Читать книгу Letters from a Better Me - Rachael Wolff - Страница 16

For women ready to see our unconsciousness…

Dear Self,

I don’t remember driving to the store today. When I was in the store, I couldn’t tell you how I ended up with the food I did. I don’t remember picking broccoli over asparagus. He doesn’t like broccoli. How did I do that? What is wrong with me? He is going to be so mad that I don’t have a vegetable he likes. He’s going to think I don’t care. Do I need to go back to the store? I don’t want to have another night like the last time I forgot to get mashed potatoes to have with our steaks. What if I just went to the liquor store and got him a bottle? Maybe he will notice my kind gesture, and the broccoli won’t be a big deal.

Holy shit! When did I eat lunch? I’m not hungry, so I must have. What did I even have? What was I doing? Oh, that’s when the kids’ school called and told me about what’s going on with the other kids at school. I’m so worried about my boy. He can’t handle all the cruelty in school. How are these kids’ parents okay with their children being such bullies? I wonder if they’re bullies too. They probably are, or they just flat-out neglect their kids, so the kids are looking for attention. My son is so sweet and kind. Why does he have to go through this? Do I need to toughen him up? I used to be bullied. I never could understand why I was a target. I don’t want him to go through what I did.

Oh no! It’s already dinnertime. What am I going to do? Where did my day go?

A Frazzled Me

Being Unconscious

Many of us react to situations and people in our lives unconsciously. We have no idea when are being triggered by the past or when we are projecting fears of the unknown future. A broken record starts playing in our heads, and we go off about always, never, and our attachments to the unknown future. We have no idea that we are reacting to a past hurt or future fear. We aren’t where our feet are. Our thoughts have taken us away to another place. Where our feet are becomes unconscious and the gifts of the present moment are lost. The potential for healing turns into expressed hurt, rage, anger, fear, and pain. The cycle of unconscious living continues. What is happening right now in the moment is what matters, but when we are unconscious—we miss it!

Autopilot is a great example of being unconscious. We don’t want to deal with what is happening right now, so our minds go to past and future, and we miss what is happening. This is where our lives can slip out of control. We get lost. I can remember getting myself into a long-lasting emotionally abusive relationship. Next thing I knew, years had passed. When I was finally ready to look at the situation, I realized I had lost my identity completely. Looking back years later, my mom and sister told me, “You disappeared.” My best friend from childhood said, “You were a robot.” I was living unconsciously to avoid having to change, which in my mind meant I had failed. Discovering I had been living unconsciously was the beginning of my transformation.

Ready to look at how beliefs and perspectives affect us…

Dear Friend,

I hate men! All men suck! All they want to do is use women for sex. We can be thrown away like trash. I’m so disgusted by all these men thinking they have the right do to whatever they want. They don’t think there are any consequences. Especially all white men. White men think they are God’s gift to humanity. It’s even worse if they are rich white men. All rich people suck in general. They only get rich because money is all they care about. Then they think they can buy anybody. That’s why all these powerful men think they can get away with everything. To rich people, money is power. Money sucks! I hate money! I never have enough money. I’m always going to be broke. I’m going to end up with some poor guy who beats me because I obviously don’t deserve better. I’m never going to end up with a guy who cares about me. Men suck!

A Defeated Me

Beliefs and Perspectives

We are born and raised with a series of beliefs. Some were passed down from generation to generation. Others came from going with or against family, religious, societal and/or community beliefs. Some beliefs develop through our own personal experiences in school and life. Much of how we got to the reality we created is because of our beliefs, for better and for worse.

When we are lost in our fights against others, we haven’t yet discovered that our beliefs are perceptions. As humans, we don’t get to know absolutes like always, never, all, none, everyone, or no one. We are like snowflakes. Even within the same group, we are individuals. Beliefs vary from person to person within the same family, gender, religious group, workplace, support group, and culture. We can’t all be right and someone else be all wrong. We each have our own unique view. Getting stuck in I’m right and you’re wrong is how we block communication and close doors. We each have our own perspective of truth.

