Our violent society is a peek into our lives at home

A violent society is a society which got that way through violence "at home."
We can keep on telling ourselves that "it happens to other people, not us," but the truth is that our violent society is a larger picture of the violence in our private lives and private homes

We can deny it all we want, but there is nothing in the news that tells any one of us that we are not living in some of the most violent times in any of our lifetimes. We have failed ourselves by shunning our gentle human nature and have called our inborn human ability to Love as being weakness, but the weakness is not brought to us through means of over-loving each other. Our weakness is caused by the fractures in our collective thinking that prods us to try to one up one another, to compete against and try to best each other, and when we have finished making yet one more mess that society has to clean up, we want to ask how it came to be this way.

The answer is easy. The answer is right before our eyes, and the answer is something that we as a whole have decided to call "normal," but I defer to the idea that any time anyone of us hurts through means of another's physically violent act it is because the person who lashed out at someone else came from a place where he or she witnessed a whole lot of violence, all the time, and this is how said person responds to what it was that they were taught. 

We don't think of the larger picture, of the thing that we have created. We want to blame our born rights to bear arms and to protect our homes and our lives from the monsters that lurk in the night. We want to take away rights of good people who would do no harm to anyone ever, not in the context that this is being written in, and we want to blame society for problems which. at their onset, were problems that were hidden from the prying eyes and the judgment of a society where there is no mercy but for that which is doled out in favor of pats on the back rather than a change in the collective thinking.

We want to strip good people of their rights to feel safe while coddling those who would bring our nightmares to full life and in our faces and we want the same society which has shunned those who quietly suffer in many ways to fix a mess that it has survived on, and we want to take away things that are no anywhere near what we, in contrast to it all, need to add to in many ways.

The only way to fix this mess is to teach another lesson

We have come to the place in our lives collectively where it seems that the majority still is the major deciding factor in all that we do as a unit. But what we are not doing is fixing a problem. What we are doing is covering it up with yet one more law which will not govern the lives of the violent in proactive ways. We keep sending them to prisons before we even think to send them to rehab and we keep on enhancing the idea that if someone is beaten up or stabbed or shot that spending time with other violent people is somehow going to make whatever it is that we are trying to accomplish seem like a far away thing for us. The reality is that these people are the product of a lack of Love, because not everyone who grows up in a violent family or who grew up or grows up in a lesser-than-desirable-in-the-eyes-of-society neighborhood is expected to be a violent person. 

Exposure to violence begins early in life, usually at home, and becomes "normal" for a whole entire segment of people who do not know better than to beat the hell outta someone in order to get their point across.  

It is not rocket science that this would be the truth, is not something that someone has to start a rumor about for it to be known and accepted as the quietest reason as to why it is that there are children who grow up without two parents in the home, accepted as why we need more prisons and why it is that we need all the shrinks in our society that we need. 

What we need is not hard to figure out

We, as a whole, badly need to restructure our lives around a mission in our private lives which is based and founded upon Love. We think that we lack economic strength and we want to believe that violence only happens in neighborhoods where the main income for a family is through the local Dept of public Services office, but this is not the truth. The truth is that societally, we have failed ourselves. We have made it a good thing to label harsh corporeal punishment on children as being a parent's religious right to 'discipline" their children, and we have made hazings in both high school and college level athletics a thing which sorts through the pansies in our midsts for the tough guys, but what we rarely think about is that someone at one time in history made it the rule to hurt people, to make them out to be too soft for a world which will chew us all up and spit us out as though that is what we all have to look forward to.

Well it isn't and it never had to be! We are who changes the thinking of the collective whole by being the first one to take action on what it is that we want to see happen in the world around us which leads to things changing on a community level to an entirely different level of change where we can see it and feel it sweeping through our lives like a strong desert wind at sunset.

Violence has become our shameful birthright, but it doesn't have to stay this way. I have said it before that light kills the darkness and that only love can kill the demons within us all.

Only Love can tame the fires of hatred and anger which leads us out of our homes and into a society which does not realize its own frailties and neither accepts that we are who made it the way that it is now. 

Since when was it ever ok to make people hurt rather than to help them grow? Since when was it that we chose to just turn a blind eye and more, when the hell are we going to be the first one to stand up and be bothered by it enough to do something about it?

When will we bother, guys?

I Love You All !! 

ROX 

 
  

Your Life Was Not Always This Way...(A Soares Ohana Tribute)

...and as with all else, this too shall change and you will no longer hurt from it...

You have to start somewhere. Today I did just that. Today I went to a domestic violence support organization because the frank truth is that this entire ordeal has rendered me "stuck," sort of, in a place where I am damned if I do, and damned if I don't, and whether I do it now or do it a month from now, it is still going to get done because of this, that and of course, the other...however...

Life was not always this way...


