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Because YOU are worth it!!!
~ D ~
Singing a New Song 

When LOVE is enough

Have you ever loved someone 

but did not feel loved in return? 

Unrequited or unreciprocated love is very common in relationships that are abusive or that involve loving a person with mental illness. 

It is NOT your fault.

Why do we seem to think that HOW WE LOVE depends upon whom we love??? Really, isn't the ACT of love really dependent upon our hearts and their proper function and the subjects of our EXPRESSION of love are simply the lucky recipients of our affection???

To LOVE and to be LOVING are as different as the BEING IN LOVE and LOVING another person. It is like Erich Fromm's book "To Have and To Be"...We LOVE and that is an ACT OF BEING...To EXPRESS that love is deliberate action toward a SUBJECT whom we HAVE in our lives, and that is LOVING another person.

When I think of this; I am comforted. The saying " 'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all". (Alfred, Lord Tennyson) actually comforts me in that it is evident that I LOVE. Therefore; ultimately, the SUBJECT of that love, specifically being a person whom is unable to return that love through mental illness usually (One can say that he is CRAZY for not loving me; but he did and I believe STILL DOES; even after 30 years) is NOT the "deal breaker". I love him though I am not permitted to EXPRESS my love for him. Oh, I am not delusional. I know that I have always loved him and believe that he STILL loves me very deeply; there is "just something there" that will not allow him to receive and reciprocate the love that I have for him. That does NOT change the FACT that I "LOVE" and I LOVE deeply. 

And then there is the feeling of rejection of unrequited love...
as Todd Rundgren sang in a song, it "robs me of me rest".

Todd Rundgren – Lord Chancellor's Nightmare Song

Love unrequited, robs me of me rest, 

Love, hopeless love, my ardent soul encumbers, 

Love, nightmare like, lies heavy of me chest, 

And weaves itself into my midnight slumbers. 

*****        large middle section omitted    *****

You're a regular wreck, with a crick in your neck, and 

No wonder you snore, for your head's on the floor 

And you've needles and pins from your soles to your 

Shins, and your flesh is acreep, for your left leg's asleep, 

And you've cramp in your toes, and a fly on your nose, 

And some fluff in your lung, and a feverish tongue, 

And a thirst that's intense, 

And a general sense that you haven't been sleeping in Clover; 

But the darkness has pass'd, and it's daylight at Last, 

and the night has been long, ditto, ditto my Song, 

And thank goodness they're both of them over!

Overall, I feel that I "lost the love" of my first love, or more accurately, he has promised me and taken it back and thrown hate and despising at me in order to "get me to stop loving him???" Too bad. I have not lost m ability or capacity TO LOVE. I am comforted IN MY OWN LOVE whether or not is is confirmed, accepted or reciprocated by any one else. 

Talk about "taking our power" back. 

I have mine. 

It's called LOVE.

Taking our power back

"He who controls others 
may be powerful, 
but he who has mastered himself 
is mighter still"

Lao Tzu

The self is a very complex thing. When we see our selves as separate entities, unique in all the World we can become overwhelmed at the myriad of characteristics that can be observed or seen. I think of a cut out paper doll. It is not three dimensional. It is one dimensional, made out of a flimsy paper, cut roughly into a shape of a doll and colored with various crayons, markers or paints. It is a mere representation of what is real. It is not a doll; it is a paper cut out figure of a doll.

In many ways, the person that we see outwardly is only a representation of the self that the outward shell houses. What we see is not always what we should expect to get as it is plain, that the self is intricate, man's being is deeply woven together by fibers of eternity and not mere paper and that personality and expression are solely the outward expression of a greater being hiding beneath the skin. Even if we add all the parts of a person together; wouldn't “the whole (still) be greater than the sum of the parts its made of”?* Holistically, we are very diverse and very indistinguishable from another. 

How does a person even begin to “know oneself”? To understand the many experiences that make up a person's perspective, would take a lifetime or more. Knowing ourselves must certainly precede any control or mastering of the same.

Getting inside the mind of an abuser, a controlling person who only seems to care to control and manipulate others to "believe in him" and "do his will", we can see that there is a "power" of sorts there. I believe that it is the power of the abused, used against themselves. The abuser may exert this power externally because they are do not have the self-knowledge and self-discipline to discipline and  control themselves and this is also the point of healing for the abused. If we KNOW that we ourselves are "master of ourselves" and no one else, we can gain the needed self-respect required to combat the insidious attacks of our self-esteem by the abuser. Taking our power back from those how have discounted, disrespected, demeaned and devalued us with words and actions, is our right. This generally naturally begins our journey of finding ourselves. 

