Shadow

Dammit! I find it astonishing how completely blind to my own aspects of shadow I can be one minute, then a mirror is held up and WHAM! there it is, obvious, awkward, and clear as a bell the next. I see it and think "Jesus! How did I not see that?!! How did I not see that's what was driving me?! How could I be so blind?!"

But alas, that's why they call it "shadow". So right about now I'm feeling humbled and embarrassed and dreading facing up and owning my s**t, as they say. I'm grateful for the clarity, but oh how I hate the awkwardness I feel. It's sort of an internal cringe. I've been here before, though, and I know it passes.
After all is said and done, I will be wiser, truer, and more humble. Not a bad way to end that chapter. Not bad at all.

Receiving

Most women I know love to give, but are extremely uncomfortable with receiving.

I find it intensely interesting listening to the myriad of ways women resist receiving verbal compliments. A woman is told she is good at her work. She replies, "Oh no! But thank you", as if the addition of the words "Thank you" make her unwillingness to receive okay. Another woman is told her figure looks great. She responds, "Yeah, now if I can just get rid of these thighs!" Still another technique is to turn the attention to the one giving the compliment. This can be done by receiving the compliment and quickly bouncing it back, "Thanks, but I really love your outfit", or by skillfully ignoring the compliment all together. For example, "Your hair looks pretty." Receiver: "Oh, I've always wanted to know where you get yours done." Women have been doing this for centuries. It is a deeply ingrained pattern of behavior modeled by women and passed on to the generations of young women that follow.

I teach elementary school. Just the other day I was in my room with a group of second grade girls. i  Yes. I said second grade. 7-8 year olds. They were chatting first about food and then talking to each other about their thighs. Their thighs. They were not happy with them. The conversation and kind of talk was obviously something they had heard women/mothers in their life say to one another. Just like little girls playing dress-up in their mommie's clothes, they were trying on the talk they understood to be grown-up talk.

Another way women create resistance is by the refusal to ask for help; help with a project, help with the kids, help with financial struggles, and especially help with something personal where they feel vulnerable. When we create barriers and resistance to receiving, it is a great mirror of our beliefs about deserving. We are uncomfortable with receiving because on some level, we don't believe we deserve to receive.

The good news is this new awareness of our resistance to receiving is a great opportunity to explore what we believe we deserve. Those internal messages we have about what we deserve usually come from early childhood experiences. What do you want that you do not have now? What did you learn/see about deserving in your home when you were growing up? What did your parents believe they deserved? Were there any spoken messages? Did you hear "You get what you deserve!" Did you always have to earn in order to deserve? Did earning work for you? What did your childhood religious upbringing teach you about deserving? Were you told that sinners don't deserve? Were things taken away from you when you did something wrong? What did you tell yourself as a result of those childhood experiences? What have you come to believe you deserve? Are you good enough? Will you ever be good enough?

If you have never explored your internal beliefs around deserving, try this:
Go to the mirror and look into your own eyes. Breathe.
Say your name and repeat the following statements while looking into your own eyes. Pause after each statement and listen to what you tell yourself about it.

I deserve an abundance of leisure time.


I deserve an abundance of loving and supportive friends and family.


I deserve a job that is deeply gratifying.


I deserve to be treated with respect, consideration, and value.


I deserve to feel good.


I deserve time to myself and for myself.


I deserve to ask for help and to receive it.


I deserve, in abundance, ALL the good things that the whole universe has to offer.


Now tell me, what was that like for you? What came up? For me, I noticed that the most difficult one, the one I almost deleted (interestingly), was the statement, "I deserve a job that is deeply gratifying." And, I was surprised that it was this one. I didn't see it coming. Not intellectually anyway. But on a feeling level, I noticed my resistance. It was palpable. So, now I know I have some "stuff" I carry around career, working, and it being "deeply gratifying". I can tell you that I carry messages that say "Work is hard. You have to do it. Everyone hates their work. Just do it and shut up. Don't expect more. Don't expect too much. You don't get to have more than that. Work doesn't have to be deeply gratifying. You're lucky you have a job, so just shut up and do it. How dare you ask for more than that! Deeply gratifying??? You want too much!"