...and Life will not remain this way. No matter how hard it seems for you at this moment to really believe that there is an end to all of this madness that you are currently witnessing as being the thing that is your life, know, believe, and accept, too, that none of it is permanent, that it WILL get better as you get stronger, and as you get stronger, you will find that you can do just about anything you put your mind AND your soul to, and that, really, is the ONLY thing that any one of us HAS TO try to do - accept what  I just wrote up there as a basic Truth which applies to each and every one of us who graces the crust of this planet.

Not one thing that you can look at within your eyes' line of sight will remain just exactly as it is at this moment. Some peoples' lives will change markedly, and other's lives will just be implemented with those things and those people -some who may already be there and in place and waiting...waiting, waiting, waiting...not for the change to happen to or for them, but by them...and very much indeed we find that these changes, they are permanent.

But change and its ever presence is the only thing that does NOT change ... changes, paradoxically, never changes. Change is the thing that makes us fear, and change is the thing that makes us grow, and we humans do not like to change and we do not like to grow. We become comfortable in settling for less than what we see ourselves as, and let me tell you something, folks - if there is one thing that I have learned absolutely in these last two decades, it is that we would rather settle for what we have been told we are able to have and deserve to have, and we allow someone else to tell us what THEY think we are worthy of, and it is not much, guys, not at all. ...

Which is the reason that I contemplated doing what I did today, knowing that I had to do it, that I am the one who is totally responsible for my own healing, that I was not going to the place where I went to today for any other person than myself, because I can no longer deal with the sadness that I have been given and I can no longer carry my burden and someone else's at the same time and that I should never have volunteered to do it for as long as I have.

I learned something about me today, and it is that I really am a soul warrior, that I really am all that I have known that I am, for the entirety of my life and NOT only the last 23 - I was someone prior to the day that I met the person who I married, and here I am, many  years later, almost to the date, 21 years later, and I see in this person the thing that I have always seen, and what I have always seen has been something of a shell of what someone was and that person hanging on to that memory when he'd held all the marbles, had all the control, and little did I realize that I am still afraid, so very, very afraid, that I am still a little rough around the edges, and if you saw me the way that I see me, the rough edges are not unacceptable. I worked hard for them...we all work hard for them...

I have enough rough edges, all on the inside, and it was not until tonight that I began to orate to my oldest about the reason that I have not gone completely off of the deep end, not at all, and why it is that every time hear Hawaiian music, I am brought to tears, but I am smiling, and it is because there is a group of people with whom I share an emotional bond who know me as well as any group would. I love them. They Love me. They are my cousins...my Soares cousins...the ones who are more like my siblings than anything else.

There are only so many times in our lives when we are afforded the opportunity to tell people who mean a whole lot to us that indeed we Love them...that truly, I do Love you, each and every one of you, with every bit of aloha that I can think to even contain within me. Normally, at a time of night when I am sitting in my Sacred Space in prayer with God and asking for the things that my soul so desires, I thought about the many things that I have been privileged to have said that I have owned, places I have visited, people I have met, places I have lived... all of it, I am instead sitting here at my keyboard and listening to Keali'i Reichel, thinking about all those times we were together, even recently, and always at Uncle Reggie's house. Always eating and drinking and sneaking out to have a smoke...and most of all, just being right there, in another space which is considered to me to be Sacred. It is a place where I know we are all of one heart and soul, that we are a family, that we are looking at each other and in that split second we are seeing that missing front tooth, long braided hair, slippahs from Longs Drugstore, the Silver Shave Ice Truck...

And yes...of course we broke each others' hearts, and said things that hurt each other, and even sometimes allowed ourselves to throw blows, all over what?

No, not pride, or greed, or anything stupid and 'adult,' like that...nah, we fought because for a split second we feared that we'd lost the love of a person who was our...sibling...you guys, all of you, are my brothers and sisters, and I am so glad to tell you that for as long as I can remember and think about growing up "Hawaiian," I can see us all...all there at the most important times of each of our lives, and though I may have missed out one some pretty significant times and events, I sit here thinking about it, and knowing that I have the chance every single day of my life to tell someone how much they mean to me. I have done that for years - told the people who mean the most to me that I love them...and I say it to them often, and they know who they are, because when I see them, I tell them. I tell them that I love them, and I mean it, I really, really mean it.

For every time that we fought and said ugly words to one another, know that each time I thought of you afterwards, it was never about the fight that just happened but about the time that we fought when we were kids and then I laughed and suddenly missed you.

For every tear that we shared when one of our hearts got broken, know that when you cried, I cried with you, maybe not where you could see it, but I hurt for you, and I grieved for you, but I always knew you would be okay because that is the way that we were raised.

For every laughter filled room of kids we call our own, and seeing them play together just like we did, in them I see shades of us, and I am taken right back to Booth Park, to Ala Moana Park, to The Bus, The Waikiki Zoo, Makapu'u Beach, Erleene's truck, and finding an EPT test in my mom's carry-on.