We really do deserve to HAVE, KNOW and LOVE ourselves. Wishing that for you this holiday season. May there be many times that you feel empowered to take the healing journey of "finding yourself, healing from abuse and learning to dream again". 

We are worth it!!!






* from "Love song" from Broadway Musical, Pippin. (see Fun Videos page)

IMAGE IN some happiness into your life

We have ALL imagined "the worst case scenarios" in our lives at times and most of the time they did not manifest. We were able to ward off the evil that we feared and continue on with our lives.

BUT have we IMAGINED some GOOD into our lives lately??? Have you allowed yourself to really DREAM about what you would want your life to BE and how YOU would like to BE and actually pursue it???




I will never forget the day that I allow my imagination the freedom to roam...to adventure beyond the borders of my safe and predictable life. I asked myself the HARD question. "Do I really want to live the rest of my life like this?" and my answer to myself was a very LOUD and BLATANT "NO". I had to allow myself to imagine my life to be other than what it is and to "let go" of the familiar life that I had known. It was scary but then again, living the remainder of my life as I had was even scarier!!! I then asked myself HOW can I stop living like this so that I can start following my dream??? I was hit with an epiphany. It was January of 2011 and I was sitting at my "cubicle" in our office at work when it "HIT" me very much like a lightening bolt out of the sky. HOW could I continue to live my life LIKE THIS after knowing what I have learned about my husband/abuser and my heart's deepest desire to "find myself, heal from abuse and learn to dream again"? I very humbling tell you now, that it "came to me"...I started writing down what I needed to take son and MOVE OUT of his father's and my home and establish a new residence for just him and myself. What monies and furniture did I really need and what could my son and I "live with"??? Living away from his father did not rate as well as living homeless in a cardboard box so I easily "let go" of conveniences and the comforts that I had known in order to have real PEACE and TRANQUILITY in my own home. He was only 8 years old at the time and very perceptive and aware of abuse toward me and was very happy to leave with me. (This is another story; another post; another blog even) I (imagined) IMAGED IN happiness into my life. 

Have you IMAGED IN (imagined) 

happiness into your life???

I allowed myself to entertain thoughts of possibilities rather than just having to DEAL with the reality that I had lived. It actually helped me to see MY LIFE AS IT WAS so that I could say NO to it and say YES to a NEW life. My imagination was my only limit.

Have you IMAGINED (IMAGED IN) the life that you have really wanted??? The worst that can happen, is that you might live "happily, ever after". Maybe not a fairy tale but then again, who knows??? 

Living the life we really want to live

Here at Singing a New Song, I focus on truly LIVING a life  that's "wild, full and free and over the top" and that means to "find yourself, heal from abuse and learn to dream again". 

I know that sounds like a BIG mountain to climb, but we don't grow from a child to an adult in one day...we grow every day. We didn't lose ourselves, get damaged from life and its abuses or forget our dreams in one day either. We GREW into it.  

Instead of growing into loss, pain and lack of vision, we focus on HEALING and repairing the areas of our lives; our self-esteem, our thought life, our ability to dream and to make our dreams come true. This doesn't happen in one day. It may not happen in a year...but HOPEFULLY by "Singing a New Song", it WILL happen in our lifetime to make our lives the best that they can be...for us and our loved ones and the world.

It all begins with accepting our lives as they are; seeing them without blame or excuse. Laying out the truth, looking at it and saying "Yep, that's about it, that's my life right now"...and from there deciding how we want to CHANGE it. We cannot change something that we have not accepted to be the truth of how things actually are.

Secondly, we decided upon HOW and WHEN and WHERE and WHY we want change in our lives. WE decide, not others. Those who have abused and damaged us emotionally are NOT in control of our lives, we are! We may need to make "baby steps" to accomplish "the decision to change", and that is ok. For some, we may find that professional counseling will help us work through the memories of abuse and how it affected our lives. We deserve to "find ourselves, heal from abuse and learn to dream again"...this is a GOAL that we can work toward.

Thirdly, when we make changes, we need to be patient with ourselves and others. We as well as they, may not be accustomed to our NEW boundaries. Our new way of speaking "curtly" if needed. Our new way of "taking good care of ourselves".

All of this empowers us to take control of our lives so that we CAN live them "wildly, fully and freely and over the top". No pone else can do it for us. We deserve to make our lives what we want them to be...and for me that is "Singing a NEW Song".

Happy Thanksgivukkah

THANKSGIVUKKAH: 

You have probably heard this on TV and asked 

"WHAT is THAT???" 