Whew! See how you can discover what's in there? That's what is creating resistance to your joy; whatever your joy is. Now that I have identified those internal messages that are creating the resistance for me, I can change them. The messages we carry are learned messages. That means we can unlearn them. Therein lies our power.

I challenge you. Look into your mirror. Do the exericse. Be the conscious creator of your own experience. I look forward to hearing about your experiences.

F#%K "Lady-like"!!

I'm 54. I'll turn 55 this summer. Growing up in a house with 4 other sisters, and a banner-carrying feminist mother, the fight for a woman's voice to be heard was no small thing. So today, when I make comments and post photographs on my FB page about Rush Limbaugh's insults, I do it because my voice is important. Period. So I am compelled to blog about this experience I am having of "Sshhhhhhhhh!... Don't give him attention." Blah, blah, blah. Yes, Yes. I know all about "What you focus on grows." I blog, post, and preach that too.

AND, there comes a time when I must speak up. If we always were quiet, turned the other cheek, gave "them" no attention, etc., there would be no revolutionaries. There would be no Elizabeth Cady Stanton, no Susan B. Anthony, no Alice Paul, or Lucy Burns. We women wouldn't even have the right to vote. Where would we be today if those women had listened to and heeded the "shhhhhh!" of their society? There is a time to speak up and speak up with passion and gusto. There is a time to step up and step forward, step out of my comfort zone and stretch into my voice, my LOUD, CLEAR, PASSIONATE VOICE.

When I was a girl, my dad (every now and then when I expressed myself in a way that wasn't in line with his thinking), would pop me on the rear end and say, "Julia! Act like a lady." Playful or not, the message was clear. Women have been told, in one way or another, to "shhhhhhh" for hundreds of years. So I suppose it's natural for even women in our society to "shhhhhh" me when I speak up. In fact, I don't think they realize what they are doing. I believe we (women) are still reacting out of deep, long-term programming. It seems the only time we women allow ourselves full voice, loud and passionate, is when it is in defense of the children. Then just try and "shhhh" me! See what happens!!!

But what about the metaphorical children? What about the new ideas and ways of being that we are giving birth to? They are our "children". Do we not have the right to give full voice, with gusto and passion to those as well? The challenge is to learn the balance between knowing when to push against and when to go with the flow. There was a time when I would have said the goal is to go with the flow, to be in a sort of Zen state where all is well all the time.

Ahhhhh.... but "The secret of Zen is just two words: Not always so."

Elizabeth, Susan B., Alice, and Lucy didn't go with the flow. They had been "going with the flow" far too long. It was time for them to push against it. And I am grateful to them for being willing to do that. Today, I have the right to vote because of them, because of their loud, passionate, true voice.

So no, I will NOT "Shhhhhhhh"!! I am not a "lady". I am not ashamed. And I will not be quiet. I am LOUD, and BAWDY, and PASSIONATE, and furthermore I LIKE the way I am. So I say "UNLADY-LIKE" WOMEN UNITE! SPEAK YOUR TRUTH WITH GUSTO AND PASSION! LIVE IT! LOVE WHO YOU ARE!

Full Bloom

There is something extraordinarily beautiful about a woman in full bloom. My sister is this woman. Last night I went to a little tea shop in Chamblee to see my big sister sing. I've known her all my life; 54 years. We humans are creatures of perception, and I have always experienced her as a tightly wound individual, rigid in many ways. And I am compassionately grateful for this, because I know she developed this particular self for survival. Being born into the role of Hero, she was 'Good Girl', got high grades in school, parent to her four younger sisters, and thereby robbed of her childhood. I watched during those years in the late 60's and 70's, her "friends" were cruel and two-faced. High school was a time of trying to fit in, hoping desperately to be accepted into one of the popular groups. One of my memories from that time is how important it was to have a particular designer clothing. A Villager or Lady Bug tag in your clothing or on your accessories was a ticket "in". Rumor was in high school they checked, actually pulled back the collar of your clothing to see, and then followed with ridicule if you did not measure up. I remember my sister's high school experience as cruel, and wounding. Unfortunately, this is true for many of us.              
She went away to college and wanted to become a doctor for our father, an absent father who travelled a lot and never gave her the approval and acceptance she so longed for and needed. Like most women I know, when we are girls, there is nothing we want more than our father's approval and acceptance. She ended up in Pharmacy school. I lived with her my final year of college. I don't remember her then, nor any time really, as a joyful person.

