Hi
 
A Cause for Celebration

I have been revisiting John Bradshaw's books recently with
gratitude for his deepened understanding of the human condition. In
his book Creating Love he writes that many of us have had our needs
shamed especially in our need to be empowered.

To be truly creative and effective in our everyday lives we must
cultivate our own empowerment and this means being honest. It takes
true strength to express ourselves honestly. I use spontaneous
expressive art to look at myself honestly - to look beyond the
passive ego fantasies and illusions that I have had for my life. 

In my paradigm as a woman I have felt that my personal empowerment
has been a rather difficult and risky choice to make that may bring
about jealously and rivalry from others rather than seeing
empowerment as the basic human need that it is. Our choice to keep
ourselves small, is often an unconscious feeling of "cellular
guilt" about not wanting to express ourselves beyond what our
parents felt was comfortable. This is a choice from an inner child
point of view that many of us unknowingly make to our own
detriment. So as we learn to meet out own emotional needs we will
become more empowered in our self-expression.

When I watched my 15 year old daughter this morning making her
peanut butter and banana and jam sandwich for her lunch I was
struck with how inwardly poised and empowered she looked. It
occurred to me right then that she will go much further than me.
Each generation is meant to go past the last emotionally,
psychologically, and spiritually. This is how we evolve our family
and human systems.

As I am learning how to be mature, poised, centered and empowered
at age 43 - my daughter is soaking my energy field up like a sponge
and is taking up the inner challenge to become empowered much
earlier than I could psychologically consider the option for
myself. She already is moving towards embodying what I have
struggled for years for. I am struck suddenly with the truth that
what I have healed inside of myself, I have healed for her.

To celebrate accomplishments in my inner and outer life - is to
celebrate my own personal empowerment and hard won psychological
and creative wholeness. This is something that I have previously
had no context for. In the name of humility, as soon as I
accomplish something I have a tendency to quietly tuck it away
where I - and no one else can see it. It was a revelation for me to
realize that I had an internalized belief that I should not express
enjoyment about my own strengths and talents. Yet when I see my
daughter's inner poise I am reminded that my own inner struggles to
see myself clearly and express myself authentically are worthwhile.

Beyond Fantasy

To think that not too many years ago I felt tired and emotionally
overwhelmed most of the time. As all of my illusions and fantasies
about my life and myself began to crumble, I felt passive and
lacking in inner strength. Thirteen years ago, coming out of a
marriage in which I was financially dependent, I realized that I
had been hiding away from life and from expressing myself fully. I
had been a "nice girl" all my life. When I became a single mother,
I realized that I had cultivated very few honest and emotionally
supportive relationships in my life. In a very little girl part of
myself I thought my "niceness" would save me and support me, but
upon my divorce, I realized very quickly that my "niceness" was not
a mature or realistic way to face my life, to earn a living, or to
build real relationships.

As I came out of hiding, I found it challenging to be in the world
without being triggered and reactive to every little thing anyone
did or said. I was so used to a social realm where everyone was
careful about what was expressed. Obviously my reactivity was a
clue that I had a lot of non-integrated inner "stuff" that needed
some honest looking at. Bradshaw calls it "original pain work". I
remember my partner Ondrea telling me some truths that I did not
want to face about myself and me simply falling asleep in the spot
to avoid listening to her!

I share this celebratory pastel drawing with you to openly
celebrate my years of determined, measured, deep inner looking.
Much of spiritual and psychological growth is simply the
ever-increasing ability to tolerate, embrace, accept and eventually
integrate reality as it arises on the inside and the outside
without deflecting into denial, distraction and projection onto
others. Scott M Peck puts it this way, "Mental health is an ongoing
process of dedication to reality at all costs." This, in itself is
a hero's journey worth celebrating.

For myself to reach the level of inner strength and
self-empowerment feels like a real feat - an accomplishment worth
celebrating. I am learning to pause and give myself some credit for
all that I am and do in my very full life. At the present time, I
work full time with a presence and inner poise that has been hard
won and I maintain a home and family with a level of love that I am
proud of.

I am also training to be a Registered Therapist in the evenings and
on weekends. I have found a new found gift of grit and compassion
that I never dreamed I would be able to sustain. I am now able
listen to the honest stuff in myself and others stuff with the
fullest of acceptance and presence - and without falling asleep!

As I am much more able to look at myself with self-honesty I invite
more true relationships into my life and those not based on mutual
honesty are falling away. A mutually honest relationship is not
easy. It requires a fierce inner looking by both people. If I am
bothered by anything in my relationships I do my inner work and I
expect others to do the same. I meditate my way through the hard
stuff. And I can joyously say that even as harsh things happen, I
now feel clear, poised, empowered and emotionally balanced much of
the time. My joy feels natural and authentic and is not a forced
positivity - a veneer of niceness, or a chirpy cheerfulness that I
have employed in the past to hide all that I do not accept about
myself away from others.

Niceness is False Perfectionism

One of the biggest road blocks to truth telling that I have
encountered is the cultural condition of niceness which is really
just a cover-up for false perfectionism. I had a lively discussion
with my daughter recently about the benefits and detriments of
"niceness" as I know she has been especially steeped in the seeming
benefits of the niceness pattern in her own life as a teenager.

I have long questioned the validity of niceness as it has been my
primary way of not being honest in my life. It is one thing to be
deeply kind, and another to be nice as a way to disappear and not
express myself. In my own psychology I have used the pattern of
niceness to "disappear", to solely focus on making the other person
feel good, while revealing little of myself. Niceness is also a way
of tucking away my "wins" and accomplishments so as not to "offend"
or threaten others.

Bach and Goldberg, authors of Creative Aggression put it this way.

The "nice girl" tends to create and atmosphere wherein no one can
give any honest feedback. This blocks her emotional growth. 

The "nice girl" stifles the growth of others, since she never gives
any honest feedback. This deprives others of a real person to
assert against. Others feel guilt and shame for being angry at the
"nice girl".

Nice behavior is unreal; it puts severe limitations on
relationship."

The transformational journey to self-empowerment requires a deeper
looking to what we are ashamed of and what we are rejecting within
so that we can connect with others honestly. I see a coming to rest
in this collage. This is a body that has become solid and strong
and steadfast with a depth of inner looking. True creativity and
self-empowerment comes from honestly working with what is.

Love to you
Shelley

Featured Book

Creating Love

The Next Stage of Growth
 
By John Bradshaw

I remember reading John Bradshaw's books right after my divorce and
seeing myself in them. I knew I needed to "grow up" my dependent
inner child and learn how to take care of myself as a mature and
wise woman.
 
A favorite quote:
 
"There are no childhood traumas that could not have been resolved
and integrated. We have a unique ability to heal our emotional
pain. It is the ability to grieve. Grief is a kind of psychic work.
It involves several stages, the most important being the stage of
deep sorrow (weeping) and the stage of passionate anger.
 
As children we needed to weep and to express anger. When we are
forced to repress our sadness and anger, we leave our hurts
imprinted upon our neurological system. We have automatic responses
to safeguard us. These responses are the defenses that allow us to
survive.
Unfortunately these defenses leave us frozen in past time."