Category Archives: shame

That Ugly Power and Control Gene

Posted on by learning to live like water

I shared a post on FB of the cover of the latest New Yorker mag. It’s a very unflattering caricature of the Cheetoman, hitting golf balls at the White House, breaking windows. It’s pretty funny. Someone commented that he is such an “unqualified” public servant. I replied, “he’s not a public servant, he’s a public nuisance.” Seriously……he only serves himself. Jimmy Kimmel had a video up from his show where he shows how the tweeter-in-chief has a habit of moving things when he sits down. At dinner, at his desk, or coffee table, at a conference…what ever. I think my ex used to do that a lot, especially when he was trying to show that he was working. Control issues, both of them. Gotta re-arrange the table setting to show it’s never right.

Then I saw a video, on FB, of Cheetoman in a ceremony to sign a bill, with everyone there, and then he walked out of the room without signing it. He thanked everyone, said we’d see some immediate changes, and then left the room. Pence tried to get him to come back, and DJT told him to bring the bill with him. He’s starting to lose his shit, really. It’s wild, but kind of scary to see someone in that position who is seriously losinig it.

Every day, there is more stuff about this mans inability to deal with his job. After dealing with my ex last week so much, I can’t really watch him much because I swear, he even looks like my ex. Same facial expressions, when I know he was trying to fool everyone that he actually had a clue what was going on, but didn’t. I really hate to listen to him. So most of the videos I just watch and shut the sound off.

It’s scary really, when someone is so hell-bent on power and control that they will lose everything, like my ex did. But to see that same personality type….with their fingers on the nuclear codes….and randomly tweeting in the middle of the night, constantly disrespecting our allies. Crazy scary shit.

I learned a lot about power and control when I left my marriage. I had no idea what had happened to me until I was in an online community for abuser survivors. Then, I found Brene Brown, among others, but it was her TED talk on vulnerability that really broke it down for me. I wonder if the orange one’s father berated and belittled him his whole life, like my ex did my son. Like my father-in-law did to my ex. And all of tRumps wealth and running for a job for which he is clearly unqualified, to say the least, was to prove to his father he was worthy. And I bet he’s still not. This is just random musing on my part, but he sure fits the bill.

What I’ve learned is that these people never can change. They will go down with the ship. You can’t save someone hell bent for terror. I tried, I kept thinking that one day he’d snap out of it, one day he’d see what he was doing. but he just consistently became more deeply imbedded in it. My ex would rather have lost everything than admit being abusive. The stories he makes up now, I just have to pick my jaw up off the floor. I gave up a long time ago setting his record straight. It only creates an argument to tell him, for example, that he had 16 years with our son, not just 6 or 7. He made up this outlandish statement to try to explain why his son wouldn’t talk to him, rather than face that fact that he was horribly abusive to him. Just made up a story, that he can tell people, so he’s not at fault, so he doesn’t have to face the shame.  I am so glad I had my moment of realization that he was never going to be able to change, and was never going to allow my family to live a normal life, and moved on.  Because, look at the life I have now.  It was worth 4 years in court, to salvage the rest of my life.  It was even more worthwhile, to see how well my son is doing, because I gave him a chance to see a different way of living.  Not in fear but in love.

DJT too, just tries to cover one lie with another. He’s a bully, to hide his own fear rather than face it.

Well, it’s whatever. I guess I’m a little retrospective today. That power and control gene is a tough one.

I have a nice day planned. Going out to the “Frankie and Johnny” show tonight to hear my good friend sing. Might even put a dress on for it, lol. It’s a beautiful day today, 80° and sunny. I probably need to do some baking for my son in the next day or two. And maybe for our new writer’s group. That should be fun. Think I’ll take a nap this afternoon too. I was up in the middle of the night again last night, and finally took an Ambien. I guess I got some sleep. You know those nights when you wake up and you don’t think you’ve been asleep, but the clock shows the passage of hours….That was me. I don’t want to be falling asleep at the show tonight.

Love and light everyone.

Uncomplicated Love

Posted on by learning to live like water

“Think of someone you love who is uncomplicated to love,” the meditation guide instructed. I thought, of course, of my son. And as thoughts are liable to do, immediately after my son, I thought of my mother. And then of my father. And then of my two sisters.

All of them, uncomplicated to love, and to be loved by.

I have never known different with my family. Even when we had our disagreements, our rough patches, I never doubted that we loved each other, and that if pressed, we would be there for each other. Ever.