I am sure that you can all see all these things in your minds now, right now, and I know that just as I am recalling these good times and these good memories, I am glad to say that I know you, that I have always Loved you, and that forever we will be bound, not by the memories of who we were or where we are going or doing with our lives, but because we are the truest Ohana there is, and I am happy tho know that this is who we will always be. I miss you all, and when I see you I see the real You, the One Who has always honored and Loved the Real Me...all of you...

Thank you all for always being right there for me, right at the right time, and never forgetting to let me know that I am Loved !!

Aloha...

...Mapuana...

You cannot make other people "get it"

Too often, the abused turn to people who cannot understand the depth of the issues

I won't bother to "out" the person who chose to run his mouth today about an issue that is really not a huge thing. I also will not go on to tell anyone who it was whose fracture of peace that was hard worked for almost wrecked, just because that person felt a little bit disgusted by the remnants of what someone else did. While I get it...really, I do...it - the 'it' that caused this havoc today, and surprisingly no, the "problem" has not seeped into my marriage to this person, was such a minor thing that it really is making me wonder if who in the lives of the abuse survivor and survivors-in-training are really listening to the people who are going through the mess called domestic abuse?

If you don't listen, you won't have a clue


This is not meant to insult anyone reading this, but if you are a loved one of someone who is being emotionally abused and you are not listening to what it is that they are telling you and if you are willing to compare your own childhood with your own abusive father to what it is that your loved one's children go through, please stop. Though the technical similarities are there, I know, for a fact, that no two situations are alike, so please stop behaving as though you know how to fix your loved one's problem because, no, you do not know.

You want to be there, and that is fine, and you want to help, and that, too, is fine. What is not fine is the idea that you think that what you yourself have been through in any way at all somehow validates that you know better than the victim does. Again - no, you don't, and there is no more bigger an insult that someone who goes through the abuse can receive. You cannot begin to know what is happening, are not qualified to give advice, can never fix things for them because the bottom line is that you do not know what to do and your attempts a trying to get your loved one through their time of heartache, though appreciated, may only serve them with more grief.

Believe me, I know this one personally. If I didn't, I would not have anything to write about today.

You cannot make things better by making your abused loved one feel like he or she is not doing enough to get out of the very volatile situation by making a phone call to the nearest shelter or even to the police.


From experience I can say that yes, calling the proper authorities when your loved one is being physically harmed is the best thing that you can do for them. Yet, when there is only an exchange of words, and this is not to tell anyone that verbal abuse is less damaging than physical abuse (because it is lots worse on the victim, and yes, I know this one, too), there really is nothing that calling any authority, any shrink, any person will do to help. And please, spare me the "they don't want help. If they really wanted out, they would get out." To those who would think and believe this, let me give you the biggest "go fuck yourself" that you have ever had.

You do not know what it is that abused people go through, even after their abuser is not in their lives. You do not know how to make it go away, and you can suggest all you want what you THINK you would do, but you are not in the situation and you cannot try to make an abused person get into your head when most assuredly it is YOU who needs to get into theirs.

To suggest that any abuse victim or survivor LIKES being told who they are, what they do, blah blah blah, is just adding huge insult to permanent emotional injury that the abused person has to heal from all on their own, and your adding your two fucking cents to a matter that you know nothing about, that you have not researched and that you are basically clueless about only pisses your loved on off. You are not helping the problem. You are adding to it, and you are quietly being placed on that list of people who abused them as well. Watch your mouth and your ass, because you do NOT get it and if you say horrible things to them about their life situation, you are just as creepy and clueless as is their attacker. You know nothing when it comes to what other people go through, and you will remain to know nothing as long as you continue to flap your fucking jaw muscles about an issue that you have some very real feelings about but not an ounce of real knowledge. Knowledge is key in these kinds of things, and without a scrap of even knowing at least your own part in their pain, again - you are no longer a part of the solution but have, without realizing it, become a part of the problem instead.

Way to go, hero!
Duh

...and arguing with an abused survivor or with someone in the middle of their crap over what YOU think they should do is like a sin against God and mankind


The term STFU completely applies here, because getting up in the proverbial ass of someone whose life is in utter turmoil is just like telling them what to do. Telling them what you would do if you were in their situation is a bad thing. You do not know what the hell we go through, so shut your sorry ass up and no, you WOULD NOT do all those things that you are telling your loved one to do. Stop turning them into your newest science project in societal bullshit. You do not know what you would do. You are telling your loved one this because you are not in the middle of the same pot of shit soup that they are in and you keep making it seem that they are somehow indebted to you for being the foremost expert on something that is foreign to you.

If you have not been hit by someone who outweighs you at least by 100 pounds, shut up. If you have not been bullied by someone who outweighs you by at least 100 pounds, shut up. If you have not been afraid of someone who outweighs you by at least 100 pounds because you have a memory of what happened to you and you cannot go through that shit again, please, shut the hell up, really. You cannot glean from television or the internet enough knowledge to get your ass out the door in terms of and in regards to having been abused in some way, shape or form.

