Photo courtesy of Shannon Wilson

Susan Cox Powell

 Dorothy L. Nolte wrote “Children Learn What They Live,” and it seemed like a good reminder for all of us as we heal, honor, and celebrate the lives of Susan, Charlie, and Bradon. 

Some of us were blessed with great parents, and some of us are re-parenting ourselves.

If children live with CRITICISM, they learn to CONDEMN.

If children live with HOSTILITY, they learn to FIGHT.

If children live with FEAR, they learn to BE APPREHENSIVE.

If children live with PITY, they learn to FEEL SORRY for themselves.

If children live with RIDICULE, they learn to BE SHY.

If children live with JEALOUSY, they learn what ENVY is.

If children live with SHAME, they learn to FEEL GUILTY.

Susan, Bradon, and Charlie

If children live with TOLERANCE, they learn to BE PATIENT.

If children live with ENCOURAGEMENT, they learn CONFIDENCE.

If children live with PRAISE, they learn to APPRECIATE.

If children live with APPROVAL, they learn to LIKE THEMSELVES.

If children live with ACCEPTANCE, they FIND LOVE in the world.

If children live with RECOGNITION, they learn to HAVE A GOAL.

If children live with SHARING, they learn to BE GENEROUS.

If children live with HONESTY and FAIRNESS, they learn TRUTH and JUSTICE.

If children live with SECURITY, they have FAITH.

If children live with FRIENDLINESS, they learn the WORLD IS A NICE PLACE.

If children live with SERENITY, they learn to have PEACE OF MIND.

Who do you love?  Who?  Who?

February is the month of love.  Yet, most survivors of child abuse and domestic violence don’t always feel the love.  We don’t always feel safe at home.

When it comes to sending Valentine roses to express our love, our own names sadly don’t always top our list of people we love enough to send our very best.  We’ve been conditioned to put ourselves last on the list.

In a couple of weeks, red roses will cost a small fortune.  Yesterday, however, I was able to buy a dozen red roses and five delicate white iris at Safeway for less than $15.  I bought them to celebrate having a safe haven this year and to honor the three women who made it possible:  Lindsey, Piril, and Jess. 

This owl graphic shares wall space with my diplomas and awards.  It reminds me that we are all blessed with wisdom.  It reminds me that all God’s children are deserving of being treated with dignity and respect.

I did the needlepoint at the top of this post decades ago.  Survivors of child abuse and domestic violence sometimes need to be reminded that nobody’s perfect.  Many of us have become over-achievers to try to earn love that should have come to us unconditionally.

This year on Valentine’s Day (V-Day), I hope the name at the top of your love list is your own.  You deserve to be loved and respected without condition.  This isn’t an arrogant idea.  It is God’s grace.

Why do so many pro”life” folks vote against funding to care for children once they are born?

There’s wisdom in the old adage:  Your actions speak so loudly I can’t hear what you’re saying.

This last one was posted by Dominique Lamb late today.

On January 14, 2012, it started to snow in Seattle.  I noticed the world was a soft black and white.

One of the things I most love about living in Seattle is that it snows about once a year.  It’s pretty.  It isn’t cold outside.  The snow remains pristine because it melts before the soot can collect.

We rarely get two days of snow.  The snow this year, however, kept falling for days.

By the time it finally stopped on January 18, the trees seemed to be saying, “enough already!”  A lesson in moderation from Ma Nature, eh?

Still, there’s something mystical and magical in the splendor of towering evergreens blanketed in snow at midnight.  These beautiful trees endured the ice that followed with grace and strength.

Now, it is all melting.  Our annual gift from Ma Nature ended about the same time most of us started to get cabin fever.  For the rest of the year, our snow will remain in the mountains where it belongs.

Happy Birthday, Kiwi Mary!

Bitzie Dressed to Express

On November 1, I crashed and took time off to celebrate achieving a challenge that was equal parts exhilarating and exhausting.  On an Artist’s Date back to the places I photographed last spring, I captured the beauty of the Pacific Northwest in the fall.

I ran into a treasured colleague and champion who urged me to engage in some lobbying on behalf of people who have fallen between the cracks as the result of recent budget cuts.  I am happy to report that the effort was successful, and we’ve started stitching together a new safety net. 

Nineteen years ago tonight, I wasn’t safe at home.  The judge had sheriff’s deputies come to our home to beat me for his pleasure and enjoyment.  He wanted to prove that he could deprive me of my right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

In the process, he destroyed his own dreams.  Karma is a bitch with a bad attitude.

