12/14/21 (supposedly!)
Here’s another insightful talk by Steven Furtick. (Actually took notes when I listened to it the last time.) I don’t always agree with everything he (or anyone else) espouses when they speak, but like they say in twelve step groups, “Take what you can use and leave the rest.” I hope, if you have the time and inclination to listen to it, you, too, can get something out of it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gALk3cWyP1w
Hello Perfectly Imperfect You!
How’s your week going?
Is there anything you’ve done (or not done) that you regret and have not been able to forgive yourself for? And is it time to let it go now?
I’ve written about some of my own regrets over the course of this blog. One of the biggest, of course, is how I’ve treated some of the beings who’ve treated me right over the years. The people that my heart wanted to trust but the deep emotional wounds perceived that trust as a threat, and so I’ve unintentionally pushed some truly decent souls away.
I’ve made significant progress with learning to trust good women, and now have the type of friends that are teaching me how to give as well as receive love by their actions. It’s amazing (and hard to accept) that when they say they won’t let me push them away, they mean it.
(And have been having to prove their words quite a bit lately . . . )
I’ll be honest, it’s kinda funny listening to a devout Christian friend, ‘C’, trying to find Christian sounding words that describe what a bitch I’ve been since ‘Penelope’ rose up out of the depths of my subconscious. (As has been written about over the last several months.) Gratefully, C (and some others) understand about the whole integrating ‘Penelope’ aspect of this part of the healing journey so they’re giving me much compassion and Grace, thank God.
I actually loved C’s ( and others) honesty (well, maybe the ego’s not so thrilled :)) for at least three reasons:
1) I can’t change what I’m not seeing in self, or more likely, I am noticing and they give me a clearer perspective since the self is usually not the most objective towards it’s own behaviors.
2) If someone is kindly and compassionately honest about the persistent negative they see in me, it helps me to better trust them when they say something positive (which is very often).
3) If someone asks me to hold them accountable and they can take it well when I (lovingly) call them on any of their persistent crud, that tells me they’re strong enough in their sense of self to not just be reacting out of a pissy, negative mindset when they kindly and gently tell me something difficult I need to hear. And like me, a person doesn’t have to jump up and down in joy initially when someone thoughtfully tells them something about their self that might need to be looked at, but after some consideration they appreciate the LOVING honesty that facilitates positive growth.
Because of them (and God!) I’m finally learning, accountability has to go both ways for the health and growth of a good relationship and NO ONE (including me) is ever fully to blame for all mistakes made in any relationship.
(I think that’s the first time I’ve thought that. WOW! I am growing up!!! Woo-hoo!!!)
These recent experiences and revelations have led me to realize . . .
It’s been hard to let go of the guilt and shame of my own actions over the years when it comes to the decent males in my life. I haven’t (yet) been able to prove that all the work that’s been done to heal the hells that created the dysfunctional way I treat them in the first place, have changed my behavior towards them. However, underneath the grief and difficult memories that are being triggered due to the shooting that happened at the school I graduated from, I am gaining a clearer understanding of why I persistently reacted like I did with Great Guy. So, there’s even more hope and probability that the splintered faction in my mind called ‘Michael’ can be understood, healed and integrated more.
The first several months of posts for this blog describe the abuses survived during my childhood, but I don’t think anything was ever written about what happened with the neighbor/schoolmate, ’S’ during my younger teenaged years.
S was a guy who treated me the way I genuinely deserved. He repeatedly reached out to me, offering friendship and perhaps more, and initially it was all good. We could talk for several hours and it would seem like minutes. The world seemed like a much better place whenever he was near. I knew I was safe with him, and I still believe that to this day, and I can back that assumption up by what happened between the two of us back then, even though it didn’t play out well.
Even at that young of an age, like as happened with GG, once my heart started trusting S the ‘Michael’ faction of my brain reared up and kept rebuffing S even though the real me truly wanted to get to know him better. No matter how the unintended rejections would happen, S would walk away without retaliating and never seemed to hold it against me. Never heard an unkind word from him, his buddies, subsequent girlfriends, or family. (In fact, his family treated me better than mine ever did. Never did understand ‘why’ to be honest, was so sure I didn’t deserve their kindnesses.)
Don’t think I ever apologized to S for reacting like I did or told him I cared.
S had a bit of an edge to him, and he got involved with drugs. I kept trying to figure out how to reach out to him because I hated what the drugs were doing to him, but I was too damn emotionally wounded to do anything. I hated that (me) and kept believing if I could just be the friend to him he tried to be for me, then I could help him.
One night, when S and his buddy were f*cked up on several different types of dope, they went to rob a store. Instead, they ended up murdering a fellow schoolmate.
There is so much more that could be written about this, but suffice it to say, I never forgave myself for not being able to be a better friend to S.
So, decades after that and a marriage to a man (and Thank You, God, divorce) who I never could do anything right by and was sure that was always my fault, and who threatened to murder me, GG came into my life. ‘Michael’ still caused me to treat him like I did S when positive feelings arose for him. But instead of apologizing, walking away and leaving the guy alone like I should have, I tried several times to tell him (via written word since I never could verbally or with actions) what a good person he was (is) and repeatedly apologizing for acting like I did.
I was subconsciously (over)compensating for what I didn’t do with S. and still reacting to what the ex threatened. Somewhere in my mind I was believing that GG might do harm to someone (including himself and/or me) because (I felt) I couldn’t do anything right by him, and that everything that went wrong was all my fault, so it was up to me to fix it before something horrible happened.
Now, I’m (finally) getting that what S did really wasn’t my fault at all. His family had their own issues to begin with, and like a few people over the years have told me: I never gave him dope nor encouraged him to take it, and never put a gun (or knife – can’t remember which he used) in his hand. A girlfriend he had was a good, intelligent person who didn’t influence him, so what makes me think I could I have?
And with the abuse of my childhood, all children blame theirself for the abuses and other dysfunction in their environment. The child aspects of my psyche (Little Pearl, Grace, Michael and now Penelope) that never had the opportunity to grow up still hold all that guilt and shame for what we – I – endured. As I’ve been told repeatedly (and KNOW on a conscious level) none of it was ever my fault. Perhaps now my child splinters can receive that, and let go and grow up some more.
Then, of course the marriage. I saw the warning signs before the wedding but went ahead with it anyway. I now know I never loved him, that’s how he got passed the Michael defenses. He was safe in that he couldn’t hurt my heart any more than it already was, but he added to the trauma and confirmed the self hatred and guilt. He was what I thought I deserved. It was my bad that I married him, but I was too wounded to know any better, and it’s time to forgive myself for that. God gave me a way out of that mess, and I was able to let Him lead me out, and I can chose to grateful to self for doing that.
Thank You God. AND Pearl, And friends, whose patience, steadfastness and consistency, love and compassion are learning me how to let down the defenses and treat self and others the same way. I’m understanding more and more that most people are imperfectly GOOD, and I’m not the exception (and neither are perfectly imperfect you).
Amen!
Last year I reclaimed my love for the animated Christmas classic, “The Little Drummer Boy.” Today’s song is Bob Seger’s version of that movie’s title song.
