Change is beautiful

There is no greater time to start believing that change is beautiful than during the Autumn Season. Change is part of life; it is the necessary recording of time that gives life a certain "je ne sais quoi". 


It seems to me that change must seem much easier to accept when we were children. We did not have to worry about consequences and payments, time restraints and commitments  Our only commitment was to "have fun growing up" and change was just part of it all, especially in our bodies with the "growing pains" that we endured. Even those growing pains, though big to us at the time, seem like little nuisances now in comparison to our adult problems. 

Why does "change" sometimes brings with it, a sense of hesitation or dread? I propose that it is the change that we feel very little influence or control over that we fear or dread the most. When we are in charge of the change, when we have the power and plan to proceed with making even deep, inner changes, we have confidence that we can succeed. But when change is cast upon us, thrust upon us, thrown at us in such a way that it obviously conflicts with everything that we have previously believed, it causes much cognitive dissonance... confusion in our thoughts.  From Wikipedia: Cognitive dissonance is the distressing mental state that people feel when they "find themselves doing things that don't fit with what they know, or having opinions that do not fit with other opinions they hold." Change can be beautiful, even when it comes with the pain of having to change our thoughts in order to accept and live with the results that change has left in our lives.

Next time you look at a leaf, fallen from a tree, beautiful changed in color from the green, chlorophyll rich leaves of spring and summer, just think of it as a "seasonal change" in the life of the leaf. It is natural and to us, it can be very beautiful. We can even think of ourselves, as a leaf, constantly changing and yes, getting older and naturally aging. Embrace the change you may not be able to "alter" to any great degree...it is life. Change may be hard at first, but realize that life is good and can only be made better by "going with the flow of change" rather than fighting against it.

Getting out of delusion and self-deception

I am amazed by the number of inquisitive acquaintances and friends who have asked me about my healing journey when they seem to be wanting to know...

"HOW did you EVER get through that???




In looking back at my life, I even doubted my ability to extricate myself from abuse and endure minimal loss of property and preserve my own financial stability. At times, I had not believed that it would ever be possible but then again, I had not even begun to try to "think it through" to see if it could possibly be feasible. 

I remember getting an "epiphany" and it was like a light bulb had just been turned on above my head while I was sitting at my workstation one day. I started to think of "the impossible"...could I financially "swing it" on my income alone if my son and I moved out of the rented house from his father and half sister. My mother and father were no longer living with us and it had been a few months before that I realized that mom would be moving out to live with our brother. It was time for me to consider "the impossible". If you are reading this, you might have experienced this also or at least begun to believe in the possibility.

I have evaluated HOW I was able to free myself; free my mind, my thoughts and my feelings by understanding terms such as detachment, delusion and self-deception. Let's focus on the latter two...

What is the difference between delusion and self-deception??? 
Delusion is when a belief or impression is firmly maintained despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality or rational argument. 
Self-deception is the action or practice of allowing oneself to believe that a false or invalidated feeling, idea, or situation is true.

Since it is TRUTH Day (every Friday) here at Singing a New Song, I was wondering about the difference of these two concepts and what it means to our lives when it comes to "finding ourselves, healing from abuse and learning to dream again".


I believe that delusion leads to self-deception and that self-deception validates the delusion. It is a wicked, hopeless, unending circle until the "spell" is broken. (see Patricia Evan's book; The Verbally Abusive Man) 

In hopes to not lose you in any confusion, let's look at an example of how this may look in our lives. Let's just imagine for a moment that we are deluded about a belief about a person (and of course "we do not understand that we do not understand" ); they could NEVER abuse us, therefore, we choose to see their behavior as NOT BEING abuse and then this is self-deceiving in that it INVALIDATES our sense of true self and squashes out any possibility of asking the needed questions because "this is what I am supposed to do about it because I believe" this or that (this is how my abusive ex husband managed to abuse me for nearly 11 years; I was in delusion and self-deception) 


