Flip! Page 3

  My statements are not intended to find blame or fault. In fact, it is quite the opposite. They are intended to encourage the reader to understand, think, and feel without any external influence or consequence. While my experiences as a child were predominately dysfunctional and abusive, I’m grateful for my childhood experiences. Because of this, I have been challenged in ways that have brought me to realizing my authentic self and optimal potential. I realize I would not be the person that I am today we’re I not afforded the opportunity to think for myself and to decide for myself who and what I wanted to be in my life. I also empathize for the people who feel such an incredible obligation to their caregivers, whether those are parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles etc., to adhere to a faith and or dogma as a measure of appreciation and respect. I cannot even begin to imagine who I would be today if I had to go to a church and go through the motions of a religion simply because I felt compelled to demonstrate my respect to the people who sacrificed everything in their lives to give me the life I have today. I never felt required to follow any religion as a point of familial obligation and for that, I am deeply grateful.

  When we talk about fear-based thinking, it often comes from a deeply injured sense of self. Human development theorists attest that our personalities are developed from our earliest experiences. Even infants, without having developed a language ability, will derive a sense of fear based upon implicit experiences. If a baby is lying in their crib with a wet diaper, diaper rash, hungry and is hearing screaming in the next room, the child will develop a basic sense of lack of safety. The child who has his/her diaper tended to and has no discomfort from a diaper rash and who is nursed by his/her mother with calm and direct eye contact, will experience a calming sense of safety. The fear-based thinking model starts very early and, without mitigation or a timely interruption of fear-based events, will cultivate a sense of fear based emotional response to their environment as they grow into adulthood. Even newborn babies are born with an implicit sense of fear. Studies have shown babies respond to conditions in their environments, whether those are fearful or safe and loving. Cortisol in the body that is triggered by a fear response in the baby, cultivates a lifelong foundation for baseline anxiety, something many of my clients deal with daily.

  While my childhood was consistently fear-based, I did experience love occasionally and had the safety of this in the relationship I had with my grandparents, as well as my parents on rare occasion. My tender childhood friendships were a glimpse of a love emotion that I was untrusting of throughout my adolescence and early adulthood. Fear was predominating and consistent, therefore I did not trust love when it showed up. As a result, I grew up a very angry child that turned into a very angry teenager and adolescent and young adult. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending upon your perspective, I learned to use that anger and passion in unhealthy ways to mitigate any fear. I would be remiss if I did not express my gratitude for my experiences. While I would never recommend my experiences as a child to anyone, I would recommend isolating the things to be grateful for as a measure of personal growth. I would not be writing this book were it not for those adverse experiences during my childhood. I know and understand pain as a child, and I empathize with anyone who experienced pain and trauma. No child should ever feel discouraged, discarded, used, abused, worthless, hated, or in the way. No child should ever feel fear as their consistent emotional state of being. Every child is born with a purpose and, as a result, every person has a purpose.

  I choose to use my experiences with trauma as fuel and motivation to explore and evolve in this world on my terms. It has been incredibly empowering through my journey and my hope is that it will have a lasting positive effect for you as well.

  Hopefully this will help you understand some things about yourself and the dynamics you’ve been existing in. Perhaps this book will give you the courage to start making some necessary changes in your own life. You cannot expect to take a shower and get clean, and stay clean, if you’re consistently jumping into mud. You must stop jumping into the mud in order to have consistency in staying reasonably clean. You can go to therapy every day of the week, but if you are leaving your therapist’s office and going home to an abusive partner, a toxic work environment, or dealing with an abusive family member, then you are not making necessary changes to remove yourself from these environments in a healthy and safe way.

  Bear in mind that I fully appreciate how leaving an abusive relationship can be unsafe for the partner and any children involved. Conduct an internet search for local support groups and safe houses to help you leave an abusive partner. There are agencies and organizations all over the country ready and willing to help you and any children leave a dangerous situation. Please contact these organizations before planning to leave a violent partner.

  Chapter Three: Clutter goes into more detail on this topic. You can go to therapy for the rest of your life, but it’s not going to do a damn thing for you until you cut out these influences. I have an intimate understanding and a keen appreciation of how difficult it is to remove toxic influences in your life. My hope for you in reading this book is that you will start to see that spark and that willingness to regain, or to gain for the first time ever, your own sense of wellbeing and to shut out the individuals who are using you and your energy to prop themselves up in their own toxic existence. I’m talking about those people who are so beat down themselves that they must put you down in order to make themselves feel better.

