It's YOU, not them....

Our Lives long we try to get people to Love us as we are...knock it off...Love You first, just as you are, and stop waiting for someone else to do it

We should just get over ourselves NOW, dammit. My thought about trying to change someone else to make us more acceptable in their eyes is just...meh...it is too much work to do to try to do something that will not happen.

Okay, so it COULD happen, but the likelihood of that happening on behalf of anything that is not meant for the Self and ultimately, The Soul, is as likely as our winning an Oscar while we are not meant for it - NOT GONNA HAPPEN.

NOT GONNA HAPPEN!

No one else is going to make things beautiful for you. You have to do that on your own. Conversely, no one else has the power to make things ugly for you, only you do. Only you can do for you what no one else, as you well know by this time, should even bother to think to do for anyone else. Whatever it is that you are trippin' out on is yours alone, and no one outside of you is going to make that different. Even though whatever it is that they are doing and keep on doing bothers you, you have to think about why it is so bothersome. Why is what someone else doing in their lives such a big damned deal to you, and why is it that you are not willingly seeing the other side of the "If only" coin? We do so many ridiculous things when it comes to getting people to see us for who we are according to us that we are not bothering with the fact that what they see and what we see and know are two very different perceptions.

Our perception of ourselves will not be the same that others see. It never will be. While they might physically see what is there and while what is there will match, technically, the thought behind what we each and singly see will be markedly different. It's like this...a Pisces person will see the moon in the sky like a big pizza pie while the Capricorn person might see it as a good moon by which to plant a crop to sell. In this same light, we all have such very different thoughts and such very different feelings about so many different things that to think for even a tiny moment that a person who has been one way all their lives will change for YOU is like pretending that you do not want them to do the change for you rather than with you as the example of the thing NOT do to or say anymore. While they might change a little bit here and there so that they can accommodate what it is that you might need that you do not have within you, the bottom-line truth is that they are not changing something for you at all. They are changing a part of themselves FOR themselves so that you can be included and accepted in their awareness in a manner which they can relate to.

Their changing anything about them, no matter WHAT you are told, what you want to believe, whatever...is not now and nor will it ever be for you. That is placing too much power and too much control of you and too much of anything into someone else's hands. That is making them responsible for how you feel. That is making them be the one who decides for you not only how you feel, but eventually who you want to believe you are. Who you are is a sublimely unchangeable part of you. NO ONE ELSE can make you act on the way that you feel. Sure, someone else might have a lot of stuff to say, and while it might hurt the reality of it all is that it is their opinion, and we all know that opinion is NOT fact. Fact is the reality, is the manifestation of what is in your head. If you look at your self in the mirror and see something there that you are not liking or does not fit somehow you are seeing what is there that has been placed there by you via the opinion of someone else. Very truly, you took what someone else thought, said, did to you as the truth that is yours and you allowed it to be your truth even though upon looking at your reflection you see what is there that was not yours to begin with.

And we know what is "ours" and what is not.

What is Yours.

What is yours is how you feel about anything. By this I mean that the way that someone's energy "hits" you is yours, not theirs. If you think about it deeper, you will find out that while it is that they have fed you their opinion about a thing, the way that you react, or respond, belongs only to you. You are not foolish enough  to walk up to a wild animal, poke it with a stick and expect the animal to not behave like it should. If provoked it will behave in the manner that it has been provoked. If you leave it be, stay a safe distance from it so as only to look at it and observe it, it will, again, behave in the manner that it has NOT been provoked. If you decide to walk into a situation where you know the answer from the person who you have asked their opinion of will not be the answer that you like or that you want, you know already that you have provoked yourself with the stick of self-endangerment in a soul sense. If you take the answer they give you, and look at it from a different place, and see where the person you asked is coming from, you have learned, in that one moment, if you are paying attention to their words, the truth that is theirs alone, the truth that cannot be changed at all by you, and more, the truth that you have the option to react to, to respond to, or - best case - leave it be what it is, which is THEIR truth, you will find out that for all those times that you thought they were trying to hurt you that it was only your perception of what you wanted to believe was the truth of you.

