Post estrangement: “no more making myself smaller to fit in”

from she is fierce page 

After a life time of being what others needed me to be, I am finally starting to embrace the authentic me.

It saddens me that some of those closest to me, abandoned the authentic me because the "People Pleaser" me was the only version of me that made them feel good.

What surprises me is that while I am sad to see that response, I am finally no longer missing the unease they created in my life with their unreciprocated expectations.  What I feel instead is a sense of relief that they are gone.

Now, my only obligation is to discover more about the authentic me that has been suppressed for so long. 

Now when I express that real me in my relationships, I watch the response to learn who cares about this authentic me and who wants to change me to be more suitable or more amenable to their needs.

As this whole new way of relating has opened up for me I notice things about myself that I never pondered before. 

·        Sometimes this change is hard as old habits are difficult to break.  I notice where I resist change and where old practices and expectations feel "safer".  

·        Sometimes I notice the freedom that comes with being true to myself and that the disappointed responses of others is not about me, but about them not getting the control over me.  There is freedom in being responsible only for my response and not theirs.  It is liberating to give others the freedom to examine themselves should they choose to do so.

·        Sometimes the old fear of not being "good enough" resurfaces but I am able to redirect that thought to add "by whose standard?”  Then I ponder if I want to be subjected to their standard as opposed to my own.

·        Sometimes I fear the loneliness as I embrace the solitude of change while I slowly build my new tribe. 

·        Sometimes I am too much inside my own head as I try to sort out all the new emotions and feelings about this person I am becoming.  I am not always able to vocalize the transformation that is happening.

·        Sometimes I am surprised by those who support me and welcome the changes which they see as positive.  Their support and positivity keep me motivated.  I am thankful that not all of the people in my life were only there for my “usefulness” but because they saw my potential “becoming” even while appreciating my best qualities and attributes that makes me the kind, compassion and loving person that I fundamentally am.  

Renate Dundys Marrello

2022 – 04 – 24

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Today I am pondering kindness.

Today I am pondering kindness.  

And I am not the only one.  I listened to a person on youtube talking about the “nastiness” of some people.  This struck a chord in me!  Because I am kind, I tend to not call people out on their nastiness!  

More and more I am working on overcoming this shortcoming of mine.  I want to be seen as a nice and kind person and therefore I don’t speak up when someone is nasty.  I let them get away with their nastiness!  I am coming to realize that what I am in actual fact doing is condoning their nastiness. 

As long as they think they can get away with being nasty and unkind they will continue to do so.  As long as I allow myself to be walked all over, people will continue to walk all over me.

I have been working on my concept of what it means to be a kind person for some time now.  Being kind is only one part of the equation.  The other part of the equation is holding people accountable for their unkindness even when it means they will no longer “like” me.

When I operate from a place of “fear” of being abandoned I keep silent in the face of nastiness.  When I want to be liked and seen as kind at all costs….I do pay the price of suffering in silence, their unkindness! 

Kindness is a balancing act of giving kindness but also setting a boundary that I will not tolerate being treated nastily. 

I can be a kind person and still hold a boundary against those who would harm me with their nasty words or actions.  I don’t have to allow them to “get away” with treating me badly in order to see myself as a good person!  Not everyone deserves to be in my life and keeping people in my life at all costs has kept some very hurtful / harming people in my life far longer than they deserved.

The more I learn that I deserve to treat myself with kindness, the more I learn that I do not have to tolerate other people’s nastiness.  I have a right to have boundaries!  That is what it means to have kindness in balance.  Not only do I get to treat others with kindness, I get to respect my boundaries and only allow people into my life, who also treat me with kindness in return.  I don’t have to give space to the people who believe they have the right to be nasty and treat me badly.

Happiness is…. Kindness in balance

 

Renate Dundys Marrello

2022 – 04 – 24

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My Daily Reflections: Pondering the Concept of Guilt

Pondering this quote: 

          “People use guilt to try to shut down your authentic voice.” 
 

I see clearly now.
I know who created my guilt button   
I see when and by whom my guilt button was installed.
I see clearly how over and over again that button was activated.
First, a pattern was created, teaching me what I had to do to be acceptable, to be deserving of love.
Compliance was given a reward and noncompliance received the punishment of shunning.
 
Gradually over time, I learned that being a good person was dependent on pleasing others.  Being a good person became indistinguishable from pleasing others.  
 
Over time, people-pleasing became something that was expected of me. Because it became an expectation my actions became something taken for granted.   Because it became an expectation my good action needed no recognition nor appreciation.  Over time, my good actions no longer even received a thank you. 
 
