Lessons along the way...Mission toward competence

Well now for several months with white knuckle I was set to a mission. Mission is a cornerstone of who we are and what we become.
Security
sense of self
affiliation
mission
competency (watch out for complacency)

Missions in my life were simply to survive, then to live each day in the present. Throughout recovery years it was to stand true to the determination that "I would expose them". Years to mend the body worn down my view of competency ever really becoming a possibility there. Each effort was met with an overpowering opposition.

Daily set to mission marriage and parenting have been some of my greatest missions to date. Those day in day out duties that were as we all know really never ending or often even a crescendo of plateau. Gardening was one design setting my eye upon left the place now for planting and harvest to ebb and flow as the seasons of life. Yet even in that the heat of living in the desert set with the physical challenges faced leaves mission to a "hang in there", let your expectations balance sort of coming to terms.

Years of the joy set to missions of varying types paled as the obstacles would seem insurmountably.
Oh how countless a talent turned skill has waned under the halting lack of confidence or know how to further a continuance of effect.

Mission is something that I had a determination toward yet lacked the skill set to follow through and succeed over the discouragements. These hindrances would I think have been met with a wisdom from an elder toward success.

Mission would hit a stressed out wall when the next step became an enigma.Freezing up what next became a never mind.
Next mission.
Never really living up to that potential of seeing how able talents set to skill could lead into becoming competent. It would often become a 'why bother' sort of despondence.
Knowing that we all suffer like things I chose to speak on these things this morning.

What I have begin to learn
Mission
Setting small goals at first
Setting steps toward each small goal
Like risk mission is a skill that is measured in baby steps, stride being met with the exercise of seeing little things succeed.

There is a saying that I love.

The sage anticipates things that are difficult while they are easy, and does things that would become great while they are small. All difficult things in the world are sure to arise from a previous state in which they were easy, and all great things from one in which they were small. Therefore the sage, while he never does what is great, is able on that account to accomplish the greatest things."

So for me the lessons of a lack of competence have occurred when a step in that process becomes all to overwhelming...

It is then that the choice to continue to skill on the point of halting.

For example

The skills of a jeweler halted 1) lack of merchandising how to 2) not knowing how or even willing to sell my competence for a price. 3) assuming that no one else could be sold into my mission.

The skills of gardening halted 1) learning timing of harvest to table 2) consistency issue due to lack of scheduling 3) letting go because of a need to learn less physically demanding techniques. 4) giving up on ideas and methods to set in place if dependency on others left me wanting. example...waiting for my husband to hook up a drip system...I gained the hoses for free (a mission in itself)...the project stops there. 5) learning how to do it myself.

The skills of a writer halted 1) fear of the family of origin being bothered by it  2) Lack of vision 3) easier to just watch hulu or be entertained then to think 3) needing to set to effect those thoughts or points of interest. 4) setting to priority the mission of service for the greater good over the efforts to express deep thinking. 5) Allowing a thought to flow and practicing better mind focus and thought control.

Now these few examples set as well to the variety of missions that overlap and over power each other. My old balance wheel helped me with keeping areas of interest varied helped. Lists and charts called rebellion over the authority they tried to impose.

Thus a new mission rises...

Gain understanding and knowledge on how to set mission into steps toward accomplishment.

This year I was able to do just that. Setting a balance budget savings added up through little things that honed each line down. I implemented a savings that added up to a recent vacation fully funded and each day calculated into the amounts available. Food/lodging/gas/ticket charges so forth. It took well into the 4th day of the trip to relax and see that I was competent in doing so. The stress of the process was hard on me. 

Becoming more relaxed into mission skills is now a goal of mine. Understanding how that happens through little accomplishments is liberating. Seeing that 'I won't fail at it'. Overcoming the FEAR that the old wall of 'what do I do next' in the process can be climbed or walked around is also liberating.

security

sence of self

affiliation

mission

competencey

A cascade effect...

Affiliation waned when my sense of self faltered. My sense of self faltered when competency was lost due to lack of know how in reference to mission. If doubt that mission can be finished security becomes at issue.

