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Week 14 of 52 Changing from Self-Abasement to Self-Congratulations

October 8, 2012 //
2

REFLECTIONS:

Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another.

Toni Morrison

Thanksgiving is upon me and this year I will do something different. Typically, the day has meant a feast of food with family and friends, with a cursory nod to gratitude. This October, I am on a liver cleanse and by myself, so overeating rich food and enjoying the company of family and friends will not happen. So instead I will enjoy my own company and give thanks for my good fortune. Just as I was preparing to enumerate that for which I am grateful, I was interrupted by a knock at the door. As per usual on writing days, I was still in my PJS at noon…pretty ones (thanks to Blog Post #2), but PJS, none the less. Embracing the newly confident me, I strode to the front door and whisked it open! Look  what the universe delivered!

Much to Give Thanks For

2 handsome and helpful Firemen!

They wanted permission to inspect the house and surrounding yard in order to assign a ‘Home and Site’ Hazard Level. They were bearers of a warning. The home created by my husband and me over the last 20 years, currently has an extremely high hazard level. An unexpected spark would set everything ablaze and likely all would turn to ash. I wanted to ask how they knew transformation was upon this house and all who lived here, but instead  asked if I could take their picture for my Blog. 

This interruption gave me pause, and created a shift in the direction of my thoughts. Out of the fire rose the phoenix! It is time to recognize the changes I have made.  To acknowledge that which I have achieved. I have no problem in identifying my faults, my areas that still need ‘work’, but today I will begin to share a balanced view of my life.  It is time to give thanks to me for having worked hard to transform into a kinder, healthier, and more self-possessed woman. 

I have not lived in our home for 1 1/2 years, and am here now because my husband is away for the weekend. Alone, I can reminisce, reflect and rejoice! I am not the frightened and insecure woman that I was in 2004/2005. That was when I began the journey to become a woman who no longer felt fragmented, lost or unloved or expected her happiness to be the responsibility of her partner.

IMAGE FROM MY 2004/2005 JOURNAL – Titled  ‘Unloved and Unhappy’

UNLOVED and UNHAPPY

2ND IMAGE FROM MY 2004/2005 JOURNAL – Titled ‘Feeling Isolated and Lost’

FEELING ISOLATED AND LOST

My external life looked pretty perfect, even to me, in the years leading up to 2004. I had a very successful husband, and 2 beautiful and brilliant daughters. I had lived in Europe for 7 years and was now back in Western Canada living the life. I had had to give up my teaching career, due to the severity of my autoimmune disease, so I busied myself with three roles; that of wife/mother/volunteer. But by 2004, my journal entries, drawings and dreams, began to express my internal angst. My inner world was trying to crack open the perfect facade of my outer world. I would never say that the roles of wife, mother and volunteer prevented me from being the woman I was born to be, but they unwittingly provided a safe haven for a lost soul. At that point in my unfolding, I would have been at wits end without the many demands placed on me by family and various organizations. In being ‘busy’ and materially driven, I could attempt to avoid the calling from my soul. In fact my life became the picture perfect Graph, illustrating the concept of Inverse Proportions! The further I moved from addressing the needs of my heart and soul, the more stridently I carried out my tasks as wife/mother/volunteer. I had very clear ideas on how things should look, how people should act, and what goals everyone should aspire to.

The less I lived from my heart, the more I tried to control the lives of others.

Avoiding My Life Turned Me into an Exacting Commander

I could have continued to live the rest of my life like this, never bothering to delve below the pretty surface. Most people do. But instead I mustered up the courage and began the monumental and life altering journey to discover my soul’s desire. I became an adherent to the famous words of Socrates,”The unexamined life is not worth living.”

 It began with finding “A Room of One’s Own.” I needed space alone where I could sort through the web of my life. I was very fortunate in being able to buy a cottage on Vancouver Island, near the water, where the crash of waves could penetrate the seemingly impenetrable wall I had built around my heart and soul…where I could begin the process of extricating the real me from the image of me…where I could unearth the woman buried beneath illness, obligation, busyness and my persona of happiness. In the past 8 years I have transformed into a more self-possessed woman. I am not the lost, little girl alone on a couch. Nor am I overwhelmed by the world. I no longer feel the need to organize and control others. I feel safe in the unpredictability of life.

ASPIRATIONS FOR WEEK 14 OF 52

CHANGING FROM SELF-ABASEMENT TO SELF-CONGRATULATIONS

I am proud of myself. 5 words I believe to be true, but I rarely verbalize. So this day, the day of giving thanks, I want to thank me!

