Loneliness...

What is loneliness. I'm dwelling on that this evening.

It's been a rough week, a longer day and I'm wide awake at 2 a.m. instead of sleeping like I need to be, like my body is craving and my mind won't give in.

I've been feeling lonely lately. Interesting how I felt lonely almost all of my marriage and then the loneliness changed. I'm growing, changing and realizing that I crave a social life. I need to be heard... That's what I discovered tonight. I need to be heard, I need someone to hear me, to be listening.

Loneliness is not always simply the state of being alone, for me it is often the state of being unheard. Of not knowing who is near or far, no knowing who wants me, who misses me... I don't know the thoughts of others. I know the people who love me, the people who care... but I can't know what they are thinking, I fear when they don't communicate that they are tired of me, that I have become less important in their lives. I allow myself to be easily set aside, to be walked away from. I don't fight for people to stay in my life for very long or for very hard. I'm sure my best friend might argue with that, but I can quickly accept (right or wrong) that someone just doesn't want to be around me anymore.

Sometimes it's hard to dance alone all the time. Sometimes I crave a partner, even a temporary, short-term friend who is willing to dance with me. Some days I just need someone with skin on (who is older than 18 years old).

Seeing the 'Muscles' Grow Stronger

Tonight I am sitting here and I am realizing...

I am beautiful.

I am worthy.

I am valuable.

I am special.

I am enough.

Tomorrow, I might need reminding. I am learning to appreciate myself, to value myself and to see myself as someone special, someone worth knowing, worth being with.

I realize that not everyone may feel that way about me. Well, I actually KNOW some people don't feel that way about me. I'm learning to be okay with that too. Honestly, there are some people already that I don't care if they don't like me... I could even list names for you, but I won't. In fact, there are some I would rather they don't like me because I wouldn't want to be liked by people of their caliber. Abusers and narcissists top that list!

I can see the healing God is working in me. I feel the strength beginning to rise in my heart. Dancing with God truly is great exercise! I highly recommend you try it.

I'm learning

I'm learning to be okay with me.
I'm learning to allow myself to be set free.
I'm learning that I am enough
I'm learning that I am okay
I'm learning that it's okay for me to heal
I'm learning that it's okay for me to be happy
I'm learning that I am wanted, valued, loved

I'm learning.

When I was in my early 20's, I spent a good 5 years in counseling. During that time, I made choices that deepened the ingrained belief that I was not worthy of true love or happiness. I also learned tools that when push came to shove, I was able to realize my mistake and heal from it. I learned it was okay to take the time to heal before moving on.

What I didn't learn was that it was okay to not lock myself into the consequences of a future mistake. See, I got myself engaged to a man who didn't really want me. In fact, he told me at one point that he was only with me until "someone better came along". It was a month before our wedding when that someone better came along. I was heartbroken, but I think (looking back) that I was more heartbroken about the wedding being cancelled than I was about him breaking up with me... I think I expected it to happen sooner or later. Now, I'm eternally grateful to God for breaking us up because he turned out to be a lousy husband, a philanderer and abuser.

The other thing I didn't carry forward was into my next relationship the forgiveness towards myself for past relationships and mistakes. See, I had made myself a promise and when that promise was broken, taken away, I still felt I had to honour it. I decided that I had "made my bed and must lie in it". I was mistaken. If I had been able to forgive myself, to set aside my actions and feelings from the reality before me, I could have saved myself from more heartache and disaster.

I made my choice. If I had to go back, I'd probably make the same one because I can't imagine life without my boys, but if I could advise a woman in the same situation, I would give different advice.

For example, just because you slip up, make a mistake, sin, fall, however you want to word it, you aren't stuck with a bad choice, with a bad relationship because of it. I would advise that you step away from that moment, action or decision and look at the relationship outside of it, would you stay with that person if that moment had not happened, if that activity did not exist? I wish I had asked myself that question - in fact, I went out of my way to not ask myself that question. I thought I owed it to God, to myself, to my family, to my reputation.... to do the "right" thing. I did the wrong thing.

Please don't get me wrong. I'm in a state of reflection lately and while I regret my thought processing in this matter, I cannot say for sure what decision I would have made if I had thought it through differently. I'm not the same person today that I was then. I've come a long way, done a lot more healing, educated myself better about relationships.

Which is to say that relationships still terrify me! I pray that should God provide a next relationship (and I pray He does), I will be wiser, freer, and more careful.  Should I make a grave mistake in my judgment, in my actions (in my own eyes!) I will be more forgiving, give myself grace and not allow it to be the basis of a long term decision.

