BellaOnline Forums Beauty and Self Self Development Is your future your choice?

This is getting to be VERY interesting and heart wrenching as well. Reading through the replies, I felt sadness and hope all at the same time. It seems that when we get close to our hearts, many emotions bubble up to the surface.

This week is my first experience of reading and sharing in a forum. Wow! It can be deep! Thanks for sharing from your heart. Is this what usually happens in a forum?

Holly, I'm sorry to hear that your experience has been actually physically dangerous. I absolutely believe in our physical safety first and foremost, definitely including yours. You're right that every one of us has different circumstances. Thanks for understanding that I wasn't meaning putting ourselves in that kind of danger.

I have found not one woman to be cookie cutter in this world. What I see is that every woman has a unique beauty to unveil and that for each one, many pains and heartaches have appeared in different ways to keep their true beauty and color hidden. I include myself in this.

In the same way, our paths to freedom and full bloom must differ. We need to find safe ways to blossom in every case. The fear we need to overcome is not the fear of moving past physical danger. Sometimes it may be the fear of failure; not being good enough or something we're afraid to let go of. There are many fears and they seem to be different in EVERY case.

That's what makes coaching different from counseling. Coaching is generally client led with client solutions and plans based on what will work for that client alone. We look at your hopes, dreams and abilities and then we discover together how to create a personalized plan so that your life begins to reflect what you desire it to be...no cookie cutter here.

For me personally, I'm creating a life where I have a safer place for my heart; where I experience freedom to express my hopes and dreams; where I fully live as my authentic self. I'm not there yet, but I'm growing. It can be uncomfortable for me personally, physically and relationally. I too have had my heart broken and had great physical pain. In my situation, it's no longer enough to stop me because I know what is waiting for me is something far greater.

I do live in the "Power of NOW". I believe in living life to the fullest at every moment. I also believe that the choices and mindset that I have in the "now" also directly shift the course of my future. Of course things happen to get me off track, but I intend to keep moving toward my full potential.

And do you know what, Tami? I think you're going to get there!

Wishing you all the things you want to see unfold in your future.

Love,

Patience.

Thanks for the encouragement, Patience! Congratulations to you also for finding a way to follow your heart. I hope you find true happiness in being all of who you really are in a life that's everything you want.

You and Hollyelise make me think of two women in their glory who had their branches pruned. Somehow though, I wonder if you are surpassing your former glory as you seek authentic expression in other forms while keeping your heart safer. May the path of your expression become clearer every day.

I've roamed around this site more today and I find both of your voices all over the place. You inspire and challenge so many women. I hope you can see the beauty in yourselves through the eyes of someone who has just "met" you. That Holly inspires women by teaching them knitting is simply beautiful to me.

I would like to learn from you and from Holly.

What can you tell the rest of us women to encourage us to keep moving forward into a life that reflects our true hearts? When fear raises its ugly head, what do you suggest we do? (Is this question considered a new thread? Remember, I'm new at this.)

I honour you both as very brave women!

I'd love to hear the stories of other women as well.

I guess many different things affected on what will be our future and we are most effective on that. Yeah I'm more agree with you that we make our future but not 100%

Hi there Tami,

I'd better explain myself before I go on. I probably shouldn't be replying to you, but Patience can't right now so I am going to respond for her. I checked back to see how much she'd told you all before I jumped in here, and I see she did tell you this:



Well, I am Percy, and I am the protector of her 'system'. (people with DID have lots of different 'parts' that have different roles to play. This is called a 'system'. Being the 'protector' is my role.) There are presently 7 of us in this system, including myself. Patience is the birth child from whom we all 'split' as a result of extreme child sexual abuse. The youngest 'part' is 6 yrs old.

Patience can't write just now coz she had a bit of a 'run in' with one destructive part that we call 'IT'. But I won't go into that here. I will explain that in more detail on another forum here if any of you want to know. What happened doesn't have anyting to do with this topic, which is why I am not going to talk about it here. Instead, I just want to tell you how she rose above her problems, as you have asked about that here. She would also be too modest to say - knowing her!

Patience, and our body, is nearly 69 years old and we have been on a disability pension since 1988 due to a spinal disease that greatly restricts what the body can do.

Patience believed, and still does, that we all have strength within ourselves to rise above the obstacles and to be a success in life in spite of our handicaps and the legacies from the past. She believes it is all about self belief, and self respect.

I reckon she has been knocked down more times than I can count, but she always gets up again. How? Well, just pure pig headedness I guess! She refuses to accept defeat. She always fights back - tooth and nail sometimes. She might be knocked out of action for a while, but then she gets angry at the injustice, and she gets to her feet and starts swinging into another round, like a boxer who just won't go down for the count.

She left school at the age of 13, due to lots of physical and emotional/psychological problems, and in her adult years went on to get the requirements to enter tertiary level study. She graduated as a social worker with a major in psychology, and she devoted her life to helping abused children, alcoholics, drug addicts and homosexuals who were being disowned by their families, their churches, and socially. When she was no longer able to work in these areas due to the vicious interference of some people, she studied for other things, but continted to do this counselling work in her spare time, voluntarily. She still counsels people who come to her for help - and has been doing this work for over 30 years now.

During the 1970's and 1980's she worked actively for animal welfare and animal rights and was the education officer for our city's Animal Liberation group. She trained as a Cetacean Paramedic, and was involved in saving Whales and Dolphins. She gave lectures in schools and also taught art in a secondary school and trained a junior choir at the school.

She's actually a very placid person, but I provide her with the 'fight' she needs. She also has a part called Ann, who talks to her and reasons with her - like what you might call an 'inner voice'.