Well, HERE is the "scoop" on Thanksgivukkah!!!!

                            For the first time since 1888, 

               Thanksgiving and Hanukkah will converge, 

        marking the first joint celebration of the two holidays                         

                        aptly named Thanksgivukkah.

This year Thanksgiving Day will mark the first day of Hanukkah – the eight-day festival that celebrates the rededication during the second century B.C. of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, when Jews revolted against their Greek-Syrian oppressors called the Maccabean Revolt. Since Hanukkah starts on Wednesday at sundown, the second candle will be lit on Turkey Day. ...

“I think it’s a nice way to integrate the two holidays,” Lori Rashty, a teacher at Detroit’s Hillel Day School, said. 

“Since we’re not going to see it again for 79,000 years, it’s kind of an exciting way for the kids to realize that it’s a special occasion for them.” 

From:  Thanksgivukkah 2013

This gives those who have never learned nor celebrated Hanukkah a reason to celebrate. So whether you observe Thanksgiving Day on the last Thursday in November; here in the United States or Hanukkah any where in the world...

we warmly and genuinely wish you a 

HAPPY THANKSGIVUKKAH!!!

Finding our life's purpose

I enjoy making "posters" with helpful messages and encouraging thoughts for our healing journeys. Sometimes I get inspired by these posters; sometimes later rather than at time of creation, and write about them HERE. I was musing about creativity and WHY I blog and administer a FB page. WHY do I want to write, share and communicate with others who may be "where I used to be" on my healing journey??? Why not just move on and go and begin to work on my "next dream" in my life??? 


I guess that I have "found my niche" in life; though it is not a paying position; I don't expect to get rich or famous but I know that I am following my heart to DO what I love...to bring beauty into my life and the lives of others who have known the depths of sorrow, the mind bending, soul crushing and heart wrenching pain of abuse. I realize that I was worth doing it for and so is everyone else.

I began GREATER LIFE PAGES GROUP on Facebook to bring together other like minded and like spirited (non religious, non political and no sales) inspirational Facebook pages who truly desire to live a Greater Life and share their wisdom, talent and positive energy with the world. I realize that my focus is to SHARE beauty where ever I go; maybe because I realize that so many people, many due to abuse or even mental illness, are not able to enjoy it unless someone "share" it with them.

Sometimes 
we just have to see someone else living their dream 

before we start to believe that ours is possible.

It seems that while I was "in the midst" of abuse, I sought to "find my purpose"...I had not yet begun to think that "finding MYSELF, healing from abuse and learning to dream again" was a process of healing; I wanted a "quick fix" and to feel that my life had meaning was just enough for me to "hold on" and work through the issues before I realized that we could all be "Singing a New Song" after living with abuse in our lives. Sometimes we turn the desire outward rather than inward. We want to CHANGE THE WORLD...when really all we need to do is change ourselves. Change our outlook. Change our expectations. Allow ourselves to evolve and embrace the newness of our lives without a constant "purpose" in mind.

I know that I am rambling a bit in this entry but I can't help but think that what we think is good for us at the time, is usually NOT what is best for us overall. We tend to look for "something" to believe in, a "cause" to throw ourselves into, a purpose that seems to be higher than ourselves but sometimes it can turn out to be nothing more than a distraction from our healing; a time consuming journey that takes us AWAY from what we are really seeking. 

I believe our greatest purpose in life is to BE who we are; continue to grow and change face ourselves honestly and care for others and ourselves deeply and genuinely. This is my heart, my purpose and reason for starting this blog; Singing a Song Facebook page and Greater Life Pages Group Page.

Are you fulfilling your "purpose" in life? If you don't feel that you have found it; you might still be looking for what fulfills and completes you; what satisfies your soul as well as your mind. That is why we "find ourselves, heal from abuse and learn to dream again" here at Singing a New Song. I believe that ONCE WE FIND OURSELVES; embrace the wonderfully imperfect people we are and look deeply into our hearts and stop denying the pain and wounds that we find, that we will be on our healing journey toward Singing a New Song.

We are worth it!

Music and healing from abuse

♫ Even coffee sings to me. ♫


The latte hums a happy tune 

as it bears the signature of its muse. 

It might have started as I sang along with Petula Clark's "Downtown" as the chair became my stage and a spoon became my microphone. Or it might have been in my first grade music class where I "belted out" Peter, Paul and Mary's "If I had a hammer". Talk about emoting!!! Overall, my memories of music reminds me that MUSIC is a vehicle of expressing my life and individuality.  

