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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".