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I have had severe writer’s block, for weeks, with this idea/post. I’m tired of it swimming around in my head. So, although it might be incomplete or disjointed, I’m publishing it now.

I had an epiphany last night. Oooo, I love those. I realized that if I would stop having expectations with other people, then they wouldn’t let me down. If I stopped expecting things from people or for them to act a certain way, then I wouldn’t be disappointed in them.

I realized that that must be what defines unconditional love. Then I realized that that is how I needed to start viewing myself. I judge myself quite severely.

For most of my life I’ve felt defined as a singer. Not as a person who loved to sing but as, just a singer. If I messed up in singing a song, I failed in who I was. It was a horrible place to put myself. If I wasn’t singing, I wasn’t fulfilling who I was meant to be. If I wasn’t at the top of my list of accomplishing “all things I want to do and places I want to go” with singing, then I wasn’t complete.

I feel closest to God when I’m singing on stage at church and most complete when I’m singing, anywhere. However, I was getting to the point, before and after singing, of being unnerved with how I did because it wasn’t the best.

Being ONLY a singer was killing the value that I should have placed within myself. Having unrealistic expectations was killing the unconditional love that I should have had for those around me.

Once I realized that my problem resided in the expectations I had on myself and others, I quickly learned how to dissolve the issue.

In this seemingly simple act of change, I’ve lifted another incredible burden off of my shoulders. The difference I feel, in singing (whether it’s at home for an hour or at church), is tremendous. I’m not held captive to the feeling of being a failure if I make a mistake because I’m not just a singer. I’m a person that loves to sing. I’m a wife, a mom, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a mentor… that just loves to sing. This change has also lifted a burden off of people around me, whether they knew they were carrying this burden or not. If my family and friends failed in my expectations for them, then they were failing me. Now that I’ve dissolved those expectations, I feel I’m now free to love unconditionally.

No expectations = Unconditional love.

My counselor wasn’t available yesterday so we moved my appointment to today. Last night, I felt like canceling. I panicked and once again, felt that the money being spent on counseling might possibly be a waste and the freedom from the pain of my past and bad flashbacks might never happen. I couldn’t cancel at 11pm last night so I decided to give it another shot.

The session today was the most significant meeting I’ve ever had with any counselor. Ever.

She began talking about wanting to try a new exercise with me, “Breathing, Integrating and Grounding.” She mentioned that those suffering from PTSD usually have detachment issues. Detachment is a defense mechanism to protect the victim from further abuse. What she described was nothing short of a waterfall of enlightenment.

Just the fact that she brought this term (detachment) up, clued me into so much of who I am. I have a problem with being apathetic toward people, my children included. Jase and I have often said that I would be a horrible counselor because my advice would be to “get over it.” I have a hard time keeping close friends because I have a hard time letting others in below the surface and/or I don’t feel like keeping friends and wearing their pain. However, more often than not, I severely ache for hurting people. In one respect, I deal too objectively with people and in the other, I’m too empathetic. Both seem to be on overdrive. I have no gauge in figuring out when I’m opening myself up too much or not enough. As I type this all out now, I wonder if my empathy turns on when I feel safe and the detachment/defense mechanism turns on when I feel threatened. I can’t even describe the elation I feel with finally thinking we’ve hit the nail on the head with the core negative issue that drives me. This detachment issue is what allows me to not be dragged down by people and the problems they need to share with me. However, it’s also the issue that prevents me from letting Jase (and others) close to me at times. This detachment is what closes me off from some people and situations. If I feel threatened, I shut down. My brain goes somewhere safe, while my body “takes” on whatever I feel is a threat. It’s the reason why I shut off from society and hole myself up in my house. Obviously, in most cases, becoming detached has hurt me and has hurt relationships I’ve been in. However, in cases where friends and family or teenagers I’m mentoring or have mentored have vented/complained/freaked out OR when a family member/friend/acquaintance has hugged me, or touched any part of my body and I felt threatened, this mental state has served me well. Better to detach rather than punch them out.

The detachment really comes on strong when I have flashbacks. The flashbacks are triggered by different things, either when I’m alone and there’s no understandable reason to have them or when Jase and I are intimate, whether it’s sexual or not. During the session today, I realized that when I start having flashbacks while around Jase, I shut down.  Now that I have a word for it, I know that I detach from Jase but it’s not complete. I start feeling like a victim and my brain tries to escape and detach while a physical connection is made but I fight back on that further because I feel like I’m being taken advantage of and being used. Since Jase and I have been together, almost 12 years, I’ve reacted the same way when I have flashbacks or feel threatened. I’m quiet. As was every single time I was violated while growing up, I recreate the same atmosphere. It’s quiet, dark and I shut down. My counselor gave me the most beautiful homework ever. When these flashbacks happen with Jase, I have to communicate with him. I know it sounds like common sense but it hasn’t been. I completely recreate my violation atmosphere and then am despondent. So, I have to tell him that I’m having a flashback and then have him tell me: “Open your eyes and mirror my hand in yours” then while being gentle AND strong (so important for both to coexist) he needs to bring me back to reality by asking, “What’s your name? What’s the date today?” Then tell me, “You’re safe.” I couldn’t stop crying when my counselor told me this because, instantly, I knew it would be the most beneficial advice I’ve ever had when dealing with my PTSD. For the first time since being violated I will start creating a new pattern when in despair or in fear.