Learning the steps to mission becomes a vital part of maturation. One that I missed out on. Teaching myself as far as I could left me short. Seeking a greater understanding and actually going on a quest to do so will send me far. 

I think of how college work the classes in steps...English 101 comes to mind. English 102 builds upon it. If it were not for the first course we would not be equipped. If we stop after the first or primary lessons we write papers as a child.

It is time to put away a childish way (101) and set out farther into growing up into the abilities (102) that are there for us to peruse. Why settle for the lack of skill gain it.

Well kids are up

Mission...loads and loads of laundry

1) make laundry soap

:)

The Forest Angel

Click image to enlarge

Some time back it was requested of me to tell you more about the Forest Angel.

Now Gods ways far exceed my understanding, but more than anything they are the ways of love. The lives we live here are only limited by the minds we close to the things that are holy. It is with some courage that this pearl will be placed before your eyes for this is a HOLY thing.

I have shared parts of my history.

To tell others of her is to expose her to scrutiny and judgment under which non could hold her. For she is of God and by God and for God. As I am. 

Recently while Dove was recovering as was I from the knee injections last Thursday the children and I  watched this movie called the 'KID'. My children and I speak of the deeper things of life daily. They know that the freedom is there for then to ask of such things without bias coloring the end of events. They also are free to share the things within them in such a way. We are willing to HEAR them, thus they give us ear as well. In the movie the 'kid comes to help the man who then discovers that he as his elder self is helping life to bear the fruits that are only divided by a time line. You would really need to watch the movie. The point is that life is a line of time that is most often only accepted as a linear list of events.

Now certainly that makes all the since in the world for folks to see days that way. From beginning to end. Even the prophets of old were rejected most often by those who thought they had it all figured out. In the end the blindness and unwillingness to open ones eyes brought great consequences even to nations.

The story of the Forest Angel is one such experience in this woman's life. My life has not been a life defined by linear terms. The effects of my years have yes created a being that is effected and restored yes in a time line of days, months years and yes even decades. 

When we had watched the film the query was if I had ever known of such things to have really happened  and in all truth I replied. Telling the children that I too have truly experience such things only in somewhat of a reverse. Telling them if they ever wanted to know I would be perfectly willing to explain if they wanted me too. The day before yesterday the kids and I had a very long 50 mile round trip to visit their Aunt in the hospital. When we were returning home on the freeway from the back seat asked the question from Dash "remember when you said I could ask about that thing that you knew like the movie 'the kid'? could you tell us?"

I did so...and spoke

When as a child terrible things happened one was particularity gruesome and violent.Asking them if they remember the movie Chronicles of Narnia and the stone table?, they affirmed so. As a child harm came to me on a stone table. Very bad things occurred and one was so terrible that I could no longer stay in my body or soul and I became pure spirit. It was when during this event that they killed a rabbit above me that an Angel took me away in Spirit and Mind into the forest where I played with the other rabbits. They trusted me, the rabbits and felt safe near me as I knelt. She the Forest Angel stood there as a sentential watching over me this child of mercy and favor. It was as if her love was a winged clutch around us there watching over us and stopping the truth of those images of what was occurring to the body, my body. The body of a child violated and being raped. 

Now lately the kids have used the language of/or word 'rape' in ignorance. Actually earlier in the day I confronted their ignorance with a clear explanation of what it meant to rape or be raped. They must know the words they use. The use of it in their speech was so dangerous a notion that they must understand it's intensity.

The Forest Angel kept my Spirit and Mind from the destruction occurring to my Body. Destruction that to this day effects my health. Then I told them of the thing that most amazed me about the Forest Angel. 

She was me all grown into a young woman, come to protect me as a child.

It was only years later into and after the hardest parts of my recovery from torture and abuse that I was shown with such holiness this fact. I could not understand it. No man or woman taught it to me . It was an innate knowledge. 

A Holy thing.