Let's look at it the other way. Let's imagine again that we are self-deceived. Of course, it is again the same situation that "we do not understand that we don't understand" something about our SELF. It may be because we do not truly know ourselves and have beliefs about ourselves that may not be based upon fact or that is based squarely upon delusion. We may have unhealed abuse damage and it is just too painful to face it so we DENY our pain, our damage and believe whatever "covers" the whole situation and how it has affected us and our beliefs. Our example will be; as in my situation, I was a christian. The premise of "being a christian" is that we are not perfect but we are "forgiven", and in my life, I had a very close relationship with a family member, also a christian, who was abusive to me in ways that she still has not yet even begun to understand. She would say horrific, hurtful and "unchristian" things and behave in VERY unchristian ways (just imagine someone who says that they are a christian but cheats, lies and betrays family members for nothing more than their own pleasure; without thinking about relationship with others any thing beyond what "they get out of it"). 

Denial, delusion, detachment, self-deception were concepts that I had deeply explored before I could even begin to "find myself, heal from abuse and learn to dream again". It has been an enlightening journey. 

Though my healing journey has been enlightening, 

it has not always been pleasant. 

I had to accept that things were "not as I believed them to be".  

It was painful to recognize that I could only hold myself accountable for living in that denial and delusion. 

Once I understood that I didn't understand, I forgave myself for not understanding that I didn't understand and was not able to "break the spell" of delusion and self-deception in my life sooner.

How do we know WHEN we are in delusion and self-deception? How do we "get ourselves out of delusion and self-deception?" I have learned that I needed to be open to accepting things AS THEY ARE rather than how we think they "should be" or how we would really like them to be. This is really SO MUCH EASIER said than done; to accept the truth that is contradictory to what you have believed for so long or feel validates us as a person is earth-shaking. Taking it to a deeper level, we then need to be open to exploring our CORE BELIEFS, question their validity and truth and see how they have created the reason that we believe what we do about ourselves. We evaluate, not judge, ourselves to see what areas are being run and ruled by untruths, denial, delusion and self-deception and make a personal commitment to bravely FACE THE TRUTH. 

You can do it, I did it and we can together take one step at a time...that is how healing and the "Singing a New Song" journey starts. 

YOU ARE worth it!!! 

Life is a journey, not a destination ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~

I once believed that whatever I did today would "get me to my future" tomorrow...

but somewhere along the way, I forgot to enjoy "today".

When I was younger, I "lived for the future" instead of being mindful and fully living "today". I have heard it referred to as "wishing your life away". I used all my energy to drag myself through each day; just trying to survive the mind bending, soul wrenching and spirit crushing verbal and emotional abuse. Each morning seemed like waking up finding myself serving a prison sentence and each night after working in an office all day, going back to my prison cell. I was surviving but not thriving or living. The presence of oppression and abuse seemed to confuse and cloud my vision of any "dream". The deeper I sunk into despair, the further away my "future" seemed and the more impossible my dream seemed to become. Over time, I began to realize that I was "in denial" and the breaking away of denial by TRUTH was freeing me to "find myself, heal from abuse and learn to dream again".

The epiphany finally came where I realized that I was LIVING MY LIFE right now and that just biding my time and weakly hoping for a future would not get me there. I started to find good things in each day; of course, they usually did not have anything to do with the behavior or person of my abuser but my other family members; my son, my mom and friends were sources of enjoyment and opportunities for relief from the hellish life I was living.

Being musical and "sensitive", I began to involve myself in my hobbies, my joys and my stress outlets. I realized that in these activities, I was "finding myself" in finding the things that brought me joy. I began to see the woundedness that I had endured and started calling it what it was; ABUSE. I treated myself kindly and day by day I learned to be patient with myself and to stop making excuses for others. Positive self-talk was vital at this point in my life. "Learning to dream again" was something that needed to be "excavated", after been deeply buried within my heart and consciousness. My dream was to be with the man whom I first loved; my first love. This seemed so impossible yet I dreamt of him and my heart would not let him go. I had no choice but to face my dream, deal with my feelings of its impossibility and I daily worked through my feelings, my fears and my frustrations until I could see myself FREE to follow my dream.

Why do we "put off until tomorrow what we (need) can do today???". We put off and put aside our dreams maybe in the attempt to accept our "today" with the impossibility of tomorrow. Then one day, our dreams waken deep within us and we are strengthened and emboldened to begin to "find ourselves, heal from abuse and learn to dream again". 

