Kathleen McDowell

Bitterness: Part III

Posted on February 1, 2016 by Kathleen McDowell

Bitterness and resentments reside in two place: our brain and in our heart. It takes up a lot of space that it does not leave room for us to love or to let others in to love us. We are so wounded that we cannot even consider the thought of someone else taking up residence in these places. We carry around those persons who have deeply hurt us. They are living in us without paying any rent or offering us anything more than looking back, being held hostage in the past. We can base our current and future views of life based on that template of immense pain. Those folks hang on us like balls and chains, keeping us stuck in the past, stuck in the pain and stuck in the story, our history.

We can define ourselves based on this pain and our past, keeping this bitterness and resentments alive. For as much as we can close our hearts up to keep people out, we bemoan how no one can love us, wants to be around us, we have no friends. We are miserable and then we wonder why.

When there is a trigger, people can go off on a rant mostly tinged with how it isn’t fair that someone else has caught more breaks than they have, that we had it much easier than someone else. Often it will go in the direction of something outside of what has occurred in our own lives. It can be easy to be hijacked when it continues to feed the bitterness and resentment like traveling around and around on the hamster wheel or the roller coaster.

It seems the older we get, the bitterness and resentments can age us even more as we hold on with tenacity and righteousness. Why are we holding onto that? Where has it gotten us? If we let go of it, does it mean the abusers have won, that what they did did not matter; that WE do not matter? It is a way to keep score.

We have carried this around for so many years that it is a part of our daily living. How would we decide who we are without that pain? Who would we be without those defining childhood injuries?

When we hold onto to those, we are actually strapping those painful people around with us carrying them with us everywhere every day. How much energy does that take? They suck the energy right out of us so we have too little to use to move our lives forward into the present and even the future. They take up so much space in our brains to think of new dreams and possibilities. It stays in our hearts keeping them TOO SMALL (Grinch-like) to care about anyone else or even caring about ourselves.

We do get to decide how much of our time, space, energy, money, wishful thinking that the past will be different if we complain and go back often enough. It does not change. By continuing to hold on bitterness and resentments gives the abusers and others who have hurt us our power, sapping our ability to move forward. Holding on to that does not punish them; it punishes us.

You can decide how much longer are you putting your life on hold while others live theirs.

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Part II: Bitterness

Posted on January 28, 2016January 27, 2016 by Kathleen McDowell

Wearing the bitterness and resentments can look like a way to get back at the person(s) who hurt us. I will show THEM how they messed up my life, how deep those wounds are that forever altered my life into the pits of hell. “I will show YOU how much I am hurting!! How irrelevant I feel; thrown away like disgusting garbage.” These are conflicting situations. What we may prefer is for the hurter to look back and see the swath of damage they left behind them and then realize the amount of destruction they did and eventually apologize or even make amends so WE can feel whole again.

I think that these abusers have so much pain in their own lives they cannot see or even acknowledge that, or even do not know where to go to find their own healing. So they will look to fill those empty spaces in their lives along with their own bitterness, resentments, pain, irrelevance by hurting other people. They might even turn that pain inward at times by abusing/using drugs and alcohol to management those painful feelings.

NOTE that I am NOT making a case for what they did as a justification for their behaviors. We are all responsible for how we feel and what we do with those feelings and corresponding behaviors. We have free will.

I continued those hurtful behaviors to myself for a long time including emotionally, physically, financially, spiritually and mentally figuring if I continue to recreate the same history, my father would finally see what a mess my life was. I continued to eat that lye with my breakfast. Each day was another day filled with pain, greater resentments, bitterness and more misery. I was stuck in a roller coaster prison and I kept tossing the keys to get out to escape.

It is like a tornado who touches down leaving a swath of destruction then when the tornado leaves. The mess seems so widespread, overwhelming, insurmountable and a lonely road we wonder where do we begin to pick up the pieces to reclaim and reorder our lives?