Again, please, shut up. You do not know what the fuck you are talking about. Unbeknownst to you, and I am just telling you this as a favor to you - you, not so coincidentally, do not know it all, and no, your fucking big fat graduate degree does not make it so that you know more than a survivor or victim of domestic abuse and family violence. While you may know a lot more about whatever it is that you studied, unless you studied psychology and at least have a passing interest in the thinking of the abused...shut...the...fuck...up...today.

One more time...


You want to know how to help your loved one? That's easy - shut the fuck up and listen to them, because that is what all abuse victims and abuse survivors really do need, just someone to listen, to not judge them, to not put their own two cents in about how they feel about the abuser - talking about the abuser to the abused only places the attention and your attention on something that you do not need to further etch in the abused person's head.

Shut your foolish ass up and fucking listen. Listening will give you the opportunity to really know what it is, even in a very tiny way, what it is that they have gone through, what we have all gone through, and what a lot of us always go through, even after the abuser is no longer in our lives.

The very best thing that you can do for your loved one if you really want to help them is to simply just be there and to listen, because anything else you tell them will fall on deaf ears, as their entire lives are lived on the idea that they must always look over their shoulder, must always sleep with one eye open, must always have that sixth sense that tells us that we have to be careful...

Since we know that we have to be careful, perhaps, too, you might also want to be careful as well.

Wouldn't want to be the cause of yet another fight, or worse, another bruise caused to your loved one because you had shit to say, now, would you?

I Love You All...(yes, even you idiots with no idea of what you are advising to your loved ones)

Rox<3


(Rev. Roxanne Cottell is a Freelance Writer, Speaker and Spiritual Counselor residing in Southern California. If you want to exact change and cause a Stir, you can contact Roxanne by clickinghere. Her latest book, "Goddesses, Priestesses and Queens" can be purchased at lulu.com and amazon.com)

What you Give...

In a time when having little to none at all, it seems a bit of a task to give, but in reality, it is the only way to get back to You


Biblically, it is said in the book of Matthew that "the meek shall inherit the earth." Depending upon how you interpret biblical meaning is what will make this a meaningful post to you, namely if, like I was feeling this time last year, you feel like you have nothing left to give. The best thing that someone who is learning to heal on their own can grasp and wrap their head around is not some weird fad diet, not cosmetic surgery, nothing tangible, but instead, is the very simple and inborn gift that we each have to give.

Because I was raised up in the church (in other words, was force fed the hellfire and brimstone yet Unconditional Love of God ... and found out later on in life that sometimes, being force fed something as great as Unconditional Love is what is best for us because it matters in regards to our larger Life Purpose) and because I am a Hawaiian person, my Life was meant as a testament to the healing properties of giving Love. However, for someone who has never willingly accepted being a statistic for data compiled for reasons of collecting information about spousal abuse, it is hard to give.

Hard to Give

Once it is that a person has been subjected to the whims and the madness of another, another who promised never to do the horrid things that no person should ever have to go through, you begin to learn very fast that what you have you have to keep, no matter what it is. You begin to think this way because the simple fact is that an abuser will do what they have to and basically whatever it is that they want to in order to keep their victim too afraid to be their true selves. In my case it was that my husband wanted a trophy wife, and he wanted a wife for other people to look at but not a wife that would be allowed to have her own thoughts and her own life and her own Self. Though he swears that he never took anything away from me (because what he took was intangible), the proof that he did is that here I am 20 years later, and I am about to re-embark on a journey into connecting with the world at large and have started my ascent back into the world of entertainment, of being with like minded musicians and artists, both well known and on their way to being well known, (or perhaps only worried about the music itself, as long as someone hears it and likes it) who are on a mission to rebuild the world, one person at a time, beginning with their very selves.

Sound familiar? It should.

Our Very Selves


All abuse survivors know that what they have been through is not and was not ever their own fault. It is not the fault of an abuse survivor to take responsibility for their bruises or their fractures, not their responsibility to have to deal alone with their own disbelief, their own heartache, the mess that has been made of their lives. We know without doubt that we are meant for a bigger purpose, that we are here to suffer, at least we know this to an extent if we are lucky enough to have people in our lives who know us well, so that we can go out into the world and help to heal it. This is not to say that we accept our lot in life, because no one with a brain in their head would ever agree to being treated like property, but rather is to say that each of us has a compelling story to tell and that our story was never meant to be a secret. What we go through is shameful, but of that shamefulness is borne the strength, and more, the willingness to go on in Life and to be a part of change and charity.

We are forced for long periods of time to be a very tiny, very closed off piece of the puzzle of Life that once it is that we release ourselves back into the fray we have no idea what we want to do in the grander scheme of things, even though we are aware that what we have gone through is a testament to survival, to the undying human spirit, to being whole again. We end up getting back into the world, not really aware that there are still people out there who want to hurt us, and we end up ending up with those people.