I believe that I have always had this "Inner World" of music. I hear and try to create what I feel, hear and see in my mind and "heart". This has always been a "safe place" in my life and only trusted "other musicians" have been welcome to enter. I could "rest" within the safe walls of "My World of Music". 

My World of Music; listening to music, singing, playing music and writing songs has always provided me a mood changing, mind altering and spirit lifting "place of refuge". In my world, I can "be whoever I want to be" and retreat from the abuse, pain, stress and cares that others have used to burden, oppress and depress me for their own purposes. I have refused to allow most people "inside". There have been only a very few chosen, respected and truly valued musicians; whom I have had the joy of collaborating within songwriting. 

Singing in choirs have served to allow my spirit the wings to exercise within music; to keep my voice "up" and my sight reading and musicianship sharp. We truly all need to know what is valuable in our lives; what makes our lives worth living and allow us a "place of refuge"* where we can "BE ourselves". It is a consistent and ever present "strength" in ways; a fortress that NO ONE can enter without my permission. In many ways, I have set boundaries that I will allow no one to violate and this has helped me understand the need of personal boundaries in healing from abuse. There are many hymns that have the words "my refuge and my strength". I see how "My World of Music" have always been these for me. 


* And this is where the FB page and blog title of "Singing a New Song" originated; it has married my healing journey of "finding myself, healing from abuse and learning to dream again" with the actual world of MUSIC; my love and muse. 
We all deserve to be "Singing a New Song". 

Disclaimer: ALL images have been borrowed and I claim NO ownership in any way. 
Thank you for the use of your wonderful pics. 

Depths of Sorrow, Heights of Joy

When you are joyous, 

look deep into your heart

and you shall find 

it is only that which has given you sorrow 

that is giving you joy.

When you are sorrowful, 

look again in your heart

and you shall see that in truth 

you are weeping for that 

which has been your delight.

~ Kahlil Gibran ~

Everything begins and ends with the heart. Without it, there is no love. With it, there is pain as well as joy. The heights of its joy can only be exceeded by the depth of its sorrow. The heart is what life is about.I have found Kahlil Gibran's poem to be so very true, painfully true. Through what and whom I have received the greatest heights of joy, I have certainly also felt the deepest sorrow and grief that I could not even have imagined. 

The cost of love. Yet, I cannot see our lives being truly wonderful without the heart. The most fragile and yet strongest "member" of our being. Only when we give our hearts the freedom to feel the pain, the sorrow, the pleasure and the joy will we be "Singing a New Song". The journey of "finding myself, healing from abuse and learning to dream again" required that each and every turn would open another part of my heart; part that had been closed by fear and darkened by pain.

Healing is worth it...and so are you!

Heartache

Doesn't everyone experience heartache at one time or another? Abuse survivors are NOT exempt from heartache; matter of fact, from my experience and the experience of many other abuse survivors, it seems that abuse survivors have lived WITH heartache possibly even more than we have lived without it. It is unfortunate, that such loving hearts are so hurt continually, but that is the nature of abuse...it brings heartache to the hearts that love. 



The song (you can listen here; will open in a new window): Total Eclipse of the Heart: Bonnie Tyler (You tube) reminds me of loving a person who is experiencing abuse. Why do I say that? Because I truly believe that without abuse, heartache like this could not fully exist. I would only hope that no one else would ever experience the mind-bending, soul-crushing and heart-wrenching effects of abuse. 

I have been in an abusive marriage. To this day, he denies that he ever verbally abused me and that was only the tip of the iceberg but I never pushed the issue to "make him see the error of his ways". Matter of fact, he accused me of abusing his daughter whom I loved dearly and was "close to" for the first eight years of our marriage from the time she turned 8 years old. He even tried to charge me with abuse during our divorce proceedings which had NOTHING to do with our divorce so I "let him say what he wanted" without any defense or reply.

Losing my ex step daughter was a "total eclipse of the heart" for me. Learning that her father had done so much to sabotage our relationship; things that I could hardly believe that anyone could ever consider doing to another human being, that I fell into depression. My heart ached so badly that I could hardly bear to feel anything from it. When we have heartache, it means that we "love". I am not sorry for loving nor will I ever be. I will acknowledge that the pain of heartache was an abusive act by an unloving person toward one who had loved them...me. 

Finding ourselves, healing from abuse and learning to dream again, in my experience, does not immunize us from heartache. Matter of fact, it may be that heartache, maybe due to LOVE, is the motivator for healing. I believe this to be true anyways and I am hopeful that someday, my heartache will lessen but I will never forget how I LOVED and I will never regret it.

