What Surviving Emotional and Physical Abuse taught me about Respect

Respect isn't something that is just automatic (but really, it needs to be...I'll explain)

"RE- SPECT! WALK ! ARE YOU TALKIN' TO ME?" (Pantera's "Walk")

I think I am sick of the idea that we have to earn respect. My thought is that respect should just be a given and that should the other party not live up to the energy that is the respect given by us, then it should be that the other person needs to earn it back.

I sense the raising of the eyebrows with this idea that respect is not something that we should feel the need to demand, or command, or even earn from someone else, because at first meeting, it should just be a given, and it should just stay that way, but always human nature is what it can be, and most of the time, we lose respect for other people because somehow they made it so that we would have a lesser feeling and energy of respect for them. We all do it - we all have, at one point in all of our lives, lost respect for someone else because of an infraction to our very easily-bruised Souls. We were either hurt by their words or actions or we were offended by them. Either way, as we can all attest to, prior to the infraction, we all have respect for others unless and until they prove us to be right in that they are not worthy of that respect.

Then of course they have to earn it back...duh...

Respect...from a Survivor's perspective

I love saying that I feel like I have survived the greatest hell on earth known to man that any person can go through. For a long time it was my inclination to believe that what my mother told me was right, that her father commanded respect and that she demanded it. While I never got that energy from her that she was not willing to give it so long as she received it, the words seemed to hurt me in some manner and until now I did not know why. The reason that those words hurt me so much is not because of anything other than that since it was that both she and her father commanded and demanded respect, I was programmed to believe that I had to be this way, too. Couple that energy with the idea that the person I married demanded everything, but more than anything else, and even while he never really knew and still does not really know what the truest meaning of Respect, I was not too inclined to stray from the belief that was instilled into me as a child growing up in a very religious home. I was not interested in angering people who demanded or commanded things out of others, and it was because I thought that if they had the nerve enough to demand or command it, then surely they were worthy of it. So, I just gave them my respect.

Fast forward to my adulthood, and we see that all of my life I was bullied and messed with, all the while and because that was my own experience to be bullied by my caretaker as a child, and yes, those same words coming out of her mouth that came out of my mother's- that she, the caretaker, demanded respect, because they were both taught by their father that this is the way adults are and that adults should just be handed respect because they are adults. This is the reason that any child would grow into an adult who would have a good chance at being confused when it comes to things as important, as valuable, as one of the most vital things in communication between human beings, as Respect.

Respect is not something that can be had easily once it is gone. Trust and respect are alike. It takes so very little to break either one of them that once it has been fractured it is difficult for us to just have it right back.

Respect is not a bargaining chip even though that is how it was presented to me as a child, and it was done so out of the idea that we need to be bullied, to be made scared of other people and losing their love if we did not simply just give respect because other people demanded it. You can demand all you want, but that does not mean that it is just going to be handed over - no no no....in fact, the reason that you might feel like you are somehow owed respect makes me think that you have little, if any, self-respect, and by that I mean that if this is you, then you are likely one of those people who needs to be worshiped, and that is not being respected - that is being feared. That is you being afraid that if you do not bully someone else into the kind of fear-riddled respect that you think is the reality of respect, that you will end up being just as ridiculously expectant of something that is not real. If you have to bully it, command it, demand it, feel it is owed to you, my friend, the issue is NOT that you are not getting it, but that you think that you need to be worshiped.

Demanding anything at all denotes that you feel like you are owed, all the time, by someone, and if you are owed then that also means that somewhere in you there is a deficit and that deficit is what is causing you to be this way. Respecting someone does not come without its price, and that price is that you have to respect them back when you are respected. This is not something that you do not know, and it is not something that your mom or dad or whoever taught you what respect is also did not know about when they were teaching you their way of being respected. The way that you 'earn' respect is simply to have it for yourself wherever you are and no matter what. To respect one's own self is to be able to know what respect really is.

What respect really is is not as important as what it is not, and I think that there are just too many people on this planet who think they know what it is but in fact they have no real clue and yes, it is that one group of people who feel like they are entitled to people kissing their okoles. When you need someone to kiss your rear end and make you feel like you are better than everyone else, and when you need someone to worship you and do everything within THEIR power to make you feel like you are being respected, you are anything BUT being respected. When you feel like you have to bully another person into the "fear of God" type of respect that so many people regard as being respect, you are not being respected - at that point you are demanding that people worship you, that they fall at your feet, that they do what you want. That is not respect. That is fear. Abuse survivors are the most adept at rifling through the bullshit and getting to the fear of a person, and we do it because we can, and people respect us because we have been through a lot but more than that, they respect us because we know what it is to NOT be respected.

