She loves her daddy because he makes her feel loved, protected and most of all safe.

Years after being in abuse I can remember thinking back and remembering how at the time, I had thought at least my young son is not in harm’s way.  One of the many lies I had told myself during that time in my life.  I have shared other stories of what my son went through during and after witnessing abuse and living in that type of home for so long, the PTSD he still suffers with today but in this post I wanted to focus on the main thing that our children deserve and expect from us.

Heading to a party at my sisters over the holidays I had created a spur of the moment video on my new tablet.  I have been with this beautiful little girl for close to 4 years now and have taken her as my daughter.  I am the only recent role model of a mother for this beautiful girl and always want the best for her, especially with the trauma I see my own son suffering from today. I cannot share the video I made because my little girl was adopted by the man I love, this man has been a father to her since she was around 2, he feel in love with her while caring for her after her mother, someone he barely knew, couldn’t take care of her as a parent should. Since her safety is always the most important thing to all of us, I am sharing a video that I came across with photos of other beautiful children that all want for the same things, to feel loved, safe and protected at all times.

When I asked her why she loved her father she repeated over and over that he makes her feel safe and protected and that he loved her all the time.  Not that he buys her things or spends time with her, or that he cooks wonderful meals for her every night of that he makes her laugh until her belly hurts, but that he protects her from bad things and keeps her safe.  She repeated this same statement several times and didn’t sway from her answers. This little video moved her father close to tears, he isn’t a man that cries too often but to see his little girl say that he was doing is duty and making her feel protected was the best gift he could be given.

Notice that I said did his duty.  As parents, we are supposed to protect our children.  We won’t let strangers hurt them, we tell them about bad people, so what is it that we are teaching them when we stay with a person, male or female that puts them in harms way and or causes them to be sick to their stomach because they live walking on eggshells all of their life.

We are lying to ourselves when we think that the children can recover from what they are seeing daily.  We need to stop the lies already.  Take back the control of being the parents.  If you provide nothing else for your children, protect them.

I for one grew up in an abusive home, I was only physically hit maybe two times in anger, but the air in our house was thick with fear and I began to fear my own shadow as a young child.  It just grew worse as I got older.  I was placed in some counseling, but by that time, the damage had already been done to my soul.  I am certain that my upbringing is what made it so easy for me to stay in a relationship where a man treated me like dirt, beneath him.  This is what you are doing to your children when you allow yourself to stay in an abusive home, you are teaching them that they don’t deserve more and that it is acceptable for others that say the love them, treat them like crap.

If we want to break this cycle of violence that we often refer to, it needs to start by allowing our children to feel safe and protected.  When you feel protected, you can do anything that you want in life.  Share this messge, to stop the cycle of abuse, our own children must grow up feeling safe and protected so that they can share that with those in their life.

Love & Peace,
Rebecca

What emotional abuse is

I came across this video about the top 10 signs of emotional abuse, I could type them out for you here, but take the time to watch the video, if more than 1 applies to your relationship, think twice. Share this with someone you think is being emotionally abused.

Love & Peace,
Rebecca

7 days of the 21 Day Challenge Completed

 

How hard was it to do what you wanted for a full 7 days?  I am proud to have the week under my belt.  As I had written before doing this challenge in 7 day doses helps me to realize more of what I want to be spending my time on.  Doing this challenge helped me to realize that I didn’t need to blog daily, it caused me to feel stressed that I had to post before going to bed at night, but the good thing is that it helped get me in the habit of writing daily.

I have put a great deal of thought into my next 7 day commitment challenge, I have committed to working on one of my writing projects for 7 days.  Before I lay my head on the pillow at night I will work for a minimum of 1 hour on this project.  Again, in 7 days, I will review this commitment to see if this is something that is going to be worth committing to a 21 day challenge.

What did you commit to and what have you committed to going forward?

Love & Peace,
Rebecca

How that ritual cup of coffee can help you stay Committed & Focused!