Climb every mountain...

Do you love someone with mental illness?

I find "word clouds" to be a fun visual way of learning about a topic without actually studying it. Take Mental Illness for instance. Even the term "mental illness" is laden with feelings of foreboding and hesitation.

WHY are we allowing the stigma of mental illness to control our education about it???

I guess we really never learn about something until we have to learn it in order to survive through it. I had never understood that a person could be "mentally ill", and setting aside all the childish classroom humor of other students being "crazy", "retards" or "weird", I always saw people as "people" and believed that everyone was different and that difference was what made the world an interesting place to live. Little did I understand that there is ACTUALLY an illness of the mind. 

The body has illness. We can see when we have a runny nose. We hear that we have a cough or strained voice. We FEEL the pain of overexertion and carry in the way we walk for others to see that "we don't feel well" for whatever reason. We can see the cast on someone's arm or scar which was wrought by a tragic injury. We even sympathize with ourselves and others when we "don't feel good". 

But what about a "mental illness"? It can be an invisible barrier between people; dividing families and binding up the minds of wonderful people who are in constant struggle and pain with an invisible enemy; their own mind. They may try to hide it from themselves within addictions; they are the most common with alcohol and drug abuse, eating disorders and addictions to nearly everything from smoking, video gaming and even something that may seem more accepted by society and even looked at as being positive traits like obsessive compulsive disorder, perfectionism and compulsive cleaning.  

I began to understand that I did not understand that MENTAL ILLNESS is real when I began to see OCD traits in my ex husband. When I mentioned his anger at me for not doing things as he did and that "I was ok just the way that I am" he would retort with hurtful and very extrapolated reasons as to how my behavior was not right and that his demands and anger over the salt and pepper shakers being set back into the cupboard where he found them was really a character flaw and evidence of my weakness as a person. 

I quickly realized that in some ways, he was not like me and the ways that he behaved seem unrational, unkind and very unloving but the purpose was for him to "feel good about himself". I realized this and began to explore the reasons WHY a person behaves this way. I started to learn about Obsessive Compulsive disorders that lead me into studying about Personality Disorders. I must have been on every website and forum and read nearly every book on these subjects in order to educate myself on "what had come into my home" under the guise of something lovingly accepted as "being his own person". We can "make allowances" for quirky behavior but when it crossed the line from quirky to abusive, THAT is when I started to listen to my heart and mind and start learning about mental illness...it is real. Sometimes we don't believe something exists until we "see it with our own eyes" and even then, we must brace against the tendency to deny it and delude ourselves into writing it off as "quirky behavior".

You have heard the saying "hurt people HURT people". I believe that this is true and probably truer for a mentally ill person than about anyone. They suffer daily. They may not realize at all that their behavior; their thoughts, their expectations and demands are putting a strain on their close relationships. They may have so much pain that they do not realize that they are "not emotionally connecting" to others as healthy people. 

If you are wondering why a loved one is miserable all the time, blames you for his/her problems, even says that YOU are "the problem" or that you are "mentally ill"...you can be sure that you love a very mentally ill person. Though they do not really intend to be so abusive, the unrequited love and lack of reciprocity in a relationship with a mentally ill person can suck the life right out of us if we allow it. Seriously, how can they have a relationship with us when all they find in us is fault (projection) and spending time with their addictions in order to cope? I have read about instances of severely addicted video gamers who admitted that their games were "the only joy they had". They hid the real reason for their misery in an addiction. This is a denial so great; that unless a mentally healthy person has direct contact in close relationship with a mentally ill person; we may not even give it another thought. It is "just the way he/she is" and since we don't have to deal with them all the time, we can "just live and let live". But for the person who is married to or in family relationship with a mentally ill person; the picture changes.

Educating ourselves about mental health and mental illness will help us recognize these traits in ourselves and others and enable us to live our lives to the fullest.

Reflecting beauty, mirroring pain

Autumn inspires me. Whenever I feel a need for a glimpse or "pinch" of inspiration, a beautiful Autumn scene always seems to spark something within me. I remember spending hours upon hours among the fragrant, crackling leaves underneath my foot step. The smell of the leaves and the crispness of the air, invigorates me. 

As I looked at this beautiful scene; a photograph taken by a very talented photographer, obviously, but sadly was not credited with the display, I was overwhelmed with the reflection of the beauty so magically caught in this image. I began to meditate that OUR beauty is also reflected; maybe we are just as unaware of revealing it to the world as these gorgeous leaved trees. Wonderfully, I seem to sense that the reflection enhances the color; not detract from it. 

Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.

