Self-Forgiveness

[BusynMember]

Copa, she is gone. I np longer care what names she cslls me. I have the self satisfaction and calmness of knowing I never have to talk to her or read what she says anywherr agsin. Ive done that for a long time now. Sibce her board suspension for being mean and not trying to heal, I have not felt like going to where she posts. I went once to see if she was there again and her name is gone. She is gone

The only way she can hurt me is if I let her. Its on me now.

I am starting to gsin a lot of new friends through a few channels and am putting together a support system. Any of us would be there for each other. Your foo is luck or not luck of the draw. My friends never turn on me. Well, only one friend did in my entire life. I pick quality friends. I have known three of my new friends for ten years but we only recently are turning our relationships into friendships. We are already close and it is very good. We have all learned about one another long ago and have akways interactred with caring and love.

These three have been in group therapy with me for ten years so we already care deeply about one another and have so much fun when we get together. Like a family. We were all coming from iffy to no foo support so we value each other. When one of us is sick, we all show up with cards, balloons and a gift and when someone is sad, we check in. One lady had to put down a beloved dog last month, and we all came to her aid.

I dont trust most people enough to get close but these ladies have earned trust through the years. Like a family should, at least in my dreams.

I am in a good place. If it werent for some worry over barts ex and grandson l would not really have any worry on my mind.

I feel very blessed. Except this is my work weekend. But next weekend I get to see princess and buddha baby with excited auntie jumper and her sweet boyfriend. So I also have atight family all of the kids either call or fb me every day or so. I went back on fb. And I have my husband.

Im in a good place. I wish you two a serene and peaceful day. Check out those beautiful gifts from God that nobody can take away from you.

Love you both.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I think it is as you say. It is working with the reservoir of shame. I think we understand when it is triggered, by our sisters, especially. Is there a way to let go of the shame? What will diminish it?

I don't know, Copa.

I am reading Healing the Shame That Binds You in a few days, once I finish the first two. The first: Brene Brown's Rising Strong. The second (I've already begun it, actually) Joel Osteen's Breakout! Five Keys to Go Beyond Your Barriers and Live an Extraordinary Life. I still have the book on character, and will review the concluding, summing up chapters before I return it.

Then, partly because of our reading and partly because of our discussions and partly because of our families of origin, and of the story of Joseph and every smallest part of what happened around that story, we will know a little more.

Somewhere in there, it would be good to re-read Charles Williams' The Greater Trumps. That is my favorite book, too.

After watching the Republican debate last night, I know this: In each of the candidates, there was an amazing display of what character is, and of how we can come clear around the issue of shame. In the sense of anxiety, and of how we see and interpret and respond to our internal realities.

To those freaking negative tapes.

Also I have, not only another new and kindly ethical mom: Jeb Bush, but a model for a sister. (Just as an aside, I was absolutely impressed with my mom Dr. Ben Carson. I am blown away, by the way he thinks and sees.) A model for how a sister could be: Carly Fiorina. Did you know she buried an addicted son?

She is one of us.

Carly reminds me of you, Copa. She is strong, and so brilliantly well-spoken, and focused. Fiery, like you. And brave, and kind.

Beautifully dressed.

Clean.

Focused.

You guys, she is not afraid of Donald. None of them are. No braggadocio.

That is character.

I enjoyed the manner in which she responded to Donald's comment about her face, and the way she shook his hand and turned away before he could massage his way into her ego.

I loved watching the interaction between Donald and my new mom, Jeb.

I loved watching the debate. Character. That is what I saw in each of them as they interacted, as they responded on their feet.

I am excited to see what there is to be seen in the upcoming Democratic debate.

October 13th, I think it is.

Character.

And it comes from the ways each candidate has ordered his or her internal reality. That is what we are doing, here. Reordering our internal realities through thought and reasoning and through ethical choice of position; through ethical self and other definition, and through what we believe about ourselves. We can learn, from watching debates where the candidates too are flying by the seats of their pants (like we are, here) something new to us about what is real, about how to meet challenge; we can learn some new thing about how to come clear around shame. Not only those candidates I have mentioned, but every one of the participants in that debate.

