Why go back to an abusive partner?

Abusive relationships can happen to anyone......rich, poor, educated, women and yes also men.

I spent nearly 9 years in an abusive relationship. Towards the end of it all (when someone finally found out it was happening) somebody said to me, "Why don't you leave?" and my answer was, "Where am I gonna go?".

It's amazing when you're in that situation how much of a deep hole you think you're in. That there's nowhere to go and no-one to help. And that you're a weak weak person.

But thats not true and there's always someone who can help - you've just gotta reach out. However, having said that - there's a special kind of fear that stops you from doing that. Even when you've got a supportive family and some great friends - often nobody knows for years. And it's the same fear that often drives people back to the abuser - even if they do leave.

Everybody has a picture in their heads of their future and when you consider leaving the abuser - that picture of your future is completely blank and it's the most paralyzing thing in all the world - right next to the whole thing about what happens to you after death (not that that one bothers me anymore). It feels like there's nothing there but a blacker hole than the one you're in. And the bad place you're in...is at least the devil you know. To make it all that much harder to break away from, an abuser spends a great deal of energy from the start making sure you believe that they're all you've got and all you've ever have.

So how the hell does anyone ever get out of it?

You've gotta start by remembering your dreams and what you liked to do before you met this person. You were a living, breathing, dreaming human being before you met them - what makes you think you're not now? And where did you decide that you weren't entitled to be happy? That's a core belief that it's time to throw out. It doesn't serve you or anybody you love.

You've also got to acknowledge that we teach people how to treat us but at the same time we MUST realise that we deal with EVERY situation with whatever emotional tools we have at the time. Everybody does the best they can with what they have to work with - and that's half the trick to beating this - go find some other tools. That's why counselling can be so good because it gives you other 'tools' to work with - different ways to deal with things.

When you do go for counselling if you can, make sure you're talking to somebody who you can connect with. Someone who you feel is 'hearing' you (listening is not quite the same). If you don't connect with your counsellor - get another one and keep trying till you do. Don't struggle through it - that's an old habit you're GOT to change - you HAVE to connect with your counsellor. And if counselling is not available to you - use the help lines.

So anyway....you've sat down and freaked out and you're sitting there saying to yourself.......what the hell am I going to do - as if life was done and there is no more.

Here is what you're gonna do.....rebuild your picture of your future - it can be anything so long as its attainable by you and your abuser is NOT in it. My picture was owning my own restaurant - I was standing in the kitchen doorway, wiping my hands on a teatowel, watching people move between the tables. Never managed it but that doesn't matter - I flipped out, got a tatoo and went to art school instead - but hey!

You start with....."I always wanted to......"

Then you build a plan - like building blocks. And you start with where you've got to be to start your new life and you leave. Stop kidding yourself on how the partner's going to change because by the time they manage it (if they ever do) you'll probably be dead cos that's where that game ends up. Choose life.

Now I was lucky.....I was able to call my parents and move in with them for a wee while even tho it wasn't the best of options (a bit like jumping from one frypan to an older one) - but it was a start away from where I was. I quit my job, took what I could carry and moved to a city 300 km away. Don't be afraid to start again. Make like a hermit crab - if you're gonna have room to grow - you're gonna have to change your shell.

Now if there's no family you can go to, then there's almost always a mate or friend. And don't forget shelters. Not the best but its just a stepping stone to a better life - that's all it ever has to be.

If you build that new future in your head.....and you dedicate yourself to giving yourself the life you deserve (which a happy enriching life - no really it is)....you'll make it.

I know you will.

Good luck - know that you are precious.
Look at beautiful things and be happy.

Incidentally 12 years later.......I'm blissfully married to my soul mate (who I met at art school) and we have a beautiful little daughter whom I thought would never ever happen and plenty of wonderful friends that the ex said I would never have! So there!

What colour is it?

While we're musing on the subject of light, I've always found colour a particularly interesting thing too. When we see something that we call green (for example) it's actually everything but green. We are seeing green because that object is literally rejecting the green spectrum. And we see green because everything else in the white light spectrum has been accepted or absorbed.

I've always thought that that's pretty cool.

Light....Wave or Particle?

Watching a few things on science lately and the whole theory of what light is seems to be a bit up the boo-aye. I'm sure there's other theories out there that I've not an inkling about but here's my take on the subject....

What if I said to you that light is neither a particle or a wave - that when its seen, the experience of light is based solely on the perception of the viewer.

Light is 'created' (in a way) when a collision occurs between two bodies. When the collision occurs a kinetic wave is produced. If that kinetic wave is moving at a certain frequency, the human eye will percieve it as light. When the wave starts to slow down, the human ear can percieve it as sound.

This happens regardless of what those two 'bodies' are. They can be hands or atoms.

And of course some animals don't see or hear the same frequencies that humans do, so naturally they would perceive a kinetic wave in a different fashion.

So there you go.

The Truth about Anger

Ok, I'm still angry about so many things but that's because it takes a while to stop being angry when you've been angry all your life. I've got 40 odd years worth of angry habits to sift through - I'm getting there. I'm happy with that.

But I did learn something very very helpful a few years back. An epiphany in fact. I love epipihanies - especially when I get them before the lesson comes around again in an extra extra bad way. And some of them have gotten pretty wicked.

Anyway......a relative did something that we don't need to go into and it made me so unbelievably angry. Far more angry than I've ever been in my life. Until then I had never understood a persons need to physically hurt someone - which was truly alarming I can tell you. It can be amazing what happens to a relatively rational person when their primitive brain gets fired up.

