Some early morning thoughts!
We are programmed to be dissatisfied with ‘just being ourselves’. Resting in the simplicity of our own naturalness is not allowed. We are conditioned to become something ‘better’.
Our schools promote this with the grading system! I remember getting smiling faces for ‘good’ creative work or a frowning face (drawn on my papers) for what the teacher considered ‘bad’ creative work. I also remember comparing myself to my siblings, who were all older and ‘better’ than me. Then, of course, the teenage years are filled with comparisons! The gorgeous, blond, cheerleader who seemed to shine as she walked by…guys lapping at her heels, only exacerbated my own feelings of inadequacy.
To rest in ones own naturalness is wisdom. As one thinker suggested, and I must paraphrase, “The wise woman is most similar to herself”.
It takes a certain loving, watchfulness to undo the years of conditioning. In our middle years, and beyond, we have a wonderful opportunity to relax into a more natural way of being.
I’m convinced that, at our core, we are sweet! 
Our learned behavior, the outer shell, has been developed for protection. Only now, when the facade is no longer needed, can we ‘just be’. How cool is that?!
thank you so much Lisa, that helps a lot. I know he tried to blame me for so much stuff, but like I told all of his family and mine none of that added up to a divorce. I do realize it's his needs, it just hurts so bad to think how many years he's
How funny....i only very recently (within last week) read the coconut oil articles on the web. (100 uses, 80 uses etc.) so i bouht some and ordered some from amazon. (Im a stockpiler.)
Have started trying some of the uses. I tried using it a
Morning Evie, This is so good for today. Why are our girls and grown females not satisfied, they are watching us, no!…the best attitude we can give our daughters, is being pleased with ourselves…TRACK
Hi Track! You are always such a dear! You are totally right…we set the examples for our daughters (in my case, my daughter in law!). The more we can relax, into our naturalness…I can’t think of a better way to put it, then the more they will realize it’s okay to be real close to ‘just who they are’! No pretense! Oh, how we compare ourselves and emulate others. Ah well, it takes some loving care to forgive ourselves and say, “It’s okay, just being little ol’ me’ (warts and all!).
In our ‘older years’ we have this opportunity ‘to see’, let our hair down and just be. Ahhh, yes!
Jazzy pic…TRACK
Thank you! <3
Love the new picture. Haircut?
Hey, watermusic,
No new haircut, my dear! I have so few, close up and clear, photos, so I chose this one of two years ago! My hair stylist had me more blond and shorter, back then!
I’m just getting around to re-sizing photos for downloading, so…I will post a more recent one, soon! ;)
Morning Evie,
Have to run off so I’ll be thinking of this and respond when I have more time. Great thinking as usual. Acceptance.
Hugs…be careful, while running about!
Now if I could just stop looking at myself in every mirror I pass and being critical every time…..
Ha ha, cute! I have too many mirrors, as well!! Mirror, mirror, on the wall…who in the___ is that old lady!! Lol
Right, I am the queen of discontent…..
I love what you wrote here Evie. We grow up thinking we need to fit into this ideal of what “someone else” thinks is the norm. More and more I hear people talking about being themselves. It seems like your message is getting through and taking hold. And that is so cool!!!!
Yes, dynamomma,
It is so very cool that people are seeing how their ‘souls’ are being stolen by not being close to themselves. We lose our naturalness in this fast paced, advertisement-movie/TV-filled, existence we are exposed to (every hour of every day in many homes)!! The insincerity of the ‘sit-com’ mentality must not win, folks! Kudos to those who ‘see’ what is happening!
Thank you for being ‘out there’ dyna!
Comparing is to be avoided – it is comparing apples to oranges in that we are comparing our insides with someone else’s outside.
Very well put, Lisa!
Your recent post inspired me this morning and I wanted to share more thoughts on this subject! Thank you!!!
Finding out – and becoming – just who I am without trying to meet everyone else’s expectations has been the biggest joy of my life. I finally began that trek at about age 40 and enjoy myself – the good, the bad and the ugly – just as I am!
I so want to get there…..
