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Family of Origin (FOO) Support Thread Part 2
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<blockquote data-quote="Copabanana" data-source="post: 663791" data-attributes="member: 18958"><p><strong><em> “I am held, and part of everything."</em></strong></p><p>Instead of aloneness I see this as connectedness.</p><p></p><p>When I think about holding faith with myself, my own truth, and choosing to betray another to do so, I am thinking about my mother. When I spoke those words: Your life is not more important than mine.</p><p></p><p>That of course had been the basic rule of my life with my mother. Accepting that her needs and wants were over ours.</p><p></p><p>And it was against accepting that rule, that I had always rebelled, and left her for decades. But I had never challenged the basic rule <em>to her</em>.</p><p></p><p>I left because I felt that I could not live, accepting up front that my needs and well-being were less important than hers. I left the game. I thought it was rigged. But I never ever stood up for myself. Until near the end.</p><p><em></em></p><p><em>I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.”</em></p><p></p><p><em>~</em> <em>Oriah Mountain Dreamer</em></p><p></p><p>You are correct, Cedar, I brought my mother home with me without an end date.</p><p></p><p>And what I had to face was that the end date, meant my own demise.</p><p></p><p>To what ever extent my mother still had her mind, she took advantage of the situation and saw it as an opportunity for a win. She could not see me as having value along side of her. I was somebody to be exploited and used.</p><p></p><p>Even if by this time her mind was gone, the unfortunate thing for her, was that was her M.O.</p><p></p><p>It was so deep in her psychic DNA as to be her default.</p><p></p><p>Like an animal in the jungle she exploited the vulnerability of a victim, and she preyed.</p><p></p><p>It could well have been that by the time she came to my house, she lacked the judgment and faculties to plan or modulate or decide what would be in her best interests. Had she been able to she would have played it differently.</p><p></p><p>The sadness is that what she did do, played into my fear of her, my pathology, my training as a small child to forfeit myself for her. And so when I forced myself to see what I was doing (actually when M would no longer tolerate it and forced me to respond, and to take a stand), I had to take a stand for who I had been vis a vis my Mother for my whole life.</p><p></p><p>I had been her victim. I loved her and love her, but in a match between us, I would always lose. That was the way the game was rigged.</p><p></p><p>Cedar, I know no other way to be.</p><p></p><p>(If I tell the real truth, I wish I had gone along with the program. I wish I had never stood up for myself. I wish I had never made her suffer. Still.)</p><p></p><p>"I resonate with Oriah’s poem because it speaks so eloquently about being true to oneself even if it appears to betray another."</p><p></p><p>I cannot accept this in my situation. Not to save myself. That I am aware of, with another person, I have never until that moment with my mother taken a stand for myself. Except with M. </p><p></p><p>As I re-read this, I see it as false. But not completely, so. I have taken many stands for myself. But there has been a way that I softened the isolation. It would not be adversarial, to the extent that I could avoid this. I will find a compromise or a go around. Essentially strategies assumed by the powerless, or by women when they were so.</p><p></p><p>M has often said that he did not understand why I stand up to and oppose him and not anybody else. It seems patently clear to me. He is strong and I do not fear hurting him. I know he may hurt me, but not kill me. I trust his integrity. Not in the moment. He fights dirty. But in the end of it. He does not take advantage of somebody injured or weak. He is not a predator. </p><p></p><p>With my Mother, even if she would have killed me, I would have preferred to die. At the end. I did.</p><p></p><p>"When we override our deeper truth no one wins."</p><p></p><p>My Mother does and did. She could have cared less about my deeper truth. Or the deeper truth of any other person.</p><p></p><p>"But, when we are willing to cultivate greater presence with our own experience and to listen to the ‘knowing’ that guides us then opportunities open for authentic connection and flow."</p><p></p><p>My Mother was not interested in authentic connection. She wanted what she wanted. That was my Mother.</p><p></p><p>I am wondering now if I even have a self. Of course, I do. But a very badly maintained and treated poor old self.</p><p></p><p>I am my own little flower. With just 4 little impossible thorns. I will love her. I will take care of her. I will protect her. I will soothe her when she is sad and cries. What is it? I will draw a fence, around my little flower self, so that the sheep do not trample her.</p><p></p><p>It is a start.</p><p></p><p><strong>The Courage to Start the Conversation…How do we each innocently betray ourselves? </strong></p><p><strong></strong></p><p>I think the real and first betrayal is to fail to acknowledge we are even there. To not even consider the presence as a viable party to the conversation, that essence of us, that is a self. I think I existed for my entire life, silent and invisible. I never even consulted my self. Because I did not much acknowledge me or I, except from a place of deep pain like when I decided to adopt my son.