The Spiritual Law of Giving and Receiving

 

The spiritual law of giving and receiving is seriously out of balance in my life. It is attempting to balance out in equilibrium however, there are still some adjustments that need to be made.

I am a giver and therefore I am having to learn how to receive. As a female and as most females have been programmed and conditioned to give no matter if you have nothing left to give you still give, still do for others. Learning how to receive has been something that has been a process for me that has been occurring over the past two to three years now. The universe has been assisting my learning of how to receive and how to balance out the spiritual law of giving and receiving in my life. I have been placed in experiences where my only choice has been to receive. I cannot say that I have always been gracious about having to receive. Though, I have been grateful for receiving because in certain experiences I have needed to receive. When I say that I have not always been gracious about receiving it is because I seem to have this underlying sense of guilt and shame when it comes to receiving. More times than not I feel guilty and then feel shame because I have to receive. I feel like I have unnecessarily burdened someone else’s time, energy, and their life because they have had to change their life temporarily to accommodate me.

I think how I feel to be a giver. It makes me feel joyful and happy. Giving is something that I truly enjoy doing. I can remember all the times when I was growing up my mom quoting from the Bible where it says there is more happiness in giving than in receiving. This is something that programmed me and conditioned me to be resistant to receiving, to not allow receiving with grace, and without the burden of the feelings of guilt and shame. In order, for the spiritual law of giving and receiving to achieve balance in my life I have to get over and let go of my programming and conditioning and learn to receive without the feelings of guilt and shame.

There have been times that I have given when I have not wanted to and it did not make me feel joyful or happy. However, I did feel those same old feelings that I do with receiving of guilt and shame. I feel guilty and then shame that I did not feel willing to give but did so anyway. When I give when I do not feel like giving I am not being authentic because that kind of giving is not from a joyful and happy place within me. I am not being the truth of who I am when I do not honor myself by giving when I do not feel like giving. Somewhere inside me when I do not give when I think I should be giving there’s a voice often times, it’s my mothers voice telling what a selfish and ungrateful person I am. This is where my guilt and shame about giving when I do not feel like giving comes from, more programming and conditioning that I must work through. More thoughts, ideas, and feelings that I have to let go of because they do not serve me. These thoughts, ideas, and feelings that are not my own that were programmed and conditioned in me from childhood.

I am learning to give when it feels right to me and I am learning to say no when giving does not come from a joyful and happy place within without the not so complimentary feelings of guilt and shame. The spiritual law of giving and receiving is still working to become a balanced equation in my life. As, I become a better version of my previous self I am learning to honor my own feelings. I am learning that other people also enjoy giving because it too makes them feel joyful and happy to be able to give. I am slowly learning how to receive with joy and happiness. I am slowly learning to say no when I do not feel like giving honoring my own feelings and being more authentic with myself and others.

To balance out the equation of the spiritual law of giving and receiving, I will need to be able to give and receive with the same energy of joy and happiness. It is my goal to reach, achieve, and maintain this balance of giving and receiving in my life.

The Freedom to Choose Something Different

We are now nine days into this brand new year of 2018 and I received an email this morning from this site that I have used in the past to take online courses, they were advertising a course called The Freedom to Choose Something Different. Just the name of this course changes my vibration to something higher because I have simply forgotten that I have the freedom to choose something different. I have not written a blog post in a few months because I have gotten bogged down with issues going on in my own life. This email was a reminder to me that I do have the freedom to choose something different. I have allowed all the issues going on in my life to change my personal vibration to where it is lower and thus I am attracting experiences into my life from this lower vibration set point that do not seem to be helpful to me on my journey. I had forgotten that I have the freedom to choose something different that I have the power to change my perspective, my attitude, and my personal vibration. I could proceed to list all these unhelpful experiences but really there is no need to dwell on these things as this will not help me to learn, to grow, to expand, and to evolve my personal vibration to something higher to where I will attract more helpful experiences to me.

When my life started to go in the opposite direction that I was headed I automatically went back to my conditioned and programmed ways of reacting to these types of experiences. I did this on an unconscious level and it was so automatic that I did not even realize that is what I had done until I received the email this morning with the course title. I know when my vibration set point changed and I know what event or series of events that led to the change in my vibrational set point and I know how my life experiences have gone since that point. I even know when I unconsciously slipped backed into my old conditioning and programming even though it was gradual type of slipping. However, the subtlety of this slipping was so gradual that I did not consciously grasp what was happening. The universe works in mysterious and wondrous of ways to get my attention so that I am able to change my vibration.