We know that placing hurt into the Spirit of another person is not respect, it is bullying. We know that to put a person off, to push them aside until we are ready to give to them what they so readily gave is not respect, but rather is expectancy of another person making time for you but you not making time for them, and when it is this way, and you get angry because the person who you commanded respect from is just not there and giving it willingly or in large form as they did, this is called your Karma calling your numbers. We know that it is rude, not right, uncool, not okay, a pain in the ass to make other people give respect, so rather than just taking it for granted that everyone else on the planet will make us pay heavily and hard if we do not show respect, we just choose to have and to show and to be the epitome of that which can be called "respect."

We ARE respect, the majority of us, and we are the greatest teachers of showing respect, and more, getting respect, not because we are owed it, not because we command it, and not even because we have earned it, but mostly, because we know too well what it is like to NOT be respected. We are aware of what it is like for another person to throw themselves at our abuser, in front of us even, and we know what the heartache that spawns from it feels like. We know what it is like when our abuser talks at us, down to us, mostly in front of other people, and we know what it is like to have to get out of that feeling that is akin to nausea brought on by someone else trying to make us look bad and shaming us into that belief. We know...oh my Goddess do we EVER know what it is like to suffer the indignities within our own selves caused by blatant disrespect.

And the disrespect happened to us and was meant to be bone deep, and it was...but there is always that flip side, that part of the story that tells everyone that we are the real deal, that what you see with an abuse survivor is totally what you get, and all of it, for the most part, is awesome. It is awesome not because we bounce back, because not one of us will tell you that that is anywhere near the truth. It is awesome because we live it, every single day of our lives, and because, too, we know the meaning of having to earn what we should never have lost in the first place, from day one, even.

Simply put, the reason why most people have a whole lot of respect for people who have been through a whole lot of different kinds of abuses not only to them, but also, to their soul, is because from the moment that we knew what we did not like, we also knew what the truth of us was, and the truth of us remains to be that we give respect from the get go, because we know that we should not judge a person based on what we see with our eyes alone. We know that to be respected that there must be that show of respect first given. There is not one abuse survivor who does not know this as the truth and more, who is not willing to live it, all the way down to the Bones of the Soul...

The old version of commanding, demanding, even, in some cases, earning respect no longer mean anything to anyone unless you sleep in a military barracks and are expected to cover the front lines of battle when called upon...in which case, again, those guys already have my respect.

Think about it...

I LOVE YOU ALL !
ROX

Camera Artist Randy Jay Braun 

Please visit his website by going to randyjaybraun.com

Like the Devil In The House of The Lord

Some people use Biblical reference as an excuse for violence

It is not a secret that I was "raised in the church." There are a lot of good things that can come from such an upbringing, and in no way am I saying that I was robbed in any way of at least knowing that we are not alone in the Universe. Yet, there are people who know that I am telling you the truth that there are a whole lot of ways that the Bible has been wrongly accused, so to speak, of leading men into the idea, and now, sometimes, even women, that somehow and in order to "keep it Biblical," one of the two partners in a marriage has to be assigned as the bully.

While I will not say that there are not people within a religious belief who do not look to those Holy Texts and take them totally and fundamentally as the literal truth, because there are, I will sit here and say that indeed, the dirtiest secret that too many believers have within them is that since it is that the man is the God-Willed person to be called "The Head of the Household," and since it is that the woman was reduced in said such a man's eyes to being nothing more than a rib-bone, that somehow, God...Spirit...Whomever it is Who they or anyone else bows to...somehow that entity condones the beating into submission of other human beings.

