Shine and a Cure Bunny Pic

How to Duct Tape Your Wiper Blades…? In the Middle of a Snowstorm?

Snow was falling swiftly as I cautiously made my way to drive my teenage daughter to her doctor appointment. Just as we were  pulling up to the traffic light at the last turn, the windshield wiper blade broke. I said a few words my daughter does not usually hear me say…D$amn Sh*&^t ,,,

She asked why it was bad and I explained to her that it is not possible to drive without a wiper (on the driver’s side, no less) because the snow will fill up and cover the windshield, making it impossible to see what is front of you.

She asked what we would do and I told her that this was the time for creative ingenuity and “thinking outside the box” which luckily I am good at.

I am not so good with fitting in with the  crowd of figuring out the social norms, etc, but I can think outside the box and work with whatever resources are available to me, that other people might not see.

I told her we would go into the doctor appt because the wiper blade would not get any worse and it was already broken. An hour of it sitting just the way it is, should be fine.

I failed however to google the weather report. I should have actually cancelled the appt and taken care of the wiper blade ASAP.

So, as I was sitting in the waiting room, I formulated my plan. I was aware that there is a dollar store, walking distance from where the doctor office is. We could go there and buy supplies and rig that thing on. We only had to drive about 2 miles up the hill, to get to the auto parts store and there we could get assistance.

Not to brag but usually if I smile at the guy in the store nicely they fix things for me. (pretty good for 48 years old ❤ ) I was pleasantly surprised the last time I went to Home Depot that the 2 of the men were wanting to assist me. One of them was saying it was his section. I heard the other one say that he had seen me first, so he had first dibs.

It was really cute for guys in their 50’s to be arguing over who would wait on the blonde 48 year old lady in jeans and a sweater. So, that was nice. I rarely get an ego boost like that. But I digress…

Since I was inside the building, I was unaware of what was occurring outside. About a half an hour into my daughter’s appointment, the receptionist got a call from the supervisor that the office was going to close and to call the patients at home and tell them to reschedule their appointments. The snow weather was taking a turn for the worse.

I had to wait another 15 minutes and they sent my daughter out to me. Time to get moving.

We got outside and it was obvious that the roads were getting bad. We wrapped up our heads with scarves and began walking to make our way to the dollar store. Once inside the store, we shook the snow off our shoes and asked the lady at the counter if they carried duct tape.

She told me to turn around and low and behold there was an entire shelf, piled high with rolls of duct tape. Halleluja ! Score ! I grabbed the duct tape, a pair of scissors and a cheep shower curtain. Why, you ask?

We walked back to the car and got to work. I cleaned the snow off the car, while Delenn worked on opening the packages and removing our tools.

I said to her “We have the technology. We have the tools. We have the duct tape !” 

By this point there was another problem. Because I have raynaud’s syndrome, my hands cannot tolerate the cold and the wet cold is the worse kind!

They first become numb at the extremities and useless to do anything, since I cannot feel my fingertips. Then is they are not brought to heat quickly, they will become extremely painful! So, I ran back into the car and warmed them on the heating vents.

Then we went out together. My daughter, the duct tape, the scissors and the shower curtain ! We got to work. I slid the wiper blade onto the arm and balanced it there. The clip was broken so it was just kind of hanging there. I held the shower curtain over top of my daughter’s work area.

I instructed her to dry the place where we were going to tape it. We had a towel for that. I held the curtain overtop so that it would not get wet and interfere with the tape.

She wrapped the tape once and then one more piece.  It had to done exactly at the joint where the screw was supposed to be. To tape too far over would force the blade not to move, where it was supposed to be loose and possible cause the wiper motor to overheat.

We were done. It was taped together and it looked like it might possible hold together for a few miles.

It was the moment of truth! We got into the car and I sat for a minute and said a prayer. Then I slid the lever that works the wipers. It worked ! It held and it cleaned the window. There was no time to waste; the snow was turning into ice.

