Tag: inner peace

Creating Inner Peace – Manipulation and Boundaries

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(Reminder – One reason I began with examples from childhood was to remind us that we already have some foundation for creating inner peace.)

What are some of examples from your own life of where you have learned to avoid being manipulated and to strengthen your boundaries?

My mother tried to inflict her fears on me, tried to make me responsible for how she felt, tried to make me feel guilty in order to manipulate me. She probably wasn’t so much conscious of this. She just worried a lot about things I felt were pretty silly, like being afraid of dogs. And her mother had instilled a lot of fears in her that she had readily accepted. I refused to live according to her fears and learned not to inflict my own fears on other people. It took me until high school, but I also learned not to let her inflict guilt on me for supposedly creating her feelings. Again, this probably wasn’t her conscious intent, but it’s how it came across to me and how I reacted. It came full circle when I was 45 and she was 85 and she wanted to live up a flight of stairs. I didn’t let the concerns of my brother and sister for her safety limit where she could live. I trusted her to know the capabilities of her own body and make her own decisions. It goes back to people being responsible for their own stuff, their own thoughts, beliefs and feelings. This goes right along with being responsible for our own actions. Also, setting and knowing our own boundaries. But not being so rigid with them that we behave like porcupines to other people. We can quietly maintain our boundaries without having to get in people’s faces about it. Even now, there our times I yell at my brother when he steps on one of my invisible boundaries and it simply doesn’t need to be handled that way.

Creating Inner Peace – More Than Two Sides – Mediator

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How are you at seeing more than two sides, seeing alternatives, seeing opportunities, seeing common ground?

A peace keeper sometimes plays the role of a mediator, helping people see more than two sides to a disagreement. I wanted to walk in harmony with people and my surroundings. I feel I’m here to learn how to express my individuality in harmony with the whole of God’s creation.

Example: Just in my childhood years I transitioned from fighting to walking away to mediating. I never have understood why some people like to pick fights. These were just normal kid fights, usually just words. But one time two of us bit each other. Our parents certainly had something to say about that one. I fought back in equal measure. If they quit, I’d quit. Finally, I learned to just walk away in the first place and simply refuse to engage. The worst thing we did to other people was hide in the trees and throw water balloons at passing cars. The parents put an end to that one, also.

In those days kids were expected to entertain themselves. We were sent out after breakfast and expected back for the evening meal. Of course, we usually showed up at someone’s house for lunch. Other than that, mostly no adults knew what we were up to, unless we got in trouble. And a lot of times we worked the trouble out ourselves so our parents wouldn’t find out. Based on some of our group games, I’ll say there were twelve kids in the neighborhood. Although, we were usually in groups of two or three. I started out to talk about harmony. When I wasn’t directly involved in the fighting, I was quite often the mediator. I felt if people looked at things from more than two sides, they could usually find some common ground. This came in handy when I was working as an adult and quite often placed myself in the role of mediator.

Creating Inner Peace – Acceptance of People’s Differences

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Are their divisive topics that you’ve been able to escape?

I was also taught to respect people having different beliefs. My Mom was Catholic, but she had many friends who were Greek Orthodox, Jewish, Protestant, Baptist, Mormon, Lutheran, etc. And my Dad seemed to accept people without religious beliefs as easily as those who did. So, early on I was taught diversity and tolerance. Which is pretty big when we consider that most wars are caused by intolerance. An entire topic for argument was never introduced into my life. Politics was another hot topic that my parents never engaged in divisive debates regarding. They were interested in it and discussed it, but didn’t argue or complain about political news items. Isn’t it great when we’re not taught to fight over them in the first place.

Creating Inner Peace – Many Cultures

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How diverse was your cultural upbringing? What other cultures have you been introduced to in times of fun and festivity?

Early on I was taught an appreciation for many cultures. Some group my Mom was associated with during my seventh Christmas decided to have an event sharing “Christmas Customs from Many Lands.” There’s a newspaper picture of six of us children dressed in costumes. I’m not sure why I was dressed as a Dutch girl, since my family’s background was German, Scotch, Irish, English. But Spain, Greece and Italy were also represented. Other cultural events during my childhood revolved around food and dance. There were Indian dances, Mexican festivals, a Greek food festival. Also, a cousin married into an Italian family. Lots of events occur in a huge Italian family.

Creating Inner Peace – Truths We Know in Our Own Hearts

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What has caused you to question the truths you know in your own heart?

My father, mother, sister and brother all trusted the pedophile to tell me bed time stories and put me to bed. In those days the threat of pedophilia wasn’t common knowledge and I don’t think it even occurred to them not to trust him. It’s very weird to have all the closest adults in your life tell you how wonderful this other adult is, whom you’re pretty sure is doing something he shouldn’t. But my feeble attempts to ask questions got nowhere. He was a trusted adult. What he was doing must be ok, even if it didn’t feel right. This was probably my first experience of questioning what I knew in my heart. My natural way of dealing with things was to put the topic in my mind on hold until I could know more. Sometimes this method can be quite wise. In this instance I, of course, didn’t know it sort of meant putting myself on hold for decades. Luckily, events occurred that reduced this man’s influence to every couple of years.

Creating Inner Peace – Feeling Good About Oneself

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When you look at your path through life, how do you feel about yourself? If you’d like to change your attitude towards yourself from what you grew up with, what can be an easy first step right now?

