CONFUSION

The thing about being in an abusive relationship is that it’s confusing.  Aside from the abuser’s erratic behavior - stomping on your head one minute and declaring undying love the next - it’s the confusion going on inside of you that’s particularly puzzling.

You know you’re a good person so why is he behaving this way?

Why is your love for this person not enough to change him?

He can’t really mean the awful things he says?  Can he?

This is how he shows he loves me.  Isn’t it?

How insecure must I be to stick around?

I must really be unlovable to have him treat me this way.

He clearly sees how unworthy I am of someone like him.

And the exhaustingly endless rationalizations:

It’s just the alcohol.  It’s just the drugs.  It’s just his messed up childhood. Etc., etc., etc.

Let me offer a bit of clarity:  Love does not hurt.  Not even a little bit.

Take responsibility for what your instincts are telling you.  If you’re in pain in any way shape or form, be it physical, emotional or psychological, it isn’t love.  It isn’t worth sticking around for.

20/20

Time plays a key role in moving us toward our flight imperative.  In his article, Why the Deepest Lessons Take Time to Absorb, John Caddell writes: 

“Only with the passing of time can the intense emotions (positive or negative) of an event fall away and allow us to recognize mistakes and our contribution to them.”

Read the article here:http://the99percent.com/articles/7194/Why-The-Deepest-Lessons-Take-Time-To-Absorb

VALUE II

You and me, we have an opportunity

And we could make it something really cool

But you, you think I'm not that kind of girl

I'm here to tell you baby, I know how to rock your world

Don't think that I'm not strong

I'm the one to take you on

Don't underestimate me boy

I'll make you sorry you were born

You don't know me

The way you really should

You sure misunderstood

Dont' call me baby

You got some nerve, and baby that'll never do

You know I don't belong t o you

It's time you knew I'm not your baby

I belong to me, so

Don't call me baby

Behind my smile is my IQ

I must admit, this does not sit, with the likes of you

You're really sweet

Mmm, you're really nice

But didn't mama ever tell you not to play with fire?

 Don’t Call Me Baby - Madison Avenue

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4-PcMSxrUA

VALUE

Why is it that we so often allow others to determine our value?  I think we allow others to make that determination when we don’t see, believe or trust, our value, ourselves.

Steering by Starlight

If you stay connected to the stargazer and do everything you can think of, you'll find yourself being assisted by things you can't think of.

~ Martha Beck - Steering by Starlight

FEAR

“We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of [the Universe]. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won't feel insecure around you.” 

Marianne Williamson 

Sphere of influence

Your sphere of influence spans your actions and your reactions...that's it.  Changing your life is as simple as understanding that.

PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY

This is the true test of self-love, the type of love that matters the most because the minute you begin to take responsibility for your life, you have in fact declared that you matter.

To Do

If you lower your standards enough, you’ll be surprised at how many things you can check off that list.

It bears repeating...

So long as you continue to believe that the determining factor of how lovable you are exists outside of yourself, you will continue to feel that there’s something inherently wrong with you.

Relationships, an odd irony

There is a ‘reverse' stigma associated with being in a relationship - a stigma connotes a bad sign, so I propose that a reverse stigma is something that connotes a good sign. Following this logic, when a person is in a relationship it’s viewed as a a sign of health, a sign of getting along, it communicates to society that you are ‘normal.”  As an aside, when reviewing case studies of psychopaths, you hear profilers say ‘he appeared normal, he was married/had a girlfriend.‘   We of course know that being in a relationship is oftentimes far from being an indication of health or wellbeing*.  

Ironically the ‘real’ stigma (the bad sign) associated with being unattached tells us that it’s an indication that there is something wrong with a person, that they must be antisocial, they must have a disease, they are surely undesirable and certainly unlovable.  This is an irony whose very wrong but yet powerful message keeps us tethered to toxic people and embroiled in dysfunctional relationships by nothing but a big fat lie.

What’s even sadder is that many unattached individuals internalize this message of being less than if unattached and make themselves crazy trying to find a partner, at all costs: at the cost of their pride, their self-esteem, their spirit and sometimes their lives.  Start looking for the runway now.  Go.  Don’t buy this sham for another minute.

*(A 2005 study reported that 7% of partnered Canadian women experienced violence at the hands of a spouse between 1999 and 2004. Of these battered women, nearly one-quarter (23%) reported being beaten, choked, or threatened with a knife or gun. (Family Violence in Canada: A Statistical Profile, 2005))

Love: Borderliners and Narcissists

I couldn’t have said it better myself...

“Real intimacy has to do with trust, understanding, and feeling understood. People who are intimate--and I'm not talking about sex--reveal vulnerabilities without fear that what we share will be used against them. Intimacy relies on safety, patience, mutuality, respect, constance, and no secrets. Without healthy self-disclosure at the right time, there can be no intimacy. And that takes honesty about who we are and how we feel. The more intimate you are, the safer you feel and the more worthwhile the relationship.”

Randi Kreger is the co-author of Stop Walking on Eggshells.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/stop-walking-eggshells/201202/problems-emotional-intimacy-typical-borderliners-and-narcissists

A deferred life

Living a deferred life is not living a life at all.  A deferred life is a life filled with fear, so you postpone, wait and procrastinate making decisions that will help you live up to your authentic potential.   

I’m intimately familiar with living a deferred life, in its depths I wrote:

- Fear, the more intangible and abstract is a superb motivator for more of the same kind of fear, to the depressed mind.

