A LOVE LETTER

 

I first wrote this message in 2014 and while going through some of my writings I came across it.  I know this is a repeat but I need to say it again, to you, those who are reading these words. 

Dear Reader,

I saw you in a dream last night. You were standing by a still, calm river, in a group, all connected. As I looked closely at you, this is what I saw:

YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL. No matter your age, what your skin looks like, how much you weigh, the color of your hair or eyes, your ethnicity, your race, or how you see yourself, YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL. Accept every part of you, own yourself, feel your beauty. 

YOU ARE A MAGNIFICENT HUMAN BEING. Because you have done something wrong at some time in your life doesn't mean something is wrong with you. Anyone who has told you something or behaved in any way to make you think you are less than magnificent was not telling the truth. They did not mean to hurt you, they just did not see you. As a creation of divine energy YOU ARE MAGNIFICENT. Choose to step away from your thoughts about what others may or may not say and see your possibilities. 

YOU ARE POWERFUL  You may have tried things and failed, been told to sit down and shut up, felt powerless in many situations, are afraid of change or been treated like a minority or second-class citizen. In the grand scheme of life none of that matters because the essence of who you are, which is Spirit, is POWERFUL. Find your voice, be courageous, step into your autehntic power and use it for the good of all.

YOU MATTER. Rejection, abandonment, betrayal, not being heard or seen, being called names or being abused or used can make us beleive we are not important. What's true, at the deepest level, is the world would not be the same without your presence.  It is okay to feel your worth because YOU MATTER.

YOU ARE UNIQUE. You are not the story you tell yourself about your life, you are not your thoughts or beliefs. Do not let yourself be defined by others thoughts of who you are and/or who you are supposed to be. YOU ARE UNIQUE, you are you. You are deserving of love, compassion, kindness and acceptance. Be willing to step beyond the confinement the world and society places on you. Step into your uniquesness. 

Today is your day to shine, to look at yourself in the mirror and practice loving what and who you are, to dance for the sheer joy of being alive and to embrace your fullness. Be big. Be you. 

Love,

Brenda

Self-Agression

 

Self-Aggression

I few months back I took a class from Matt Licata, Ph.D., one of my favorite authors and psychotherapists.  The class was "Resting Your Nervous System."  I learned so much from that class and still refer back to my notes for reminders of the life changing information I was given.  

One of the lessons I learned and really took to heart was paying attention to how I aggress against myself. I have done this all of my life but was not aware that when I beat myself up emotionally or mentally I am practicing self demeaning behavior.

Self-aggression is behaviors that are a result of negative emotions that are self-directed and that can cause physical or emotional harm.  Most of those negative emotions are a result of the messages we heard in childhood and/or the stories we tell ourselves about our experiences in life.  I have never practiced physical self-aggression but have practiced emotional self-aggression many times over in my lifetime.

A few examples of self-aggression are:

• To make yourself wrong for an action and then inflict self-punishment by retreating into silence or aloneness. You refuse to speak to others as you pout, but you are full of negative self talk.   
• When you feel unsupported or unheard and you tell yourself nobody cares how you feel and then you retreat into silence and aloneness and refuse to speak to others, but are full of negative self talk.
• When you call yourself names (negative self talk) and/or label yourself negatively, like I am ugly, I am stupid, I am fat, I am dumb, I'm just a lazy ass, I'm a loser, I will never get it right, I just can't win,etc.  
• When you are tired and your body is screaming for rest and relaxation but you keep going because you know somebody has to do it and you don't know how to ask fo help or how to walk away and honor what your body needs. 

Self-aggression is acting against yourself instead of acting on behalf of yourself. The opposite of self-aggression is self-love, self-care and kindness, compassion and tenderness towards self.

Self-aggression can be so insidious we do not even know we are doing it. It is easy to get caught up in self-blame and self-hatred and I have seen others and myself go fom 0 to 100 in a matter of minutes.

The bottom line is we all deserve to be treated with care, love and respect. When others do not see your worth or act on your behalf, it is time to see your own worth and act on your own behalf.