</p><p></p><p><strong><em>What is it that we know, but we pretend we don’t know? </em></strong>No more than what I said above. There is a self. It may be wounded, and compromised, and neglected and unheard. But it is there.</p><p></p><p>At any moment the decision can be made to act from the self, and to make the self the absolute priority.</p><p></p><p>If one decides to act from the self, there is clarity.</p><p></p><p>The self is an absolute. What the self needs is not abstract. It is not relative. It is true. Because it is true, there is no here or there. No maybe. No qualification. So to acknowledge the self and to do right by the self immediately is to find certainty and to know the right course.</p><p></p><p>While the self may exist in the interior, and we may not know where to go, or how, there is a clarity....and purpose there. Because the way to go is illuminated by feelings, by commitments, by truths that are held in a way that nothing else is.</p><p></p><p>I do not think it is hard to know what to do or say if one acknowledges the self. I have not yet tested this, but I believe this to be true.</p><p></p><p>I think this is why M has so little self-doubt. I think his mother taught him this practice. I think he errs, and can err and be lost for many, many years. But I think he knows how to begin again, because his Mother taught him how to talk to G-d and to begin again.</p><p></p><p>I think this is what M would wish for more than anything for me (and for him) that I would want to be part of a religious community and dialog. It frustrates him because I have not stuck to it here in the small community where I live.</p><p></p><p>They are just so provincial. There I said it. I want an intellectual conversation. I will try again when we go to the new place. My experience of my community is a highly ethnic one. It is tied to memories that are much older than my own life. The people here are many of them converts, or highly assimilated. Where I am going it is not like that. It can be as if it was centuries ago.</p><p></p><p>"When we allow fear to take the reigns, and we don’t trust the wisdom of the conversations that are arising from inside of us, we limit the depth of intimacy."</p><p></p><p>My Mother was limited in the intimacy she wanted or could have. My Mother was very, very warm and compassionate. Under certain hothouse conditions she could give of herself. If you were in the deepest pain, she was at best and most giving. My Mother had a great deal of heart <em>in moments of crisis if there was nothing at stake involving her interests or cost to herself.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p>But in her real life she was the center of the world. That was her default.</p><p></p><p><strong><em><strong>It means we are being encouraged to take conscious responsibility for how love moves through us. </strong></em></strong></p><p></p><p><strong>What practice do you have in your life that allows you to initiate the difficult conversations in order to stay connected? </strong></p><p></p><p>The only practice I have currently have to speak my wisdom is posting here. I think the value of this board is this. We are all in such desperate need. So alone. So separate from others with more conventional experience. So ready to hear truth. So in need of it. So much in need of each other.</p><p></p><p>That the only thing that works, is to speak our wisdom. And because of the rawness and openness of everybody else, we have the reward of being heard. And so real conversations continue.</p><p></p><p>I think my conversations with M are not as direct or even verbal.</p><p></p><p>M is a know it all. He jockeys for position with me.</p><p></p><p>The conversation I have with him is more a symbolic and physical one. I depend upon him almost to keep my alive. He sees and feels my abject need and suffering. I see and feel his. That is the nature of our conversation.</p><p></p><p>There was a time, in the beginning, that we read the same books. I love the Argentine writer, Jorge Borges. We read stories and essays and spoke of them. I know we can find a common ground. Whether it is spiritual or literary or dance.</p><p></p><p>So that the conversation does not feel as if it is a question of dominance and submission for either one of us.</p><p></p><p>M does not see that in certain conversations with him I feel like he is killing me off. I stop them, and he gets frustrated. I do not have the strength of will that does he. I am making him sound bad. He is not.</p><p></p><p>He is a gentle and good man. He has softness and kindness. But he is a man.</p><p></p><p>Thank you, Cedar.</p><p></p><p>PS I forgot to say this. I am fortunate to have a profession that has afforded me something important. In my work I have always had the commitment to integrity of the relationship, and my voice in it. So, I had to always take a stand to protect my own voice and its integrity. To protect the other person in the relationship, I could not override the truth of my own voice. Because that itself would have been a betrayal of the relationship. So, I have the experience of knowing that I am trustworthy and I am not a betrayer. Through this experience.