1. I want to thank me for having shown the courage of honesty … the courage to admit my character flaws and the courage to make amends to those I have hurt.

2. I want to thank me for spending 18 months on a raw food diet that included drinking 2 ounces of wheat grass daily, in hopes of creating a healthier body(drinking wheat grass takes real courage).

3. I want to thank me for overcoming virgivitiphobia, a fear of being raped, pillaged and killed on a nightly basis. I no longer sleep with all the lights on nor a knife. 

4. I want to thank me for having the courage to pursue a lifelong dream to be a writer. Me, who scored in the 10th percentile for spellers in Canada(meaning 90% of young Canadians were better spellers) Me, who achieved an ‘F’ on a University essay interpreting Shakespeare! Me, the Math and Statistics wizard,  a writer? Well I’ve done it! I invite all of you to attend my first Book Launch on November 21st in Qualicum Beach, BC. Copies of the book, The Memory Shop, are available for sale…really. Even I am incredulous!

I’m One of the Authors

 

So for Week 14 of 52, I will remember to present a balanced perspective of me! I will celebrate when I achieve success, when I do something that feeds my soul and warms my heart.

 

 

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Categories Jungian Analysis, love, the other woman, transformation, Uncategorized

Week 13 of 52 Changing from Needy to Self-Sufficient

October 1, 2012 //
2

REFLECTIONS

-the bloody stubbornness of getting

someone born.

Rowan Williamson, the Archbishop of Canterbury

Last week I laid to rest my loveless marriage. It now lies deep, at the bottom of a lake, absorbed into the surrounding beauty of trees, singing birds and majestic mountains. It will decompose, change shape and one day, become part of something new. And after this burial, I sat and wept the cold, cold tears of grief. I didn’t stifle my sound, nor care about how I appeared… for once I let myself sink deep into the sorrow of my unfulfilled dreams, sink deep into the agony at the loss of the husband I love. I had to surrender to what is, and not continue to cling to my desire for the life I had planned. I have had to feel and observe the unsightliness of death.

It does me no good to choke back my tears nor numb my pain with alcohol or food. That just postpones what is inevitable. As I young child I cried openly, whenever I saw injustice, but by age 10, I cried alone… hidden from the ridicule of older brothers and the judgement of parents. I’ve had to relearn the cry of the soul. The cry that mourns the injustices of life, the cry that rejoices at the  miraculous…the cry of an unencumbered child, who breaks into sobs when a robin crashes into a window and drops to the pavement below. The cry of the soul is different from the cry of the child in the supermarket desiring candy, or the cry I had when my beautiful Italian candlestick broke into pieces. These tears are rooted in the desire of the known, the tangible, the material world. This cry is more temper than soul. This cry will not see the heaving chest nor the sobs that interfere with breathing, leaving the crier gasping for air.

But my cry at the shores of the lake was the cry of a broken heart. It was the cry of the soul, the cry for which there is no consolation. It was the cry of me surrendering.

THE WEEPING OF SURRENDER

This week, Week 13 of 52, marks the 1/4 point of my year long project of my transformation into The Other Woman. It’s fitting that I am at the point of surrender. I’m surrendering to what never was… I’m surrendering to what never will be…and I’m  surrendering to what is. I have felt relief after this week of soulful tears. And every time I chastise myself for not surrendering sooner, I remember that I had to be strong enough to bear the weight of such a staggering grief.

In the deeply felt experience of grief, I acknowledged the finality of my dream. Gone is the dream that one day he will gaze into my eyes and say, “I love you!” and I will feel the truth of these words. Gone is the dream to walk through the streets of Europe, hand in hand, sharing our observations, our humour. Gone is the dream to grow old together, watching the next generations as they stumble upon life and love. Gone is the dream to lie side by side after death, entering the realm of the unknown, somehow together. What’s done is done. What’s gone is gone.

goodbye

ASPIRATIONS FOR WEEK 13 OF 52

CHANGING FROM NEEDY TO SELF-SUFFICIENT

Last week I believed to be true, that which I have most dreaded. My husband doesn’t love me. In a tyrannical rage, I have hurled this accusation at him countless times, praying he would refute it, being mollified when he did. Thus was the collusion of our marriage. Ending this collusive agreement, meant facing the truth of what is. It meant pain, upheaval, loss and eventually, maybe, transformation.

In the hopes of becoming The Other Woman, I have been dissecting my notions of love. Not agape, the diffused love and good will towards all humanity, but the love shown towards one man or one woman, at close range. I believe all humans need love, but how is this need for love different from being needy. When I met with my husband a few days ago, I timidly said my mantra of the week, “You don’t love me.” Having only ever yelled these words, I wanted to experience the impact of just saying them.