Then one day we get a clue and we figure out all on our own that being a person who will go out into the world and hurt others because we have been hurt is not the way to go. We go through the rebound thing, sometimes not with other people but with things. In my case, and because my old man always made sure to it that I knew that the reason that I ended up with anything "label" is because he bought it for me, I was the one who spared no expense on "pretty things." There was no brand new Victoria's Secret bra that I did not own, and there was not a pair of shades expensive enough that I did not want. I was a glutton for pretty things, a glutton for glory, if you will. Once all my things were gone, and about a year after I began seeking my own Spirit and its Cause, I realized the reason that John came into my life. He was brought to me to show me that though I loved the pretty things in life, I Loved more the things of an intangible nature. He showed me what and who I am not, and more, led me to the rediscovering of Who I have always Been.

I say a lot about our intangibles, and it is because our intangibles are permanent for us. Our intangibles are those things in our lives, those ways of being, which compel us to be there for one another, no matter how big or small a scale it is. To a certain and limited extent, it is actually a good thing that he came into my life and stayed, even though the way that I was brought back to me should never happen to anyone, it came the way it was supposed to and came with my having realized now that the pretty things in Life were always mine and that no one had to give anything to me as I'd already had what I needed, which in turn, to this point after realization, has brought me some very, very pretty things (thanks, April, for the very pretty shoes, girl!! I hope you like your gift as much!!).

Everything is with purpose, even the things that seem to make no sense to us, especially our suffering and learning through that suffering.

What You Give

Some folks are more prone to throw money at a thing, but there are others on the planet who LOVE to DO for cause. I am one of those people who very much like to raise money for causes, whose lives and day jobs are dependent on the giving nature of human beings and for the need we have to be of good service to one another. For more than twenty years I have fought the undying fire within me to do something big and grand and do it for the Love of being with other people. My husband told me, even though I never believed him, that people are horrible, that they will try to take what you have and then some, and that people in general cannot be trusted. And if there is anything that any abuse survivor knows well it is that sickening feeling of not being able to trust others. The ability to not trust others, by the way, is a natural reaction. It is the fight and the flight within us all. The difference between the human animal and the rest of mammalia is that we humans are able to reason.

With that ability to reason and to discern what others are up to we have also been blessed with an ability, namely when you have been forced into a situation which calls for our natural ability to sense a bad thing, to see in others that which can be called "good."

When we find that "good," we want to look at it and admire it and call it ours. What we are not realizing at that point, the point when we want to call it ours, is that it IS ours and it is also our right to claim it. We find at that point that it was never what we were given up to that point of realization, but instead has always and only been what it is that we have given to another, given to a situation, given, really, to ourselves. No one asks to get beaten up physically, but it happens to the best of us, and one way or another, we learn from what it is that we have been given. Some of us never learn, but most of the time, we figure it out, and once we do, we never unlearn.

One thing that we all eventually learn is that it is never what you have got, it is only ever what you give.

Find a cause to give your Love to. Find a reason to be happy, to be on fire, to have the will to never look back at what has happened and only look forward to what you can imagine.

Love is My Cause


Love is my Cause. I support a lot of causes, from AIDS and illness to, of course, making sure the world knows that violence among spouses is never a good thing, to the bringing out in the Goddesses in training the beauty which cannot be purchased at the make up counter, and yes, of course, to those whose lives are lived in the throes of danger so that our right to express ourselves stays intact.

When the beginning of 2009 came, and I sat with my head in my hands, in tears because my house and my pretty life were gone, with as much of a quickness that the tears came, so, too, did the thought in my head come to me that I needed to travel a Spiritual Path to wholeness, that I needed to find that piece of myself, all over again, that begged for the opportunity to give and to be who I am through the use of my gifts and the use of my communication skills and my penchant, simply, for desiring to make my own Prayer of Jabez kick some serious ass...and you know what?

It worked, like a charm, the idea that since it is that like all Pisceans, I, too, wanted to swim in the big ocean of Life instead of staying like the rest of the guppies and settling for a nice home life with a set schedule and the same old, same old, everyday of my life. I wanted to be a part of the changes happening, and I wanted to bring people together again, like I did when my hair and my attitude were both bigger than my heart even though my heart knew back then what it wanted me to do. Even then I knew I was meant to exact some sort of change in the way that people do things and who they do those things for, but until New Year's Eve 2011, I had no real idea of what it was that I was supposed to do. I just knew that it was big and that no matter what seemed to stand in my way, there was and will always be a way and that maybe that block in the road is meant to be there so that I can find another way to do things.

And yup, that is exactly what all the blocks in the Path were twenty years ago. Twenty years ago I was the rocker's fantasy chick...all hair, legs, and attitude (and of course it helped that I am one of those island chicks...something about an island chick and a rocker guy that just...well, you know...lol) but these days, I am the rocker and rocker in training's best friend in so far as causing a stir, putting asses in seats, making sure that the reason that any of us are here and breathing is to be of service to the rest of the species.

SO, with that said, it is time to get on out there and scream your own name, and to do it for your favorite Cause.

What are you waiting for, an engraved invitation? Yeesh! Get your asses out there and change the world already!!