Someone else's opinion of you is based on the experiences that came from events that happened in the past, meaning that they are based on events that happened for real. The things that are not real, though, are the imagined things that you want to believe that are the bad things that your own thoughts are creating for you. What they tell you is THEIR truth and THEIR feeling about whatever happened. What you hear is THEIR truth and THEIR opinion that does not have to be accepted by you, and really, just because you are not accepting it, it does not make it wrong, or right. It only makes it someone else's opinion.

What is NOT Yours

Everything and anything that did not come from you is what is not yours. That terrible idea that another person has about the way that you dress - not yours. That awful opinion that someone else has about the idea that you are being "weak" when you are not raising hell over something that someone else said or did about you or about anything you do - again, not yours. Anything that you did not think on your own and anything that is a belief that did not originate in your mind is NOT YOURS. It does not matter how someone else will assume anything about you. That is not your weight to carry. That is not your Kuleana to live up to. That is not the thing that you came up with, so this means that as of this moment, you can let it go.

That's right...if it is hurting you in any way, and you are not the person who came up with whatever it is that was said, done or whatever, you can let it go. It is not yours. It is not your truth. You did not think it. You cannot own it. Let someone else carry that heavy pu'olo for once.

Auhea Wale ana 'oe - Pay attention! Let someone else carry their own damned pu'olo for once !

As hard as I know it is to let go of the ugly things that other people think or say about us, just let it go. If you cannot let it go, learn to think about it from another place, in another way, and live with what your perspective of what you came up with on your own about what someone else thinks about ANYTHING having to do with you. Learn to take what can be thought of as someone else's crap as a way to either see something in yourself that you have never seen and look at it from your own perspective and never mind what someone else thinks, or ignore it, because if they can see it in you, and what they say about what they see in you hurts you, this means that it is also alive and well in them, and more than that, they have no right to judge you about something that they, too, have to fix in them.

You cannot see anything in someone else that you would be willing to see as a bad thing unless it is also in you. If you point out a person's ability to talk without thinking, this also is yours. Do something about it, but don't do something about it so that other people won't tell you that it is there, and don't do something about it that will hurt them. Do something about it because it can be thought of as something that you can use to your benefit. Do something about it because it is your soul's wish. Do something about it because you are choosing the option to do something about it but by any and all means DO NOT do anything about a damned thing on behalf of someone else who did not pop out of your body and who now calls you 'Mom.'

You cannot know what a person is all about in relation to you if you are not also willing to see there in them what is you, good, bad or otherwise. If the lesson that we are meant to learn is the lesson that is us knowing when we are supposed to no longer take from another person, the hurts that are meant to teach us, and we choose to not learn, we can no longer blame anyone for the horrible things that they will tell us because we walked right into their line of fire. If you are not meant to be one way, you will not be that way, but the lesson will be not that you are not meant to be that way but that you are not meant to try to be. If the lesson is that you ought not hurt for the sake of someone else, yes, including hurting from the sting of rejection and a horrible break up, including the shame that one feels over being told that they lost their job for reasons that their arrogant boss told them was the truth but is not a truth that you yourself really knows, including anything that feels like a ding to your soul, you will be given lessons in what it is like TO hurt - not to hurt someone else but to experience being hurt - but only so that you know what is the opposite of the thing that you so dearly need to know and to live and to be.

When it comes to anything at all that is of a personal nature and it causes us pause to stop and think about a thing and when it is that that thing hurts us, no matter what it is, it is meant to teach us what we need to know.

Yes, even when it comes delivered to us by the most unlikely manner, by the most unlikely people...

It is all meant to teach us who we really are in the soul...it is YOU...not them...I Promise !

I LOVE YOU ALL
ROX

Don't judge others because they are not like you

"...don't judge me because I sin differently than you do..."

                                                                                                                             (Dieter F. Uchtdorf)                                                

We all make judgment calls on other people. It is a part of life. If we do not use our ability to discern who is good and who is other than good, we are not allowing our intuitive side to do what is its only job...to discern. Our intuitive measure is the thing in us that Science calls and which activates the "fight or flight" within us all. There are times in our lives when we have to make a quick judgment call because our safety relies on it. There are times when we have to use it to gauge the energetic temperature inside of our own homes so that we can see what kind of day the rest of the Tribe is going to have based on the energy at the time of the day.