I will not sit here and tell anyone that what they believe in is wrong, but I will sit here and tell anyone who has eyes to read and ears to hear that this is not right. To place the perceived wrongness of being female on a woman to begin with is wrong - it is not like we chose to be the gender we were born as. To make it seem as though we are not okay to be equal humans is just as wrong, because that entails that somehow, God screwed up. To think for one minute that anyone else on the planet is somehow not as great as we ourselves are is as wrong - if not more wrong - than it is to believe the lie that God condones the absoluteness of abuse as discipline upon people who are old enough for their abuser to have sex with, to bear children with, to fight like screaming and yelling adults do but who, according an unenlightened person, are not mentally or Spiritually capable of making up their own minds about anything. When that happens - the making up of their own minds, that is - is when the abuse begins, and it is an abuse that is many-fold, because it already started with the idea that anyone else has complete control over the life and the abilities and more than anything else, the choices and also the idea of who we are as people. It starts simply - and with Bible in hand, they go on with the idea that since it is in the Word of God, and since that book is thousands of years older than the victim, that it must be true. From there, the abuse happens in the manner that we are told that if we do not submit to our husbands, that God will surely send us straight to hell.

The fun part about that is that once it is that we are told that much, suddenly this book of many truths disappears from our awareness, and it is so that we cannot go and find out that there is more to that verse that tells the story of so many abuse survivors...that even as God expects the wives to submit to their husbands, it is also stated that the husband must respect their wives, and that is the sin in all of this. That is the devil that sits in the house of the Lord, and that is the thing that no one in a whole lot of churches are willing to admit to - that their congregants might have taken the prose in that book just a little too literally and that now there is an entire population of women who are being abused in the name of the Lord.

The Devil that Lives in The House of The Lord

I am not sure if it is correct or even okay to call it this way, to see it as being the thing that is silently there, the thing that can be called the one cardinal sin that a woman commits, sometimes a man, that is simply being a person who does not want to be controlled by someone else. This is what abuse is really all about - control. The control of another person's life. The control of another person's thoughts, and in this case, at least as the excuse that the abuser uses, the abuse is not abuse and the abuse is sanctioned by God.

I have a problem with this because my father never put a violent hand on my mother. In fact, to this day my father, and for as far back as I can recall, never has and still does not. This is a person who is now retired as a minister, whose passion back in the day was NOT saving lost souls but teaching the ones in his congregation about the things that God wanted us to know. It was up to the congregants to interpret for themselves what it was that God was particularly saying to them through my father. When the abuse began in my life, I was told that I needed to try again, no, not by my parents, but by a Christian therapist whose name escapes me. To bolster the idea that it was ME who had to make things right, my caretaker was part of my father's congregation, and it was she who told me that I needed to heed the advice of what I am sure, at this time in my life, was what she, the therapist, thought was right.

This is the problem with a lot of religions - there is too much that can be taken literally and there are too many abusers sitting in the pews at church and there are too many things that these people think about in the manner that is thinking that their "ignorant" spouse needs to have the Lord tell them what is right and wrong, that they are not privy to the luxury of thinking original thoughts because those original thoughts lead to the victim knowing for sure, even as they already know for sure, that somehow, God does not want us to be hurt. If we are created in His image, it makes no sense to anyone that we would be subjected to sanctioned abusive behavior and acts put upon us because "the lord said so."

The Lord said and says no such thing. The Lord Loves us all - yes, even weirdos like me, and the Lord does not want for us to suffer. The suffering mentioned a whole lot in the Bible is NOT actual suffering but the "suffering" we go through when we are learning the most important lessons in life - lessons in Spiritual growth, and lessons in Sacrifice that is needed, and lessons, most of all, in Aloha, in Love, in Unity and in the knowing that we are all meant for a particular purpose in this lifetime, and that we are here to carry out a mission.

I am sure that the mission is not to be the pariah of another person's life, and I am positive that the Lord does not want any  one of us to cry over the maddening idea that we were sent to be cleaved to a person who would be bad to us to the point where we need to be institutionalized. The Lord did not want for us to be in pain that was forever, and it is the pain which can be referred as being the Fires of Life. We are meant to go through things but only to learn - NOT to become the sacrificial lamb to an controlling person. We are meant to have experiences that will teach us both what we like and what we do not want in our lives, and I know that ALL of us wants to be Loved, and all of us wants to know that we are special to one other person, and that all of us each is safe in the knowledge that we were chosen by God to be here in this consciousness so that we could reach that point in our learning that we will finally know all of this.

