Post Estrangement: Reflections on this Thanksgiving Day

I think of this day as a day for giving thanks for the blessings that we have. Sometimes this is hard to do when we have to face the things that we don’t have.

For me family is something I value so much. In my life I have done so much that has been uncomfortable for me to preserve family.

• I have neglected my own needs to keep family intact.
• I have accepted disrespect to myself, to keep family together. 
• I have made myself and my needs small to keep family together 

...and in the end it did not make any difference. Our family disintegrated when I was so worn out from trying to be everything to everyone that I became unable to give anymore. My spirit was so broken there was nothing more I could give without healing me first. 

The first break happened when someone used external events; that could have brought us closer if handled differently, to divide the whole family between those who would talk to me and those who would not. 

Then, as over time some of those relationships were reborn, others fell apart when it became clear that in healing I was no longer the totally self-sacrificing person that I used to be. 

• I dared to ask to be treated with respect! 
• I had the audacity to ask for equally divided emotional labour in maintaining relationships!
• for the first time in my life I had the temerity to say NO and to speak up for myself!

And some responded by walking away and others with confusion as they no longer knew how to relate to someone no longer willing to give and give and give until it killed my inner spirit.

As I ponder this, I think that many people see Thanksgiving as an event to ponder where they have been shortchanged and to manipulate events into giving them more. They see Thanksgiving as I time to tally the balance sheet and claim that they have not received enough.

So how can I be different? 

I can be different by seeing all that I have lost, all that I had hoped for that I have not been given and still give thanks! 

I have been given the gift of time, time for learning and reflection!

What a bountiful gift!

It has taught me to never take anything for granted because even those things you cherish most deeply and strive so hard to protect can be taken away.

I have been given the gift of knowledge and emotional healing!

What a bountiful blessing!

In coming to understand how personality and character affects our relationships, I have had such an eye opening experience. Learning that just because I feel empathy for others; that others do not necessarily feel the same way towards me; has allowed me to come out of the naivety that kept me beating my head against a brick wall and wondering why I had a headache.

I have been given the gift of mindfulness, of being more aware of the incredible gift of life and how precious each day is. I can look at this moment and see the beauty in it, even in the midst of heartache and sadness and regret.

I can see the gift of having my journal writing to connect with my innermost thoughts and keep me focused on healing as a journey rather than just a single event.

I have the blessing of being able to write my stories and connect with my grandson Walter; and even though I don’t know him at all in the physical realm I have a deep connection with him on the emotional realm.

I have been blessed with finding that I am not alone in this journey of recovery and that there are many other brave souls like me trying to make sense of all that has been lost. 

I am blessed that I did not end up going to the end of my life journey without learning all these powerful lessons; lessons that I would never have felt the need to learn if I had not endured the trauma of being alienated and discarded.

And so this Thanksgiving I give thanks to all the people who threw me away, they have given me so much more than what they withheld.

• You withheld your love and I learned how to love myself and feel deeply connected with and loved by the Divine
• You withheld your respect and I learned how to respect myself and treat myself with kindness.
• You withheld your compassion and I learned the magic of self-care and self-compassion.
• You withheld a connection because I would not change myself enough to please you and I learned how to be authentic with myself and that I too needed to be able to feel my emotions rather than sublimating my feelings to ensure your pleasure.
• You withheld relationship building honesty to conceal your unending need for more, and I learned how to be brutally honest with myself about my character, your character and the real nature of our relationship that was based on mask wearing pretenses.

I have gained so much more from being tossed away than I ever expected to gain.

Out of my sorrow has grown this bounteous gift of awareness and understanding and even acceptance that this is how it was meant to be for my own successful transformation to a person who loves and cares for and accepts herself enough to expect to be treated with the same degree of kindness that I have always so willingly offered to others.

Renate Dundys Marrello

2018 – 10 – 08

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Post Estrangement: Did I Know You?

I am starting to think that for me now, at this point in time, there is a huge difference between holding a fond memory of someone and knowing them. 