We drove very slowly, in second gear up the road to the auto parts store. I turned into the driveway. It was a tire store. It used to be an auto parts store and now it had changed. The ice got louder and I could here it making noises on the car roof. We were running out of time.

The guy in the tire store tried to put the wiper blade on for me, after he pried off all the duct tape. He thought it was “inventive” and laughed a little.

The blade was not going to go back on. as hard as he tried to do it. He instructed me to go right away. across the street to where the auto parts store had moved.

Finally we got the blade replaced and we were on our way. The guy in the auto parts store was amazed when I told him that the duct taped blade worked for me, for 2 miles up the road to get there. Mama had saved the day, but now we still had to get home.

Crawling in 2nd gear, even 1st gear a few times, we made our way the 4 miles to our house. I was so glad to arrive home safely.

That is my story and I’m sticking to it!

Annie

SHAME …Why do Victims of Abuse Carry the Shame?

Carrying shame with us is possible the single most devastating, caustic thing that can happen. We must find our way out of shame, because it will destroy is by crushing our self esteem and keeping us incapacitated, by self doubt and a feeling if unworthiness.

Shame is an emotion and it is a state of mental trauma. Any type of severe trauma can cause us to carry shame. In turn “shame” itself can cause mental trauma. Most often, a mental state of “shame” was brought on by others who intentionally manipulated and traumatized us into feeling unworthy and shameful.

Shame, according to Wikipedia

Shame is a negative, painful, social emotion that can be seen as resulting “…from comparison of the self’s action with the self’s standards…”.^[1] but which may equally stem from comparison of the self’s state of being with the ideal social context’s standard.  Wikipedia

So, shame is made up of…

1. a person’s personal feeling about who they “should be”

and

2. the person’s feeling about “who they are”

3. When the perception of “who you are” does not meet your standards of “who you should be” then the result is feeling shameful, for not having the ability to be the person that you “should be.”

Who should you be? Where do our concepts of our “perfect selves” come from? Are the reasonable? Do these ideals of who we “should be” come from our own minds? Or were they projected onto us by others?

Also, where does our perception of “who we are” come from? Are we really seeing our true selves?  Are we seeing ourselves through our own eyes ? Or are we seeing ourselves in an untrue way, through the eyes of society? Are we seeing ourselves the way other people say they see us?

Are we perceiving ourselves through the eyes of society and the stigma and misconceptions of society?

Are we still seeing ourselves from the eyes of our abuser? Are we really worthless and stupid?  Are we doomed to never do any better in life than we are doing? Or are we confusing our true potential with the twisted ideas that some abuser fed to us?

The problem with people who have experienced abuse, is that they were manipulated at the deepest levels of their brains.  People who were abused as children were made to feel worthless from a very young age. The natural developmental stages of self conception and identity were damaged.

People that in domestic abuse, were emotionally and mentally damaged. The abuser uses mind manipulation to make the person feel useless and stupid. The narcissists forces a fictitious reality on their victim and this reality changes.

The abuser changes the reality, constantly on order to manipulate the victim. If the victim buys something that the abuser wants at the store, the abuser may hide it. Then they will call the victim stupid for forgetting to buy the item at the store.

This reality manipulation over time, has the effect of confusing the victim about their own sense of reality. After the victim leaves the domestic abuse situation, they still have a feeling of shame and worthlessness. It takes time before the person will be able to see the proper perspective about who they are.

If we have been abused, we do not have the same sense of ease in feeling “normal.” We feel different that other people and often do not feel like we “fit in.” That sense of shame that we experienced during abuse, still looms over us.

Nineteenth century scientist Charles Darwin, in his book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, described shame affect as consisting of blushing, confusion of mind, downward cast eyes, slack posture, and lowered head… Wikipedia

This quote by Darwin is interesting to me, in that he describes the physical and mental appearance of shame. He describes the physical manifestation of shame to be “downcast eyes, lowered head”..

When I was living in an abusive relationship, I got comments a few times from people, that I looked down when a man entered the room. I was not aware that I did this at the time.