It’s funny the pressure that we place on ourselves, even for things that don’t really matter, for example, yesterday, a beautiful sunny Sunday with the windows wide open and the perfect temperature outside, I cleaned out the clutter in my dining room.  Clutter keeps me from focusing on important things as the sight of it keeps me stuck. Just looking at the following photos overwhelms my brain, no this isn’t how bad my dining room looks but yours may.

Granted, the big goal this year has been to De-clutter all areas of my life, home included, this project has been going in since before the holidays and I can see the improvements.  With the De-cluttering I find that I am more focused on my goals and happier overall. No, again, this stunning photo is not from my home, but don’t you feel calm just looking at it?

My dilemma, I went to bed cranky, sore and really tired last night after my day of cleaning. To make matters worse, I didn’t sleep well because my 7 year old had been promised, after days of begging, that she could sleep in our king size bed tonight.  I was thrilled that the night was tonight, especially since I knew with her in the bed it wouldn’t be a good night’s sleep for my boyfriend of I.  I am sure that this goes without too much explaining, arms flung in the face, knees in the ribs and such.

Well, I woke up pretty sore this morning and finally dragged myself out of bed, hours later than I had planned and there I sat in my usual position upon waking, heating pad on high, lined up with my spine and neck for optimal pain relief.  I have to take medication, too much of it, about an hour before getting out of bed just to get out of bed.  The point of this isn’t poor me or to complain, I just wanted you to get the picture of where my head is most mornings.

I had my eyes closed and was drinking a great cup of coffee, I have totally perfected morning coffee and because of this, no one else makes or enjoys the coffee unless I have made it, the trick is in the cream.  Anyway, I had read somewhere recently that you should really savor that first cup of coffee in the morning, making it a daily ritual to really spend time with yourself.  For me, until I have had that one cup of coffee I really don’t want to talk or spend time with anyone else anyways.   When I say time with yourself, I don’t mean write a to-do list, but focus on how you feel and what is important to you.

This morning I slowly drank my first cup of coffee while barely opening my eyes, I am certain my boyfriend thought that I was sleeping, but I in deep reflection mode. I found my mind drifting off to articles that I wanted to write and how much my body wanted me to stretch again on a regular basis as it improved my overall pain, and since I am about to turn 48 in a few days, the hitting 50 and feeling 100 things is creeping up on me.  I always say I have the spine of an 80 year old woman, the mind of a 30 ish gal and the sex drive of a 17 year old boy.  Actually, with the exception of the old lady spine, the rest seems to work well together.

Moving on, initially I had felt a bit stressed when I had woken because first I wasn’t feeling great and I knew that I really wanted to finish clearing the clutter from my dining area but something happened as I sipped the second cup of coffee.  This cup was sipped with my eyes open and without much effort I suddenly got up, without any plans except to move, I got dressed and put my sneakers on. After walking the dog I took my seven year old out on her bike.  I put on my little mp3 player with all of my favorite songs that I hadn’t listened to in months and headed off for a bit of a power walk, something that I love to do but never do anymore, clutter and other agendas always seem to win my time.

Five minutes out the door, the fresh air in my lungs, my daughter singing and happy riding in front of me and a spring in my step, I felt empowered and focused, something that is so important to me and I realized today, must be fought for every minute.  For the past 20 or so years I have been a goal orientated woman, focused at times, would lose focus but always managed to eventually get back to where I wanted to be at that time.  The last few years, I noticed that it takes me longer to realize that I am not doing what I want to do, as if it suddenly I was angry at myself for placing the importance of the rituals that I used to do as they always pulled me out of a slump which benefited those around me because I wasn’t in as much pain and I was happier as I had really done something just for me.

So, after the walk, I sit here, writing to you.  The most important thing on my mind most days is writing, how much I love to do it, need to do and it want to do it, but like many of you, I don’t do what it is that my soul wants the most.

