Loving Yourself

We have a society of people who are so worried about loving themselves so they feel good but don't know how to love. If you can't understand love, how can you perform this action in any way for yourself or others. Self love is not the same as narcissism, which is what many have turned it into and here's the difference.

LOVE requires HONESTY
If your love is based on a lie, even if that lie is to yourself, then it's not love. Sometimes you have to tough love yourself as well. Anything built on a lie won't last. Don't accept the things that just feel good. Understand your weaknesses, only then can you overcome them. Most lies start within ourself before we start passing them off to others. Don't lie to yourself or others that you are more or less important than you are. It won't make it so.

LOVE is not about the OUTSIDE
If your love is based on your physical appearance, don't be surprised when that's all others want from you. Your physical beauty does not entitle you to certain things, nor does it omit you from love. Don't be shallow with yourself, and you won't be shallow with others. Your physique will fade, don't build your self worth on something that won't last.

LOVE is a DISCIPLINE
The Bible says if you love your child, you discipline them. There is truth to that. If you never discipline a child, you are dooming them to never be able to cope with a world that will inevitably say no and get tired of their self serving crap. Discipline is how you achieve greater and greater things, and that starts with yourself. If you love yourself, you will discipline yourself to not give into every whim and urge that might hurt yourself or those around you. Learning self discipline tames the chaos and will make you a better person.

LOVE is about TRUST
Learn to listen to yourself and trust your intuition. If you are honest with yourself enough to know how and why you feel the things you feel and disciplined enough to not be subject to whim, intuitions become clearer. Listen if a part of you tells you that something is wrong, because it probably is. Don't stay where you are being taken for granted and hurt. Love yourself enough to remove yourself from situations that are destructive and toxic. Your intuition will tell you.

LOVE won't change with your POSITION
If you have to be over others and in charge to feel good about yourself, then that's a tenuous situation, because what you really love is power. A need for power and control are fast tracks to destruction. The only thing you can control is you. That needs to go inward instead of outward. Learning to be okay with yourself in any position is powerful. Self worth should come from inside instead of outside, because outside can change at any moment.

LOVE is about being wise with your TIME
Just as people who waste your time, don't care about you, don't waste your time either. Take the time to do the things you need to do for you. Take care of yourself, and don't allow other people to squander your time. Value your time, and others will value it as well. Time is much like emotional currency. Don't spend it on those who are a bad investment of your time, but invest in those who give you a return, including yourself. Spend that time wisely making yourself better.

Love is not something we innately know.  It's something we learn from experience and observation. We come into the world selfish babies, because it's about us and our needs and getting as much love from others as we can. This doesn't make us bad, just immature. Eventually we are to grow out of that phase, but more and more people are growing up less and less. If we don't have good models to learn from, we do what we can to get by. This is how people learn to manipulate others to get what they think they want or need. In children it's tantrums, but adults are more practiced and manipulations take many forms. When you don't have the love you need from others, it's hard to know how to love yourself. Supposedly people who need love the most, like the color purple. I'm not sure if that's true, but I've seen a lot of purple lovers who have developed unhealthy behaviors to supplement love and get their way. All I can do is hope that if you are reading this now that you will at least think about this. After all, you can't change someone who sees nothing wrong with their behavior, and that includes ourselves.

Choice

Sometimes telling someone that everything that happens to them is their choice, is like saying it's their fault the server got their order wrong. It's not because the other person made a mistake, heard wrong, or grabbed the wrong dish, it's because, "Deep down, you really wanted a salad instead of steak".

If EVERYTHING is your choice, you have an absurd amount of control over your life, that just doesn't jive with reality. There are choices, and that is your responsibility, but people seem to forget that other people have choices and free will too. And often their choices negate yours. I chose Ron Paul for president. If it was all up to me, he would be, but the choices of many other people thwarted my choice.

Most emotionally balanced people know the difference, what they have control over, and what they don't, but there are some who go whole hog with the idea one way or the other. The problem is that the real story is rarely so extreme. They like to tell victims of abuse that they deserved and desired what happened to them, because it was their choice, and neglect the choices of the abuser to lie, weasel, and control. The irony is that the person blaming the victim is as hell bent on control as the abuser themselves.

When you marry an abuser, you are ordering the scrumptious plate on the menu, and served a rancid piece of meat that gives you food poisoning. When you make your order, you ask for the well pictured dish in the menu, and often the results are nothing like the picture. Yes, you make choices. But other people do too, and you are sometimes subject to other people's choices whether you want to be or not. Sometimes you aren't given a choice. You can choose what to do with what you are given, but sometimes those choices are limited.