Yet, there are many, many times that we are more given to judging someone else based on a preference that may no longer apply to us, our lives, or the people we are calling judgment on. There are times when who we are in an egotistical sense takes over and makes us make not only a judgment on someone else - normally someone who we do not know - but that judgment on them is harsh and ugly. And we have the audacity to believe that they cannot feel our weightiness, the very nerve to believe that without our even bothering to ask a question of them (you know, such as what their mother named them, for starters) we judge them for things that we really have no clue about. If you are an Empath, which I am, and you are only in the beginning stages of learning to use your gift and how to know what you are honing in on in someone else, it is common that you will make a judgment early on and it is simply and only because of that scientific thing that I mentioned just a bit ago. The problem with empathy - yes...problem...is that when we are learning to use it to our advantage (so that all others may benefit, too) we cannot know yet whose energy we are feeling, ours or someone else's, and more than that, the "difficult" or heavier energies may not be who they are but instead may be someone who they know and who they are thinking certain thoughts about. 

I know this one very well. Being a strong Empath is great, but it can also be the thing that, without practice and without that practice toward our abilities, we judge others by the energies they emit without also asking questions of them that would help us to clarify a few things. Being able to empathically know things is a great tool to sharpen, but it can also be a very dangerous one if we do not bother to practice, literally, what we preach. 

Practicing what we preach

We have all sinned in the house of judging other people, all of us. We have all come short of the glory that is being fair and open with strangers. We have all made a quick call on someone else without first getting to know them, thereby also getting to know what their trip is. We love our abilities, we empaths and healers and 'psychics,' a whole lot, in fact, but there are those among us who, new at it or not, use them the wrong way. Televangelists are very good at making judgment calls on people, and the bad thing about that is that they have an audience who agrees, and sometimes in that audience there are people like we who can look into the energies of other people and see what is there that they don't want seen. It is this crowd - the ones who listen intently to any leader in the area of Spirit - or at least a few within it, who take what their guru tells them to heart, take it to the mat, if you will, making judgments on others who they do not know from Adam and only by what their eyes tell them is the truth. 

Then the fun starts. These are not the only ones who do this. Arrogant people, leaders in business, college professors, basically anyone, but really - namely those who are in some sort of power position - these are the people who, because they have a following, are very inclined to allow their Ego to take the reigns. When this happens, and because they speak to an audience of people who believe their tenets, we end up with a group of people who believe their own bullshit because they were told to. They were told that what they heard was the truth and the only truth that there is, and they believed it because it was written in a book by groups of people who told other people that they are an expert in whatever field it is that they find themselves in.

While it is that my name is not followed by "PhD.," and is instead preceded by the letters "Rev.," I cannot, ever, because it has been done to me throughout the course of my lifetime, judge another person harshly, if at all, just based on what I see with my own human eyes. My own human eyes told me to judge another person because they were different than I am, because their hair was not the same, or maybe their habits were what they were, and my arrogant ego told me that I was right and that I did not need to talk to these types of people because they looked different than I do. It was when I turned 40 that it all came rushing to my thoughts that maybe I am the reason that people are repelled by me, and maybe it is that quick rush to judgment that I habitually honored without realizing that I was hurting people, that I was hurting me, that I was creating Karma and making it so that others, through what my human eyes saw and due to those letters that come before my name, would also judge others in that same manner. 

It was when I took someone to the ER a few years back that it hit me the hardest, when the physician's assistant on duty wrote what she did in her notes that struck me where it hurt the most..in my pride, and at that moment, due to those letters, in my calling. I learned a whole lot about rushing to judgment. 