God has brought me to a forgiveness for myself. He promises that He does not hold our past sins against us, that when He forgives, it is gone. As long as I choose to accept Him, my sins died on the cross with Christ, all of them. If He does not hold them against me, if He has already taken the consequence up on Himself, if He has already washed them clean, what am I saying or doing when I cling to them? If I cannot let Him take them away from me, if I insist that I still must face the eternal consequence for them, I have not accepted His gift and I negate the sacrifice that He made for me. I'm grateful for His Gift, His sacrifice and I have no desire to throw it back in His face or devalue it.

With this forgiveness... and some days I must remind myself of it when Satan is out to try to make me forget it! ... comes a freedom previously unknown. It means that I can walk with my head up. It means that today is a fresh start... that today is a clean slate... that tomorrow can also be a clean slate.

It means that I can dream, and love, and live, and dance lightly, happily and joyfully as I move into the future.

Dancing free of the cobwebs

I'm having flashbacks regularly lately. One seems to lead to another, one memory begets another memory and I am learning / remembering more and more of my past. Unfortunately, I can fend off the memories until I lay down at night and then my brain is flooded. Last night, the flood came to the point that I couldn't keep my eyes closed and yet opening them didn't stop the flood. Last night, I realized there was more to my marital abuse than I was ever willing to admit or acknowledge. I've taken responsibility for things that were not my responsibility. I am stunned to realize that my marriage was based, not only on the lies he told me, but on the lies I had told myself, the decisions I made because of those lies.

It started with a memory a few weeks ago regarding a childhood incident that I had always instinctively known must have been there, but couldn't remember. Now I remember. The memory came in a flashback with feelings and thoughts, which lead to other instances in my life where I have felt those emotions, which lead to a time immediately after I met my ex-husband. One memory regularly leads to a whole review of that portion of a relationship and I have been battling nausea with the realizations shown to me.

I will no longer be stunned into frozen. I won't  allow my boundaries to be bulldozed, my desires ignored and my voice silenced. I will look at a situation and no longer expect one thing, but will state my expectations ahead of time. I will expect to be treated with respect from now on.

I feel as if my brain is dancing free of the cobwebs. With the freedom comes the memories both good and bad... I'm truly okay with that. Even if I am left reeling from reality, the fog is lifting and my thoughts become clearer, my future starts to look brighter and my hope begins to rise that something better is actually out there.

This is just another part of the dance to freedom. I feel God's hand, firmly but gently, leading me down this road. He wants good for me. He wants me to escape the prison walls abuse has built around me, the moat I dug within them in case someone tried to breach the walls. We're filling in the moat, breaking down the walls.

Is it safe?

Only when He leads the way.

Rescue

I have been dreaming lately. I mean actual night dreams this time... I have never done this. Even as a young girl, I thought it strange that I never dreamed.... my friends, siblings, parents, classmates, would all talk about the dreams they had the night before and I always had a blank slate. I slept pretty soundly, but there was just blackness, no dreaming. It's a new feeling for me... sometimes I wake feeling unrested because so much had happened while I was sleeping!

A recurring theme through my dreams has been that of needing to be rescued. For so long, I have (day)dreamed (since childhood) of having the knight ride in to rescue me, or ANYONE to ride in and rescue me from all that was going on... My dad was once the hero in my (day) dreams, then as I got older it would be a boyfriend/husband, then police, courts, TV heroes.... There has never been a hero. Even now, I must confess, that I keep waiting for the courts to rescue me, for someone to see the truth and step up to say "You don't have to fight this battle alone, I will fight it with you".

I've come to the realization that I must stand alone. That there is not going to be someone to rescue me. I have prayed for God to rescue me and still felt alone, still felt like I would have to rescue myself. My dreams have portrayed this to me... My own fears coming forth and bubbling over. In one dream, I dreamed I was drowning... then I dove in and saved myself. Now you know it was a night-dream... The second me could breath underwater while the first me couldn't. Maybe it was a sign that I'm getting stronger, that I'm healing, that I need rescuing less.... But when I came up out of the water, there was a crowd of people around and none of them had even noticed I was in trouble.

Then came an experience. I love that God speaks to us through experiences. (I know that He also uses dreams, but for me an experience speaks louder!)

I was at Rainbows (Singles) Family Camp and my youngest wanted a canoe ride. All the other parents and adults being busy with their families and activities, I took him out on my own. I'm a pretty strong canoe-er and thought nothing of it... I also didn't intend to go very far. He was a little scared of the rocking of the canoe, so I taught him how and where to sit, had him turn around and face me because when you see someone you trust it's easier! A motor boat came along just as I planned to turn around and I decided to wait until the waves died down before returning to shore.... except I didn't plan on the wind that day or realize how far we had paddled.... When I tried to turn the canoe, the wind pushed it right back. When I paddled toward shore, the wind held us still. When I paused to rest, the wind and waves pushed us farther away.

