I Am NOT a Victim!

One of the issues I had in learning to be different in my relationships was the story I was telling. We all have stories we tell about our lives, and sometimes we are the hero or heroine in the story, sometimes we are the clown, and sometimes we are the victim.

In my stories about my relationships, I was usually the victim. They would go something like this: Girl meets boy, girl falls for boy, boy misbehaves (and this might be by being abusive, having an addiction, being unfaithful, or any combination), and then girl finally gets fed up and leaves. In each story, I was cast as the good intentioned one who just happened to find people who would need fixing in some way. What I didn't realize until I began doing work in a twelve step program which suggested I take a thorough inventory of myself, was that in each and every relationship I had been in, I had at least some of the responsibility for how it turned out. When I did this work, I was no longer able to see myself as a victim. What an eye opener!! My whole world began to change as I realized that "I" was responsible for how my relationships turned out. After this, my stories began to change, and although I still occasionally begin to cast myself as a victim, I usually end up the heroine, or else I laugh at myself and I become the clown.

Recently, while reading a daily meditation book the Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie, I came across an entry about this very thing, and it included a formal waiver of responsibility. I am going to share it with you here, because it is very powerful.

WAIVER

I understand that during the course of my life I will be required to make many decisions, such as where I want to live, whom I want to live with, where I work, how much fun I have, and how I spend my money and time, including how much time I spend waiting for things to get better and people to change, and whom I choose to love.

I understand that many events that occur will be out of my hands and that there are inherent dangers and risks in all decisions I make. Life and people have no obligation whatsoever to live up to my expectations; I have no obligation to live up to the expectations of anybody else. Life is a high-risk sport, and I may become injured along the way.

I agree that all decisions I make are mine and mine alone, including how I choose to handle the events that are beyond my control. I hereby forfeit my right to recourse as a victim, including my rights to blame, complain, and whine or hold someone else responsible for the path I choose to take. I am responsible for my participation-or lack of it-in life. And I take complete responsibility for the outcomes and consequences of all the decisions I make, understanding that ultimately it is my choice whether I become happy, joyous, and free or stay miserable and trapped.

Although people may voluntarily nurture and love me, I and I alone am responsible for taking care of and loving myself.

Signed:______________________

Dated:______________________

I love this, I have my signed copy! What stories are you telling today? Where do you want to take responsibility?

Marquita

THE Most Important Relationship!

This blog originated to help women in their relationships with men. The idea was to use my expertise, in particular my experience of failing in relationships, to assist others in working through their difficulties and finding lasting love. There are still many issues to talk about and many questions to answer for this topic.

The tools I have used and outlined here can be used for any relationship in our lives, most of all the relationship we have with ourselves. This being a new year I'd like to take this relationship off the back burner and bring it front and center. One of the tools we used in looking at romantic relationships was figuring out what we wanted from our partners. Today we are going to figure out what we want in our relationship with ourselves. To do this may take a little digging, and may even require a little self care along the way!

• Use a journal or notebook and write down how you want to be treated on a daily basis. We did this when we were writing about the qualities we want in a good partner. Write down what your needs are for sleep, nutrition, exercise, time to yourself, fun, relaxation, spirituality, time with others, sex, creativity, and any other items necessary for your healthy well being.
• Many of you have already done some of this on the way to loving yourself first. Now is a good time to really expand this into areas you may not have considered. If you are in a romantic relationship, are there any areas where you have slid backwards in your own self care.
• Now under each area you have identified, check off which ones you are doing well at. For me, I have gotten good at getting eight hours of sleep each night, so I would check off that area. Don't forget to give yourself credit for all the progress you have made since you began this work!
• Now take another sheet of paper and write down the areas where you need more self care. Under each area list at least three ways you can add self care in this particular area to your daily routine. One way I have added more exercise is too allow an extra half hour every morning to walk with my dog.
• Now this is one of the most important steps. Take your time adding these to your routine! Pick only one item from the whole list to add this week. It could be eating breakfast everyday or going to the gym twice a week, or initiating sex once a week, just make sure it is only one thing this week.
• Once you have incorporated your self care item into your routine and it feels like a normal part of your week, then and only then add the next item.
• Keep doing this until you have the kind of daily self care built into your life that works for you. Don't forget that nobody is perfect and be kind to yourself along the way.