But you are eternity and your are the mirror.

~ Kahlil Gibran(1883 - 1931) ~

After reveling in the sublime beauty of this image and its dramatic reflection, I turned my focus inwardly. I asked myself, "I wonder if my ugliness is magnified or reflected in my life in the same way that my beauty is shown to the world." The thought horrified me for a moment until I realized that it might only be the ugliness that I was not aware of;  or that I was not willing to face. Maybe the only ugliness that would be so boldly presented to the world would be the PAIN and ugliness that I chose to deny. I can see that whenever I may have chosen to live in delusion as "not having a problem" or refused to face the reality of abuse; that I was really trying to "hide from my pain" and keep it hidden from myself, that maybe it was not hidden from the world.

Gazing back upon the reflection of beauty of this image, although it truly is much more pleasant to gaze upon, maybe we can see the beauty as being reflected as a "reward" of sorts for the hard work of "finding ourselves, healing from abuse and learning to dream again". Then just maybe, we won't ever have to worry about any "hidden pain" and can look forward to seeing ourselves; our true selves, as beautiful as what we were truly meant to be. 

The foundation of healing

Starting over is something that we must do to "find ourselves, heal from abuse and learn to dream again". Instead of embarking on a new adventure, we may feel that we have failed and have to "start again". That's when we need to find a "new song".

I remember saying to myself, "I want my old life back" but after much thought, I realized that my old life is what got me into an abusive relationship with a christian man whom I assumed would be respectful, loving and caring. My "old life" was one of dependence upon others, by choice, in trusting one who proved to be unworthy of my trust. I had an epiphany and vision of sorts, before I even began my healing journey. Sometimes, we may need to admit to ourselves, that "letting go" of the life that we are living and embracing a NEW life; one that does not necessarily try to hold onto to all or many of the elements of the damaged and abusive life that we endured, that it is time to find a new song to sing and stop trying to fix the old one. 

I remember being at a "deep healing" place in my life when I "needed to place bricks" (dislodged or misplaced) parts of my life, in the "road of my life" so that if I would ever need to walk over the same place again, they would be placed "squarely" so that I would not stumble over them. I likened the bricks to "tying each knot" and leaving no lose ends in the relationship/marriage so I could move on with my life. It might have been many years later that I began to understand, that I did not understand that I didn't understand so much about myself. 

I then started to believe that I wanted a NEW life. 

I wanted a life where I would be able to be freely me and to follow my dreams without hindrance. All in all, setting a GOOD foundation for my life; based upon truth and self-knowledge was where my healing could find a home and I could move on to invite peace into my life and world. 

My healing truly started with seeing "my brick road" before me, as a vision of the foundation for the healing path that I would safely and successfully travel the rest of my life.

In Between

It is in between Summer and Autumn here in the Northeast United States. It is a time of cooling winds and less scorching days. It is a time of quieter neighborhoods as children have returned to school. It is a time that mother's meander in the shopping malls and grocery stores without the pulling and tugging of little ones of school age or the older whining of the young adult “tweeners” as they get in their daily complaint of why their electronic device is outdated and needs to be replaced. It is in between the heat and the cooling of the Earth. The change of the seasons is upon us and we are waiting, anticipating the various colors and hues that make Autumn the most beautiful season any where in the world.

We are in between the past and the future. In this past month, we commemorated the terrorist attack that ravaged our homeland twelve years ago. We want to leave the past in the past but have to remember so it doesn't happen again. If we forget the past; we are doomed to repeat it. The past is not far enough in the past for me. Ten years is not long enough to wipe the horrific scenes from my mind and heart that were seared into them on that day and the many days to follow.

We are in between peace and war. Every day, we are reminded that we do not live in a peaceful world. We look back upon our childhoods and think that we had National peace at that time. The Cold War in Russia; the Korean War or police action in Vietnam. These were not our wars but we were involved in them to keep the peace here in the United States. We feigned peace in our lives when the brink of war loomed over our heads. We tried to hide our heads in the sand and turn our eyes away from the truth that there is NO peace anywhere; lack of war is NOT peace.

We are in between truth and untruth. We claim to know the truth; that the truth will set us free but we more live in the lie that we have the truth than have the truth that obliterates lies altogether. The truth is claimed to be absolute by those who will hold onto it and defend their behavior and justify their abuse with their truth. The truth; the real truth, does not justify dark deeds but brings all deeds into the light to determine if they be of the truth or not. We live in an age of deception. The truth is a lie. As in the book by George Orwell, 1984, we use “newspeak” and are convicted of “thought crimes”. The line of truth and untruth is fading and eroding and we try to cling onto the truth for truth's sake and even for our own sake. Our sanity requires an hold onto the truth as we see it.