I Love You All !!

Rox


(Rev. Roxanne Cottell is a Freelance Writer, Speaker and Spiritual Counselor residing in Southern California. If you want to exact change and cause a Stir, you can contact Roxanne by clicking here. Her latest book, "Goddesses, Priestesses and Queens" can be purchased at lulu.com and amazon.com)

There's a Reason it is called "Eve" - Christmas Love for all my Soul Sisters (and Soul Brothas, too!)

Merry Christmas! It's time to get your Girl On!!

I have never not been the rabidly charged and insanely jubilant Anti-Cheerleader, especially when it comes to all things "Girl." Because we have all been through marked and life changing stuff lately, I thought that it would be appropriate to bid you all a couple of good Christmas wishes, Girl Style, and let you know what exactly it is that a Girl wishes for on Christmas...

While it may not be the merriest of Christmases for a lot of us, there are a few things that I need to say to you all, and I thought that this would be the best way to do it...


Today I woke up to the thought in my head that we all need to prepare for the year ahead, and I do not mean to prepare yourselves for something horrible to happen - even though something horrible can happen. I want you all to think and dwell on everything that you have been given by Spirit in 2011, and I want you to think about all that you lost during that time, and now I want you to think that it is not a bad thing that these things happened.

You've gotta start thinking about all those perceived losses as the Hand of God wiping away your muck, taking all of your worn out ideals and presumptions that no longer fit anymore and think that God gave them to the local Thrift store. You have to have faith in everything that you do and you have to see yourself as a diamond in the rough. Right now your nerves are raw, your body, weary, your mind tired of all the bad things that it has processed.

All the tears that you cried, and all the arguments you had, and all the crap that you were doled out this past year was not without purpose. You were meant to go through it all. You were meant to learn.

Merry Freakin' Christmas, folks! You are now smarter than you were at this same time last year. (And you thought it was just going to be another drama-filled Christmas...not hardly, and not even close...)

 "Get Your Girl On"


I want you all to think about what it is that you have been through these last 12 months, and when you do, don't cry. Don't cry for lost time, and neither for all of the pain that was caused by someone else, pain meant for you to feel and to carry, but certainly not yours alone to deal with. Think about how angry you have been, how many times you cried and how many times you looked to the sky and asked God if this was all there was for you. Think about every argument, every loss, every tiny little thing that you have gone through and be grateful for it all because without it, you would not be who you are now.

The greatest gift that we have to give to ourselves this year is the acceptance that we may have come into 2011 weak, insignificant to another, confused and not really caring to learn more than we already did. We started out impatient with no direction and no idea of where it is that we want to be, but in the months that passed you did not realize that you have changed and all the changes were for your own good. You were made stronger by the adversities in your life that were not your cause, and you have been made into the Goddess You Are now because of it all.

If you were called names, belittled, told who you are, told that you are unworthy, useless, pathetic, anything that is not Truth, take heed and know, NOW, that you were once a diamond in the rough, once a mere piece of earthy green jade that looked more like a glistening rock that needed to be washed more than anything else.
But now look at ya - now you shine brighter than the diamond that was hard to see through the blackness of the coal, are more lustrous than any other jade known, and it shows.

Today walk out into the brightness of the Sun and see your shadow for the very first time all over again. Look into the eyes of those people who call you "Mama" and see there, too, the beauty that is You. Look into your heart, into your Soul, and never mind what it was that you were told about anything ugly, anything not conducive to bringing out that brightness that is You. You are the one who makes this year the merriest of all, and  you are the one who makes it beautiful. Get on out there into the great big world and strut your stuff, all of it, all at one time, because you earned it, darlin', you really earned it.

Take a stare at the mirror and see there that you have changed and see too that the changes were right, were needed, were the gift that you gave yourself the day you decided that you have had enough of someone else telling you your worth, your abilities and talents, who you are and what you will always ever be. You are Who makes your world great, and you are who makes your world shine, and you are the one whose place in the world is in manifest, so go on out into it and make your Oscar Night entrance, and know that it is the greatest gift that you have ever been given.

Don't go for second best....put your Love to the test... (You've gotta Love Madonna !! ) and get out there and be of good cheer, spread Joy and Love everyone with whom you have an encounter, no matter how brief or odd...don't settle for less than what you deserve, and make sure to it that everyone else knows that this is your own gift to yourself - the gifts of strength, self-Love, beauty and day-dreaming.

Take it upon yourself today to make sure to it that this time next year, you remember that you Shine like the Sun, are mysterious like the phases of the Moon, are more able to do things than you were last year, and now you are all you need to be at this time in your life, so as to move on, to move forward, to Be Who You Are.