There was a book, that someone used to hail, that said that people with Multiple Sclerosis got it because they are too stubborn. My aunt died of one of the worst cases of MS on record. She died a 70 lb skeleton, and was THEE most gullable person I knew. There was not a stubborn bone in her body, but if you had told her that, she would have blamed herself and thought it true. However, she and my uncle contracted MS, because it was in their genes, not because of a personality fault.

The problem is that this philosophy only works in hindsight. You can't say, "Oh you're stubborn, you're going to get MS," because it doesn't work that way, it's always backwards blaming. When it comes down to it, the healthiest people I've known have also been the ones with the least empathy, compassion, and humanity. They rarely get sick so have no tolerance or way to empathize with those who are. I've known some extremely healthy people who are very stubborn, and others if they had physical ailments for their personality faults would be constantly bleeding out both eyes.

This concept is called the "Just World Hypothesis" and actually is indicative of personality disorders. It's also the fast track to victim blame. It gives a person, an illusion of control that makes them feel safe, so long as bad things only happen to bad people. For them to hold this view, they hold themselves in higher esteem than others. They consider themselves better than others and thus invulnerable to such problems.  The moment that they think that possibly bad things could happen to good people, their world starts to fall apart and it's too scary for them to handle, so they impose this view and often blame victims for somehow deserving their fate.

"Just-World Hypothesis. The idea that people need to believe one will get what one deserves so strongly that they will rationalize an inexplicable injustice by naming things the victim might have done to deserve it. Also known as blaming the victim, the just-world fallacy, and the just-world effect." via Psych Central. More can be read on wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis

You are responsible for your choices, and other people are responsible for theirs. But the person who tries to make you feel responsible for someone else's choices is living in a shaky reality where horrible things only happen on TV. Don't let their need for control, their choice, control you. 

Leadership?

We are studying leadership at karate and it got me thinking about my past work experience and the differences I've witnessed. There are leaders and there are control freaks and they are not the same thing. Those who think they are leading are at times strangling the will from their team.

A control freak tries to do it all alone and can't let go. The moment they assign work to another, they micromanage and helicopter to exert control. 

A leader knows how to delegate and let go, because they know their people and their strengths well enough to trust them to do their job and do it right. 

A control freak manipulates and demands instead of being straight forward, which frustrates followers and disengages them from the goal which results in high turnover and a high stress environment. 

A leader encourages and creates an environment of initiative so that those who follow do more than expected because they are appreciated instead of subjugated. 

Control freaks have to be on top and wield authority to feel good about themselves. It's about the control freak's ego. They try to suck up as much credit as possible and diminish the contributions of others. 

A leader sees the group as their responsibility and won't ask someone to do something they aren't willing to do. To them it's about the goal, and if they aren't the best one to lead to that goal, leaders are willing to step back and let the more qualified lead. 

Leaders are positive sources of synergy, while control freaks are toxic in search of narcissistic supply. 

Often control freaks seek out positions of authority, thinking that they beyond a doubt are the best person for the job despite evidence to the contrary or without prior experience. 

Leaders are often sought to lead because of their skills not their desire to have power over others. People respond to them out of a desire of a shared vision.

The world needs more leaders of character and less personality cults in charge of family units, business, and politics. Too many people who are personally out of control of themselves and their lives, try to control the world and people around them, because it seems easier than controlling themselves. Instead of learning to deal with things, they limit the people around them, more and more.  But they are no better at controlling anything than they are with themselves. A person out of control of themselves can not hope to be a good leader of others. All they can bring is chaos, the same chaos that rules themselves.

You can't bypass a key component and expect good results...

So this has been weighing on my mind to be written, and usually when it does, it means that there's someone who needs to hear it. Throughout my life, I've encountered men who think that women are brood mares. They want the sex and the kids, and to skip loving the bearer of these burdens. They simply expect her to do it as her purpose. Let's get this straight, for a woman, that means sacrificing not only her time, but her body, and often a huge impact on every aspect of her life to become pregnant, give birth, and raise a child... and as almost happened to me, possibly end that life completely. My ex was probably the most extreme of this case. He called me "the dirt to plant his seed in". I was disposable, to be used and cast aside.

Honestly this is a very ancient mindset, where men told their wives to "lay back and think of England". It was simply a duty, a duty that they weren't allowed to enjoy. Even further back, the wedding ring was a symbol of the chain they would tie the woman to the tent with and wait for Stockholm syndrome to set in. So we've come a long way from being simply property to being treated like people for the most part. But there's an area where the barbarian still reigns.

