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Family of Origin
Hey, Cedar, or anyone interested in FOO (Family of Origin) issues. Cedar, WHY NOW???
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<blockquote data-quote="Scent of Cedar *" data-source="post: 658161" data-attributes="member: 17461"><p>Great pain and longing would be exactly the right things to feel, I think. We want so completely for our children to be healed, and we want for our relationships with them to be healed, but it's like there is static in the air or something, and everything gets all confused.</p><p></p><p>You did the right thing in the right time, Copa.</p><p></p><p>He will see that you have called. He will know, however angry and condescending or whatever other feelings he might be having, that you love him.</p><p></p><p><em>Mission accomplished, Copa.</em></p><p></p><p>Your child does not have to pick up, any more than you do. If he is in his right mind, he is probably as shocked at the way he talked to someone he loves as you were to be talked to that way. If he is not in his right mind, there is nothing you can do about that.</p><p></p><p>But you have done everything you can do, for now, for this time.</p><p></p><p>And that took courage. And really, given the traumatic things your last conversation with him brought up for you, it took a set of stainless steel...er, testicles.</p><p></p><p>Now is when you can know the panic and just sit there. That is just panic. You have been here a thousand times. It will pass. Just like with the scream, Copa. Now you know where you are.</p><p></p><p>Good job, mom.</p><p></p><p>He doesn't have to respond. What matters here is not so much that you know you love him but that he knows that.</p><p></p><p>Now, he does.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>M loves you very much. He sees you as you are. He does not see the hurt parts or the confusion. Head for that imagery of who you are, Copa. M holds you safe. That he understands and can validate that strong mother heart? That is how you will be able to see it, to find it, to comfort and to be comforted by it, again, too.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Yes, Copa.</p><p></p><p>We are born with it. We are born female. Mothering is innate. Remember the story I told, about Oprah and the school in Africa? They are all her daughters now, Copa. Maya Angelou welcomed Oprah as her daughter and spoke about mothering all of us, every one of us, through her writing.</p><p></p><p>It is like Dorothy and the red slippers that she thought she needed, or the heart or the courage or the intelligence. She always had those things that she went so far to find.</p><p></p><p>She just needed to believe there were there.</p><p></p><p>Where is that tender, strong sacred thing that is mother heart in you, Copa? Close your eyes. </p><p></p><p>There.</p><p></p><p>All the time, right there.</p><p></p><p>You can mother yourself with it, too. Like love, the more we mother, the more we can mother, and the more we can be truly nurtured, truly loved, truly who we are and have always been.</p><p></p><p>It happened to me. That's how I know that true thing.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Going away is the right thing. My D H took me far, far away. I always tell the story of arriving with nothing at all. We did not even have a proper fork. We had each other and our dog and our cat and that's all. And we knew no one, at all. And we made a new life because there was nothing there from the old one <em>and that was exactly the right thing to do.</em></p><p></p><p>A mile away or a thousand miles away. You know yourself Copa, that this distance between you and your son now is a distance of the heart. It is the heart that will heal it.</p><p></p><p>And that can be done from anywhere.</p><p></p><p>Both my children and all my grands are hundreds of miles away from me in all directions. You know what we have come through, all of us. But in heart healing, it isn't physical proximity that matters. We can fall apart from our children or our mates when everyone is sleeping just a door away from one another.</p><p></p><p>I say, go to this new place, find this new life.</p><p></p><p>Do it tomorrow, if you can.</p><p></p><p>Just do it, Copa. Nothing to fear, right? I am on this site, or talking (or not talking, as is often the case with my own son) on telephones from which ever place I am in seamlessly. No one is sure, until we tell them we have arrived and which part of the country it is we have arrived in, until we say so. It doesn't matter, because we are talking about matters of the heart. Distance, physical distance, doesn't matter.</p><p></p><p>Go, Copa. Go with M. Here is a story someone told me. It was a Latina woman, Copa. She said there is a phrase for moms like me, who are so enamored of their children they forget they are women, forget they were women first, before their children ever came into their lives. Well, you know I don't remember the phrase. But it was in Spanish, and it meant like "more mother than woman". I thought about that alot. She was right, of course.</p><p></p><p>But I couldn't stop being that way?</p><p></p><p>Until D H took me far, far away from my grown up, so troubled, children, and created a new life for me, and for him and for us both, in that faraway place where all we had was ourselves, and our dog, and our cat.</p><p></p><p>True story.</p><p></p><p>It happened, to me.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>We come back from it Copa, we come back to it, but we are different when we do than we were when we left. So in a way you are right. But the choice was to stay in something intolerable enough that you decided (or I decided) to go, or to go on the hero's quest that is a life well lived. Those who stay shrivel and grow smaller and more afraid and more prone to fear. Those who go may die trying.</p><p></p><p>But they, at least, took the reins of destiny into their own hands.