Over time, my authentic voice, my authentic being, disappeared in the language of expectation.  Doing good things for others, making the lives of others better by overlooking their transgressions, was so natural for me that I harmed myself in an effort to be acceptable to others.  I allowed myself to be treated badly to avoid confronting rejection and loneliness.
Healing has taught me that doing good things because they are expected, gradually became not doing the right thing because it might offend.
My desire to be seen as a “good person”; evolved into me NOT doing the right thing to care for myself.   I had no conception that there were good things that I could do that were about taking care of myself.  Things like pointing out when others do something to hurt me.  In my effort to be perceived as a good person, I was willing to allow verbal and emotional abuse.
In my desire to be seen as a good person I got good at turning the other cheek and became good at suffering abuse in silence, I became good at not saying anything in order to keep the peace.
I ended up in this place where guilt kept me doing things for others even when I received no recognition for what I was doing for them because I had been trained to believe that not doing for others made me a bad person.   And guilt kept me silent when others trespassed against my well-being because I had come to believe that I was guilty of being a bad person when I spoke up for myself.
 
Healing has been slowly teaching me that I am a good person. 
I don’t have to be a people pleaser to be a good person.
I don’t have to accept in silence hurtful language from those trying to guilt me into ignoring their bad actions.
I have learned that sometimes the good thing to do is to uninstall the guilt button.  To learn that what I am feeling is not guilt but rather a sense of being manipulated.  What I am is not feeling guilt; but an outside expectation to meet the demands of another.  
 
This was for me a critical observation.  I am now starting to wonder; why did I learn to equate not doing what someone else wanted me to do with something to feel guilty over? When and why did I let my authenticity be replaced by what others wanted me to feel in relation to what they wanted from me? 
 
I am learning that being a good person is quite different from people-pleasing. 
 
I am learning that being a good person actually means that some people won’t like me.  Not because I am not a good person, but because I have now become an unmanipulable person.  I am learning that those who try to convince me / guilt trip me into believing that I am not a good person, have an ulterior motive, their motive is to gain something from me.
This thought is freeing.  But the healing is not yet done. 
 
Even though I know it is happening on one level, on another, I still feel guilt when I am being manipulated into “giving” their desired response.  I feel guilt when I am shunned for not giving their desired response.  
 
I can logic talk myself out of caving to the manipulative demands,  but in isolation,  I continue to battle the feelings of guilt.
 
Yes, my guilt button was well and truly installed.
 
Renate Dundys Marrello
2022 – 04 – 03 

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Daughter; I have moved on.

Daughter, I no longer cry.  I no longer mourn.  I have moved on.  
I have accepted that you don’t want me, like me, accept me, love me.  
I have accepted that what you do want to do is manipulate and control me, 
You want to tell me how I must be to earn your version of love.  

I have learned that love is not something we bargain for, 
Only people who are deeply self-centered and entitled feel that 
They have the right to manipulate others into patterns of being 
Expected ways of serving; to be deemed to be worthy of being given love.

I have learned that my boundaries, my saying no to your abuse
Made you angry because I was no longer controllable, 
I cut the puppet strings you wished me to dance to, no longer did 
Your bidding simply to feel some tiny reluctant scraps of love from you. 

Daughter I have moved on.  I have learned what it feels like to receive love
From those who give love freely, with no strings attached.  
I have learned what it feels like to be supported, honoured and accepted
Simply for being the kind and good hearted person I am. 

I have learned what it feels like be in relationship with people 
Who don’t feel the need to tell me what I ought to do to be “enough”
Who showed me what it feels like to not be shamed into giving,
And giving and then giving some more while I am bleeding on the floor.

I have had the support of therapists and healing groups
Who taught me that I am lovable simple for who I am.
That I don’t have to do more and more and then some more
To be deemed worthy of someone’s acceptance and love. 

Daughter, I have forgiven you, not because what you did was acceptable,
Your actions were and still are cruel and unkind and I did not deserve them.
I have let go of thoughts wishing you to receive your just karma. 
Your actions are a reflection of who you are not of who I was or am. 

I feel sorry for you and my compassionate heart feels for you
Sadly, it is you who continues to live with your hatred and the anger 
Which festers in your heart and these negative energies are tangled up
In your life, the weight in your unconscious is yours alone to carry.

Daughter, I live without regrets, as I know I always did my best.  
Not that I think I was perfect, but I was never cruel or intentionally unkind.
Your unkindness was intentional, purposeful, manipulative striving to feel your superiority
Someday you may regret what you threw away, but that will be your suffering.

My suffering and my grieving is done; I have moved on.  
My heart is filled with love, kindness, caring and compassion.  
My energies are light and positive.  I even radiate joyfulness and laughter.
I give and receive love in a new way now, one that is more fulfilling. 

But I have a final thankyou to give you, your actions opened up my eyes.
Your rejections sent me on a learning journey, a path of healing which
I did not even realize I needed!   I learned that I do not have to beg 
To be loved nor be a doormat to be accepted. Thank you for the awakening.