Actually it was one of my hospice patients that first pointed it out to me. She noticed that when a male aide came into the room to assist me, I lowered my head and looked down. I would not make eye contact with him.

As soon as the man left the room, my female patient said to me “Never! Never, look down when you meet a man! You are just as good as them. You are taking in a submissive posture with men and you should not.”

I was very surprised that I had done this and not even been aware of it. After that incident, I tried to be mindful of my body language with men and women, at least just to be aware of what message I was sending. Also to be aware of how I felt about men.

It is amazing that a woman on her death bed was so mindful and caring about me, that she noticed this and “scolded” me about it. It hurt her to see me be submissive to men like that. She was seeing into the future and how that submissiveness was going to harm me.

This lady knew nothing about the fact that I was living in an abusive relationship. It was purely an outside perspective.

Clearly, at that time, I felt afraid of men and my way of protecting myself was to take on the “submissive” posture. I also had a feeling if needing to protect my face from being hit. The downward position of my head, made me feel safer.

Psychiatrist Judith Lewis Herman had theories about shame as it related to childhood abuse. Her studies were about how a person from childhood abuse sees themselves through the eyes of their abusers.

toxic shame is induced, inside children, by all forms of child abuse. Incest and other forms of child sexual abuse can cause particularly severe toxic shame. Toxic shame often induces what is known as complex trauma in children who cannot cope with toxic shaming as it occurs and who dissociate the shame until it is possible to cope with.^{[18] Judith Lewis Herman}

Abusers tell their victims to feel shame. They shame them by verbally abusing them, mentally torturing them, sexually violating them and / or otherwise physically harming them. There is no physical abuse without mental abuse.

There is no sexual abuse without mental abuse. The damage to a person, goes into their identity, their self esteem and their ability to view themselves in a “normal” way.

What I mean by “normal” is to be able to view yourself on a scale of reality based levels. What you are worth to yourself, and other people should be based on the person that you are. When a victim views themselves through the eyes of the abusers, they will always have a feeling of secret shame.

It is hard to break the brain patterns that were inflicted upon you by your abusers. You are worthy! You are important! You matter! Those are the true things that you need to know and believe!

Your abuser did not want you to know that you were a worthy and special person. They may not even have wanted to know that themselves, because it was easier for them to abuse you if they thought of you as “inhuman” rather than a real person.

You are a real person ! you are just as valuable and worthy of love as anyone ! Over time we can heal from these wounds. The PTSD (post traumatic stress) will never go away entirely. The past history of abuse will never go away. It is something we have to live with for the rest of our lives.

Instead of trying to crush it down, push the memories into the deepest recesses of our minds, we need to be ourselves and connect with others who will understand. We need to support and validate each other.

Together we can heal to a point where we can function better. Together we can create a community of support and love, that will uplift each and every one of us. Together we can turn our trauma around and use what we have learned to help others”

Together, we can be the “Wounded Healers!”

Being Mindful About Self Esteem Can Increase Our Mental Wellness

Kindness boosts self esteem. That is what the self esteem bunnies say  !

Everyone needs to have good self esteem. It is critical to our mental health. Low self esteem = poor mental wellness.

When we boost another person’s self esteem, we find that they are more efficient at completing tasks and more receptive to working with us.

If you want to work with someone, you need for them to want to work with you. Find out what their self esteem is based on, and then you will have the key to generating a more collaborative situation.

When someone says something that makes your self esteem go down, you will not be as receptive to working with them or helping them. There will be a resentment of their treatment of you and you will feel less worthy and competent.

Once you feel less competent or less worthy, your confidence on your ability to function becomes lower. There may be a feeling of subservience or shame. These feelings are harmful to your mental well being.

In order to become mentally healthier, we need to find ways to boost our self esteem. This involves our activities and also who we surround ourselves with. It is best to surround yourself with people that boost your self esteem, rather than crush it down.

Sometimes it is obvious when someone is being critical of you and other times you cannot even tell that they are using tactics to lower your self esteem.

