Finding the REAL you

Singing a New Song: 
Finding yourself, healing from abuse and learning to dream again.

That's what this blog; Facebook page is all about; becoming the best YOU!!!! No matter what has happened TO you or within you. YOU deserve to heal, grow and enjoy your life.


Finding the REAL you...what motivates you???

Musings on solitude

Solitude

I have always like solitude. To be alone with my thoughts, for me, has never the horrible thing that others seemed to make of it. I have actually chosen to be alone at times; something that has even boggled the mind of many people who have believed that they have known me well enough in my very outwardly social ways to think that I do not desire or need solitude. They could not be more wrong in believing this. They may think that solitude is reserved for those who are forced into spending time alone due to rejection and thus creating deep feelings of despair and loneliness. I make choices not based upon feelings of loneliness or even sad rejection by others but have always chosen to spend time by myself because I like myself. I guess that is what it really boils down to, liking oneself. If I like myself then it would make sense that I would want to spend time alone, with myself.

Maybe, if we could even consider the possibility and reality of this, that loneliness for others is really a manifestation of the fear of being alone and discovering oneself; the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly parts of who every person is comprised of. They say the “whole is greater than the sum of the parts its made of” and in a conceptual way, we are greater than the parts of us that may characterize our whole being. The parts are just parts until they are put together in a miraculous way of making us who we are. Maybe we could consider that to accept someone's rejection of us and hold it valid would truly only be the acceptance of someone's possible flawed view of who we are and who I really am. This would bring deep feelings of sadness and possible self-loathing, maybe something that would not inspire me to spend more time with myself. I have the sole right to either accept or reject myself or parts of myself. If I delve into denial, I can totally “remake” myself rather than respect the wonderfully unique person whom I am; in spite of my weaknesses. Primarily and most importantly, I decide whether or not I like to be alone. I believe that the most important thing that anyone can do for their self is to not reject or judge their selves but to extend a hand of friendship toward their own image. I like me. I figure that if I don't like me and don't want to be with me then “who else” might want my company? Who else might be MORE fascinating and intriguing and even more interesting and kind to my self, than myself? 

Having compassion with myself; dealing with my frailties with “kid gloves” and allowing myself to be seen as “mere human” in an extraordinary way of course, is the necessary humility needed for good writing. If not for the solitude, we could not hear our voice; think of the stories and write down the words that bring them to life. again. I need to hear my “voice” and allow my self to be expressed in words on paper or the computer screen. My time of reflection is the back how loader and earth mover of my thoughts and feelings. I can excavate my past and bring it into the light of the present; look at it and evaluate how I feel about the many things that happened to me and even those things that I caused that became part of who I am today. Digging in my past and accepting who I was is part of who I am.

If I do not “know myself” then how can I know anything or anyone else. I am the one that I have spent the most time with all of my life. If I do not know me, I know nothing. Descartes said “I think, therefore I am”. I would like rephrase that sentiment with “I know me, therefore I am”. I feel my existence and my uniqueness when I write. I like many things about me that I would like to share with the world. I would like to encourage and help others feel the reality of this life in the way that I sense it at times. I like many things about me and rather than constantly judge and criticize myself as others have done, I accept me in ways that I have accepted others. I like the way that I am curious about who I am; not only about the world around me. I like and appreciate my sensitivity to others as I use the same compassion that I have nurtured in and for myself with dealing with their fears and failures in life. I really like parts of myself that I don't intentionally share with the world. I feel that I have “kept part of me” for me and I believe this is a really very healthy thing to do.

I like solitude because I like me. I can appreciate and explore the uniqueness of my being while not revealing anything to anyone else of my discoveries. Sometimes I feel that I am an archaeological “dig” and my past is being uncovered and revealed to me. The most important parts of me are on display for me to accept and learn to love. Really, writing is all about being able and willing and even desiring to tear away the mask that the world sees, reveal in the uniqueness of who we are and then boldly proclaiming to ourselves first, then to the world, the person that we have discovered in our times of solitude. I laugh at myself in a joyous and celebratory way even though no one else is around. I can relax and “be me” and not worry about others judging who I am in terms of their standards. My standards for me are SO much higher and my hopes and aspirations and dreams are only shared with those who I trust the most. Me.

Get back to the basics

Singing a New Song

began as a vehicle used to speak out against spiritual abuse/domestic abuse in the christian marriage. 

Religion has been and remains the most commonly used vehicle for abuse. 

Abuse is insidious. As a christian, I strongly believed that "a christian man would NEVER abuse his wife". While I still believe this to be partly true, I also have experienced how the concepts we believe and the religious dogma we embrace can set us up as victims of religious abuse. 

