Hello Dear Friends.
Seems I’m heading toward a different blog-site level of productivity. Wasn’t deliberately turning that way, but turn I have. I’m just saying this so you know that I acknowledge the change in flow and am thunking, thinking on it.
I will post a minimum of one to two times a week. In between, I hope to develop the material we have now, clean it up and share it again, integrated with your comments and what we’ve worked over this past year.
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That done, I can chat about other stuffy stuff.
Image by Rev. Xanatos Satanicos Bombasticos (ClintJCL) via Flickr
Today, I was thinking about our interpersonal connections we believe so strongly improve our ability to be our own friend. However, that is not the same as pairing with someone who is bad to us. We’ve talked about how abuse, any kind, disables us from connecting. “Get off of me!” is self-care when there is an unequal sense of power being used and we are trying to gain accountability for where we are at in life now.
In my mind’s eye, imagining that, I saw a figure lying on her side and someone heavy lying on top. “Get off of me!” could mean, “Get off and get away.” It could also mean, “Rotate the picture.”
See the picture turn 90-degrees? Now the two figures are standing beside each other rather than subjected. The two figures are connected, proximate and present to each other’s experiences. “Get off of me!” doesn’t have to mean, “Get out of my life.” It might be able to mean, “Rotate. Stand beside me. I choose connection in my life and not subjugation.”
Insight isn’t everything though. If saying, “Get off of me and stand beside me. Stay connected. Stop controlling.” doesn’t happen despite insight, we might be looking at behaviors and emotions that are symptoms of brain disease of Me or of the other person(s). Medical illness needs more than word play and adjusting picture frames.
Questions: Have you been able to rotate any pictures in your life in any ways that have helped you be a better friend to yourself? What? Has that improved your sense of connection with people you didn’t want to lose? Please tell us your story.
Self-Care Tip – Rotate your picture to connect and grow presence in your life.
Related articles
- Whenever You Are Unsure, Go Back To “Me” – Self Care as A Reference Point (friendtoyourself.com)
- Deliberately Setting Myself Up To Improve (friendtoyourself.com)
- Safety in Connections With Others (friendtoyourself.com)
- Supercharge Your Life Purpose (friendtoyourself.com)
- Presence Encourages Self-Care (friendtoyourself.com)
Wow, rotate the picture.Now that is a pretty meaty statement. You have given me food for thought! Ha, as I delve into the present life and heal up the past of sexual, physical and mental abuse and food addiction. God is Awesome and always provides the words or statements we need. Thank you for being an obedient child of God and sharing with us!
I think rotating the picture of abuse for me, is looking at present day as if I was still looking at a photo from my childhood. And I only do it with one person, my husband. I choose to be wounded and feeling unloved and unloveable (he can be a cranky pants sometimes!) but, I take what he says and does as if he was personally attacking me, and sometimes he can be like that. But, what if I was able to look at him and see him in the photo rotated? I guess what I mean is what if I laid down my perceptions of him and allowed him to just be, without my preconceived ideas (the photo again). I can see that he is healing and growing and becoming and yet my own perceptions (viewing the photo as it were) allowing myself to feel hurt and injured instead of speaking up and allowing healing for myself, I am not allowing healing for him with me, for us. DOES THAT MAKE SENSE? How convoluted!
If I chose to see something only one way and don’t allow any other possibilities I am limiting myself and others around me.
The photo stays the same.
Abuse is something that is very hard to heal. I guess when I looked at my parents and their abuses upon me (I wrote earlier this week about that in reply to you) I see in the photo some pretty ugly stuff. Where I didn’t get to say “get off me” because I was pre-verbal and choking and restrained. So I guess when I say “get off me” it would turn internal, I wasn’t able to externalize that. The fury in the photo went inward.
I am choosing now to look at the photo as a new photo. A photo I am taking today. Of love and peace and tenderness for myself.
I am the only one in that photo today, and I am sweet and innocent and lovely a child that has had nothing happen to her.