Unfortunately, on this planet there are numerous children who experience far worse than I did. I still maintain that it’s not so much what we experience as how we respond. And I don’t mean in the moment. I mean within ourselves over time. And I’m not suggesting any particular response to anyone. What helps a person reclaim a sense of well-being about themself is individual to each person. But I guess I do maintain that as far as cultivating inner peace is concerned, also feeling good about oneself is integral. Even as I say my peace, self-trust and sense of security were shattered; I walled off the emotions associated with this shattering, along with the memories of the various traumatic events. So, as I grew older, I wasn’t consciously aware of this loss. In the parts of myself that weren’t walled off with the trauma-induced feelings and memories; I was able to enjoy all the love and stability that my family and society afforded me. In one physical body there was sort of a parallel path of the child who grew to adulthood relatively normally and the abused child on hold waiting in the wings for healing. So, I didn’t grow up thinking of myself as abused. I grew up thinking of myself as well-loved, capable and normal.

Creating Inner Peace – Regardless of outer events

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How have you created peace within yourself beyond the traumas you have endured?

It was a year earlier at age 4 that a pedophile gained regular access to me. So, it was early in life that my peace, self-trust and sense of security were shattered. It took me more than a year to decide whether to include in this book this information and the cult abuse that follows, but I think it’s important to say that we choose inner peace regardless of outer events in our lives and their devastating effects. Even if it takes decades before we’re able to make that choice. We have so many stories of people who have shown that they are more than their circumstances. It’s a little funny that we seem to make these people sound special. Yet, every one of us on a daily basis demonstrate that we are so much more than any circumstance or set of events. We tell lots of hero stories, but there are so many real-life heroes around the world every day that we couldn’t even tell all the stories. And still so many people don’t seem to recognize this as a fact

Creating Inner Peace – Communication with others

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What gifts toward communication do you have?

Being able to communicate easily with other people can be used as a tool towards creating peace with others, as well as ourself. My mother gave me a huge gift by addressing my hearing problems early. She showed some independence, but she was mostly fiercely determined. A trait I sometimes wish I did have a little more of. She took me to a community center when I was five years old. When she came to pick me up, I was crying uncontrollably. The other children had made fun of me because they couldn’t understand my speaking. I had a partial hearing loss and couldn’t hear the sounds of speech correctly to imitate them. My mom attributed her belief that she was unintelligent (dumb in that way) to her partial hearing loss. She was determined that in this way I was definitely not going to be like her. She found a speech therapist and a piano teacher, even though both usually required the child to be seven. She was not about to wait until I was already in second grade. My hearing improved from 25% capable to 75% in one ear and from 50% capable to 100% in the other ear. This gift my mother gave me was huge. She took away a potential source of ridicule and gave me the ability to communicate with people. Since the abuse from the pedophile would cut me off from people in the way of having to always keep a secret; I’m glad I wasn’t cut off from people in this way. I’d never actually be “popular,” but I was and am well-liked and readily accepted.

Creating Inner Peace – Enjoying simple pleasures

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What helps you relax and have fun?

Examples: Enjoying simple pleasures adds to my peace regarding life in general. My dad enjoyed barbecuing and family barbecues. He enjoyed being outdoors. We’d sit out many nights and look at the stars, watch the clouds, and listen to him play the harmonica. He was a square dance caller at a time when western dances were family affairs. I loved the full twirling colorful skirts. We went on several horseback rides. He also took us camping and to various state and national parks. He enjoyed fishing, but I enjoyed swimming. Even when I was very careful not to splash, I’m sure I still scared the fish away. But he endured it. We eventually balanced out separate times for fishing and swimming. He would even take me water skiing when I was older. It was a great foundation for just plain having fun and resting and relaxing. I have some friends who simply are unable to just sit and relax. They always want to be accomplishing something and can come up with very involved projects to keep them busy. Which I guess is fine too, but I’d far rather enjoy a scenic drive. My dear mother thought a cup of good hot tea could cure anything and who am I to say different. Opening a fresh packet of Earl Grey and smelling the bergamot is certainly one of my delights in life.

Creating Inner Peace – Tools from Parents

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What did your parents give you that might contribute towards creating inner peace?

Examples: My father gave me acceptance of people at face value, respect for self and others, kindness, knowledge of the mechanics of house-hold equipment and figuring things out on my own. And also, a love for the outdoors. The tools for peace in this are accepting and respecting other people, as well as myself; being kind to animals, others and myself; being able to fix things that break; an interest in crafts and my beloved outdoors. All stress melts from my shoulders in a forest. My mom gave me the desire and ability to be my own person and an appreciation of harmony. My mom was a dichotomy (a blending of opposites) in almost all her attitudes. And she gave me the gift of being able to see the extremes in arguments, political positions, religious stances, health issues, economic squabbles, differing patriotism definitions, whatever is used to divide people; and so not feed into either “side.” She taught me to look for where the middle ground lies and sometimes to just blend it all together or look beyond all of it. She was a fascinating, playful and fun-loving woman; who never met a stranger and treated all people the same. She took a Greek Orthodox patriarch to the car wash one time, because she didn’t get a chance to wash the car before she picked him up at the airport.