted and beat it and fall again and beat it ~ which is how I am able to see my kids, now that I am seeing something other than guilt for me over what is happening, over what has happened, to them ~ I see incredible strength in both my children. There is a quote I read, something about: Most of us never know how hard it is for some of us just to be normal.</p><p></p><p>And that is true.</p><p></p><p>So whatever your child's path in life Copa ~ and Recovering Enabler posted to me once that their paths are for them to live and to learn from, just as we did and do ~ he has your strength and love to hold him up, to show him how to see himself.</p><p></p><p>Addiction is so destructive. It destroys something human in us, when we are trapped into believing joy and strength come from somewhere outside ourselves.</p><p></p><p>I read something else that was helpful to me: That when we are in the midst of something stealing our joy and our strength away, we only need to tap into the joy underlying all things ~ into the joy that created everything, the stars and the Earth and ourselves, in the first place.</p><p></p><p>So I looked for it? And there it was. Just like in Leonard Cohen's "Halleluiah". How deeply fortunate we are, to know such a thing.</p><p></p><p>I think that back in the times when we did not have the continual distractions of the "news" and all the other things we do these days to be happy, we probably were able to figure that out for ourselves, just watching the stars wheel through the night, or just watching, just being present, as the sun rose.</p><p></p><p>Those things, those hushed moments of presence, are still there for us.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Perhaps he is exploring that reality, Copa. That is how our daughter describes what she did. She came back from it to mother her children. And she beat an addiction, and a million other things that should have made her recovery impossible, to do it. And as I lost faith in her any number of times during that time, she did it, made her choices and took charge of her life and where she would take it, on her own.</p><p></p><p>So, that's an amazing thing, that she did, and is doing.</p><p></p><p>And doing well. </p><p></p><p>:O)</p><p></p><p>Like a hero's quest, exploring the dangerous things and then, turning for home. All we really have to do is be happy to see them, and not enable.</p><p></p><p>And here is a thing that I know: Once we stop enabling? The happiness in seeing them comes back. We stop worrying for them. We believe in them, and in the legitimacy of whatever path they are on, instead.</p><p></p><p>Very hard to get to that place, though.</p><p></p><p>For me it was.</p><p></p><p>Is. For me, it is. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Well, this is going to sound like a really bad thing. In my professional life, I have done things for people ~ done them willingly and with compassion and purpose ~ that were not pleasant things to do. I have dealt with body fluids and witnessed broken hearts and fearsome loneliness, not because I had a connection with my patients before, but because those are the things that were required of me on my shift. To stay present, not to offer platitudes, not to diminish the pain of it or the wrongness of what was happening to them. Just to be there and to see them where they were and accept it.</p><p></p><p>And then, I went home. And there were new patients, and I hardly ever saw those patients with whom I had shared such intimacy, again. In my volunteer work, I stood in for the real thing for those who are dying, and need that. Or I bake things for people I don't know, people I will never see, to raise money for other people I don't know, and will never know.</p><p></p><p>So...I know we are all supposed to believe prostitution is bad. But I don't know that there is a difference in being offered money for sexual services and being offered money for any other service any of us provides when we agree to trade our time and our skills for money in jobs or throughout careers considered legitimate.</p><p></p><p>We are, all of us, here on purpose. Human is a difficult thing to be until we let go of judgment ~ especially, until we can stop judging ourselves so harshly for having fallen into situations that were not perfect.</p><p></p><p>The point is that you came through it, and that you are here, now.</p><p></p><p>You win.</p><p></p><p>Whatever the past has been Copa, for you or for me, we win. I was not always married to my D H. I was wild as could be, for a time. Except for that geek thing I have going on, and that I was always reading and writing poetry and painting and etc. So, that cut into my wildness time some.</p><p></p><p>Perhaps those were the things that saved me, then. When it was only my mother and me in my head, I mean.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>My father called me Cinderella.</p><p></p><p>I love him so much.</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>So, I'm going to post this now, so I don't lose it.