Forgiving Our Selves

Being raised a good Catholic girl, the idea that I was born ba impacted the way I viewed my self.  As a Catholic I was taught to believe in original sin.  I was conditioned to think of myself as a sinners, rather than a holy and divine expression of source.

I used to wonder how it was that I could be held accountable for the sins of Adam and Eve. Something never sat quite right with me. The programming I received while attending Catholic school made it difficult to connect to the idea that I had a right to question what I was being conditioned to believe, not only about god, but about my self, as well as my relation to all that is.

Feeling like I was flawed never left me.  I was damaged good from the moment I entered this physical space.

 I now understand that most of what I had been taught about my faith was  the result of others interpretations.  Rather than being taught to  believe in my own goodness, I was taught to identify with the notion that I was born wrong.  Goodness was not something that existed in me.  It was something instead, I needed to achieve.

The wisdom that only pain can teach has taught me to question everything.

 I now know that much of what I had learned as a child was sadly misconstrued.  The truth is, I was always good, divine, and holy. And in fact, so it is also for you.

If we ever believed we were flawed, it was because the minds that raises us did  not think correctly.

We believed what we did because of how our caretakers taught us to think.

We interpret our environment much the way we do, because we have been conditioned to believe in others perceptions.

Healing the body cannot take place without first healing the mind.

Healing requires much forgiveness, and it should start with forgiving those who taught you to believe you were born with original sin, and thus somehow infected you with the notion that you were not 'good enough'.

If you ever felt less 'than' because you believed you entered this world flawed, forgive that feeling and then let it go. You were created out of perfection.  Original sin has more to do with mans self alienation as the result of faulty childhood programming and tainted perceptions than it does with precious newborn babies.

At your core, you my friend are perfect, divine and holy.  You are connected to the divinity that is responsible for every creation, including every star, every moon, and every planet in the cosmos.

Love your 'self' regardless of who and what you think you are.  Instead consume your mind with the idea that your true inner self is divine in spite of who and what others have mislead you to believe you are.

Milk this idea until your heart space opens up and fills you with feelings of contentment, acceptance, surrender and joy.

Namaste....

Your Mirror

One of the most interesting things you can do in your life is pass a mirror.  

Sounds simple enough right?  I mean how many times have you done just that, pass a mirror?

The next time you do so I would like you try something different.  The next time you pass a mirror, look.  Look into the complete reflection staring back at you.  Look at the colors in your eyes, the shape of your face, the line of your jaw.  Look at your neck, your chest, and absorb what the world sees.  

Then I want you to listen.  Listen to what your mind says to you when you first catch that glimpse.  What does it say?  Can you hear it?  Does your mind compliment you, or does it criticize you?  Do you hear language that encourages you or minimizes you?  Are you hearing your mind be kind or are you hearing an abusive form of language?

We don't often take the time to hear our own thoughts, and that is the problem.  Most of us are listening to faulty negative programming all day long, yet we are unaware of it.  We hear ourselves tell us we are stupid, ugly, fat, disgusting, or old.  Our thoughts, gone unchecked reinforce old thought patterns perhaps we adopted in childhood.  Because we were never taught to listen to our thoughts, over and over negative thoughts get laid down like roads in our minds.

It is time to unlearn.  If you are reading this, you probably already know what I mean.  Thought processes are simply learned.  You can change your mind, and the language in your head, but first you must hear it.

Don't Blame God

So often when misfortune comes our way, we humans tend to ask that one question; "Why did God do this to me?"

The fact is, God didn't DO anything to you.  God isn't some guy standing up inside the clouds looking down on you with some huge indexed notebook jotting notes about how good a human you are or not.  God doesn't have time for that stuff.

When I was a little girl, I was raised to believe God would punish me if I lied or missed mass on Sunday.  I was terrified of God.  I was conditioned to think that God was watching every move I made.  I felt followed and uneasy most of the time.  When I got a little older I began using my mind, the mind God gave me to question what I had been programmed to believe. 

I grew up hearing people say things like, "See, you fell.  God is punishing you", or " Her baby is sick? Oh that is because she had that affair two years ago with the mailman".  These comments were common, and they truly effected me.  I was taught that God was someone to fear, who could not understand what it was to be human.  How cruel God was then, to create me to be human, then to judge me so harshly.  I did not like God.