  We are going to talk about self-respect, love of self, and the intolerance of toxic behavior from other people. We are going to talk about the difference between people you genuinely care about who are going through a rough time and who need your friendship, compassion, and love versus individuals who are parasitic and siphoning off your precious fuel as their own. We are going to talk about doing the work of repairing your own psyche and we are going to talk about any damages that you’ve caused to other people. We will talk about accountability and making those wrongs right. We will do this without any sort of deprecation of self because there is no deprecation to be had. You are a worthy and loving and valuable person. Because of this, you are accountable for your behavior and your treatment of other people. You are accountable for your own energy and how that energy is utilized. You are responsible for your own recovery and for growing and evolving and for setting a healthy and functional example if you have children. You deserve to be inspired by others and that makes you responsible to inspire other people. Flip! is written to inspire you and people like you who have a need to understand their pain and where it comes from in a logical sense. In doing so, you can see how to remove your emotional response to trauma and see your negative experiences logically.

  When you do this, it is just as simple as changing the channel on the tv or radio. You can choose to change your thinking. You can learn how to respond to your environment in love instead of fear. Can you imagine?

  Chapter Two

  Judgment

  When we look at other people we don’t know and have never met before, we often formulate opinions about them, whether they are conscious or subconscious. We all do this. It’s part of our evolutionary need to survive. The caveman part of us needs to seek those that are familiar and that can be trusted and avoid those that are unfamiliar or different. Anyone that appears or acts in a manner that is foreign to us will naturally be suspect. It doesn’t mean that you’re going to suspect every stranger you meet as a potential enemy. It means when we see people who live their lives differently than we do, we tend to pay more attention. We observe them more consciously. It’s a curious thing to meet someone who is comfortable in their different attitudes, values, and ideals. We observe differences because it is simply ingrained in our biology to do so. Often, culture dictates that this is a flaw of our character and something to be avoided. Socially speaking, it is inappropriate to place judgment upon those who look differently, act differently, pray differently, or dress diffe
rently than we do. However, we still do it as a measure of curiosity and comparison. Going a little deeper, if a person is already insecure about who they are in the world, meeting a person who is quite different in appearance, particularly if that person gives off an air of confidence, can make the insecure person feel threatened. If we are in a clan of cavemen and we see someone from a different clan approach us, we would naturally be on guard because we would need to protect our food stores and shelter. We would naturally be suspect of anyone coming towards our clan because food and shelter are a rare commodity for the caveman, so we must survive and that means by confronting strange clans that are foreign to us. Of course, this is not a justification for bias or stereotypes, but more of a logical and foundational explanation why some of those factors exist to begin with.

  That need for survival is still deeply ingrained in our brain. Contemporary culture is consistent in reminding us of how we are not cavemen and how outdated the construct of bias and judgment is. The difference between bias or other discrimination is having a deeply rooted sense of judgment of those who appear strange to us is vastly different than allowing that judgment to metastasize into hateful behavior and dehumanizing treatment of others. Research has shown that individuals who adhere to these biases and stereotypes about people who look and act differently than themselves, is indicative of lower intelligence, lower educational levels and a profound lack of diversity and positive exposure to differing cultural influences. It makes sense if you consider that anyone who hasn’t traveled the world would be more likely to be on guard around a foreigner than someone who’s an experienced world traveler and has had the opportunity to learn about many different cultures than his or her own. In fact, because we know consciously that society does not approve of us placing judgment on those that are different to us that we have naturally become deeply reserved in admitting our bias. It’s ironic that sometimes we fear being judged so we hide our own judgments because we are told that they are wrong. That said, a key element to evolving, growing and healing is to take an honest assessment of personal bias. Once that has been identified then you can further investigate where that notion comes from and whether or not it is something you want to hold on to as a measure of personal growth and evolution. If a child is raised by a parent who believes that women are not as smart as men, then logically, the child will more likely adopt this assertion or some aspect of it. Have you ever known someone who acted in a way that indicated their own personal bias towards someone else? Perhaps you knew a neighbor at one time who didn’t care for a particular family when they moved into the neighborhood. It’s important to address these beliefs during the evolution of personal change. Once we adopt a sense of equanimity toward others, we will be able to let go of unhealthy ideals and limits to our personal potential.

