“It was important, Dumbledore said, to fight,
and fight again,
and keep fighting,
for only then could evil be kept at bay,
though never quite eradicated. . . .”
– J K Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Quotes
29
Sep 15
On Eradicating Evil
26
Jan 15
On Eye Contact with a Narcissist
“I was watching your eye contact as you visited. That was weird. Your eyes were tearing up when he was talking to you, but it was a friendly conversation. What was that about?”
Jen wiped her eyes. “I can’t look at him without my eyes watering. It’s uncomfortable – not like I’m gonna cry, but more like my eyes hurt. So I pretend like I’ve got an eyelash in my eye and I keep rubbing them. It’s just really uncomfortable to keep my eyes on him for very long when he’s talking – or any time.”
I turned to Will, “What do you think?”
Will shook his head, “I feel the same way. It’s hard to look at him for long. Oh, and I feel myself getting anxious when I try to tell him something. Like I’m afraid he’ll criticize what I say, so I say it fast so I can get it over with, and then I sound like I’m slurring my words.”
I said, “Yeah, and then you open yourself up for more criticism.” Continue reading →
14
Oct 14
The Difference Between Can’t and Won’t
Guest Post by Jenn
Way back in May of this year I was dealing with issues stemming from the sideline Narcissist in my life. I call her a sideline Narcissist because she doesn’t live in my home, or in my town, but she very much influences my life because she raised my husband. Thank the Gods he managed to survive his childhood and now we have our own little darlings, who are also influenced by the sideline Narcissist. But I digress.
Back to the issue the sideline Narcissist was inconveniently causing back in May. After I had sent out an email to extended family members letting them know that we wouldn’t be traveling to Kentucky as we normally do, the husband received an email from his mother. She stated she would like the kids for two weeks in July and then again for another two weeks in August – at her house, which is ten hours away from where we live. The big problem here is that my MIL cannot physically handle the rigors of caring for two very active young boys plus their sister for more than a few days. She wanted them for two weeks at a time. Cue the drama where the sideline Narcissist does a happy dance.
So the husband and I actually agree that his mother cannot have the kids for two weeks. Then we even go so far as to agree that he should go with the kids for their one-week visit. We then agreed that he would talk to his mother about why she couldn’t have the kids by herself. And that’s where all the happy dancing on my end stopped because although the husband said he would talk to her, in reality it wasn’t happening. I even gave him a date to have it done by, since he’s horrible at procrastinating. That date came and he hadn’t had the TALK.
We were in July now, and I was angry – grinding my teeth and harrowing-in-my-gut angry – when I saw him. Because what I saw was that he wouldn’t talk to his mother even though it was in his kids’ best interests. He didn’t want me talking to the sideline Narcissist about this problem because I was “too aggressive” – in his words. Whereas what I saw was that he was entirely too passive. So I sat in my anger and I felt my body drawing in around me, and at some point I got tired of the anger. It takes a lot of energy to maintain that kind of anger and I didn’t want to do it anymore. So I pulled myself aside and had a chat. The fancy schmancy counseling degree I have teaches you certain skills. So I asked myself what I would do with some random dude off the street who walked in and had an angry wife and a mother he couldn’t talk to. And that’s when it hit me. Continue reading →
28
Apr 14
Let Go
– Zen Proverb
She read the quote again. She closed the laptop and walked over to the peely-paint cupboard that held art supplies and construction paper. What color should she pick? She settled on purple. She looked for a marker in the Kerr jar on the kitchen table. She wanted something bold – a marker that would yell. She found a juicy dark blue and purposefully wrote the quote.
She taped the quote next to the others that read: That is not my journey, NMP – not my problem, and No steamrollers!
As she re-read the quotes, she visualized a thick twisted rope. The strands of rope were different colors, twined together to make a rope as thick as her wrist. Each color represented something or someone that she’d allowed to drag her to where she found herself today.
The black represented every one-sided, caustic, demanding, life-sucking relationship she’d ever been in – the narcissists.
The charcoal symbolized her limiting self-talk.
The brown represented her expectations – going as far back as childhood – about what she thought her life would be.
The grey stood for definitions of who she was – assigned to her by others.
The burnt orange represented her lack of self-confidence.
The dark green was every negative, gossip-filled conversation that she hadn’t had the guts to excuse herself from.
She looked back at the quote.
Let go or be dragged.
She wondered where she’d be if she hadn’t allowed that rope to drag her where she is today. She laughed and told herself, “Well, that’s a waste of time. You could spend the rest of the day wondering where you could have gone, or you could pull out a pair of scissors and cut that rope apart.”