I recognize when my detachment is well-used but I also now know when I’m using it incorrectly. Now that the problem is visualized, the correction can be made.

I first heard about Invisible Children (IC) in 2004. I was living in Alabama at the time and since this was a hometown, San Diego, organization, I thought that I could only help from afar, by word-of-mouth.

Living in Colorado, I first got involved with Invisible Children in April 2006. The event was called Global Night Communte (GNC). I had been wanting, so desperately, to actually do something that I jumped at the chance to spend the night, in some strange downtown Denver park, with only my six year old son, Malakai, and our sleeping bags. I don’t feel I’m making a legitimate change in this world unless I can bring my family, my own children, with me in the plight. My children have such an amazing road of change before them. They learn best when actually experiencing change.

Me and Malakai: IC's GNC, April 2006. (Denver, Colorado)

IC's GNC, April 2006. (Denver, Colorado)

The second time I joined in an event with Invisible Children, it was for DisplaceMe in April 2007. This journey was a little more interesting, given the fact that I was now almost eight months pregnant with Cali and we would basically be hiking about a mile to our final location, while trying to balance water bottles and crackers, cardboard box “homes”, sleeping bags and my humongo belly. The numerous middle-of-the-night trips to the bathroom to pee, a quarter of a mile away from our “home”, through a field of potholes, in the dark, was very humbling. This time my nephew, Clay, came along with me and Malakai.

Clay, Malakai and me (with Cali protruding from my belly): IC's DisplaceMe, April 2007. (Parker, Colorado)

Just a small portion of those that attended our displaced camp. IC's DisplaceMe, April 2007. (Parker, Colorado)

Our rationed water, handed out when organizers saw fit. IC's DisplaceMe, April 2007. (Parker, Colorado)

Our rationed "dinner", handed out when the organizers saw fit. IC's DisplaceMe, April 2007. (Parker, Colorado)

Our shelter for the night. IC's DisplaceMe, April 2007. (Parker, Colorado)

Invisible Children is doing again. On April 25, 2009, thousands of people in 9 countries and 100 cities take part in abducting themselves and calling attention to over 300 children abducted to fight in a murderous rebellion army.

If you have a heart to change the world. I highly suggest you start by watching this video**. Jase and I don’t have money to help out every organization we attach our heart to.

However, we DO have time.

We have a voice.

We have limbs/a country/vehicles/freedom to actually take action with.

We have our own children and other youth, that look up to us to lead by example.

We have our own children, and other impressionable youth, that won’t ever have to fear being abducted by gun-toting rebels who pierce into camps and rape, pillage and kill in the middle of the night, or day.

I dare you to watch this video**. I dare you to take action. I dare you to spread the word as far as you can.

Let’s teach our children, the next generation of leaders, about those that have become Invisible. Let’s help those who have no voice/no country/no freedom of their own.

Put your apathy on the back burner.

**Disclaimer: The video is amazing and life-changing in and of itself, but it’s full of graphic imagery/audio/photos surrounding the effects of war. In regard to younger viewers, do with that as you will.

Does your past bury you or carry you?

In my life, for the most part, I’ve let my past carry me. I’ve let it be the fuel for my passion for life and people. I’ve let situations that would normally smother someone, breathe life into me. Since 1996, when I gave my life to following God, I’ve seemed a champion, a conqueror, of my unpleasant (sometimes horrendous) past. If I felt memories starting to drown me, I’d just absorb myself into something new.

Lately, something is changing in me. I’m realizing that I’m not so much a champion as much as I am a survivor. I’m still learning how to survive my past and not let it bury me. There have been times that my past has been a hazard, a hurdle, that has seemed too difficult to leap over, too tough a task to overcome. Guilt over a friend killing himself and another being murdered, the trauma of having been taken advantage of time and time again can sometimes reduce me to nothing but a shell of a person.

Would I change anything from the history that now seems to define the passionate, loving person I am today? I don’t know. There is so much that is ingrained into the foundation of who I am. So much of what I consider trauma allows me to empathize and understand people that others would walk on and ignore. So much of what disgusts me from my past allows me to protect my children in ways I never would have originally dreamed of needing protection. So much of the guilt from my past pushes me to never give in, never give up, never surrender in the fight for my own life and the fight for the lives around me.

