On July 4, in the United States, we celebrated our Independence Day from England way back in 1776. To Americans that seems like a long time---232 years of freedom. Out in the rest of the nations of the world, we are still babies. You go to other parts of the world and see buildings, monuments and temples older than our country is.
I consider myself to be a patriotic American. I love my country and I cherish my freedoms as an American. Still, I am beginning to question some of the decisions that are being made by the leaders of my country. After traveling to other parts of the world, I can understand how some countries think we are arrogant Americans. We tend to take our freedoms for granted. Not everyone in the world has those freedoms that we do. Not every country in the world grants those freedoms to their people.
This isn't meant to be a political statement and I am not asking for support or criticisms for my thoughts about July 4. For that is all they are---some thoughts that went through my head as I sat down to write this article. This isn't even what I planned to write about. All I really want to make you aware of, as Americans, is that we truly are blessed to be Americans and to have the freedom to disagree or agree with our leaders. Not all people have that right as we do. I feel that we truly are blessed to be born American at this time in the history of the world. Don't take your freedoms for granted. Not everyone has them.
Freedom does come with responsibilities. One of the freedoms that I have and take advantage of with my blog is the Freedom of Speech. That Freedom of Speech gives me the right to speak and write about any topic that I choose on my blog. I didn't always feel that I had this right.
In my family, freedom of speech was only granted to one person---my dad. From now on, or at least when I remember to, I am going to call him by his name, Raymond. Paula Kawal says that lessens the power that he has over my ability to recover from the abuse of my childhood. ( http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/06/shame-abusers-friend.html ). So you see even some people in the United States don't always have the power of speech, or they don't know that they do. It is not a freedom to be taken for granted. I didn't know until I was 19 and left home that I could speak my mind and that it was ok to have an opinion different than Raymond's. It was many years later at the age of 38 before I really found the Freedom of Speech to take about the incest. When I started to talk about it, then is when I experienced real freedom for the first time. Even then, I was afraid that God or Raymond or someone was going to come and strike me down dead or call me a whore or something just as bad that my mind would conjure up. None of those things happened. I felt my first taste of freedom and it grew from that moment.
With my blog, I have taken it a step further in writing about the incest. As a lady from another country made me aware of recently, I now have a voice that the whole world can hear when I speak about incest. Notice that I am not calling it "my incest." (I may forget and slip there occasionally. This particular awareness is new to me.) It is no longer "my incest." I am in the process of stepping away from the "my" part. I am not in denial. I am not suppressing anything. I am giving myself the freedom to be me without the pain and struggle of my story. My story is not who I am. ( http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/01/my-stories-are-point-of-reference.html )
I just finished reading the Debbie Ford book "The Secret of the Shadow, The Power of Owning Your Whole Story". It is a powerful book that has given me many new awarenesses to work with. You will continue to hear me mention this book in more articles to come as I share the wisdom of Debbie's words and the differences it is making in my thinking.
Can you see that this 4th of July Independence Day has a special significance for me? Personal freedom is a new idea for me because I am connecting with it on new, deeper levels as I work on releasing the past. Living in the past, you don't have freedom. Freedom comes from living in the moment. You aren't there when you are feeling the pain of the past. Having the ability to reach out to others around the world through the internet expands the Freedom of Speech for me. I can use my words to reach out and help others heal from the pain of their stories of incest or other forms of abuse. We all have the freedom to not stay stuck in that pain. Reaching out to others gives us the beginnings of that freedom.
Another freedom that I decided to use the past two weeks was the freedom to say no. I said no to two job opportunities because neither was right for me. One I would have been bored silly within a month of accepting the job and would have come to resent my boss and myself for putting me into that situation. Instead I said, "No thank you. This job isn't for me." The second was much more than a job opportunity, it was a position of leadership as a healer in the healing community. I turned it down because the timing is not right and because I don't want to feel pressured to be something that I am not. I may pursue this avenue in the future but not until I have explored all of my healing abilities, my talents and spiritual gifts to know which direction is the right one for me. I am just beginning to ask my spiritual guides to show me the direction that my healing abilities need to go. I want to learn those healing abilities before I can possibly teach them to others. I know that I could be a leader. I know that through my blog my voice is just beginning to be heard. For now, that is the avenue that I will follow as I continue to explore new avenues to express my Divine nature.
I did not make either of those job decisions from a place of fear. This week, I stepped into my full personal power in being in charge of my life instead of letting others direct my life. That is a glorious feeling. It is also a freedom that I have not always felt that I had. Today I know that I do have that freedom of personal power.
Now to what I intended this article to be about. On Friday, July 4, 2008, just one year one month and three days after writing my first blog article (June 1 was my blog's one year birthday.), the number of views of my blog went over 10,000. On July 4, the total views of my blog was 10,022 of the 117 articles that I have posted on Spiritual Journey Of A Lightworker. On June 1, 2007, my first article was "Three Of My Past Life Experiences" found at http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2007/06/three-of-my-past-life-experiences.html . Take the time now to click on the link and go read that article if you haven't already. Most of you haven't. Leave a comment and let me know what you think of that first article. I know it may be a stretch for some of you who may not believe in reencarnation. That is ok. All I ask is that you be open to the possibility. I wasn't always open either. Now I am since I have knowledge of some of mine.