I believe rather there are people that I used to think I knew, but who in hindsight turned out to be people I really did not know at all.  More and more I realize that the people who have abandoned me, I clearly did not KNOW them. 

If I really knew them I would have known they were unhappy,

If I really knew them I would have known they were upset with me,

I would have known that they had issues with something I had done; because when you really KNOW someone you have a relationship with them where they tell you things!  

The fact that they did not tell me things, that they kept secrets about how they really felt about me, meant I did not really know them at all. I only knew the mask they chose to wear while in my presence, I only knew who they pretended to be when with me.

And after they left, I only know the thoughts they harboured about me as I discovered from the names they called me and the way they talked about me behind my back.  

NO, that is not “knowing someone”.  


That is having been in someone’s life and not knowing them at all. 

That is having someone leave your life and discovering how little you meant to them and what they secretly thought of you.
It means discovering that they did not care enough about you to consider your feelings.  
And sometimes it even means discovering how little respect they had for you. 

Sometimes we get to know the truth of them, only from the manner in which they leave us.

Renate Dundys Marrello
2018 – 10 – 05

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My Daily Reflection: Respect

A quote I read today:  

“treat people the way you want to be treated, 

talk to people the way you want to be talked to. 

Respect is earned not given”

I can see the wonderful optimism of this quote however I can also see that it is not reality.  We can only choose to give respect, to live our own actions of respect.  We cannot control whether others will reciprocate. 

Even if we do everything right we cannot always earn respect. Yes we may deserve respect but not everyone is willing to give respect even to those who have earned or deserve it.

We can only control our own behaviour but we cannot control whether or not others will give respect to us.

Respect is a gift that some give but it is always their choice!

There are others who withhold respect in an effort to control us or manipulate us into giving them something they feel they are entitled to.  They withhold respect because they use respect as a currency to gain them something they feel they deserve or some expectation they have.

Some of the most painful moments in my life came from expecting to be treated with respect simply because I did the right thing or the good thing.  Only to discover that others did not feel the need to treat me with respect even though I acted with good intentions and with integrity.

Those are the people who use withholding of respect as a weapon to gain something for themselves.

It would be nice if respect were something everyone felt was a universal gift.   But sadly, there are those who do not live the golden rule. They expect respect to be given to them but treat others with disrespect.

Human nature and human behaviour remains very challenging for me to understand.

Renate Dundys Marrello

2018 – 10 – 03

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My Daily Reflections: Pondering Responsibility

Quote I read recently:  
“no one wants to take responsibility”

I am starting to wonder, if everyone waiting for someone else to take responsibility first, is part of the problem in relationships?

Here is me all these years hoping that others would just somehow know that I wanted to be treated better, and hoping that they would start to treat me better! But I never bothered to do the work until now to figure out how to teach them how to treat me better.

So does that mean that in some small way I am complicit for being treated badly because I did not take responsibility for learning and doing what I needed to do to create a better platform for respect.

If I had done the work I am doing now when I was in my twenties and my thirties, how would my relationships have been different?

I can't go back obviously in to the past and make changes, but I can take ownership that my failure to do so actually contributed to the relationship problems that I experienced. I allowed it to happen.

That is a hard pill to swallow.

But if I can accept that I was remiss in not doing what it took to change me, can I continue to blame others for not changing their behaviour when they did not get any clear indication from me that their behaviour needed changing?

My expectation was for them to change, and I felt hurt when they did not change, but in concealing my disappointment and in not expressing my needs with clarity I actually implied acceptance of their negative behaviours.  OUCH!

If I had given them clear indications of my needs and then had those needs rejected, I might have lost the relationship.  I think it was the fear of losing the relationship that transformed into a lack of my taking responsibility for changing me and correcting my “route of least resistance”; which was to accept that which was unacceptable.  

I think taking personal responsibility is hard work.  It is challenging work. It is scary work!  But I do believe it is an important part of healing work. 

Renate Dundys Marrello

2018 – 09 – 26


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My Daily Reflections: Pity the Bully

So many bullied people 

It means there are so many bullies.

