Change your VIEW

What 

does 

HEALING 

look 

like???

• Healing from abuse is like climbing a mountain. At times our healing journey feels like climbing and even scaling a mountainside, we are always pushing ourselves to "go higher" with little to no understanding or expectation of what it will look like when we get to the top.
• Make sure that your FOOTING is secure; this is really an important step (pardon the intentional pun)
• Pause and rest along the way; PACE YOURSELF.
• The "higher you climb, the better the view will look". Seeing FARTHER when we are up higher, gives up greater motivation to continue.
• You will gain a new perspective on your abilities and take pride in your accomplishments.
• Making it to the top is exhilarating; ENJOY the view!
• SING A NEW SONG; live intentionally "in the moment" and focus on the JOURNEY and not just the "end result".

This was an inspired image that I experienced one day while I was trying to explain "how it feels to be healed" on my journey of "finding myself, healing from abuse and learning to dream again".

The part that I did not add are the "other obstacles" that we may run across on our healing journey; the nay sayaers, abusers and inconsiderate and unloving persons who accuse of "of being selfish" in taking time to "take good care of ourselves"...these are VERY real obstacles...we all have persons in our lives who do not encourage us to "find ourselves, heal from abuse and learn to dream again"...they are the selfish people who KNOW that WHEN we are healed, healthy and WHOLE that we will be "Singing a New Song" and we will not want the relationship with them that THEY are currently enjoying; more than likely; you are being abused and your abuser doesn't want you to become aware of their control over you.

IT IS TIME to heal...time to take the time to "be good to ourselves" and to treat ourselves in the ways that we deserve to be treated by others. We deserve to be treated lovingly, respectfully and with great encouragement to live a life where we will be "Singing a New Song".

'Tis better to have dreamed and lost, than never to have dreamed at all.

When your dream dies

So many songs, poems and inspirational stories tell of “following your dreams” but I have yet to read one where the promise of a dream come true ends in the death of that same dream, until now.

I once had a dream while in high school, that I would one day have quiche for lunch on the Champs Elysees in France. I didn't know how I would get there. That wasn't part of the dream; or my goal. My goal was to “have quiche on the Champs Elysees”. Simple. When I was 36 years old; I went on a missions trip to France; flew into and out of Paris and the night before I returned to the U.S...I took myself on the Metro and made my dream come true. Oh, it was not the sunny seat on the cobble stoned cafe sidewalk lunch that I had dreamed of; it was a late dinner, inside the cafe restaurant on a gloomy, misty early evening; the kind of rain that everyone says makes Paris look mysterious and even more beautiful. My dream came true; not exactly in the way that I had envisioned but exactly as I had stated.

I dreamed of returning to my first love. To see him once again. To love him and be loved by him and the hope of passionately embracing, kissing and celebrating the return of our lost love...and I saw my dream come true. Hilariously happy, we reunited. Joyfully and enthusiastically “in love”, we relived the beautiful moments, shared the “filler” that had been in our lives for 25 years while we were separated and thought that we had LOVE like no other couple. We even felt sorry for those who had “far less” love than we did. We planned on making our dream come true an happily ever after...until mental illness insidiously revealed itself; the killer of dreams.

Just imagine for moment. You have dreamt and longed to be with someone whom you had loved all your life, and returned to them with “only the clothes on your back” because property and possessions meant nothing compared to love, and have your dream come true only to turn into a NIGHTMARE within 6 months. You are stuck. You have given up means to support yourself, insurance and security. You love him. You want to see him be healthy and happy; hopefully with you. You know he is ill but you KNOW that you do not want to live the remainder of your life with his continual, fervent denial of “any problem” and blaming YOU for the misery that he feels. Rages, hurtful words, anger. That is when I started to read online that I was not alone.I found a forum that explained Personality Disorders for those of us who might have found ourselves loving a person with this mental illness. I realized I loved a mentally ill man.

As if I was experienced a foreshadowing, I circumvented information about BPD: Borderline Personality Disorder since I obviously did not know anyone who suffered from that insidious disease, or I hadn't until 6 months after reuniting with my first love, it was then that I realized that I did know someone. I loved someone and I lived with someone who suffered from Borderline Personality Disorder. I didn't want to believe how deeply dark and painful it was for the sufferer or their loved ones; I clung to the hope that “with DBT therapy there was a promising prognosis of living an healthy and happy life”. But that is only offered to those who suffer with mental illness who will accept and acknowledge their pain and face their emotional dysregulation, impulsivity, rages, black and white thinking (splitting), projection, fear of abandonment and fear of intimacy and so many other very notable and outstanding symptoms of mental illness.

My dream certainly came true. It was wonderful; for a short time. Our love was real and it was the best love that we had ever had known. It was also the rearing of the head of mental illness; that had happened so many years ago, returning to turn our dream come true into a nightmare. Nonetheless, our dream came true and then it died. It is better, even yet, to have a dream come true and turn into a nightmare, than never to have had your heartfelt dream come true at all. I am glad that my dream came true. 

I still believe in dreams. 