I have between 130-157 subscribers daily now. Thank you to all of my subscribers and to those of you who have taken the time to view my blog over the past year. The average is 138 subscribers daily now. My growth has been a steady upward journey in my personal life as well as my blog. People from the following countries have looked at my blog: the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, India, Israel, France, Germany, Indonesia, Australia, Chile, China, and Sweden. I hope I haven't forgotten anybody. China and Sweden have been the most resent countries to view my blog. I thank you all for honoring me with your continued presence on my blog. I thank you for becoming part of my journey and for allowing me to become a part of your journey toward Oneness and Freedom for all.
Patricia
Showing posts with label The Secret of the Shadow book. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Secret of the Shadow book. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Blame And Resentment Are Toxic Emotions
Right now I am reading the book "The Secret of the Shadow, The Power of Owning Your Whole Story" written by Debbie Ford. This is the second of Debbie's books that I have read. The first was a few years ago and called "The Dark Side of the Light Chasers."
On page 88 Debbie says,
"Blame and resentment are the toxic emotions that keep us stuck inside the smallness of our stories. Woven throughout our personal dramas is an underlying conversation that might sound like this: 'Look what you did to me. You screwed up my life. I'm a nothing just like you'; or 'I'm never going to amount to anything---just like you told me.' We hold others responsible for our deficiencies and then set out to prove that we have in fact been ill treated and wronged. Our 'poor me' story becomes our evidence, proving that we've been mistreated, neglected, or abused. And every time we fall short of doing our best, we have the perfect alibi. We get to say, 'If I hadn't had that angry father, lousy girlfriend, alcoholic mother, or been raped, molested, beaten, ignored, abandoned, called names, I wouldn't be like this!' Then we use every failure, every disappointment, every broken relationship or botched business deal to support our conviction that we have been victimized. We continually sabotage our efforts toward success and happiness in order to hold on to our resentment and keep our stories intact. Our continued failures and misery prove to us that we are right and those we blame are wrong."
On page 89 Debbie goes on to say, "The people we blame offer a perfect excuse for our self-sabotage. We are unconsciously punishing them by not being as successful or as happy as we could be. We say, either verbally or nonverbally, 'Look, I really am a failure. You really did hurt me.' "
Are any of you doing this with your story of abuse and pain? Are you allowing your story to keep you from living your dreams, from fulfilling your purpose in life, from being who you were really meant to be?
I am less than half-way through the book and Debbie Ford has given me a lot to think about. What I have learned so far also adds to one of my recent articles "Quit Playing Small And Insignificant" ( http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/06/quit-playing-small-and-insignificant.html ) in that our stories can keep us living a very limited life where we don't use all of our abilities and talents because we feel inferior, wounded, damaged, victimized.
In staying stuck in our stories of victimization, we refuse to live a full life. We believe we are victims and we resent those who abused, ignored or abandoned us. We don't feel confident in ourselves. We see ourselves as failing because we hold on to our fears of inadequacy and unworthiness.
What have I learned from this book so far? Quit playing out the victim role of my story. Accept full responsibility for who I am, for where I am going. See and accept the blessings that have come out of my story of abuse and pain. We all have blessings that can come out of our past.
I know that I would not be as strong-willed, as compassionate, as vocal about child abuse without my story. With all of that, my story is not who I am.
Patricia
On page 88 Debbie says,
"Blame and resentment are the toxic emotions that keep us stuck inside the smallness of our stories. Woven throughout our personal dramas is an underlying conversation that might sound like this: 'Look what you did to me. You screwed up my life. I'm a nothing just like you'; or 'I'm never going to amount to anything---just like you told me.' We hold others responsible for our deficiencies and then set out to prove that we have in fact been ill treated and wronged. Our 'poor me' story becomes our evidence, proving that we've been mistreated, neglected, or abused. And every time we fall short of doing our best, we have the perfect alibi. We get to say, 'If I hadn't had that angry father, lousy girlfriend, alcoholic mother, or been raped, molested, beaten, ignored, abandoned, called names, I wouldn't be like this!' Then we use every failure, every disappointment, every broken relationship or botched business deal to support our conviction that we have been victimized. We continually sabotage our efforts toward success and happiness in order to hold on to our resentment and keep our stories intact. Our continued failures and misery prove to us that we are right and those we blame are wrong."
On page 89 Debbie goes on to say, "The people we blame offer a perfect excuse for our self-sabotage. We are unconsciously punishing them by not being as successful or as happy as we could be. We say, either verbally or nonverbally, 'Look, I really am a failure. You really did hurt me.' "
Are any of you doing this with your story of abuse and pain? Are you allowing your story to keep you from living your dreams, from fulfilling your purpose in life, from being who you were really meant to be?
I am less than half-way through the book and Debbie Ford has given me a lot to think about. What I have learned so far also adds to one of my recent articles "Quit Playing Small And Insignificant" ( http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/06/quit-playing-small-and-insignificant.html ) in that our stories can keep us living a very limited life where we don't use all of our abilities and talents because we feel inferior, wounded, damaged, victimized.
In staying stuck in our stories of victimization, we refuse to live a full life. We believe we are victims and we resent those who abused, ignored or abandoned us. We don't feel confident in ourselves. We see ourselves as failing because we hold on to our fears of inadequacy and unworthiness.
What have I learned from this book so far? Quit playing out the victim role of my story. Accept full responsibility for who I am, for where I am going. See and accept the blessings that have come out of my story of abuse and pain. We all have blessings that can come out of our past.
I know that I would not be as strong-willed, as compassionate, as vocal about child abuse without my story. With all of that, my story is not who I am.
Patricia
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