I am, once again, reminded of the Law of Attraction that like attracts like. When my life experience changed back in early September I was caught off guard by this change. I can see how this what I am going to call a glitch in my life experience threw me completely off my path. I, essentially fell back into this pattern of just existing in life. I am not sure if I would call this existing in life playing the role of victim or playing the role of surviving the best I knew how but more than likely it was a combination of both victim and survivor. This is a transitory state of being for me that I have been in and out of most of my life it is a state of being that has been comfortable for me to exist in. I am not saying that, that state of being is to my highest and best good however, it is a state of being where I can escape to whether consciously or unconsciously where I am on auto-pilot and I can exist without accepting responsibility and being accountable to me for me.

I have in the past few weeks, started to become of aware of how I had slipped back into this transitory state and became willing to see the cause and effect in my life and how it has altered my life experience to that of something I would of preferred it to not be. During those four months, I felt powerless and that I had to just accept things as they occurred. I had forgotten that I am a powerful co-creator in my own life and the experiences that I experience. Becoming aware of how I slipped back into this transitory state where I can escape my responsibility and accountability to me for me I am now at another cycle that has been reoccurring as a theme in my life. At this stage, when I realize completely through full awareness that I have slipped back into this transitory state I usually get angry at myself which in turn perpetuates yet another destructive cycle that allows me to still further not accept responsibility and be accountable for me to me. This self anger then deepens into guilt and shame which does not do me any good nor does it move me forward but keeps me stationary and stagnant.

I find myself at a choice point where I can either choose another comfortable yet destructive cycle that gets me nowhere fast or I can choose forgiveness of myself and all others involved. Since I am at this choice point I am in full awareness and fully conscious that I have the freedom to choose something different. I do not have to choose my second destructive cycle. I am allowed to choose forgiveness of myself and all others. Myself and all others can only make choices based upon their current level of consciousness and of awareness. If one is not aware and conscious of the cycles or themes that reoccur in their life then they do not ever arrive at the choice point to where they have the freedom to choose something different. I have not even touched on the fear that can be associated with the freedom to choose something different. I, myself, I am going to choose forgiveness of myself and others. I have already made the choice of forgiveness and I have been working through my forgiveness process for about a week now. It can be a difficult process for me because I have to remain aware and conscious of slipping back into that transitory state that is not to my highest and best good. I have to process all my emotions that have been acquired in that four month stretch where I unconsciously slipped back into that transitory state and trust me there were a lot and I have to be honest 99% were not healthy nor positive in nature. The process of forgiveness for me requires that I acknowledge my side of things including my thoughts, feelings, and actions. In that four month stretch I was not the best version of myself because I had slipped back into the old version of myself and well she’s not always a kind and loving person.

I choose to work through my process of forgiveness, to get myself out of the transitory state that is not to my highest and best good because I have the freedom to choose something different. I have the power to choose to raise my personal vibrational set point to where I am able to attract the positive experiences into my life that I desire to experience. I have the freedom to choose something different because I am the co-creator of my life. Different experiences require that I make changes and adjustments in my thinking and my feelings which will then cause action to take place and this where I am able to co-create my life from a higher vibrational set point. I believe that I will have to make the freedom to choose something different my mantra for this new year so that I do not forget that I have the freedom to choose a different way of being.

I hope that everyone who reads my post will enjoy it and realize that they too have the freedom to choose something different. We all have the power to change and adjust our life experiences to something that brings us more love, more peace, more gratitude, and more of anything that is at a higher vibration.

The Dance

 

I took the chance to dance the dance.
So what it did not end they way that I had hoped and that’s ok.
Sometimes it is just taking the chance to dance that dance…
To swirl and to twirl, it is beautiful!
For ever how long the music dares to play.
It does not matter how long the music plays and the dance lasts.
What matters is taking that dance and dancing until the music ceases to play.
Enjoying the dance in the moment.
Being present with the particular partner.
Each dancing their own dance.
Sometimes the pair get into a rhythm and movements are synchronized and complementary.
Sometimes the pair’s movements are in dissonance making the dance a tumble instead of a fluid movement.
Sometimes the pair are not able to move as one in unison and thus the dance ends before the music ceases to play.

Opening to New Experiences

I am now finding myself in a place where I am to open to new experiences in my life. I had stepped away from the dating game a little over two years ago. I knew that I wanted a different experience in regards to dating so, I had some healing to do and I had to make some changes to my life.