(BTW A mantra is a collection of words that is considered capable of creating transformation)

Unexpected Dialogue #1

Me: You don’t love me.

Him: Do you think that was love you showed me or just behaviour born out of your neediness?

Me: (demoralized) Good point, maybe you are right – my sacrifices and thoughtfulness, and the love I felt for you existed just because I was in desperate need of your love. Hmmm, maybe that isn’t really love. sigh

…some silence…followed by a heightened alertness in the core of my body…leading to a surge of anger which resulted in assertive behaviour in defence of myself…

Me: Yes, I was needy and I was loving. I can see now that a person can be both. But my neediness blinded me to the fact that you refused to share your heart with me.

Unexpected Dialogue #2

Him: But I gave to you! I cared about you! Don’t you see that as a manifestation of love. Isn’t this what you just said you did? What you gave to me?

Me: (not quite as demoralized)You did give to me …but you gave material goods; a beautiful home, exotic trips, a BMW, a Rolex watch, an Armani suit to name but a few. There is an element of control though, in materialism. You decide how many dollars you want to spend and when you will give. But in a gesture of open-hearted love, the giving comes from a different source. Through your open heart, you access the unified field of infinite energy. So a gesture of love that costs nothing from your wallet, becomes a source of ever replenishing joy, inspiration and fulfillment. This priceless gift, I never received from you.

Him: You are right, I never gave you that. 

Finally I spoke from my heart, without rage or self pity. I spoke clearly about my experience of not being loved, without regret or expectation. I also accepted that having love in my heart for him, is not a guarantee of reciprocity. And in fact, such a belief can eventually contaminate the purest of loves.

So for Week 13 of 52, I will be receptive to love while I learn the art of being self-possessed, remembering that a needy woman is a blind woman.

A Needy Woman is a Blind Woman

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Categories childhood, infidelity, love, transformation

Week 11 of 52 Changing From a Broken to Healed Heart

September 17, 2012 //
4

REFLECTIONS

And Mama said, “Some weeks would be like that.” I’ve had one of those weeks – not externally, but internally. External Realty: I saw KD Lang in Victoria, visited with friends and my daughter, rode my bicycle up and down the sand spit, read and wrote to my heart’s content and ate delicious BC fish and veggies, to name a few of the joys of my day. Internal Reality: I have felt a tightening in my chest and stomach, which has created an impulse to crawl into a hole and hide until the discomfort abated. If I try to ignore or stuff this negativity away, and just give attention to the joyful aspects of my life, I will miss an opportunity to transform. It is tempting to acknowledge only the happy moments of life, to share only the successes, to complain about others’ shortcomings…but in being as forthcoming about the sad times as the happy and dealing with my own shortcomings, instead of complaining about others, I have a hope of living a richer, more rewarding life. I used to believe wholeheartedly, that if the people in my life behaved better, my life would be better. No one changes with finger pointing…doing my own work and letting others be responsible for theirs, is the only path to transformation!

The beauty of the Blogmoir is that I have created a place to share my internal reality and know someone is listening. Thank you to my readers for giving me the love and support I need to unravel this other woman conundrum.

Firstly, with what I have been discovering about the Unified Field Theory, finding The Other Woman would mean letting go of my pre-conceived notions of how she would manifest in me. This elusive other woman won’t be found by embracing a new diet or exercise program, or a new wardrobe or following someone’s advice (no matter how well it worked for them), nor by moving to a new city or taking a trip, or anything so known and easily grasped. To find this ‘other woman’ energy I must do  more letting go than taking on. I must embrace the unknown…literally impossible obviously…so what does this mean…what do I DO? This ambiguity does not come naturally to me, as I have lived a literal life. It makes me anxious, uncertain of a direction.

Secondly, last week, for the first time, I began to talk about ‘the other woman’ and the marital menage her presence created. My stomach turns as I allow these feelings to surface. My shoulders begin to ache, and my eyes are rheumy. It’s time to dissect and release my stories and my stores of betrayal.

Childhood

I felt loved by my father until I was around 6 years old. Then my mother got between us. Dad became the first man I lost to another woman. Years later mom confessed to me that she had felt jealous of the love my father so easily gave me but not her. She severed my father’s tie to me by bombarding him with Dr. Spock’s wisdom(child rearing expert of the 60’s), citing that fathers should insist on more grown-up behaviours from their young daughters…browbeaten Dad obeyed and withdrew from me…no more playing, no more hugging, no more shoe tying, no more relationship … This incomprehensible change in my father’s behaviour registered in my heart as betrayal. This betrayal left a sizeable divot in my heart.

