There is an old saying that says that blood is thicker than water. Well, blood might be thicker but that doesn’t always mean that it is better.
Just because you share DNA with someone or perhaps you even came from the same womb does not mean that you have to keep connections that are toxic to who you are and how you are.
You cannot control what people say about you, but you can control your reaction and you can set boundaries with people who continue to practice bad behaviors toward you.
I have often heard people say to others, “that is your brother”, or “that is your sister”…..and? What if that brother or sister is Hell bent and determined on destroying your name and casting out false perceptions about you every chance they get? Why on Earth would you continue to walk into that same web? You wouldn’t. This doesn’t mean that you don’t love them. This doesn’t meant that you don’t forgive them. This does mean that you love and respect your peace enough to avoid unhealthy people. Some people you have to love at a distance, don’t let them make you feel guilty for doing so. Believe me, they know why.
You are enough. I know it doesn’t feel like it sometimes. I know that there are people who have left your life who have made you feel as though you were not enough, but you are. You are enough, more than enough for the right person and you will never be asked, pressured or put in the position of compromising who you are for the right person.
Even in the moments and on the days that you don’t feel like it….walk strong.
You stub your toe on a table leg, you bend over to rub your toe and you smack your head on the table, you stumble round to gather your senses and you reach to sturdy yourself on the stove only to burn your hand…..this could go on and on. The moral of this story is to be careful what you reach for when you are hurting.
Hurt, of any kind, has a way of causing you to view the world, situations, relationships, and circumstances completely different than you would if you were not hurt. A lot of times when we are hurt we reach out to things and people only to realize that those things and people will only merely compound the hurt that you are going through. Hurt people reach out to food, drugs, they make decisions that will cause setbacks, they engage with people that they normally would keep at an arms distance, they search for love in all the wrong places, they mistake someone’s “like” for “love”, which then ends up with more hurt. Ugh – the cycle can continue and compound forever, but it can stop.
Years ago I was getting up from the floor and my sneaker hit my pinky finger and ripped my nail completely off…..ya hear me, I said completely off!!!! I immediately felt the most horrible pain all over my body. My pinky finger, my hand, and arm went ice cold and I was frozen with pain. I couldn’t move. My mouth was wide open, but nothing came out. Frozen. Literally minutes later my body relaxed a bit, heat returned to my finger, hand and arm, and I was left with this horrible pounding dull ache in my finger. I was finally able to move, assess the damage and started first aid which was a whole other level of agony, but I made it through.
I love what my body did to keep me from hurting myself even more, it froze. A lot of times when people suffer hurts, especially in the heart, they start moving almost immediately. They start seeking love again, they start dating again and really they just need to chill out for a minute… they need to freeze and take a moment to be okay, assess the damage, heal the hurt and then start moving again, then you can “reach” for something new and you will be reaching from a healthy place.
I was driving on a short road trip not long ago and was flipping through the channels and listening to various stations. I noticed that almost every song that I heard had something to do with relationships, a broken heart, or feelings for someone. Oh, how I love a good love song!
Walks in the park, holding hands, those butterflies that flutter in your chest when you think of that special someone, falling asleep on late night phone calls when neither one of you want to hang up, texting a good morning hoping to brighten a day before the sun even rises, are all part of showing love to someone, but there is much more and I am so delighted and blessed to have come to the understanding of what is at the core of love….and that is protection.
Love protects.
I had someone ask me, how do you know you love someone or how do you know someone loves you? Love can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people, one thing that love always does is protect.
How does love protect?
Love protects physically.
Love protects mentally and emotionally.
Love protects financially. Don’t use someone as a bank or don’t rack up a bunch of bills that will affect the person that you love.
The greatest revelation that I recently received is that love protects spiritually. If someone says that they care about you or that they love you, this means that they care and love what you say you stand for and they will do whatever they can to help you to not compromise what is spiritually important to you. For couples this may involve putting your own desires on the back burner and not pressuring the person that you say care about or love. For someone to say that they want to be sexual with you, but that they respect you enough to wait, that they will not put you in a place where you may compromise, that they love you beyond any pleasures that you can give each other in a moment…..that is love at its finest.
Love is wide and varied, but it always protects who you are. Everyone wants to be loved, but love starts at home in the mirror. At the end of the day we all stand in that mirror and deal with the decisions that we have made in life. Love will not leave you feeling stripped and compromised. Love will leave you standing in that mirror feeling solid, whole and true to yourself.
The next time you feel those butterflies, those lovely butterflies that we all long to feel???? Come back down to Earth a bit and remember that protection and all that entails is at the core of love.
This post was originally posted on November 15, 2015. Today is Valentine’s Day and I can’t think of a better post about love.
I sat and watched a wedding from my office window this weekend. It was not a large wedding with tons of decorations, people, or flowers, but rather very quaint and intimate with just a small group of witnesses and the bridal party. Slowly the wedding party marched together and joined the groom at the front. Then he waited, his eyes focused toward the distance looking intently for his bride. I started to get nervous for this groom…. where is the bride? But….he waited patiently, he waited peacefully….he waited and waited.
Then finally she came out and came forth and stood at the end of the aisle. I could almost feel the energy that was connecting them. It was truly indeed a beautiful moment, when I saw him exhale and smile one of the biggest loving smiles I could ever long to see for myself. Before she moved a long wispy curl fell down and a lady rushed right to her side and pinned it up. Now…..she is ready!
As I watched this bride, take each careful step toward her groom, toward her good morning, toward her goodnight, toward her I love you, toward her forever earthly love – I pondered…….