I was a very active christian many years before I met my son's father. I had been very involved in serving in the church in worship leading, teaching, prayer, conference planning and program developing and coordinating. I love people and had found a wonderful niche for my creative and musical outlets. I had a wonderful life serving the Lord and enjoying my "family". 

When we are "in church" (christian church that is) we tend to assume that most everyone there is a christian. They have come to worship God with us and we have much more in common than we may have dividing or distinguishing us from each other. Looking back on it, I see this assumption as part of our need to BELONG. We all feel a deep need to "belong somewhere" or "to someone". Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs shows a pyramid of needs that places BELONGING just about physiological and safety needs: including within it: friendship, family and sexual intimacy. These are very BASIC needs.

I didn't understand my needs at the time and how religion has fulfilled the bottom three level on this Needs scale but I realized that it has played a significant supporting role in the next level of needs: ESTEEM.

As much as I had trusted God, I now realize that I had trusted man too much and my ability to discern intent of others and interpret behavior within marriage too little. I was in the worship team the day my ex husband and his daughter walked into the church that I had so joyfully served. Only a few brief months of courtship and 19 months later, confusion nd frustration began filling our home when my then christian husband seemed to be "unhappy" with me while I was pregnant with our now 13 year old son. He became critical, unloving, biting, harsh in his speech and manner and even so demanding that I "behave as a christian woman should" that I was reluctant to share my feelings and thoughts of my difficulty in the pregnancy. He said "you have changed, I am still the same". He later called me "contentious" and "disobedient" and even said in later years..."when you disobey ME, you disobey God". 

Now, as I look upon this, I can see that this is just abusive, manipulative behavior. NOT christian at all. But I had believed and continued to want to believe that he was truly a very good christian but yet experienced deeply disturbing cognitive dissonance over this. HOW can a christian man be so callous, unloving, demanding and even abusive??? I studied the Bible more, scouring it for wisdom and understanding on how I should view my new christian husband's behavior in light of feeling abused. I then found a few books on abuse by christian authors: (Jan Silvious's book: Fool Proofing your life and Leslie Vernick's book "The Emotionally Destructive Relationship") and I realized that "not all that glitters, is not gold" or "just because he says he is a christian, appears to act like a christian, seems to believe as a christian believes, doesn't mean that he is not or cannot be an abuser". 

This was a VERY harsh reality for me to accept. I didn't want to believe that what I had held as principles and concepts of virtue that I had held dearly would be so twisted in attempts to control, manipulate, discredit, demean, discount and disrespect me...after all, he was a christian. A christian man would not abuse. THIS WAS A FALSE PREMISE, a VERY untrue assumption that kept me in an abusive marriage for may years 8 years beyond my initial revelation that I was being abused by my christian husband.

Patricia Evan's books; mainly "Verbal Abuse Survivors Speak out" and "Contolling People" where too books; disdainfully shun and severely criticized by my then "christian husband" as being "not of God" and I was not only "admonished" to not read them but to "only read the Bible" and "listen and obey" him. He was "my head". I was just a woman. At one time, I "misplaced" the book, "Controlling People" twice...I had to buy new copies. I believe that he had thrown them away in attempts to dissuade me from reading them and awakening to HIS ABUSE OF ME in this "christian marriage". 

I found the book, "The Gaslight Effect" by Dr. Robin Stern. It was another "forbidden" book but by that time, I had separated from him, taking our then 8 year old son to live apart from him and his daughter. 

I share all of this to caution all those who hold onto a belief system and seek to find others who believe as you do to form the security of friendship, family and sexual intimacy that there are "wolves wearing sheep's clothing" among those who call themselves christians...and they CAN and DO use religion to ABUSE and control their victims.

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. 

Running away...

Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica...photographer unknown. 

Sometimes we think that if we could 

"JUST GET AWAY" 

for a while 

that things would be either so much better when we returned than when we left 

OR 

we would have been refreshed enough to face whatever we wanted to run away from...

Simple Joys 

(from the Musical "Pippin")

Stephen Schwartz

Well, I'll sing you a story of a sorrowful lad

Had everything he wanted, didn't want what he had

He had wealth and pelf and fame and name and all of that noise

But he didn't have none of those simple joys. 

His life seemed purposeless and flat

Aren't you glad you don't feel like that?

So he ran from all the deeds he'd done,

he ran from things he'd just begun

He ran from himself, which was mighty far to run

Out into the country where he'd played as a boy

'Cause he knew he had to find him some simple joy

He wanted someplace warm and green

We all could use a change of scene

Like us all, the young man in this story thought that he could RUN AWAY from his problems, but hopefully, he learned, as we have, that we cannot run away from ourselves. We try! But we will never succeed in "leaving ourselves behind". We will take ourselves with us everywhere we go...so the moral of this story is: "Find yourself, heal from abuse and learn to dream again"...Learn to LIKE yourself, you will be spending the most time of your life with YOU.