- Fear, a great excuse to be immobile, substantiated by the fact that it pins you to the ground

When you’re overwhelmed by fear it’s almost impossible to see that it’s not as bad as we think it is.  That it’s just our primal brain seeing a sabertooth tiger around every corner.  I have come to call my primal brain Matilda, she’s a bit of an old hag, and every now and again I have to lock her in her cage deep in the basement of my being, just so I can move forward with my life.     

Name your fear.  Write an ode to your fear, sometimes you have to do it many times a day, but do it to extricate yourself, do it to lay claim to your life.

To Matilda

Not so far beneath the surface

She lives her secret life

Wrapped tightly in a heavy cloak

She feeds on vile and strife

Stooped she walks the corridors

And watches for a sign

Of anything that might be joy

To ridicule and malign

“Not enough” she screeches in my head

“More” she asks of me

“My belly isn’t nearly full

Of your tears and misery”

Again and again she strikes my spirit

Pummels it black and blue

For one so old, so gnarled and brittle

Each blow feels marked and true

I drink each blow like mother’s milk

So eager to believe

That all the hate she hurls at me

Is just what I deserve

I am she, and she is me

So tightly intertwined

To kill one, would kill the other

We are both kin and kind

“Old hag,” I rage to spite myself

“Old hag, I’m done with you”

I hear her cackle long and low

“I love you dearly too”

Colluding with toxic people

You absolutely teach people how to treat you so when someone keeps making an appointment with you but then cancels or reschedules repeatedly, and you go along with it, you are teaching them that you don't matter.


When your date keeps showing up late, they're telling you that you're not that important. And by not saying anything you're telling them, it's okay to disrespect you.


We think that not saying anything is being nice.  That getting angry but not saying anything to this person (being passive aggressive) is okay because we're not making a scene.  We don't want to make a big deal, so we don't say anything.  REALLY?  Your silence is screaming "GO AHEAD WIPE YOUR FEET ON ME, I DON'T MIND.'


Stop colluding with toxic people; go ahead make a scene, challenge the shabby way you're being treated, don't let your silence do the talking.  Speak up.  The empowering boost to your self-esteem will be exhilarating.

Toxic People

Bullying isn’t just about kids being cruel to one another, there are plenty of adult bullies running around.  Although statistics show that 80% of adult bullying happens at work by a boss, you may be harboring a bully in your inner circle.   How will you know? Listen to your gut, it doesn’t lie, then ask yourself:   

Do you feel depleted or less than after spending even five minutes with them?  

Does even a compliment feel backhanded when coming from them?  

Do you feel like you’re walking on eggshells around them?

Do you feel as though you need to work hard just so you can get a sense that they like you?   

If you answered yes to any of the above, the critical question to ask yourself is why you’re allowing your self-esteem to be eroded away by hanging around them?  It’s not you and they’re not going to change.  

Move on.

Lovable

So long as you continue to believe that the determining factor of how lovable you are exists outside of yourself, you will continue to feel that there’s something inherently wrong with you.

Grass is always greener,,,

“No matter how awesome you think your boyfriend is right now, there is someone out there relieved to see his ass gone.”  Actual quote from a bathroom stall.

You can apply that to anything, just like ‘one man’s trash is another man’s treasure’ when your life isn’t working you tend to look over that virtual/literal fence that divides your boring life from your neighbor’s and think “Man, I wish my life was as exciting/interesting/less complicated as theirs.”  

It seems as though our default setting is to give our power away.  We waste so much time pining after our neighbors’ life that we neglect putting that energy into changing ours. 

Here’s what you need to know about your neighbors’ life -- IT’S EXACTLY LIKE YOURS.  They’re probably looking over at your house thinking, “Geez, I wish my life was as exciting/interesting/less complicated as theirs.”  

Now if you used that energy spent pining to actually make your life exciting/interesting/less complicated, you'll be too busy living a fulfilling life to bother looking over the fence.

Expectations and the Flight Imperative

You’ve made a decision to start a project, have chosen a path or are taking a journey that is new to you, in other words, you’ve reached the clearing and have the runway in sight.  You have expectations but you’re keeping the story small and at arms length, and as you venture on you start encountering obstacles, or your progress slows down, you’ve hit a glitch, and your momentum comes to a grinding halt.  

What do you do now?  You’re fighting the voice in your head that wants a big, emotional story, you’re fighting resistance that wants to shout in your ear “I told you this was a stupid idea.”  You can feel all this emotion getting closer and closer to you, so what do you do?

STOP and LEAN INTO IT.

Yes, when every fibre in your body wants to run the other way or collapse on the spot and give in to the pressure, do what is least expected, LEAN TOWARD these uncomfortable feelings. I first heard of this idea from Seth Godin and his book The Dip. It works!  When I stood, faced and leaned toward these emotions it took all the air out of the negative energy and felt incredibly empowering.

I truly believe that the only way out of a difficult experience is through, is to feel the emotions, put your shoulder against them and LEAN IN.

Sliding into heaven.

“Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely

in an attractive and well preserved body. But rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, wine in the other, body totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!"” (Author unknown)

That’s what I want to be able to tell myself when I’m 80. 

To me this little aphorism isn’t talking about hedonism, irresponsibility, or checking off all the items on a bucket list.  To me it says you’ve lived your life authentically and expansively, going out of your way to enhance someone else’s life as well. It is by far, the best way to be used up at the end of the day.

Let's be clear...

The flight imperative is the antithesis of running away; it's a moving towards.