Yet this truth...these truths...are lost on anyone who is an abuser. These thoughts never ever cross the minds of abusers, and they never will cross them, because that is not what they are about. They are about absolute control, and they are about the idea that they have to compete with everything and everyone and it is for nothing other than to feel superior to another person. Other people are not who make us and are not who have control over us, no matter what we want to think or believe. No matter what, no one is allowed to have that control, and no one can have it without the systematic putting down of the Spirit of the person they do this to. This is how this all happens - the abuser already takes the initiative to do what he or she will, and thus ensues the madness that is the never-ending cycle of abuse that begins, usually, as verbal put downs, "constructive criticism," judgment of the abuse victim's personal self, loved ones - including family and especially their friends, then comes the problems at work caused by the abuser (which ultimately leads, most of the time, to the victim losing his or her job), and the moment comes when, if they are not able to control their own feelings of self worthlessness and insecurity, the abuse victim becomes another statistic for violence, and it is a violence that begins at home, where we are meant to and are promised that we will be safe.

The thing is, when it is "sanctioned" by God, all bets are off, and it becomes even uglier, because the abuser takes it upon themselves, after they have already used everything else in the life of their victim, they now will choose to take said victim's Higher Power and use it against them. This is the worst kind of abuse, and I know this one personally, because this non-believer, while he never attended services with me on a regular basis, he knew how much I believed in God, and he knew what it was that was in my heart in regards to my beliefs. While it might not be that my beliefs are what they used to be, they are there, and it took me a whole lot of time to get to a place where I could trust in a Higher Power again. Once I did, I started to know that it was never me who was wrong, that I was not the Devil in the House of the Lord, but that there were indeed those who could be akin to just that.

The Devil in the House of the Lord is the stain of abuse that too many clergy members still refuse to take as anything other than a phase which all married couples go through. This is wrong. This is a lie.

Clergy...my call is out to you...my fellow purveyors of all things "Spirit." We need to do more to protect the people who hang on not only our every word, but every word presented to them through the texts which your people deem as "The Word of God." It is an aberration that we have to think of things in this manner, and it is a sad day when someone who is also clergy, who has seen the ugliness of abuse within the church, and when it is that that same someone is not also someone whose beliefs can be called "mainstream," feels like she has to sit here and tell you all that you are not telling your people the whole story, and the whole story is that you need to step up and start saying things to your congregants about the reality that is Domestic Abuse that happens within what is no longer only able to be thought of as the confines of a marriage, but more like the confines of abuse and the prison that is without the bars but is the energy that is control of a person by another human being.

We are not in a third world country anymore, and we are not tilling the fields with slaves, and we are not here and all subject at the same time to what could be deemed as our own personal trials of Job. We were meant for this life and it is with purpose - the purpose of Spirit, and in your language, The Purpose of The Lord God Almighty.

I am sure that God's purpose for anyone who suffers from abuse was never to be controlled by someone else to the point where the victim can no longer think straight, can no longer not cry, can no longer feel like they want to take their own lives, and yes, of course, I know ALL of these, yes even the one which says "want to take their own lives," and yes, I know how difficult it is to come back and to redeem one's own self, not in the eyes of the Lord that sanctioned the abuse, but our very selves. It is time, Reverend, to please, Auhea wale ana 'oe - pay attention - and do right by your congregants and address that this happens, yes, in your church and right underneath your nose.

You don't have to believe me about this, Reverend, but I will tell you that it happens, and that it happens a whole lot. You don't have to believe me, husbands of the church, that your church buddies...some of them hit their wives and belittle their kids, but it is the truth. You don't have to believe me, abused wives, that you are not now and neither were you ever meant as the target of one small person's ideals and one small person's own thoughts of self-worhtlessness and insecurity belong to you. You were never meant to take on that energy and it was never your Kuleana, never your Soul's responsibility to shoulder the burden that was not ever yours at all.

We were not ever meant to fear the one who we give our trust to willingly, and we were never meant to have to feel like we must choose between their waning ego and our waning ability to have the motivation to wake up in the morning, period.

We were not meant to be kept like unruly pets who cannot be tamed. We were never meant to be beaten like animals, and we were never ever meant to be less than anyone else.

Ever.

I Love You All
ROX

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The Tears are what heal us

The tears are meant to help us learn to heal.