I have the opportunity to start dating someone again and I am open to it. I did not know when or if I would ever be open to dating anyone again. I find that I am excited about the possibility of dating someone. For most of my life, the idea of dating or being in relationship I had assigned negative beliefs towards. I did not know how many negative beliefs I had towards dating and relationships until I started to heal and make changes to my life.

I had always approached dating or relationships from a negative mind set meaning that I would have to give up my freedom, my independence, and myself. I would now have to conform to all these dating or relationship rituals that seemed so limiting and restricting to me. In my adult life I have dated here and there. I have had relationships here and there. Most of them short lived due to how confining they felt to me.

I married at the young age of 19. The marriage was not good. I married a military man who was deployed to Iraq and Kuwait four days after we were married. He was deployed for the next six months and when he came back he was different than when he left. Back in the early 90’s, PTSD was not as readily diagnosed in the military as it is now. Looking back I feel that he may of been struggling with PTSD. He would not allow me to work. We had only one vehicle and he would take it himself to get to work. He would not allow me to drive him to work in the morning. I was stuck at home all day long unless by chance a friend or family member came to pick up to go somewhere. However, if I did not answer the phone when he called during the day it would be an argument when he got home from work. He would have his friends over and they would drink and after he got enough alcohol in him begin to belittle me in front of his friends. As what happens often with the military we had to move. He was going to be in a school for the next 3 months in Millington, Tennessee. He insisted that I go with him because we had already had to be separated due to his deployment. I did not want to go. I told him I could stay with my parents or with other family while he was at this school.

We moved to Millington, Tennessee since we were only going to be there for 3 months we could not find a place to live without signing a lease for a year. He decided that we would stay in a hotel that had an efficiency type room with a kitchenette in it. He would leave for his school in the morning and would not get back “home” until the early morning hours. His schooling ended at 5 in the afternoon. Essentially, I felt trapped and quite literally I was trapped. I could only leave the hotel if he choose to take me somewhere which was not very often. He was rarely there so I could not leave unless he decided to come home and to take me somewhere.

After awhile I started trying to talk to him about this but all that did was lead to arguments. One of his favorite things to say to me in an argument was, “what are you going to do now you have no family around and it would take them over 20 hours to drive here to you.” Him saying this to me just further made me feel trapped and I also felt like I was being held prisoner by him. I was very unhappy and I became depressed. One time he came home around midnight the earliest he had come home since we had been there and I told him to give me the keys to his truck. He had been drinking so he gave me the keys to his truck and he asked me where I was going and when I would be back. I told him I did not where I was going and I did not know when I would be back but it would be in time for him to get to school in the morning. I drove in circles between Millington and Memphis for hours one because I could and two because I had to get out of that hotel. I got back to the hotel in time to wake him up so he could shower and go to his school. He asked me again where I had gone and what I had done. I told him I just drove in a circle between Millington and Memphis all night and then I asked him how he slept. He had told me he did not sleep well because he had been worried about me. I told him now you how it feels for me because this is what you do to me every day. I told him I felt like I was his prisoner and not his wife.

Things between him and I continued to go down hill to the point where he slapped me in my face. I picked up the phone and had dialed 9-1 and was about to dial the last 1 when he begged me not to complete the call told me he was sorry and he would not ever a lay a hand on me like that again. I hung up the phone because I wanted to believe him. Well, as you can guess he slapped me in my face three more times. One of the last times that he did I fought back. I had been raised with my mother telling my sister and I to never allow a man to hit us and get away with it. I punched him in his face which he allowed once without defending himself. When I went to punch him again he defended himself he tackled me face down on the floor and I was good and angry now so I crawled out from underneath him. I had somehow gotten a hold of a pocket knife and opened the blade so when he came after me again I was prepared to defend myself. I came really close to stabbing him in the heart. He was taunting me to do it too. He kept telling me do it! You know you want to! I had swung back to stab him and I stopped myself just before making contact with his skin. I told him you are right I do want to do it but you are not worth me spending the rest of my life in prison for. I dropped the knife and I walked out of the room.

My biological father had wanted to come to see me and to visit Elvis Presley’s house in Memphis. When my biological father got to Millington I told him I would be leaving with him when he left. I had packed all my belongings a couple days prior to his arrival. I could not take all of my belongings with me due to having a limited amount of space in his vehicle. He had asked me why I was leaving my husband and I told him if I stayed that one of us would be dead and the other one would be in prison. So, I left when I had the opportunity to leave.

I feel that many of my fears and negative beliefs about dating and relationships came from the experience I had with my ex-husband. When I left my ex-husband I had told myself I would never allow myself to be put into that kind of situation again. Anytime a relationship I was in started to get serious I was gone. I could not forget the experiences I had with my ex-husband. The experiences I had with my ex-husband were traumatic and scarred me deeper than I had imagined.