How friggin’ blessed I am, is something I’ve come to know as an adult. Really not until I was well past the half-way mark of my life did I realize the depth of that blessing.

I remember back when I just assumed all families were like mine. It seemed incongruous that my best friend’s father (at age 12) could put belt marks on her legs, but he did. She didn’t make a big deal of it, so no one else did. I can’t imagine what it was like, to be a 12 year old, going through puberty, and have your father take a belt to you. I remember my own father, at times in his frustration with my misbehavior as a child, raising his hand. That, the raised hand, was enough to make me know I better stop what I was doing, or saying. He never brought it down on me. I think it would have killed him to hit me.

I was SO naive.

I have known and loved men who were beaten by their fathers, whose mothers stood by and watched, thus enabling the brutality of a child. I think I made it my quest to prove to them that they were lovable, that they were in reality, as deserving of unconditional love as much as anyone. I wanted to convince them that it is possible for someone to love them purely, with no conditions. I cannot imagine a more painful thing to live with than the belief that you innately do not deserve love and belonging. Would it not instill false shame, to think you weren’t worthy of your parents love? And shame is such a destructive emotion.

I was unable to achieve this. It took me a long time to actively give up the quest. And that in itself, is not a good basis for a relationship anyway. There is no common ground. But, I love them, still. And wish they could see themselves the way I saw them. I wish they knew that all the love they think they missed is inside them now, given to them as a divine right. No one can take it from anyone else.

My childhood friend, has somehow managed to retrieve a relationship with her siblings now. They are very close. She has held onto the friendships of her youth. She’s coming to see me, and our other friend who lives in Daytona across the state, in January. This group of girls is like my family. They reconnected with me after about 40 years, and we picked up where we left off.

I think though, that it is part of my soul’s journey to love others the way that I’ve been loved. Am loved. It’s always the underlying emotion, the baseline. If I’ve loved you, I will always love you. If I never see you again, I will always love you, always wish the best for you, always feel the pain I know you feel and always send out whatever I can to assuage it. I may not like your behavior, I may choose to withdraw from it, but the love I felt, only came through me. I did not create it, I just channeled it. And will continue to do so, actively or passively.

So this was my post-meditation blog. Kind of a deep, heavy meditation, and it seems I’ve been doing a lot of reflection and introspection around this broader subject lately. I hope I’m not boring….not bringing the kiss of death on myself, lol.

Love and light, all.

Why Is It So Hard

Posted on by learning to live like water

 

Why is it so hard
to say, “I fucked you over”?
How do you even know
Who you are
If you can’t own it?

Is it worth losing people?
People who loved you?
A son, a lover
Because the shame is so strong
For what?

Hold onto that shame
And lose everyone who ever loved you.
Lose everything that ever meant anything.
Because you can’t stand the shame
so you lie, you steal
You rewrite history
To avoid feeling the shame.

Your son has no father
Your wife has no husband
You have your pet shame
You hide it in the closet,
But with every word you say
The closet door cracks open
And the shame creeps out and
Stinks up your world.

Would that you could own it.
And we could embrace you
And tell you we are ok.
And tell you we loved you anyway
And that shame is no friend.

Lies, fear, shame,
Causing so many people so much pain.
Why? Because you can’t own it.
So no one ever trusts you.
No one ever knows you.
Not me, not her, not him.
So you walk through this world alone.
Your whole life
Miserable, unhappy.
Believing shame, when it tells you
You don’t belong
and you don’t deserve love.

If you only knew
If you only could see
How simple it is to leave it.

Let it go, own it
Send it to the universe
To atone.
Join life again.

Stardust Connection

Posted on by learning to live like water

We-Are-Stardust

It’s another weird late December morning.  It will reach 60° again today, though it looks like the last warm day.  The world is shrouded in fog, and my head too is a little foggy from the late night last night and the wine.  It’s a peaceful kind of foggy though.

No pressure today, no ghosts of the past filling me with longing this morning.  Nor the demons of shame, or guilt, for my part in what happened.  I loved, that’s all.  I loved deeply, intensely, without limit, beyond reason.  I don’t now, I will again. And today, I will let it go at that.

It’s easy to see our flaws when we look backward.  It’s easy to chastise ourselves.  But why?  We are all the same thing, the universe manifesting itself through us.  We are here to evolve, to grow, to learn.  Bitterness will take away the beauty of the lessons we learn.  I choose to hold them dear to my heart, so that as the future unfolds, greater joy will come into it because I didn’t waste the lessons.  I didn’t waste the time.