The World Awaits....Mele Kalikimaka

I Love You All !!
Rox

(Rev. Roxanne Cottell is a Freelance Writer, Speaker and Spiritual Counselor residing in Southern California. For inquires regarding the Ka Wahine 'Ui dance program for survivors of domestic abuse,or any other inquiries. send an email by clicking this link . Her latest book, "Goddesses, Priestesses and Queens" can be purchased at lulu.com and amazon.com) 

"The Greatest of These is Love..." (1 Corinthians 13:13)

The greatest gift another can receive from us is our Love

I just finished writing my other blog  and find that the one thing that survivors of domestic abuse are very unsure of is being able to Love fully again.

Let me tell you one thing, folks - no one is not ever capable of not Loving completely, no matter what or who. We were designed with the capacity to Love, with the capacity to give that Love, and it does not matter how many times we are beaten, literally or figuratively, the one fact that remains and will always remain is that no matter how much we want to believe that we are not lovable, no matter how many times we tell ourselves that we will not ever trust another person again for as long as we each live, there is not one person on the planet who is void of the ability to Love.

The Ability to Love


We, at one point, believe that we are not lovable, believe that we are somehow the only person on the planet who is not getting the Love we deserve and the one person on the planet who was meant as the poster child for who has been abused. NO ONE NEEDS to be abused, but it happens a whole lot, and in the time that it takes for someone to beat out of us the idea that we do not need Love from many sources we are at the point where we believe there is no return.

When speaking of Love, there is no such thing as a point of no return - Love is always returned, maybe not by the person who we try to Love and who we want to Love us, but from the rest of the planetary Tribe we are all an important part of. And when it comes to that point, it is the time that we find a way to involve ourselves with something outside of ourselves so as to give to the world the thing that lives within us.

Love.

There is no gift quite like it

This time of year we are bombarded with mail and emails and pop-ups and people at our door who are soliciting donations for various causes. And of course I would encourage anyone to give what they can, but when you can't give something tangible, give something that you can give all the time, without needing to stand in line to pay for it, and give something that is guaranteed to come back to you.

We are convinced by others that we are not worthy to receive what it is that we need, and if we believe this we end up with nothing, or what seems like nothing, but there is always our inborn capacity for Love.

Give of your Self - find a cause to support...


In all the years that I have been in this marriage with this now dying man, I never really understood why it was that I felt like I was not doing enough. The truth was that I was doing plenty for him and nothing for me. When the first AIDSWalk that he knew about my participation was about to start, he gave me so much grief for it and badmouthed me to the point of not being able to think straight. Then one morning I woke up and looked at him and saw that it is not because he is a homophobe, not because he is choosing ignorance over common sense, that we was like this, but because it was something that he was not willing to know more about, and what he was not willing to know more about was the idea of giving of one's self through time and effort.

To people who have no cause to support, theirs is a world which is black and white, cut and dry, and there is no such thing as being able to give without also expecting to receive something tangible in return. This man knows that though I love my tangible goodies, I am someone who Loves and Loves giving intangible gifts. It is no wonder that I do what I do for my job - I Love people, and I Love communicating with people, and I Love to give people things that they can feel but cannot touch.

In short, I Love to Love others, and my Life is about giving it freely to those most in need of it. It is my cause, to be here in this Life to Love others by teaching them and including them in how they heal from the brokenness of their own lives so that they can go on with Life with their heads and hearts vibrating in unison, lending to the greater Whole of Life itself.

If what you have been through in Life has taught you anything at all, I hope that it is the knowledge that you are Loved, are lovable, and that you have a lot of Love to give, not just to one person, but to the world at large. By joining a cause, you give yourself an avenue through which you can work out your imbalance of wanting to Love but not being able to or wanting to show it or give it to the person to whom you entrusted your Self to and then later found that you judged them incorrectly. Where you feel like there is nothing, there is something and that something is Love and the nothing that you feel is just there to remind you to get out there in the great big world and start giving it away...

You can do it. You can be your own cause until another one comes along that needs your brand of Love!!

I Love You All!!
...Rox...


(Rev. Roxanne Cottell is a Freelance Writer, Speaker and Spiritual Counselor residing in Southern California. For inquires regarding the Ka Wahine 'Ui dance program for survivors of domestic abuse,or any other inquiries. send an email by clicking this link . Her latest book, "Goddesses, Priestesses and Queens" can be purchased at lulu.com and amazon.com)  

Gratitude (Or "What Christmas is really all about")

Gratitude is hard when you think you have nothing to be grateful for

When it seems that you have had everything that matters to you stripped from your life, and when you believe that there is nothing left for yourself, Be Grateful.

Be Grateful, even for everything that someone else has put you through


As difficult as it may be for some of us to be grateful to the creeps who made us fear everything and everyone, namely them, it is good practice for healing to be able to forgive and to build an attitude of gratitude toward our oppressors, and it is because without them we know not the things that we are and have always been capable of. When I say be grateful, I really mean it, and I say it because it brings to you a feeling of peace, a feeling that you can get through everything and anything that comes your way.