I think the bigger issues for me were acceptance, growth and attitude. Just because I accept the ugly, doesn’t mean I want to keep it, but accept that as who I am right now. For me, it took counseling to understand why I remained in an abusive marriage, growing instead of living with regrets, and an “I don’t give a *$&# attitude” toward those who preferred to mold me into their image.
This may sound silly to some, but feel free to try it: look directly into your own eyes in a mirror and talk to yourself about who you are and where you want to go. I still have face to mirror talks on occasion!
Interesting thought, the mirror talk…..
Sunblossom,
We should start a “Mirror, mirror, on the wall…” club! Lol
Fantastic!!!! Do you give lesson??
It’s self-taught. Mirror, mirror on the wall … who is the brightest woman of all?
Evie, question for you in the cat thread ;^)
Hey Evie…here’s where I am today, at 4:00 p.m. sitting at my desk….I guess I am just feeling frustrated today about my weight, my self-image etc. Especially when the weather is warm, I would love to go sleeveless and free….put a bathing suit on if I want and jump in the water….right now that would only happen if I was on a deserted island in the pitch black…. When I have a few days off and am rested, I can sit myself down and say, ok this is what you have to do to get to where you want to be…then real life rears itself up, and I am weary and tired at the end of the day and don’t care what I eat, and am not motivated to exercise….I want to keep my enthusiasm up, but it just seems to get up and go..just a vent I guess…..
Hello Sunblossom, little sweet one!
I sooo hear you!I’m here with you at 4:15 and it is hotter than blue blazes! I just came in, huffing and puffing, from doing some errands! South Georgia is just about the LAST place you want to be in the summer!
I know, the sleeveless, carefree, fun in the sun days are over, or seem to be, for many of us older ladies. and yet, inside, we often feel eighteen! I totally get what you mean by the “deserted island in pitch black”! Not even natives could be there, right?! Lol
I have those little talks with myself, too…tomorrow, tomorrow!! Ugh Real life does seem to take its toll on us, psychologically, then physically.
Hey, you know what, Sun, we must be doing something right cuz we both have ‘mostly’ great guys who love us. Right?! Sometimes, my guy walks in after I’ve washed my hair, mascara running, a real freak show, and he seems oblivious to the sight! I do keep my ‘rolls’ pretty covered up, though! Lol!!
If you ever want to start a weight loss plan, through PM ing., I’m willing. I don’t know if it would do a darn bit of good. I DO KNOW I have little willpower to diet. I’ve just started exercising again…wears me out! Facing chores after a workout is a big Ugh!
Well, once again, totally get the ‘weight thing’. Oddly enough, I don’t tie it to my self image that much…in the sense that I condemn myself in anyway. My family has ‘chubby genes’ from the 1600′s! Ha!
Right on the genes…..I so did not want my grandmothers arms……let me think about how to do the weight loss thing…part of my problem…my great guy owns a restaurant, so we eat there every night…now I can tell the cook to fix my stuff whatever way works, but mmmmmm sometimes I smell the goodies and cave in…..plus some of my recipies are on the menu!!!! Yes, we have great guys, I wonder some times if that is part of my complacency…..I just want to look good in my daughter’s wedding pics next May (the ex married someone skinny…doesn’t that just figure!?…oh well, I’m nicer….)
I had a response all written and the electricity went out, my laptop battery went out and I lost everything! I’ve been in the dark for awhile. Geesh
Us too….heat wave catches up…
Hey, Sunblossom, I have more to say, but have to take my new kitten for her shots. See you later! xo’s
Hi Sunblossom,
I’ve been wanting to get back to you on this! It has been very busy since the lights went out! lol
I cannot imagine having great cooking going on all the time and all I hard to do was sit down and eat! OMG How had that must be!!! And your own recipes!!! Yikes! I would weigh 800 #s!!
An ex with a skinny new wife has to be the worst! I KNOW you are nicer and that is what really counts!!! Well, maybe losing just a few pounds, and a new outfit?
I wear flowing black slacks, silky tops, 2 inch wedge heels, light jewelry, pretty rings, (as my uniform) get my nails done, hair highlighted, decent teeth :0, and smell good!! Lol These are my ways of coping with age and the extra weight. I’m not a knock out, but get by okay.