Over her working years, she develoiped expertise in many things, so no matter what others did to ruin her dreams, she had another ace up her sleeve. She has been in the Army, has been an artist, a counsellor, a massage therapist, a poet and a writer, a musician and a concert singer of classical music; - and even at 68 she hasn't stopped. She is presently doing projects to raise funds for an animal rescue group - using her artistic and writing talents. There's no stopping this dude!

So, though she may not have been able to follow though to her highest potential in some areas, she did in others, so I reckon we can have some control over our hopes for the future, by simply 'hanging in there' and not taking 'no' for an answer.

She once told our psychologist (therapist) that she felt a failure, but by crikey, from my observation, she has done more and achieved more in her life than many others who did not face the same obstacles. She was the phoenix that rose out of the ashes. Perhaps it was even the fact that she faced such opposition and what seemed unsurmountable odds, that MADE her all the more determined.

So, just get in touch with that hero within, and go for it folks!

You can win!

( and thanks Tami for your wonderful words. I know Patience will be very moved when she is well enough again to read them)

Percy. (on behalf of Patience)

Yes, Percy, one can have some control of the future by hanging on there and not giving up. Well said.

Yes, Percy and Patience, you have served to solidify my belief that your glory is oozing out in many ways. Thanks for sharing how you have pressed forward and never let circumstances fully stop you. You've found many powerful ways to share your voice.

A friend of mine was diagnosed with a number of labels including what I think was called "Multiple Personality Disorder" and "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder" a few years back (Is this similar to DID?). She is one of the most brilliantly talented women I know! She too was no stranger to abuse. It took quite some time, but eventually every one of her personalities got the support they needed and they learned to make friends with each other. She is moving forward and I'm so happy to say that the world is able to see more of her glory all the time as well.

Anyhow, many things may shift our course, but once again, I'm inspired to keep moving forward towards the life I want to live (while living fully alive in the "now"). When things happen, I can simply adjust my plans to get what I want anyhow. It may be just a different way from what I expected, but I will still aim to succeed at being all of who I already am.

Thanks for sharing and thank you on behalf of those who have not been able to thank you themselves. I am a passionate lover of animals and wildlife as well as people. In fact, a group of us are just starting up a local animal support society in the last month or so.

I believe we have the power to not only make choices that change the direction of our own personal future, we have the power to make a difference to others as well.

Thanks Tami, I reckon you've got the right idea.

And yes. DID and Multiple Personality Disorder and one and the same. The name was changed to DID because some thought it a better description.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder accompanies MPD/DID.

It's really great to hear that your friend is moving forward and that her parts are becoming co-conscious. That's a great advance and it shows how much hard work she has put into this achievement. Please tell her that you know someone else who shares this with her, and that we all wish her a wonderful, fulfilling future.

Yeah. We can make a difference. I always get a bit upset when I hear people talk about how 'this' or 'that' needs to be changed, but sit on the fence and let others do all the hard work. I know 'people power' doesn't always work, but how can we expect it to if we never give it a try?!

Patience has always been an activist - fighting for children's rights, Aboriginal rights, animal rights, Gay rights, - and because a lot of other people did the same, many injustices and acts of cruelty here have changed.

At present we are trying (on a government level) to stop Japan from carrying out its plan to hunt and kill 50 of our Humpbhack whales in the Southern Ocean. (even though the IWC has banned commercial whaling again at the last meeting, the authorities in Japan 'get through the loop' by saying that they kill whales for 'scientific research', which of course is a load of 'whale blubber' - to put it politely!)

We in Australia have worked so hard to bring this Humpback population back, and we sort of regard every one of them as our family. We have an albino one, (two now, I believe, coz he became a daddy!) and the whole country loves him and we watch and count them every time they go to our north coast to have their calves, and then when they return to the southern waters again. But Japan won't listen. I reckon it is up to the people to show them. So many in their own country don't approve of whaling either, but governments, lets face it, are about money most of the time.

But getting back on topic, it is in things like this that our voices count, and we DO have the power to change things. Of course, the 'other side' also has the power to ignore us. This is when we feel discouraged, but we should never give up!

I reckon that making the most of each day is using our inner power to achieve the very best for us, and for our world. When we all do it together, that's when miracles happen.

Hey, Tami, I send you all my good wishes and cheer you on to success!

Percy.

Well, that's not how i was thinking of it, but perhaps it is that too, i don't know.

What i was thinking of in particular was, that i've spent much of my life self-limited by fear, without even realizing it was fear. I worked hard on getting past the barrier, and made some progress, but not a lot. Then one day, unexepectedly and seemingly by accident, i had ... i'm trying to think what to call it... some might call it a spiritual experience, but it was not religious in any particular sense. I just call it "my art epiphany." I don't really know how to describe it, but in the space of a few hours i had many significant realizations, and the result was my fear was gone. I was no longer limited. Boom. Just like that. It was like being unchained and set free.

My art got ten times better (to me) overnight. I'd have a vision of what i wanted before i'd pick up my camera or brush, and i'd know... kind of that calm feeling of know... that i was going to "nail it" before i had even begun. But my art mentors saw a dramatic difference in the art too, and got very excited. I even got into a museum.

But that wasn't all. All the little fears i'd had i was able to move through. I'm not saying i wasn't a little scared, but it no longer stopped me. I even made a little list of the things i'd wanted to do before and couldn't, and started ticking them off one by one. I sang for others, i danced at an anniversary party, i learned to drive, i donated blood, i got my passport and took my first trip alone... and i went overseas. I did many other things, but importantly, i was very happy, i felt centered and stronger than i've ever felt, and my nightmares disappeared completely!

So that is what immediately comes to mind when i think of "being my authentic self." I think of something similar for others... of their being able to do what they would wish to do, to realize their potential and be their best self, without limits, and to be happy and feel balanced and at peace.

You mean- you broke all the shackles on one day in a jiffy and began living life?