Articles to Assist in Healing

Perception is Everything!
In a recent morning meditation I had the thought to present this information on perception and opposition. I want to tell you about two women. One is my mom and the other is her friend.
First My Mom –
My mom yelled a lot. She was very unhappy and she let that fact be known. She would get up early, (3:30 a.m.) and start taking her regimen of pills. These pills were to wake her up enough to function to get to work by 7:30 a.m. (She had an afternoon regimen that helped her to come down enough to sleep and this she started as soon as she got home from work in the afternoon) My mom would make plenty of noise – not necessarily to wake anyone up but she did do that – she was just oblivious to the fact that others were in the house and didn’t need to get up at that awful hour. When I finally did get up she made sure I knew that I was in the way. There was one bathroom for us both and I was usually in tears before I got to school. She would “think” out loud and she didn’t “think” very highly of herself. So I heard her say things like – “you’re just an ugly pig.” “It doesn’t matter what I wear I look like a fat slob in everything I put on.” She would murmur audibly but under her breath, “You are just a bitch.” “Good for nothing but scrubbing __it off the toilets.” This was daily – when I was in the bathroom in the morning with her. She was disgusted with herself and this disgust and self loathing spewed from her. When one feels like this about themselves there is no space to think anything positive about anybody else either. Whether she was speaking her thoughts out loud or it was evident in the energy she sent out. I had trouble distinguishing where she started and stopped and where I started and stopped. That is to say, we were enmeshed. Those things she said affected me deeply. She may as well have been directing those comments to me. To be sure, when I was younger I thought her anger, disgust and self hate was really about me. I thought I was responsible for her unhappiness in some way. I took on her pain, trying desperately to ease it so I wouldn’t have to see it and experience it daily. Saturdays were different. That’s the day I didn’t have to get up and share the bathroom with her. But we cleaned the house instead. She would bark orders and me, “clean the little bathroom”, she’d yell. I would go and do the best I could. I got so good at it because she would humiliate me if some aspect of the cleaning was not up to her high, obsessive standard and I was trying desperately to get praise and affection from this woman, my mom.

My Mom’s friend –
This was woman was cheerful and bright! She would often put her arm around me at my elementary school where she worked. Her home was comfortable and clean. Everything was in its place. The meals she made were well balanced and delicious and her table décor was truly a work of art! At Christmas her home was picturesque – straight from a page in Better Homes and Garden magazine. The front room where the Christmas tree could be seen through the large window could hardly contain all the gifts for each member of the family. When extended family or friends would come to visit there would be laughter and snacks and card playing at the dining room table. This friend of my mom’s taught Sunday School, she made sure her children were clean and well dressed at every occasion. She worked a full time job and her appearance was always neat and comely.

My Mom and her friend are one in the same person!

This other side of my mom was the public side, the person who came out when we walked out the front door. I didn’t even see or realize all the positive things she taught me or I experienced with her because I was so focused on being right about how wrong she was.

I was a few years on my recovery path before it was suggested to me to consider all the positive attributes she had and positives I gained from her.

Today, I love, honor and respect my mom for her example. She showed up the way she did due to choices she made along her path of experiences.

I wasted a lot of years blaming her for my unhappiness. When we blame, we b-lame ourselves – we are lame (Webster says: lame means, disabled, injured or impaired strength or motion) and can’t move forward in life. I chose to focus on all the ways in which she fell short. When I shifted my focus on what she did right my experience in life changed. My unhappiness transformed into being happy and cheerful and grateful.

Just like in having the stomach flu – I appreciate my ability to eat and enjoy my food – when the bug has left my body!

Prior to being grateful – I cleared the negative family patterns and traditions through energy work and energy healing that I now offer to others and teach at ‘AsYouThinkYouAre’. I “gave back” to my mom the negative programming that was hers not mine! I realized I was trying to help her by taking it but “taking it” on for another even energetically serves no-one.

See, it is IN the opposition, the contrast that frees us up to experience joy in this life!! (You can’t pick up just one end of a pencil you pick up both ends at the same time. These ends represent the opposite, the good and the bad, the light and the dark of things!)

This story is not complete without my declaration that it is in and through my God, my Savior that ALL healing takes place and derives from. He is the author of all truth, WHEREVER one may find it.

God bless you to be willing to overcome and change a pattern you are stuck in. Do it for you, do it for those who came before you and those who will follow.

Hugs,
Kandy Graves.
www.AsYouThinkYouAre.com
kandy@asyouthinkyouare.com
801-221-1533