So anyway here it is. Anger is a diversion - well whoopee right? Bear with me. It diverts us from the real goings on of the situation. It diverts us from recognising the humanity behind what people do. Anger is like an ugly wrapping on the outside of a parcel. The parcel inside is the human reasons as to why somebody does something and believe or not - that really matters.

It's no good saying, "But I would never have done that to them." That's irrelevant because people can talk themselves into justifying anything they feel the need to. And that's the crux of the matter - they felt the need to. And that need has a name - fear or greed or guilt or anger or grief.

They are all human reasons - very very human reasons and for what its worth, we ALL do things we shouldn't have done because of those reasons - ALL of us.

The anger stops us from seeing that because if we see that we have to consider (for a moment) the things that we have done that we shouldn't have (and there's always something).

The beauty of it is this: you may not be able to forgive whatever was done to you but you can forgive the human reasons behind what was done. They are seperate. And in forgiving someone else's human failings it becomes easier to accept and forgive our own.

And once you get that far........it removes the parcel (we're back to the parcel/wrapping simile) from the inside of the wrapping and there's nothing to hold the anger up - it deflates. Walla! Kind of. Good luck.

Life, the Universe and Everything

We are saturated with life itself, as is every living thing that walks, crawls, glides, flies and shimmies across this universe.

Some people call it the Quantum field, some call it Akashic Energy (or the Akashic Records), the Japanese call it Che and the Chinese call it Qi and some call it the Life Priniciple. Each of us is alloted a portion of it at the moment of conception while (at the same time) still remaining part of the Great Ocean of energy that it is.

When we sit on the earth we are truly connected - we sit saturated and surrounded. And every experience we have, from the tiny to the enormous, is impressed upon it like a fourth dimension carbon copy in full colour.

And when our bodies are done with this world, we go to the other side (to join our loved ones) and the Life Principle is recycled. This is where our experience of past lives comes from, where our lifes lessons come from and where we get our affinities with other species. Our memories and experiences are moved on to be experienced on a spiritual level by the next living being to use the portion of Life Principle that we used during our lifetime on this earth. This is the true nature of reincarnation.

The Life Principle is not ours - it does not belong to us but it almost always feels this way because its consciousness (which is both simple and divine at the same time) has been alongside our own since the moment we were concieved.

And it is the stuff of the universe itself. Everything is special because its perspective is unique.
Gathering experiences is the purpose of life.

Disappointing statistics

So, I'm bumming about on the internet and my husband says.......

"If we were to alot every human being a quarter acre of land, how much land do you think that would be? How much would it take?"

I shrugged and said, "I dunno - maybe about as big as Russia."

The answer folks, is about as big as Australia - that's it! Even about as big as Russia leaves quite a bit left but Australia!!!!!

I remember reading about a decade ago that 3 percent of the worlds military budget would solve every human crisis on this planet. It would provide every man, woman and child with decent food, water, shelter, education etc. 3 percent.

Zeitgeist is right - there really is so much abundance out there that we are just not sharing.

Now there are many wonderful things about humans and we do harbor great potential but when we look at statistics like this - it's official - we, as a species, suck so far. It's very disappointing.

I'm still not giving up my house though having said all that. I'll just have to join the rest of the selfish, frightened children.

A little more on impermanence

I've just a read a blog by a very nice lady on her thoughts regarding impermanence and the thing that stood out most to me was the fact that she was looking at impermanence from a purely physical standpoint. She was very concerned about her wrinkles and her weight and she was trying very hard to accept that these things are impermanence and that this is what our bodies do.

She didn't seem to really understand that impermanence is happening to us at the most base cellular level, at a spiritual level - every part of our being. I'm sure she will understand better if she thought about it a bit longer and past the ageing aspects.

I think impermanence is definitely easier to accept as a cellular and a spiritual thing......a growth tool if you will.

A bit about fear

We, as humans, fear change (or more precisely loss through change) more than anything. Every evil deed that has ever come about has happened because of fear. That is the base emotion behind every primal instinct of survival.

Flight or fight. Fight or flight. Them or me.

But here's the thing that suddenly occured to me in the wee hours of 2010.......

To fear change is to fear our very nature. We are changing every second of our existence as is everything else around us. Every breath, every thought, every step, every action is change. Our bodies are impermanence itself. On every level of our existence we are impermanent. Without impermanence there is no growth - either toward the light or the dark. Without impermanence there can be no learning and no evolving.

Impermanence is the nature of the universe and all that it creates.

Don't get me wrong here, I am (much to my annoyance) quite a fearful, anxious person. And a million fears travel through my mind on a regular basis. Silly ones and serious ones -  real, possible and completely stupid. The fact of the matter is, losing your house or car or whatever possession holds your attention is kind of irrelevant - you will survive - somehow. You'll pick yourself up and start again because sometimes thats all there's left to do. I know that and I understand that. I've done that. 

And losing loved ones - the worst thing in the world to me but even then I have a philosophical view that sort of works. I must have seen it in a movie or read it somewhere. A man picks up a teacup, empties the tea out onto the floorboards and asks, "is the tea still tea?". Yes it is....not tea in a teacup....but still tea. And I have had enough experiences to tell me without a doubt that we are souls in bodies while we walk this earth and when our bodies perish - we do not. I'd never make an Atheists ass. So I understand that we never actually lose our loved ones when they die - we lose the physical contact that we have become accustomed to but not them themselves. Not even the babies we lose before they should have been born. Been there too.

So how can I still be anxious? How can I still be fearful?

Maybe....the true source of anxiety is my resistance to impermanence. My failure to accept my own nature.....to accept impermanence..... 

Hmmm....watch this space.