Today, her life is quite new, quite different. Recently divorced, or in the process of it, she has found a little apartment off the square in Marietta. It's in a old building, with lots of history. Just the kind of thing I remember her loving. She may use her skill and knowledge from Pharmacy school to pay the bills, but she is fearlessly and unabashedly exploring her creative side. In this transition, she is dancing, singing, developing stage characters, and even bought a new guitar she delightedly refers to as her "boyfriend".

So, I went to see her sing and play guitar at Zen Tea last night. She was radiant, spilling over with joy, a woman comfortable in her own skin. And not just comfortable, she was at home in her own skin. I don't think I've ever seen her that way. She was, and is, a woman in full bloom. It is beautiful to behold. In fact, it brought tears to my eyes. There are no words adequate to describe how happy I am for her. She deserves to be this alive and loving it. All of us do. Thank you, Dona, for your engaging radiance. You are truly beautiful.

Becoming

I was clearing books from one shelf to another. I found an old journal with pages falling out. I sat on the floor and read where it was open. It was 1998. Wow. 14 years ago. It was also, I discovered as I read, another life-time ago. My daughter (age 16 at the time) and I were watching t.v. together. I remember how good it felt to sit on that couch in that room with her curled up close beside me ...our time. We were talking. My marriage with her father was close to an end. He and I were divorced in December of '99. So our talk, my daughter and I, that day on the couch in 1998 was about serious things ...how she felt I was never there and her feelings about that. We talked of being present emotionally and being present physically. I shared with her how my own mother was present physically, but not emotionally, and the consequences of that in my life. I validated her experience and told her she was right that I had not been there in many ways. I grieved the truth of how I was repeating what I learned from my own mother. I talked about children having unmet needs with parents and how at the age of 30, after I got out of treatment, I went to my parents and confronted them about it. I told her that some day I was sure she would need to do the same with me, and we would deal with it the best we could.
We talked about ways in which I could be more "there" for her. Then we watched t.v. together. I scratched her back as we sat there watching a movie. She shared fears and beliefs she had about my life and the way I was living it. Many were statements with large questions behind them. I didn't get defensive. I remained calm. I mirrored back what she said. I affirmed her experience as separate from mine. I answered the questions she asked. I remember feeling calm and loving ...and sad as well. I summed up all she said about me "not being there" and "always being gone", all her questions and her assumptions, all her "story" about my actions. Then I held her and told her what was true for me. I answered her questions in an honest, adult, loving parent way.
As I re-read my journal writings this morning, I saw a mother who did some things right ...who did some things beautifully, in fact. I know as a mother, there were some things I did awfully, badly, poorly.
And, there are some things I did magnificently.
This was one of the latter, and I am proud of me. I honor the truth that there are those times I did really well at mothering. I will admit that it is a struggle to let these words remain on this page and publish it. There is a part of me that feels compelled to go on and on about what I did poorly. Not today. Today, I celebrate the things I feel proud of. That day on the couch with my daughter in the year 1998, I listened ...truly listened. No defensiveness, no lengthy explanations. I validated her experiences as hers and rightfully so. I owned what I was responsible for. I worked with her to find healing solutions to what she needed from me. And I was truthful with her while maintaining a healthy parental boundary. My own mother had invited me to be her confidant, her girlfriend. It was not appropriate. It was out of balance and co-dependent. This time for me and my daughter, I chose differently. It felt good, and I am proud of how I stood in that Mother role.