It was because of the person who I took there that this woman chose to assume that I was an addict, and while I know that because of her notes I can sue the hell out of her specifically, I also know that it was a reminder that I could take the time to talk to a person first before I just go with what my intuition tells me, and that I have the right and the option to love them instead of reprimand them in my Soul and with my energies. Yes, me...this is what I was doing. My big fat ego and me were busy trying to save the addicts of the world without first knowing the reason for the addiction or without bothering to talk to them first so that I might find out that the energy of their soul was not theirs alone, so that I would know for sure that I was being wrong, that I was not right in the mind or the soul at that moment, and that truly, I was a televangelist in my own mind and in my own world and in my very own overblown -albeit quietly so - arrogance. 

To believe that we can save everyone is one thing, but to believe that we are able to make people think that we are the best in the world and do so through our own words and our own actions and using only the whims of our egos is quite very much another thing indeed. 

The televangelist who all of us are, have been, have the potential to be and also who can be stopped, either by our own Selves, or, on the other side of the slap-happy coin, that bitch named Karma...

That Bitch named Karma really, really is out of control, and we let it be this way. We let it be this way because for the life of us we do not know how to get out of our own way. Arrogant people are the worst at telling other people what they need to do but not doing it themselves. I was this way for a long, long time, allowing my title to be the thing that led me instead of my utilizing what power is given to it the right way. The right way to utilize any kind of power at all is in equal measure of both kindness and common sense. We hear a whole lot about common sense from some of the most nonsensical people, and we know that the majority of them mean well...yet there are those ones who have a need to be worshiped, and adored while the world looks up at them as they stand up there on their ivory tower. I know this animal, too, because I was this animal. And hell yes I can see the whole herd of this creature from a mile away.

You know who you are. You are those people who like to tell others what to do, and you expect them to carry things out in the manner that you would because only your way is the right way. There are some of you reading this right now getting very offended, very angry with me, because you think or believe that I am pointing my skinny little finger at you, and you would be right in that I am calling you out, but not right when you think that I am talking about you specifically. To point out the lot of you who think that you have the ultimate last word and are the expert in anything at all and to go out into the world and impose this energy onto the rest of us is wrong and egotistical on the mild side, and rage-raising and insulting on the other side. 

You don't know it all. I know this because while I know a whole lot, I know that I don't know everything that there is to know about anything at all. Things change everyday, and everyday we get a new chance to do things differently, but most of us just stick to our own regimen and this does not stop at our habits that we do each day, but it is also applicable to the things that we think, say and know. Many people in power, no matter what that power might be...it could be job related, or it can be in the community of our family at home where we are the breadwinner...it can be anything at all, really - take for granted that somehow theirs is the only thought to be had about a thing, that they know everything about that one thing, and that dammit - no one is going to tell them that they are wrong. And why would they? Why would they since they are the one who calls the shots? Why would they because every major decision made is theirs to make, even though they "call a meeting" and ask for everyone's input? Why would they? 

They wouldn't because they have not been questioned about the things that they know, and they wouldn't because their arrogance and their ego have taken the reigns, and they wouldn't because to do so would make them human instead of a minor god in the eyes of those who they have this strange feeling of power over. Parents are horrible at this. Again...I know this personally. We parents have the nerve to believe that we did not bring our kids into this world so that they will make us look good. That is not the job of our children. That is not the job of anyone, but it seems to be the job that we all want to have. It is not the job of our descendants to undo all the folly we did, all the wrongness that we think, and it is not their job to make us look good, even though we expect them to. 

It is not their job to make it seem as though if they do something foolish, somehow we are to blame. They are kids, not machines. They are gifts, not minions. They are blessings, not people who we are allowed to lord our assumed power over, yet because society has told us that the truth is that our kids have to do as we say and not as we do (good gravy we would be in trouble collectively if that were the case) we forge on into the darkness of Control and Judgment on the one group of people who we also expect Love, respect, "honor they father" from, and we have the balls to not give it in return. 

This, people, is the reason that we hate each other, and this is the reason that we try to one up each other, and this is the reason that all of us are in this bitter competition with each other, and more than anyone else, our very selves. We fight our selves each and everyday with this. We want to do right by our kids, and we want them to be happy, but we want them not to stray from who  WE are and we don't allow them to grow to be who they are meant to be. We want their love, but we settle for their worshipful glances, and we think we are right in that energy. We are not. It is not okay to think that we hold the ultimate truth in what is right or not right for everyone on the planet and even everyone in our own world. But we think we are right, and we do it anyway, imposing onto the most important people in that world, what is right and wrong for them by what is preferable to us. This is not to say that we have no rights to offer our opinion, but we have no right to offer our opinion to our brood as being the facts indeed. 