When I was 22, I had a lucid dream about my father. He was in his kitchen making his cup of morning coffee. He had the teakettle on. I saw him scoop his instant coffee in the cup, pour the boiling water, stir the coffee. Turn around to the refrigerator to grab the milk. Pour the milk into his coffee. Return the milk back to the refrigerator. Stir again. Pick up the cup and walked into the living room. With that, I came to the realization that he had absolutely no clue how he destroyed my life. I saw that all that self-abuse was only continuing to punish me, not him. Not anyone else. It was at that moment I declared that I was going to get on with my life NO MATTER WHAT! Was it an easy transition? No. It was an evolution. Each day forward, I tried to turn that destructive energy into something that moved my life forward. I still had the pain. I began to free myself from that prison where I left the door keys in the hands and choices of the abuser. I took the keys back and no longer depended on my father’s apology and acknowledgement of that inflicted pain. Somehow I knew that waiting for that would continue that pattern of being in prison, for him to use my keys to get me out.

My first marriage was very rocky (another re-creation of the past?). As the addiction progressed, I was told that the recovery could take 4 to 5 times for him to get it. I saw myself at 90 sitting on the porch with him in rocking chairs, still using. I wondered who I would be more angry with, him for not getting it or me for waiting for him. Again, it was another opportunity for me to continue to getting on with my life no matter what.

We get opportunities to move forward with our lives. Helping hands have been extended. I understand it is a big stretch to let go of the past stepping out of that seemingly comfortable prison of ours, even if it is an inch at a time, to reach across for something else, something more colorful and eventual joy at living. It takes more courage to do that then staying in prison.

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Resentment with a side of lye for breakfast: Part I

Posted on January 27, 2016 by Kathleen McDowell

When we carry resentments, it can turn into bitterness. That bitterness of what happened to us hurts us. Several years ago, I have not spoken to someone in over 25 years. This person looked beaten down by life. What happens to us when we continue to swallow and stuff down that bitterness of how life turned out; life wasn’t fair and has dealt us a pitiful hand. And we hold onto that poorly dealt hand, hoping and wishing that we could toss the cards and have another hand dealt. We actually can have another hand dealt when we are willing to let go what we initially got.

With that bitterness comes righteousness, of wearing a badge of honor in being wronged. It becomes a big part of our story that continually defines us based on past events. We are that story and we show it to the world. Maybe we can garner enough sympathy, that “poor me” comments that acknowledge that deep pain that keeps us right in place of when the traumatic events occurred.

Our internalized pain was inflicted on us when we could not even figure out what the feelings are and maybe we have been ignored by the hurters/abusers, even around others who we believed should have protected us. Having nowhere else to put those painful and scary events, we internalized them. Sometimes burying them in the dark, keeping them secret, they fester and roil into every cell of our body. It is taking up all the spaces within us where joy and living can live. No room for that. Keeping that kind of bitterness keeps in a prison of our own making. Each painful event creates stronger bars in prison cell. This has been inside us for so long, it has become a big part of our landscape.

Have you been on a rant or listened to someone else on a rant about how their life turned out? Pain layered with more pain. We can end up on that hamster wheel, going round and round until we get so exhausted, we fall off, or the person listening will fall over from hearing all of that. After the ranting, what has changed? It can look like going on that is a way to recharge that internalized pain, to keep it going and reinforcing that prison. Maybe we hang on because we believe we won’t remember if we let it go?

Keeping that story alive everyday keeps us stuck from living a broader and more expanded life. It keeps us from becoming more than the story. It keeps us from finding out that there is more to us to be discovered, nurtured, growing into freedom from those chains that are tethered to the prison walls.

Holding onto the bitterness is like having lye for breakfast. That poison eats US up on the inside and rarely does it matter to the ones who hurt us. When we believe we are punishing them, we are really punishing ourselves. Their lives move on regardless of the path of destruction they leave behind.

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Feed me!! Feed me?

Posted on January 19, 2016 by Kathleen McDowell

How often are you too pooped to do anything? How often are you supporting someone else? Do you see a connection between feeding someone else your energy versus feeding yourself? It can seem so effortless to do for others. We are disconnected from tuning into our bodies when we finally hit bottom and just cannot muster up enough oomph to do other things on our lengthy to-do list. Or we end up getting sick to take “forced” time for ourselves. Being in or from abusive situations, we can dissociate away our feelings, our own wants and needs, putting others before us. Being in the state of survival, we often defer our wants and needs to the abuser and the abusive situation so we learn that we are NOT important.

