Tough love is NOT sometime I like to practice, use or apply or be applied to me! ..... BUT ...... sometimes it is the only solution when all else has failed. Through temper tantrums .... mine and others, through stubborn pride and ulterior motives, through junk and clutter we have come. ... Actually we are wading through and it isn't quite as deep as it use to be.
This morning at Sunday school we talked about our memories of how we view things. Especially our views on the afterlife and Heaven that have been instilled in us from small children. Our teacher is battling breast cancer that has come and gone over the last 13 years, and now has taken up residence in her bones. She also was one of the people who endeared themselves to me when I started to attend this small country church. Lots of tears today accompanied by sad & happy memories.
When tough love meets memory lane it can look like a war zone in the emotional department. I think the hardest thing we have to do as humans is whether, we as adults or children have to decide how something is going to effect us when it comes to memories. My "Blessings of 5" Ms. D & I have been walking through some memory areas and talking about what is productive and what isn't. I also have been talking to & counseling a friend of mine on a regular basis, we also are talking about memories and what affects us and how it effects us. ("AFFECT" means to influence & "EFFECT" means: whatever is produced by a cause (or influence) ) ..... Comments parents make have long .... sometimes, eternal effects on their children. Ms. D, Miss B and myself all have varying effects from our parents commenting on our physical features & abilities. Ms. D battles a "slavery mentality" where she feels she has to comply with anything requested of her or she's not worthy in her own mind, Miss B feels she was always compared to a sibling and told if she didn't adhere to certain "female decorations" she was not pretty. Today she feels she is ugly and in all actuality she is gorgeously beautiful and looks like one of the super models that is famous. For myself .... I have childhood memories of being told my eyes, mouth and nose were too big for my face ..... until I discovered a clothing catalog with a little girl who resembled me and I didn't believe my mother after that. Sadly when a child calls into question a parent's truthfulness it is like a slow spreading cancer, it eventually affects every area of your thinking and life and alters your ability to trust others. A parent's truthfulness is not something a child goes to their parent and says "you lied to me, lets discuss it." Sometimes the child is very young and doesn't even comprehend the actual lie. Sometimes it occurs in your teens and one day you realize you don't believe or trust your parent's judgements.
Having someone else apply tough love to you is one thing but when you have to apply tough love to your memories in your own life and start conscientiously making some hard choices in your life for yourself it can become almost a 8.0 earthquake in the emotional department. For Ms D, she is having to learn to say "NO" to everyone in some areas of their every day lives, her other half, and her children. This causes lots of disturbances within our walls at times. Saying "NO" for her is like swimming against the "normal current" in her river of life. Then Miss B is having to learn to say YES to herself and no to others, which again is causng some harsh decisions on her part to be made. She has had to start taking care of herself, something she isn't use to. For me it is a trust thing ..... when you grow up with a basic distrust of others, at some point this "cancerous thinking" robs you of also trusting yourself. This mentality can cause you to do a lot of second guessing things when in reality your first instinct was correct. This also effects your relationship with God and makes listening to your heart when He speaks to you a very difficult journey. It also has effected my ability to listen to myself when I need to make some good judgement calls in the area of getting rid of my teasures and junk. The good news is we are all wading through these emotional waters and are supporting each other to go on, and we are making progress!
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