It all starts where the heart of us collectively is. It all starts with those people whose life depend on us and our call to action and our sometimes rush to judgment on them and everyone else. 

It all starts at home.

It all starts with us.

I Love You All

ROX

Perfectly, permanently imperfect

No one will tell another person that really, it is our imperfections which make us perfect at being who we are

I say a lot about how things affect the world and the consciousness of abuse survivors. Today, though, I am addressing the entirety of us, men included, and today I am standing behind my proverbial pulpit, preaching to the masses about the reality that there is not one perfect person on this planet, that not one of us is better than anyone else, and most of all, it is high time that ALL of us decided that we will just Love who we are and to hell with what anyone else thinks.

To hell with what anyone else thinks

To hell with what others think of you, because you are as perfectly you as you can be. No matter who says what to you, and no matter who says that you are not good enough, smart enough, this or that enough, you are you because you have a purpose, and while none of us, maybe including you, really knows what that purpose is, the truth of the matter is that so long as we live WITH purpose, we can never go wrong, and that is where we will find the beauty that is our imperfect nature.

It is our imperfections which make us unique, and it is these same imperfections which make us each uniquely who we are. Why on earth would anyone want to keep up with the world's ideal of beauty, of charisma, and more, why would you just not be in Love with all the charm that makes you, you? Why would you want to touch-up such a beautiful person, the one who lives on the inside and the one who keeps on telling you that you are somehow not good enough? Let me put it to you this way, folks - if we were all as perfect as the media clowns tell us that we should be, and to you ladies, if we were all a perfectly slim size 3, and to you men, if you all were one kinda guy, what the hell kind of world would we really be admitting to helping create if all we are is a clone to one another?

No, not a mirror to each other, because in that mirror that we are to one another there is the beauty that is the people on the other side of the reflection that we see with our Soul's eyes. We see ourselves in other people, and my question now is only - why do you not Love You just as You imperfectly are, right now? Yeah yeah...I know...we can all admit, right now, to not being as fit as we want to be, and we can all admit to not having all the trinkets in life that we are told makes life "comfortable," but in the mix of things and of the All That Is, we are a great big part of the Great Big All That Is!! When you think of things in that manner, it makes sense now, doesn't it, that you would be just perfect as you are.

Without you being the you who you are, someone like me would not be able to see the Me who I am, and I Love the me who I am. The me who I am came into being because the You Who You Are was good enough to show me the part of you that is the Soul, and the You Who You Are made the time to make sure that you showed me myself by simply showing up in my life.

Yup...totally how it works....we show up in each others' lives and suddenly we can see ourselves...it is just that simple.

The Me Who is Me and the You Who You Are are Two VERY special people, you'll agree

It is about time that ALL humans STOPPED with the self-defeating ideas and thoughts that make the ugliness in life more prevalent and more pronounced than it needs to be. The me who I am and the you who you are are two very special people. We are special because you have in you the me that is me, and I have in me the you who you are. As confusing as that sounds, it really is simple when it is broken down into simpler terms. Very simply, I Love You as you are, because you are like I am in that you have much to offer other people just by being your very kick-ass self. We are so much more inclined to see in ourselves a deficit that we cannot see the side of us that is gorgeously meant to be the beacon that is the light which guides us to the thing that we want to be, which is just a higher purposed version of our imperfect selves.

Our imperfect selves in all of our own perfection, from the Soul of us all, cannot see what is not there within us, and since it is that I cannot see the things that my Ego wants me to use as a competitive edge against someone else then I guess the imperfections that you think you see in you are not really there because those things do not exist in me. I cannot see a way to hurt other people on purpose, and if the me who is trying to be perfect needs to be perfect, then that me is always going to only see the flaws that I have to point out to other people. If we can point out our flaws to other people and those people cannot see these flaws, then why it is that we choose to see that which is not even there but to our own eyes....well, why the hell are we worried about it?