Pay attention to the perspectives that are creating fear and stress in your life. These beliefs will be shown in your reaction to others. We aren’t reacting to a person in particular. We are reacting to our own beliefs or perspectives of thought about what the person represents. Any time we say all—all women, all men, all Christians, all Muslims, all single moms, all dads, or all Americans—we need to pay close attention. If we use the word all in that sense, there is a belief tied into it. See if the beliefs you hold are really true for you. By focusing on negatively charged beliefs, the negative (fear, anger, rage, hate, corruption, separation) is where our focus goes, and we create more of it.

If we are not clear in our perspective, we can get very confused and lose sight of the love within us. We can get so stuck in the perspective of fear that we forget what brought us to the relationship, situation, event, or cause in the first place. We submerge into the darkness of humanity.

Dig Deeper

Belief exercise. Write about some of the beliefs that are a part of the foundation you build your house on. What do you believe? Remember to be honest! This exercise is to reveal hidden beliefs that could be causing us more pain. Here’s a couple to get you going:

•Do I believe love hurts, or that hurt people are responsible for the hurt?

•Do I believe money (a piece of paper) is bad, or that it corrupts all who have it?

For those of us ready to face our shame and guilt cycles…

Dear Universe,

I must be a truly horrible person. You keep knocking me down every time I start feeling good about a situation in my life. I have a great job and start to love what I do—I get laid off. I get into what I think is a great relationship—I find out he used me. I think someone is a great friend—she backstabs me. What did I do for you to punish me over and over? I really try to be a good person. If you loved me, you would give me the life I want. If you thought I deserved it, you would make good things happen in my life. I told my employer that if he valued me, he would let me work my own hours—he let me go. I told my boyfriend that if he loved me, he would marry me. Nope, he didn’t love me. I told my friend that, if my friendship meant anything to her, she wouldn’t be friends with this girl who doesn’t like me. She’s a friend to her anyway!

You keep bringing me so much pain. Am I really that worthless to you? Do I serve no purpose to you? I feel like if you really loved me I would be prettier. I wouldn’t struggle with my weight and more people would want to be around me. I would be able to look in the mirror and be proud of who I am. I guess I’m just not worthy of being one of your beautiful creations. Maybe that’s why you put me in a home where my brother was abused physically and I was abused emotionally. Maybe that’s why I had to watch my mom being beaten. You didn’t think I deserved more. I’m nothing.

A Broken Me

Shame and Guilt Cycles

We may experience a horrific series of events: parental, sexual, physical, emotional, or mental abuse. Our parents, religions, teachers, and employers used to or could be still using shame and guilt techniques as a passive-aggressive way to get what they want. If we were children when these events happened, our undeveloped selves may have taken those shaming sessions in as part of our identity. If that happens, a shame cycle is initiated and the self-abuse begins. These abusive beliefs can go as far as making us think we don’t deserve to breathe the air we’re given. In our minds, we are bad people. Self-abuse can remain unconscious for a lifetime if it goes unchecked. How do you know if someone is abusing themselves? They are a negative force of fear in our world. It all begins with shame.

Shame creeps in, and our feeling of worthlessness starts feeding into our thought cycles. We are so ashamed of who we are that we create walls. This makes us easy targets for guilt trips. We don’t feel worthy, so we need to do something for you whether it feels right or not. We can be convinced to stay quiet when bad things happen to us because we feel like we deserved it or somehow it was our own fault. We then will use the same cycle of shame and guilt to get what we want from others. The vicious cycle continues. We go on feeling like we are never good enough.

