The Lies of My Life – Success Means Being Skinny and Pretty

Source: The Lies of My Life – Success Means Being Skinny and Pretty

The Lies of My Life – Blood is Thicker Than Water

Source: The Lies of My Life – Blood is Thicker Than Water

The Lies of My Life – Blood is Thicker Than Water

When we use the phrase “blood is thicker than water,” we’re generally saying that our family relations are more important than relationships with friends. Be aware that this line is often used to shame people into remaining obedient and subservient to family despite the facts.

Interestingly enough, the origin of this saying can be traced back to a proverb with a radically different meaning: “The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.” Rather than “blood” meaning family relations, it means “blood covenants” that people made by cutting each other and mixing their blood together.  Obviously the water of the womb relates to the family ties.

I’m going to be really blunt here. I might as well title this blog, “I’m going to trigger a lot of emotions with my family.” The truth is, I’m not excited about most of my family members. Don’t get me wrong, I love and accept them as they are, but I just don’t have much in common with them, and usually can’t relate with their thoughts and opinions. The Guru Girl would say “my energy doesn’t mix well with theirs, and we don’t sing the same songs or resonate at the same frequencies.” My family members aren’t any less wrong or right in their thinking, but it’s just not for me. I also know I’m not right for everyone.

The fact is, family is neither blood nor water – it’s a choice. Each time we interact with our family members, we actively choose the relationships we want to have. Let me share some real-life examples to illustrate this point.

If I’m a teenager using alcohol to control the stress from years of being assaulted and abused, and you bring Grandma to our house under false pretenses resulting in her crying and telling me “I don’t want you to sing at my funeral,” then you’ve chosen the relationship you want with me. …and so has Grandma.

If you call my aunts up and one comes and throws my little sister up against a wall and starts choking her because of false pretenses… well, that’s choosing a relationship too.

If you’re calling me names like “shallow” because I don’t want to marry the man you want me to marry, you just made another choice.

If I’m recovering from a brain injury and giving you an update about my recovery, and you cut me off and monopolize the conversation with family gossip and the latest church musician drama, then I know what kind of a relationship you want to have with me.

If I call you up because I really need you, and talk over me with a silly story meant to deflect from my pain. I know exactly the relationship you want.

If another family member is hitting rock bottom with major mental health and substance abuse issues, but you ignore my communications and then tell people I’m being dramatic… well, then yeah, I know the relationship that you want with me and family members in need of support.

If you go around spinning stories that are not true, or are an overly dramatic and exaggerated version of the truth, well, that’s just you choosing that you don’t want to be my family.

If you rob my house while I’m at work and then beg me not to press charges. Um… Enough said.

If you leave messages on my voicemail with expletives, threats, or veiled threats, well… you get my point.

In each of those scenarios, you clearly see that my family members chose the relationship that they wanted with me. You know someone wants to be your family member when they want to spend time with you – no strings attached. If they’re only coming around because you have kids, photo ops, money, gifts, relations, opportunities for the limelight, etc. then they’re not choosing you. They’re choosing you only for the benefits of what they can get from you. Oftentimes, you have no idea you’re in this kind of relationship. If your own intentions are not of the bloodsucking variety, then of course you expect people won’t have questionable intentions.

It’s not easy to recognize the difference between people who genuinely want to get to know you versus those who seek to take advantage of you. Sometimes there are red flags, but other times you need to evaluate the situation using other means. I have a “cup” test that I like to use. Here’s how it works.

There are two types of people: those who have a cup running over, and those who have a cup that is at least a little empty. When someone’s cup is empty or low, they generally do things to fill it up. To fill your cup you have a variety of options. You can take a nap, eat nutritious food, spend time with community, meditate, exercise, meet up with friends, throw a party, read a book, etc. You get the idea. When you do these things, you fill your cup up to the point it starts to overflow. When your cup overflows, it means that you are physically and spiritually complete, and you have extra to give away.

Some people however, have a perpetually empty cup. It’s empty because when they were kids, their parents, friends, and other family members robbed from it to fill their own cup. Sometimes those kids didn’t know how to distance themselves from the “cup suckers,” and also they didn’t learn how to fill their cups in a healthy way. These people often go on to be “cup predators.” Instead of doing their own work, they try to knock yours right out of your hands. Cup suckers are like the little jerk teenagers that steal the younger kids’ candy on Halloween. Cup predators just knock the candy out of their hands, but don’t take anything away. Get it? The only way these types are made whole is to rob from someone else because they don’t know how to get it themselves OR they just want to create chaos.

Due to the stress in our society these days, nearly all people are walking around with empty cups. We’re busy, but we’re not productive. We’re sleeping, but it’s not long or deep enough. We’re eating but it’s not the right foods. We have relationships, but they’re not rebuilding us. Our cups cry out to be filled. Road rage? Empty cup. School shootings? Empty cup. Police Brutality? Empty cup. All of it is the result of empty cups.

My family is full of empty cups. Many of them don’t like to put in the work to fill theirs back up. That makes them cup suckers and predators. They try to steal, but usually they don’t even know how to steal correctly. Instead of stealing by leaching on others, they gossip or troll the internet making bigoted, racist, sexist, and abusive comments. All this does is temporarily removes their anxiety about their empty cups, but it doesn’t fill them up – just like the teens that stole but didn’t put it in their own bags.