The burnt orange was the first to go, followed by the grey and the dark green. The brown was the most fun to cut. She ceremoniously snipped the brown and felt her mood brighten. There would be new doors to open once she locked the door on expectations.
The charcoal would take some effort. She’d have to sharpen the scissors for that one. Limiting self-talk had been her constant companion. With sharper scissors, she began to snip the threads of the charcoal strand.
She snipped – “You’re not good enough.”
She cut – “You’re an inconvenience.”
She removed – “Why aren’t you more like everyone else?”
She saw charcoal threads scattered on the floor at her feet. She noticed that the charcoal strand was tightly connected to the black strand. She kept cutting.
The black strand was the thickest – requiring more than a pair of scissors.
As of this writing, she’s still hacking away at the black strand.
Let go or be dragged.
24
Feb 14
The Legacy
“Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work
and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for –
in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car,
and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it.” – Ellen Goodman
and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for –
in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car,
and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it.” – Ellen Goodman
Forty years later, we’ll step off that hamster wheel and wonder if it’s worth it. We’ll turn to our kids and start to say, “Hey, I dunno if this is such a good idea.”
They won’t hear us over the din of their own spinning wheels.
6
Nov 13
Changing Her Own Life
I read and walked for miles at night along the beach,
writing bad blank verse and searching endlessly
for someone wonderful who would step out
of the darkness and change my life.
It never crossed my mind that that person could be me.
28
Oct 13
A Bottomless Boat
“This boat that we just built is just fine –And don’t try to tell us it’s not
The sides and the back are divine –
It’s the bottom I guess we forgot” – Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends
10
Oct 13
When the Narcissist Sees His Own Flaws in His Children
“Underlying all of the constant campaigning needed to uphold this position is a profound vulnerability that lies at the very core of his psyche. Such is the narcissist who must mask his fears of inadequacy by ensuring that he is perceived to be a unique and brilliant stone. In his offspring he finds the grave limits he cannot admit in himself. And he will stop at nothing to make certain that his child continually tries to correct these flaws. In actuality, the child may be exceedingly intelligent, but has so fully developed feelings of ineptitude that he is incapable of believing in his own possibilities.”
– Joshua Braff, The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green
4
Mar 13
On When to Forgive
How do we forgive our fathers, maybe in a dream?
Do we forgive our fathers for leaving us too often, or forever, when we were little?
Maybe for scaring us with unexpected rage, or making us nervous, because there never seemed to be any rage there at all.
Do we forgive our fathers for marrying, or not marrying our mothers, for divorcing, or not divorcing our mothers?
And shall we forgive them for their excesses of warmth or coldness?
Shall we forgive them for pushing or leaning, for shutting doors, for speaking through walls, or never speaking, or never being silent?
Do we forgive our fathers in our age or in theirs? Or in their deaths, saying it to them, or not saying it?
If we forgive our fathers what is left?
– Thomas Builds-the-Firefrom the movie, Smoke Signals
23
Feb 13
Words Got Her Home
Mantras, prayers, meditations, famous quotes,
personal Post-Its, and journal entries –
these are the words I used to move on
and create a better future for myself and my kids.
This new ebook is a compilation of the powerful words
that made a difference in our lives.
Find Words Got Her Home on Smashwords.com or Amazon.com.
Thanks for reading!
15
Feb 13
Words Got Her Out
A few more boxes to pack and load into the car and she’d be done.
She thumbed through magazine clippings that had been filed in an office drawer. Some clippings dated back to her college years – that dreamy phase of, “When I grow up and marry, I hope my kitchen has …..”
There were clippings of herb gardens, bathroom paint colors in sage and mint, examples of open shelves instead of upper cabinets for the ideal kitchen, and nursery ideas.
__________
Her girlfriends thought she was crazy for not wanting upper kitchen cabinets. She loved how open shelving prevented her from collecting junk. Continue reading →
28
Jan 13
Encouragement
Most of us,swimming against the tides of trouble the world knows nothing about,
need only a bit of praise or encouragement –
and we will make the goal. – Robert Collier
17
Jan 13
On Broken Hearts
“Well,” the Goddess said,“your heart didn’t heal straight the last time it broke.
So we’ll break it again and reset it so it heals straight this time.” – Jane Yolen
*Maybe if we looked at it this way,
a broken heart wouldn’t seem insurmountable.
11
Jan 13
Life Happens In The Ricochet
I have the choice of being constantly active and happyor introspectively passive and sad.
Or I can go mad by ricocheting in between. – Sylvia Plath
16
Dec 12
The Lizard Brain Runs Amok
The lizard brain is hungry, scared, angry, and horny.
– Seth Godin