Why oh why are there so many bullies?

What sorrow creates the bully?

I heard once that the child who is bullied

By their emotionally wounded parents

Becomes a target for the school yard bully.

But imagine, what pain the bully

Must have had to endure

To become a bully.

Bullies all around

Bullies at home

Bullies in friendships

Bullies in families

Bullies at school

Bullies in the workplace

So many bullies

Bullies all around

Why does our society work on this level?

Why do people like to exert their power?

Why do the sensitive souls have to languish

In anguish?

The struggle to survive all the bullies

Seems at times insurmountable!
Bullied all my life I strove

To reach my children with love,

To teach empathy and compassion

And yet I raised another bully,

Who started bullying me at age of 7. 

I thought it was just childish ignorance

A lack of comprehension.

Teaching kindness did not work

Unconditional acceptance failed

Love lavished never solved anything

Demonstrations of compassion failed

Or maybe I failed to make myself understood

The taunts got worse as she matured
Always comparing me to other parents

Always I was the least satisfactory of all.

Always I was the one that caused her

Embarrassment simply for being me.

Always the message that I was not good enough

Always the message that if only I were different

Then maybe she could tolerate me.

Bullies, bullies all around me.

First the elders

Then the peers

And finally the younger generation

The common denominator me

What is it about me that invites

The bully to enact

Their hostility upon me?

Is it my meekness,

My humility, my desire to get along?

Is it my lack of boundaries

Or my desire for peace?

Why can’t we all just get along?

Why must my spirit be stomped beneath

Cruel words of judgment and comparison

For you to feel relief?

Slowly I learn that maybe my pain

Is less than your pain. 

My pain is to suffer at your hands.

Your pain is that you only find relief

When harming me and others like me.

My pain evaporates when I recognize

My strength,

My empowerment,

My ability to rise above your taunts,

To walk away.

As I recognize the value

Of my own goodness,

My kindness,

My ability to love even when hurting

As I heal

I transform

Things become more clear to me

On my path of love and compassion.

Your need to cause me pain

Is an illusion that never ends.

You believe that you prolong my torment

Never realizing

That in doing so

You are the source of your own torment.

 

Your only relief is finding another to torment

And then another
And then yet another.

For the hole of emptiness within,

The one that drives you to hurt others

Is a never-ending pit of self-deception.

Unexplored reasons for your anger

The invisible rut of your existence.
Suppressed and unexpressed emotions

Leaking out in hurtful speak.

I used to feel sorry for myself

Until I came to understand

That your life is worse than mine.

I only experience your hate filled

Excretions of pain

On those occasions when

I am in your presence.

When the vileness

Of your inner thoughts

Passes your lips

In outward condemnation.

Or sometimes

When I reflect upon,

Our past together

And the nature of the hurting things

You said or did to me

You however live it constantly

Unendingly,

Even in your unknowingness,

Your buried hate is your soul mate,

It is your constant companion.

You have no relief.

You cannot walk away from yourself.
Every time you look into the mirror

You see that person who copes in life

By tormenting others.

Do you ever wonder

Why you drive people away?

Do you ever wonder where

Those mean thoughts originate?

Do you ever wonder about

Your own dissatisfaction?

Or does hurting others make you blind

To your own deep inner hurting?

How would you respond

To know that I pity you?

To discover that I

Would rather be the victim

Of your bitter spitefulness

Than live with the anger

You carry buried

Festering away inside, 

The way you are doomed to do.

I can compassionately love you

My tormentor

Knowing that my torment

Though open and apparent

Is healable, transmutable,

Transformational.

Whereas yours is deceptive,

The cesspool of existence

You call your happy life

Influenced by unresolved issues

Things you fear to look upon

Things you keep buried in darkness

Because they are the essence

Of who you have allowed

Yourself to become.

Your vindictiveness

First a place to hide away from

Emotions too scary to face

Has become your prison.

I pity you,

The bullies of my life.

And I am grateful every day

To be your victim,

And especially I am thankful

That I am not you.