</p><p></p><p>Cedar</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Scent of Cedar *, post: 657254, member: 17461"] I remember your posting that this child was adopted, Copa. His life has been very hard, and now, that awful mix of addiction and/or illness on top of everything else. He will be very strong, when he comes through this. Has he changed the nature of his responses to you, now that you are reacting to him differently? I don't know whether you were here with us when we were posting about detachment parenting seeming to result in our children being able to reclaim their senses of efficacy and personal power. I think that is what happens though, once we stop believing they cannot walk through the hardness of their paths without us. They can. It is my mother's voice I hear running those negative tapes from KFCD. (That concept is from Anne Lamott. It has been helpful to me in tracking down hidden negatives and self-sabotage.) That is why you should take the tango classes, Copa. Ballet classes and martial arts classes taken as an adult have been instrumental in self reclamation, for me. Yoga classes, too. But especially ballet. It has to do with facing the parts of us we were taught to be ashamed of and reclaiming ourselves. I started a karate class last week. (This is not a new thing. Just another series of classes in the same kind of thing. I enjoy martial arts.) I am looking into dressage stables. There is one near us, and I am thinking of taking lessons. I have always loved the idea of horses, but have never learned to ride with courage and joy. I think that will be next, for me. I am sorry that happened, Copa. It is a difficult thing, to have been put on display and assessed, and judged. We are so vulnerable when we are young, and everything to do with being a young woman ~ with the incredible wonder of it ~ is new and uncertain. You are here now, Copa. You lived; you can choose to re-mother, and to nurture yourself, now. That is why we are creating mentor mothers. So we can know how it looks and feels to internalize positive, strengthening affirmations from women who are wise and loving and kind. Once we can know the feel of that, we can know we are here on purpose. We can identify the negatives our own mothers left us with, and counter them. If we can identify the trauma in the memories that come up, if we can witness [I]through our own eyes, or through the strong, compassionate eyes of the woman we have chosen as our mentor mother instead of siding against ourselves and seeing what happened to us through the eyes of our abusers, we will heal.[/I] From the moment we are born, human beings are hard wired for challenge. Brene Brown says that. I find it strengthening to think that way. For me, and for my kids, too. There is a way. Find it. That is a good way to think. As we have discussed here before, one of the women I am plugging into those places where I miss my own mother is Maya Angelou. Because she has worked through this herself, because she has written extensively on all things that matter, because we can access her thought processes to help us confront our negatives, and because she understands and holds a compassionate heart for those experiencing mother hunger ~ that lost child feeling ~ I suggest Maya Angelou for you too, Copa. And for SWOT and for all of us with these issues. Maria Harris and Karen Armstrong are excellent mentor figures. So is Charles Williams. Ettie Hilesum will be for later, when we are healed enough to risk seeing our mothers with compassion. For right now, while we are healing mother wounds, we need to put those feelings of compassion for our mothers aside. So, that will be later, for me. For today, I am seeing the abuser through Maya's eyes when I cannot make that switch of point of view, when I am lost in the hurt of it and can only see from my abuser's perspective. That is helping me witness appropriately for myself regarding every traumatic incidence of abuse. Maya is helping with KFCD, too. I can only tell you what is helping me, Copa. I am not posting about how it felt to call the shame of the traumas. That material was on the post that was lost. It is a difficult thing to have those feelings. I did it, I am doing it. So can you. No one has to live shame based. Not once we know it was wrong, not once we understand in our bones that our abusers points of view had no validity. And for our children, we should do this, learn to refute the shame-based negatives we were taught to believe was our only legitimate reality. We do not want to pass down that toxicity, that certainty that at some level, we are not strong enough. We do not want to pattern that for them. We do not want to pattern that somehow, we deserve not to be strong enough. My daughter knows about Maya, about the strong, mentor mother and about being her own best mother. So do my grands. My son and I talk about this kind of thinking ~ about learning how those we admire go about creating their lives, but I have not talked with him about plugging in a mentor father or a mentor mother in the hurt places. I am just learning that one, myself. I think he does not need that in the same way my daughter and grands do. He is so much like his father. D H mom was a great grandmother, too. :O) I see you. [I]I see you back.