This year, I decided to distance myself from many of the cup predators in my family. It has come with some pretty serious repercussions.  When you’ve been a regular “cup victim” like I have, and you’re surrounded by cup predators and cup suckers, taking your overflowing self out of their line of sight can be devastating. True to the nature of who they are, they flame, increase their gossip, increase their lies, and increase the exaggerations until they find new victims. Some of them have moved on to easier or unsuspecting targets, and others that moved on a while ago, randomly check in to see if they can take their jabs.

Ironically, the same cup suckers are the ones who preach “blood is thicker than water” and other catchy phrases like “you’re supposed to be loyal to your family,” don’t understand that through their own actions, they aren’t choosing blood. They confuse the concept of loyalty with concepts such as suppression, censorship, repression, obedience, worship, and laudation.

In matters of the heart, a truly loyal person tells their friends and family what they know to be true. This is the case even if the truth hurts. A loyal person will speak their truth from the heart, and they will also sit with their family member as they both work through accepting this conversation. Family members who preach loyalty but don’t give it, and ones who blast you for expressing your heartfelt concerns are not loyal. Family loyalty should make you feel good. It should be associated with close, open, honest, and compassionate relationships. If it’s anything else, it’s likely not loyalty.

So keep these things in mind when you have interactions with your family. Learn to recognize when you’re being valued and when you’re being preyed on. Speak up, assert yourself, and set firm boundaries.

Sometimes you’ll run into family members that hide behind a mask. They say and do all the right things, but they’re tricksters and “posers.” These folks go to church, blend in with the community, and might post memes dealing with love, compassion, and all the other trendy spiritual stuff. However, they’re only posing as people who care. When push comes to shove, and you really need their support, the mask starts to crack, and they can’t hide it any longer. My family is famous for this. When I’ve needed help, and I’ve worked up the courage to ask them for support, I’ve usually been turned down. I’m not just getting any rejection notice either. I’m getting one with a crystal clear message that it’s “not my problem,” “go tell someone else,” and “sorry I have my own problems.” To throw cherries on top, these family members even take things a step further by turning this new found knowledge or weakness into social currency. Now they have the latest gossip. I call this “information brokering.”

Information brokering is basically when bad things happen to you, and you call someone you love and trust for support, and they pretend to help you. Once you feel settled, they immediately call everyone they know, tell them your story, judge you and others, and use it as a type of social currency to get attention from their peer groups. Sometimes they spin the bad news to make it sound more exciting. Sometimes they draw conclusions and pass it off as the truth. Information brokers also have a bad habit of using this information against you in arguments to exploit your weaknesses. I remember a time that I worked for a boss that was sexually harassing me. When I was in an argument with my sister, she said, “Well, you can’t even get along with your boss and you have all these troubles at work” to support her argument of why she thought I was a “loser.” That’s information brokering at its finest.

I know this stuff is heavy, but there is an upside to family members who treat you badly. When they make the choice, you don’t have to. They’ve given you an open invitation to move on without them. You don’t have to feel guilty when you move ahead on your own personal path without the weight of their predatory selves weighing you down. Without that weight, you’re free to fly, and with that freedom and flight comes personal and spiritual expansion. The sky is no longer the limit, and your future feels infinitely brighter.

You don’t need anyone but yourself to fill your cup. Once you learn how to independently fill it up until it’s overflowing, you’ll have plenty to share. And once you learn to sort out the predators from the people who unconditionally love you, you’ll have someone with whom you can share your overflows. Honestly, blood and water doesn’t matter because we’re all connected as human beings. Family is a choice, and you don’t have to be related by blood to be family.

In the end, we should be the family we want to have. If our family members aren’t in it for the right reasons, feel free to move on without them. Accept and love them for who they are, and accept and love yourself for the journey you’re on. It’s all ok. If and when any family members find themselves walking alongside you on your path, then you can accept their hand in yours, and walk forward together.

The Guru Girl

The Lies of My Life – Success Means Being Skinny and Pretty

I actively experience this lie, because for some reason, this is one of those negative voices that just keeps finding its way into my mind. Re-wiring this lie out of my brain can take some time because this voice has been a loud influence throughout my life. For some (including myself) it can be difficult, and even painful, to release. This is especially true because we learn this from the female role models in our lives, including *gasp* our mothers.

When I was a very young girl, I remember my mom really being into fitness. We lived in a small apartment that was handicapped accessible, and it was cool because it was so roomy, you could basically do laps around the apartment and get a decent workout. My mom walked a lot of laps, and I did them too. She watched Gilad Janklowicz’s and Denise Austin’s exercise shows on TV, and like many people do, worked hard to stay in shape. Everyone on those fitness shows looked so happy and healthy. And Gilad was soooooo dreamy, right?

I remember my mom constantly dieting too. At one point she said she was going to have nothing but water for two weeks, and after it was done, she said she didn’t lose a single pound. Looking back, I don’t believe that she didn’t eat a single thing, and I believe she likely had an endocrine disorder that was exacerbated by her poor dietary choices. She’s clearly got a strong kapha constitution, but she didn’t listen to her body, she fought against it, and when you fight yourself, yourself fights back. Queue the downward spiral.