Men in their 80′s often take a second look! Lol
My husband is a coach/trainer and is with gorgeous, younger women all the time. There are beautiful women everywhere and I guess it will always be that way. Oh well…
Hey, let’s do lose weight together! Let’s be ten pounds lighter by August…it will make a difference! How hard can it be??
Sorry I just saw this today…..I’m on board for the first 10 lbs….by August 11 a month from today? I don’t think it is as hard as I make it sometimes….it is all about choices…and journaling….and small changes at a time….
Very well put! This is it! Exactly what I’ve been thinking, but not in quite this way. The conditioning thing. And how we need to “go against the grain” and be what we were meant to be. And our learned behavior being our outer shell….how we survived and protected ourselves. I remember always feeling inferior. All my life. Especially at home and school. I longed to be one of the popular girls. I longed to be accepted by my mother. I longed for everything I wasn’t.
Now I want to accept everything about myself. It’s exhausting trying to live up to someone else’s expectations. You leave your true self behind. And then one day you have no idea what your true self is. Who am I? What do I believe in? I was always told what to believe. What are my tastes? What are my values? Am I conservative, liberal? What is my opinion? What do I think about current events? How do I feel about hot topics? It goes on and on. And I believe it’s a process figuring all this stuff out. But it’s so satisfying realizing how you really feel and the rest of the world be damned!
Good morning Evie,
I always love your thought provoking topics.
My thoughts this morning after a rough night of little sleep may not come off like I want. My cat would not let me sleep in.
We are not created equal and some of us start pretty close to the winning end of things and others are born with a trunk full of problems right off the bat. We all have baggage of some type we take through life. Then we have the way we live our lives making choices with the influences immediately in front of us each day. What we are at our core being is as much a part as the other two. We choose to be who we are all along.
Helen Keller comes to mind when I think of a person born with a “steamer trunk” full of obstacles. She was fortunate to have an influence in her life that took her by the hand and led her in the right directions. She took the paths before her because she had it in her being. It’s easy to see an end result and think how she overcame or she learned within her boundaries and blessed us with her inner being.
When I’m sitting here looking out the window and thinking about comfort, I can’t really tell you what that is for me. What is comfortable today will be something else tomorrow. I’m feeling sad, lonely, hurt, and detached right now. I’m seeing the settling of who I am, made by my choices, and part of my being is screaming “Let me out of here”. Then, the protective part of my soul is calming and soothing and says, “This too shall pass, change what you can and move on”.
Outside sources and conditioning made me think of something that says it all for me. It’s something that will explain how we need to think before we speak and think about how we impact those around us. Down memory lane, on the first day of first grade, way back in the 50′s, the teacher was getting to know her students and called on me to recite my ABC’s. I was the first person she called on so I stood up and began to sing my ABC’s. Before I got to H, she said in a nasty bossy way, “I didn’t say sing them, I said say them”. I had never done that before and stood there, embarrassed. My classmates laughed and couldn’t recite them after that. So I sat down and it proved to be a mountain sized road block to me. Here I am 50 years later actually thinking of taking voice lessens so I can record music with my husband. It didn’t keep me from singing later as I have overcome and understand it was not me. One result is my daughter spent her high school years in show choir singing her heart out with non of the inhibitions I experience. Cause and effect there.
I too would love to shed all the baggage and find the sweet person who resides within. Let her shine and “just be”.
Hugs
Morning MG, The things we remember as adults, done to us when children, ah memories…TRACK
Hey TRACK. Every time I go down some of those lanes, I see them differently. They can turn out positively sometimes. Then we can also learn an acceptance for some or an understanding and empathy for those who stood by and ignored things when we think they should have acted or done something to protect us. I think about you growing up and having to endure such horrendous violations to your being. You have become a strong person and one to be reckoned with if need be. Cause and effect. My own mother experienced that from the time she was 2 until she married my father when she was 18. She is one messed up individual who I have come to understand now that I’m older and wiser. She lacked the strength/knowledge to protect my sister and me and in fact turned to the Lord and disappeared. She is a gentle loving soul who retreated for her own protection.
Bless you!
Hugs all round!
