Be happy

I have personally learned something VERY VALUABLE that I would like to share with you...

If you are in an abusive relationship; healing from an abusive relationship and fearing another abusive relationship; THIS message is for you. ONE THING that abuse cannot do is IMITATE JOY. An abuser or mentally ill person will PROJECT their negative emotions and "bad behavior" onto those who are "acting" in a way that will sustain that "belief". They really WANT to believe that they are not the ones who are abusive but that they are the victims, and being abused by us. 


So what do we do when we are the victim of projection; the denial of unpleasant and even painful revelation of emotions faced by another person; maybe one who has a mental illness? 

• PUT ON A HAPPY FACE...they cannot project their "Nasty attitudes" and "Nasty tone of voice" to someone who is not mirroring it back to them!!!!! (let that sink in for a moment)

• BE HAPPY...BE YOURSELF...NO ONE can make you less happy than you can make yourself, and there is NO ABUSE or PERSON who is powerful enough to take your joy away. HOLD ONTO YOUR JOY and smile and be happy around those who want to accuse YOU of abusing them...like an argument, it really isn't even a "conversation" if two people aren't talking. Don't try to appease them...BE HAPPY.

• It is so true that MISERY LOVES COMPANY; don't invite Misery to your house for dinner. INVITE JOY and HAPPINESS and you will see that Misery loves "other company" and should "stay home" if they aren't able to DUMP their negative feelings and self-concept on you. Problem solved. 

• I have studied abusive behavior a LONG time and this seems to be a SOLUTION to abuse. DON'T give it power by "being like it". Don't be the mirror which enables them to USE US to project feelings that they do not want to deal with onto us!!!

• JUST BE YOU!!! You can call me "smiley face" from now on because I am not "waiting" for anyone to make me happy. I will bring my own happiness into my life and keep it; if no one wants to be around happiness, that is fine with me. 

• You are worth it!!!

We are stronger than we think...

Let's STOP and take a look at our lives for a moment. Wherever we find ourselves in whatever situations, I am sure that we would find that WE HAVE SURVIVED a lot emotionally, mentally and even physically. We have LIVE THROUGH horror. We have endured great sadness and deep sorrow of loss. Loss of dreams and hope. Loss of our selves and our future. 

BUT NOW, we can LOOK BACK and gain CONFIDENCE in our ability to survive...

Seriously, we can trust ourselves to KNOW that since we survived and come to a place in our lives where we are reaching out to be healed, that WE CAN INDEED face our healing, even if it feels a bit scary at first...We deserve to "find ourselves, heal from abuse and learn to dream again" . When we COME TO THIS PLACE in our lives, we need to doubt ourselves...

LOOK BACK OVER WHAT YOU HAVE SURVIVED...

Taking GOOD care of myself

I really enjoy a good cup of tea in a china cup from a china tea pot; warmed in the traditional English style. I love the scent of blossoming lilacs. I love the color purple and the scent of these beautiful flowers. 


I can more easily enjoy the SIMPLE PLEASURES IN life; what we all need to take good care of ourselves. It may take some discipline or better yet a renewed focus ON ONESELF in order to get to the place where we can enjoy the "simple pleasures" again. I am definitely a woman who believes in the Simple Joys of life and I embrace them whenever they are available and even create opportunities to enjoy what I want to enjoy when I want to enjoy it. When we are in an abusive relationship or have contact with an abusive person who demeans, discounts or disrespects us they are very likely to say "You are SO selfish to just think of yourself"...this is an abuser's main way of saying "You are not paying enough attention to ME, you must worship ME and you must allow ME to control and abuse you". 


Today, I would love to invite you to join me in a cup of tea; 

Making our lives count

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.

John Lennon (1940 - 1980), "Beautiful Boy"

I enjoy a good movie. One of my favorite movies with Richard Dreyfuss is "Mr. Holland's Opus"(1995).  The above quote was taken from the movie; a very poignant and touching look at REAL life and if you haven't seen it I would like to HIGHLY recommend it to you. As in real life, the movie takes Mr. Glenn Holland from his young adulthood right out of college to his retirement from being a school music teacher; not the famous career that he had hoped for all of his life. It is as though Mr. Holland was always "working on his Opus" and not until the end of the story, (not a spoiler, don't worry), does he begin to realize that the journey WAS the life that he wanted all along and the destination was not the prize that he was truly seeking. 

 Life's a journey, not a destination.

 Steven Tyler

                                                                                                                                                  (NOW; THIS is a spoiler warning; one of the LAST scenes of the movie)

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"Adult Gertrude Lang:
Mr. Holland had a profound influence on my life and on a lot of lives I know. But I have a feeling that he considers a great part of his own life misspent. Rumor had it he was always working on this symphony of his. And this was going to make him famous, rich, probably both. But Mr. Holland isn't rich and he isn't famous, at least not outside of our little town. So it might be easy for him to think himself a failure. But he would be wrong, because I think that he's achieved a success far beyond riches and fame. Look around you. There is not a life in this room that you have not touched, and each of us is a better person because of you. We are your symphony Mr. Holland. We are the melodies and the notes of your opus.  
We are the music of your life.  

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We have heard that "life is what we make it". It doesn't have to be something that "happens to us", we can intentionally enjoy the daily journey of living, loving and growing and if perchance we "don't quite make our destination", we will be happy knowing that we have enjoyed the journey. It is like being on an Autumn road trip; sometimes it doesn't matter where you are going as long as you are enjoying the scenery along the way.

 

If we "don't' quite make the destination" that we had initially planned, hopefully we can look back on our lives and and say "that was really a good ride".