However when it comes to biology and psychology, this is the worst approach for a man's end goal. Even if this is all the man really wants out of the relationship, if he wants children, then it is sincerely in his best interest to love the woman and to make sure she feels loved beyond just her wanting to have sex with someone because she loves him.

Oxytocin is an amazing hormone. It is called "the bonding hormone" and is often released after childbirth to encourage bonding between mother and child. But it is also released when hugging, kissing, and cuddling. It not only helps in bonding, but healing wounds, social anxiety, generosity, and stress relief. In addition, it helps with diet and weight loss. So if you are complaining about your wife gaining weight. There really is a simple solution to help her. Love her! http://io9.com/…/10-reasons-why-oxytocin-is-the-most-amazin…

In addition, I was watching a documentary on the science of sexual attraction, and it was telling how if a woman has sex with 2 men and one she loves and the other she doesn't, that her body will fight off the sperm from the one she doesn't love. So if she loves you, she's more likely to have your child... and well, less likely to cheat.

The most compelling evidence though came when I was researching something pertinent to my own life. In my previous marriage to the psychopath, before he kidnapped and raped me repeatedly when I tried to leave, I'd been with him for almost a year, and for months was forced to have sex whether I wanted to or not. Sometimes I was fast asleep when he'd roll me over and have his way with me after looking at porn. Not to mention often being forced to do things I'd specifically stated I did not like. I did my "duty" but it's effects were damaging me long before the coup de grace...

Marital rape has certain consequences and one of those is that any children procreated this way, the woman tends to be less involved with and more or less indifferent towards. Men who are indifferent about the woman having their children, can at times also believe that they are not the ones responsible for their care, but they've also shot themselves in the foot. There's no healthy result for this kind of environment. This does not lead to the envisioned family the man thought he was making.

Even if marital rape is not involved, people break in very specific and predictable ways. A woman devoid of her emotional needs will seek elsewhere to have those filled. Some may stray and cheat. Others may lean on their kids to get that love out of them. When this is pervasive and the parent (this can go for both sexes) is over-involved with their child, it is referred to as "emotional incest" and creates children who are Brat Princes or Princesses, confused about their place in the family. This super-mom or spoiler is also not good for a child. It upsets the balance that produces healthy, happy children.

GIGO is a term often used in computers that means "Garbage In, Garbage Out". Put simply it means, you get out of something what you put into it. And if you treat your woman like garbage, then you can't expect to get a happy family out of her. It baffles me how people who are adept at GIGO in their jobs, don't seem to get it in their families. Often they expect to be the one getting instead of giving, but if you are into the idea that as the man, you are the head of the family, then you are also the one that is the most responsible for it. If you really want a solid family, you cannot skip the step of loving your wife, specifically in a way that makes her feel loved, not just the way you want to love her.

This all seems like basic common sense, but I have been surrounded by men all my life who think that their place is to be served, when actually they should be serving. And as they serve more, they will see a return on their service, in the ways they wanted to receive all along.

Love really is the answer. Not jealous possession, not obsession, not the other things that pass for it, but actually real Love. Let that be your agenda, and all the other things you want, will come.

Hope

Hope. It's a word filled with warmth, the warmth of the first rays of sunshine that whisper that today is a new day. It's a short word with a lot of gravity. Hope is the carrot that keeps us moving forward on a daily basis. But to the abused it's the shovel digging the hole we are stuck within.

"Today he was nice to me. Maybe he's changing? Maybe he'll once again be the man I fell in love with?"

Every little glimmer of hope is treasured like a drop of water in a desert. It keeps us staying in situations that we should probably change.

"Maybe this year I'll get that raise and be able to pay off those credit cards."

Hope ties us to people and situations with tiny improvements that keep us from seeking out something that is ten times better from the start. It wastes years of our lives on people that don't appreciate us or even like us, and if we are honest, we don't like who they've become and are still waiting for that first person, the part they played to reemerge. It keeps us in jobs that don't use our skills. We spend our lives hoping and waiting for days to come when we can finally do what we really want to do, and embrace something with purpose and substance.

I think there's a reason behind the quote "faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love." Because without love, the other 2 are empty and entrenching. You can have all the faith in the world, all the hope for a better life, but if there isn't love, you're stuck. And not some ancient impression of love, the first flutters of infatuation, but real enduring love. Like loving a job because it makes an impact, it fills your life with so much meaning that you work extra not because you have to, but because you want to and you don't even notice the extra effort. Or love in a relationship where you are an active team supporting each other to be the best you can be, where every joy is doubled and every sorrow halved just because they are there.