I watched her and her sisters struggling with their weight. I also saw my dad’s sisters work on keeping their weight in check, but there was a significant difference in the way my parents’ families looked at weight issues.

On my mom’s side of the family, many of the women with weight issues (with the exception of a few) practiced extreme dieting. Rumor has it that one of my aunts was using amphetamines (speed) to control her weight. I would hear comments like, “She’s not a size 8, and shouldn’t be trying to squeeze herself into those jeans because it makes her look stupid.” Everyone was struggling and ironically, everyone had an opinion about how the others should be living their lives. My mom would practically starve herself all day, and as soon as we went to bed, I’d hear the fridge open. I never knew what happened after she opened the fridge, but I suspect that she was binging. Growing up in that family, I can only imagine that my aunts were talking as much crap about her as she did about them.

My dad’s sisters were different. I’d see them measure out their cereal for breakfast, and because my grandma Lucca was so focused on healthy eating with an emphasis of fruits and veggies (evident by her bountiful garden), they seemed to emphasize health over weight. They never talked crap about each other – well, as it pertained to weight, anyway. HA! I remember a few in that family being avid runners. Ironically, many of the girls went on to become nurses.

Around the time all my female role models were flaming their battles of the bulge, my mom enrolled me and my sisters in dance. My teacher’s name was Janet Wagner, and was she ever the nicest and most beautiful vision! Skinny and pretty, she appeared to be the only woman in my life who wasn’t struggling with her weight. This was my first look at a woman who wasn’t constantly griping about her flab. Whether or not she struggled with her weight, she never made it a distraction in dance class, and she always seemed happy – or at least pleasant.

Things were status quo until 5^th grade when my younger sister started significantly filling out. While Janet was teaching us to keep our “stomachs in and butts tucked under” to give ourselves the proper ballerina lines and posture, my mom was focused on telling my little sister to “suck in” because she would look “sloppy” in pictures. She would always point at the chubby girls in our class and say they looked sloppy. Sloppy was the word for “not skinny.” But sloppy wasn’t the only way I heard these girls described. I heard “she’s got her gut hanging out” and “she should be wearing a long shirt” to describe these little girls. Fortunately for me, I had a very “vata” body type, so it didn’t take much to “suck in.” You better believe I still sucked in for all my pictures! This wasn’t because Janet wanted a proper line. It was because I didn’t want to get shamed for looking fat and sloppy when the recital pictures came back. Because you know when those pictures came back she’d compare us to the other girls, and we knew exactly where we stood and where we needed to be.

As I got older, and my little sister got bigger, the comments kept coming. Whether or not my mom or my other family members were aware, they were fat shaming my sister. I always heard comments like “she’s the chubby one,” “look at those chubby cheeks,” and “she looks like a good eater.” Maybe people thought the comments were innocent, but in the context of my mom’s opinion of overweight and sloppy little girls, it was deeply mortifying. My sister’s self-esteem was in the damn toilet, and I saw it.

The summer after 6^th grade, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I loved my sister so damn much, and I was so sick of hearing the comments and criticism of her sloppy looks. I created a diet plan for our summer which included 800 calorie daily diets complemented with a heavy biking schedule. I knew enough about the food guide pyramid to make something nutritionally balanced, and figured we’d maintain a good weight if we sustained our energy throughout the day. Before it was a fad, we were eating 5 times a day with a good mix of carbs, fats and proteins while engaging in an aggressive workout schedule. It was all written down, and my sister and I were accountable to each other if we strayed from the plan.

My sister lost so much weight that summer that her teachers didn’t even recognize her. On the other hand, I stayed the same size. I entered 7^th grade 5 feet tall and 80 pounds, and my sister had lost over 30 pounds. Everyone told her how great she looked, they complimented her on her dramatic weight loss, and were in awe of her transformation. She was also approaching puberty too, so her looks became more mature. She seemed really happy about the attention, but there was something that was still wrong. Inside she was fighting a battle. You could see the lights go on. Being skinny means people like you. I got the same impression. Skinny and pretty is good, and everything else is bad.

I’d definitely call my sister a bully. She bullied kids in school, and she definitely bullied me. It was nearly daily, and to the point I was wavering between constant sadness and rage. I often fantasized punching her in the face. One time I even tried it, but she slammed the door in my face, and my fist went through the door. Yeah. I was that mad.

When she finally entered 7^th grade, her bullying evolved into cheating. She bullied the teachers by stealing answers to the tests, memorizing them, and acing all the tests. I thought she was always really smart and that’s how she got such good grades, but then I knew that she had mastered the system by cheating. While I sat in my room and cried because I had a crappy home environment that lacked love, way too much on my plate in terms of extra-curricular activities, a private school homework load, and the expectation of perfection, she was hacking the system by cheating.

Well done, little sister. Well done.

She was suffering as severely as me, but just in a different way. As we continued to get older, a couple of older teenagers entered my family. The stress was too much for my sister, and I watch her lose control of her eating again. By 9^th grade, she was up to almost 160 lbs, and these boys weren’t even being kind about their comments. On a regular basis I heard them call her “fat fuck,” and I was always amazed that no one told them to stop. It was like my mom believed if she ignored it, the name calling would stop, but it didn’t.