Heart with Divot

Adulthood

Unconsciously my adult self recreated this familiar, if painful, dynamic, by choosing the husband that I did. I knew he had problems with fidelity 3 weeks into our relationship. I’m certain I would have walked away then, easily, if I hadn’t had to resolve my deep childhood experience of betrayal. As a child I could not process the complexity of my parents behaviour, so I stored this pain in my heart until I was old enough to look at in again …disturbingly, I recreated this love triangle in an ironic duplication of my first trauma.

ASPIRATIONS FOR WEEK 11 of 52

CHANGING FROM A BROKEN TO A HEALED HEART

I watched this scene unfold with utter fascination. The man looks uncannily like my father. I would have loved to have been that young woman, openly angry at my father, for his inability to take a stand against my mother’s tyranny. But I didn’t…I was eternally polite while my body ate itself in despair.

And as much as I wished I could have been angry, I would have given anything for that embrace of understanding that finally came from her father.

So now I have a choice. I can continue to tell my sad tale and cling to my pain or I can dance…literally and figuratively! In the comfort of my own space, I now do the wild dancing I missed in the 70’s. I was wound so tightly I never listened to anything that hadn’t been composed at least 400 years ago. I played the flute in a very uptight Chamber Group.

As much as dancing frees my soul and keeps me from my Escape Artist, so does creating art. I pulled out some magazines that I like, and began to look for words and images that caught my attention. I had no idea what I would create – I let the ‘knowingness in the Universe’ be my guide, having faith that whatever I needed to understand would come clear…just as fog lifts from an ocean to reveal the beauty of a distant shore. While rifling through magazines and cutting words and images, I cried, I laughed, I was intense, I was loose…and after some time, 2 themes began to emerge. On the left, the detritus of the Patriarchal Father now visible in my marriage. On the right, a path to a new place, giving me freedom  from this emotional prison.

Marriage Melange (click on image to see large size, click again for really large)

Marriage Menage

Cosmic Connection – Open To The Universe

Open to the Universe

So for Week 11 of 52 I will remember that a damaged heart can heal if I let old pain up and out. It hurt going in, so it will hurt coming out…which is why I have avoided this for years. But surprisingly, although intense (I yowled like a banshee) the pain didn’t last that long.

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Categories childhood, infidelity, Jungian Analysis, love, the other woman, transformation

WEEK 9 OF 52 Changing from Newtonian to Quantum Physics

September 3, 2012 //
2

REFLECTIONS

I had a eureka moment this morning as I sat down to write. Maybe this new thought has been obvious to everyone but me! The Other Woman energy that I am trying to find this year is not ‘out there’ somewhere.

Have I been looking beyond me, as a continuation of a pattern established in dressing myself in ‘parent sanctioned’ personas throughout my developing life as a child? What came into my consciousness today, from the grace of the Universe, is the joyous feeling that I can stop trying to become some externalized vision of perfection that is created from a conglomeration of parental and cultural constructs. Naturally my femininity felt contained as I attempted to reflect the various faces of others’ ideal feminine. I’ve tried on Virtuous Vera and Alluring Alicia as a teen;  followed by Intellectual Inga during university semesters and once the summer break came, I tried on Sporty Sue or Fun Farrah. This seemed natural to me as a youth. Where else would I learn which behaviours are acceptable, which careers are worthy and which lifestyles are to be coveted, if not from my parents and my surrounding culture?   Of course I knew the sentiment behind the 70’s “Free to Be You and Me” movement, and if asked, I would have said, without irony or disingenuousness, “I am Virtuous Vera, Allring Alicia, Sporty Sue and Fun Farrah!” I did not have the knowledge that I was using other people’s reality as my reference point.

So I continued this pattern of personality and behavioural acquisition into my adult years.

In my efforts to find and keep a man, I’ve tried to be as thin as Twiggy, as full figured as Marilyn, as good a cook as Julia Child, as wonderful a home decorator as Martha Stewart, as conversationally engaging and informed as Christiane Amanpour, as athletic as Dorothy Hamill, and as funny as Gilda Radner. ..and all of this simultaneously! Sadly, this isn’t even the entire list. There was also the pressure from the Woman’s Movement, where I felt I had failed if I had not achieved a perfect balance between excelling in my career and raising my children. And ‘raising’,  meant my  children must experience as rich an environment as was provided by a ‘stay-at-home’ Mom.