Renate Dundys Marrello 
2022 – 01 – 20

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Happiness is….finally being able to look back and say; “I did a good job!”

source unknown 

Today marks 45 years since I gave birth to my first born.  It marks the day I became a mother. 

It marks the moment of greatest hope that I could be adequate to the job of helping a new life reach maturity and become a kind and loving person.

Today I celebrate my motherhood.  The hard work and effort I put into doing the very best that I could.  There are some that will say I did not do good enough.  All my life I have been plagued by people telling me the many ways I failed to be good enough. 

Today I fight back, it is not that I did not do good enough, it is that my best was not appreciated enough.  It is easy to find fault in hindsight.  It is easy to pick another person apart.  What is hard is picking up the pieces and learning that one was actually perfectly adequate, even when no one else appreciated that fact.

When one is in the moment of making choices one makes the best choices one can with the tools at hand.  If I had had better information maybe I could have done better.  But the information I had was flawed, and the people I had around me were also flawed, which they demonstrated by undermining my confidence and my strengths.

I did not have people encouraging me or supporting me.  I had people doubting me and second guessing me.  Telling me what I was doing wrong, never celebrating what I was doing right.  So always I had to make decisions based on what I was able to do within the confines of being told I was inadequate. 

Is it any wonder that I look back and see my own shortcomings?  I have been taught to look for shortcomings in myself.  All problems were related back to my shortcomings.  No one else ever took any responsibility for their negative contributions.  It was always heaped upon my shoulders.  What is amazing is that I did not break under all the weight of self-doubt others burdened me with!

The good news is that I am learning to see that those opinions are what kept me trapped in feeling inadequate and not good enough.  Those opinions are lies.  I did a fantastic job under extremely difficult circumstances and I did it without encouragement and without the support of a pat on the back, without a word of praise, or way to go!   

I never purported to be perfect.   I am human and as a human I have made my share of mistakes.  However, I did a pretty darn good job under the circumstances.  And I did it while I had an audience who constantly let me know that they thought I would fail. 

 Happiness is….finally being able to look back and say;  “I did a good job!”   

Renate Dundys Marrello 

2022 - 03 - 06 

P.S.  Today also marks 13 years of being estranged by a daughter who told me over and over again how badly I failed to be the mother that she wanted.  She focused on my failings, and totally overlooked my successes. (of which there were quite a few!)  That is her prerogative and her choice and I am finally in a place of being able to accept that. 

With joy I see her successes and I am thrilled that she is happy in her life.  However, today, for the first time I can also say that she; in her choice of actions has failed to be the daughter I had hoped for.  And that too is okay.  It was not our destiny to be friends or friendly.  I am sad,  but I have also made peace with what was not meant to be. 

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Memories: Endings and beginnings in Scotland

Ruins of Lawer

One of the interesting things about looking back at memories is that we see things differently in hindsight than from what we appreciated in the moment.

For example, during my stay in Balloch I arranged to meet a facebook friend.  I had made part of my travel mission; to take advantage of opportunities to meet and have coffee with people I had met on social media.  But this was different; it was the first time I was meeting up with a man.  Woman meeting woman is less complex, for obvious reasons, but a woman meeting a man in a platonic / friendship kind of way is a different thing.  The usual fears run through the mind, fears that are perpetuated by the events enumerated in the news.  Even though I knew D.G. for several years and we enjoyed chatting about our mutual interests in nature and hiking, meeting in person to go for a drive and a hike was a new adventure for me.  At age 59 I put on my brave face, reminding myself that the vast majority of people are good people and that only a few “bad apples” spoil it for the rest of us, I looked forward to this meet up.

It was all that one could expect from meeting a friend!  We enjoyed conversation and a drive into the Highlands, we saw waterfalls and drove beside a loch.  I got to see mountains (Ben Lawer) and walk in the Scottish countryside.  The walk we took together was to a now abandoned village of Lawer by the shores of the loch.  Once again, a place I would never have found on my own, but was able to enjoy because of the kindness of a friend.   As we walked through this now overgrown, devolving back into nature place where people used to live; we mused on the way of life that is being lost to the world as everyone races to live in cities and built up areas.  The ending of an era has been slowly encroaching upon humankind in the past 100 years as fewer and fewer people have any desire to live the “old ways” existing by the strength of their brawn and ingenuity in the bosom of nature.

So as I look back on this day in my memories I am reminded that endings are a way of life.  Whole villages have ceased to exist because of changing times just as relationships change because of changing circumstances.  

Endings and beginnings are simply part of the ever changing fabric of life.  We don’t really have it in our power to alter endings, they happen usually because of things outside our ability to control.  We do however have a say in new beginnings, they only require us to look closely at our fears, ascertain their veracity and then choose to act in such a way as to explore the possibilities.   

Healing is like that, overcoming the fear of what we might become when we choose to become other than what we are. When we choose the unfamiliar as the direction we are willing to explore, we become open to the possibility of new beginnings, even when those new beginnings arise out of the ashes of inescapable endings.