I see this as an internal gas gauge. After driving my car for a long while, eventually that “feed me” sign comes on…and stays on until I stop to fill up my tank again. So it goes for my internal needs. If I continue driving my car with the feed me light on, I will run out of gas and be stranded on the highway until AAA or Highway Helper comes along to put a gallon in to get to the gas station. Ignoring that inner light can also have some consequences. We learn about getting help from others from running out of “gas.”

The “feed

me!” can be someone like from the Little Shop of Horrors, that person-eating flower or it can be us asking “feed me?” Some people and even some tasks can feel like it drains our tank dry, even the energy we can have in reserve. By using the concept of a gas gauge, we can regain being in charge of how much energy we have for others and how much we need for ourselves. Are you with people who feed you or with some who drain your energy? For instance, what if today you have things to do today that are important to get done. How full is your gas/energy gauge show? Do you have enough energy to do that? If you give someone your energy, will you have enough to do what you wanted to accomplish today?

By using the gas gauge concept as an energy gauge, we can decide how much to give/share and how much we will need in reserve for us. Sometimes we can offer a half tank for others while keeping the other half for ourselves. Maybe it will be a half gallon as we need the rest to get to our destination. The important aspect to embrace is WE GET TO CHOOSE HOW MUCH to give and how much to keep.

It is interesting how when it comes to money, we actually know how much we have to give and how much to keep. If we don’t have money to give, we just do not have it. We can look at our bank accounts to know that. We can look at the money and if we give funds to someone and it will leave us short to pay the rent or the mortgage, we will probably not lend it. We could end up scrambling to pull the money together to keep a roof over our heads and the heat and power on. Something as intangible as emotional energy doesn’t seem so finite and figuring this out is a challenge.

It takes practice to pay attention to our feelings, of how much energy we have to take care of ourselves and taking care of others. Watch your gauge and decide. Be in charge of this. It is NOT a selfish thing to do. Even on the airplane, they tell you to put the oxygen mask on first. When you can take charge of the energy, sharing or keeping, you can be a better friend and a better support person.

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Laughter is great medicine

Posted on January 4, 2016January 3, 2016 by Kathleen McDowell

A week ago, a few people from group met for dinner. It was an opportunity to continue the support while it was on hiatus for a couple of weeks. What I noticed is that in the midst of our healing struggles, we do not make the time or even allow space to laugh. Whether it is at the absurdities of daily living or at ourselves as we work through what life had handed us.

We laughed and laughed while acknowledging the growth and changes midst the recovery. Our seriousness can get in the way of humor. We can become sour and droll people. Now, I do not find physical humor funny. The pratfalls, pie in the face doesn’t tickle my funny bone. However, give me cerebral humor, a bon mot, a witty response, a good joke that cracks me up. Even improvisation can be funny to me. Of course the daily world can offer a lot of chances to laugh.

One of my favorites is one my son told me (when he was little) and I still crack up every time: What did the zero say to the eight? Nice belt. (For those who do not get it, here is a visual: 0 – 8)

When was the last time you had a good belly laugh and how it felt? When I remember it, I felt a lot lighter. My son can be really funny. He began to develop his sense of humor at age 9. It has helped him through some challenges through school.

Laughter Medicine Sometimes at work I see ridiculous situations. Smiling and laughing is free with no adverse side effects. So to add to our New Year’s Evolution, how about laughing just for laughing. In the space of my car, I will just start laughing, even if it just for laughing sake.

So what is funny to you that help creates laughter?

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New Year’s Resolutions?

Posted on January 3, 2016 by Kathleen McDowell

It is the new year. New beginnings. New opportunities. Leaving the past in the past. Deciding what to give up, do less of, shuck old belief systems.

What if the resolution turned into make 2016 about a REVOLUTION? Taking charge of our own pursuit of freedom? Freedom from want, freedom from financial struggles, freedom from being stuck in the story, freedom from being stuck in the daily grind of surviving and fearing the next shoe flying at our head?