I sat there and watched this union solidify before God and man. I continued to watch as they walked arm and arm after the ceremony across a windswept field so close and in tune with one another… and I began to hum the song that Dan Fogelberg sang so beautifully called, Make Love Stay.
How will they make love stay? Will he always be so patient in waiting for her as he did today? Will the corners of his mouth turn up to the smile that he smiled when he first saw his bride at the end of the aisle? Will she always take the time to look her best for him….pinning up that fallen strand?
If we could capture every moment, thought, feelings… if we could bottle the love and hope for forever that is expressed and felt on the wedding day…there would be no question on how to make love stay. Since there is no bottle labeled “Wedding Day”, then marriage will hopefully be a masterful journey of love, evolving love, forgiveness, hope, understanding, joy, memories, support…..now that is how you make love stay.
Make Love Stay Lyrics by Dane Fogelberg:
Now that we love Now that the lonely nights are over How do we make love stay? Now that we know The fire can burn bright or merely smolder How do we keep it from dying away?
I am the first one to say that I believe in the power of saying thank you. I say thank you for everything. I say thank you to the people who bag my groceries at the supermarket, I say thank you to the clerk, I say thank you and show appreciation to most anyone that provides a service or anyone who has taken the time to think of me for any reason. Thank you’s are powerful and necessary, except in one case, funerals.
When my mother passed a few years back, of course it was the worst and most terrible time of my life. I was literally feeling my way through the days by small moments at a time…second after second. Of course, there was planning, family drama, more planning and after the service and dinner all that I was left with was the absence of my mother. I was surrounded by her things, the sweet smell of her night gown, flowers, food but the one thing that I wanted more than anything was my Momma and sadly that would never be again on this side of Heaven. A relative kept pressing me to get thank you notes sent out to people who had sent flowers and food, but I could not wrap my head around sitting down and thanking people for being there for something that I did not even want to happen. I was expected to send out notes to thank people for something that I had not even fully processed yet. I tried the first week, I tried again the second week, I tried again and again, and eventually the timing just seemed to be off after a while.
I had heard that some people had expressed their displeasure in not receiving a thank you from the family, but here is what I have to say to that….I am sorry. My lack of expressing a thank you does not represent any type of ingratitude for the sentiments that you expressed during such a horrible time of grief. The pressure to do one more thing was overwhelming and while I can do a lot of things, I could not pull that one final act out of the hat. I will also say if someone is waiting to be thanked, then they also need to check their own hearts and their intentions in giving and doing what they did.
In terms of birthdays, weddings, baby showers, bridal showers, anniversaries….I think that the etiquette of extending a thank you should be upheld. The only thing that should be expected for people who are reeling from loss and grief is that they wake up and put one foot in front of the other, that’s it. The etiquette of an unsaid thank you should be enough for a heart that is breaking.
I watched a Dr. Phil episode about a woman who wanted to kill her parents and her brother. As I sat and watched this episode I realized that this woman was not mentally ill, but rather she hated herself and projected that onto her family by making herself a victim, a victim not of what her family did, but a victim of who they were and who she wanted to be.
Her family was surprised to find out that she even felt the way that she did. They had no idea that she hated them and wanted them dead, but this is not an uncommon thing. We know people in our everyday lives that feel the same way about us. It is sad to discover that someone who should be in your corner and loving you, secretly champions your demise.
What that woman needs to know is that regardless of who she wanted to kill or see dead, it still would not change that she was still her. Perhaps she thought that in getting rid of her objects of hate, that she would eventually feel better about herself, but of course that is not the case. You can wish for someone’s demise but even after they are gone, it still doesn’t change who you are, the things you have done, what you look like, where you have been, none of that changes; you are still looking at the person that you hate the most in the mirror and that is …..you.
So this woman brought her family on national TV to tell the world how horrible her family was to her, but her family was just kind of shocked and asking each other what did they do. Turns out they really didn’t do anything. If Dr. Phil not had rightfully divided what this woman was saying, the TV audience would have been left thinking that her family was horrible wretched people. When people can’t physically kill you, they will destroy how people view you, how they regard you, they will attempt to kill your character with the subtleties of their conversations in an effort to make themselves appear to be “good”. When someone can’t physically kill you they will interfere with your life in everyway possible, they will interfere with relationships, they will take your weakness (past or present) and magnify it in a way that when they spread their hate about you, they will bring it up…well you know how she is. I have someone that hangs on the old me, the fiery me, the tell you off in a hot minute me, and all that was me….several years ago. It is funny how the people who refuse to confront their past are the same ones who will not let you forget yours.
How do you handle people like this? Distance helps and limited communication helps. Yes, some people no matter how much you would like to have them in your life, are just not safe. Their assignment is to get you off your track, therefore you have to make a conscious effort to remain true to who you are now, not who they want everyone to believe you still are. Staying true to yourself is really the key, because it is only who you show yourself to be at this point that will dispel anything that is said about you in the shadows.
At the end of the day, until someone learns to love themselves and not only who they are, but also come to terms with where they have been and the things they have done, they will never be at peace with themselves. This means that they will not be at peace with a lot of people, especially those who remind them of what they are not or what they think they should be. They will always feel shorted and instead of becoming the best possible versions of themselves, they destroy the objects of their jealously and hate. What can you do? Keep your distance, love them at a distance and pray. You don’t have to keep giving people like this access to your life, they only want to get close enough to you to learn how to destroy it. Believe me , I have lived with this for my whole life and I just can’t do this anymore, I am backing away much like I would from an attacking animal. It is necessary and a darn shame all at the same time.