Like my current favorite teacher Brene Brown says, (and I am paraphrasing), we are hard-wired for struggle, we come into this life that way.  But we are also, from the moment of our conception and for no reason other than we exist, worthy of love and belonging.

I have read  a few blogs this morning about shame, our personal shame, and how excruciating it is.  Let me say, that verbalizing the shame, and not burying it, is the only way through it.  Allow others to feel empathy for us, because empathy is the death of shame.  Iyanla Van Zant says those things that we bury do not die.  They rot and they fester and they will make us sick.

I believe in putting our shameful experiences out there.  I believe in sending the energy to the universe, and that the universe, as a loving parent of us all, will atone, and make right what we did.  I believe that in owning our stories, we gain strength, and perspective, and understanding and compassion.  More importantly, we also make connection possible.

Shame isolates us.  Owning our stories, and letting go of the shame connects us.  To feel isolated, is to feel separate from others.  How can we be separate, when we are all created from the same stardust?   Shame, and isolation is us not believing we are worthy.

We are.  Each and everyone of us.

 

 

Guilt vs. Shame

Posted on by learning to live like water

Guilt-vs-shame-1024x744.jpg

I’m unsettled this morning, though I don’t know why.  I’m irritated I broke my tail light lense on something I couldn’t even see in an unlit parking lot.  Backing up and turning.  This morning it’s raining so I’ll have to tape it up with plastic to keep the rain out ofit.  Grr.

I haven’t talked to my bff about her plan to put together some program that will benefit seniors, so I need to do that today.  I know that will help me move forward more than anything.

Last night the book club talked about why people who lie, and take, and deceive do it.  We all had someone in our lives that have done that. Was it for the thrill, for getting away with it?  Was it for the power, to feel “in control” of things?  I said, I really believe in Marianne Williamson’s and A Course in Miracles stand, that what is not love is fear.  And fear gives the ego rise.  The ego will convince someone who has doubt, that they are not worthy.  That the only way they can have people in their life is to manipulate them in, to lie to them.  The belief that you are not worthy of love and belonging, causes shame, it causes the belief that you are not worthy.

And shame…. is the most destructive of all human emotions.  Guilt can be productive, guilt says, “What I did was bad.”  Shame says, “I am bad.”

Those that purport to wish to be alone, like my ex-husband, really only believe they are not worthy of love, and are alone to hide their shame.  Better he should be alone, I guess, than trying to do to someone else what he did to me.  But the best outcome, would be if he could recognize his own worth, the beauty of his own soul, and let it shine.

S said to me, when he was trying to get me to help him with Betty, “I know I will pay 5 lifetimes for what I did to you.”  He doesn’t understand that at any point, even now, he can choose to change, he can own, and apologize and try to make right, and thus learn the lesson that he obviously missed.  Karma isn’t about paying.  It’s about learning the lesson, and if you don’t, you will repeat it, until you do.  The same situations will appear and reappear until you learn the lesson.

S was so similar to my ex, I believe that he showed up in my life to finish teaching the lesson that my ex started.  I hope I’ve learned the whole lesson now.

I think the first part, with my ex, was the power of unconditional love manifested in setting my son free.  The second part was to love yourself with that love, enough to learn not to give yourself away, to make a person earn the trust.  To honor yourself, first, always.

I hope I’m done with this lesson, and with men who can’t love.

The lesson, whatever it may be…..while hard to learn, is such a beautiful thing, and life can change so dramatically when you learn to honor and love yourself, and let that spread to others.

Shame is not necessary.  We all do better when we know better, that’s called evolving.  Guilt, for something you have done wrong, is a message from your soul, telling you to change.

One day at work, someone asked me a to do something that clearly was their job, and clearly not mine, and I was already overwhelmed with the work I had to do.  I very unkindly told this person that it was their job to do, and not to get me involved, etc. etc.  Making them feel stupid, I’m sure.  Even though I was right, I was cruel.  I hung up the phone, (I was in a different part of the building) and within less than a minute realized what I’d done.

I called this person back, and said, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to be such a bitch.

Guilt….made me see what I did to her.  Not shame, I didn’t feel shame that I did it, I felt guilt.  And the guilt drove me to fix it.  My co-worker and I laughed about it later.

I believe the only way to get rid of shame, is to stop listening to the ego tell you you are not worthy, and begin to reconnect with your soul, your true spirit, which in all of us, is connected to the one great thing.  Love. Begin that journey, and watch your life change.

Guess I’m feeling philosophical this morning, lol.  Book club is good for me.