After doing some more free thinking, what if it morphed into EVOLUTION, the natural progression of change. We do not need for forget our foundation and formation. These are the opportunities to learn not only who we are (which can be based on what we conformed to others wishes), it offers many opportunities to discern what is important for us and what is not. Remember there are NO mistakes in life, just learning opportunities to figure out what works and what does not. These are jumping off points to move and leap into shaping and becoming more like what is in our hearts, minds and souls. What we came here to do. Unleashing and motivating that passion that has long been simmering with an occasional boiling over.

So this year, this brand new shiny year, 2016, I decided my evolution is to ask the question: is what I am eating, doing, holding onto, letting go of, adding anything of value to my life? It isn’t about doing less, it is about doing more. By doing more, I can replace the old stuff that hinders me from going forth. Kinda difficult to step on the gas while stepping on the brakes.

The other one is to IGNORE IGNORE IGNORE those people who say with a resigned voice, “It MUST be nice…” Really, it is. And really? I have found that when people say that, they likely have not seen the work, the taking chances, the getting off the comfortable couch and going outside as well as the courage and determination to create a different outcome, the energy expended to make it work. Moving out of that survival space into really truly living. Feel free to adopt that one, too. calvin-hobbes-new-years-resolutions

Don’t keep your aspirations secret. Share them with a few kindred others who will help you be more accountable while cheering you on with the successes and supporting you when you stumble. Just imagine who you are today and who you will be at the end of 2016. Last January, my girlfriends and I talked that who we were that January 1 will look nothing like who we will be on December 31. And we are not those same people. Today when we had breakfast, the same comment was made. We cannot even recall who we were back then. How cool is it to take greater responsibility for our growth through all facets: mental, physical, emotional, spiritual and financial.

May it be so for you. There are many out there pulling for you, too. Embrace the support from those who lift you up, add to your life. Here is to change!!

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The Pain of Others

Posted on December 30, 2015January 1, 2016 by Kathleen McDowell

Little old memory vignettes have been popping up. I have been wondering how come I get treated poorly by some people and saw a vision of my father. He was dusting off his hands while tossing me in the shit pile after I was hurt by him. Because it started at such a young age, It has been embedded deeply at the base memory. Funny how we can take responsibility things or even believe that we instigated that happening to us. Carrying around that heavy burden saps our energy and skews our view of others who “bully” us; those meanies. We can cower and pull ourselves into a tiny ball, hoping it slides off of us. We continue to deflect those barbed words and arrows. It puts us right back into survival mode,

When I can step back to see that it was also a coping mechanism for my father (and mother among others) to transfer how they probably felt about themselves as a way to live with themselves and their painful actions. That imbalance of power structure. You know, might makes fright. Maybe the key is for me to stand up for myself (and that wounded little girl). Enough. Stop. It is rude.

When the student is ready, the teachers appear. It can be that those thorny people are presenting themselves to me so I can take this opportunity to heal and resolve this old festering pain. As I continue to work through this part of my life, I am working on expressing compassion to someone who was so obviously in pain, transferring that pain to me and blaming me for it. Certainly not an easy and smooth road to travel to get to the healing. It does not come with a GPS or road map. It is a start.

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Holiday Blues

Posted on December 22, 2015 by Kathleen McDowell

Even though the holiday commercials evoke the best time of the year, the happiest time of the year, there are a number of us who find it quite challenging and struggle with depression. Depression could be because there is less sunshine and the days are shorter, dark nights are longer. There are those expectations we put on ourselves to find the perfect gift, the perfect party, bake those cookies and make the Yuletide gay for others along with keeping the house very tidy for company. Then there are stre

sses we take on from others to meet their expectations. Plus, trying to capture and incorporate the many family traditions which is compounded when two or more families are involved. Those commercials show happy people, all those toys, gadgets and jewelry, even those fancy cars, to buy to make someone else happy. If you already have depression, imagine how much deeper the depression when those holiday bills arrive in your mailbox in January!