My life tonight is rich with friends and colleagues who are loyal, funny, inspiring, strong, brilliant, clever, empathetic, compassionate, successful, loving, courageous, intriguing, and reliable.  They are healthy people with deep integrity.  I have created bonds of sisterhood with my spiritual family.  We celebrate our joys together and comfort each other through life’s challenges.

Every day I treasure the people who follow my blog and leave comments.  We are joined in a mission to create safe homes for everyone. . .to treat each other with dignity and respect. . .to love unconditionally.

May you all be blessed abundantly with love, joy, safe havens, health, and prosperity!

Sitting from left: Mary Robbins, Jane McDermott, Caroline White. Back row, on left: Catherine Crosthwaite, Hannah Finnegan-Walsh

Did you Dress to Express on Friday?  My BFF, Kiwi Mary, just sent me this photo of her colleagues celebrating their commitment to end domestic violence in the Southern Hemisphere ~ where it is now Spring.  The men in her firm, Rapport Advertising and Marketing, also donned purple, but they were too shy to appear in the photo.  Bravo and thank you!

Dress to Express is the brainchild of Between Friends in Chicago.  If you too wore purple on Friday (or if you need to cheat a bit and take your photo today), please send your photo to Colleen Norton at Between Friends so that she can post it on their Facebook page in November:

cnorton@betweenfriendschicago.org

Rapport promotes New Zealand’s Book Month, and Ms. Robbins is a member of the World’s Best Book Club.  She has international business and marketing expertise; the people at her firm are brilliant.

Rapport Advertising and Marketing, run by American expat Mary Robbins and business partner Mickey Pillay is just 4+ years young, but it is taking the world by storm, winning awards globally for their work for Immigration New Zealand (to attract talent and investment to New Zealand) and most recently, with Chicago’s own PROMO Awards, where they took 4 honors (including gold!) for their work for New Zealand Book Month.  That campaign, Books Change Lives, put nearly 100,000 books into Kiwis hands last March!  Find out more at www.rapport.net.nz.

Ruth Anne Robbins, Rutgers University

J.K. Rowling is the queen of writing a new script for her life.  While researching her story, I discovered Ruth Anne Robbins’ excellent article, “Harry Potter, Ruby Slippers and Merlin:  Telling the Client’s Story Using the Characters and Paradigms of the Archetypal Hero’s Journey” in the Seattle University Law Review.  Ms. Robbins is a law professor at Rutgers University and an expert on domestic violence.  She has supervised Rutgers’ pro bono Domestic Violence Project.

 

Sela Ward

Cast Yourself in the Role of Heroine

Victims aren’t heroes, and heroes aren’t victims.  Most of us have been conditioned to play the role of damsel in distress.  Since most of us aren’t Snow White, this role tends to not end “happily ever after” in real life. 

If you feel like you’ve been the world’s doormat, you might want to start by putting a drawbridge outside your front door:

Then, you’ll be ready to cast yourself in the role of heroine.  Classic hero archetypes (character types) include Warrior (Eve Ensler and Gloria Steinem), Creator (J.K. Rowling), Nurturer (Oprah), Orphan (Harry Potter and Oliver Twist), Revolutionary (Tyler Perry as Madea), Sage (Maya Angelou and Alice Miller), Explorer (me), Magician (Tina Turner), Ruler (Bill Clinton), Lover (Elizabeth Gilbert), Court Jester (Steve Martin), and Innocent (Rihanna).

As our life’s journey unfolds, we may be called to play each type of heroine.  If you are struggling with your first casting decision, you may find inspiration in the lives of survivors who have become heroes and heroines.

Start Writing Your Script

All life stories entail epic struggles and growth.  Good storytellers tend to use familiar metaphors and symbols from religious texts, mythology, or classic literature.  These storylines work because they reside in our collective unconscious ~ the predictable patterns of our lives.  We all learn from stories.  Ms. Robbins describes the role of the hero:

 . . .the hero is the person in the story with whom the reader most closely identifies. . .universal qualities and emotions that most readers have either experienced or understand.  A hero grows and changes through the course of the journey.  . .heroes start out as somehow flawed at a fundamental level that affects their daily life and/or prevents them from living up to their potential.  The hero, then, represents a search for identity and wholeness. . .A hero is imperfect by definition, and audiences admire the hero all the more for striving to overcome these flaws.

 A heroine’s journey has three stages.  The first is departure on the adventure.  Along the way, the heroine is tested and taught how to overcome life’s challenges.  Gatekeepers, threshold guardians, and villains try to block the heroine’s progress.  Spiritual guides and mentors appear to offer wisdom or a talisman.  Companions offer comfort.  All of these characters ~ positively or negatively ~ teach the heroine to conquer her fears so that she can complete her ultimate test:  slaying the dragon.  The heroine finally is ready to return home ~ older and wiser.