I have cried probably an ocean's worth of tears. I have cried many more times than I know I cared to, and over people who would not have done as much for me as I have for them, and yes, it hurt. And there are times that, thinking back, it still hurts, and it hurts, not because of anything other than that I thought that quite possibly, what I do for others will come back to me. While I still maintain this thought, what happens when the hurt first happens is that my immediate thinking goes from "why is no one there for me," to "when was I NOT there for you?" So, then, at that point, ensues the tears. Sometimes they were tears cried in anger, and sometimes, sadness, while other times, it was the tears which fell because I was not reciprocated in the manner that I extended my energies to someone else. Even though the things that I have gone through and the things that I still go through, sometimes they suck, they are still needed and they are needed because the tears which fall due to the thing causing them needed to teach me something. In this case, I think I have learned that no more am I to give until I can no longer give anything, til my own expenditure of tears and of heart have been spent, til I have literally nothing left to give.

When there is nothing left to give, there is only one thing that happens, and it is because there is an emptiness, and that emptiness tells the story of the thing that did not show up to fill the void in the manner expected, and without the idea that someone, or something, better will come along and that whatever it is that comes along that is better will absolutely be the thing that will make the tears, the anger and the heartbreak that much easier to deal with. And yes, that one thing is that realization that there are so many other ways to go about a thing, and so many other people who can help each one of us get through whatever it is that we need to get through, and that all it takes is one person to come along and let us know that no matter what, even though someone else might not have thought enough of our feelings, might not have felt as though the thing that meant anything at all to us was not that big of a deal, it does not mean that there is not at all, anywhere, just one person who cares enough about us, at least to let us know that no, it was not us who did them wrong, which in turn made it seem to us that they were doing us wrong.

In the mind of someone who is a survivor, the pain of rejection is still there. We have been and end up being and feeling like we have been used, and we feel this way because the truth is that our abusers DID use us, to the point that we feel like everyone else on the planet is also using us. This is not the truth. The truth is that there is likely something going on in the lives of your loved ones, or at least the people who you have done a whole lot for, and that those things in their lives are taking up a lot of their time, a lot of their effort, a lot of them. It doesn't mean that they would not do what you needed them to if they did have the time, it just means that right now, something is in their lives that is making them not have the time that you think you need them to have.

This is the reality. This is the truth. This is the thing that I have wrestled with and this is the thing that, for years, because someone else told me that it was because I was too stupid to NOT do something for someone else without the expectation of getting something in return, I thought that people just used the hell out of me. While partially, that is the truth - that people who can, will use you if you let them - what is entirely the truth is that sometimes, what we need others to do for us involves other people, and that sometimes, when they let us down it has also let them down in that they cannot give back to us what it was that they received from us, and the worst part about it is that they actually feel badly that they can't. The truth is that sometimes, it is not the answer that we want and neither is it the answer that the other person wants to give us. Sometimes, when it is that we want something so badly, the truth is that there is something else happening and at work and is in our favor even as it doesn't feel like it.

Our tears, they heal us, and if we cry hard enough, we eventually, even though our faces are puffy and even though we feel like we want to hurl, become healed because, our tears, they give show to the thing that is going on inside of us, they give the world a chance to see the thing that is happening to us. We tend to think of the world as a lot smaller when it seems that there is no other way to do something. In reality, there is always another way, always somehow other than the thing that we thought was the only way to do a thing. Whenever it is that we feel like we are being rejected by someone else, it is wise, I have found, to step back and think about what is really going on. We cannot know the truth of someone else, and we cannot know what is their issue at the moment, and for the very life of us we cannot predict the thing that they give us that will either make us or break us in that one moment.In that one moment is the only time that anyone should be affected by an answer, even if that answer is something that we feel would have made things a lot nicer for us.

No matter what we think, the tears that we cry are meant to help us heal, are meant to show us that we are worth the time to think of another way to do something, have something, know something, be something other than in pain. If we are wise we know that we have been given this magical ability to think, to bring change and to soothe ourselves with the thought that there needs to be tears, but that the tears are only there to make us know that there is something wrong, and the tears are there to tell us our own story, and the tears make it so that we have some time to take a thing apart and look at it differently. When we choose to look at something differently and from the point of view of someone else, we find out very quickly that it was never us who was at fault, and sometimes it is not the fault of the other person, and more than that, sometimes that other person has to depend on other people to get them to the yes that we want. It is not their fault. It is not your fault. It might hurt you a lot. It might hurt them a lot. You might not understand why. They might not understand why. It does not have to be something that brings heartaches to you both.

