After much contemplation, I decided I’d like to continue along the theme of last week’s post since the sense of ”˜thoughts becoming things’ seems to be becoming even more important to me at the moment. And from the energetic conversation threads from last week it appears to be quite an emotive subject for people here as well!
The picture I’ve chosen this week is the classic “Hag or Beautiful Young Woman” illustration that shows there can be two very different sides to the same situation, depending on our perception. I often use it to remind myself, when I’m having a “Hag” of a day, to change my perspective and seek out the “Beautiful Young Woman—¦. She’s always there somewhere”¦ 😉
I’d like to start off by saying that I do not purport to have all the answers — far from it in actual fact. It occurs to me that the old saying “the older you get the less you know” actually holds a great deal of truth”¦ because these days, even though it stands to reason that I have more knowledge and experience than ever before; it’s equally true to say that I have even more questions in my quest to really know the answers. Still, I guess you could say that’s what keeps us curious to grow and learn eh? Even though, it must be said, there are times when I manage to drive even myself mad with my sometimes-obsessive drive to understand!
Positive Thinking
So I’d like to explain a little about my pathway — and why this quest is so important to me. The very first self-help I ever picked up was Norman Vincent Peale’s “The Power Of Positive Thinking” — first published back in 1952, decades before the concept of positive thinking was in our regular vocabulary, and a lifetime before the emergence of mainstream New Age! I can have been no more than 19 years old when I picked it up for the first time, and I remember being somewhat sceptical about the messages contained in it. I remember feeling pretty annoyed at times — angry even — when it occured to me that if what the author was saying was in any way true, then it implied that I was to blame for my personal circumstances. At that time, both parents were already dead, and my little sister and I had recently been evicted from our guardian’s home. So life was pretty grim.
“And this idiot here is trying to say it’s all been my fault? Who on earth does he think he is? He has no idea whatsoever about me or what’s happened to me!” I would fume, slamming the book shut and stomping off to find a coffee or cigarette — my two regular crutches in those days. The fury and indignance passed, however, once I began to get a glimpse of the real message. It suddenly dawned on me that this book and its ideas were offering me a new way of approaching things. A new way that gave me the promise that I really could change my life for the better. A glimmer of hope in what for me had become a dark and dreary existence full of hopelessness and pain.
That’s where it all began, all those years ago. Since then I’ve devoured hundreds of books and cassettes (yes, way before the time of CDs or downloads!) and attended a myriad of workshops. I’ve also trained in various therapies including Louise L Hay, NLP, Coaching, Reiki, Hypnosis, Breathwork and Firewalking. And so far as I can see, the underlying message is basically the same — that the more we become aware of and flex our thoughts, feelings and behaviour, the more we can determine the quality of our life. Also, the more we can honestly assess what kind of experiences are showing up in our life, the more we can identify where our thoughts and beliefs are sitting, so we can then check whether or not we’re on the right track.
Opportunity Instead Of Blame
I am NOT saying that we deliberately invited sociopathic individuals in to our lives. I am NOT saying that it’s our ”˜fault’. That we must have been thinking ”˜wrong’ thoughts, or giving praise to the ”˜wrong deity’ or following the ”˜wrong’ leadership. Far from it. What I AM saying is that from my own experiences, having recognised — truly recognised — what had been happening to me, I have found ways to move through the experience and find a deeper sense of peace and joy as a result. It’s not about blame”¦ it’s about opportunity. Grabbing the chance to create something different.
And from where I am right now, I’ve realised that there are far more levels to all of this than I could possibly have comprehended at the time. I know in my heart and soul that I have lived and breathed coaching and motivation for more years than I care to consider — and that the techniques I learned and fine-tuned along the way have helped me to create a fulfilling life. I also know that I’ve been lucky enough to make a positive difference in the lives of many hundreds of people.
I’m also holding my hand up right now to admit “I didn’t fully understand it all then”¦ and I still don’t now” – and still I know I did some great work. But I DO acknowledge that I am ”˜getting it’ more and more as time passes — particularly since the relationship with my ex.