Those of us who have experienced abuse in our families have memories that carry through to today’s holidays. Considering how poor we were growing up, I can see that my parents did the best that they could. For as many Christmases I can recall, we had the usual. We would put up the tree and hung up our socks, full of anticipation. Each Christmas morning, in our socks, we would have an apple, orange, big peppermint stick, ribbon candy and some nuts. I think we would write up our Christmas lists. When I was 12, we went through the traditions with anticipation. On Christmas Eve that year, my mother brought out the presents sent by our grandma and said this is all we were getting this year. Do we want to open them now or wait until Christmas morning. I think we believed our mother was joking so we opened them. We each received quilted housecoats which was needed as our drafty old house was often chilly. Our father, an over-the-road truck driver, was not home that year for Christmas.

We got up the next morning, hopeful, to find there was nothing in our socks or under the tree. I felt crushed. No explanation was given and we did not talk about it either that I can recall. In later years, I wondered why my mother wouldn’t make the effort for something, some little things. Life rolled on to the next year and Christmas came around again. Presents were spilled out from under the tree to cover about a third of the living room floor space. I dubbed that year the guilty glut Christmas. As an adult, I wondered how much of the gifts were more about them than about us as what saw as a 13-year-old was a lot of stuff. Those two Christmases changed my view of the holidays. I saw that a lot of stuff does not fill me up inside. Having a lot of gifts to open is different than receiving gifts that reflect my wishes and needs and the thoughtfulness put into them.

After my son was born, I decided that I was going to do the holidays for him so he will have more pleasant memories even when I wanted to skip them. When he was four, he had been blessed with many people who got him presents. After the last box was ripped open, he looked at me and ask where were the rest of the presents. That struck a very sore spot with me. The next year, I implemented the ten gift rule. He wrote down or cut out pictures for his Christmas list. I asked him choose ten gifts from varying prices that he truly wanted. The important lesson was to be more mindful of what truly is more meaningful. How often do we get things only to re-gift, get tossed in the toy box, not played with or broken, or become so bored and cast off. In our family today, we still use this as a guideline. I also decided we can sleep in instead of getting up at the crack of dawn. As I stayed in bed longer, I allowed my son to go through his stocking right away. We had breakfast then opened presents. We do the one-at-a-time so we can each ooh and aah. Because Christmas day was just us two, we would pick a movie and then had dinner when we came home. It was our special time.

Isn’t it interesting how impactful past events still shape our views and decisions about today. Doing for others gives me more joy. The holidays have become more of a spiritual experience for me. As painful as it was growing up, those two Christmases really changed my views about the holidays which I find was a positive one. It provided greater meaning for the holidays for me and added to my spiritual growth.

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Stepping Out…

Posted on December 9, 2015December 8, 2015 by Kathleen McDowell

Wistful regrets, bigger resentments

How often have you wanted to do something, something that may seem a little wild, a bigger adventure, changing careers to embrace passion? Have you carried around a postponed dream? A secret wish? What has held you back? held-back

Was it fear, the what-ifs? Is it someone else who took a sledge hammer to your dream calling it stupid, selfish, realistic? What if you fail? Where are you getting the money for that? Foolishness to spend that kind of money. You should be responsible. Maybe when you retire. Maybe in a few years. You will be shirking your responsibilities to the others.

Do we have regrets when we shoulda, woulda, coulda? Several months ago, I talked with a man about his regret. After graduating from college, he wanted to take a year off and be a ski bum. The push-back about having to be responsible, get a real job, stopped him from going for it. Now, he is using a cane to get around so that year of skiing is likely just a dream.

My son had always wanted to see the world. He saved money and took three months to backpack around Europe. About 30 countries in 90 days, sort of a taste test. (It would have likely been longer but the European rule is you can be in the European Union area for three months within a six month period.) When I share with some people about his big adventure (going by himself),some were excited about him doing this, his courage to go forth. I get some snarky remarks about how he got the money to do this; those “it must be nice” retorts. For the latter, I wonder if that is a reaction for their own postponed or unrealized dreams.