The tears are meant to wash away the hurts, and they are meant to heal our broken hearts and they are meant to remind us that we are all simultaneously powerful and vulnerable. They tell us that even though we might be strong and powerful, at the same time we are also open to feeling how we feel when we are feeling it. They allow us to let go of the pain through the emotional show of tears. The tears give us time to think, and though most people do not use the time to think of another way to feel about something, there is a time in our lives when eventually, we think. We choose to refuse to blame, refuse to feel self pity, and we give in to the idea that now is the best time to start thinking in another fashion.

And that, my friends, is what the tears are meant for....

I LOVE YOU ALL!
ROX

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An Abuse Survivor's Tale - How my mother taught me to Survive

The things that our moms teach us throughout the course of our lives never reveal themselves until we need that energy...

I say a lot about what we moms teach our children. Right now my two best friends on this planet, April and Dannie, are both in flux, and like me, both are facing issues that their own mothers might not ever have had to. Yet, even as the three of us each has our own horror stories of what our moms did or did not do, I think we, to an extent, would have to agree that whether it was our moms being overly-cautious with us, but not with who we were (begetting who we now each are, of course) in so far as how we would feel about ourselves in relation to them, I must say that whether our moms were too watchful or not watchful enough in any capacity, be it physically, emotionally, mentally or Spiritually, they taught us each to survive. On that measure, I must give them props.

While I cannot speak for either April or Dannie, I can say that the two of them knows well the things that I have gone through with my own mother, and while some of those things hurt me, those same things taught me a whole lot. One of those things that Ma taught me was to do my best at all that I do, no matter what it is. So, when I set out on my own personal Path to the healing of the Bones of The Soul, the only thing that I knew would be the thing that could even come close to the medicine that would help me heal the things that raged in my memories, the thing that made me know that there was a signature "thing" that was mine, that was not only the ability to reach out to others, not only the gift that is "Sight of Soul," not only the respect that I have for the beliefs of others...not only what it is that, on the outside, and to the unknowing, make me who I am, but more, for always telling me that no matter what, even without saying the words, that I am a special person, with special abilities, and am someone who does not ever give up.

When it came time for me to, and at the behest of the therapist whose name equates to "Angel" (no joke), I found that there was meaning to my pain, that there was something that, through that pain, would be the healing energy that I so very dearly craved, and more, and unbeknownst to me, required. When April told me...I don't know...maybe...oh say...6 or 7 years ago, that Hula would never NOT be a big part of my life, and when Dannie told me about 4 years ago, the very same sentiment, but wrapped beautifully in that sultry Proper Southern Lady manner and drawl of hers, I did not realize what they were each telling me, and what they were each telling me, on this day, spoke to me about the thing that our moms teach us. The one thing that I know that my mom taught me, that Dannie and April have both taught their own kids, and that from day one I have made a point to teach my own kids, is that no one has the right and neither the ability to tell us who we are, that we are not all "one size fits all," that very dearly, who we are is not what other people tell us and how we deal with stuff is not someone else's to make ours by their standard.

These were very dearly important lessons for me that I have learned through these last almost 5 years. These were the things that I was reminded of, by my two closest friends in the entire Universe. They reminded me of what Ma never could put into words, but that she could always put forth in energies given, and for that one ability to "heal thyself," it is because of my mother. It is the mother who puts themselves in harm's way, and the mother who always tries her hardest to be as best she can at a job which does not include an instruction manual. I cannot even begin to know what went through her mind the moment that she knew I was being abused, but I can say that I know what goes through my own when I think that same thought - that "What if this happens to..." and I perish that very thought because I know that from my own experiences that my own daughter will know what to do in the event that she will have to survive an ugliness that no mother wants to know is her kid's temporary reality...

Na Hula O Ka Wahine 'Ui

Nah...this isn't a plug for my Healing Halau (which is spawned from Mom telling me to "do what is right" for me, even if that means she won't like it...), but rather and only a plug and a shout out, props and an "okole maluna," (Bottoms up and glasses raised) to my mom. The lady that a lot of people know as "Sister Sheila," and who more know as "Auntie Sheila," but to a select few, my siblings our children and myself, the few who are Hanai (adopted into our Hawaiian Ohana) ...this simple woman who has never allowed us to be less than who we are, even if we hated the idea that the "Church Lady" (think Dana Carvey and you have my mother haha) was looking at us and inwardly thinking "dat keed needs Jesus..." No matter what, my mom, for all of her churchiness, meant well when she taught us what she did. While she may not have ever thought for a moment that the oldest of her three kids would grow up to be a domestic violence Survivor, I know that she knows that the creative way that I chose to heal myself and refer to as "medicine" ...that was all her.