Assemble Your Supporting Cast of Characters

Dorothy was accompanied on her journey by the Scarecrow, Lion, and Tin Man.  While each of these characters had a goal, the focus of the story was on Dorothy’s journey down the yellow brick road ~ she was the heroine.

Our cast of characters may include a mentor (guide), companion (fellow seeker), gatekeeper (the person who tests the hero by creating opportunities and challenges), dragon (unfortunate events or villains), shape-shifter (a Jekyll and Hyde abusive person), and narrator (the person who tells our story to others).

Ms. Robbins believes clients involved in litigation must be cast as hero.  Their attorney is the narrator, and the judge becomes the heroine’s mentor.  Her analysis is equally valuable in litigation and in life: 

The most important casting decisions. . .are. . .the client and the judge. . .a lawyer can assign only one hero. . .this must be the client. . .The lawyer. . .may play only the role of an outside narrator. . .

. . .another narrator, the opposing counsel, is also trying to tell heroic tales. . .

How do we make the domestic violence plaintiff look like a hero, especially if she acted imperfectly herself. . .placing the plaintiff in a “victim” role. . .the damsel-in-distress rather than as the hero. . .awards the role of hero to the judge, whose job it becomes to save the damsel from her distress.  However, a hero will save only a true and pure damsel and not one who shows herself to have impurities. . .a judge cast in the role of hero may conclude that the client is no true damsel who deserves saving. . .[emphasis added]

Casting the client as the main character and hero of the lawsuit gives the client permission to be imperfect.  In fact, heroes must be imperfect in order to have the audience identify with them and with their need to embark on or continue on their transformative journeys. . .The character flaw does not ultimately define a hero. . .the hero is allowed to have that flaw at least at the outset.

. . .A person seeking a domestic violence protective order is, in a very real way, seeking freedom from the lethal form of love. . .The legal system. . .grants them the renewed opportunity to find bliss. . .She is deserving of love. . .she is not being loved.  Accordingly, her journey is towards the freedom to be herself in a safer place, where she can receive the love that she deserves.

Iyanla Vanzant and Oprah

Spiritual Guides and Mentors

 

A heroine’s journey would be too terrifying without the companionship of spiritual guides and mentors.  We need their wisdom and support as we face the myriad challenges and tests that help us become the heroines of our own lives.

 

Iyanla Vanzant was my spiritual guide through the valley.  Her books inspired and guided me on my quest to be free.    

 

Dysfunctional families love to have their black sheep ~ the scapegoat ~ someone who is sacrificed to the wolf to protect the flock from its own internal shizza.  Oprah was on last week, but I wasn’t really paying attention.  I had the television on so I wouldn’t miss the latest news about the debt crisis.

My head spun around, however, when Oprah said:  “There’s no such thing as a black sheep in a family.”  She went on to explain that a black sheep is in reality the person who is the most sensitive ~ the person who reflects back the myriad aspects of a family’s dysfunction ~ the pictures they don’t want to see.  It disrupts their denial like a rock tossed into a narcissist’s reflecting pond.

My head just about exploded because my family loves to anoint black sheep.  My “father” had quite a reputation for his ability to breed sheep of championship quality.  The sheep in the painting by my Aunt Mildred (above) are his sheep which were boarded at my grandfather’s farm.

A week ago today I had a mind-blowing conversation with a cousin.  I had called her to express condolences for the death of her sister ~ my only relative who lived here in Washington State.   I discovered during the phone call that her sister had told some whoppers to the folks back home to justify her self-righteous decision to kick me to the curb. 

She was full of righteous indignation and positive she knew my character and motivations intimately ~ better than the experts and people who see me on a weekly basis ~ despite the fact that we weren’t close as kids and have rarely seen each other since we both got married in May, 1969.  The crux of her venomous attack was that she doesn’t want to accept the fact that I am disabled.   It was abundantly clear that my posts after my mother threw me under the bus hit a nerve.  She inadvertently shared information about my mother’s financial position that revealed more family whoppers.  I’m always astonished when millionaire martyrs cry “poor me.”

The Miracle of Synchronicity

Although this vicious attack hurt like hell, it didn’t derail me like previous verbal abuse because I had just finished reading Rosa Parks’ Quiet Strength about how her faith sustained her during the Montgomery bus boycott.  Ironically, I read the book cover-to-cover during a bus ride to Mike and Kathy’s bar-b-que.