The way to tell if someone is covertly attacking your self esteem is that you will feel a sense of being confused. If you have a clarity of mind when you are interacting with someone then they are boosting your self esteem. If you have a sense of becoming more confused, then they are doing something to lower your self esteem.

Becoming more aware of ways to raise your self esteem will help you to be more mindful and to increase your mental wellness.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a Broken Brain

Going through trauma is a terrible thing for anyone. But it doesn’t end there.

The trauma  lives on , in the mind of the victim.  During the traumatic event or time frame, the person’s brain is put into severe overload. The fear center, called the amygdala, is left on too high for too long.

When the traumatic situation is ongoing for a long period of time, the amygdala can get “stuck on”. It is like the on and off switch gets broken. The” fight or flight”  mode is only designed to be on high alert for a few minutes, in order to survive a threatening situation.

People in long term trauma situations include military people in a combat zone, people living in domestic abuse and childhood abuse. There are many other examples and I do not mean to leave anyone out.

When we are subject to severe threat to our body or our mind, for an extended period of time, the amygdala in the brain malfunctions . It no longer knows how to turn off.

The brain is attempting to protect us by having our body prepared for a fight to the death or to run for our lives.

This state of ” fight or flight”  is not meant to be endured for long periods of time. People with PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder)  have to endure the extreme fear alert of their brains , even when there is no immediate threat of danger.

The brain perceives everything as a threat. It can no longer tell what level a threat is. Anything that triggers a memory of severe threat , takes us right back to the feelings of the original trauma.

Of course , life is full of all types of threats. There are threats to our job. There are illnesses and physical conditions that can threaten our health.

We feel threatened walking to our car in a dark parking lot. A phone call from our ex abuser is a legitimate threat. These kinds of “real threats” can be severely traumatizing to the PTSD brain that had already been injured.

PTSD is a difficult thing for people to understand , who have not experienced it. It is hard for PTSD sufferers  to get help and support from loved ones. The more support we can find the better we will heal.

Our support may come from unexpected sources. In cases where there is no family support and friends do not understand, the person may need to reach out to others. There are closed groups for PTSD on facebook. I belong to 2 of them.

There is blogging . Yay ! My favorite source of external support. And there are some other sources on the internet like Tumblr which has live mental health support. Please feel free to put any internet support groups you want to share in the comments below.

Then there is support in the “real” world, like therapy and groups. I have found that wordpress is my best support. But that is an individual choice and is based on my personality and situation.

In many cases, someone will need more than one support place, in order to create a network of support for themselves. Especially during certain phases of the healing process.  Personally, I was in a sort of denial of how bad my trauma was for a while and i repressed feelings for many months.

So at the point things started bubbling to the surface and interfering with my ability to manage my life, I was able to find wordpress and that helped me.

Any thoughts about when you started your healing process and if there was a delay, are welcome .

Blessings,

Telekinesis and the Mustard Baloons

My bedroom door is open. Someone came into the room and they did not close it when they left. Being that I called out of work due to a tummy ache, Yuck !  I really do not want to come out from under these soft blankets and close that door,

My preteen daughter has her music playing too loudly and the open door is  sending  the teenie bop beats right through into my otherwise peaceful, quiet space.

So, I did something which I do from time to time….

I tried to close that bloody door with telekinesis! I put out my hand, hopefully, and sent all the  powerful telekinetic energy I could muster, towards that blasted door.

Guess what?

Oh, crap.

Hang on. I am going to to try , one more time…

I am very pleased to announce to you all….. This is very exciting….

The amazing news is that…….

Oh, crap. I guess the news is that I have not given up.  One day I will do it ! I will practice and then I will do it. There will be an amazing announcement and then you will all know that I have achieved my superpower.

Coming soon, to a WordPress Blog near you….will be the news feed…There will be a grand announcement and it will go something like this….

Hold Onto Your Hats ! OR Your HEADS!.. (whichever is more likely to fly off… )

Annie!  That’s right ! Our beloved sister  Annie…..  poet of the Realm of WordPress,  in all her infinite wisdom and super-fantastic power … has  closed that damn door! Yes ! You heard correctly folks! Annie has closed that door  and did not even have to get out from under her fuzzy blankets or call across the apartment for a random kid to close the door for her!