Although I was being abused too, I was able to stay under the radar with the verbal assaults. I had big, ugly glasses, but I was skinny. I knew if I had control of my weight, that I wouldn’t be verbally abused in the “fat” category. I watched everything that went into my mouth, I constantly chanted “my body is my temple,” (thanks to St. Thomas School’s religious education) and I took advantage of every opportunity to fill my face with fresh food or get exercise. I knew that my worth and freedom from abuse relied heavily on my weight, but as I entered puberty it became increasingly harder to control it.

Lucky for me, around that time I was working at the Minnesota Workforce Center, and one of the random unemployed guys came in and brought us a copy of the cabbage soup diet. SCORE! Now, I had a way to stay skinny, and it worked!

I brought the paper home that had the cabbage soup recipe and instructions for eating. My mom and sister were interested, so we made a huge pot of soup and everyone ate. I’m not sure how much weight the rest of my family lost that week, but I lost 10 pounds. Ironically, I didn’t have 10 pounds to lose, but it came off. I was happy, and every time I stepped on the scale and saw it going down, I felt success. I knew what success tasted like – cabbage soup.

I used the cabbage soup diet a couple times a year to keep my body in check for ballet. My mom was feeding me McDonalds, so this was the way I used to cleanse and atone from all my junky eating. It wasn’t like I chose this food. This is what was fed to me. It was more convenient for my mom to buy me fast food than make food, so she turned to convenience, and I was slowly being poisoned.

If anyone’s ever seen the documentary called Supersize Me, you know what happens when you eat too much McDonalds. I gained 20 pounds in a few months, and soon my whole face was broken out with severe cystic acne. I finally got rid of my ugly glasses, I was still skinny, but now I was ugly. At the time, I was taking classes at the college in a post-secondary program, and my mom was taking a keyboarding class with me. She would look at my face, make comments about how bad my acne was, but she never took me to the doctor to get me medication for this skin disease, and she never bought healthy food. She said our state-sponsored medical plan probably wouldn’t cover my acne because it was “cosmetic,” but she never actually called to check to see if this was the case. The fact is, acne is covered by insurance. It’s not a simple “cosmetic” problem. Ugh.

My worth sunk. My sister’s new boyfriend called me an “eyesore,” my mom would cringe when she looked at me, and I didn’t know what to do. I spiraled into a deep depression. Lucky for me, around the same time I started spending time in Canada with my boyfriend’s grandparents, and the more dinners I had at their house, the more my face cleared up. Within a couple months, I was nearly all clear.

Around the time my face cleared up, my boyfriend told me he thought my sister had bulimia. I had no idea what bulimia even was, so he explained to me that she’s eating a ton of food and then throwing up in the shower. So I watched, and listened, and soon I knew he was right. I did what every responsible, loving sister would do: I told my mom. I confessed that I had been watching my sister binge on foods and then go throw up in the shower. Some weeks she’d go through tubs of peanut butter, maple syrup, and ketchup (which I later learned are preferred lubricants for vomiting), and she was literally eating what little food we had in the house until the cupboards were bare. Instead of my mom contacting a pediatrician, a psychologist, or a doctor, she just yelled at my sister. “You better not be throwing up in the shower!” she scolded.

Are you fucking kidding me? <==My actual thought at the time.

My sister was obviously in terrible pain. If she was going through the motions of binging and purging, then she’s got a serious mental problem. How did I know this? I read it on the internet! Her weight plummeted, and people admired how beautiful and skinny she was. No surprise. My sister was literally abusing herself and her body, and she was being openly celebrated for it.

Bulimia is a horrible disease. I watched her puke her body away and puke her teeth away. She puked her self-esteem away, even though she was using it to gain control over her life. I don’t know why she did it, but I suspected she was trying to escape from the years of fat shaming, the current abuse, and the lack of parental love. If she was skinny, my mom would value her. If she was skinny, she wouldn’t have to suck in for ballet pictures. If she was skinny, she’d be back in the limelight, just like she was in 6^th grade. If she was skinny, she’d be happy, and so would everyone else.

But it didn’t make her happy. It made her angrier. She started lashing out and abusing other people. She started forging my mom’s checks to steal money which fueled her eating disorder, she lied to me, she lied to her friends and family, and she was lying to herself.

I ended up moving away to the Washington D.C. area as soon as I graduated from high school, and I was married and pregnant with my first child a few years later. My sister, still suffering from bulimia, stealing, and lying, came to live here too. As I gained weight during my pregnancy, I heard all kinds of passive aggressive comments about my weight. I heard comments like, “I don’t know why you’re gaining so much weight; you must be eating a lot,” and “when I’m pregnant someday, I’m not getting all fat (que side glances at me) because I’m going to stay really fit and work out every day.” I also got “the looks.” Oh! The looks I got! Little did she know, my hormones, not my eating habits, caused me to gain nearly 50 pounds each pregnancy. In fact, three weeks after giving birth I had lost 45 of the 50 pounds, illustrating that my weight gain was water weight, not stored fat. Every time I would wake up from a nap, I’d have a GIANT pee and lose 3 pounds. Seriously. My sister was fat shaming me (for water weight due to hormones) at the most critical time of my life – when I was growing a baby.