YOU are worth every effort that it takes to ENJOY TODAY. Today is where your life is right now...it is not in "tomorrow". Enjoy the journey. You are worth it!!!

To thine own self, be true...

Once upon a time, there lived an ordinary wonderful person. He was truly a remarkably unremarkable and truly unique person at the same time but because he did not believe as other "more important persons", he was shunned, labeled and name called. He felt as though he was invisible and did not feel "heard", but journeyed through life seeking to understand the discrimination and hatred that others had toward those who are different from them. He was astounded to find the answer within himself. Authenticity did not allow such delusion to exist. He was happy; though sometimes alone, but he loved himself and lived happily all the days of his life.

Ok, that isn't a real story but it could be. Delusion. Illusion. Myth. These are all "beliefs" that anyone can hold for whatever reason. I believe that abuse is founded upon not only "wrong thinking" but "wrong believing". I have actually run upon this "epiphany" quite accidentally while studying the reasons for WHY we believe what we believe and hold to be true; hold so tightly to it so that we will FIGHT to keep that belief, no matter what with no matter whom. It all started by questioning HOW we find ourselves...how do we know WHEN we find ourselves, and the all important question "WHAT DO WE DO WHEN we find ourselves?". I ran across a wonderful quote from a book written by a research psychologist and professor at Columbia University, Arthur T. Jersild's book "In search of self". 

"Compassion 

is the ultimate and most meaningful embodiment of emotional maturity. 

It is through compassion that a person achieves the highest peak 

and deepest reach in his or her search for self-fulfillment."

~ Arthur Jersild ~ 

(In Search of Self: 1952) 

As abuse survivors (and who hasn't felt abused by someone in their lives??? so I speak about and to everyone), we have learned how to treat ourselves because and in the manner that we have been treated. Because of this fact, we have shunned our selves. We may have been "harder on ourselves" than we have on others and this usually "boils down" to FORGIVENESS...forgiving ourselves is important. Self-compassion is important. Self-fulfillment is our goal and I believe that we only reach our goal by "finding ourselves, healing from abuse and learning to dream again".

When we SAY NO to self-delusion, we are saying NO to abuse. We deserve to know ourselves, love ourselves and accept ourselves.

We are worth it!!!

Keeping Focused on Healing

Amidst the turmoil, frustration and confusion of abuse, I have found that many people, women predominately, tend to disregard their own personal cues of "need" and tend to "numb out" and lose focus on taking good personal care and embarking on the healing journey.
We struggle day after day just to get out of bed and try to find some meaning for going through this barrage of attacks on our psyche and self-image once again. We see other's needs but have been deceived into believing that taking care of ourselves makes us "selfish" and to prove that we are not; we disregard our own intuition, we doubt ourselves and our perceptions and take on  abuse as our "new truth"...we live in this for sometimes many years before we realize that "THIS IS NOT MY LIFE".

Sometimes, before we realize that we need to take good care of ourselves, we must first IDENTIFY behavior that is disrespectful, demeaning, manipulative, controlling, etc as ABUSE. Many websites, books, articles online, television are discussing the effects of domestic abuse (not only physical but verbal, emotional, mental, financial and spiritual) on women and raising awareness of the NEED for women to be aware of how this undermines their sense of self and purpose are available. (see healing from abuse resource page on this blog)

ACCEPT that you did not cause it, you cannot change it and you cannot control it. When we try to LET GO of the need to control the person who has abused us.  One author coined this as "radical acceptance", the full acceptance of a person and their behavior "as it is" and without our need to change it for either ourselves or them. Take responsibility for our own behavior and decide WHAT WE REALLY WANT in life. We will not be able to change our abuser to meet our needs, in doing this, we are falling into the trap that they have unconsciously left for us. We can then even become manipulative, unloving and demanding, just like an abuser.

Are YOU focused on YOUR healing??? YOU MATTER. Acknowledge abusive behaviors in your life that have damaged your sense of SELF. Take time to "take good care of yourself" today.

You are worth it!!!