For example, last week I wrote about ”˜loving myself the way I am’ — and at the same time not expressing frustrations. My reason for doing that makes perfect sense. If thoughts become things, then let’s change ”˜bad’ things in to good — then all that can ever happen is good. Right?
Wrong. The trick I believe I missed was to accept whatever emotions or frustrations that were happening at the time. Thinking about them and accepting them was never going to make them any stronger or pose any threat! Far from it. By acknowledging my natural ”˜humanness’ and just allowing myself to ”˜be’ then I can accept every single aspect — everything — without criticism or blame. And I can then just let it go. Let the angry, worried, frightened (whatever the ”˜bad’ stuff happened to be) emotions wash through and past me — while I waved them “Bon Voyage”.
No Regrets
People often ask me whether I think I actively invited a sociopathic personality in to my life. Whether on some level I ”˜deserved’ the cruel treatment I received — from my ex as well as from the people in my past. My honest response is this. It doesn’t matter to me where the pain comes from. Who delivers it. Why they’re here. Or what I did to ”˜invite’ or ”˜allow’ it to happen to me. Rather than dwell too much on the bad situations or people that turn up, or try to label them ”˜sociopathic’ ”˜abuser’ ”˜narcissist’ or any other name, I choose instead to focus on what I can now do about my circumstances. Just like accepting my humanness, I will acknowledge and accept that what happened was wrong and hurtful”¦ and then I’ll do my very best to let it go. And that process may well take some time. Good. I can take all the time I like, because it’s important to honour and accept what happened and how I felt, so that I can move through and past it freely and with joy. While doing that, I also reflect back and do my very best to find the ”˜gift’ in the experience — so that I can be certain to recognise and deal with it should a similar person or situation appear again.
But it’s taken me a long time to reach this level of understanding. It’s been a harrowing journey at many times. And, as I said right at the beginning”¦ I’m not saying I have all the answers. Heck, it may well turn out that I don’t have any answers at all — I may be totally wrong in what I’m thinking and believing at the moment! But….
You know what, though? When I look outside at my life that’s surrounding me right now, and compare it to what it’s been”¦. Even running a mental check right back through the years to my childhood”¦. I can honestly say that I feel happier, more settled, and more content than I can ever remember before. And I know, I absolutely know in my heart of hearts that this is just the beginning.
As Louise Hay says “Our thoughts create our reality, and a thought can be changed in a moment”. Every day is a new day, and right now it’s the most fulfilling adventure I’ve ever experienced!
Love and blessings to all — even more than you’ve imagined before 🙂
PS — if anyone fancies experiencing a giggle about the typically good old-fashioned British humour that I grew up with, here’s a link to Morecombe and Wise singing about “Positive Thinking” from their 1976 Christmas special”¦ it always makes me smile http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKN7aWTUrIU
G1S,
You wrote:”My position is that many people never have that luxury and I feel it is very wrong to imply that they are in those positions because they’ve called these conditions into their lives. To me, at least, it implies that nobody else has responsibility for what happens to a person.”
This is very powerful!
Yes, a thousand times YES!!!
When I was leaving my ex-husband, some well-meaning but not very enlightened neighbors were parroting a version of, “well, you know, because you have had this one abusive experience, you probably will keep having them. Women who are abused tend to choose more abusive mates and repeat the experience. They seek it out, they are caught in a cycle of violence.”
OK — that is statistically actually true. But what was missing was how UNHELPFUL that was for me to hear at that time, and also any lack of depth of understanding of the possible reasons why an abuse victim might end up in a series of abusive relationships. I realize now they were just repeating stuff they’d gotten probably from reader’s digest or women’s day mag, without any foundation of understanding of what a cycle of violence IS.
I just mean, I was not in a place where I could hear any of what they were saying, while what they were saying was not “untrue” it was totally unhelpful AND damaging to me. I felt blamed. And I think they probably wanted to be helpful and didn’t realize that they were blaming me. They didn’t have enough wisdom to realize what they were saying. They didn’t realize the depth of their own ignorance.