  Why is there a topic on judgment and personal bias in a book that is supposed to be about wellness and healing? Because in order to heal and grow, we must fully account for our bias in this world. Again, not a place of judgment or blame, but if you have a predisposed opinion of other people based upon a cultural dynamic, then you cannot fully grow and heal without taking inventory of where that belief came from. Bear in mind there is a fundamental difference between being aware of differences versus allowing those differences to evolve into unhealthy bias. You can be aware that your neighbors pray on Friday or don’t eat meat without bearing ill will towards them because of it. If you do have ill will toward someone that you don’t know, we will address that too. It’s important to be aware of how fear and the thinking that evolves from that manifests in our lives in a dysfunctional way. We will explore deeper and more precise aspects of this behavior in the following chapters on Culture and Worthiness.

  Before you can grow, you must heal. Before you can heal, you must understand what is broken. When you take inventory of dysfunctional opinions, beliefs, and cognitions you can accurately identify what part needs to change.

  Here is a test: Consider the following statement:

  “All human beings are born equal. There is no race, religion, birthright, sexuality, intellect, or ability that makes any one person “better” or more “worthy” than another person. The most destitute individual conceived in incest, rape, etc. is worth just as much as a child born into royalty with all the titles and distinctions implied.”

  Do you agree with this statement? If not, why? This is the beginning of your journey. We are all spiritual beings having a human experience. You may ask yourself why this is important to your own personal growth. It is critical to understand that when we equal ourselves to one another, we become empowered by understanding and empathy. When we understand we may have been culturally influenced to believe that a group of people are considered “less than” the group we belong to, then we can learn to let go of old programming and adopt new healthy belief systems that foster our own healing. Additionally, if you are of the opinion that you belong to a sub-set of people or group that feels marginalized or discriminated against, you can make an observation of the error in that thought process and learn to start letting it go and living up to your own fullest potential with the newfound knowledge that you’re equal and worthy to every other person, despite what other people may tell you from their own fear-based mindset.

  The challenge in all of this is to educate ourselves and to be aware of what our physiological responses to threats are. While we can access all forms of modern communication, education, and enlightenment, we are still a product of evolution. This plays out so many ways in our lives. It’s key to understand why we feel the way we do when we see someone who looks differently than we do. When we understand this, we do better, we feel better, and we act better.

  Several years ago, I was working out in a gym during one of our many military transitions.