Would I sacrifice the momentary pain, that sometimes still lingers, and the extraordinary love and compassion I have for people by changing my past? I think not.

I choose to allow my past to pave a path for my future and in the legacy I leave behind in the generations of life to come.

Beating Heart

Hopeful Future

On the heels of feeling offended the other day, I realize I wasn’t. Not in comparison to this…

Offense

1 a: obsolete : an act of stumbling b: archaic : a cause or occasion of sin : stumbling block
2 something that outrages the moral or physical senses
3 a: the act of attacking : assault b: the means or method of attacking or of attempting to score c: the offensive team or members of a team playing offensive positions d: scoring ability
4 a: the act of displeasing or affronting b: the state of being insulted or morally outraged
5 a: a breach of a moral or social code : sin , misdeed b: an infraction of law ; especially : misdemeanor

I am sick of the way women are viewed, lustfully, by men.

I just read this and this, as well as the comments, and now I feel like I need a trash can to vomit in or a burka for when I leave the house later or a hazmat detox rinse. Reading these posts and their twisted comments quickly reminded me why sexual humor, focused on objectifying women, makes me feel like I never want to leave the house or expose my innocent daughters to anything resembling a testosterone-filled life form.

I am floored that men involved in youth ministry, reaching out to hurting, confused female teenagers can find humor in a cartoon focused on lusting after women as objects. What’s next? Laughing as some guy gets his kicks, raping some girl who “asked for it” while on stage at church? WTH?

Yeah, this struck an extremely sensitive nerve with me and I am furious that the president of Youth Specialties can be so insensitive (especially given the fact that this isn’t the first time this subject matter was the basis for humor with him). I am outraged that men in a position of such trust can laugh along at the disgust of lust and it’s hindrance to our relationship with God. Some fools even brought the I.Q. low enough to laugh about the possibility of porn and Playboy being used in church at some point.

As a girl who was molested by an uncle when she was eight years old, molested by a brother numerous times as a teen, raped by a stranger at fifteen and having woken up numerous times from drug and alcohol-induced slumber only to find myself being taken advantage of by perverts, time and time again; I.AM.ANGRY, to read the contempt, the catcalls and jeering by these pathetic men.

As I read the definitions for the word “offense”, above, I couldn’t help but see that these callous men fall right into the category of causing a severe offense, in every sense of the word.

Of course this is based on a cartoon, but it isn’t the “cartoon” that is causing the sickening remarks and the snickering… it’s the real life story behind it. The truth of it, the potential of what that truth can/may become one day in a place of Holy protection and safety for the people suffering in painful silence and judgment. As long as this subject matter is laughable, particularly with youth workers, the hurdle of helping guys that are suffering with lustful thoughts and caring for the girls being viewed and treated as objects, will always be an extremely difficult challenge.

There is a person behind that skin that you want to caress and stare at all day and laugh at as she is being raped by praying preying eyes. A person, with pain and trauma and confusion and naivety on what makes her beautiful and what makes her desirable. A person that, when her beauty fades and her skin is barely hanging onto her bones, will wonder if she was ever truly respected, ever truly loved for who she was and who she now is.

I don’t get offended easily. I am diligent in living life as a survivor and not as a victim. I make sure that the remarks and actions of others don’t cause me to pause my life in confusion and doubt.

Well, I let someone’s remark hurt me and it still kind of hurts. Hopefully writing this out will help.

The other night I was standing with some people while they held a conversation. My ears perked up as an invitation was extended to one of them to come to the Sunday night service at church. (The Sunday night service is mostly geared toward people of college age but high-schoolers attend and I’ve been contemplating going, even though I’m out of the age range, to have an opportunity to spend some time with my group of freshman girls.) The person on the receiving end of the invitation stated that they go to one of the Sunday morning services and (here’s the dagger) said, “With all the parents.” Now if this conversation would have taken place in writing, I would not have had a second thought. However, I “heard” the eye roll. I “heard” the scoff in the tone of this person’s voice. I wanted to blurt out, “Hey, I’m one of those.” and hopefully cause this person to step back and begin to analyze how they speak about others. But I didn’t. I walked away and decided to spend the rest of the night where I “belonged”, at home, with my children (who were all long gone in dreamland).

This person’s comment really is two-fold for me. Although it doesn’t make me apologetic at all to be a parent, it does make me wonder if I really am in a class that single and childless people feel they can’t relate to, which makes me wonder if the high-schoolers I mentor feel the same way. Maybe this is the reason I don’t see any other youth leaders with young kids. This comment also makes me think about demographic segregation and how sad it is that segregation is still happening and that I am viewed as *that* person because I have kids and I am married.