We are not to discuss politics here on the site. I hope not to be fudging around the edges of that rule...but I feel so honored, and so outrageously fortunate, to have seen each of these people respond on their feet, and through their characters.

Character.

What an amazing night last night was.

Imagery of the Buddha ~ all those activities the Buddha engages in, the feel of those energies can heal and bring us up all on their own, I think.

So, we will do that, too.

That breathy place, that laughing place; those places of joy from within and of acceptance, for what is outside. Those imageries too, are where we find a way to do this, and not to judge, which is the other side of anger and kissing cousin to shame, and not to hate, which is the other side of shame.

Healing will feel like self acceptance. That is where we will be, at the end of this. What a lot of working we have done to get to that.

I will be happy to have my sense of delight back.

It will be like removing the barriers to delight-in-place. Just as there is shunning, and shunning in place, so there is momentary delight, and delight-in-place.

So, that will be where we are going, then.

Delight in place.

From evolution of character.

:O)

I think that is what I am dealing with. These past 3 years, however valiant I may have been, and however much I may have done the right thing, I was defeated by it. I did not have the capacity to endure what I endured. I was felled and could not get up.

However much we may not define it as a failure, it feels to me that I failed. I no longer "worked" anymore.

I know that feeling of functioning from a place without strength or light or color Copa, and with nothing to mirror the self. It no longer mattered what I did...I was certain I would lose; that I would fail, that I was failing in some sense I could not see even in the moment I was in. It was the collapse of role function I think, Copa. For me, that's what it was. I had failed my kids and myself and my chosen function, which was to create healthy family.

I had nothing that was not a place of failure.

Then...along came the first therapist.

And that took care of whatever was left of me.

Maybe, that is why each of us has the insight she has, today. We have had to face ourselves without illusion and it did us in.

We are not meant to stay done, Copa. We are meant to change and heal and you and Serenity and I are fine as and where and how we are.

We are in process.

We are moving quickly, now.

We will not be afraid of that, then.

Dragon, rising. Remember the scroll.

***

I awakened thinking about the concept of shame, this morning.

Not about how it feels, but about what it is, and about how it will have informed our thinking.

Actually, I came up with something brilliant. I was lying there figuring it out but then, doing all the things we do in the morning, by the time I'd made coffee and begun reading here, I'd lost track of it.

Rats.

It was like, the Unified Field Theory of Shame. Everything fit. Everything we see and don't see and how that vibrates and why.

It went beyond the sisters and the moms...but here is a piece of it. Why the mothers and sisters resonate as they do has something to do with the three way split of femininity required in role-rigid family, in the cultures of scarcity we grew up in. Shame has something to do with who we think we can be, in the sense of that feminine role.

It has something to do with the easy reach and acceptance in flexibility, and with the role entrapment of rigidity.

And in the sense of what was already taken and given, and had then to be taken or given back. With the culture of scarcity, and the reality of abundantly, generously, unimaginably more than enough, reality.

Of secure excess.

Of no fear.

Of nothing to protect; of circumstance easily changed, of swimming strongly and breathing easily from a place beyond fear.

Okay, so that was my morning, you guys.



Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I dont trust most people enough to get close but these ladies have earned trust through the years. Like a family should, at least in my dreams.

Oh, wow. I am happy for you in a triumphant kind of way. And a grateful kind of way.

There is a promise here, for Copa and myself.

What an extraordinary experience this has been, for us all.

:O)

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

Carly reminds me of you, Copa. She is strong, and so brilliantly well-spoken, and focused. Fiery, like you. And brave, and kind.

Cedar, I smile a lot. People pleasing. Yes. Confident. Yes.

I am not well-controlled. I am intense and emotional. OK, fiery. Yes. Brave. Yes. Kind. Alright.

Articulate with ums ahs and uhs. More valley-girl than corporate. Thank you for the confidence, Cedar. Think more Judy Holiday.

 

[BusynMember]

Just a thought.

We do not feel the need to post as often.

This means we are healing, in my opinion. Right?

 

[Copabanana]

That would be a nice thought, no? The FOO threads are and have been very beneficial. I am glad they are here.

 

[BusynMember]

Yeah. I got a lot out that I didn't even know was there!