Take care, and take care of yourself,

Marquita

Happy New Year!

I don't know about you, but I love a new year. Over time I have welcomed New Years Day for many reasons. Sometimes I was so sick of the year that had just passed and so unhappy in my life and relationships, that I couldn't wait for January 1st to come. Sometimes the year was an exciting adventure where I learned a lot, spent time with people I loved, and enjoyed my life. Occasionally the year was just okay, a year where life was mixed, and I was just moving along without a lot of big changes.

This year has been wonderful for me. This is partly due to all of you. Yes, you! I'd like to let you know how grateful I am that there are others out there who struggle with relationships and want to know how to make them better. This tells me that everything I have gone through in my life to got me here today, was worth it. Thank you for that!

One thing I do every year, whether the year sucked, or the year rocked, is take an inventory of what I have accomplished. I feel a large groan from some of you, so I want to emphasize that this is an inventory of accomplishments, not failures. What I'd like you to do is write down at least 10 things that you accomplished this year. If you feel you haven't accomplished a lot this year begin with things like, "I managed to stay alive the whole year." Feel free to be as facetious as you want. Another might be, "I fed my cat every day this year." These are accomplishments. If you start with the small or silly, and keep thinking, I know you can come up with at least 10 things you did.

After I finish this inventory, I set goals for the next year. Now, I am not talking about things like organizing your house or losing weight. What I am talking about are Wildly Improbable Goals or WIGS. If you have read Finding Your Own North Star by Martha Beck, PhD. you will know what these are. These are your absolute wildest, craziest, most seemingly impossible, dreams for your future. Take the same journal or notebook you wrote your accomplishments in, and write down at least 5 Wildly Improbable Goals for 2008. These can be anything you want. One word of caution about these, BE CAREFUL THEY MIGHT HAPPEN!

The reason I know this, is about a year ago, I jokingly made a WIG about owning a retreat center. Now I didn't think this out, or even really check with myself to see if this was really what I wanted. About a month later, I was directly on the path of buying the place, and I had to really sit down with myself and figure out that I had other goals that were much more authentic for me. So if your WIG is that Prince Charming will show up and you will live happily ever after, make sure you have done your own work, so that you will recognize him when he shows up!

One of my WIGS is that you get what your heart desires in 2008.

Marquita

Dysfunctional Family Bingo

This week, I think it would be fun to look at family relationships, and learn a unique way to get through the holidays. I come from a dysfunctional family, whom I love and am grateful for today. This wasn't always true. Often before I worked through my relationship issues, I was the one who had several squares on this Bingo game.

The game was designed and suggested by Martha Beck, PhD. When Martha talked about Dysfunctional Family Bingo as a way to get through family gatherings by stepping back from the fray, and being able to laugh at ourselves and our family, I jumped right on board.

If you find that your family gatherings are difficult and there are people you can count on to do the same obnoxious, silly, or even sad things every year, playing this game can help you get through, and be able to laugh at yourself as well. I find it also works great for office Christmas parties, and business meetings. So here are the rules, as written by Martha Beck, for Dysfunctional Family Bingo:

INDICATIONS: For relief of boredom, frustration, cringing, revulsion, childhood regression, and surges of violence due to holiday celebration.

INSTRUCTIONS: Prepare your Bingo card before any gathering you dread attending. Get at least one other player to create his/her own Bingo card to provide competition.

Begin by listing 24 dysfunctional events that are likely to happen at the gathering of your choice (for example, "Mom begs Morris to stop gambling," "Jim gets drunk," "Little Bobby Sue sets a fire," etc.).

Write ONE event into EACH of the blank squares on the Bingo card.

Take your Bingo card to the gathering. When the specified event occurs, mark off the corresponding square on your card.

When you have marked off one entire line of five squares, horizontal, diagonal, or vertical (the middle square is a freebie), sneak away from the dysfunctional gathering, call your competitor(s), and whisper "BINGO" into your cell phone.