Be grateful for the things that have been presented as challenges in your life, because without the challenges, we cannot ever know just how deep the well of strength is within us, how strong the person who we really are and who we really have been all along really is. Without oppressors in our lives we do not know what needs to be seen to and repaired, and we can never begin to heal without it. We can never begin to understand who we really are without something or someone there to tell us what they think we are, and what they think we are is so far removed from the reality of who we really are that once it is that we have been goaded, or hounded, or belittled, or even beaten, into knowing who we are, we never know and we can never return to it unless we are paying attention.

This is not my telling you that I am fine with the abuses that many have suffered, but it is to say that whatever happens to us is meant as a lesson, if not in trusting people we shouldn't, then in trusting ourselves to know that we can rise above everything that we have been witness to, everything that we have been told we are but are not, everything that we see as mean and horrible and things that cripple the soul. Without the tears we cannot know the depth or the joy that laughter brings and can never really experience it because there is nothing to measure it against. Without the pain we can never know what feels right, and without the daggers sent straight to the middle of the soul of our hearts we can never find out that every heart, no matter how broken, has the propensity to heal.

Without the ugly things that visit our lives we cannot know the depth and the worth of the beauty which resides within us all.

Take the good, the bad, and the ugly, and you come up with something beautiful


If there is one that I am very familiar with it is the depth of the soul of a person who lives their lives outwardly, lives their lives as though the only thing that counts, that has ever counted, was what they could accomplish in the material world, but there is nothing in the material world that has roots in the material and no matter what anyone thinks, it never will and it is because all of those material goodies came from a thought - a good thought, or perhaps even a very bad one, but none the less, the soul is where everything starts, because the soul is where our most precious treasures really are.

No matter what ugliness is part of your life right now, as Polly Anna as it might seem, you can turn it into something beautiful, something that somewhere along the Path that you are on right now will culminate into being something gorgeous and real and permanent and yours - you just have to believe that it is, and most of all, you must first have gratitude for it, even as it is still in your mind and in manifest and lives only as an intention.

And speaking of intention, never forget that it is the intention of a thought, of a desire that matters most, and not the thing itself. It is often said and widely believed that it is not the reward as much as the journey to the reward that we all pine for, and in the case of being grateful it is the one thing that matters the most. The journey to wholeness is not one for the weak of heart, the meek of soul, but it is the journey that all abuse survivors eventually must take, for without the drive to want to further your life, and without the desire to see things in a different light, there is nothing else that will lift a person out of the pit of hell called their life at present moment than knowing that one truth. No journey has ever been taken without also taking the very first step. In this case, the first step is simply believing, which, in an abuse survivor's world, is something that must be relearned as it, too, is stripped of us.

Yet, once we have it back ( I refer to it as my "Girl Mojo"), there is nothing and no one who can stop us. Nothing. Not one person. It is this way because we have used the Spiritual muscles built up by hurtful words and action taken against us, and it is this that carries us through to our highest learning. It is the experience as an abused person that prompts us to become survivors, and once we are survivors, we then become fighters, and in our case, the fighter never does not reign victorious. We go from being just a survivor to being a reigning and victorious Soul with a heart and mind to match, and by my count, that is a lot to be grateful for. We find that we can handle almost anything that comes our way, and if we cannot handle it at that very moment, we know that our moment will come. It is not a matter of if, anymore, not in the case of the survivor of domestic abuse and violence, but rather and only, when.

It is Beautiful to be Grateful...

A person living in the Light of Love and with Gratitude in their heart is a person who has begun the Journey to healing. If we can manage to rise above the anger, above the shame and above the remnants of what we thought our lives should have been, we can manage to see to it that everything in our lives brought us to this point, to this place where we can stand atop the proverbial mountain, look out onto the world that is our lives, and see that we have much to be grateful for, see that we are not so without that we cannot manage to also see to it that we are a better beacon of Light than we are a purveyor of the darkness. Abuse survivors live their lives shrouded in darkness that is not their own but becomes theirs once it is that someone whose darkness is not bigger, but whose darkness is backed by all the power that they have within them.

People who have survived such things have not used every bit of what they were granted at birth, and in so knowing this cannot use it if they do not realize that they have it. We all have it, and once we can take hold of and harness it, there is nothing that we cannot do - not one damned thing, and this is the most beautiful and most important thing about Gratitude.

Gratitude is a Light unto its own. It sheds light on the things that are of importance to us, and breaks us free of the belief that we want more than we deserve, and we do not realize that wanting is different than desiring. Want leaves us feeling empty, but desire fills us with hope and banishes the fear which has permeated the Light within us for too long. When we can be filled with Gratitude our lives begin to change.

So, be in the Light that is Gratitude - YOUR Light that is Gratitude, and find within the one Christmas gift that has been yours all along...

I Love You All...
...Rox...


(Rev. Roxanne Cottell is a Freelance Writer, Speaker and Spiritual Counselor residing in Southern California. For inquires regarding the Ka Wahine 'Ui dance program for survivors of domestic abuse,or any other inquiries. send an email by clicking this link . Her latest book, "Goddesses, Priestesses and Queens" can be purchased at lulu.com and amazon.com)