By the time I was pregnant I had completely lost my inclination and desire to control my weight. I knew it was healthy to gain weight during pregnancy, and breastfeeding required a high caloric intake. My entire focus had changed. Instead of trying to keep my perfect size 00 body, I exercised, cooked and ate healthy meals, and allowed my ego to be annihilated by falling in love with marriage and motherhood. My mother’s voice in my head faded away… …at least for a few years…

When I seriously got into my career, I noticed something very frightening. The skinny (or fit), and pretty people had the best jobs, were taken the most seriously, and seemed to be the most successful. Maybe my mom was just preparing me for the reality of life? Maybe I unfairly judged her tough love, catty comments about looking “sloppy,” or acne triggered looks of disgust. In reality, she and all the other female role models were being shaped by society. Only the strongest and most present were able to talk themselves out of the negative messages and view their bodies as something that should be nurtured and respected. Society (especially Corporate America) still has it wrong, and the only way to change the message is to be the change we want to see.

Here’s the simple truth:

Our body is a temple for the spirit that connects us all. You are the entire universe manifested in human form. You are enough. You are a success. Right now. As is. Without caveats. And no one can tell you anything different.

Because of Transcendental Meditation, I have been given the opportunity of a lifetime to free myself from these dysfunctional thoughts. I have come to realize that the destructive comments that people make about others illustrates the relationship they have with themselves. It’s not you. It’s never you. It’s them.

…and today, when I’m PMSing and feel like I’m a sausage shoved in a casing, or when I don’t have makeup on, I can still feel that voice creeping up and telling me I’m a failure. I acknowledge these thoughts without judgement when I live presently; I let them go as they bubble up; and I practice self-acceptance. When someone has labeled you as the “pimple-infested, overweight, ugly-duckling,” you know that what’s on the outside is just a small piece of who you are. Once you get right on the inside, it doesn’t matter how the outside looks.

Once you understand the truth, you will always feel perfect. Because you ARE!

Remember that. Love yourself. Heal yourself. You’re a success.

With all my love,

The Guru Girl

The Lies of My Life: My Dad

Oh man. This is the lie I feel the most guilty about. So, where do I begin. Let’s start at the beginning.

I’m not sure if all the details are actually true, but the story I’ve been told is that my parents met at the Flame Nightclub, also known as “The Flame.”  The Flame was a bar and exotic dance club in my hometown of International Falls, Minnesota. My mom was a free spirited, blond bombshell, and my dad was a super funny and handsome, movie star lookalike. Due to my grandparents’ various levels of disinterest in my mother, she was living in the convent. As things usually go, my mom caught my dad’s eye, and he found himself at her place for a late night.

Now, my dad tells me all the time that I was conceived in the convent and “in a state of grace,” and for you Catholics out there, you know how important this is. My parents weren’t married, they had a shot gun wedding, but my dad insists that he was strong in his Catholic faith, loved my mom, and was one with the spirit of God during the conception. Honestly, I’m not judging. Sounds good enough to me.

Well, to clarify, I was conceived in a convent, or the “back of mom’s car the next weekend,” as my dad recounts the alternate ending, so…

As the story goes, my parents decided to get married, my grandparents go ape shit, and they all sit down with my mom to explain to her the most important bit of information in her life: my dad is medicated and has a severe mental illness – schizophrenia.

I’m sure my young mother was nervous, scared, in love, and blind to what my dad’s diagnosis really meant. She said, “I love Jim, and I want to marry him,” with all her stubborn conviction. At around 4 months pregnant, they were wed. March 22, 1980.

As a young child, I remember very fondly looking through my parents’ wedding album. As the times dictated, my dad wore the baby blue suit with the ruffles, and my mom had an empire waist lace and chiffon gown. My parents looked so beautiful and happy that day. My mom was glowing, my dad smiled is if to say, “Look at me; I’m the man!” I can even remember the smell of the album: photo paper and plastic. All of it brings back amazing memories.

But life with my dad was anything but buttercups and roses. My dad’s official diagnosis was bi-polar disorder and paranoid schizophrenia. I remember toting along with him to the clinic to get his injections of cogentin and prolixin. One was an anti-psychotic, mood stabilizing drug that caused muscle spasms. The other was for the muscle spasms. I would laugh every time I saw the nurse pull down his pants to expose his butt for the injections. My dad had a really goofy sense of humor too. He’d tell the nurses jokes like, “What did the French-man say to the zebra? Take off ze-bra!” One day my favorite nurse told him how lucky he was to have daughters like Annie and I. One time she boldly suggested if he ever needed help or a different home for us, that she’d love to consider taking us.

Oh no. Here we go.

My dad blew up at her. “You’re not touching my damn daughters, so don’t even think about it,” he yelled. She just tried to diffuse this situation saying she was only joking, but we all knew what she meant. Part of me wanted to go live with her. She was the nicest lady I had ever met, and showered me with stickers and toys every week. …I always wonder what it would be like if she would’ve been my mom, and I sometimes think about how my life could have been so much more easy if that was the case.

When I say my parents fought a lot, I really mean they fought a lot. These fights weren’t just simple arguments either. It usually started with my mom having her own secret expectations of my dad that she never communicated, then she’d nag the shit out of him for not living up to her secret (and quite frankly) unrealistic expectations. He’d get triggered and feel emasculated, and then he’d get “madder than a hornet.” That’s how everyone described my dad’s anger. He’d go from zero to non-linear instantaneously. Sometimes it would result in violent outbursts (pulling the phone off the wall and smashing my mom with it), or just stomping back to his room and hollering at the top of his lungs while my mom egged him on with lines like, “I can’t heeeeeeeeeeeear you…”

Ugh. Two adults having temper tantrums. No wonder why my parents thought I behaved so well as a kid. I knew exactly how not to behave by watching the two of them tweak out all the time.