Take care of yourself.  Honor yourself as a creation of divine energy and as a good human being. Love yourself. Treat yourself with kindness. Give yourself a break. Take a warm bath and soak as long as you want with a nice glass of wine and a good book. Take a walk in the woods. Go for a bike ride. Take a nap. Have a cup of tea or a cup of home made hot cocoa (you might even lace it with Kahlua). Do something that feels good for you. You deserve it all!!

YOU MATTER.

The Gift of Tears

I have been told that I am too emotional because I cry when I am happy and I cry when I am sad. I cry over beauty and I cry over hurt. I feel deeply for those whIo are in pain and cry with others as they express their pain. 

I was not always able to be real with my emotions. As a child, I was strongly discouraged from crying. I remember being told "if you don't stop that crying I will give you something to cry about." When I was a child and I cried, I had a reason to cry. I never cried just to cry. Most children cry from sadness, emotional pain, or physical pain. As an adult, when I think of that statment, I believe it is the most insane and unfeeling statement that one human can make to another human. It is demeaning and it teaches children 1) to not trust their feelings and 2) to shut down. 

Today, as I think back on how many times I was told to stop crying, I feel a deep sadness for that little girl who needed to cry and more than that, who needed to be held as she cried. I needed to have my feelings affirmed then, as I do now. 

It saddens and angers me to know that humans think they have the right to take someones's tears away and to literally stop others from feeling.  Even though I understand that people who do this were more than likely never allowed to express their emotions, theeby being uncomfortalbe around others emotions, it still is disheartening. 

We usually learn to stuff our emotuons when we are children, especially sadness and emotional pain. I cried into my pillow a lot when I was a little girl because I knew it was not safe to cry out loud in front of others. I also learned it was more acceptable to laugh when I needed to cry and not to show sadness for someone else who was in emotional pain.  

I finally learned to cry when I was in my early 50's. I was in a session with my therapist who I was seeing for depression and panic attacks. I had been depressed for a long time but had not been ready to deal with the pain. Finally, I made the decision to seek help and began to see a therapist. This therapist was not like any run of the mill therapist. This one had actually done her own healing work and understood the journey from trauma to light. 

In one of my sessions, as she and I were talking about a painful event in my life, I laughed. She asked me how I felt about the event and I told her it made me sad. She then asked me why I was laughing if I was sad? That question stunned me and for the first time I had the actual understanding and ah-ha moment of how often I laughed when I really wanted to cry.

I told her I was afraid to cry because if I ever let myself break down and cry I would not be able to stop and I would wind up running down the street like a wild woman who was overcome with emotion. Eventually the paddy wagon would come and carry me away to a mental institution. The sad thing is I really believed that it was not safe for me to cry. 

I will always remember her leaning slightly forward in her chair and saying to me, "It is safe for you to cry. I am here.." Then, "Never miss an opportunity to cry because tears are healing."

She was the first person in my life who actually gave me permission to have and express my emotions. She created a safe place for me to be real. 

I did cry and I did eventually stop and I am happy to say once the dam was given permission to break, I learned firsthand the value of "letting go." It felt so good to not have to work so hard to keep my sadness underr control.  

Since then I continually practice letting go and giving myself the gift of tears. I now know how cathartic tears are. I have had moments of crying so hard and so deep I am bent over and have felt the relief and the calm that follow intense crying. 

I appreciate my tears and I appreciate everyone's right to have their sadness and their pain and to feel their way through it. Being in control is not a show of strength. Loving yourself enough to feel and heal is. 

The Dance of Life

 Life is a dance. We begin to learn the steps at a very early age, and once learned we tend to continually repeat the same steps over and over. Even when the steps aren't working, even when we are stepping on someone else, even when all we're doing is twirling and going nowhere, even when the steps do not match the music we hear in our soul, we still tend to continue to do that which is familiar.