At times I find myself blaming others, my boyfriend wants to watch a movie or my daughter needs my attention or my son and daughter in law need something. Those of you that receive updates of the post here know that this past week I have been focused on removing toleration’s and setting weekly bursts of the 21 day challenge, well my challenge was to post here daily, well the other night I was almost talked out of writing because my family guilt me as I opened my laptop, saying that I was taking away from my family as they wanted to watch a Disney movie, something that I really wasn’t excited about.  I had begun by telling them it would only take me about 15 minutes to post, but their reaction caused me to shut my computer and give in. I finally posted but my point is that we can’t let others take from us what we really want to do.  We can’t please everyone for will never please ourselves.

Today, as I sit here writing I realize that it is totally my issue that I allow little pressures from others to take away from my goals and commitments to myself.  I am the one that decides how I will feel inside, just because someone tries to make me feel bad doesn’t mean I need to.  I have decided today to just politely respond, this is something I had already committed myself to do, the rest will have to wait.

You are important, if you don’t make time for you and your goals and dreams, no one else will either.  Surround yourself with those that support you.  I am grateful that I have others around me that support what I do (most of the time), I am the one that needs to get that old lady backbone to pull some of her own weight so to speak.  After all, my boyfriend went and made this great desk that I am sitting at typing to you know because he knew that trying to type sitting in a recliner in our living room or a kitchen chair was really bothering my back and with the rest of the family around I was never able to focus on writing much of anything.  So, here I sit, posting to you completed for the day, stretched, happy, self centered and doing what I really wanted to do today, write.

Yes, the dining area still has clutter to be cleared, but it doesn’t have the deadline or guilt that it had on me yesterday.  It will be there when I am done writing sadly, but the good news is that when I finally do decide to clear the clutter it will be when I decide to, no one else.

My plans for now are to post here and work on that book that I have been writing since like forever, seriously.

My advice today is, really enjoy that first cup of coffee tea or beverage of choice each morning and make that time an inspiring ritual. Don’t pull out your blackberry or computer and start planning the day, plan your head first.  What do you really want out of the day, what is your soul yearning to do?  Nothing else in the end really matters so nourish your soul so that you are better able to nourish the souls of those around you.

Share what secret passions that you are working on with us and let us know how you handle the interruptions and agendas of others as this is a struggle for all of us.  Knowing that others are taking the time to feed their own souls helps us as women to not feel so guilty for taking time for ourselves. Now stop reading and put your energy on your commitments, if you haven’t set any for the challenge yet, get going. What you want out of life is possible.

Love & Peace,
Rebecca

21 Day Commitment Challange day 6

This is day 6 of our 21 day challenge in weekly doses. If you are reading just this post on it’s own this will sound like a funny name for a blog post. We have all heard that saying it takes 21 days of doing something before it becomes a habit. It got me to thinking how true that becomes of woman living in abuse. I know that you will agree with me that at first things that would happen that freaked you out and you thought, my God, I could never live with someone who did things like this. Then, after a few mores weeks, it didn’t seem to bother you as much. Funny how we minimize horrible things that happen around us so that soon it just becomes the norm. You will face many challenges trying to get your life back to together after living in abuse, but take it one day, one challenge at a time, you will get there.

Back to the 21 day challenge in weekly doses. The reason that I decided to break down my challenges into weekly doses was to better ensure that I could commit, and mostly to see if the things I was committing to were even things that I wanted to do long term, such as 21 days or more. A friend at work just told me that it is understood that it may take 21 days to commitment to something to make it a habit, it can take up to a year to make it a part of your life.

This challenge has encouraged me to add additional things to my commitment challenge and adjust others. This challenge has made me realize that I do not need to blog every day and you most likely don’t need to hear from me everyday, so for the sake of everyone, I have decided to readjust this challenge to blog at least every other to every 3 days, something more manageable that I will then commit to long term. I have begun to focus on other things that will benefit more during this challenge, for example, I have committed to working on a book that is in process every day for the next 7 days, just to see if this is something that I have interest in doing for the full 21 day challenge. I am confident that it will be, but just like the other challenges, I will try a week at a time to be sure I am spending my time wisely.

Keep me posted on what toleration’s you have removed from your life and what commitments you are working on. Support from other sis what keeps you encourage to work on your goals and commitments.

Love & Peace,
Rebecca