[/I] That is where we heal. Right there. :O) Here is the difference when I am weak and imagine Maya Angelou witnessing what happened: The Maya figure, the strong female mentor figure, carries no resentment over what happened. So there is no shame for me, no bargaining the rightness of the healing. Or, the black woman from Matrix. Smoking cigarettes and baking cookies and very, very powerfully present. Black women seem very strong to me. I like that about them. Lisa Vanderpump ~ that is my white woman mother. The mentors I've chosen have in common the utter lack of resentment. They are able to see what is without flinching, without taking that on, that judgment against the self that is what lives under resentment. "That is unacceptable." When confronting inappropriate things, those are the words Lisa Vanderpump used. Those are the words I will choose, once I am through the hurt of it, regarding my sister's betrayal. "Unacceptable." It is what it is. Simple. And that is all I know, about that. It is working well, for me. A therapist told me once (it was that first therapist, as a matter of fact, before whatever happened there happened) that all the good things I had given my children would still be there for them to access, all of their lives. In beginning to see how difficult it must be to become addicted and beat it and fall again and beat it ~ which is how I am able to see my kids, now that I am seeing something other than guilt for me over what is happening, over what has happened, to them ~ I see incredible strength in both my children. There is a quote I read, something about: Most of us never know how hard it is for some of us just to be normal. And that is true. So whatever your child's path in life Copa ~ and Recovering Enabler posted to me once that their paths are for them to live and to learn from, just as we did and do ~ he has your strength and love to hold him up, to show him how to see himself. Addiction is so destructive. It destroys something human in us, when we are trapped into believing joy and strength come from somewhere outside ourselves. I read something else that was helpful to me: That when we are in the midst of something stealing our joy and our strength away, we only need to tap into the joy underlying all things ~ into the joy that created everything, the stars and the Earth and ourselves, in the first place. So I looked for it? And there it was. Just like in Leonard Cohen's "Halleluiah". How deeply fortunate we are, to know such a thing. I think that back in the times when we did not have the continual distractions of the "news" and all the other things we do these days to be happy, we probably were able to figure that out for ourselves, just watching the stars wheel through the night, or just watching, just being present, as the sun rose. Those things, those hushed moments of presence, are still there for us. Perhaps he is exploring that reality, Copa. That is how our daughter describes what she did. She came back from it to mother her children. And she beat an addiction, and a million other things that should have made her recovery impossible, to do it. And as I lost faith in her any number of times during that time, she did it, made her choices and took charge of her life and where she would take it, on her own. So, that's an amazing thing, that she did, and is doing. And doing well. :O) Like a hero's quest, exploring the dangerous things and then, turning for home. All we really have to do is be happy to see them, and not enable. And here is a thing that I know: Once we stop enabling? The happiness in seeing them comes back. We stop worrying for them. We believe in them, and in the legitimacy of whatever path they are on, instead. Very hard to get to that place, though. For me it was. Is. For me, it is. Well, this is going to sound like a really bad thing. In my professional life, I have done things for people ~ done them willingly and with compassion and purpose ~ that were not pleasant things to do. I have dealt with body fluids and witnessed broken hearts and fearsome loneliness, not because I had a connection with my patients before, but because those are the things that were required of me on my shift. To stay present, not to offer platitudes, not to diminish the pain of it or the wrongness of what was happening to them. Just to be there and to see them where they were and accept it. And then, I went home. And there were new patients, and I hardly ever saw those patients with whom I had shared such intimacy, again. In my volunteer work, I stood in for the real thing for those who are dying, and need that. Or I bake things for people I don't know, people I will never see, to raise money for other people I don't know, and will never know. So...I know we are all supposed to believe prostitution is bad. But I don't know that there is a difference in being offered money for sexual services and being offered money for any other service any of us provides when we agree to trade our time and our skills for money in jobs or throughout careers considered legitimate. We are, all of us, here on purpose. Human is a difficult thing to be until we let go of judgment ~ especially, until we can stop judging ourselves so harshly for having fallen into situations that were not perfect. The point is that you came through it, and that you are here, now. You win. Whatever the past has been Copa, for you or for me, we win. I was not always married to my D H. I was wild as could be, for a time. Except for that geek thing I have going on, and that I was always reading and writing poetry and painting and etc. So, that cut into my wildness time some. Perhaps those were the things that saved me, then. When it was only my mother and me in my head, I mean. My father called me Cinderella. I love him so much. *** So, I'm going to post this now, so I don't lose it. Cedar [/QUOTE]
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