  We were living temporarily in the base hotel. I was unfamiliar with the base gym I was utilizing and was a bit anxious about working out around people that I didn’t know. My heightened sense of awareness and heightened expectation of judgment from others put me into a position of the “best defense is a good offense” mentality. I honestly didn’t think of it at the time, but looking back, I can see clearly how judgmental I was feeling in the moment. I also can clearly see the reason for all that judgment was because I was in fear of being judged. This was the first time I had attended this gym. I approached the front door and determined I was not comfortable asking any questions about the gym, where the locker rooms were, where the cardio and weight rooms were. I presented my identification and took a gym towel. As I walked in through the gym, I attempted to investigate each room as though I was looking for someone and not trying to figure out where the recumbent bicycles were. If anyone asked me if they could help me, I was prepared to tell them I was looking for my then husband. They wouldn’t be able to help me and, theoretically, leave me be. There was something terribly triggering about being an Air Force veteran married to an active duty Army soldier walking through a Marine Corps gym. I felt a bit on edge, as I did not want to seem weak or unintelligent. The gym was covered with extremely fit young men and, while that may sound exciting to many, I can assure you I was not in that frame of mind. I felt physically inferior and the fact that I did not see but a few other women (who appeared just as fit, if not more so than their male counterparts) made me feel even more isolated. “What am I doing here? I could just do a workout back in the hotel room,” I thought to myself. I continued to inspect each room as I approached. The gym wasn’t that big, and I wasn’t stupid. I could figure this out on my own and I didn’t need some jock feeling as though he was rescuing me. I was irritated by the time I located the massive cardio room with its expansive row of treadmills, stair climbers and bicycles. I surveyed the room briefly and isolated what I thought was the safest piece of equipment based upon its location in comparison to the other individuals in the gym. As I took my position on one of the recumbent bicycles, I adjusted the length of the stirrups after giving the equipment a t
horough scrubbing with the provided spray and wipes. Truthfully, I wasn’t really concerned about the machine being unsanitary as much as I was interested in putting on a display of concern about the sanitation. If anyone was watching me, they would see me taking the time to preserve my own wellness. Sort of a demonstration of my need to project an air of heightened social positioning to anyone who may have been watching me. Basically, the equivalent of chest pounding to show domination. (I was still wondering what I was doing here.) Also, the recumbent bike, as you may know, is the perfect piece of equipment to allow you to fully extend and contract the leg muscles all while being completely distracted with the use of a smart phone and social media. So, as I got settled in and started the repetition, I opened my social media app and proceeded to scroll through the myriad of posts with the intention of securing my anxious mind with a welcome distraction. My intention was to appear as relaxed as possible in my perusal of social media. However, I was overly aware of my situation and was on heightened alert with regards to the location of each gym attendee. After several minutes of scrolling through the mindless jargon, a woman climbed into the saddle at the seat directly adjacent to me. This is not normally an issue however I took some mild offense to the fact that there was an entire row of recumbent bicycles available for her use and yet she chose the one directly beside me. I felt irritated and annoyed with her selection. Did she not understand the social rules? If you use a public restroom and there is a long row of vacant toilets available and only one person is using a toilet at that time, social rules dictate that you do not select the toilet directly next to the occupied one. (My mind was racing. You just don’t do that! What is her damn problem?) Everyone knows these social rules extend to other situations, much like utilizing available exercise equipment in the gym. Like in the restroom scenario, nobody wants to hear your business going on next-door to you, just like you don’t want to smell the person who is working out next to you or hear the grunting or heavy breathing during their exertion. So many rules were being broken. My heart rate increased due more to my social anxiety than the exertion of the machine. Obviously, if the restroom (or the gym in this case) is completely packed, then naturally the social rules don’t apply because you can’t help but to select the only available piece of equipment or the remaining available toilet. But no, she had to pick the one directly next to me. My anxiety shot through the roof at that moment. I felt flush and my heart rate was much higher than it should’ve been at that moment, given my physical exertion. Was she pranking me? Were there other people in the gym watching this? The idea of this infuriated me. Who the hell did she think she was? I would have discontinued my workout and returned to our hotel room but then that would mean she won. They all would win, and I couldn’t allow that to happen. I had to keep working out and pretend her presence was not an issue for me. Just over here minding my business and checking out my friend’s social media posts. My mind explored a variety of different hostile options. How dare she? How dare she come into my space when there’s so much other available equipment that she could utilize? Hell, at this point I couldn’t even concentrate on my work out. I couldn’t even concentrate on my social media. I was growing more and more enraged by the second. What do I do? Do I confront her? Do I ask her what her problem is? God no, that could backfire immensely. She was an older lady and, granted while yes, there are women in the military, I was more concerned with the fact that she might be the spouse of some high-ranking base official. I didn’t care if she didn’t like me, I certainly could not put my husband’s career in a chokehold like that, through my adverse behavior. However, the nature of my character did not allow me to ignore this behavior. I had to do something. So, what do I do? I turn the flash off my camera on my phone and take a couple of test photos of my feet to ensure that it was indeed shut off. And, at the right moment, I took a couple photos of the back of her head that also incorporated a slice of my own position so that the viewer could clearly see we were situated next to each other. Once the photograph was posted to my social media, I proceeded to vomit a toxic rant of injustice based upon her choices of equipment. As soon as I began my dialogue I started to relax and feel better, knowing that the rest of my “clan” would validate my feelings and back me up. I needed their approval. I needed them to tell me that my rage and vitriol was appropriate and how dare she choose that piece of equipment so close to me and interrupt my work out. I posted it and waited. Over the next several hours I received a couple of validating and encouraging comments that basically told me that my judgment of this woman was valid. Looking back now though, I see with some clarity that had any of my (clan) friends on social media countered my opinions with logic and an opposing suggestion of an opinion, I would’ve been terribly offended. That’s not what friends do. Friends support each other no matter what, right?