I am the her, the Forest Angel and have ever longed to return to the forest. It is a huge part of who I am. I have been called the piper to the children. A gift has been upon me that children feel safe near me. I have all my years had a gift with the wild creatures that they would come to me. Out in the parks wild birds would land on me. Ducks would rest beside me with their clutch of ducklings under their wing. Hummingbirds will come to me within inches and speak with me. Just the other day at the zoo Dove stood amazed as I taught her to be still. We were watching the otters. They were speaking with me right there in front of my child while we were surrounded by hordes of visitors. Dove saw her, me the Forest Angel. Not many do any more. That part of who I am has been housed and sheltered from the onslaught of harsh reality though temporal. It has caused her, me to withdraw from time and place. It is what leaves me unhappy, changed from what many of you knew of me years hence.

She is I am still her, but I am lost. 

Religion, assertion of judgments or fear there of has left me wanting for a different time. A different place where kindness ruled and folks were again humble. We all just don't really KNOW the mind of God. How could any of us think that we have Him all figured out.

Darkness travels to expel the light, to extinguish it. This flicker this flame that I am...under a bushel still yet remains.

Perhaps in this telling of the Forest Angel it might be placed, my light, a little brighter to shine out some of the darkness. It does within my little family. Beyond that she remains...now guarded years later by me the old sage.

an·gel  (njl)n.

1. A typically benevolent celestial being that acts as an intermediary between heaven and earth, especially in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Zoroastrianism.

2. A representation of such a being, especially in Christianity, conventionally in the image of a human figure with a halo and wings.

3. angels Christianity The last of the nine orders of angels in medieval angelology. From the highest to the lowest in rank, the orders are: seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominations or dominions, virtues, powers, principalities, archangels, and angels.

4. A guardian spirit or guiding influence.

5.

a. A kind and lovable person.

b. One who manifests goodness, purity, and selflessness.

Building Character when overwhelmed

Long time no see here

This has been a very overwhelming time for me.
Many major changes in my life due to a illness that changes the very way of life.
I was diagnosed with CVID common veritable immune disorder. I have had an IV port placed in my chest to have infusions of gamma globulin every 4 weeks. It is a six hour process. I have an awesome nurse.

She has come to greatly respect the nuance of the human body when it comes to being a torture survivor. At first my body wanted nothing to do with her needles IV's entering my veins. She would get the vein, then the valve would shut down. many months this meant 5 sticks to start the infusions. The stress was getting to all of us. That is why the surgery for a port implant was necessary.

My sister Midge who was the one who came forward 3 years into my recovery also saved my life in her dying. This has been a journey. Her death was what raised a flag to a doctor that God alone had provided.
It took some doing to get my being around the reality of what a gift I was given. I may not of lived much longer had this continues to be misdiagnosed. I spent a life time of "it shouldn't" by doctors who had no clue as to this rare disorder. Our allergist 'happened'  :) to intern at a university that studied Primary Immune Disorders. One in 50,000 people. Folks in my generation were never tested. Babies are now so if the have failure to thrive. I am very vulnerable to bacteria do to a subclass of the disorder.

My life had come to a time when I have to slow down. It is a real change as I turn 50 with a monthly schedule that will run low the more stress or work I do. So I have been learning to pace myself. I will not kid you depression has been a ghost on my shoulder. The PTSD came into play as well causing me to have to increase my stress medications.  Now all things are pretty much regulated.

My emotions have run the gamete. Now the dust is settling. My heart although filled with gratitude is also sad. It is a strange thing to have this port in my chest. Three little nubs mark the center of it for needle location. So I feel a bit strange with it. My skin is thin so it is really obvious. Using a bra that holds my assets up helps.
My health has really improved my immune system is being restored after being completely depleted.

I have pulled away over the last several months just overwhelmed. I'll come on home into who I am. I'll overcome as I always have. This time it was just a bit much.

The Strongest Predictor For Low Stress

Research from wild baboons provides insight into perhaps the best way to combat daily, psychological stress. During this holiday season it might bring some comfort. Christie Nicholson reports

 | December 25, 2010 | 0

Stress is crucial for survival. Zebra sees a lion, stress makes her run. But we modern humans get stressed mostly for psychological reasons. Which are much more constant and lingering than a run in with a lion. Work, lifestyle, family, even Christmas.