I chose Quiet Strength from my massive TBR pile because it was small.  I didn’t start to comprehend the synchronicity until I looked up and noticed the bus driver was Black.  I had bought the book years ago because my friend Ricci’s grandson was born in Detroit about the same time Rosa Parks’ passed.  I didn’t realize Mrs. Parks had worked for one of the few people in Congress who still has integrity:  Rep. John Conyers (D-MI).  I had the privilege of meeting him when I went on my own first protest to Washington, D.C. on a bus full of Black people from Chicago’s Rainbow Coalition.  We were protesting President Bill Clinton’s impeachment.

Sometimes a book seems to glow ~ like a guardian angel is guiding me ~ because I need at that precise moment to read what the author has to say.  When I selected Mrs. Parks’ book, I had no clue I would soon need her Quiet Strength. 

I am always troubled whenever I see injustice.
We are all God’s children.

- Rosa Parks, Quiet Strength

Lessons from Quiet Strength by Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks wasn’t the only Black person who was sick and tired of racial discrimination.  The NAACP had been looking for a long time for a test case to take to the U.S. Supreme Court.  They chose Mrs. Parks’ arrest because she was above reproach.  Why?  The rich and powerful will dig up dirt on anyone who challenges them to divert attention away from the injustices they have committed.

She refused to give up her seat because she was tired of being humiliated over something she couldn’t control:  the color of her skin.  Yet, we all know we need to pick our battles carefully.  I suck at this, and my timing and choice of allies frequently sabotages my ability to be effective.  In Quiet Strength Mrs. Parks gives great advice:

 I had to find my way through a maze of choices and options.  But I refused to go along with the unfair rules. . .I have never allowed myself to be treated as a second-class citizen.  You must respect yourself. . .

Our mistreatment was just not right, and I was tired of it.  The more we gave in, the worse they treated us. . .

Love, not fear must be our guide. . .

No one can effectively fight for justice alone.

- Rosa Parks, Quiet Strength

Quiet Strength Yields Resilience

When someone rips us to shreds unjustly, it can be very difficult to respond with love.  Why?  We’ve just been told we are unworthy ~ in that person’s opinion ~ of unconditional love ~ God’s love.  In this tumultuous sea, it can take us awhile to drop our anchor of faith in God and in ourselves.

My relationship with my cousin was irretrievably broken last Monday.  And, it was clear that the support I thought I’d had all my life from her older sister was a myth ~ a fantasy I conjured up based on a sixty year old photo because I was so desperate for protection from the neglect and abuse that everyone witnessed but nobody stopped.

I needed a new anchor.  I needed to know if I had support from anyone in my huge gang of relatives.

When Rosa Parks was arrested, she recalled in Quiet Strength that the other Black folks on the bus scattered.  Nobody called her husband to let him know what happened.  I know this horrendous feeling of abandonment well.  I’m sure many of you do too.  Yet, I reminded myself that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. assembled a posse of 50,000 people who ultimately joined in the bus boycott.

I don’t know where I found the courage, but I called my godmother.  She acknowledged ~ like a good Enlightened Witness ~ that my family of origin is hugely dysfunctional.  Then, I called another cousin who is just months older than I am.  We haven’t spoken since my “father’s” memorial service six years ago.  But, he was there for me.  He gave me the unconditional love and validation that I needed from someone who is related to me by blood.  I will never forget his sensitivity, compassion, and generosity.

Once again, I was reminded of a Biblical passage (John 1:11-13) that the judge’s cleaning lady pointed out to me in 1992.  She suggested I try to form a spiritual family to replace my dysfunctional family of origin.  I share it with you today in the hope that it will comfort you as it always does me.  We are all God’s children:

Jesus came to that which was His own, but His own people did not accept Him.
Only a few welcomed and received Him.
All who trusted and believed in Him were given the right to become
children of God ~
children born not of natural descent, nor of human passion or plan,
but reborn from the will of God.

Nancy Carroll is the pen name for one of my favorite bloggers ~ she wrote the phenomenal Rights for Mothers blog.  Today’s her birthday, and I’d like to invite you to join me in wishing her an abundance of joy, prosperity, great health, and happy memories.  In the coming year, I hope all your wildest dreams come true!  And, I hope next year we’ll all be able to kick up our heels and dance to your success.

My friend Inga sent me this next cartoon which I think will make all of us smile. . .as we all celebrate Nancy’s birthday.  You are the BEST, Nancy.  The best of the very best!

Sunny Allen-Estes and Pat Sievers

Lindsey Legaspi referred me to Everett Downtown Storage, where my treasured belongings were exceptionally safe while I was homeless for three months.