And I think that is the difficulty. We are all ignorant, many of us want to be helpful, we really don’t know what to say, maybe say the wrong thing or don’t put it across well or don’t realize how ignorant we are.
But at the same time… we do have wisdom to offer, and sometimes people are in a place where we can hear it. So we should at least try.
Above, all, what I learned most strongly from my experiences, is that the voices of the victims need to be heard. That includes targets of sociopaths. We’ve lived it, and we can all learn from each other.
I think it is hard, when first reaching out to a victim, to know where he or she is, what he or she most needs to hear. And therapists are not always the most enlightened folks. Some are, but some do great damage if they do not “get” sociopathy or are not able to discern where a victim is in their stage of recovery from the experience.
Those of us who want to speak from a spiritual perspective can also do damage, and it would be good to keep that in mind. Victims learn the lessons when they are ready to learn it, they will hear when they are ready to hear, etc. Everyone’s process is individual including the timetable. But we all share the same vocabulary, and the same words can have vastly different meanings, depending where you are in the process. Misunderstandings can arise.
20years,
The gifst in the pile of shit to me are my studies, my close ties with my friends and parents, my moving to a new apartment, the forced learning to budget, discovering how cheap I CAN live and still enjoy my day, my “only if I can trust a man and when he’s worth it”-intimacy thinking, and my new view on society. Without the cataclistic relationshit of hell, and the losses I experienced in the aftermath such as the job, I would have kept on struggling at a school with a principal who has no spine against the kids, never sure I’d have a teaching position in the same school next year… etc. I still am not sure, but now I care less about it, since I took a part of that in my own hands again with the studies. The whole experience and learning to re-evaluate my social views has improved my abilities regarding boundaries significantly, and this has gained me the respect of my pupils, my colleagues, my principal and secretary.
And lastly it has given me the wisdom that I can never be certain that shit won’t happen to me anymore, but also with the self-confidence that I’ll survive that too and piece myself and a satisfying life together again.
Oxy, you managed to overcome your broken finger to type! Good for you!
I’m going to zero in on one particular thing you said, and I don’t mean this in a critical way because your story amazes and inspires me. You said that you can understand why some women might stay with an abuser especially if children are involved, although you managed to leave and survive.
(heavy sigh)
But… your husband was not the father of these kids, right? I think that makes some difference. It is very hard to leave a husband who is the father of your kids, if he is a controlling (and dangerous, violent) man who will use the legal system against you, using the kids as pawns.
I might have gotten your story wrong — if so, I apologize. I’m not even one speck being critical! Just want to point out that LEAVING is a separate thing from SURVIVING afterwards, and then of course also moving in a positive direction towards THRIVING. Some people cannot even leave — to get to the point of being able to survive in the back of a pickup truck. The reasons are not always financial. Very often, it seems too dangerous to leave, even though staying is too dangerous. It is too hard to know when you get to the point where it is too dangerous to stay, yet possibly safe enough to leave.
I think if it were physically safe to leave (this includes legal maneuvers by the lying spouse to get custody of the kids where he/she can abuse them now out of your sight and protection!) — setting the financial part aside — more people WOULD leave. Financial stuff is so very difficult, but it is possible to survive on very little, as you did.
But again, I may be getting your story wrong. I am sorry, I cannot remember if you were in danger from your ex-husband physically or legally while you were living that very basic existence (and I’m not at all minimizing what you achieved — it is an amazing accomplishment). Everyone who has successfully left an abusive spouse is courageous AND lucky. One of the hardest things to do, frequently misunderstood how hard it is.
20 years, no my husband WAS the father of my kids….and I was a stay at home mom for several years. My job skills where we lived were not marketable much above minimum wage because I had been a stay at home mom.