What makes stress dangerous is the glucocortocoid hormones that our body releases. Elevated levels of such hormones leads to diabetes, hypertension, decreased testosterone, memory loss, suppressed immune system.

Robert Sapolsky, Professor of Neurology at Stanford University, has been studying stress in wild baboons for more than three decades.   And he found there are two powerful predictors of who will be most affected by stress. Personality plays a huge role. Can you tell the difference between a big threat and minor issue? If it is big can you figure out a way to get some control over it? If there’s a bad outcome do you have a coping mechanism?   If you can answer yes to these it’s a good bet you’ve got relatively low stress.

Beyond personality traits, the single best predictor of an ability to deal well with   stress is how socially connected you are. Baboons who had strong relationships also had low glucocorticoid levels and outlived the more isolated baboons by about three years.

So this Christmas holiday, rejoice in your interconnections, your friends and family. It’s a good thing for your heart and health.

—Christie Nicholson

Tattered Pieces~ Mended Minds~Changed Lives

This is a twelve week lesson plan that I developed to help others

My name is Donetta.

I am not a professional counselor. 

I walked through seven years (and then some) of intensive family of origin based recovery. Addressing all forms of childhood abuse. Living under a parental curse seven generations. Some how getting freed from it.  These are some of the things that helped me in the restoration of my soul/mind/body.  The Lord has walked with me all of my days He knew me and kept me.Although Gods presence was with me I only came to begin to know and understand who He is on my twentieth birthday in 1981.<>john 3:16<>

Do you struggle with a lie over your head?  “ You’ll never amount to anything…loser…no one will ever love you. ”

Are the effects of your youth stopping you from uncovering what you long to be?<>

Do you ask your self “ why am I this way?<> 

Do you find yourself saying “ How could I (they) be so stupid”!

Do you share with Paul when you read “ I do the things I don’t want to do and don’t’ do the things I want to do. Who can save me?  Praise be to God who... <>

Synopsis

Together learning some tools to help ourselves in the process of becoming new  

Lesson One~

Why?

Why am I?

Why are they?

What made us this way?

It's No Wonder.

Lesson Two

Choice and Consequences

Under the will of others
The triad of Rescuer/victim/offender

Free Choice

Lesson Three

Where?

Where was God?

Salvation free choice

Repentance and restoration

Lesson Four

The Lie

Uncovering the lie

How it got there

Lesson five 

Discover the truth

Who you are in Christ

Replace the lie

Lesson Six

The gates of your mind

Understanding

education

training up a child

practice

Lesson Seven

Feelings

A gift from God

Appropriate/Inappropriate

Manipulation verses Direct meeting of needs

Lesson Eight

Rage triad

Identifying the components of rage

Silent rage
Fight Flight

What do we do when others rage at us

Lesson Nine

Triad of sin

Stepping of of it

Our responsibility

Lesson 10

Becoming New verses the curse

Boundaries

Character training
Re-parenting

Affirmations

Lesson 11

Risk verses blind trust

Learning to trust God

Learning to build trust with others

Lesson 12

A pure Heart

Clean hands

Seeing myself through eyes of love

Seeing others through eyes of love

Thinking it through

So think on these things...

Thankful for...
Love
loving
being loved
my best friend being my husband
my childrn being beautiful and wonderful to raise
friends who remain even in my absence
success of others
flowers in the garden
veggies germinating in the earth
Mercy and favor from God
Hair on my neck
light in my eyes
ring on my finger
roof overhead
food to feed us
grass to grow
a day off for the children
tools like this to refocus
tanacity to toward boundries
skills to hone
talents to offer
a home of my own
home to offer a santuary to those I love
that finger nails grow back

a cord of three strands not easily broken
ivig to save my bones for this lifetime
gentleness from my darling mate
computer to type on
grief that is healing
The memories of my sweet sister how in her dieing of such a rare thing I am given the gift of extended life.
She was the woman who three years into my recovery came forward asking forgiveness. She said that the things I remembered were true when all of the others denial all but drove me to suicide, she saved my sanity too.