</p><p></p><p>No one of us can look back on every decision and say it was absolutely the right one and we have no regrets. Anyone who tells you something different is not telling the truth ~ either to you, or to themselves. We are all human, here.</p><p></p><p>We get to make thousands and thousands of mistakes. And at the end of the day?</p><p></p><p>We learn that our mistakes were our journeys, all along.</p><p></p><p>My daughter and I were just talking about that, last night. We were talking about the War of the Grandma's Baklava grandchild, and of how proud my daughter is to be her mother.</p><p></p><p>And of how it could have come to be that she is as she is, after all she has been through.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Me, too. Unless the person is valid. The artist in the gallery where I volunteer is valid; my Tai Chi instructor is valid. The 88 year old across the street is totally valid. those kinds of people I respond to. Not so much the plastic ones, the ones without depth, without that something about them that tells me they are like me.</p><p></p><p>There are books, there is music and poetry and writing and conversation with D H or my grands or my children. Those things are real enough for my time, now. I have been lonelier in a crowd than I have ever been by myself.</p><p></p><p>I am like, this mysterious person to myself, all filled with sunshine or really dark water.</p><p></p><p>Love it.</p><p></p><p>Totally entertained with myself.</p><p></p><p>For heaven's sake.</p><p></p><p>:O)</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>That is good imagery, Copa. You know, on some level, that you will be getting up, soon.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Two things, Copa. Tampons, placed correctly, will address pluming issues as well as surgery. So my professor instructed us, when we were doing anat/phys. Secondly, I think these issues around all things plumbing related come to all of us, male and female alike, and I think they make us human in a way we may not have been, before. So, we have to be more aware of what is happening to all those areas, all the time, just in case we wet our pants.</p><p></p><p>Or worse.</p><p></p><p>So, we do our Kegels and bring extra supplies everywhere we go, just in case.</p><p></p><p>That is how I deal with it, anyway.</p><p></p><p>Daughter had these issues too, just after the beating. And all we could do was laugh about how stupidly ridiculous the whole horrible thing was.</p><p></p><p>That is all we could do.</p><p></p><p>So, we did.</p><p></p><p>And we wear those little pads, and we carry freshness with us at all times and we just have to laugh at how stupid it could be that this should be happening to us.</p><p></p><p>But not in public.</p><p></p><p>We do not laugh so hard in public.</p><p></p><p>Ahem.</p><p></p><p>We are not that well adjusted.</p><p></p><p>Not yet.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Good, Copa. That is such a good thing to be. I like that very, very much. I can be a little like Maya Angelou, then. That is a happy triumph for me and for you and for SWOT too, Copa. For all of us, to mother one another where we can, and to do what is in front of us to do. I feel defiant and strong and good about this thing we have done and are doing.</p><p></p><p>I will be here every day, Copa. We will do what we do, and continue finding and giving and taking strength from all of it long after we have all come to that place where we are strong and oh, so steady again, on our own.</p><p></p><p>I love it that we are able to find strength in our brokenness, Copa.</p><p></p><p>You have made me very happy, to know that good thing.</p><p></p><p>Thank you, Copa.</p><p></p><p>Cedar</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Scent of Cedar *, post: 658161, member: 17461"] Great pain and longing would be exactly the right things to feel, I think. We want so completely for our children to be healed, and we want for our relationships with them to be healed, but it's like there is static in the air or something, and everything gets all confused. You did the right thing in the right time, Copa. He will see that you have called. He will know, however angry and condescending or whatever other feelings he might be having, that you love him. [I]Mission accomplished, Copa.[/I] Your child does not have to pick up, any more than you do. If he is in his right mind, he is probably as shocked at the way he talked to someone he loves as you were to be talked to that way. If he is not in his right mind, there is nothing you can do about that. But you have done everything you can do, for now, for this time. And that took courage. And really, given the traumatic things your last conversation with him brought up for you, it took a set of stainless steel...er, testicles. Now is when you can know the panic and just sit there. That is just panic. You have been here a thousand times. It will pass. Just like with the scream, Copa. Now you know where you are. Good job, mom. He doesn't have to respond. What matters here is not so much that you know you love him but that he knows that. Now, he does. M loves you very much. He sees you as you are. He does not see the hurt parts or the confusion. Head for that imagery of who you are, Copa. M holds you safe. That he understands and can validate that strong mother heart? That is how you will be able to see it, to find it, to comfort and to be comforted by it, again, too. Yes, Copa. We are born with it. We are born female. Mothering is innate. Remember the story I told, about Oprah and the school in Africa? They are all her daughters now, Copa. Maya Angelou welcomed Oprah as her daughter and spoke about mothering all of us, every one of us, through her writing. It is like Dorothy and the red slippers that she thought she needed, or the heart or the courage or the intelligence. She always had those things that she went so far to find. She just needed to believe there were there. Where is that tender, strong sacred thing that is mother heart in you, Copa? Close your eyes. There. All the time, right there. You can mother yourself with it, too. Like love, the more we mother, the more we can mother, and the more we can be truly nurtured, truly loved, truly who we are and have always been. It happened to me. That's how I know that true thing. Going away is the right thing. My D H took me far, far away. I always tell the story of arriving with nothing at all. We did not even have a proper fork. We had each other and our dog and our cat and that's all. And we knew no one, at all. And we made a new life because there was nothing there from the old one [I]and that was exactly the right thing to do.