We are in between life and death. Some would say that as long as we are alive; we live. I disagree. I believe I know many people who have lived and only existed rather than truly lived a life. I would say that they might even have clung onto death; death of dreams, death of hope and death of all that they ever desired or longed for and only lived in this life in a partial way. They lived while they died instead of living UNTIL they died. Life is precious. To not live our lives, is to accept death before its time in our lives. My parents, bless their hearts, in my opinion, did not fully live out their lives and enjoy them as I would have hoped for them or myself. Oh, they reproduced themselves; three times. My brother, myself and my sister and several grandchildren; were my parents' accomplishments in their lives. They worked, they loved and some would say that they lived. I say that they hung onto life but did not swing with it. They did not let the breeze take them to new realms or fly over mountainous lands and deep seas. Their imaginations had no room to play but in the backyard where we played wiffle ball and yard jarts and was tolerated with our childish banter and joyfulness. They sat inside; reading the news on the printed page and writing bills and preparing meals. There seemed to be little joy in their lives. Some would say that they were raising a family but I believe that they were in between life and death and didn't know that by clinging to death and the expected end even in their desperate denial of their own mortality, they were denying the life source and force that could have changed their morbid existence into real living.

We are in between our heads and our hearts. We still have the hope and personal opportunity to take these in between times and make the most of them. We don't have to believe what we have always believed because someone else said so or passed a law that it should be done that way. We have more than our minds to guide our paths. We have hearts that must be engaged in this life if it is to be fully lived. Our heads only get in the way and leave us in the summer, the past, the fake peace, the truth that we do not see or the life that we can only hope to live. Our hearts are the connections between what is seen and what is unseen. To believe with the mind is to accept what others perceive without personal conviction. To believe with the heart, bridges the in between parts of our lives and fills it with meaningful, loving and life giving hope to step out of what we are in and move to where we ought to be.

Are you "in-between"??? At times, we all are. 

When is a dream worth dreaming?

But if not for being impossible; 

would it be a dream worth dreaming???

A thought about dreams came to me while I was writing my blog. I was writing about “having dreams” and really digging deeply into what having a dream really means. I couldn't help but ask myself that if it were NOT impossible, then would it be a dream worth dreaming? 

If my “dream” would be possible, would it be a dream at all or maybe it would be a misguided goal or a hope that doesn't even come close to reality. Maybe the nature of a dream implies that it is NOT possible and thus to dream our life away as the Everly Brothers sang in “All I have to do is dream” is an accurate statement. I was dreaming my life away as I pined for my Love. I would think of the love that I shared with him; the “strong bond that we knew” as I wrote in the song “To see you once again”. How could it be so impossible to love him again and forever if we had such a wonderful love in the beginning. HOW could it be so impossible and why would I dream of it rather than plan on seeing him again. I would dream of looking deeply into his eyes; throwing my arms around him and feeling his strong arms about me. In my dreamlike state I would feel the hot, moist eager mouth as his lips and mine pressed together in passionate union and I would think of and feel many other bodily sensations and responses to his touch and presence. How could it be so impossible if it existed at one time; couldn't it exist again and forever?

Dreams are something that can play with the mind. They are surreal and who knows how crazy they seem to others but to us; they are as real as waking up in the morning. They motivate us to get out of bed and slide into some decent clothes and go to work. They prompt us to evaluate every relationship that we have only to find that none of them come close to the one that we dream about. We are not looking at it with “rose colored glasses” and forgetting the rough spots that we ran into ourselves along the way and the pain of the separation that only time can heal. We see our lives in the light and scrutiny of the dreams that we hold in our hearts. The dreams become the magnifying glass of our intentions and the filter by which the words that we use on a daily basis are chosen to reflect the plastic life that we have chosen over our dreams. Our dreams can appear more than real to us while living in a state of denial or constant insistence that the life that we are living is the only one that is available to us. Why would we tempt ourselves to believe that life could be better? Why not just accept the fact that life is what it is and it will always be what we have made it to this day and that we should put away those “childish” dreams and work with what we have. 

Reality is not what it is so cracked up to be. I mean, really, does anyone expect us to live lives that are so miserable just because they are the ones who are afraid to dream? Maybe they think that we are as afraid of dreaming as they are; afraid of dreaming a dream that is so impossible that to consider it would peel back and uncover their layers of discontent with their lives. To dream is to not be afraid of the truth of our lives. I think that I can say and believe that if we are afraid of dreaming, we are denying the truth of the miserable existent that we have created. We have sacrificed our right to dream at the altar of a mediocre life. We have bludgeoned our imaginations in hopes that we will not have to face the defeat of our free wills to live as we would really like to live.

