Wednesday, January 31, 2018

My Daily Reflections: Not Everyone Deserves My Precious Time

Today’s Reflection started with an article about the need to purge toxic friends / relationships.  In this article was the following list:

  • If I don’t think much of so and so, why am I keeping them around?
  • If so and so doesn’t seem to respect my time, maybe I should stop giving it to them?
  • If so and so needs to make other people feel bad to feel good about themselves, isn’t that the definition of a relationship that’s unhealthy?
  • If so and so is a troll who seems to thrive on drama, then good for them, but where is the rule that says I have to participate in it?

I wish someone had given me this advice much sooner in life!   Learning to cultivate "HEALTHY" relationships was not something I was taught.  I was taught to ignore people's faults, to make allowances for their bad behaviour!  I was trained to be a people pleaser, my worth became tied to how much I tolerated without complaint!   If I tolerated then I was good.  If I did not tolerate or complained…then I was bad.   That is the message the false core belief that I was taught . 

All this lead to was years and years and years of me feeling bad about myself!!!

-    They hurt me ....I feel bad about me,
-    They ignore me ...I feel bad about me. 
-    The call me names....I feel bad about me.
-    They disparage my point of view....I feel bad about me
-    They tell me what is wrong with me.... I feel bad about me

And yet I have been encouraged to keep them in my life because  (insert various reasons here).  I was given the hidden message that the reason they did these things to me was because I was not good enough and that if only I were a better person they would not treat me that way.   And stupid me; shame on me, I believed this false message!!

Well learning about healthy boundaries means I have learned that I have the right to say no to such behaviour!   Moreover; when they don't respect my NO and insist that I ought to uncomplainingly tolerate such behaviour;  then I deserve and have the right to make changes in the time I will allow them to negatively impact upon me.

They whom I have cut from having the pleasure of my time, and those whom I will continue to cut from having the privilege of being in my circle of intimates; can be angry with me (that after all is their right)  but what they do not have the right to continue doing is harm me with their negativity, destroy my equanimity, or diminish my worth.

Don't like my boundaries? 
Fine. 
I don't like your behaviour! 

And that means I have the right to choose not to waste my precious time in your company!

Renate Dundys Marrello
2018 – 01 – 31 




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Friday, January 12, 2018

Post Estrangement: Healing has Consequences


A friend sent me a quote recently asking me what it means to me when applied to my trauma and my own personal healing journey of recovering from the lingering effects of being abandoned. 

The quote: 

"Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. 
And once you’ve seen it, keeping quiet, 
saying nothing, is compliance. 
There’s no innocence. 
Either way, you’re accountable."

As always I feel that quotes are a stepping stone, a start for exploring the deeper meaning behind the words.  Sometimes quotes make us jump to conclusions, often remaining superficial.  This one is a good quote in my opinion because it pushes and pushes back against the easy answers.

I want to thank my friend for challenging me with this opportunity to explore, what I have seen that can’t be unseen!

My journey of healing began after being estranged.  And naturally the first part of my journey was about grieving.  Being estranged was and is; first a journey of grief…but that is not where it should stop. 


There came a point in time when I recognized that I needed to climb out of the abyss of grieving and start climbing back toward living.  I needed to begin learning how to live through grief instead of letting grief become the central story of my life.   There came a point in my life where I wasn’t finding any solutions in grieving and I decided that for myself I needed to begin a journey of healing.





Healing meant educating myself and learning about behaviour patterns, things like narcissism, and other cluster B personality disorders.







Then I had to learn why I was so susceptible to these types of personalities; where I did I learn to be codependent and how did those patterns affect my life and my parenting style, which then further opened up my awareness that my pattern of behaviour being a co-dependent (as well as my lack of communication skills but that is another topic) set the scene for the types of personalities my children would develop.

What I then saw was that while I hated what my estranger did to me and to our family, I was also responsible because of what I did not know before (not that I blame myself for not knowing, but I am aware that my not knowing had an “effect” on our relationship style as well as the personality of my children.) My lack of knowledge affected the outcome, plain and simple.  What I had not been given the opportunity to learn changed my patterns of behaviour and those patterns of behaviour allowed things to happen without consequences and corrections that ought to have been taken place. 

I cannot unsee this.  I see deficient character traits in my estranging daughter and I can see why she developed them and why she was susceptible to the people she choose to believe and emulate and follow.


I also cannot go back to blaming her or hold a grudge against her. My knowledge increases my ability to be compassionate towards people for what they do not know.  In being able to forgive myself for what I did not know, I can forgive them for what they do not know. (I remind people who have not followed all of my writings, that in my mind forgiveness in no way condones behaviour, it simply accepts that people make mistakes based on their faulty knowledge, which then plays out in dysfunctional behaviour patterns.  Apology, remorse, atonement and other factors come into play for reconciliation which can only happen when both parties have gained new knowledge, better insight and better communication skills) 

For myself also I cannot go back to being quiet about what I have learned….it is part of who I am now.  My learning and my healing has changed me.  I am no longer codependent and can’t and won’t go back to that way of behaving.  