My mom worked when I was young too. She’d leave us home alone with my dad, because, you know, that’s what dads do when Mom’s at work. He was so tired from his medication that he’d just be sleeping all the time. I cried and cried because I never wanted to be home alone with him. He was no fun, he was always yelling at us to be quiet so he could sleep, and I was always lonely. Sometimes we’d go to wake him up, and he’d be so irritated and angry that we’d have to run and lock ourselves in the bathroom while he tried to beat down the door and get to us. We finally hid the tape recorder in the bathroom cabinet, and the next time he tried to attack us, we recorded it for my mom, and played it for her.

…Then she lost her shit at him, and he went storming off screaming…

My dad wasn’t really cut out to be a dad. I’d go as far to say that he wasn’t suited for parenthood. It didn’t make things any better that my mom didn’t have any interest in getting smart on my dad’s mental illness or how to make their marriage healthier.

…and this is where the lies and deception about my dad started…

In first grade, my mom went to my parent-teacher conference with Mrs. Katrin who was one of my favorite teachers of all time. At the conference, Mrs. Katrin mentioned that she had talked to my dad recently and he mentioned we just moved out to the country. My mom was really embarrassed. We didn’t move out to the country. We hadn’t moved at all. This was one of my dad’s delusions, so my mom laughed it off. My mom wanted so desperately to whitewash his illness that and deny how different his reality was compared to hers. She came home and really gave him hell about lying.

So let’s take a quick break to talk about schizophrenia.

Here’s the thing about people with schizophrenia: they’re not actually lying. Their view of reality is just vastly different than the norm. My dad sees things that most people don’t see. He hears things that people don’t hear, and he feels things that people don’t feel. Some may say that’s an illness, but it’s not. I actually think my dad’s perception is detecting things on a much more subtle level than normal people. That’s why he’s so sensitive. I believe what he sees is a more complete picture of what normal people see. It just took me 35 years to figure that out. Before you judge people with schizophrenia as “crazy,” talk to a person who has it. It will change your life.

My mom still hasn’t figured out this concept, and neither has most of the world. People are elitists and want to believe that the way they perceive the world is the only way and the right way, but that’s actually not correct. So check yourselves.

Moving along…

Because my mom was so humiliated by this “lie” to my teacher, and the never ending and continuous strings of lies, I also became humiliated by it. Ugh. My dad was so weird. He was sick. He said weird things that didn’t make sense. He told people BB King gave him a guitar. He told me that I was actually an angel and described the angelic light that glowed around me. He would counsel me on all things spiritual, and the only thing I wanted to do was cringe.

I was so embarrassed of my parents – especially my dad. My mom likened him to my dad’s friend Jerry (who was my dad’s “mentally ill” best friend from high school). Jerry had this really ridiculous laugh, and my mom didn’t want our family to be associated with him or his family. When my dad went to school events (IF he ever actually showed up because he was usually sleeping), I’d yell at him to “SHUT UP.”  I was regurgitating my mom’s words and tone when I heard him babbling.

Even when I got older and had a serious boyfriend, I didn’t want him to meet my dad. I didn’t know how I was going to explain my dad – the enigma father figure in my life. Do I tell this guy my dad is “retarded?” Do I say, “he’s a little goofy?” My sister Annie also ran into this predicament. We kept this information from many of our future friends because we thought they’d judge us for having a mentally disabled dad.

One time I remember seeing my dad wandering around town, and I turned around and walked the other way so he wouldn’t notice me. I didn’t want to be caught dead trying to explain to my friends that this guy who looked and acted like a crazy bum was my dad.

It really wasn’t until I met Greg that I felt free to open up about my dad. It was one of the hardest things I ever did. Greg made it really easy for me though because his family has a lot of mental illness too. I think in the mental illness competition, I won by a landslide, but knowing that he could relate to someone on daily medication for serious psychiatric problems was so refreshing to me.

And that’s when the magic happened.

Once I was able to let go of all that illusory, bullshit guilt and shame that had been put on me as a child (by people who unfairly judged my dad), I was able to get to know him better. Unfortunately, by the time I had this change of heart, I had already moved to Washington D.C. Despite the distance, I’ve been able to take advantage of this relationship with my dad, and it’s one of the best partnerships in my life.

I can’t begin to even explain how sorry I am for denying my dad and lying about who he was for so many years of my life. I cheated my dad out of a meaningful relationship with me, and I cheated myself out of a meaningful relationship with my dad. When I needed him the most, I didn’t even want to go near him because I was so embarrassed and repulsed. And to make matters worse, my friends missed out on opportunities for lessons in diversity, acceptance, mental illness, and compassion.  For all these reasons, I feel like I’ve cheated everyone.

The good news is that I’ve grown, and I’ve worked hard to deepen my relationship and my love for my dad. I accept him just as he is because HE IS PERFECT. He’s exactly the dad I needed, and he’s exactly the dad I was supposed to have. I am who I am today because of him, and for that I am so grateful.