Why the hell are we worried about it?

Why does our imperfect nature seem to be the only thing that we alone can see? If anyone else can see it, that means that we have either pointed it out to them or that they, too, have this same thing about them that you think you have about you. What is not there is just simply not there, and when we assume that it is there and we want other people to see it, too, we are only and all about the idea that who we are is meant for other people to judge, and what the hell is up with that?

I mean, really - who really wants to look like anyone on television anyway, right? Have you seen these people lately? I am not talking about what they look like in terms of what they look like, but more in terms of the idea that these people cannot hide the darkness that they are, and while I am all for vacationing on the Shadow Side of life, I am not one who prefers to stay there too long because it will wreck my perfectly imperfect tan ! No one I know likes being sad or angry, likes being mad or upset, so why is it that we are so inclined to make ourselves that way through the use of someone else's opinion? If someone else has an opinion about us that we don't much like, and we want to call them out on it, STOP ! I say STOP because you will not change their minds, and you will not change how they feel. The most you can do about how they feel is learn about how you really feel about you.

You cannot possibly agree with everything that the world tells you is the truth, namely not when it is that the entire world does not know who you are. If the entire world does not know who you are, then is it not also the truth that there is an entire world outside of our own smaller personal worlds that we can go out into and invade with our measure of imperfect greatness. Think about that for a minute...all the people who you know now, and all the people who you knew before now....those are not the only people on the planet, and this means that there are a LOT of other people who will...WILL feel about you the way that I want you to feel about you, and how I want you to feel about you is that you are the greatest you on two feet that you have ever heard of and known.

Don't worry if your pants don't fit, because it is not your ass that does the loving - it is your heart. Don't sweat it if you are not exactly the picture of perfectly sculpted health, because even the perfectly sculpted have imperfections, too. Don't worry if your teeth aren't the whitest, or if you have a little bit extra around the mid-section more than you did just a few years ago. Don't worry if you are not married to that first person you married. Don't worry that you do not have that job you just lost. Don't worry that you are not the you who you think is the very truest you of all, because it is the other You...the one who Loves unfailingly...it is that version of You who you should Love the most, because that is also the You who I Love the most.

The You who is unpretentious, and the you who might be a little less refined than you want to be, and the you who is impossibly hard-headed and does not want to change your mind...this is the You Who I Love because this is the You who You really are. The You who thinks that she has nothing to offer a new man, and the You who thinks that every woman on the planet will judge you because you are not like all the other guys...this is the you who I Love the most. The you who sings off key when you have had too much to drink, and the You who paints pictures when under the influence of your own anger...the You who calls me crying over something as silly as your hair won't hold a curl, and the you who thinks that who you WERE is better than who you are becoming....this is the You who I love the most.

The You Who I Love the Most is the person who I speak to, is the person who I party with, and is the person who I would do much for, or maybe have done much for. The You who I am talking about is the You who is Me, and the You who is Me is a person who just cannot imagine why it is that I think you are the coolest you that you can be, and that me wants to know why you don't think that way, too. The Me who is You wants to know why it is that we know each other if how you feel about you is not the way that I feel about you, and the way that I feel about you is impossible to think is somehow not okay. The me who is you wants you to know and to believe that you have nothing to be ashamed of and that who you are on the inside matters the most. When the you who is on the inside learns that the you who is on the outside is created by the you on the inside - this is when the two Yous will be able to see what I see, and the only thing that I can see in you is Me.

Be Kind to You and know now that You are the most perfect You that you can be, that who you are matters more than what you look like, and that what you look like depends on a lot on how much you love you. If you love you as much as I Love me, and I Love me a LOT, then you will know, too, that you must love you as much as I love me, because I Love You as much as I Love me...

STOP with only seeing what is so magically imperfect about you as being anything other than the gift of imperfection that is indicative of the blood that runs through your veins and makes you know that there is not one other person on this planet who can be You.

Only You can be You.
So what are you waiting for...an invitation?

I LOVE YOU ALL !
ROX

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 

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