For women ready to see how our low self-image hurts us…

Dear Mirror,

I don’t like the person you keep putting in front of me. Her eyes are too far apart. Her face is too round. Her hair is too stringy. Her skin is too pale. Don’t even get me started on all the jiggling. How do you expect anyone to love her? What can I do to make her more acceptable? If I cover all her natural features, maybe she will be more lovable. If I get Spanks, maybe the jiggle won’t disgust the people who have to see her. I can dye her hair to distract people from the roundness of her face. I take picture after picture of her, using all the editing features on my phone. I can make her more beautiful to the world. If at least fifty people don’t like the picture, I didn’t do a good job. I spend whole days thinking about how to make her look better.

I look into exercise programs, diets, makeup, and hair removal, yet no matter how many things I try, my attempt fails. I just can’t look at you anymore, so I covered all the mirrors in my house. I don’t want to think about what is in there anymore. I don’t like what I see and I can’t seem to change it.

I’ve just accepted that I’m not going to find anybody who will love the woman in the mirror. She’s pathetic. She can’t do anything right. She fails at everything. Who would want her?

A Pathetic Me

Low Self-Image and Self-Worth

This is how we got here, the land of misery. We believed we were unworthy and had to prove ourselves to the outside world. What we didn’t realize is that we missed the messages that told us to love ourselves first. We missed the point where we might have been told we only get more of what we already have inside. We missed the vital importance of putting the oxygen mask on ourselves first. We just held onto being unworthy. If we feel unlovable, we try to get from the world what we aren’t giving to ourselves. We expect the world to show us love.

We don’t realize that we won’t be able to spot it if we don’t first love ourselves. We will attract people who will prove we are unworthy and unlovable. We will continue to attack ourselves, looking for any external way to make ourselves lovable—relationships, clothes, makeup, body alterations, and material goods—yet we will also get lost in addictions to food, alcohol, or drugs in order to continue our belief that we are unlovable. We beat ourselves up for our cellulite, shape, hair, and overall look. Then we tell the mirror that’s why we aren’t lovable.

A healthy person can look in the mirror and make changes too, but the difference is that they aren’t doing it to seek outside worth. They aren’t attached to what doing it means for someone else. They may be doing it as way to treat themselves. It’s important to know the difference. When we are feeding a negative self-image, we are creating the darkness within us. Then we aim our darkness at something outside of us to lessen the pain.

As we become more and more aware of the negative cycles and our own unstable foundations, we will get the tools to create lasting change. We can’t get there by building on the same unstable foundations (our negative self-image, self-worth, and self-respect), no matter how pretty we make our house and garden (how we make our outsides look). The house will eventually break down if it’s not on solid and healthy ground. The only thing that’s solid is love. A healthy relationship with ourselves has to come first. All other relationships take our lead, including our relationships with our spiritual lives.

For the brave women ready to look at how unproductive blame is…

Dear Mom and Dad,

How could you do this to me? This is your fault. If you hadn’t treated me like I couldn’t make it, I wouldn’t be a total failure. You never treated me like I could do anything right. You were always correcting me, and now I’m so scared of doing something wrong, I just freeze and need to be told exactly what do in order to feel like I’m not going to be fired. Despite this, I keep getting fired.

If you two would have just let me take some chances, I might not be the way I am today. Seeing you two fighting all the time has made me want to avoid all confrontations. I can’t have a successful relationship to save my life. Do you two even love each other? It seems like you both have to drink just to put up with each other. You set an awful example for me. I’m scared of men because of the relationship you two have.

Why couldn’t you two have just been normal? Why couldn’t you be loving parents who encouraged me to go out there and do my best? Instead, you made me feel like I was a failure if I got anything less than a B. I couldn’t be good enough for you, no matter what I did. Ugh, I wish I had had better parents, because if I had, I would be on Oprah right now sharing my successes.