After my divorce was legal I was leery of becoming to closely involved with anyone. I shut down after my divorce preferring to keep most men at arms length not allowing anyone to get to close to me. I had fears from my marriage that until I started healing my life and making changes that I was unaware of how they impacted me and my ability to make healthy connections to men. I have managed to release many of my fears and my beliefs about a relationship with a man. I have worked hard on changing my belief systems and my thought processes in regards to relationships.

While, I still love, my freedom and my independence I now believe I do not have to give up either to be in a relationship with a man. I do not believe that being in a relationship with a man has to be confining, limiting, and restricting. Love is infinite it is not confining, limiting, and restricting. Love is love and it’s power to heal and uplift is amazing. Love has no limits, no restrictions, no boundaries. Love is limitless and it is unconditional and it’s a state of being it not dependent on some other person or object….it just is!

I am now in a space where it is my choice to allow a new experience into my life with a man. I am open and excited about the possibilities. I am finding that I am not concerned about where this new experience will go but I am willing to allow it to unfold in whatever way it is meant to unfold. I look forward to each encounter that is happening in this experience and I am enjoying it. This experience feels good to me and I am grateful that I made the choice to heal my life and make changes to my life over two years ago so that I could be at this space where I am able to enjoy this experience. The whole dating and relationship thing had not ever been something I enjoyed it always seemed like a necessary evil to me. It feels good to me to be at a space where I can enjoy, open, and enjoy this new experience with joy and peace within me. This something I have not ever experienced in my lifetime.

Wandering into New Experiences

Wandering into new experiences with eyes wide open and soul exposed.
Taking chances and stepping into the unknown.
Am I ready for this? For sure I do not know.
A feeling of vulnerability with the edge of excitement.
Leaping anyway with no expectations and not knowing the outcome.
What could be who knows it’s the leap into the unknown that counts.
The conquering of outdated fears and the release of all the old.
Ready for a new beginning in the same timelines.
Reborn, rising from the ashes.
Moving forward in new directions.
Wandering into new experiences with eyes wide open and soul exposed.

Self Sabotage

Yesterday, I was involved in a group conversation that was discussing both self sabotage and resistance. As I was sitting there listening to others talk about how they self sabotage and are resistant to areas of their lives I was mentally going through the areas of my life where I have currently been self sabotaging and resisting. Self sabotage is just another way to resist changes in my life.

Months ago, I had someone tell me that while going through changes I needed to learn to be gentle with myself. I had someone else tell me that I could ask for ease and grace while I was making transformations in my life. Being gentle with myself was a foreign concept to me. Never in my life had anyone told me that I was allowed to be gentle with myself. Never would it of crossed my mind to ask for ease and grace through various transformations in my life either. This was totally new information to me and far different than anything I had ever heard in my life but still it caused me stop and think I am allowed to be gentle with myself and I am allowed to ask for ease and grace, really? The be gentle with myself and the asking for ease and grace were tidbits of information given to me months apart. I had been working on the gentleness towards myself especially in the moments of self sabotage and resistance but the whole idea of being able to ask for ease and grace kind of threw me. In my experience, nothing ever changed for me without struggle and pain, without determination and perseverance, and without difficulties and setbacks. I had expected change to be full of struggle and pain, and full of difficulties and setbacks and because that is what I expected that is how I experienced change. Determination and perseverance is something that all change requires.

Self sabotaging behaviors is something that everyone experiences in their lives. It does not discriminate on gender, age, race, socioeconomic status, or religious preferences. It is a universal quality that effects all humans on this planet Earth. So, what if, I decided to change to being gentle with myself when I had gone back to my cycles of self sabotage. What if, I decided to ask for ease and grace in these cycles of self sabotage. Maybe it was time for me to apply these new tidbits of information that I have received to my cycles of self sabotage and see if something different would happen than what I have always experienced.

From this, group discussion that I was involved in yesterday I realized that self talk when we are in cycles of self sabotage are pretty much the same for all. I felt myself thinking to myself yep all of this self talk they’re talking about sounds so familiar to me because it was similar to my own self talk. I had been working on being gentle with myself during my own cycles of self sabotage because well, I deserved my own gentleness to myself. I am finding that when I chose gentleness with myself in the cycles of self sabotage they do not last as long and I do not spiral down to the point of self-loathing and self-hate.

The odd thing during this group discussion one topic kept coming up. The topic was unconditional love for ourselves. This is another topic for another time. Just let the concept of unconditional self love sit within for awhile.