DOSAGE: Create and fill out one (1) Bingo card per dysfunctional group interaction.

WARNING: May cause explosive laughter and family discord if discovered by hostile relatives. Do not use in combination with hallucinogens.

KEEP AWAY FROM ADULTS.

Happy Holidays!

Marquita

Change is in the Air!

How many times have you went into a relationship with the idea that you can change the other person? Or, even better, figured that they would miraculously become the person you wanted them to be without you having to communicate anything at all to them!

Today, I want to talk about what you can and can't change in a relationship. This is actually really simple to do, because there is only one thing you can guarantee to change in a relationship and that is YOU! Not again, you cry, it can't still be about ME. Yes, it can.

However, it is possible to be so clear with your needs and boundaries, that your partner will treat you the way you want, because they realize that nothing else is acceptable. If you are obviously not a person who will put up with lying, cheating, or other bad habits it becomes extremely difficult for a person to do these things when in a relationship with you. This is because when they do these things, you make it clear that the behavior is not acceptable, and either end the relationship then, or make it apparent that another occurence of the behavior will result in the relationshp ending.

There is opportunity for growth in relationships for both people by being totally authentic to who we are. For example, let's say you love to travel and your partner doesn't. This actually was true for me when I first began dating my husband. Since he was not very open to travel, I didn't often push him to go to exotic places with me. What I did was to continue traveling with other friends who enjoyed the same things I do, like river rafting and adventure. Not too long into the relationship, I asked my partner to go to Alaska with me. When he sounded like he couldn't go, I said, "that's okay, I'll go by myself." He actually said to me, "You mean you would go without me?" And I assured him that I would. Amazingly, he was able to get the time off, and went with me. We had a fantastic adventure on an 85 foot fishing boat, hosted by some friends of mine. Since then, we have also had other great adventures, including going to Hawaii.

So, you can change others through your behavior and influence, as long as you are not trying to force them to do things they really don't want to do, and you are not purposely manipulating them. It is no good to pretend you are going to do something to get your partner to change, you have to actually authentically be doing what you love, and often they will follow.

It is particularly difficult to change things that are important values or choices that others have made. For example, you meet someone and decide to have a relationship, but they really want children and you don't. This is not an area where you can expect them to change. I'm not suggesting that people don't change, but with really important issues like whether to have children, expecting that over time someone will change can lead to heartbreak for both parties. When you have strong differences in values or needs, it is important to be honest with your partner, and decide together whether the relationship can work within the boundaries of those differences.

So, it is almost a New Year and I always think about the future and change at this time. I hope that if there are things you personally want to work on this year that you will add a comment or response to a post, and I would love to respond.

Marquita

Mars Vs Venus

I know, this is a picture of Jupiter, but I like the look of it! The reason for the topic today, is that if you are going to love men, you have to like them for who they are, and understand that they are very different from us. I am sure most of you just read that statement and went "Are you nuts, they are really from Mars, how am I supposed to understand them?" It is true that we probably won't ever totally understand men, any more than they will truly understand us. That isn't what I am hoping to educate you on in this posting. What I am hoping to do is to help you see that by men being wired different than women, we can learn to love and enjoy the differences.

Let me tell you a little about my husband. He is what I call a "hunter-gatherer" to the core. He gets great pleasure out of going fishing, crabbing, clamming, picking wild blackberries, growing tomatoes, anything that will provide food for our table that doesn't have to be bought at a store. Now sometimes the cost of going fishing, etc. can be very expensive. When you consider gas prices for the truck and boat, fishing licenses, bait, equipment, and all the trip entails, a ten pound salmon can cost a lot. This doesn't matter, as the act of fishing and bringing it home and cleaning and cooking it give him so much pleasure, it is worth it to him. And, I am not complaining. I enjoy some of these activities as much as he does, what I lack is the drive to do them every chance I get.