She just reached out her marvelous hand and told that door to close. She sent the energy of “Close the Darn Door” into the air and POW! Close it did!! Yay! Yay!

Crowds of anxious and very nosy, gossipy spectators are gathering outside, beneath Annie’s bedroom window. One of our correspondents has reported than  Annie dropped some water balloons on the heads of the gathering crowd.

Annie then  called down to the nosy crowd. She told them  that she currently has  her children  filling balloons with mustard.  So, everyone  should back away from the house,  if they know what is good for them! The voices in her head told her to splash them with mustard and then possibly …cold  pea soup…or mashed potatoes.

Crazy Annie ! I don’t think she would really bomb the crowd  with mustard. Do you???

We will be closely monitoring this breaking news for you.  We anticipate a new amazing feat within the next  few hours.

Sources have informed us that Annie is planning to stay in bed all day, therefore, she will  be telekinetically making  a sandwich for herself (secret informers tell us that it will be roast beef and swiss on whole wheat) . Then she will  float said sandwich through the air, from the kitchen  and if all goes well, it will land PLOP! right into to Annie’s eager hands.  Annie will never leave the bed.

Updates are expected within the hour. We will return after these important messages…”

Yeah, so that is my dream. I have been trying for years. Everytime I drop something on the floor, I hold my hand out and tell the thing to rise up into my hand. I don’t know why it has not worked yet, but I have not given up.

This should be a lesson to all of you. When you have a dream, you should hold onto it. Hold onto it until it comes to fruition. That way you will end up like Crazy Annie, sitting in her bed, with hand outstretched to the bedroom door. It still has not closed, but I have the heart of a fighter. And so should you !

You may never accomplish your dream, but at least you can type up your fantasy on WordPress.

One of my favorite fellow bloggers was lamenting the human condition yesterday, as I am doing now. But maybe if we can all become superheroes then we will not have to put up with our human shortcomings anymore. Better yet, we will just throw mustard balloons on the people that are annoying us. 🙂

This post is dedicated to Nekaaar , who is a wonderful human and writes wonderful ramblings that inspire and make me smile. It was in lieu of putting a comment in her comment section of her recent post.

Blessings,

Annie

PTSD and the Habit of Neglecting Our Own Personal Care

People with depression, anxiety and other types of mental illness are usually not in the habit of taking care of themselves. Once you are out of the habit, it is hard to get back into it again.

If you have PTSD from domestic abuse then caring for yourself was likely something that was not “allowed” in the relationship. From my experience, anything I did for myself was a trigger to the abuser to become angry at me.

I would hear “Oh You have time to do take a shower and dry your hair but you have left me to starve to death. You haven’t made me anything to eat all day.” In fact he would say that , even when I had made him an omelette for breakfast and a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch. I was just taking a shower before I made dinner.

Then he would rage at me about all sorts of things I apparently did not do properly. What nerve I had to take 15 minutes to care for myself.

If I went a week without a shower , he would complain that I was dirty and not “keeping myself up for him” So I guess the rule was I could take a shower but only if I told him I was doing it for him.

So then, I would be afraid to take a shower for fear of angering him. I would only take a shower when he was out of the house. Even then I would try to clean up the evidence.
The showers got less and less frequent because the fear of him coming home while I was in the shower and vulnerable (naked) was severe.

The thought of him barging into the bathroom drunk and angry, while I was in the shower was terrifying. It was a risk that I often was not willing to deal with.

Once the behavioral pattern is altered, it is hard to get it back. You go a long time with taking sowers every 2 weeks and you feel strange taking a shower every day. You have to slowly get the routine back. It may take a very long time to feel like taking a shower even every few days.

The best thing is to start with a small change such as adding in one shower a week. Even washing at the sink in between will help get back into taking care of yourself.