When my son was formulating this adventure, I told him a story about a family member who wanted to go back to college. That person experienced pushback for wanting to do this. When we talked, I said if you did not do this, not only will you regret it, you will resent your family. So go do it. I urged my son to do this. In a lot of ways, the younger generation has a lot more courage to go out into the world to find out where they fit in. Instead of living in the same old place doing the same old things, getting out of their comfort zones seems to give them more options and opportunities.

Over ten years ago, I had the opportunity to travel overseas with my mother-in-law. I was so terrified to fly over the ocean. The shift happened when I decided the opportunity to see and experience something I had wished for became greater than my fear. I decided if I can fly over the Atlantic, I can do anything. We have to travel through our fears to get there whether to foreign lands or new and uncertain opportunities. Now I LOVE it over there. I would not know that if I had just parked in my chair, arms crossed.

When we are seemingly held back by other people’s opinions, how deep and wide are those resentments? How big do they grow because we are afraid of their judgments, the backlash and their own projected fears? leap of faith

Could it be that when we take those leaps of faith, they are resentful that we did and they are not able to cross over to realizing their own dreams?

For the new year, resolve to embrace something you have wanted to do and do it. Even if baby steps. Let this new year be one of less resentments, more excitement and adventure. I know it is time for me to step out.

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Tis the Season To Be Grateful

Posted on December 8, 2015 by Kathleen McDowell

Another Thanksgiving has gone by and if you were sitting at table with friends and family, the question arises: Share what you are grateful for this year. It is the usual friends, family, job, spouse/partner, and other usual things.

This year, I posed the questions of what was the highlight of your year. that may be more fun and allows more interesting conversations.

The week before Thanksgiving this year, I was pondering about how we can be grateful for the times when an event seems to be so difficult, those dark times we faced. What can we be grateful for in these challenges happen. We do not always know why those obstacles come up. What about a job loss, a relationship break-up, a dear friend who has moved on, facing a health challenge or whatever you want to add to your list. Maybe some things that happen won’t have a silver lining. Regardless, any form of loss requires a grieving period, some shorter, some longer. I think it can depend on the length of investment and how close the connection.

My experience with job loss has been mixed. After its closure, I can look back to see that position has run its course and it is propelling me to move on to some place else that can be more fulfilling or even offer another avenue to work on my consulting business, my passion. When there are delays to something, I would (and still do) get frustrated. Though looking back, it usually is for the better. In my mind, when something is not happening in my defined time line, I try to see it as the components have not been lined up, the road made straighter. Universe can see the bigger picture; I do not. I do not always understand the whys. Yet, when it comes to fruition, it is often better than I can imagine. If it does not work out, it means to me that something better is coming.

A person at work had a job shift. It was difficult and I would walk by and mentioned that this can work out better than you can imagine. He says he is happier and has much less aggravation and stress. Some things are personal, most are not. I remind myself about that even though I can slide into that “why me!” stance. What is so wrong with me that this stuff is happening. When can I get a hand up, an opportunity, a gift, a breather. Maybe when I am feeling so stuck, what needs to change is my mind about it. Maybe it is not an external thing, it is more about what is going on inside of me.

In the tenth chapter of my book, “Ten Workplace Strategies for adult survivors of child sexual abuse” (lulu.com), I discuss choices. When we check the facts and make decisions that are based on the highest good for me and even my family, I will feel that I am in charge of my direction, at least to some degree. Other times, these events can be used to push me out of my comfort zone, to do something that is better for me instead of settling. That settling can give false security.

The new year coming up right around the corner is noted as being a Quantum New Year, to take that Leap. 2016 is a Leap Year, so let us take it. When some time has passed, look at those “disappointments” to see if you can find something good out of it. Looking in the rear view mirror can offer us ways to chart a different path. When I was divorced, it was an incredibly difficult time. As time passed and healing, I was able to be grateful because X showed me what I did not want in a relationship, and it helped shape what I DO want and need. These challenging times can offer us clarity in what we do not want and

There-is-always-something-to-be-grateful-for

help us to hone what we do want and prefer.

Finding the “good” in what happens gives it just that much more meaning and worthiness for the lessons we encounter. That is empowering.