This person’s comment made me feel devalued in their eyes and that is sad to me and it has left me with a sting.

I used to be a volcano as a teen. No, not a *real* one… But I was a ball of angst just waiting for the opportunity to explode on someone. It was not pretty. I picked fights and fought and won and lost and was looking for a chance to give someone else the pain I’d been feeling for years. Subconsciously, I think I may have felt I was healing myself. I wasn’t. It only made life worse.

My home life growing up was also like this. Each one of my family members was a ticking bomb just waiting for the opportunity to wail on someone. We fought with each other, friends, strangers, anyone to get our mind off of our own pain and turmoil.

I gave my life to Jesus at the end of 1996. I’ve spent every year since, trying to reroute the anger I had, into compassion and empathy. I’ve had to come to an understanding about humanity that “they know not what they do”. I’ve had to remember that the decisions that people make are more about a spiritual warfare than a personal attack against me. It’s been twelve and half years since I’ve physically fought anyone, twelve and a half years since I’ve tailgated someone for miles after cutting me off on the freeway, twelve and a half years since drinking and drugging my anger away. Twelve and a half years of thinking that my anger was a sin.

I got angry last night. Truly angry. Angry to the point of tears and pulling off into a grocery store parking lot just so I could organize my thoughts into something coherent. So angry that I wished I had some Metallica blaring on my radio to headbang my mind into clarity. So angry that when I passed by a cop, I literally wished him to pull me over. What? I know, I have no idea where that thought came from. I seriously think the anger brought me back to a mentality from my teenage years, when getting pulled over was not only a fear but a thrill, a challenge to overcome.

Well, my wishful thinking came true. I was pulled over. I was so angry that when I passed by the cop, I didn’t notice him pull in behind me and stay there as we both were stopped in a turn lane. We turned and the red and blue lights came on. For a moment, a million thoughts engulfed my brain and panic swept over me. Was I in an area that I could pull over and still be seen by the rest of humanity if this cop tried to harm me or kill me, like *that* cop in California? Would he be like the cop that contacted one of my female family members to date her after he pulled her over? I’ve been taken advantage of WAY too many times to just be calm when needing to fall under the authority of some strange man on some dark road, alone, at night. It turns out my tags, and the insurance card I had, were expired. Thankfully, both were confirmed as being renewed.  However, that didn’t really calm the feelings that arose from the fact that I’ve been traumatized by men. Being put in that situation, out of my control and not as a result of anything I did, made me angry. Feeling like that and letting those feelings get the best of me, made me angry. Beyond what words could even illuminate.

I’m frustrated at things that came to light, last night, in our youth group. Angry that depression is so debilitating. Furious that the enemy is reminding me that he fought and won a battle with my friend sixteen years ago. Frustrated that people can speak to youth about the youth’s lives and when the word “you” is spoken to them, the speaker is looking at a clock. I’m irritated that I fell victim to thinking change is bad. I’m frustrated that I’m thinking the wall around my heart should be built up again, to protect me from more people in my life leaving and it causing me pain and to start over again in building relationships.

I’m tired of starting new in relationships. I’ve been doing it my whole life. I don’t like moving away, I don’t like people leaving. I’m realizing that I may embrace change, just not when it involves people. I want stability in relationships. I want stability in the lives of the youth that I mentor. I want stability in love and life.

I’m going to fight to bring that stability and sustain that stability. I refuse to lay down and surrender.

I’ve been a fighter my whole life. I’m just on the other side of that battle now.

The winning side.

“Run in such a way as to get the prize.”

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I love the NYWC and read about a talk given by Shane Claiborne. I’ve bounced around on some of the blogs giving recounts of this session and I couldn’t believe some of the feedback. People were actually pissed that he spoke from the bible… only. There was so much expectation from people who wanted to hear about him and his life journey but when he started reading straight from the bible they kept thinking he’d stop at any moment and give his own reflection on it all. It’s just amazing to me that we’ve become a society where youth workers are know-it-alls, “I know this”, “I’ve read that verse a hundred times”. Some people were so focused on Shane stopping at any moment that they completely missed his entire point. Sure, anyone could read straight from the bible but they completely missed the opportunity of hearing the Sermon on the Mount, in all it’s entirety, because they were so eager in hearing this guy’s opinion and autobiography. In that moment, they felt Shane’s life was more important than grasping the actual words (of Jesus) coming from his mouth. If we become like this, then what is the purpose of the bible? Why have a bible at all? If a verse is read once, is it set in our hearts and memory forever? Is it never applicable to our life again? Are our lives so redundant that verses become incapable of variant meaning at different stages of life?

How utterly profound that we go places, expecting God to speak to us, expecting to learn more about Jesus, yet when someone reads Jesus’ actual words, it’s considered an irritant and boring.