Make-up! That was a tuff one. It took me a long time after living in severe mental abuse situations to be able to wear make-up and fix my hair in anything other than a ponytail.

If I put make-up on to go to work, he would call me a slut and ask me who I was sleeping with at work. This was completely irrational since he knew I worked with elderly people and almost all of the health care workers were female.

he would get very angry if I put on make-up and brushed my hair. I asked him one time why he did not want me to look my best. I asked him, “don’t you like when I get prettied up for you?”

His response was “NO. I want you to look plain. I can tolerate you plain and that way no other guys will look at you.”

It was so crushing to my self esteem that I was basically required to look “plain” going out of the house and even in the house. I was conditioned to feel like a plain or ugly girl that did not deserve to feel pretty.

After I left that situation, it took me a long time to begin to wear make-up and fix my hair nicely. I felt self conscious the first few times I wore make-up out of the house.

Years before that, I wore make-up and fixed my hair all the time. The behavioral pattern of doing that and the mental / emotional association I had with wearing the male-up were very uncomfortable.

So, we can slowly begin to take care of our appearance and this will improve our self-esteem. I remember the first time I got a nice hair cut. I had not done that in a few years. I felt so good about it.

I felt how my hair had that bounce to it. it styled and brushed easier. i felt more like a “normal” girl again. The elevation of self-esteem from a hair cut was amazing. Then I bought nail polish and painted my nails. It felt so good to be allowed to be pretty again.

Taking care of ourselves is critical to our self esteem. it helps to get over the trauma of the past. Maybe not fully, but it helps for us to be able to move on.

So long as we stay in the same patterns of not caring for ourselves, we don’t move our thought processes forward. We have the right to be a person. We have just as much of a right to basic care than anyone else does.

Once we begin to change to healthier behavioral patterns then we can begin to heal.

Domestic Abuse and Insomnia

People that are in an abusive domestic household are very likely to develope insomnia. There is a tremendous lack of feeling safe. In order to sleep, we have to feel comfortable and safe.

We are aware that we are vulnerable when we are asleep. We are vulnerable to physical attack. We cannot see someone coming towards us. We also cannot protect our home, our possessions, our cash and credit cards, etc while we are sleeping.

For those people with children in the house, they also can’t protect their children while they are asleep.

People in these situations are forced by real safety issues to adjust their sleep routine. They may sleep in the living room with the lights on. They may create some kind of makeshift blockade for the person to be slowed down by , on the way to the bed.

I used to hide my purse in a different place each night before I went to sleep. I also used to pile things in front of the couch I was sleeping on to create a barrier. I always slept with the light on.

These behaviors become a routine that makes us feel safer. It is not surprising that the routine will be carried on, even when we have left the danger behind us.

To this day, I sleep with my purse right next to the bed. I cannot sleep if it is in the kitchen, even if I am alone in the house. It causes me too much anxiety to sleep, even though I rationally know that no one is going to steel my money.

The feeling that my money could be stolen and my personal items thrown out all over the floor, is an extremely unsafe feeling.

I spent an entire winter in New Jersey with no heat once, because of financial abuse of a domestic partner. He thought his beer and cigarettes were more important than filling up the oil for the heat.

These behaviors are not something you should feel ashamed of or stupid about. Of course you are an intelligent person who knows that the abuse is in the past.

You know that these behaviors are no longer needed. Or are they? If you still need these routines in order to feel safe to go to sleep, I would say go ahead and leave the lights on, sleep on the couch or whatever. It is more important that you sleep.

You went through an extreme trauma and your brain needs to heal. Your brain is trying to protect itself from more trauma. If forcing yourself to put the purse in the kitchen is going to traumatize you, don’t do it.

If you still have the feeling of being unsafe when you sleep, try to think of ways that you might feel safer. I don’t care how stupid someone else might think it is.

The therapist might tell you to force yourself not to keep the same rituals you had when you were being abused. It really depends. It is the lesser of the evils.

If the behavior is not hurting anyone or yourself then it is ok to continue it for as long as you need to. The need for sleep is far more important than forcing yourself out of safety rituals before your brain is ready to handle it.