Becoming a Better Version of Myself

It is my goal and my desire to become a better version of who I am currently. This is a goal and a desire that I have consciously been working on now for about three years. I am finding that I have had some themes that have been running in my life for the majority of my life. These themes, I am learning that I have either consciously or unconsciously been a willing participant in the continuation of them.

Three years ago, when I began to heal my life I really did not know what I was getting into. I did not fully understand how throughly conditioned and programmed I had allowed myself to become over the course of my life. I did not fully understand the strength of the belief systems that I was born into and so easily had adopted as my own.

The past three years of my life, has been full of many ups and downs and twists and turns, not to mention all those loops. At times, I felt I was on a roller coaster ride and for the most part this ride has not been the fun, exhilarating like people experience when riding an actual roller coaster. I have ridden a few roller coasters in my life and I do not find them fun nor exhilarating. I have more fun watching those that love riding them ride them than I do being a rider of them.

Now, I find that I am at yet another big theme that has been present for most of my adult life. Let me be honest here it has been a theme my entire adulthood and more than likely a theme that started in my teens. This theme is my weight. I have been one of those that have spent time going to the gym with periods of not going to the gym. I have been on diets and my weight has been up and down and all the versions in between the two. I have body image issues that started when I was teenager. My family made fun of the fact that I was late bloomer in the breast department compared to my sister who was an early bloomer. My thighs were too big. My feet were too big. I had a bubble butt. These were all in relation to being compared to my mother and sister. I felt like an anomaly because I was taller, had bigger feet, a bubble butt, and bigger thighs in comparison to my mother and my sister. As a teen and most of my adulthood it always made me feel that I was not acceptable as I was that I was not enough as I was. I can remember wanting to be someone else who was more acceptable and was enough so that I was not the subject of their dismay. I got to the point where I realized I could not change my height and I could not change the size of my feet. I had to accept those things about myself because they are not a changeable variable.

My weight is something that is a changeable variable. I can either remain the size that I am now or I can make the choice to lose weight. I have been going to the gym since September of last year. At first, I was all excited about being in the gym again. It had been over three years since I was last able to be in the gym. I was just happy to be on a piece of equipment working up my sweat and feeling it run down my body. In the first couple of months I lost about 14 pounds and I was feeling good. Then, people started noticing I was losing weight and started telling me. My bubble of being at the gym was burst. Most people when they are working out and losing weight are so happy when people notice that they are losing weight apparently, I am not most people because this is the point in which I hit an ego trigger. This is where I resist my own process and I halt all progress towards the goal of losing weight. This has been something that I had noticed several years ago that when anyone noticed I was losing weight I would automatically stop and go back to doing what I was doing prior to losing any weight. I would put the lost weight back on plus a little more.

This happened just a couple months after starting to go to gym again. For a couple of months I went back to my old behavior and just stopped everything I was doing. I went back to my old way of eating and I put the weight I had lost back on plus a little more. However, because I know that this is an old pattern that I fall into and fell into for a couple of months I felt I had to delve a little deeper into this this old pattern of behavior. I had to start questioning myself about how someone telling me that I am losing weight triggers me to halt all progress and how I resist making the changes that I desire to make. Like I said, for a couple of months I stopped doing all the things I had been doing. I could feel a physical difference in my energy with not eating a cleaner diet and not drinking enough water. I noticed how my thoughts were not as clear and how my joy, peace, and happiness were now less. I was not sleeping as deeply and as soundly. My emotions and moods seemed to fluctuate more towards the negative than the positive. Everything thing felt heavier to me not to mention that once again my body weight was back to where it was plus a few pounds. I stayed in that place for a couple of months even with all the awareness all of the effects that were not so positive.

For the past three and half weeks, I have been reframing my thoughts and feelings about my desires and my goals to becoming a better version of who I am currently. I am learning to accept myself as I am now with the knowledge and belief that it is my choice to either stay how I am now or transform into a better version. It is totally up to me to transform my body from what it is currently and it has always been up to me. It is my responsibility to myself to work through my triggers and my resistances to become a better version of who I am currently.