</p><p></p><p>I have never however held myself as important enough to deserve my own trustworthiness for myself.</p><p></p><p>Second, this same profession allows me the opportunity to continue this practice in a powerful way, with the awareness and commitment that I am a person with a self that needs to be acknowledged and cared for. That I have never done.</p><p></p><p><strong></strong></p><p><strong></strong></p><p><strong></strong></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Copabanana, post: 663791, member: 18958"] [B][I] “I am held, and part of everything."[/I][/B] Instead of aloneness I see this as connectedness. When I think about holding faith with myself, my own truth, and choosing to betray another to do so, I am thinking about my mother. When I spoke those words: Your life is not more important than mine. That of course had been the basic rule of my life with my mother. Accepting that her needs and wants were over ours. And it was against accepting that rule, that I had always rebelled, and left her for decades. But I had never challenged the basic rule [I]to her[/I]. I left because I felt that I could not live, accepting up front that my needs and well-being were less important than hers. I left the game. I thought it was rigged. But I never ever stood up for myself. Until near the end. [I] I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.”[/I] [I]~[/I] [I]Oriah Mountain Dreamer[/I] You are correct, Cedar, I brought my mother home with me without an end date. And what I had to face was that the end date, meant my own demise. To what ever extent my mother still had her mind, she took advantage of the situation and saw it as an opportunity for a win. She could not see me as having value along side of her. I was somebody to be exploited and used. Even if by this time her mind was gone, the unfortunate thing for her, was that was her M.O. It was so deep in her psychic DNA as to be her default. Like an animal in the jungle she exploited the vulnerability of a victim, and she preyed. It could well have been that by the time she came to my house, she lacked the judgment and faculties to plan or modulate or decide what would be in her best interests. Had she been able to she would have played it differently. The sadness is that what she did do, played into my fear of her, my pathology, my training as a small child to forfeit myself for her. And so when I forced myself to see what I was doing (actually when M would no longer tolerate it and forced me to respond, and to take a stand), I had to take a stand for who I had been vis a vis my Mother for my whole life. I had been her victim. I loved her and love her, but in a match between us, I would always lose. That was the way the game was rigged. Cedar, I know no other way to be. (If I tell the real truth, I wish I had gone along with the program. I wish I had never stood up for myself. I wish I had never made her suffer. Still.) "I resonate with Oriah’s poem because it speaks so eloquently about being true to oneself even if it appears to betray another." I cannot accept this in my situation. Not to save myself. That I am aware of, with another person, I have never until that moment with my mother taken a stand for myself. Except with M. As I re-read this, I see it as false. But not completely, so. I have taken many stands for myself. But there has been a way that I softened the isolation. It would not be adversarial, to the extent that I could avoid this. I will find a compromise or a go around. Essentially strategies assumed by the powerless, or by women when they were so. M has often said that he did not understand why I stand up to and oppose him and not anybody else. It seems patently clear to me. He is strong and I do not fear hurting him. I know he may hurt me, but not kill me. I trust his integrity. Not in the moment. He fights dirty. But in the end of it. He does not take advantage of somebody injured or weak. He is not a predator. With my Mother, even if she would have killed me, I would have preferred to die. At the end. I did. "When we override our deeper truth no one wins." My Mother does and did. She could have cared less about my deeper truth. Or the deeper truth of any other person. "But, when we are willing to cultivate greater presence with our own experience and to listen to the ‘knowing’ that guides us then opportunities open for authentic connection and flow." My Mother was not interested in authentic connection. She wanted what she wanted. That was my Mother. I am wondering now if I even have a self. Of course, I do. But a very badly maintained and treated poor old self. I am my own little flower. With just 4 little impossible thorns. I will love her. I will take care of her. I will protect her. I will soothe her when she is sad and cries. What is it? I will draw a fence, around my little flower self, so that the sheep do not trample her. It is a start. [B]The Courage to Start the Conversation…How do we each innocently betray ourselves? [/B] I think the real and first betrayal is to fail to acknowledge we are even there. To not even consider the presence as a viable party to the conversation, that essence of us, that is a self. I think I existed for my entire life, silent and invisible. I