Anger

Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) said:" The strong one is not one who can out-wrestle others. Rather, the strong one is one who can restrain themselves when angry. [Bukhari& Muslim]

Financial Abuse

Financial abuse can take many forms, from denying you all access to funds, to making you solely responsible for all finances while handling money irresponsibly himself. Money becomes a tool by which the abuser can further control the victim, ensuring either her financial dependence on him, or shifting the responsibility of keeping a roof over the family's head onto the victim while simultaneously denying your ability to do so or obstructing you.

Financial abuse can include the following:

-preventing you from getting or keeping a job

-denying you sufficient housekeeping

-having to account for every penny spent

-denying access to cheque book/account/finances

-putting all bills in your name

-threatening to force you out of the house and make you homeless and destitute

-withholding information about welfare benefits

-demanding your paychecks

-spending the money allocated to bills/groceries on himself

-forcing you to beg or commit crimes for money

-spending Child Benefit on himself

-not permitting you to spend available funds on yourself or children

-making you give up your savings

-not working themselves but forcing you to work to pay for everything

Financial abuse can have serious and long term effects on women and children experiencing it. Women and children can become trapped in a cycle of poverty, they can experience physical and psychological ill health, isolation and feeling that they can’t escape from the abusive relationship.

-YWCA Factsheet

Acceptance

Here is an excerpt from my favorite part of "The Big Book"

"...acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation - some fact of my life - unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God's world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could no stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and my attitudes." (448)

"Fair"

I have really been struggling these last weeks over the issue of fairness.

Fair is a relative term. Life, in general, is not fair. But in my mind, it should be.

I was devastated by the execution of Troy Davis. I can barely write these words without breaking down. I, like millions of others, had held my breath until the last second, only to get the bad news.

I can only hope that this, like so many other things that are happening in our world now, will create some sort of tipping point, where the rest of us finally fight back for what is right. I am really happy to see so many people demonstrating on Wall Street and throughout this country. I hope this movement will continue to grow.

"There is a huge number of Americans who simply don't realize that they've been victimized by Wall Street – that they've paid inflated commodity prices due to irresponsible speculation and manipulation, seen their home values depressed thanks to corruption in the mortgage markets, subsidized banker bonuses with their tax dollars and/or been forced to pay usurious interest rates for consumer credit, among other things." - Matt Taibbi

I know about unfairness all too well in the money department. For someone who tries to think the best of people, this has hit me especially hard. I've come to realize that when there's money involved, any good that was there (if there ever was any) quickly dissolves.

It's very hard to completely heal when things continually seem unfair. I am trying to accept that things will never be fair between us.

I need to accept that I will never get a full amends from my ex or his family no matter how many AA meetings they attend. The rules for the rich and entitled are different than those for the rest of us.

The only thing that is "fair" in terms of my divorce is that my ex is no longer married to me.

All I can do is move on the best I can, raise my kids well and be happy with my new life. The saving grace is, I do have a new life.

"Dear World:

I appreciate you waiting for me to be born, but please, stop neglecting your child named today.

Sincerely,
Tomorrow."

- Mark Gonzales

"No great thing is created suddenly. There must be time. Give your best and always be kind."

- Epictetus

Sara's Steps for Incest Survivors

I put together the following version of the twelve steps in my process of recovering from incest. When I wrote these steps I never expected anyone but me to see them.. What I wanted was a personalized set of the steps, one that brought together ideas and words that were particularly meaningful to me....These steps are based on the words of the SIA (Survivors of Incest Anonymous) Twelve Steps, the Feminist Steps, and the many people who have helped me to recover. Take what you need and rewrite the rest.

1. Admitted that we had been sexually abused, were powerless over the abuse at the time, and that its consequences had deeply affected our lives.

2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves and deep within us could restore our hope and bring healing.

3. Made a decision to seek help from our higher power and others who understood.

4. Searched deep within to honestly appraise our strengths and weaknesses, and how they affect our lives and others around us.

5. Admitted to our higher power, ourselves, and another person the exact nature of these concerns.

6. Became ready, with the help of our higher power and others sent to aid us, to discard behavior and thinking that was no longer useful or healthy.

7. Honestly desired to abandon these behaviors and pursue instead those that bring strength and renewal.

8. Made a list of the people we had harmed, including ourselves, and became willing to make amends when possible, change our behavior, and forgive ourselves.

9. Made amends with respect for all concerned.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and, when falling back into harmful behavior, promptly acknowledged it and started again, remembering to appreciate how far we've come.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our contact with our higher power and inner spirit, seeking to realize our potential for a generous and meaningful life. Came to believe that every time we accept our past and respect where we are in the present, we are giving ourselves a future.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we sought to spread this message to others and practice these principles in all our affairs.

- Charlotte Davis Kasl, PhD, Many Roads, One Journey: Moving Beyond the 12 Steps

Be Full of Yourself

My daughter is convinced this girl is her - I have it hanging up both in my office and in her bedroom.

- Imagine a Woman International

"To dare to live alone is the rarest courage; since there are many who had rather meet their bitterest enemy in the field, than their own hearts in their closet."

- Charles Caleb Colton

Happy

I realized today that I feel happier than I have probably ever felt.

This is something I have been working on for a long time: just to be happy.

For some people it probably seems like a simple thing. But for me, it has not been.

I had so many negative thoughts constantly popping into my head that I think I needed to completely re-arrange the way I thought. For me, listening to meditations and other positive, affirming voices really helped.