Of course I never came close to achieving the level of competency any of these women attained, but the surprising part is, I continued to try. I felt an internal pressure to be as successful as a dizzying array of highly accomplished women.

Twiggy
Marilyn Monroe
Julia Child
Gilda Radner
Martha Stewart
Christiane Amanpour
Dorothy Hamill
Stay-at-Home Mom
Inside My Head

 

As I ponder these images, another thought occurs to me! I realize I would never have expected Gilda, for example, to be a culinary marvel, nor a first rate figure skater, nor a news anchor. Nor would I have thought she should even attempt to be anything but who she truly was! So why did I expect these Super Woman feats of myself? Why did I feel I was failing at being a woman, if I wasn’t a conglomerate of many successful women??

So now I am giving myself the opportunity to reference my own soul to create within me, the woman I was born to be…a truer me… to allow my unique inner self to flourish! The conflict I have felt between my inner self and the external, created self should, in time,  cease to exist. A major recalibration is needed, as I have felt an unease with my judgements on what parts of me are good or bad and what actions are right or wrong. So to actually believe my body can shift energetically, I had to examine my underlying beliefs about how our universe operates, the Universe which includes my shoulder and my concept of me. This segues nicely into Week 9 of 52 of  The Other Woman.

ASPIRATIONS FOR WEEK 9 OF 52

CHANGING FROM NEWTONIAN TO QUANTUM PHYSICS

Last week’s post on finding a resolution to my shoulder pain, gave me an opportunity to compare two very different views of our world’s physical structure. I have been an adherent to Newtonian Mechanics, where all of the Universe, including my body, is part of a massive mechanical system of solid, discrete objects. The chair I sit on is as separate from my physical body as I am from my computer and as all three of these entities are from you. This immutable or fixed view gave me the belief that all phenomena in my life(including the nebulousness of pain or consciousness), were the direct result of observable and measurable interactions between these separate, mechanical parts. My perception of reality is that everything exists in 3-dimentions, time is linear, and every object is separate from every other object. My heart, kidneys and lungs, or shoulder, for example, have predictable, discrete ‘functions’ so when a part breaks down, a doctor with a patch kit is brought in to fix it, thus restoring this perception. But what if this is only how we have learned to perceive our Universe, because this is how schools teach Science…the world is broken into parts. Doctors learn about the body by taking it apart, but Scientists know this is an extremely outdated and limited perception.

Mending My Shoulder Newtonian Physics Style

1.Visit Rheumatologist – get anti-inflammatory pills and pain killers because of the belief that my shoulder is a discrete joint in my body, unrelated to me, the person.

This method may give my shoulder relief, leading me to believe it is repaired, but there is not a doctor around who can help me with an abstract issue like personal transformation, and that’s what I think I need  to truly relieve the pain. Because I believe my shoulder pain comes from the burden of carrying around the expectations of the patriarchal father, I know mere pain relief will not do any thing but mask the underlying issue. This leads me to Quantum Physics!

Just like the best things in life, the theory behind Quantum Physics evolved when Scientists where trying to prove its opposite…serendipity at its finest. So as scientists were looking for the smallest, most elemental and discrete building blocks of the Universe in support of Newton’s Theory, they instead discovered that this theory is hogwash…meaningless…The Universe appears to be an undivided whole…a dynamic web of interconnected and inseparable energy patterns…a unified field. This means that matter or solids as I call them, are just ‘slowed down’ forms of energy, not separate, independent, discrete parts. Logically, there is no such thing as a part. I am not separated into parts, nor am I part of a whole…I am the whole. You are the whole. 

My shoulder is not a discrete joint to be healed separately from the rest of my body and my experiences. This belief gives me hope that transformation awaits me!

Mending My Shoulder Quantum Physics Style

1.Visit Annette, my Herbalist, who has spent years trying to pry me away from my Newtonian stance, into a belief of Oneness. In a room of people we connect physically because the air we breathe out becomes the air others breathe in… an example of how we are all The Whole as we sit separately on our chairs.

2.Visit my Myofascial Release Therapist, Maneesha Madan, who believes that the fascia is a very complex 3-dimensional structure binding all of the body together…more like the unified field theory of Quantum Physics than the particle theory of Newtonian Physics.

This was a long, hard post, but it is Labour Day!

So for Week 9 of 52, I will remember that any transformation is possible, as I am the Whole, not a part of The Whole.

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Categories Jungian Analysis, love, the other woman, transformation
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