He deserted me, and I didn’t even know it was coming. It was totally a blind side betrayal. I should have seen it coming but I was so in love with him I thought he walked on water. I never could have thought he would leave me or the kids. He never saw them again. He paid child support through the court (not much but some) and it helped me survive after it started coming 18 months after our split. Plus, his father managed to get my “half” of our joint assets down to my share was about 1/10th or less plus I had medical bills that I ended up paying. He was supposed to carry medical insurance on the kids but he never did. I had no money to fight him in court.
Except for the actual divorce which was engineered by his father I can’t say that my husband was abusive to me, the situation was abusive however. Just in leaving the way he did was abusive but actually I don’t blame him, considering what stresses he was under. I feel much empathy and sympathy for him really. He was a very mixed up man who had been controlled and abused by his P father since birth. He never broke free that I know of. He was in survival mode I think, emotionally, to survive his father’s mental abuse. In retrospect I feel sorry for him as a victim as well. It took me a long time to piece the puzzle together and to see what was going on then, but only in retrospect.
My husband that died in the plane crash was my second husband. we had been friends since I was a teenager. We were together 20 years and had a good marriage.
Oxy,
Thank you for giving these details — it helps me understand. Yes, yours is a different sort of devastating experience. I can see why you “get” betrayal so well.
My divorce happened in 1980, I had two kids that were pre-teens, a cat, a dog and nothing else. It was a bizarre night mare about as crazy as the trojan horse P, but I have not talked much about my divorce here on LF. The P involved was my father in law. I went back to college, finished up my RNP and went to work at that. I came to acceptance with my divorce a long time ago, though I didn’t really realize all the mechanics of what went on until I started studying about psychopaths and realized how the whole thing went down. I did realize before that that my father in law was the mechanism behind the divorce I just didn’t realize what he was. Maybe I would have done things differently with Patrick if I had known about psychopaths from my experience with my father in law. But I didn’t know so, I didn’t have that help. But you know, we learn even if we dont’ exactly know what we are dealing with, but knowing more exactly we can at least fend them off in the future.
The knowledge I have now gives me strength when I spot a dysfunctional person—cluster B or not—and push them out of my life. I cleaned out my rolodex of abusive people, of people who suck you dry, who take more than they give, who are not caring, compassionate people. They don’t have to be flaming cluster Bs to be the kind of people I don’t want to deal with.
If they are abusive to others, or in any way dishonest…as Lady MacBeth said “Out! damn spot!”
Yesterday I saw the hag, today I see the beautiful young woman
As I read your posts OX, I am reminded of how our view does change.
Funny how that works.
None of us “signed up” for the devastating experiences we have endured. And it is possible out of that to make choices based on what we have learned.
Its the best we can do. And yours is an example that gives tremendous insights to us all.
Yes, our circles get smaller. And that is ok.
My father said “you’ve done a lot of livin’ ” and it it was his way of talking about a lot of learning and experience.
I don’t think we choose it. I don’t think we’re fated. But I do think that these things happen and that we can learn a lot from them even if it is all so very different from what we hoped or expected life could be.
And we can fend them off and go on. Survive mule kicks, parrot bites and other problems.
There are ways.
We find peace not by getting all that we want, but by learning to accept all that we have and that we know and go forward from it.
Nought’s had, all’s spent,
Where our desire is got without content;
‘Tis safer to be that which we destroy
Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.
Thank you, Spoon. I think you just about summed it up. It sounds like your friend and I have a lot in common.
I do have to say that the thinking part was certainly not a conscience thinking. It was much deeper, more primal, if you will. That’s what I meant by it coming from an emotional place. Perhaps I should have said it was my spirit in desperate need of love. Because it was my spirit that was really wounded in my life journey. I really, truly beleive my spritual wound is what brought about the need for love.
I think that my ex just cemented my belief that I am unlovable, he was not the cause of my believing that. He just reinforced beliefs that I fought against my whole childhood. I never thought my parents were right about me being unlovable, but when the ex came along and pulled the rug out from under me, too, well that just about destroyed me.