I miss my sister she knew how to commiserate without correction or council just an empathetic ear. I had that joint friendship this week with a wonderful woman my very most intimate friend and it really refreshed my soul.

I think I am real sad, thankful for the gift of sorrow is healing.
I think I am angry and the gift of that anger is power.
I am much more powerful these last months
I am thankful for that.

It has been hard for me to hold fast to who I am and not let another rob it from me.
It feels as if sometimes I am bought. I do not like it! It feels like the old rescue/abusive/victim triangle thing. I am not willing to remain in this tangle this snag. If it were a bad friendship I would remove myself. In this with the details it is not the wise way to go. Too caring of this other to preserve myself.
How you can want something so much yet reality is that it is not different than how it is.

I am vulnerable with my sisters loss. Others remain removed and I am so trying to support, love and give opportunity to a soul to become new. Reality is that accepting others as they are will have a profound effect on how it effects us. Wisdom at times is to bite tongue and love through it. It is life sucking however.
I just treasure a hold on this little life left that I have fought so hard for.
I beome a fog, as it it were as I wished it were, the relationship. It is a madness for it is still yet the same as old for the ingrained triad is so hard to challenge with the love that it takes. With the courage that it takes
For if it is challenged the rescuer then becomes victim martyr. It is so infuriating!

I am thankful that it is for all of this that I endure.
yee haw here comes the holiday season.
I wish it were just the four of us. So much so, no other issues to master.
Kindness is a rule of this old heart that feels so worn of practicing it.

It is finished

"when will you know that you have given yourself a life?" she asked me .
This after telling her that it was my childhood goal to tell on them, to testify against the hidden things done in darkness. If I did not let them make me like them, I would give myself a life on day "i promised" this to my own soul.

After so many many years it has come the time. I see that it is time to accept that I have reached that goal.

When given the medication to stop the effects of the cortisol flush. That PTSD flight/fight response my psychiatrist told me that I should really consider if I ought to subject myself to any more EMDR. My very physical health was made at risk by keeping the stress hormone activated in the process of identifying the triggers to rid myself of the effect of them. It made me think long and hard about when I would stop and simply accept that there will be times when others would simply need to respect my boundries. That I will need to simply accept my limitations stemming from the PTSD triggers. To accept that I have given myself a life, and this is now time to be free to live it.

This only after many many years of a lot of really hard work. 
It is finished. My goal has been attained.
I am tired. It is finished.
Now I live.

I think I now know that I have given myself that life fought for. In the spring I will turn 50 years of age. I have fought for many years gaining back the life stolen from me to the best of my tenacious ability.

It is that now that I see that I have taken my power back!

I have my life gained! 

No longer to fight for anything grater than that I have so successfully attained. The world around me is just that. It can not be altered or changed. I can support those who walk this long road by declaring that Yes this will one day be finished

Many of you know my stand or jurney through the seasons of old when concerning this upcoming holiday.
For many many years my stand, my battle to tell the truth. Sound the bell, shout from the high places to pray for the children during the upcoming days. It has left my mind tormented with the memories of those days pass. Now no longer is it my bell to ring.

Now I let this to you. It will be no longer for me to be the clanging sound of arise and pray for the inocent who are harmed.

It is a season to pass that mantle on.

To you who understand this

Others must take that task so that I can no longer think on these things in order to attain the goal that is MY LIFE

That battle is not to flood my mind any longer.

I have told the truth, I have rung the bell now I pass that bell along to you who's duty it is to do so.

This will be the first year that I will no longer focus on the horror of this time of year.

I will rather be focusing on the pure and raise my family aware that we all can overcome.

I will example to all that I have overcome the world, the evil and naked violence that would remove the innocent as well as the vile.

I will celibrate the innocent and leave the vile to it's own devices.

I will yet pray and then let go for it is no longer for me to intercede when it takes me back to the very events that I fear happening to other children.

It is up to you and others who are able to pray without the effects of personal experience.