When you find yourself drowning in self-hate, you have to remind yourself that you weren’t born feeling this way. That at some point in your journey, some person or experience sent you the message that there was something wrong with who you are, and you internalized those messages and took them on as your truth. But that hate isn’t yours to carry, and those judgments aren’t about you. And in the same way that you learned to think badly of yourself, you can learn to think new, self-loving and accepting thoughts. You can learn to challenge those beliefs, take away their power, and reclaim your own. It won’t be easy, and it won’t happen over night. But it is possible. And it starts when you decide that there has to be more to life than this pain you feel. It starts when you decide that you deserve to discover it. —Daniell Koepke
Archive for April, 2014
I was on Facebook and this video came across my feed.
http://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/361036/stop-telling-women-not-to-smile/
The first comment I saw under the video’s link was “Women need to dress acceptably to help themselves not be harassed on the streets.” This, of course, set off a tirade of people, including me, because that is wrong on so many levels. That is an old way of thinking and why harassment, rape, and other such happenings are not taken as a serious offense. Too many times we repeat beliefs that we’ve learned without really thinking about the meaning of what we’re saying.
We’re taught opinions as children, and we store them away. We’re taught beliefs through our experiences in life, and we store them away. Sometimes we purposefully use them without considering the depth or meaning of the thought. Other times we intuitively use these thoughts because they’re still floating around in our subconscious sometimes blocking us in detrimental ways.
The other day I was typing with an acquaintance when I took over the conversation and let my soul show. That’s an extremely scary thing for me, and I’m usually pretty good about not doing it. I’m usually pretty conscious of such things and filter, but I slipped into my stream of consciousness and out popped pieces of my soul… anyhow, at one point I was trying to explain something so I didn’t come off as heartless or ungrateful of the blessings I’ve been given, but also not humble bragging. I typed something that was profound to me, that I had never realized about myself. I made the comment that “If love is too cotton candy (Michellineze for: sugary sweet without a heavy bottom.. best guess of what I was saying) then it’s not real.” I relish the “negative” of my friendships and relationships because if I don’t have the negatives then there’s something wrong. It’s not real. How crazy is that? I’d never realized that crap was in my brain, so I was not able to get it out of my brain. Also, because it was in my brain, I intuitively acted on this idea that in order for happiness to be real it had to have the negative side, too. I am so very grateful to my friend for letting me go there and for being so amazing that I felt safe in going there because I never had to explain to myself why I thought like that. By feeling the need to explain to her, I uncovered something that was holding me back in so many areas. To my friend, you are so fabulous, and I will be eternally grateful!!
Another example is that my brother just had a son. My mother was worried after returning from visiting him because she could never afford to spoil that baby the way he’s being spoiled there so he’d never love her. I’m not sure if she realized what she said or what she was even worried about, but I didn’t know how to respond to that. She has a five year old grand daughter who asks to go visit every afternoon when she gets home from school, asks to spend the night on the weekends, and gets mad if anyone dares to think they have a right to that time. She has a three year old grandson that asks to go play over at her house as soon as he gets up and makes sure it’s “Good morning.” Neither of those are expecting her to buy them things unless we go to the store, and that’s not specific to her. They enjoy her time and attention… well, at least the five year old. The three year old enjoys her dirt and playing out in the sun without being interrupted. When there’s no sun, he enjoys playing in her house without being interrupted, but he still wants to be in his Abuela’s presence… Somewhere in my mother’s brain, though, it is wired that if she doesn’t buy stuff for them, they won’t love her. This belief/thought process is so bad that it blinds her to what she has, which hinders her greatly.
This is true of most people though. We have hang ups that we don’t realize are hanging us up so we can’t fix them… or we’re scared to fix them. This is why we repeat the same patterns (new face, same problem) over and over and over again. I was once called perceptive because I saw a nasty pattern, and I fixed it, though I hadn’t realized it was a pattern. I just thought it was a bad decision up until the last couple of years. We don’t always realize the pattern, or understand why the pattern is happening. I couldn’t understand why, when I have incredible husband and children, I couldn’t find happiness. Well, I couldn’t find happiness because happiness is cotton candy, and cotton candy isn’t nourishing. It isn’t real. As soon as I acknowledged that belief, I could change it. I could figure out why I had it, start working to get rid of it, and therefore find the happiness that had been right in front of me.
What ideas are holding you back? What are the ones that you’re not aware you have? *wink* Those will get you every time.
Hard is not relative. Hard is hard. Who can tell me that explaining to someone you just declared bankruptcy is harder than telling someone that you just cheated on them? Who can tell me that his coming out story is harder than telling your five-year-old you’re getting a divorce? There is no harder, this is just hard. We need to stop ranking our hard against everyone else’s hard to make us feel better about our closets and just commiserate on the fact that we all have hard. —Ash Beckham
Someone said to me, “I know what I’ve been through doesn’t compare with what you’ve been through.” Now I know she didn’t mean anything by it. I know it’s a psychological tactic so that I don’t get offended that someone dare compare their hurt with my hurt, but to me hurt is hurt. What I can endure is different from what you can endure, so what you compare can only be compared by your own experiences, your own ability of what you can handle. All pain is meant to teach us something we need to know in order to be able to use it to help another. At least that is how I see pain. How can you compare that when we have different people who we need to touch in the world?
I’m not impressed by anyone who works hard to APPEAR perfect, but I’m always inspired by people who accept that nobody is flawless, including themselves – THAT is worth emulating! — Buddhist Boot Camp
It just sums up something I’ve been trying to put into words for myself. I’m more impressed with my poor, ridiculously human, Jonah than I am David (though he had his downfalls, too. He just didn’t own them the same way.) I’m more into posts that are real than how everything is perfect when you know in real life that’s not the case or only posts that are sugar and cotton candy…. Growing up in church you’re taught not to show your sins, your scars, your truths, instead you’re taught to hide them away. I am very impressed with those who don’t follow that sentiment.
AlwaysFollowingShinyBunnies 