To ask questions, to doubt the steps and the dance, to consider going in another direction can be extremely scary. Maybe others will question why we are changing in the middle of a dance. Sometimes others will try to get us to go back to that which is familiar, the steps they are used to seeing you take. They know you that way and that is the way they want you to stay. 

No matter how comfortable we feel repeating the same steps, the ones that were taught to us when we were very young and which were supported by our churches, schools, families and society, if we are growing and healing our souls, the time may come when we begin to question the dance we have been doing..

It happens to most of us.

Some heed the call to examine life and the direction they are going and some sidestep the call and continue the dance they know. 

Many entertain the thoughts, "What will my family say?", "What will my friends think?" and/or "How do I explain myself and how do I do this?"

Following the leading of the heart takes courage and determination, it is an act of love and kindness to our soul.  

There is not enough space on this blog to even begin to write about the callings of the heart I have heard and the inner fear I felt about following those callings. In some cases changing the dance I was doing to something different was easy and other times it was very difficullt and very scary. However, I learned quite a few years back that to ignore the call of Spirit was even scarier. 

It is okay to question, to doubt, to entertain new ways of being and to search It is even okay to lose yourself because giving up what you thought you knew for sure increases the chances of reuniting with your authentic self. It is even okay to fall apart because in the  process you most likely will find the missing pieces that are so carefully hidden and guarded in your well put together life. When we are willing to lose who we think we are and who others say we are supposed to be, we find the pieces we left behind. 

Dancing the dance of life can be a magnificent, soul-affirming action or it can be a ho-hum never questioned circle dance. 

Will you take the chance? Will you dance the dance you are meant to dance? The dance you came here to do? It is up to each of us to choose which dance we want to do. 

We all matter and the dance steps we choose matter. You matter. Choose wisely and with your heart.

MY CUP RUNNETH OVER

As I sit and take notice of my life, I am keenly aware of how blessed I am and what a nice life I get to live

 I have many more ups than downs, more happiness than sadness, more love than fear, more kindness than ugliness and more insight than darkness. I see goodness all around me and I feel intense gratitude for grace and mercy.I sometimes feel like my cup is running over with gratitude. 

I feel the love and support of many and this year, more than any other year,  I have been able to have my family together more than usual. 

My year started with my son giving me an 80th birthday party and most of the family came to his beach house to celebrate. We got to be together to bring the new year in and we haven't done that in many years.

Then in April my grandson got married in Costa Rica and once again, those in the family who could make it came together to celebrate. 

In May my youngest granddaughter graduated from college and we gathered together at Wofford to celebrate her achievement.

In June my youngest son got married and the family came together to celebrate the happy occasion.

In September my oldest granddaughter moved in with me and Paul and we get to be together every day.

I am almost overwhelmed by all the opportunities I have had this year to bask in the love of family and friends. 

My life has not always been like this. Looking back I am reminded of all the years of angst, unhappiness, fear, dread and sheer loneliness that enveloped me and filled my life experiences. It took a long time to get to a place where I can honestly say that for the most part I am grateful for the life I get to live.

The journey to this place has been a long one and I certainlyy am nowhere near reaching a pinnacle.

 I put my foot on a spiritual healing path in the 80's and have gradually and slowly grown in my understanding of myself, my creator and my reason for being here. The closer I draw to beloved creator energy the clearer my vision becomes. And the more I see the more I understand that we are all beloved creations and are here to love and honor one another. 

Let me be clear that I do not live in a bubble so I also see the ugliness and darkness that is present in the divided world we live in. I am fully aware of the hatred,anger and need for revenge that is wanting to destroy our country and our world. I do watch the news and keep up with what is going on in the world but have learned not to focus on it, but instead to keep returning to that which is unseen rather than the seen world. 

By unseen I mean that which is of Great Spirit, our creator.  Love, gentleness, kindness, light, forbearnace, compassion and sweetness.  I believe this is the space we are meant to occupy while living in this physical world. 

Love yourself, love one another and let kindness flow from you. The world and its inhabitants are ready for healing. Let your cup run over so others can participate in the sweetness of life. We all matter!! You matter!!