I can’t continue to be an enabler / compliant type of person.    
I am no longer an innocent believer in the general goodness of people, I see them for who they are based on how they behave and I recognize that their behavior is their character and that deficient character is learned and as something that is learned it is passed on generation to generation and as such family dysfunction is handed down generation to generation as each generation develops different means of dealing with that dysfunction based on what is the “norm” in that time period. 

I did not abandon my mom….because in my era that was simply not done, and we were raised to do what the social community said to do.  If I had grown up in a different time, I might have distanced myself from my mom for she was / is controlling, manipulative and very clearly has patterns of behaviours / mannerisms, ways of talking to me, that hurt me; hurt me as deeply as the narcissistic behaviours of my estranging daughter. 

I am no longer innocent. 

Innocence allowed me to be a door mat, made me an enabler of bad behaviour becau
se I did not want to create drama or “rock the boat”, hurt someone's feelings etc.   I am now better able to call behaviour out for what it is.  I see words and actions now in the perspective of what they are attempting to control.  I analyze behaviours for the personality types. 

I am accountable for who I have become because of what I have learned.  I chose to take that journey to understand people and personality better and so how I see people now is my responsibility. 

However it is also my responsibility and my accountability to myself to adjust my responses in both word and action based on my new awareness.  This means I have to accept the consequences of my actions in a different way.  If I choose to confront a person who exhibits deficient character patterns, if I choose to call then out for their words or behaviors; I have to expect that they will react negatively and in a hostile manner  towards me. I am accountable for that change in my behaviour and thus accountable for the changes in my relationships as they move forward from each moment to each moment.


What I have seen and learned are now a part of who I am.  Learning and knowledge robs us of naivety and innocence for sure. 

Whether you are forced to learn as part of a healing journey or by other choice, innocence once lost, makes us accountable not only for what we know, but for how we use the knowledge that we now have.

My friend was happy with my thought process, and so I thought I would share it with others who also might be on a healing journey of self-discovery and who wonder maybe what the impacts might be on their lives as they learn and grow and transform and heal.

Renate Dundys Marrello

2018 – 01 – 12   


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Thursday, January 11, 2018

My Daily Reflection: Loyalty

I am a loyal person.  Maybe I was taught that loyalty is a virtue and I held on to that notion longer than is useful.  The more I learn about dysfunctional relationships the more I recognize that those who cause us harm tend to want us to stay in their lives because their power and control over us gives them satisfaction in the form of power and control.  Maybe they don’t even realize that this is what they are doing; maybe it is just their nature. 

Sadly for loyal people, this strategy of the “controllers” works for a long, long time….because being loyal requires giving others the benefit of the doubt.  “Maybe they don’t know that that comment hurt me or made me feel disrespected or unloved” is the feeling that I have come away from far too many interactions with those people who I thought were “important” people in my life. 

I am learning hard lessons in my senior years!

I am learning that when I have had enough and when I voice my opinion that I have had enough I have discovered that those who enjoyed the fruits of my loyalty (my willingness to overlook their meanness)  were more than eager to dump me when I no longer played the required role of loyal door mat. 

So what this has taught me is that the bullies, users and abusers, manipulative and controlling people have NO DIFFICULTY ENDING RELATIONSHIPS WHEN THEIR NEEDS ARE NO LONGER MET. 

It is only the loyal people that are willing to put up with so much in order to preserve a relationship that they have a hard time letting go.

The more I study this phenomenon the more I realize that it is important to have sort of a guide line that gives me permission to let go of people that hurt me.  And more importantly to evaluate and see that when I have been dumped by such people it should be seen by me as a revelation that I cared more about preserving the relationship than they did. Their only reason for preserving the relationship was to gain what I gave them in the way of service to their ego whereas my reason for preserving the relationship was loyalty. 

My track record in life has been that I have most often been the dumpĂ©; whenever my usefulness was over, I was dumped.  I was the one that got hurt over and over again because I was loyal even when I felt disrespected and unappreciated.  I have suffered the pangs of pain as I tried to figure out why I was not good enough to keep in relationship with when all I asked was to be treated with kindness and respect.  Why was I always being dumped when I said NO, to anymore verbal or emotional abuse?

I have come to the conclusion that I need to dump in hindsight in such cases.  I need to recognize that the relationship that I was dumped from was not a healthy one in the first place.  I need to make peace with those rejections from a place of new understanding. 

The fact is that the treatment that I received and that I tolerated for the sake of loyalty was in fact a sign of the problems in the relationship and the fact that the other person felt no reason for them to change meant that I should have actually done the dumping much earlier in the relationship.  I should not have clung to the relationship in loyalty as long as I did thus ensuring my eventual dumping.  It was only a matter of time that my usefulness would come to an end.  It was my loyalty that blinded me to that fact! 

Sometimes in life we learn lesson way late!  What I would have done to have this knowledge and information 40 or 50 years ago!!  How much heartache would I have been able to prevent, if I had had the skills to recognize the signs when my loyalty was misplaced.  If had been able to recognize when it was time to end a relationship before my usefulness ran out and before I was dumped!

Renate Dundys Marrello

2018 – 01 – 11 



My journal blog entries are copyright.
I love when you share my page to spread the word.
If you want to quote me I kindly ask that you please provide a link back to my page. 


photo credits - as marked or unknown