Accepting life as it comes

When we are pushed to the edge our our ability, resourcefulness and physical endurance; we have to sometimes stop trying to “make things right” and accept that life will go on; whether we like it or not. We feel helpless. We feel that we fail ourselves and others. We feel alone and confused yet we ask ourselves “What can I do?”. Sometimes, the answer to that may be “nothing” while most of the time, it just may be “more than I could have ever imagined”.

I remember feeling at a loss; grieving for a loved one whom I could not care for: my mother, my stillborn child, several friends whom I would have preferred to “be with” at the end of their lives; in hopes that I could do something to make a difference in their lives like they had made in mine. I remember feeling a sense of obligation; I wanted to be there for them. I wanted to hold their hand and comfort them at their hardest moments. I wanted to be a blessing to them and share my gratitude to how they affected my life; how much difference they made in the world; and in mine.

• Sometimes we “just can’t do” the thing that we would like most to do. 

• We would like to “be strong” when others are weak and most of the time, we feel weak as well. 

• Sometimes we would like to “be happy” when we sense negativity, but then again, for some reason, we get caught up in the same moodiness and can’t seem to “put on a happy face”. 

• Sometimes we would like to be wise and have the answers that others ask for but really do not want to hear.

• We struggle in sharing our experience and only hope that they would take from our example, that it is better to “get messy and make mistakes” as long as we are being true to ourselves more than anything else.

Accepting that we have a great need to "find ourselves, heal from abuse and learn to dream again" is the BEST thing for us to accept; let's start there. 

We are worth it!!!

Journey to myself

"I'm NOT lost, 

why do I need to FIND MYSELF?"

For many years, even while not knowing that I am and was at the time, an introvert, I was always curious about my life. Curious about how I felt and what I thought. I was always asking myself, "DO I KNOW MYSELF?" This quote by Herman Heese "Each man's life represents a journey to Himself"...speaks to me...

what about you???

What has this world become??? A place where when we "think of ourselves", we are being "selfish" and "conceited" or "self-absorbed"? ...and then we travel quickly to the extreme of lacking "self-awareness, self-insight and focus and purpose" in our lives. We become our own WORST ENEMY...Life must be (and if it isn't it should BECOME) the MOST WONDERFUL ADVENTURE and even though the GREATEST JOURNEY that we can ever embark upon is the "journey to ourselves", there are ROADBLOCKS to face and tear down.

One roadblock is when The SELF is not a constant presence in our lives. Due to mental illness or abuse; a disconnect has occurred between a person's SELF and their identity of themselves in this world. We can focus on becoming someone and MISS the mark of BECOMING the "BEST ME" that we can be. We are not looking for our selves because we do not KNOW that we are lost...

I have often thought that we have been AFRAID to face ourselves, that maybe we were not interested in learning more about ourselves because the little bit that we did know, did not intrigue us or draw us into learning more about ourselves. Maybe we didn't want to know anymore because the people who we haphazardly have become, are not people we would even want to know. This is tragic.

And then we know that ABUSE has left us with pain and damage to our SELVES that has changed how we are able to look at life and our selves. It hurts. We feel actually pain in "body memories" and even "flashbacks". The journey to our selves become like a path riddled with weeds and poisonous spiders and creatures that can further hurt us. We don't want to be hurt, so we do not "go there".

Whatever the reason; it is little more than an excuse to not "Live WILDLY, FULLY and FREELY and OVER the TOP". Don't "give up" on yourself or neglect to invest in your own life. No matter what is done to us in this world, should NOT be allowed to stop us from "finding ourselves, healing from abuse and learning to dream again". Not now, not ever.

We are worth it!!! 

What money can't buy...

Money can't buy: 

• happiness
• peace of mind
• health
• joy
• comfort 
• friendship
• true love
• and so much more...

Sometimes we don't know how TRULY RICH we are until we meet someone who seems to "have money" and NOTHING else. They have no peace, joy, love, friendship, TRUE LOVE because; though they may "have money" they are the "poorest of the POOR"...they do not possess the WEALTH that cannot be bought because they do not "have themselves". 

Even when we are RICH mentally, emotionally and spiritually, may not realize that there are persons who are NOT AS WEALTHY as we are...and they cannot purchase what we have with all the money in the world...only TRUE wealth can acquire for us.

I have immeasurable wealth and resources that supply more than what I need each day. I am a genuine example of a person who is "Singing a New Song". I am a loving, intelligent and VERY vital woman who LOVES wholeheartedly, LIVES life fully and freely, ACCEPTS and LOVES MYSELF because I "know who I am". How did I get HERE??? I followed my heart; I "found myself, healed from abuse and learned to dream again".

So when you look at your life; look at WHO you have rather than WHAT you have. WHAT you have will never "make up" for WHO you don't have, if you don't "have YOU". If you have YOU and I suspect that you do, you are RICH BEYOND MEASURE and it is about time that you realize it and start living your life in the RICHNESS that you deserve.

”If We Command Our Wealth, We Shall Be Rich And Free. 

If Our Wealth Commands Us. We Are Poor Indeed ” 

~ Edmund Burke ~