  
By Renate Dundys Marrello
2018 - 09 - 15 


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My Daily Reflections: The Insidiousness of Verbal Abuse

I have been pondering why verbal abuse is so insidious?

Why did I suffer from years and years of verbal abuse in so many of my relationships and do nothing about it?

Verbal abuse is so easily hidden. 

Verbal abuse is often hidden behind the veil of “I am telling you this for you own good”.  Or even “I only want the best for you that is why I have to tell you this.” It is hidden behind comments of comparison or “helpful critique”.  Some verbal abusers hide their digs inside jokes or in how they re-frame the stories they tell about you.  In short verbal abuse is often disguised to appear innocent.  However that does not alter the damage it does.

You have to know what to look for to even realize that it is happening.  

Abusers don’t want to be exposed so certainly they are not going to tell you what is happening.  They will even deny that they are doing anything, they will act all innocent, “who me?” or “I don’t do that!” 

Instead they will imply that you are too sensitive.  They will make their habit of verbal abuse be your fault!   They may even be unconscious that they are doing anything hurtful.  But even if they are good people with an underlying unaddressed issue, verbal abuse is very corrosive to any relationship, even the most loving.

Because of this you have to sort of figure it out all on your own and they will fight you every step of the way!  They use the tactic of verbal abuse to keep control in their lives and to do that they must keep you under their control. As long as you are controllable you are not a threat to them and their self-image, and they can get from you whatever it is they need.  All of their verbal abuse has one goal, to gain some sort of advantage for themselves.  They use their verbal abuse to keep you in “pleasing them mode”, to keep you feeding their egoic needs, to use you to make them feel good about themselves.

Verbal abuse tears you down, slowly and insidiously.  Sometimes it can take years and years before you hit the rock bottom of total devastation, feeling worthless and shamed to the point that you wonder if you really are this horrible person they say you are.

This means that most of this learning you have to begin during your healing journey and figure these things out while you are still hurt and confused.

And then you start to realize what has brought you to this low point and you can look back and see all those “moments” when you were verbally abused but did not recognize it.  Your “gut feelings” may have known that something was wrong…but verbal abusers make sure that you don’t trust your “gut feelings”, because responding to your gut feelings / your intuition would break the control cycle.

If you are a recovering “people pleaser” look back to see those moments of verbal abuse that kept you locked in that pattern of behaviour. 

#1.  Verbal abuse happens where no one can see:  Verbal abuse is something that abusers do in private, they make sure there is never a witness.  This is so that they can deny what they said, imply that you misunderstood them, and make you, the victim, appear crazy which is why it is then so easy for them to use your own sense of guilt in the shaming process.

#2.  Feeling unappreciated:  Verbal abusers never appreciate the actions of others.  There is always a judgement or a criticism or comparison. Whatever someone does it is never good enough.  They talk about others in front of you in the same way, pointing out their shortcomings.  Then when they point out your shortcomings you think it is just them being “honest”.  However this lack of appreciation over a long period of time leaves a sense of emptiness in the victim. It is that sense of perpetual emptiness that is a sign that you have been verbally abused.

#3. Name Calling: Verbal abusers use name calling to control others by making them feel inferior or shame. A shamed person will then blame themselves.  A shamed person looks for what is wrong with themselves and try to figure out what they need to do differently.  A shamed person remains confused because they can’t seem to figure out what exactly is wrong with them.  That is how the abuser gets to continue the abuse because they precipitate self-doubt in the victim.
The most insidious part is that the names don’t have to be that horrible.  Simply being called “selfish” for taking care of yourself is devastating! How about “you would look nicer if you changed this about your appearance” not quite calling you ugly but certainly implying it.  Not calling you fat directly but telling you that this “big article of clothing ought to fit you” combined with a “look” or condescending sneer and you have the equivalent of something just as bad as any of the horrible name calling words. How about when someone “takes over” and does things “for you” implying that you are too stupid to do them for yourself?  These are just some examples of different ways you can be called names without the verbal abuser actually even saying anything that appears to be so “bad”.  But your gut screams out in pain! 