I have been reading and researching about people who have made total body transformations. I have had to shift through a lot of those because some of them have had the bariatric surgeries. Bariatric surgery is not an option that feels right for me so I just skim over those transformations. I am not at a weight where that kind of intervention is needed for me. I have had to get over a fear that I had of weight lifting which was I did not want to become big and bulky like a man. I simply lack the correct amount of hormones that would allow me to get the size of man from lifting weights. Whew! One excuse for not lifting weight taken off my shoulders. I have been researching the benefits of women lifting heavy weights and the benefits outweigh any excuse that I can come up with to not improve my strength. When I first started back at the gym in September of last year, my main goal was I wanted to lose weight. I have in the past three and half weeks reframed that goal to the goal of I want to gain strength and lose fat, so losing weight is off my goal list. A pound of fat and a pound of muscle weigh the same a pound. The difference is that pound of muscle takes up less room than that pound of fat.

Three and half weeks later, I have gained over an inch in my arms, hips, and thighs plus I have gained weight of plus 10-15 pounds. This has been another trigger point for me. I have been working hard in the gym and I find out I am getting bigger not smaller but still have people come up and tell me it looks like I have lost weight. Some people do gain muscle faster than others however, this maybe true for me but I also know that I have yet to fully commit to my diet. The diet that was suggested to me was high protein, low carbs 50 or less a day, and quality fats. This kind of diet will put my body into ketosis which will burn fat faster. I read an article that states that the body can go into ketosis in two days of this kind of diet. So, what’s my issue with full commitment I am still having to overcome ego triggers and resistances. My current ego trigger is that losing a lot of weight quickly will therefore cause me to have a lot of loose saggy skin that is often a side effect seen in those who have had bariatric surgeries. I know people who have done those surgeries and I know that they have the loose saggy skin to contend with and I have read the stories of all the issues that come with the loose saggy skin. Allowing my body to go into ketosis is going to cause my body to burn fat which does not necessarily mean that my weight will have a dramatic decrease instead I will be losing fat which does not necessarily mean that I will have excessive saggy loose skin. I am working my way through that way of thinking and getting closer to being fully committed to the diet aspect of becoming a better version of myself.

Safe and Easy Choices, The Comfort Zone

I have been taking choices I have made into consideration lately. I can come up with numerous reasons or excuses that allow me to justify the safe and easy choices I have made, that allow me to stay completely in my comfort zone.

In this space of safe and easy choices, this comfort zone, I have become complacent. In this state of complacency I am able to justify the choices that I have made. Being in this space of safe and easy choices, this comfort zone I can be here with no growth, no expectations, no learning, no expansion, and no evolution of my soul. I do not know how long I have been in this space of safe and easy choices, this comfort zone but I do know that I have become a little too comfortable being here.

I was not aware that I was in this space until I was composing an email to a friend this morning. I was hit with an awareness that after I sent the email that I have slipped into this comfort zone making these safe and easy choices that I was able to justify. Even as I was composing the email, I was aware that I was justifying my safe and easy choices that I have been making that allowed me to become comfortable in my comfort zone. After I sent the email, I realized then that I had slipped into this comfort zone this place of safe and easy choices.

I am starting to question myself about the choices I have been making and I realized that even though this comfort zone and this space of safe and easy choices is not serving me to my highest and best good, I have become comfortable, entirely too comfortable in this space. I made a choice three years ago to start healing my life. I made the choice to not be in a relationship with anyone until I had healed my life. Previously, I engaged in hopping from one relationship to the next without healing my life in anyway in between these hops. I was carrying the baggage of the last relationship into the next one and the one after that and so on and so on. I had gotten into the habit of only giving so much of myself in a relationship to barely giving any of myself to a relationship. I did not care if the relationship lasted or not because there are always plenty of fish in the sea and onward to the next person. This was a cycle that I wanted to break because I was attracting the same types of men and the same types relationships. This cycle, I was in, was definitely not serving me and definitely not to my highest and best good. It only made me feel worse about myself and my self-esteem and self-worth was rock bottom to the point that I did not know if I would ever get them back.

I decided I needed to make some radical changes to my life. I stopped talking to all the men that I was talking to. I blocked and deleted numerous men out of my phone. In fact, I blocked and deleted all males out of my phone except family members. I deleted all the accounts on the social media dating sites that I had joined. I paid careful attention to interactions with men that I had so that I did not relay or express an interest. I made sure that males that I would talk to knew that I was not interested in any type of relationship no matter what label could be created to label it. I knew I needed to start healing my life because I knew that I wanted a relationship that was unlike any relationship that I have had in my past. I knew that I did not want another relationship like what I had been experiencing to date.