My happiness memory, aside for all the beauty of that day of adventure, is my willingness to embrace the new while at the same time embracing a longing for and a mourning of that which has passed.  Happiness is the ability to embrace change; the sadness of that which is over as well as the joyful anticipation of that which is yet to be.

Renate Dundys Marrello

2019 – 03 – 18

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My Daily Reflections: Do I miss you? or Do you deserve to be missed?

One of the healing forums I attend asked this question:  do you miss people when you are not with them?

I pondered that question because I find that there are people that I do miss and yet there are those that I don’t miss, or rather that I have learned and accepted that have not earned the right to continue to be missed.   

I do believe this is an important question to ponder because there is something to be learned here about relationships and why some relationships make us feel more comfortable than others.  Why some relationships build us up and others tear us down.  Why some relationships feel like a duty and others like a joy.

As I heal I am learning that I don't miss "some" people.

I have learned, during time spent in introspection, that the people I don't "miss" are the ones that have / had a track record of "using me".   

• Those people who whenever I was with them, I came away feeling emotionally drained.  
• Those who left me feeling exhausted and I felt relief to get away from!   
• Those where the time apart is restorative and so I remained relieved not having to deal with them.  

Those are the people that I have discovered that I don't miss them when I don’t see them.  Not only that when I do think about them I feel this negative shudder about anticipating seeing them any time soon.

I do miss people who behave in such a ways that makes me feel loved or accepted or validated because in their presence I am authentically me and that "feels good" so I miss the "feel good" when I am not with them.  

I struggle to accept myself just as I am.  I worry that I am not good enough, that I am not lovable. These are the false core beliefs that I am constantly working on.  As I think about this aspect of myself I recognize that those people that most help me on my healing journey of self-acceptance are the ones that I miss; for they reflect back to me what I am striving so hard to feel about myself.  Naturally I also miss them as a person because they are the kind of people that lift others up.  They get joy from making others feel good.  They don’t need to put others down to feel good about themselves so they spread good feelings to others.  They feel like souls at peace.  I miss being around souls at peace because they show me what it feels like to be a soul at peace myself.  They show me clearly what I am striving for.

I do think that all this in some way also goes back to attachment issues.   What I know so far is that attachment style reflects what we learned about relationships as a child.  

I believe I learned early that relationships are unsafe.  That sometimes I was wanted and at other times I was in the way, a nuisance.  And I was confused about what was expected and when; and so I learned to withdraw.  

But it was a withdrawing accompanied with thoughts such as; “what is wrong with me now that they don’t want me around”.   

When I am with those people who send me this subliminal message; one that I receive on an intuitive level, that “sometimes I am a bother in their lives, or that I am not meeting their expectations in some way", I feel distinctly uncomfortable.  It is that subtle pushing away that I sense, and I have come to believe that this is what contributes to my discomfort when I am around them.  They reinforce my “unworthy feelings”.   So when I am not around such people is it any wonder that I don’t miss them?  I don’t miss the way they make me feel inadequate, their words, their tone of voice, their looks and even their thoughts seem to penetrate my intuitive awareness leaving a dark cloud of disappointment.

I am new to working out my attachment style and my attachment issues; but I think the bottom line is that I am tired of trying to attach to people who are not good for me.  I am learning that if I don’t miss someone when I am not with them, then subliminally I am getting the message that something about their behaviour, their character is not a good match for mine.  And I am learning that when I feel that way, such a person must be put in the acquaintance category rather than the friend category and I must have higher walls of self-protection when I spend time with them and above all, I can’t trust such people with any vulnerability. 

These are the kinds of people that use vulnerability to manipulate and control.  They are fine to be around for some lighthearted moments but they are not the kinds of people that offer emotional sustenance.  I no longer feel any guilt or regrets over not missing such people when I am not in their company. 

When I spend time with people who see good in me, who encourage me when I have moments of doubt, who express their joy of seeing me as much as I feel joy at seeing them, I feel I am in the company of people of good character, who have done inner healing work.  It is reflected in their body language, in their words and the tone of voice and their actions. When in the company of such people my intuitive awareness becomes filled with light and airiness.  My heart and spirit feels light and buoyant in their presence.  And when I am not with them I miss how two light souls interacting with each other feels.  

These are the friends that I find are in my thoughts regularly and I look forward to seeing them again and I miss especially those who live so far away that I rarely see them.  These people are showing me, teaching me, what healthy attachment feels like.

The more I attach in a good way to the right kind of people; the more I miss not being with those kinds of people....and conversely the less I miss those people with whom I was in an unhealthy attachment relationship with.

I would love to hear from you dear reader, about how you feel about missing or not missing the people in your life. 

Renate Dundys Marrello

2019 – 01 – 18

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