#4. Mood killers: When someone feels good or is happy about something, abusers like to kill that joy.  They only feel powerful and in control when others are less happy than they are.  You have good news, they have better news.  You have a great vacation; they interrupt and tell you about their better vacation.  You are happy about an accomplishment; they give you the deadpan face and switch the conversation to something about themselves.   You share something you are proud of or did well, they will tell you about a friend who did it better.

#5. Attack other people’s interests:  Abusers denigrate and put down other people’s interests.  This is another way for them to remain in control by making the other person feel worthless.  They can do this with a simple look, a scowl, an eye roll or simply by changing the topic to something they are interested in. They can also do this by always having an example of someone who has more worthy interest, or by pointing out that someone else does it better, more proficiently, or gets paid for doing it etc. 

#6. Abusers are always right: Abusers never apologize or admit that they have done something bad. They believe they are superior and right and therefore you must be inferior and wrong.  When a wrong action of theirs is pointed out they act offended and go on the attack by putting you down or pointing out something they want you to feel ashamed about. If you insist on an apology they will avoid you or give you the silent treatment, they will play the victim and even try to make you feel that you are a bad person for wanting the respect of an apology. They will even try to make you feel that you are a bad person for holding them accountable for their words.

#7. Isolation:  People who have been abused seek isolation to remove themselves from and keep themselves safe from further abuse.  They feel unsafe, uncomfortable and anxious around people because verbal abuse leads to low self-esteem.  They fear the next attack of verbal abuse and start looking for it and expecting it so they can set up some sort of protective emotional armour before it occurs. They know it is coming they are just not sure when. 
And interestingly the verbal abusers will then try to make the victim feel shame or that there is something wrong with them for preferring alone time.  The verbal abuser will imply with their words that the victim’s desire to be alone means there is something wrong with them.

#8. Blamed:  Verbal abusers blame others for everything.  Nothing is ever their fault. Even the verbal abuse is not their fault because the victim made them do it.  The victim is told that if they were different then they would not need to be put in their place.   This leaves the abuse victim feeling even more blamed and shamed, unworthy, and not good enough.
The recovering verbal abuse victim will even be blamed for pointing out the abuse. 
They will be blamed for saying NO I will not allow myself to be treated this way anymore.
They will even be blamed for withdrawing from interactions with the verbal abuser.  

Recovery from verbal abuse is possible but first you have to learn to recognize it. 

Recognizing verbal abuse means that you can set firm boundaries in place and end interactions that are verbally abusive either by stating that a boundary has been crossed, learning comebacks that express that you caught the attempt and won’t tolerate it; or if the verbal  abuser refuses to accept the boundary, by ending that social engagement .

I am still a work in progress. 

I am learning to listen to my gut feelings and my emotional instincts which itself is a huge step forward.  I am learning what verbal abuse “feels like” by the creepy, crawly emotions that I feel and I respond by honouring those feelings with justified anger at being treated badly. And justified anger allows me to take the steps necessary to stand up for myself.  I am learning that I do not have to tolerate being treated with verbal abuse.  I can take actions to protect myself and remove myself for the source of abuse

I am under no illusion that the verbal abusers in my life will change their ways.  They have no reason to change because; see #6, they are always right.  I however do not have to tolerate their ways as I can end the conversation or walk away to take other measures to give myself the emotional safety that I deserve.

More importantly I am starting to learn what relationships feel like with people who don’t feel the need to use verbal abuse!  I am learning to recognize how wonderful I feel when I am not being attacked.  I am learning what non-violent communication feels like!

Renate Dundys Marrello

2018 – 09 – 11  


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Post Estrangement: How Do I Transform My Anger?

I have spent a lot of time with anger, what it is / should be and what it should not be but often is.

Anger should be a "warning bell" that clangs "something is wrong here, look for what is wrong".

Instead too often we see anger as a tool to cause a retaliation action, as in you hurt me so now I am going to hurt you back!