Because I want this blog to be about so much more than me blabbering on about how shitty of a person I’ve been in my life, I really want people to think about how this difficult lesson could apply in your own life.

Do you ever feel like you’re judging and treating people unfairly for things they cannot control or are not their fault?

Do you feel that you’ve lost out on opportunities for personal growth because of your negative feelings toward a person or their situation?

Do you feel that you could be more compassionate and show those in most need of your compassion that you care for them?

How can you change the life of one mentally ill person by showing them that they matter?

Think about that. Meditate on that. Let’s get better together.

I’m sorry dad. I didn’t even know what I was doing.

With all my love,

The Guru Girl

Isn’t he so handsome?

The Lies of My Life: My Wedding

I can’t even begin to count how many lies I’ve told in my life. Most the the lies were to protect myself from ridicule from my peers, protect me from being taken out of my house by CPS, or just to prevent bringing shame to my family. Today, I want to clear the air and break free from the burden of these lies. Or at least one of them.

Let’s start with the biggest whopper of all: My Wedding.

No, I didn’t get married in May. I got married October 2, 2002. Very few people actually know the day that I was married. This is because I had to keep it a secret. Here’s the story of my wedding.

Before meeting Greg I was in a relationship with someone else. He was a great guy, but his mother was basically the anti-Christ reincarnated on earth. She was horribly abusive to me and to her son. I was renting a room in his parent’s house, and every day was a nightmare for me. My boyfriend never stuck up for me (or himself), and I knew that if my relationship continued, so would the abuse I’d have to put up with.

Then I met Greg, and I really felt like he saved me. He was everything I was looking for in a person: Canadian (I was homesick), kind, generous, and totally cute. However, there was a huge problem with Greg. I was raised Catholic, and he was raised Atheist. I had a deep connection with my spiritual self, and he had no idea that he even had a spirit, let alone knew how to connect with it. That didn’t matter to me though, because I recognized that he was on his own journey, and there was enough between us to foster what has become an incredible partnership.

After a couple years of dating and “living in sin” he proposed to me. It was mid-August. I told my parents, and started planning a May wedding. Soon into my wedding planning I started hearing from relatives about how my wedding “should” be. This person didn’t want to be seated next to that person, and don’t invite this person or that person… The bullshit started piling up quickly, and like the servant I was, I tried to be sensitive to the needs of everyone that would be celebrating my wedding. It all became overwhelming when I realized that my special day was more about what other people wanted and it didn’t include anything that I actually wanted.

…and like the universe always does, it dealt me two aces: Greg lost his job.

Because Greg was Canadian, he was in the country on a work Visa. Without a job, he didn’t have sponsorship, and thus, he couldn’t be in the country. So we did what any young couple in love would do. We got married.

It was a weekday afternoon in Leesburg, Virginia. We were outside in the courtyard. We were married by the Justice of Peace. Yep. We JOPed that! The only person in attendance was my sister Annie and the civil celebrant we had just contacted the night before. It was a perfect ceremony. No bullshit. No hateful family members freaking out about where to sit or what to eat. It was just us.

But my mom didn’t want me to tell anyone that I got married that day. First of all, we weren’t married in a catholic church, so that was a huge no-no. Second, it was on Aunt Carla’s birthday, and that’s also a big no-no because of the perpetual fights between my mom and aunt stemming from my sister’s adoption (that’s another long story). We kept it hushed to prevent embarrassing my mom, dressed up for pictures in May, and then just told people it was a private ceremony.

So yeah, as I’m getting ready to celebrate my (lucky number 13) wedding anniversary in a few weeks, I just wanted to put that out there. I’m not lying about my wedding date anymore. I’m going to celebrate openly because I’m proud of how I got married. Greg and I haven’t had the most perfect relationship over the last 15 years (we’re two imperfect people trying to evolve into better versions of ourselves), but we really are the best of friends. I’d do anything for this man because I love him like crazy, and I don’t think it was fair to him, me, or anyone else to lie about something as awesome as when or how we got married.

So there you have it. I’m sorry for lying to so many people about this. I was a 22 year old girl that was being unfairly manipulated, but now that I’m aware of what happened, I can break free from it. All of it.

You should try this sometime too. Give it up. Let it go. Don’t let the lies fester inside you. Don’t pretend. Just. Be. You.

With all my love,

The Guru Girl

Forgiveness

I need to give a shout out to Mindy for triggering my inspiration for this blog. I know Mindy from my childhood. She was one of the most beautiful ballerinas I had the honor of dancing with as a kid, and she’s grown into such an amazing woman. So, thanks Mindy. 🙂

Mindy sent me a message saying she was thinking of me when she heard Dr. Caroline Leaf speaking at her church, and she sent me a link to her teachings on the brain and it’s interdependence with Christianity. I’ll post the link below. I highly recommend watching!  It’s great stuff!

Now, as a survivor and thrive-or (yes, making that word up), of a traumatic brain injury, I’ve learned a thing or two about the brain. I currently have a list of 19 medical professionals that have been helping me through the healing process after my car accident, but honestly, very few of those folks actually DID anything to help me heal. I did most of it by myself. Yes, my chiropractor spent hours working on my soft tissue and back alignment, my osteopath performed lots of cranial-sacral adjustments, and my physical, cognitive, and vestibular therapists helped rebuild the parts of my brain that were damaged. However, when it came to healing, I did it. My drive to seek knowledge, truth, understanding, going to each appointment, following orders, doing exercises, following a proper diet, etc. is what made me heal. My healing came through my own works, my own thoughts, my own emotions, and my own will. I wanted it. I went after it. I didn’t fear my prognosis, because I wanted to come out of my accident as the best version of myself.