The inner strength I was referring to was a glimmer of love I did have for myself. That was a divine gift. I know this for sure. From the people I was exposed to and the abusive ideas that were instilled in me, I should not have even known self-love at all. I should not be where I am today. But the Divine Grace placed that love in my heart from birth and I was able to retain it. Even if it was just a little bit.
I try not to carry those negative belief systems into my current life, but unfortunately it is a lot of hard work re-conditioning the soul. I am very happy to say that progress is being made ever so slowly. One moment at a time.
the sisterhood
You are correct a lot of what we came to believe as children has little to do with conscience thinking at least not what we do now. Some beliefs come from what we see.
I had my friend take the thought that of “I’m unlovable.” She had follow it back to the past. She did find the place where she made the decision that she was unlovable and the last event that led to her sat crying on the back porch petting her dog and telling it your the only one that loves me. The parents gave the dog away a few weeks latter. She was 6. Talk about a stab in the heart. I helped her rip the emotions off of it and place the statement that she was lovable.
Yeah psychos do use the damage against us. It just locks us into a no win type of thing.
Ox Drover
Your welcome. Glad you liked it.
G1S.
Just my take on it. If it comes off a little frustrated it’s not at you but at myself.
Proverbs 23:7 As a man thinketh in his heart so is he,……
Proverbs 4:23 Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.
What beliefs one has is important. And beliefs are created from what we think.
The stepfather was a product of this, it was evil. As to, the one’s that killed the mother and her daughter, evil.
Free will. It’s their free will that got them to this state. I’m talking about the killers. Did those killed deserve it no. Why them? Can’t say. Bad things happen.
Not everything that happen too us is brought to us by how we think. But how we responded to what is happening [the event] has everything to do with “how, what, why” we think. Because once an event has started our view of it is all we have. This view is our experience based on what we think of the event.. It’s not the event but what is in our head. This is where we experience the event. Our thoughts beliefs etc all come together [most is already decided] we run the event through all our filters and out pops the meaning. And now we have our reality. Then we take whatever action the meaning dictates. And this all starts as a thought. Like a small pebble the ripple effects move out and the thought can grow and become a powerful force in our life of either good or evil. This is like the begets thought to idea, to decision, to belief to action. The fruit is in the seed. [Ana I can toss a salad]
I know a girl 22 years old that is with a psychopath right now. Just had a baby. Lives in the country in a compound Grandmother and mother of the psychopath all live in view of each other. The place is surrounded by trees and there is only one road in and Grandmother owns that. . Anyone that goes and see’s this girl can bet either one of the other calls the psycho. Seen it done many times. Fifteen minutes after arriving it calls. A very bad situation. Uncle is a cop to boot. And she has no car. But there are 3 different people that offered her a place. But she has turned everyone down. And there is no doubt that she is fighting for her very survival. She is a prisoner with a hostage. But no one is holding a gun to her head. [Not saying it hasn’t happened] There are places for her to go to.
This gets me to “I don’t think people remains with Ps exclusively because of denial.” Agree it’s not denial it’s self. Add to it, the reasons she bought into his crap that keeps her in denial. And that has to do with what she believes about herself, the world and her place in it plus about others. Unlovable to I want a home and any and everything in between. Her inability to deal with the reasons she bought into it is the real problem. She knows it’s bad there. She knows he’s jumping anything he can. One was her ?? best friend. And it is sad. Breaks my heart. She was a girl that lit up the room. Now she can’t even look you in the eye. But without her making a move nobody can do a thing except pray. You know how she is very agitated and trying to maintain the illusion by anticipating what he wants and since he doesn’t she’ll never get it right.
When she met the guy and had she already grown the thoughts that I don’t put up with liars into a belief. It would have ended before it started. But she is holding on to the hurt from childhood, the lack of support, love etc. And she is looking for others to do what only she can.
Does it excuse the psycho hell no. Dose it excuse my father for killing my mother no. He did make at least an attempt at it he shot himself. How about his sister who terrorized a small boy nope. As with the young girl It came down to me. I was the only one that could change it. There was nothing anyone could do. A little support would have been nice. And the change all started with a thought.
My 2 Cents