We spend a lot of time waiting and hoping for love like that. Perhaps we are actually loving that way, but without a proper receptor it doesn't stick and is just sucked into a void. You find yourself more alone with someone than being actually alone.

Hope is a double edged sword. It's an investment in someone, or some part of your life to spend your energy trying to achieve something, but there will always be good investments and bad investments. Some people are money pits that you can dump all the hope, faith, and love you have into, and they will never show a return. Some will return your investment 10 fold. Some are inert walls that you will just end up beating your head against. And some will steal all you have and leave you empty.

Life is a gamble and it's that hope of hitting the jackpot that keeps us feeding quarters and pulling the lever, when our energies would be better applied elsewhere. Sometimes you just have to take what little winnings you have and walk away. Leave hope at the bar, and start looking at things as they are.

Male Privilege and Religion

Recently I was reading an article about Penn State and its fraternity's proliferation of revenge porn.  The article focuses on the fraternities.  It states that male privilege and organizations that promote male privilege lead to this devaluation of females.

"Intimate-partner violence is a display of power — moderated by individual character and characteristics, sure, but also incubated by cultures that privilege men."

“Male-only organizations like fraternities reinforce the idea that women are objects designed for male consumption,” said Mary Anne Franks, the legislative director at the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative. “Cases like this one make this painfully obvious.”

When I read things like this, what's not being said is screaming in the back of my head.  It's something that I've witnessed in my own family, from childhood throughout my entire life.  There's one community that has always been a source of the male privilege mentality, and that's religion.

Abrahamic based religions all stem from a similar root that from the beginning of time blames women and privileges men.  Not all are extreme enough to make a woman subhuman, but one only has to read the scripture to see a monetary value placed on women in the Old Testament that is less than a man.  God, himself is considered male and above all else, and an immature male mind takes that kind of information to put himself above all else as well.

All my life I've witnessed the "golden boy" scenario, where the first born male has special privileges not afforded to females of the same genetic makeup with the same or better capability.  But they are not treated the same.  My brother would lord it over me that he was the man of the house when my father was gone, and to him that meant he could boss me around and abuse me however he wished.  In fact it made him think he was above my mother as well, when it was just her and us kids. 

Many devout believers, even women, cling to that perception as right and holy, but I'm here to challenge it with the scripture itself and other information that I've read. 

I suppose that it is only right and proper to start at the very beginning.  Ever notice how when Eve eats the fruit that nothing happens?  That's because the covenant was not between Eve and God, but Adam and God.  That's why everything fell apart when Adam took a bite. Only THEN were both their eyes opened.  Sure Eve may have tempted Adam, but ultimately it was Adam who made the decision to break with God.  How familiar does that sound, to blame the woman for a man's lack of self control?  

Even if you still hold to the mindset that Eve is the source of all evil (even the word evil seems to have her name in it) she and Adam were equally guilty in the exact same way, being that they were both misguided by another and made a bad decision.  So why then, does Eve get all the blame? If you read it, Adam even tries to shift the blame to God by saying "the woman that YOU gave me."  It's easy for us to not stick the blame to God for that one, but as God curses Eve to desire her husband and him to rule over her, somehow people have it set that this is the way of things and how it should be. WRONG! This is what happens when things are wrong and evil reigns. It was never God's intention for that to be the ways of things.  If you follow the command to love, throughout the rest of the book, that is not the case. In fact when Jesus (not Paul selectively quoting Jesus) lays out the responsibilities for men and women, you'll find that he commands the men to do even harder things than women to submit. Not only that, but there's a lot of responsibility laid on the man. He has twice as many commands plus one over that of the women, but those get lost and swept aside, because they aren't as useful in power plays for control as telling your wife to submit. They just ignore that part about giving themselves up for her, sacrificing their ego and pride. 

The Old Testament itself, interestingly omits Asherah, the wife of God, who was apparently written out, when Israel was captured by Babylon and the Hebrew text was written down by a conquered people for the first time.  Did women once again take the blame?  History shows that many religions favored female deities during times of peace and commerce, but when war ruled the day, they turned to male deities for strength and vigor to conquer their neighbors. Constantine, who was one of the more influential people on Christianity after Jesus' time, claimed to have seen a symbol of the cross in the sky, "he saw with his own eyes in the heavens a trophy of the cross arising from the light of the sun, carrying the message, In Hoc Signo Vinces or "with this sign, you will conquer". Constantine did not become a Christian to love his neighbor like himself.  He became a Christian because he wanted to conquer his neighbor. But even with this adoption of a stronger "war deity", he took it to heart in some ways, toward women.  At the time of Constantine, Christianity was surprisingly freeing for women, when it came about.  The Romans were hideous to their wives. If a wife displeased her Roman husband she could be sold to a brothel. Violent sex crimes were treated more like damaging someone's (the husband's) property.  It was Constantine who made Christianity not only legal but the Roman religion and really improved things for women. The difference was, that this was not seen as male privilege so much as male responsibility. 