It was she who taught me appreciation for my own creativity through my love of culture and ancestry, and it was all her who told me that when I dance, to make it all mine, and I did, and even though she might not think of my way of doing a lot of things makes sense, she also knows that the reason that I love hula so much is because of her. I was brought up the same way that other Hawaiian kids were, but in my case, because I had a problem with authority figures who were just way over the top with their own perceived power, she sorta just left me to my own and let me figure out how best to use the thing that I call medicine to heal myself and my life. That one thing was not writing.

That one thing was, is, will always be Hula.

So, for what it is worth, to all the other moms of Domestic Violence Survivors, I have this to offer you...

Your kid is not stupid, she or he is just creative, and they learned that from you. You were the one who taught them, no, not how to get beaten up, but rather and only how to survive that which may visit them and that which might be the very thing that anyone would think would kill them. I promise you that it doesn't kill their soul, that no matter what, your kid was not ever sitting there accepting what was happening to them or to their lives - they were doing the best that they could and they were employing the methods of survival which you are responsible for having taught them. While it might seem sort of ...I don't know...crazy when I say this next thing, the reason why your survivor of a kid is so bad ass is because you taught them to be the best at everything, and the greatest test of that Greatness came in the form of an abuser, came in the form of someone who, for the very life of them, does not know how to heal themselves, does not know what it means to survive, for they are still hurting inside, and that is not anything that also was not taught.

For what it is worth, they are thinking about you today and wondering what you are doing, and for what it is worth, they want to know that you are well, even though you worry about them. Your worries are valid, Ladies, but your Love is as valid, and I know that they Love you as much as you Love them, no matter what. And unless it is that their own heart is yet to be healed from the scarring and marring that visited their lives, they know, without a doubt, that everyday you think about them, wish for their safety, want them to come home to you. They know this. They live this. This is theirs. They know that you pray every night for them, and they know, too, that one day, you will be able to do as my mother has, look them in the eyes, and know for sure that this version of you is the way that they are - strong, like the reed which is able to bend, and everlasting, the love they have for you, much like the constant turning of the tide, the presence of the moon even when we cannot see it, the warmth provided by the sun, and the earth beneath their feet.

For what it is worth, to all those mothers, and yes, even a whole lot of fathers who are raising kids who were not brought to this lifetime on their own, a blessed day of celebrating the lives that we have, in some way, honored, have gifted others with, have lived, loved and learned from.

Ma, I Love You!!

Happy Mothers Day
I Love You All
ROX

To learn more about the area's ONLY Healing with Hula program, "Na Hula O Ka Wahine'ui," please visit The Sisterhood of the Soul's website at www.mapu70.wix.com/sisterhoodofthesoul. 

The original Southern Plantation Preacher Lady, Rev. Vel-Danielle Gambrell and her Kindred Souls of the South's Facebook page can be visited and "liked" by going to www.facebook.com/KindredSoulsOfTheSouth

For information or to set an appointment with either Rev. Roxanne Cottell or Rev. Vel-Danielle Gambrell please send an email to either of them here in facebook by going to:

Rev. Vel-Danielle Gambrell  : facebook.com/spiritfish

Rev. Roxanne K. Cottell : facebook.com/reverendroxie

To contact Rev. Roxanne Cottell (Reverend Roxie) please send an email to reverendroxie22@gmail.com

Please do also visit www.the-mana-o-blog.blogspot.com 

RANDYJAYBRAUN.COM

The Circle that is Truth in Healing

We need to learn to heal ourselves

This is the truth in healing - we need to learn to heal ourselves and we need to learn to accept that sometimes the healing we seek is not the healing we need and neither will get. What we need also to do is to hear our own voices when we are telling other people what we know they need to hear because sometimes what we need to hear will not come from outside of us. In fact, most of the time it doesn't and most of the time when we think we are giving good words to other people and while they are good words and words that they need to know and to hear, what we are also and unwittingly doing is giving us our own clarity about a thing.