One surprising thing about healing from a severe injury is that oftentimes, as you fix some obvious broken areas of yourself, you start to discover lots of old baggage that also needs to go. This stuff has been hanging out in your mind and body tightly bound up to protect you from being hurt by it anymore. Your body protects you from this toxic baggage, but these little pockets of yuck are essentially the seeds of disease. They’re festering. They smell like dumpsters. It’s icky.

So, on this path to healing, I found that I also needed to unwrap the other baggage, look at it, sort it out, and figure out what to do with each item. …kinda like cleaning out your closet and sorting into the “keep,” “donate,” and “toss” piles. Unlike a closet cleaning, this baggage, once unwrapped spewed forth so many emotions; so many in fact, that I couldn’t even look at what was inside. I hadn’t looked at this stuff for so long because it was inexplicably painful. But then, like every major obstacle in my life, I put my fear aside, chose love, and went right into each package of ick. One by one, I slowly unwrapped, looked, felt, cried, vented, wrote, meditated, prayed, cried, etc., until all I was left with was an object without any emotional wrapping. Just a memory. Not good or bad. Just a memory no more moving than a jagged, little pebble in an infinite sea of jagged little pebbles.

…and that brings me to forgiveness.

When I tell you that I had to do a lot of forgiving during the process of cleaning out my closet of emotional and often traumatic memories, believe me when I say it. When you’re looking back at your past and thinking, “How could anyone do something so horrible to me?” as an active victim, and then immediately making the choice to forgive, you’re doing the hardest thing you’ll ever do, and the best. Holding onto this stuff – even the stuff you’ve forgotten about – really colors your heart. It’s toxic in your body. It’s you poisoning yourself from within. You can’t love fully, you can’t be the most compassionate version of yourself, and you can’t really be the best version of yourself unless you forgive.

The process became even more complicated when during my own housekeeping process a close family member was in a downward spiral with her substance abuse and psychiatric problems. I understood why she was flailing in her physical and spiritual life because I know her story. I know she has stress, it’s displaced, and she flames it on everyone because she can’t find the strength to clean out her own closet. When you’re so deep in stress, and you’re literally buried in a closet of emotional trauma, sometimes all you can do is shout about how miserable you are, blame your situation on everyone else, and not pull yourself out. For many years I was her personal whipping girl of blame when she sought to vent off the extra steam because she couldn’t handle all the exploding emotional baggage anymore. I made the bravest decision of my life when I chose to forgive her, remove her entanglement in my life, and move on without her. It was a very difficult and sad decision, but my heart is at peace now, and I pray for her almost daily. Although I don’t feel her suffering, I know she is, and I hope that one day, she’ll find her way back home.

With forgiveness, we have to start simply. At some point everyone needs to start at one end of their closet and work out of it. Maybe you’ll pick a corner to start in – don’t try and tackle it all in one day. Bit by bit, you can find your way out if you want it.

The good news is that there are quite a few tips, tricks and secrets to helping you through the process. Here are a few of my favorites:

1. Transcendental Meditation. It does all the work for you. Just do it for 20 minutes twice a day, and let your mantra go at it. It will take awhile to get through all the stress, but it’s a very balanced approach to addressing the heaviness of this stuff.
2. Fasting. Fasting isn’t just for brides-to-be that need to get rid of back fat before wedding pictures! LOL! I use fasting for spiritual reasons, and I find it extremely effective. Deprivation from food for just three days can completely re-focus your awareness, unclog your channels of compassion, and clear away years of toxicity. It’s a real karma burner! I’m in the middle of an 11 day fast now (3 days only water, 5 days veggie juice, 3 days fruit/veg smoothies), and on this 6th day, I’m feeling better than I have in years. Fasting is a wonderful blessing. Check out Markus Rothkranz’s book Heal Yourself 101.
3. Cognitive behavior therapy. You can’t always chose what happens, but you can chose how you respond and how you think about negative events. Turn your frown upside down, and see a therapist who can give you tools to be successful. Read Dr. Phil’s Life Code or Dr. Lawlis’ book Retraining the Brain: A 45 Day Plan to Conquer Stress and Anxiety.
4. Prayer. Prayer is powerful. It can literally change your life. Never underestimate it’s power and ability to help you sort things out.
5. Turn to your family and community. Humans are hard wired for community because at a quantum level we’re all connected. The best thing about spending time with other people is that they can also counsel you and support you as you make choices to forgive.

I’m sure there are many other ideas, so feel free to share them with me in the comments below!

Don’t be afraid to look at your baggage. Don’t be afraid to forgive. If you can’t do it right away, just try, try again. Be brave. Love yourself. Forgive, hang up your favorite memories, and throw the rest in the “toss” pile. You’re the only one who can heal yourself, and you deserve a clean closet.

Sending you all my love,

The Guru Girl

Link to Dr. Caroline Leaf’s videos: http://subsplash.com/rivervalleychurch/s/2c14431