I believe that is where our male centric organizations are falling short. It's not that they deserve special treatment and women are merely objects for consumption. That's entitlement, which leads to narcissism, and narcissism leads to destructive and abusive behaviors.  It should be more like Boy Scouts, which teach stewardship, self discipline, accountability, and responsibility.  Once, men were taught to respect women, and somehow that fell by the wayside and has given way to gang misogyny with males thinking they are still "good guys" though they do atrocious things to women.  Where's the apple now for them to see the difference between good and evil?

Men and women may not be equal, as in not being the "same", but both have equal value.  Each is a piece of a bigger picture of humanity.  Our world would not function if we were all artists or all engineers, and it certainly wouldn't function with all men or all women.  Both are important. We all have our parts to play, and none of those parts is to be the victim of another. 

'Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.' - 

Albert Einstein 

Build Anyway

When I was a little girl playing with blocks, my brother delighted in destroying what I built. It didn't matter if I told on him, or he was forced to give me an insincere apology, because ultimately what I built was gone, and I would have to start over. Apologies, forgiveness, and accountability are all important responses to destruction but they do not bring back what is lost. I can forgive the man who cuts me, but I will still bleed, and possibly die. None of that negates the consequences of one destructive act.

It's easy to forget and forgive a block castle that would have to be cleaned up later anyway, but it's harder when there are things destroyed with more put into it, more time, more investment, more heart. One labor of love or life long labor is destroyed and it effects multiple facets of life, and often stems to effect other people as well. Whether it's your body, career, relationships, connections, strength, or a life in general, there will always be people who delight in destroying or tearing down what you have worked hard to build. And it's more insidious when the destruction is on the inside, where people can deny damage was done at all.

Regardless of what it is, the destroyer's mentality is little more than the child, who thinks he's better because he is bigger or older or more entitled to something than you. Somehow, in his immature mind, that gives him the right to delight in hurting you.

When I went through my ordeal and was given a handful of pamphlets on abuse, by victim services, one of the things cited was that abuse is a byproduct of immaturity. In some ways it's more complex than that, but in essence it is the same mentality. Kids learn from an early age how to get what they want, and as long as no one corrects them, parents give in, or they don't have the discipline or motivation to grow beyond it, they just invest their energy into developing those techniques of abuse instead of healthy behaviors. With that, they continue thinking they are beyond the reproach of authority figures, which expands over time to thinking they are immune to or above the law. It doesn't help when statistically only around 1% of crimes ever make it through the court system to actual prosecution. Most are just covered by insurance, and cops have either bigger fish to fry or more profitable ventures, like ticketing speeders, or which is the case with sexual assault, only about 10% of the crimes are reported.  This lack of accountability through prosecution, feeds the mentality of being above the law.

My mother told me of a young boy when she was growing up. His parents were both psychologists who believed in only loving and supporting him, never disciplining their son. They supported every decision he made, even the dangerous ones like riding his tricycle in nothing but a diaper near the rims (rimrock is basically a plateau with about a 300 ft drop in Montana). This boy eventually grew up in this "ever positive" environment... and what happened? Eventually someone said "NO" to him and he could not handle it. The result was that he ended up in jail. The parents didn't understand, and still only offered him their love and support. The problem is that they thought that love and support are one in the same. That saying "No" was not love. But how can you teach one to deal with the boundaries of others if they have no boundaries? They never grow up, or learn to cope with the world. And these overgrown children cannot handle not getting their way, so they act out, like children do, but with dangerous, full grown bodies capable of far more damage.

Eventually my brother grew up and out of most of those bad behaviors, by experiencing the consequences of them, he learned better. He matured, but the older I get, the more I realize that some people reach a certain age and just stop growing. And the longer they hold onto that immaturity the harder it is for them to let go of it. Seems like the older the bully, the better they are at bullying and the less likely they are to change.

Despite all the bullies out there ready to "knock your block off" the only real weapon against them is to keep building and surround yourself with creators instead of destroyers. I feel like I am constantly rebuilding instead of adding to what is built. But what's the alternative? Stop learning and growing?

And I have this to say about rebuilding... from each one that falls, if you pay attention, something can be learned and you can build it better than before. Learning to build more efficiently with less resources builds creativity, and that's something that can't be taken away.