Clarity about a thing

It is the same with all who have been forced into Survivorhood. Our need for clarity is such a huge thing that we become blinded by the rage that masks itself as rage when in reality it is confusion brought on by unresolved hurts and unresolved dings to the soul and for the life of us we cannot think past the hurt and how we will get away from it. We cannot get away from something that is teaching us a lesson, and in the case of an abuse survivor we find that always, to relieve ourselves of the pain that was and the pain that still is we go outside of who we are and we choose to trust what is not our own truth. When we try to help others without also applying those same things to our very selves, we end up confused over the things that we know we need to do but are more inclined to go from the ego's point of view and see only what our human eyes can see and NOT at all what our soul knows we need dearly..

Abuse survivors...we all learn well from the moment that we are also in the very violent throes of the thing that becomes our lives that we are the ones who will have to bring ourselves back from the hell that we have allowed to enter into and remain as part of our lives, but for the life of us and because of the prevalence of the fear that becomes us we cannot see the truth that is ours to have as our start to our own healing because we are blinded by the thing that eats our lives. The thing that eats our lives is not just the abuse but is also the monster we create within us that wants to strike out at others, because that is what we have been given. This monster was created by us through the constant idea that we believe we must fight for who we are, and we do, but not to the extent that our battered soul, let alone body, wants to do. We want rest. We want normalcy that does not include someone else's version of normal, because someone else's version of normal will not ever fit our lives. Even though we are partnered with other people, even if it is not a romantic partnership, it does not mean that we have to lose ourselves to the thing that they see us as and it never will.

Some folks want to own us, and that will not do because those people don't realize that they are making themselves sicker by NOT paying attention to the things that they see as being "right." Sometimes, we want to be wanted enough by anyone that we are willing to be owned, even if ownership is something that we cannot figure out because on some level we know that we can never be owned, let alone understood, namely by our own selves, if our understanding is something that we will never comprehend because our comprehension of something is ours alone. What is also ours alone is the paying attention of and to this thing that we have been forced into and that we have allowed to remain. When I say that we have allowed it, I do not mean that we allowed someone else to beat us or to emotional batter us. What I mean is that we have allowed the idea that we can heal if we can just get them to see that they need healing, too. What I mean is that no matter what we, as survivors, think and believe, we are held to our own standard of what we view as being Love. We are shown that Love comes from other people, but most of us, until recently, have never thought or believed that our own truth in Love is ours because what is ours is also everyone else's and that what we see with our human eyes is not what we need in our Spiritual Heart.

Our healing comes from within us, from the deepest part of us, from that place which I refer to as being "The Bones of The Soul." Sickness can be realized by looking at the bones and the marrow within the body, because that is where sickness sets in, in the body's framework. When we are not physically robust our bones ache and they do so with an ache that is fiery in nature, stops us cold in our tracks and will not allow us to move until we have addressed the physical nature of what has happened to us Spiritually. This same thing happens to us in our Souls. All ailment is an effect of a ding, of several many dings, to the very soul of us. When we ache, it is in our bones, and when we ail, it is also in our bones. All of our heartaches and all of our past lives can be felt down deep in the very deepest parts of who we are...essentially, in the very Bones of the Soul is where we hurt the most.

Then one day, someone comes along...it can be anyone...a friend, a relative...a crazy pair of Twin-Fishes on either side of the United States...who tells us, sometimes without telling us, that we know there is something not completely okay with us, that we need to look at a thing in a different way and that we need to look at, period, and not avoid anymore. The stories we are and the stories we tell are there and contained within us where also our ability to heal and to feel complete. Our wholeness is not in some bottle of pills, even though that is what a medical doctor might tell us. Our wholeness is not in what other people close to us will do for us OTHER than the acknowledgement that something is just not right with us. Our wholeness is not hinged on what our ego thinks it needs, and our wholeness of being is not dependent on what someone else wants us to believe.

Our wholeness and our healing depends dearly and only on us. There might be other people who will suggest things to us, and there will always be people who will challenge us, but the truth is that to close the Circles that we are part and party to creating, we must see the start of it, because the thought to heal is in the beginning of a thing, where it all starts, and surely, not the ending. The ending is the part of the story that we are all writing, little by little, and is not always what we want, but always and only what we need.

I LOVE YOU ALL !
ROX