MG, Thanks for sharing this with me. The true sad fact is I just don’t like her, my mother. Yes I am the caretaker for her, which is very funny to some degree, I make sure she gets what she needs…it’s the way it is for now…TRACK
This sounds rough, track, but good for you! <3
You know, as with most families, it’s o.k. not to like some one. It’s who we are when it counts. We have to live with ourselves so we do the “right” thing for us. There are some members of my family who I love but don’t like very much. I will be there for them because they are family. Isn’t it great that we like our friends and love them too?
YES INDEED…TRACK…
p.s. let no one tell me I have to “love her”, The Bible says honor, we honor THE PRESIDENT, we don’t have to love him.
Great point. Especially when you bring the Pres in. True. Honor is the action. Love would be from the heart. Sounds like you are bound to her by honor, not love. I think that is how I feel about my father. I haven’t really thought about it until now. I’ve been too busy not liking him. Go figure. Thanks for the clarification.
Wow! Lovemylife and Moongoddess! Thank you both for being so beautifully honest and sharing from the heart!
I’m sure there are those who cannot relate to early childhood neglect/abuse, etc. but I hear your words so clearly!
Those early/deep embarrassments (oh, I remember!), and effects from gross neglect, etc. are like crosses we seem to bear throughout our lives! How do we forgive ourselves for being ‘formed/programmed’ by ignorance?! We are saddled with the ignorance of others’ practically straight out of the womb! And then their is this lifelong ‘catch up’!
The answers as to ‘what to do’, long after the damage is done, can only come from our sharing, our grieving, our allowing, our honoring, our nurturing that little person who needed it ‘way back when’.
Personally, I do it by a sort of forgiveness of the ignorance that prevailed. I see that my parents, their parents, etc., etc.,just stumbled along, passing on the pain. I was just one more ‘victim’ in the trail of, I would like to say stupidity, but I know that it was just plain ignorance. These sets of parents just passed along what they were taught! Ignorance begets ignorance. Breaking this ‘chain’, as you have Mg, is wonderful!
I have stopped my RUMINATION, of these past events. Somehow, even though there is a slight ‘flavor’ of it in my system (of all the ‘stuff’), on a conscious level, I no longer repeat the stories inside or out. It is all just ‘old crap’ (oops) and does not need to be repeated to make me sick. I compare this with the dog who eats his own vomit only to throw it up again! Sorry to be so graphic!
The word “Karma” applies to this in a real way. Repeating our stories (within/without) only gives them energy, keeping them alive. In an odd way, we are still living the damage! Wallowing in the same muck. So, why don’t we stop? Is it, in a very bazaar way, entertaining?? I wonder, why these memories are so tenacious?
I am convinced that we can alter our memories, to some degree, by not feeding them, by not mulling over the whys and wherefores!
In every day life, we just get on with life. Life is a hard place to be folks! It isn’t easy for anybody, not really. What you are feeling. the highs, the lows, the pits, facing ‘old age’, rudeness, cruelty, all the pain and even the wonderful expressions of joy/beauty…just all of it, is what we are all experiencing! It is this life we are given…the whole gamut.
Pointing your body willing, living in day tight compartments, keeping a reign on the mind (ignoring its continual egging on Lol) are some of the ways to get through your days. Slough off, slough off, ladies. don’t carry this extra baggage!! It’s heavy and worthless.
We are sweet, sweet, little children, at our core! Most of us do our best, make mistakes and work on rectifying them. Forgiveness is grand, so forgive yourselves first. We were literally ‘plopped’ on this earth, defenseless little creatures, and somehow, we have found ourselves here on VN trying to figure it all out! We find that we are not alone! Thanks for finding your voice to share, hopefully, we will touch others’. I think there are many fantastic ladies, here, and I thank all of you!
Well, my day…what will it bring, well whatever, I will be ‘here’ for it…I send you hugs!
Yes, yes, yes!!!
xo’s Have a good week end lovemylife!
I made up my mind to never say anything negative to myself or….out loud, because what we put in our minds, we come to believe. It took some training, but I did it.
I am unique (as we all are)..like beautiful snowflakes……every second of life is precious……
Yes, beautiful snowflakes! It sounds like you have the right attitude.