Disconnected from the image that God had been taught to be, I rummaged through life aimlessly, although I believed I had direction.  After about 3 decades my life began unraveling at the seams.  I found myself lost and without hope.  That was until I began to discover on my own, who God really was.

As my marriage began crumbling, so did every aspect of my life.  As word of my divorce began to spread, neighbors turned their backs when they saw me and even my own family refused to understand.  In addition, my in laws began a smear campaign against me and my husband full of anger set out to destroy me mentally and financially.  My children were simply caught in the crossfire.  I however, felt as if I had a huge red cross on my forehead that screamed to be shot at.  I felt raw.

When people began walking away from me, I found myself oddly comforted by their absence.  It seemed as if when they turned from me, they also took their toxic emotions with them.  Without their negative energy in my life, I found myself hearing my own voice for the very first time.

Obsessive Compulsions My Only Friends

I was a loner. I don't believe that I was born to be a loner. I adore others today. I thrive through connections. I don't even know you, but I am so happy and literally covered in thrill bumps anticipating my words floating through your creative mind.

I know now I was created, or at least the behaviors I manifested were created by those who cared for me. My caretakers molded my ideas of the world and sadly my ideas of my own Self.

My parents were not very faithful people. They were strongly bound to ideas like small rocks are caught up in large clumps of concrete. If my father couldn't see it, it wasn't real.

My mother spoke of God often, but I wondered if her beliefs stemmed from faith or the absoluteness of the words she found in ink on the pages of the bible. In my opinion, believing only in what is written in ink, and lacking the ability to have faith in ideas alone, has nothing to do with faith at all.

I believe I was cheated as a little girl. I believe that I was supposed to be held, nurtured, babied, cooed at, kissed, and looked at fondly. I believe my eyes were supposed to meet the eyes of validation, and connectedness. I believe I was supposed to be encouraged to play, and to get dirty, and to laugh until my belly hurt, unconcerned with how others would judge me for my free spirit. I believe that my natural curiosity was supposed to be encouraged, and that when I made a mistake, I was supposed to be gently motivated to be better.

But in my world, instead I was taught to be small, to be invisible and to go away.

Human connection was as prickly as sleeping in a bed of bees.

The only aspect of my existence that felt remotely comfortable was making myself small, feeling invisible, and getting out of the way.

In those moments, when life become too painful to tolerate, I would count numbers in my mind, pull hairs from my head, and fantasize about being loved.

I shutter to think what might have happened to me, if I had not found the rocking arms of OCD.

The Unspoken Rules That Created My Beliefs

It is uncomfortable for me to write sometimes. I feel myself recoiling from wanting to write my truth. I can feel guilt wanting to make me stop, and go make another cup of coffee, because I know that much of what I write about my childhood is so negative, and sometimes hard to believe.

Much of what I experienced with my mother was in private. The dysfunction played out like a secret production. She and I were the only performers. Through my third eye, or what most would refer to the eyes of self awareness, I see now that I was simply a manifestation of all the nervous, disappointed, frustrated, angry, disillusioned, self loathing energy that was truly her own.

My mother was an abandoned, neglected, emotionally and psychologically starved child. How could she have ever been able to mirror back to me, what her 19 year old child Self did not possess? It would have defied law.

These truths of mine are not about revenge. In fact, they are about forgiveness, understanding, compassion, and empathy. But I realize that many unaware others may not be able to see the forest through the battered limbs of so many trees.

My mother and father infected me with rules that did little more than help me disown my Self.

When my father took his frustration out on my mother, and as she took it, and swallowed up her own disappointment and sadness so not to upset him any further, and when my father refused to apologize for hurting my mother, the rules that were getting ingrained in me, would be the groundwork for the belief systems that governed my very existence.

In my house I learned that the only persons feelings that mattered were the ones in charge. I learned that it was of the utmost importance to swallow feelings, especially ones that might make someone else angry. I learned that it was acceptable to be called names when no one was looking. I learned that talking about feelings was unacceptable. I learned that crying was a form of weakness. I learned that my truth was unimportant. I learned that men come first. I learned that pleasing a man was more important than a man pleasing a woman. I learned that a woman should not expect to be understood. I learned that women clean, cook, and take care of others. I learned that women do not take care of themselves. I learned that what a man thought of me, was more important than what I thought of me.