I had a horrible relationship with anger.  It stemmed from the false core belief that I was taught that anger is bad, you must suppress it, and you must hide it, because only bad people get angry.  I turned that anger inside on myself, telling myself over and over again that I was not good enough because when people hurt me I got angry ….so therefore there must be something bad / wrong with me. 

It has taken me a long hard journey to come to realize that anger itself is not bad.  It is what we do with that anger that can very often be very bad / harmful / cruel and mean.

I have come to believe that most of the mean actions of the world are caused by anger being used to lash out rather than investigate.

When we feel anger it is simply a knock on the door of our consciousness that something is not right.  Usually we are fearful, or hurt, or dismissed or feel pushed away and that makes us feel anger.  Our first response is to want to retaliate, to lash out, to strike back, to make the other person hurt in response to the hurt we received.

But anger all by itself, when you don’t go into retaliation mode, serves only to inform us that something has gone wrong.  Something we hoped for did not happen, or something we did not want to happen did happen.  When I set the anger aside, I can look at the deeper emotion.  For me most often that deeper emotion is hurt.  And then bewilderment, why did that person think it was okay to hurt me.  And finally only recently I have been able to look at their hurting of me was their angry retaliation of their hurting.  They were unable to see their anger as a warning sign that they were hurt or afraid and so they went right to retaliation mode. 

The most insecure people I have come to realize are the fastest to retaliate from a place of anger, because they do not want to do the work of looking deep inside to what caused the anger.  Sure sometime they name it, but mostly it is named in a statement of blame.  “They did this to me, it is their fault”.  

The more secure I become in my inner awareness that I deserve to be treated kindly, the more I can step back from people who try to harm me from their own place of anger.  I recognize that when I explore or expose a truth they do not wish to hear, their response will be anger.  If I call out bad behaviour, the doers of mean things don’t want to be called out on their choice of bad behaviour, so they respond with anger.  They are quite adept at deflecting their anger outward because to look inward requires looking at the inner darkness, the inner negativity, and the false core beliefs around of what good behaviour actually is. 

As I look at what causes me to be angry and compare that with what causes others to be angry I start to realize that I have a different relationship toward anger than many others.

• I get angry when I see injustice, whereas many get angry when they don’t get their way. 
• I get angry when I see harm being done to others whereas many get angry when they don’t get away with doing harmful things to others. 
• My anger stems from a desire for a loving and caring relationship.  Many others get angry when they are prevented from having control over others.

And then I realize that having power over others, getting what they want from others, having their own way is about insecurity.  If you feel really threatened and insecure then you have to “fight” to keep your position of power over others to create a sense of security.

If you are secure in yourself, you don’t need to control others, which more often than not means you don’t feel the need to retaliate.  You can see, the anger as a response, and then make a choice to engage, or to walk away whichever suits the situation best.  When anger leads to choice then you own your anger on a different level, your anger does not explode out of you from a place of volatility but rather is can be transformed in a choice of action.  If that choice of action can lead to a de-escalation of heightened emotions then you really are in control of your anger rather than the other way around.

I don’t think I am anywhere near finished with the concept of anger.  I will continue to struggle with how anger emerges in me in response to the actions and words of others.  I will continue to struggle with the idea that I am bad when I feel anger, and struggle to transform that feeling into “no it is okay to feel anger as long as I don’t stop there”.  I know I have to work with the anger and uncover what it has to teach me, about myself as well as about the other. 

However the one good thing I have accomplished in my study of anger is to realize that I no longer need to suppress my anger.  Anger actually is now my friend, a friend who is telling me “this is not okay”.  I need to listen to my friend and dig deep and inquire with humility and honesty, “what is my friend trying to teach me?”  

Yes it was easier when I could just yell "you make me so angry with the way you treat me" when I could say "it is all your fault".  This convoluted path I have been traveling as I heal has taught me otherwise.  It has been most humbling but I am a better person for having done this work and for being aware that I have more work yet to do, my personal journey to being a better listener. 

Renate Dundys Marrello

2018 – 07 – 23 

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