[/I] A mile away or a thousand miles away. You know yourself Copa, that this distance between you and your son now is a distance of the heart. It is the heart that will heal it. And that can be done from anywhere. Both my children and all my grands are hundreds of miles away from me in all directions. You know what we have come through, all of us. But in heart healing, it isn't physical proximity that matters. We can fall apart from our children or our mates when everyone is sleeping just a door away from one another. I say, go to this new place, find this new life. Do it tomorrow, if you can. Just do it, Copa. Nothing to fear, right? I am on this site, or talking (or not talking, as is often the case with my own son) on telephones from which ever place I am in seamlessly. No one is sure, until we tell them we have arrived and which part of the country it is we have arrived in, until we say so. It doesn't matter, because we are talking about matters of the heart. Distance, physical distance, doesn't matter. Go, Copa. Go with M. Here is a story someone told me. It was a Latina woman, Copa. She said there is a phrase for moms like me, who are so enamored of their children they forget they are women, forget they were women first, before their children ever came into their lives. Well, you know I don't remember the phrase. But it was in Spanish, and it meant like "more mother than woman". I thought about that alot. She was right, of course. But I couldn't stop being that way? Until D H took me far, far away from my grown up, so troubled, children, and created a new life for me, and for him and for us both, in that faraway place where all we had was ourselves, and our dog, and our cat. True story. It happened, to me. We come back from it Copa, we come back to it, but we are different when we do than we were when we left. So in a way you are right. But the choice was to stay in something intolerable enough that you decided (or I decided) to go, or to go on the hero's quest that is a life well lived. Those who stay shrivel and grow smaller and more afraid and more prone to fear. Those who go may die trying. But they, at least, took the reins of destiny into their own hands. No one of us can look back on every decision and say it was absolutely the right one and we have no regrets. Anyone who tells you something different is not telling the truth ~ either to you, or to themselves. We are all human, here. We get to make thousands and thousands of mistakes. And at the end of the day? We learn that our mistakes were our journeys, all along. My daughter and I were just talking about that, last night. We were talking about the War of the Grandma's Baklava grandchild, and of how proud my daughter is to be her mother. And of how it could have come to be that she is as she is, after all she has been through. Me, too. Unless the person is valid. The artist in the gallery where I volunteer is valid; my Tai Chi instructor is valid. The 88 year old across the street is totally valid. those kinds of people I respond to. Not so much the plastic ones, the ones without depth, without that something about them that tells me they are like me. There are books, there is music and poetry and writing and conversation with D H or my grands or my children. Those things are real enough for my time, now. I have been lonelier in a crowd than I have ever been by myself. I am like, this mysterious person to myself, all filled with sunshine or really dark water. Love it. Totally entertained with myself. For heaven's sake. :O) That is good imagery, Copa. You know, on some level, that you will be getting up, soon. Two things, Copa. Tampons, placed correctly, will address pluming issues as well as surgery. So my professor instructed us, when we were doing anat/phys. Secondly, I think these issues around all things plumbing related come to all of us, male and female alike, and I think they make us human in a way we may not have been, before. So, we have to be more aware of what is happening to all those areas, all the time, just in case we wet our pants. Or worse. So, we do our Kegels and bring extra supplies everywhere we go, just in case. That is how I deal with it, anyway. Daughter had these issues too, just after the beating. And all we could do was laugh about how stupidly ridiculous the whole horrible thing was. That is all we could do. So, we did. And we wear those little pads, and we carry freshness with us at all times and we just have to laugh at how stupid it could be that this should be happening to us. But not in public. We do not laugh so hard in public. Ahem. We are not that well adjusted. Not yet. Good, Copa. That is such a good thing to be. I like that very, very much. I can be a little like Maya Angelou, then. That is a happy triumph for me and for you and for SWOT too, Copa. For all of us, to mother one another where we can, and to do what is in front of us to do. I feel defiant and strong and good about this thing we have done and are doing. I will be here every day, Copa. We will do what we do, and continue finding and giving and taking strength from all of it long after we have all come to that place where we are strong and oh, so steady again, on our own. I love it that we are able to find strength in our brokenness, Copa. You have made me very happy, to know that good thing. Thank you, Copa. Cedar [/QUOTE]
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Hey, Cedar, or anyone interested in FOO (Family of Origin) issues. Cedar, WHY NOW???
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