“To live a life worth living” is a cliché of clichés that has come to mean even less than the cliché had originally intended. Does anyone “live a life worth living?” If everyone “lived a life worth living” then tell me why there are so many dreamers; so many discontent and discouraged people in mid-life crisis who look at their lives and say “this isn't my life”?

I have stood and faced myself in the mirror many times; shaking my head in unbelief as to the life that I have acquiesced into living. I asked myself “how did I get HERE?”. “How do I get out of this mess and live a “life worth living?” “Isn't it too late to start over?” I would feel my spirit weakened and collapse under the inquisition and sadly admit: “Who am I trying to fool, I don't have a hope to live a life that I could only dream of”. The saddest part of this statement is that I was the one fooling myself that I could life a life worth living while living in misery and want. Oh, I don't mean that I was so miserable and wanted so much that I would never be happy while being in that place; no, it was more like I was miserable and wanted so much APART from what my life consisted of that I was dreaming of being so far away, like somewhere “over the rainbow”. Even Dorothy caught a glimpse of some wonderful land “beyond where the blue birds fly” while she was living in the black and white Dust bowl infected land of Kansas on the dismal farm with the ordinary characters found in an ordinary life.

As I evaluated the realness of my life; 

I fell into despair knowing what I was living in 

and I felt an unquenchable hunger for what I had been living without. 

I had nothing to lose. 

In my mind, it could "get no worse" 

and if I attempted to follow my dream and did not get it; 

I would be no WORSE off than living without it.

Dreaming goes beyond what we can imagine. Dreaming is daring to want something that you can't even see and needing something that you can no longer live without. If but not for it being impossible, it would not be a dream worth dreaming.

Trust yourself, then you will know how to live. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ~

Our inability to trust others 

is not the worst thing that can happen. 

Even when we have no one else whom we can trust, 

we CAN trust ourselves.

Have you heard someone say to you in an accusatory tone "You don't trust me"...and when we stop and think about this, they may be telling the truth and there may be good reason for it. Just because we love someone does NOT mean that they are worthy of our trust as well. In abusive situations, we find that the inability to reasonably trust a "loved one" because of their abusive behavior is often turned on ourselves. We are "accused" of not trusting them while we second guess who we are and doubt our own feelings and perceptions rather than to just accept that the relationship with that "special someone" is so painful.

Even before we begin to "find ourselves, heal from abuse and learn to dream again", we hear "you need to trust yourself" over and over again. Being that we had trusted a person who had seemingly abused us, we may feel that our choice of trusting others also includes our own ability to trust ourselves. THIS is one of they greatest abuses inflicted upon an abuse victim and abuse survivor. We don't even KNOW that we are able to trust our own thoughts and feelings because they were "taken over" and controlled so long ago by one who "gaslighted" or disrespected, demeaned or discounted us time and time again. 

It seems that this lack of understanding of TRUST 

and how it has been used to control us is 

one of the FIRST stepping stones 

to begin our healing journey.

I remember when I was a student in high school, I was a young woman; confident and with talent and skill to do many things but my parents and teachers for the most part, did not encourage me to do many of the things that I accomplished well "on my own". I had to be my own cheerleader. I had a few friends, especially Shelley, who was more of a visionary like myself. She wasn't afraid of "going against the flow" of what was "expected or acceptable" when it came to personal growth and becoming a valuable, intelligent and resourceful person. I had to trust myself and that could have been very difficult hard when parents and other adults seemed to only criticize my decisions, even after some accomplishments. A teacher/teacher supervisor of a student group called me at home after school had ended for the year to "chew me out" for being so boldly outspoken, helpful and giving directions to others to make a sweetheart dance the best one that this "special group" had ever offered to the school. So I started out NOT trusting the opinions of others who did not support me, so where did I go wrong??? 

Somewhere along the line, I had believed the LIE. The lie being "you must trust those whom you love". I have learned that the KEY to "finding ourselves, healing from abuse and learning to dream again" is learning when and whom we can trust. We needn't be in a hurry or feel forced to trust others. They must prove to us their trustworthiness. The good news in all of this is, we can always trust ourselves...even though we may be wrong, we can forgive ourselves and build confidence that at least "we are are on our own side" even if we feel that no one else may be.

So do we need to trust more or trust more wisely??? I know that you can answer that question for yourself.