A Disappointed Me

Blame

If this letter puts you into a spree of blaming all the people who wronged you, you have a front-row seat to how you got here. Becoming aware of where we point fingers and blame is the first step to breaking the cycle. We need to approach it by looking back with different eyes. Our first response may be to blame someone else, a situation, or ourselves, and many of us have been taught that this is natural. “Mommy, Michael hit me.” I won’t tell her that I threw a toy at his head first. Blaming has become a part of everyday politics, religion, friendships, intimate relationships, family dynamics, and overall life. The people we hurt most with blame are ourselves. When we hurt ourselves, even if it is unintentional, we will hurt others. We project the negative energy we carry inside.

•How do you feel when you are blaming someone else?

•Does it make you feel good?

•Does it feel like you are getting any closer to a solution by blaming them?

When we are stuck in a blame cycle, we are also stuck in a victim cycle. This is not to say we are never victims of unacceptable behavior, but the question is: are we choosing to live in victim mentality? Victim mentality is different than being a victim of actions taken against us. With victim mentality, we become victims of the world and everyone in it, including ourselves. We don’t look at our feelings, thoughts, and actions and how they contribute to the reality we are choosing to live in. When we keep the focus on us, we respond to negative situations in a healthier fashion. We stop pointing fingers and start coming up with solutions. When we question blame by asking what we learned from the experience, we shift the power from fear to love. How we got here was a lesson, nothing more, and nothing less. When we focus on blame, we haven’t learned the lesson. We are destined to repeat the lesson until we learn it, or die miserable.

This is not an invitation to self-blame. Self-blame is different from taking responsibility for our feelings, perspectives, and actions. Self-blame involves an abusive element. Self-blame is more destructive than blaming others. Taking personal responsibility shouldn’t turn into convincing yourself how much you suck. When we take personal responsibility for our part, we tell the Universe we are open to learning from experience.

Looking at our fears…

Dear God,

I’m a God-fearing woman. I serve you by serving my family, the less fortunate, and my church community. I live the life I’m told is acceptable to live. When I fail, I come and confess my failings. I know I’m not worthy of the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross. I do try to prove to you that I’m worthy of walking this Earth. I do and do and do for others, but God, I’m so tired. I don’t know what else I have to give. I keep feeling that, no matter what I do, it’s never enough to satisfy you and get me to Heaven. I’m afraid of facing you and hearing that I could have done more. I fear you will send me to the Devil for all my human failings.

A Fearful Me

Dear Partner,

I’m so scared you are going to leave me. One day you are going to figure out I’m not worthy of your love and you are going to find someone better out there. I feel like, if I’m not with you every second, you are going to find someone else. When you go out with your friends, I’m petrified you aren’t going to come back. Why are you even with me?

A Petrified Me

Dear Boss,

I really want to make you happy. You made an advance at me and I accepted because I really want to keep my job. I love this firm and I don’t want to go out and have to look for another job. I don’t feel comfortable with what happened, and I don’t feel good about myself for not speaking up. I’m so scared of losing my job. What if no one out there thinks I’m good enough? If I make you happy, will I be good enough for you to look at what I can do? I’m scared the answer is that now you will only see me as a piece of meat. I’m scared that all the work I’ve done to get where I am will mean nothing. How do I get you to see my worth?

A Concerned Me

Fear

Some of us have been living in fear as far back as we can remember. We feared what our fathers would do. We feared disappointing our mothers. We were taught to fear while learning new things. We were taught to fear the unknown, fear nature, fear people, and fear ourselves.

Many of us have been taught from a very young age to fear God (however you define the Creator). “I’m a God-fearing woman!” If as far back as we can remember we fear the one Being who is supposed to be the definition of love, how are we NOT supposed to live in fear of everything that comes our way? Fear keeps us all separate.

When we fear not being good enough, we do things to gain worth. We wonder why we fight to feel connected to the Divine. To fully connect to Source is a connection of love. If we are connecting to life through fear, we project fear. All the rage, anger, and hate stem from fear. If we fight for our own worth, we are fighting to see the worth in others. We judge, hate, and stand against someone else to distract us from looking at the very core of who we are, in fear of being unworthy and unlovable. Fear holds us back from seeing love.