I kept attracting relationships with men that reflected all the unhealthy and unhealed places within me. I knew that to attract the kind of relationship with a man that I desired I had to heal my life. The Law of Attraction states that like attracts like and I was attracting relationships with men that reflected to me all the places within myself that were unhealed. Before I started healing my life I had felt that I was not meant to have a loving relationship with a man, that I would only be used, abused, and kicked to the curb when they were done with me. This was part of the conditioning and programming that I received from my mother growing up. My mother started telling me when I was a teen that I was the type of girl that men would use, abuse, and kick to the curb when they got what they wanted from me. This was a belief that was deeply engrained in me. Unconsciously, I sought out men who would treat me this way and I found them and they found me. This was a belief that I had to overcome because it was strongly rooted within me and I had tons of proof that this belief was a “truth” for me. Even though, for many years, I did not fully see how the belief that was stated to me over and over as a teen and a young adult impacted the choices in men that I chose to be in relationships with.

Since, I knew that I desired a different type of experience in a relationship with a man, that was different than I have experienced I sought to heal my life. However, I am finding that I am now in this comfort zone of being single that is safe and easy for me to be in. In my early adulthood and up until about three years ago I never enjoyed being single. I did not care how I was treated as long as I did not have to be single for too long. In fact, I would be looking for my next relationship while in a current relationship. I knew the relationship would be ending soon and I wanted to have someone lined up already so that I would not have to be single for long if at all. At some points, I was having relationships with two or more people at the same time. I figured it had to be the way to navigate relationships because that is what I saw so many people doing. So, I told myself since you can beat them might as well join them. I never quiet got the hang of multitasking multiple relationships. I knew I was not being truthful with anyone including myself. I would break it off with men because I had caught them in lies but I was doing the exact same thing.

For a long time, I have been justifying why I have chosen to remain single. Believe me I can come up with tons of reasons and excuses to remain single. I love my freedom. I love not having to answer to anyone. I love being able to come and go as I please. I love not having the restrictions and limits, constraints and constructs that occur in a relationship placed on me. These are all pluses to me. I think about all the people I know that remain in relationships that do not challenge them to grow, to learn, to expand, and to evolve as souls, all the people that enter into or stay in relationships that are safe and easy, in their comfort zone. I see how these people are not truly happy but opt to stay within their status quo, in their comfort zone of life being safe and easy even though it does not serve their highest and best good. This still serves to further my ability to justify reasons and excuses that keep me from being willing to want a relationship. I desire a relationship where I am challenged to grow, to learn, to expand, and to evolve my soul. A relationship where I am pushed to heal all the unhealed parts of me. A relationship that will always continue to challenge and to push me to become a better version of who I am currently. I know that to attract that type of relationship I have to have that type of relationship with myself because the Law of Attraction states that like attracts like. Being in this place of safe and easy, my comfort zone that I have become far too comfortable being in I am not doing these things that I wish to attract for myself. Another crossroad and choice point….it is time to move from my place of safe and easy, my comfort zone to all the unexplored territory that I have yet to explore within me.

Abuse

I have decided that enough is enough and I have to take stand against abuse perpetrated against myself and my own. I will no longer be an active participant in the cycle of abuse either knowingly or unknowingly. Abuse in its many forms is a cycle that gets repeated generation after generation. There are many forms of abuse and I have experienced all of them in this lifetime. Those that are abused become abusers in some way either they self-abuse or abuse others or they do both.

There is a saying that children learn what they live. For those children, who grow up in homes where abuse is practiced they learn that abuse is the norm for them. This sets them up for many difficult experiences and situations that will occur in their lives. They grow up with a shattered, distorted view of people and the world at large. They shut down to a certain extent to survive in a world they do not understand.

In hindsight, I can see how being abused as a child has affected my life and the choices that I made prior to starting my journey into healing my life. Abuse of some sort was my norm. It has affected how I lived my life through most of my adulthood. It has affected all relationships I have had whether friendships or intimate relationships. Last week, I discussed how it affected my relationships with my siblings. I have been both the abused and the abuser in any given relationship I have had since I turned 18.

When I turned 18, my mother went to hit me and I told her if she did I would call the cops and have her arrested for assault because I was 18, the legal age of an adult. She has not hit me since either. Last week, she went after my daughter and I told her, not in these exact words but if she touched my daughter I would punch her in the face. I was very calm when I said this because I had made it up in my mind that I was done with me or my own being abused by this woman, by anyone period. I knew that I would follow through with what I said, it was not a threat. My mother she backed off just like she did when I was 18 because she also knew what I said was not a threat but an event that would happen.