I guess I could add that today that photo includes me and my husband and children and we are all laughing and joy filled and full of love.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! You have helped me to create a new set of photos. Where I can say get off me, as in I don’t agree or care for “that” however, I still love you and I still love myself.
Col
thank u so much Col. knowing that i was able to say something that clicked w u, rocks my world. yes! this is such a story u have. keep talking.
Redefine ourselves and the other . Redefine the nature of the relationship. Assess boundaries. Examine goals and expectations. May need a new frame. And picture.
thank u carl. so much. knowing some of your mind, i celebrate. whoop!
I have rotated the picture, edited people out,changed the background, refocused, and even have left many just the way they are. Interesting concept this “rotating the picture”.
thank u suz. u would know. u r a photographer extraordinaire materially and abstractly. this rocks.
I have often wondered, this year, how you have managed to keep up with a daily blog while also keeping up with the rest of your life, both personal and professional. I’ve been really impressed and I thank you for all the you have done, through your blogs, to help me since last October. That being said, I have to admit that I literally had a panic attack when I read your post today. I’m not sure how to handle this loss because it has been my rock since I found Friendtoyourself.com. Whether I responded or not, it was what kept me going. Not sure how I’m going to handle the “minimum of once or twice a week”. Sounds silly but to say I’m scared would be an understatement, especially since this summer has been so difficult.
However, I HAVE learned something – a lot! – about how to be a friend to myself, and, once I get myself together, I’m convinced (well, I’m working on being convinced) that I will be okay. Just not sure how to start. Any suggestions for those of us who are like me? Or am I the only one? (Have to admit that, with internet and water problems, etc,. I have noticed that your blogs and your responses haven’t been as regular and I guess I’ve adjusted to that – and actually wondered – so maybe I’m headed in the right direction already?)
In response to the blog part of the post today, I turned the picture this year and found my parents standing next to me. Huge thing in my healing process!! Thank you for guiding me toward that move. Your blog today just gave how I have grown to think of my parents a new name or description.
Thanks for everything you have done this year, Sana. I look forward to whenever your blog shows up in my e-mail. God bless!!
sweet nance, i think u r right. u r headed in your right direction already. i hv a sense of calm thinking about u. thank u so much for your support these last many months and as i go forward into this future work. knowing u, knowing u r here, knowing the work i do isn’t alone – this is more than more. keep on.
Crying but thanks.
a psychiatrist hasn’t done her job unless someone cries (smile). hugs
Good job, then (smile). Hugs back.
B sure to turn a comment card in please to the board 😉
My last post was about “get off me, get away from me” too. After 18 months of not seeing her, I gave my sister another chance to make things right, but it failed again. I had to tell her again to stay away from me once and for all.
ouch marie. i admire the courage that took to invite and to walk away.
Thank you so much for all you do and have done. I for one have benefited from what you have posted and saved all those I wasn’t able to read daily but want to one day. I think it’s a great idea to take what you wrote and shift through it for us.
As for the photo, I think everyone here on earth is trying their best in what ever capacity they are living. Unless very cruel people don’t just go out of their way to hurt you.
As I’ve said before people attack when they project, cry out for love or are afraid. They attack out of fear.
As an unloved child, I long ago forgave my parents but still have very few loving memories of them. I will try to turn the photo around but I think it’s too late. I don’t know how to do that in memories. I know they just did what was done to them and somehow they also did the best they could under the circumstances. There was just too many children too fast and not enough love to go around. The restraining and physical punishment was all they knew. The ridiculing and berating they did have all taken a toll on all of us and the girls more than the boys all have had therapy and over came it to a large extent.
I am lucky and so blessed to have a loving husband who supports me and loves me just as I am.We are both living the life of our dreams within a tight budget. The word is to not want too much. The word is that material things don’t make one happy. And we have each other and have enough.
such sweetness. thanks for telling me.
my goodness though, some of what u describe bout kid-years sound a lot like dirt. dirt you grew out of perhaps but dirt. i’m celebrate your mature bloom. hugs