The other thing that really makes my husband happy is (no it's not sex, although that ranks up there too!) is having his "cave". At our house, this looks a lot like a garage. When I get up and start working indoors, my husband heads for the garage. He can spend hours doing all kinds of things out there! I once tried to give advice to a woman who had just bought a new home with her husband and kids, and he wanted to turn the garage into a music studio. I said something like, "sounds good, that way he will have a space of his own." Her reply was, "are you kidding, I don't want him to have a space of his own, I want him in the house helping me with the kids." When I tried to show that men need their "cave", she made it clear that was not going to happen in her house. I'm still worried about that situation today!

Now, don't get me wrong. I have spent a lot of time suggesting you love yourself first, and I have not changed my opinion on that. If you need a room of your own, and space to be who you are, you should definitely have that! What I am suggesting by noting some of the things that men need or find important is that one of the best ways to love someone is to respect and honor and enjoy their choices and needs. I love the things that make my husband a guy. I don't want him to be a man who feels and acts just like me. Think back on the men you know that are happy in their lives and relationships, and think about why they are happy.

The other thing that helps is to be able to acknowledge with each other the differences and even talk and laugh about them. My husband and I both joke about our differences and realize that we are not ever going to think alike about many things. What we don't do is try really hard to change each other, and we work hard at loving what is.

Marquita

I Don't Know if I Even Like Men!

One question I had to answer when I began being open to relationships again was, "Do I even like men?" Now, I wasn't questioning my sexuality, I knew that I am basically heterosexual in nature. What I was questioning was my belief that decent men existed. How many times have you heard someone say, "There aren't any good men left" or "All the good ones are married", or even "I hate men!" These statements are usually made by women who have been hurt in the past, and feel they are open to relationships, but in reality are not ready yet.

So, how does one learn to like men again when they have been hurt before? In my healing process, there were several practices I used. First, I spent time with men who were safe, and not available for me to date. One of the best people I hung out with during this time was my brother. I certainly was never going to date him, but he was a great person to go places with, play and watch sports with, and enjoy his male energy without the fear of being hurt. He is a wonderful guy, (and by the way single), and he showed me that no matter how much I said "Men are dirt!", that I was definitely not 100% correct.

The next thing I did was join a twelve step group. This group usually had more male participants than women. This was during the time where I was learning to love myself, and I was committed to staying single. What happened was, that as I listened to the honest and heartfelt sharing from the men in the group, I realized that men can hurt, love, care, feel, and grow, just as the women in the group did.

I was also on a co-ed softball team during this time. This was a good place to see men in all their testosterone's glory, and witness men who were able to accept me as part of the team, and witness a few men who did not. I made friends with some of these men, who are still good friends of mine today.

From all of these experiences, I learned that men are not so different than women (Oh, I know they are very different in some ways, but here I am talking about basic human nature, not male-female stuff). Men may express their feelings differently than women, but they do have them. Men also get hurt, struggle to find the right women, and become fearful of opening up to the opposite sex.

I also learned that men can tell if you like men or not. Really nice guys will not usually ask a man hater out. Men could tell that I was not open to them, and consequently I didn't get attention from the type of men I would have wanted to date. Once I got to the place where I no longer feared, disliked, or looked down on men, there were men who were ready and willing to get to know me.

If you have man issues, and you are not able to see men as inherently okay then try these steps:

1. Find men to hang out with who are safe, these might be family members, people you work with, part of an organization you are a part of, anyone who you can enjoy without any sexual tension.
2. Join a support group, there is Codependents Anonymous, Al-Anon, or try a local therapy group that is focusing on communication, relationships, etc. It is good to be able to witness men who are willing to express their feelings.
3. Practice being open to men as decent human beings. When you find yourself thinking negative thoughts about men, ask yourself "Is this really true?" Come up with instances where you have met men who are kind, generous, and loving. If you can't find any in your personal life, consider movies you have seen, books you have read, public figures you know that are kind and loving.
4. If you get really stuck on this issue, work with a coach, a counselor, or someone else who can help you get to the limiting beliefs that are keep you from being open to men.

I hope that this has helped you feel better about men in general. If anyone who reads my blog has other ideas and comments, I would love to hear them.

Marquita