never even consulted my self. Because I did not much acknowledge me or I, except from a place of deep pain like when I decided to adopt my son. [B][I]What is it that we know, but we pretend we don’t know? [/I][/B]No more than what I said above. There is a self. It may be wounded, and compromised, and neglected and unheard. But it is there. At any moment the decision can be made to act from the self, and to make the self the absolute priority. If one decides to act from the self, there is clarity. The self is an absolute. What the self needs is not abstract. It is not relative. It is true. Because it is true, there is no here or there. No maybe. No qualification. So to acknowledge the self and to do right by the self immediately is to find certainty and to know the right course. While the self may exist in the interior, and we may not know where to go, or how, there is a clarity....and purpose there. Because the way to go is illuminated by feelings, by commitments, by truths that are held in a way that nothing else is. I do not think it is hard to know what to do or say if one acknowledges the self. I have not yet tested this, but I believe this to be true. I think this is why M has so little self-doubt. I think his mother taught him this practice. I think he errs, and can err and be lost for many, many years. But I think he knows how to begin again, because his Mother taught him how to talk to G-d and to begin again. I think this is what M would wish for more than anything for me (and for him) that I would want to be part of a religious community and dialog. It frustrates him because I have not stuck to it here in the small community where I live. They are just so provincial. There I said it. I want an intellectual conversation. I will try again when we go to the new place. My experience of my community is a highly ethnic one. It is tied to memories that are much older than my own life. The people here are many of them converts, or highly assimilated. Where I am going it is not like that. It can be as if it was centuries ago. "When we allow fear to take the reigns, and we don’t trust the wisdom of the conversations that are arising from inside of us, we limit the depth of intimacy." My Mother was limited in the intimacy she wanted or could have. My Mother was very, very warm and compassionate. Under certain hothouse conditions she could give of herself. If you were in the deepest pain, she was at best and most giving. My Mother had a great deal of heart [I]in moments of crisis if there was nothing at stake involving her interests or cost to herself. [/I] But in her real life she was the center of the world. That was her default. [B][I][B]It means we are being encouraged to take conscious responsibility for how love moves through us. [/B][/I][/B] [B]What practice do you have in your life that allows you to initiate the difficult conversations in order to stay connected? [/B] The only practice I have currently have to speak my wisdom is posting here. I think the value of this board is this. We are all in such desperate need. So alone. So separate from others with more conventional experience. So ready to hear truth. So in need of it. So much in need of each other. That the only thing that works, is to speak our wisdom. And because of the rawness and openness of everybody else, we have the reward of being heard. And so real conversations continue. I think my conversations with M are not as direct or even verbal. M is a know it all. He jockeys for position with me. The conversation I have with him is more a symbolic and physical one. I depend upon him almost to keep my alive. He sees and feels my abject need and suffering. I see and feel his. That is the nature of our conversation. There was a time, in the beginning, that we read the same books. I love the Argentine writer, Jorge Borges. We read stories and essays and spoke of them. I know we can find a common ground. Whether it is spiritual or literary or dance. So that the conversation does not feel as if it is a question of dominance and submission for either one of us. M does not see that in certain conversations with him I feel like he is killing me off. I stop them, and he gets frustrated. I do not have the strength of will that does he. I am making him sound bad. He is not. He is a gentle and good man. He has softness and kindness. But he is a man. Thank you, Cedar. PS I forgot to say this. I am fortunate to have a profession that has afforded me something important. In my work I have always had the commitment to integrity of the relationship, and my voice in it. So, I had to always take a stand to protect my own voice and its integrity. To protect the other person in the relationship, I could not override the truth of my own voice. Because that itself would have been a betrayal of the relationship. So, I have the experience of knowing that I am trustworthy and I am not a betrayer. Through this experience. I have never however held myself as important enough to deserve my own trustworthiness for myself. Second, this same profession allows me the opportunity to continue this practice in a powerful way, with the awareness and commitment that I am a person with a self that needs to be acknowledged and cared for. That I have never done. [B] [/B] [/QUOTE]
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