I work in a domestic violence program and I have for several months now. It surprised me to learn, after a couple of days that my entire life thus far has been nothing but living in domestic violence. As I was training, for my job it hit me that all the training I received was the story of my life. What I grew up with was my norm and I knew that it was abuse but I was able to deny it to some extent. Working with the domestic violence program I was now no longer able to deny the abuse that I have experienced in my life. My childhood has been surfacing and the relationships and friendships in my adulthood has been surfacing and all the feelings that come along with all of it all coming up to the surface. In the beginning it was a lot to process. There have been times when I have cried, when I have been moody, when I have been angry, when I have shut down a little, and when I have withdrawn. It has been a roller coaster ride of emotions and I feel like now I am a point where it is all starting to level off. I am working my way through all these multitudes of emotions, making my peace with it all.

For many years, I played the role of victim. Then the role of victim started to annoy me because I did not want people to feel sorry for what happened to me, I wanted them to just understand. Now, because I wanted people to understand I believe I wanted compassion because I did not want sympathy. I began to identify with the role of survivor. In the role of survivor, I was like I made it, I survived and I felt like I had accomplished something just because I survived an abusive childhood. Lately, I have been starting to identify with another role, this is the role of warrior. The role of warrior is still developing within me and it will be a future post.

Abuse, has been a major theme in my life this lifetime. It has affected my life in many ways and generally not for the better. However, I have now said I will no longer participate in abusive cycles. I will no longer accept or allow abuse in any form in my life. I have reached the point where enough is enough. I have taken a stand once again for myself and now my own and I am allowing this identity of the warrior to develop within me. Let me phrase that to a peaceful warrior and I am eager to see the journey that will unfold for me with this new role of peaceful warrior.

Abuse is no longer a living part of my story. Abuse however, is an experience that I experienced in this lifetime. It is history and in my past. The events of abuse happened to me and I no longer have to be a participant and it will not be a part of my present nor my future.

Connections

I have been thinking about connections this week. As sentient beings, we need connections to others and within these connections there are exchanges of energy that take place. These exchanges can either make us feel energized or they can drain us, make us feel exhausted.

I have been having connections with members of my family and these connections did make me feel energized. They had a healing quality for me. It was nice to be able to have conversations that were sort of commiserating with my siblings. Each of us, of course, have our own perspective and interpretation of our experiences of our childhood, however there was one aspect that remained the same for each of us. We had a common aspect that we all shared during our childhood years.

Usually, going back into the history of my childhood is not a pleasant experience for me. I would seem to of, on some level re-live these experiences and re-live the emotions of these experiences that I had as a child, this did not happen as much this time. For me, over the past month or so my childhood as been coming up for review. So, commiserating or reminiscing with my siblings and listening to their perspective or interpretation of our experiences allowed me to see the connections that exist between us. My siblings and I, share a common bond and though each of us have a different perspective and interpretation of the experiences of our childhood it showed me that we are all connected.

We grew up in a home filled with abuses of various sorts. Our mother, wanted us to be divided and pitted us against one another. So, as a child and the majority of my adulthood I did not feel connected to my siblings. Even though, we share a bond of being abused as children, I did not feel connected to my siblings. I can only speak for myself, so, I do not know that they feel the same as me. Over the past several days, with all the conversations that have been had I would tend to say they felt the same way as I did, however, I will only speak for myself.

Each of us, have our own process to go through to heal from our childhood experiences. I can see how our childhood has shaped how we relate to each other now, as adults. My choice is forgiveness and compassion for myself, for them, and for our mother. As, I have had conversations with my siblings about the abuses we endured by our mother and how she sought to divide us so that we grew up not liking each other, I see that healing, forgiveness, and compassion are very much needed.

This week, I attempted to facilitate a meeting between us to discuss a family matter that quickly blew up and I went back into, briefly, the role that I had as a child when things got heated in our family, of being a victim. It only lasted a short time, until I realized that I am not responsible nor accountable for the actions that either of my siblings take they are responsible and accountable for their own actions. I acted in good faith to try to unite us for a common cause for this particular family matter. However, my choice is still forgiveness and the learning of compassion because we all shared the same childhood though we have individual perspectives and interpretations of the events that happened to us.

My hope, is that we, as siblings who grew up divided and not liking each other will change over time. Perhaps, now is not the time for us to reconnect as siblings and at some point down the road a connection that unites us instead of further dividing us will happen. We do not have to choose to stay divided and not liking each other we can choose to unite through forgiveness and compassion. For now, I will have a relationship or connection with each of my siblings on the terms that now stand and hope that we will at some point down the road choose to be united through forgiveness, compassion, and understanding of our shared experiences and how this shaped our connection to each other as adults. We do not have to chose to remain how we are now. At any given time we can choose to rise above our childhood and our upbringing.