With my son watching me, I couldn't show my anxiety, I couldn't let him know how scared I was becoming! I knew I was rapidly running out of energy and I couldn't remember how to get the life guards attention! I forgot that in the boat were the tools we needed to be rescued. He knew we were having trouble getting back to shore... and, bless his little rule-keeping heart, he was worried we were getting out of the life guards sight.

I looked at him and I prayed out loud, asking Jesus to come pick up a paddle and row with me. I gave up trying to turn the canoe and just paddled backwards. As we gained ground, as we came closer and closer to camp, my little one said "I guess that's why we needed to have two paddles in the canoe, hunh Mom". He knew Jesus was paddling on the other end of the canoe. He knew we had just been rescued by THE Rescuer.

I was so relieved to be back at shore, I was so grateful to have been able to return safely (and without embarrassment, I might add) that I missed the fact that I had just been Rescued.

I know my Rescuer and His name is Jesus. He hasn't left me, He knows the truth, He will continue to protect me, He will continue to carry me through.

Boundaries

I struggle with setting boundaries. I'm learning, but it is difficult for me to stay strong in this area. As I sit here this morning, the thought struck me that I don't feel necessary, I don't feel valuable, unless I am helping someone. So, I set aside my needs, compromise my boundaries in order to be helpful to others because it is only in helping others that I find value in myself.

I don't find value in taking care of me. I have work to do in this area, but since we cannot change what we do not acknowledge, I'm going to see this realization as a good thing, as a step in the right direction.

This happened again at the hospital Friday night... My son needed stitches in his knee. I let his dad know what was happening and he rushed over to the hospital to see the boys. I let the nurses know he only had supervised visits and I needed their help because I don't want to be alone with him and the boys. The came up with an acceptable solution, and then later came and asked me to change it to make things simpler for them. What do you say when the nurses tell you they can't honour their word? How do you demand that their suddenly busy ER still help you keep your boundaries. I conceded and they sent him down to stay with us, leaving us alone with him. They said they would have him leave again when the doctor came, but they didn't. I had to be the one to ask him to step out, I had to reset the boundary to make my son's experience easier to get through.

I felt ignored, like my children's needs, my needs were unimportant in light of their needs. I'm still not sure how I could have done things differently in that situation. Sometimes you have to bend, to break a rule for someone else. Sometimes it's more dangerous than it seems. With all the domestic violence posters they have in the hospital, I felt like they should have been more aware of the potential risks.

Education for domestic violence is key. I'm glad God has called me to work in that area. So often we see normal when we should see abuse.

I'm getting better at the boundary setting and keeping. It's a work in progress, but isn't the best dance one that is always improving?

Heart of the Matter

Lately the tears are striking at every opportune moment... and some inopportune moments. I lay down to sleep, close my eyes and start crying. I will be washing dishes and start crying. A friend says something (even something nice) and.... I start crying. Someone does something nice for me and, guess what... I start crying.

God and I had a pretty intense conversation all day yesterday that culminated in a Facebook friend phoning me with a message from him. She spoke 2 sentences and... yep... I started crying - bawling actually, I even missed part of the message I was crying so hard. I realize they are healthy, healing tears, but it can get quite annoying... and tiring. As I lay in my bed (crying) last night, I was complaining to God about it and it was almost as if He said "It's okay. I'm catching your tears in My bottle. They are not wasted or unseen."

It's been a week of realizing how I feel about myself, what my fears for my future are, and new memories of the past. It was a day of God loving me, of telling me that how I feel about myself is not how He feels about me. It was a day of Him wanting to change my perception... and me fighting the process. Are you SURE? Is it even possible for You to love me like that? To want good for me?

Funny how we question God. Funny how it's so easy to accept the lies that we are unlovable or valueless. Funny how it's hard to believe those might be lies. What do I do, how does it change who I am to accept that God's love is sufficient for me? More than that, that God's love is MEANT for me? Why am I afraid that I will become conceited and arrogant if I accept God's view of me?

Therein lies the heart of the matter. I have been taught that feeling good about oneself is wrong, prideful... inherently evil. Yet, if God is giving the message, how can it be evil or wrong? He seeks a humble heart, one that is not puffed up with itself. Is doubting my worth, is holding onto MY view of me being puffed up with myself? Is the very act of doubting the value and love He holds for me an expression of pride and conceit? Is it possible that the "humbleness" that we equate with low self-esteem is actually the exact opposite?