Sleep deprivation is dangerous to you. It is far more important that you can sleep than almost anything else, including what some therapist tells you.

Insomnia causes severe sleep deprivation. Your sleep cycle is disturbed. You will eventually not be safe to drive. Your job will be in harm’s way because you will be in danger of oversleeping and cannot focus at work.

Give yourself a break. First things first. Your brain needs to heal from the trauma. You need sleep to heal.

Sleep first, feel better, feel safe, then worry about having odd behaviors.

Find ways you can feel safe. Keep someone on the phone with an open line while you are going to sleep, sleep with teddy bears, sleep on the couch or in your child’s room with them. Buy extra locks for the doors.

Talk to someone at bed time about how you feel about sleeping. Write your feelings down on paper or on wordpress. Sleep with your clothes on if you need to. God knows , I slept with all of my clothes on for months after I got out of my abuse house.

I slept in everything but my shoes.   Keep in mind, I was sleeping all alone in my room .

There was no one dangerous or abusive living with me anymore. But my need to feel covered was a strong need of my brain in order to feel safe enough to sleep.

These things can’t be rushed. Your brain has the job of protecting you by alerting you of danger. When the brain becomes traumatized by being on alert too long, it gets kind of sick.

It can’t just shut off. It still feels the need to protect you by letting you know you might be in danger. Let it slowly get used to the idea that you are ok now.

Trying to force yourself out of trauma will cause you more trauma. Be kind to yourself. Do the best you can to make yourself comfortable and safe, so you can sleep.

If you still can’t sleep at night then try to get some sleep during the day. Sleep deprivation will inhibit the brain’s ability to heal from the trauma.

Take care of yourself.

Namaste,
Annie

Accepting Ourselves for Who We Are

There is a great healing that can come from accepting ourselves just as we are. To accept ourselves as a special person with strengths and weaknesses.

No one is perfect although so many would like you to think so. People act as though they are better than you but they are not.

This does not mean that we cannot strive for improvement. Accepting ourselves with all of our shortcomings and disabilities is ok.

This does not imply complacency. It does not limit us in any way. In fact it opens us up to new possibilities.

It allows us to believe that perhaps we can accomplish great things.

If we see ourselves as others do , we cannot explore new versions of ourselves that we could experience.

If we only see our mistakes, our limitations, then how can we open our own wings and fly?

What accepting ourselves does is allow us to forgive our own shortcomings and have some compassion towards ourselves. Perhaps some sense of humor about our “current” limitations and idiosyncrasies.

We are so compassionate and forgiving of others. We understand and let go so many mistakes and flaws in other people. We put up with mistakes and inabilities of other people every day.

Why can’t we accept ourselves for who we are?

Each one of us is made up of talent, skill, beauty, love, mistakes, flaws, disabilities and strengths. We are, each of us, a unique being in the universe.

In our uniqueness we are special and significant.

We are no less worthy of forgiveness and acceptance than the others. No less worthy than the ones we give the gift of grace and mercy to every day.

Let us open the box that other people have put us into. The little box that we feel we belong in.

We can go beyond the “us” that other people see, perceive and tell us we are.

Dare to do something that people who “know” us would say we can’t do.

Who are They to say we are…
too fat
too dumb
too afraid
too uneducated
too quiet
too shy
too loud
too impulsive
too set in our ways
too sloppy
too independent
too compliant

Who are They to say that we are only…
a nurse
a teacher
a stay at home mom
a working Mom
a playboy
a rebel
a womanizer
an addict
a mental case

Who are They to say that we can’t…
change jobs
change cities
change our minds!
get married
get divorced
learn yoga
dance
go to college
learn something new

Who are They to say that we have no right to…
talk to them
stand up to them
defy them
leave them

Who are They to say that we can’t become…
a poet
a businessman
an entrepreneur
a parent
a friend
a traveller
a lesbian
a mother
a spiritual advisor
a leader of men
a thinker of new ideas
a creator
a visionary
Ourselves