I've been listening to Patricia Lynn Reilly's Home is Always Waiting Meditation (which is wonderful!) every night when I put my daughter to sleep. Sometimes she wants to just talk to me, and that is OK. But I think we both benefit from her words and her peaceful voice. Throughout the day, beginning with breakfast for me and the kids, I listen to Chakra meditations. This is an area of work my sister has encouraged in me for years. It was only recently that this did not seem "weird" to me.

I have been walking my hilly neighborhood daily and following up with my Kundalini Yoga DVD afterwards. The walking helps me clear my head so I can really experience the yoga. When I tried to do yoga just by itself, I would often get distracted with thoughts or things to do mid-way through.

I was really hard on myself for not doing the yoga and walking daily, but when I let go of that and just decided to do what I could, I started to really enjoy it - and make it a priority every day.

I also decided to make myself a nice salad every day at lunch. In the past, I only made salads when other people were eating with me. I don't know why. But I've figured out a method to make a nice single salad, the way I like with with lemon and olive oil, without it being too much fuss. I actually enjoy putting it all together.

I have more time for me now. Part of this is that both my children are in school all -day now. I never had time to do all these self-care acts. I have never had a live-in partner. And I never demanded partnership. I think in a lot of ways I felt lucky just to have the "privilege" of being married. Even if it was to someone who could not give back to me in any way other than buying me off. Contrary to what Alanon promotes, I don't think you can be happy or healthy in a toxic environment. I don't believe children can be either.

I feel so grateful to have such a loving and supportive partner now. I am constantly amazed at his support of me. I never knew a love like this existed, at least for me.

Now that I am healing myself, I have more creative energy than I have ever had. I have so many projects that I am working on and am excited about. Previously, everything looked good on the outside, but I was a miserable mess. Now, by all accounts, I should probably be miserable - at least by my old value system. But I am really, really happy.

Vulnerability

“When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability... To be alive is to be vulnerable.”

-Madeleine L'Engle

After I had a child, it was hard to find out that I, like my own mother, felt I had to purchase the right to create by doing something useful.

- Antonia Malchik

The Low Road

What can they do
to you? Whatever they want.
They can set you up, they can
bust you, they can break
your fingers, they can
burn your brain with electricity,
blur you with drugs till you
can't walk, can’t remember, they can
take your child, wall up
your lover. They can do anything
you can’t blame them
from doing. How can you stop
them? Alone, you can fight,
you can refuse, you can
take what revenge you can
but they roll over you.

But two people fighting
back to back can cut through
a mob, a snake-dancing file
can break a cordon, an army
can meet an army.

Two people can keep each other
sane, can give support, conviction,
love, massage, hope, sex.
Three people are a delegation,
a committee, a wedge. With four
you can play bridge and start
an organisation. With six
you can rent a whole house,
eat pie for dinner with no
seconds, and hold a fund raising party.
A dozen make a demonstration.
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;
ten thousand, power and your own paper;
a hundred thousand, your own media;
ten million, your own country.

It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act, it starts when you do
it again after they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know who you mean, and each
day you mean one more.

--Marge Piercy

Day of the Girl - September 22, 2011

Lupe Fiasco - Words I Never Said ft. Skylar Grey [Music Video]

I think that all the silence is worse than all the violence
Fear is such a weak emotion that's why I despise it
We scared of almost everything, afraid to even tell the truth
So scared of what you think of me, I’m scared of even telling you
Sometimes I’m like the only person I feel safe to tell it to
I’m locked inside a cell in me, I know that there’s a jail in you
Consider this your bailing out, so take a breath, inhale a few
My screams is finally getting free, my thoughts is finally yelling through

It’s so loud Inside my head
With words that I should have said!
As I drown in my regrets
I can’t take back the words I never said

- Lupe Fiasco

"There is a life-force within your soul, seek that life."
-Rumi

Truth

"I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I'm a human being first and foremost, and as such I'm for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole." ~ Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Mothering

"In the end, I didn't need to be the mother of all mothers. All I had to be was what I am, what most people are, a person who learns." - Hilda Raz

Frailty

"Women are not fragile. Not in any sense of the word. We are ultimately strong, physically, mentally and emotionally. We allow our selves to use all our characteristics. Yes, including the emotional ones. Tears, laughter, anger, joy, sorrow, frowns, quiet mumbling and loud yells.. all of which help us to understand ourselves and others and we have strong emotions because we use them. Frailty is a myth." ~ Anon

Your Soul is Oftentimes a Battlefield....

Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against your passion and your appetite.

Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul,
that I might turn the discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness
and melody.

But how shall I, unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers, nay,
the lovers of all your elements?

Your reason and your passion are the radar and the sails of your seafaring soul.

If either your sails or your radar be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.

For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.

Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion,
that it may sing;

And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.

I would have you consider your judgment and your appetite even as you would two loved guests in your house.

Surely you would not honor one guest above the other;
for he who is more mindful of one loses the love and the faith of both.

Among the hills, when you sit in the cool shade of the white poplars,
sharing the peace and serenity of distant fields and meadows --- then let your heart say in silence, "God rests in reason."

And when the storm comes, and the mighty wind shakes the forest, and thunder and lightning proclaim the majesty of the sky --- then let your heart say in awe, "God moves in passion."

And since you are a breath in God's sphere, and a leaf in God's forest,
you too should rest in reason and move in passion.

~ Khalil Gibran