What Is Your Truth? A Perception on…Perceptions

I wish I had understood the simple principle of the relativity of “truth,” many years ago.

I wish I had accepted its elusiveness a long time ago, when it would have mattered, but I didn’t,  and lived most of my life believing in absolute truth.

I hope somewhere, in the world, these thoughts might help someone at the beginning of their journey, reflect on this most intricate topic of the relativity of  truth.

My first memory is that of a three-year old girl, held upside down and fighting several adults dressed in white! In my memory, the frail child, of which I am totally detached, managed  to free herself from their grasp. They were trying to hurt her, insert a huge needle in her neck, kill her!

The next memory, is that of the same girl looking out a hospital room window, waiting for the train which ran by every day at Noon, precisely. The little girl’s life revolved around the train and its conductor. He always smiled and waived at her. That image of a stranger who cared, carried the little girl through many hard times.

Over the year, she fantasized about the train’s conductor… was he always waiving to sick kids staring out the hospital window, or was she special? May be he only smiled and waived at her. What was the truth and did it really matter if his kindness only sustained the hope of one girl or many others?

As I grew older,  and became one with the little girl in my memory, a different “truth” emerged, that of my family who told me in great detail how, when I was little I contracted typhoid fever and I was hospitalized for months. My parents told me I was so little and frail, they thought they would loose me, but a team of great doctors and nurses saved my life. When I told my mother that my memory was that of a group of adults dressed in white holding me upside down, trying to stab my next, she smiled! She explained to me, the truth, their truth: These were the doctors and nurses, holding me upside down, trying to draw blood from a vein in my neck because they couldn’t take it from my arm! They were my saviors, not my enemies, who over the years showed up in my nightmares!

My being alive was a testament that their “truth” was the “truth.” Mine, was a child’s perception, which doesn’t make it wrong, or less important. It just makes it different.

Since, I questioned my next memory, that of the friendly train conductor… Did he exist? Was there a train passing by at Noon? Was this a dream my imagination made up to keep me hoping? Since it saved my life, did it really matter? A defense mechanism which worked or reality? Who cares?

As I look back and reflect on life and the many events I remember, I question each and wonder, which was true, which were  wrong perceptions which mattered to the course of my life? Are they all perceptions that matter? Is  there an absolute truth?

As you walk on the road of life on your unique journey, when you come at an intersection, ask yourself: Would it make a difference if I turn right, left or continue straight ahead?

What is YOUR TRUTH?

Please feel free to share your  unique journey and truth.

Rodica M.

M.S. Counseling and Clinical Psychology

Life’s Cross-Roads Coaching

What is your truth?

 

Law and Rules!

There are laws, and there are rules. Some serve us, some don’t…

A law is so to speak “written in stone” and hard to change. Rules are the “individual babies” of various institutions. “Babies” the leadership decided to vote in with the scope to boost the good functioning of the institution.

Recently, life forced me to reflect at a deeper level on the topic of laws and rules, as one specific “rule,” affected my life deeply and not in a positive way.

How many times have I heard that one thing or another could not happen, could not be done, because a law, from years before, prevented an action. An action, which under the new circumstances of our lives would have been beneficial to people. Yes, people, as in the very humans (or their grandchildren) who made the laws in the first place. Did it ever happen to you? This realization, made me question:

Do we make the laws or do they make us? Are we prisoners of our own laws?

Furthermore, knowing that the only certain thing in life is CHANGE, how could people change old laws  using a timely democratic system, to meet the present needs of the majority adequately?

Another, less permanent category, are new “rules” (not yet laws) made in principle to “improve the good functioning of a institution and serve its clients.”  The rules are made at local levels  and  at  surface they are made keeping in mind the benefits of the clients.

However,  a personal experience, forced me to look at a deeper level and made me question the true goals of a specific rule…This “rule” affected my life at a very personal level, at a time when I was counting on support and was paying for it.

On a superficial analysis,  the rule seemed  illogical, but on a deeper level, I thought the new rule was not made having in mind the clients’ benefits, but to boost profits to the institution as a primary goal. Hmm… what do the “wise ones” say?” FOLLOW THE MONEY!!!

Generally new rules have the hidden or explicit role to boost profits. Nothing wrong with it, but what if this is a health care facility, even worse, a mental health facility of great reputation. What if these apparently benign new rule, impacts  negatively the lives of people who are already affected by emotional problems? They had the need and the courage to  walk in the facility, answer endless questionnaires, put their most intimate problems on a plate and start treatment trusting their therapist and the system?   How about them? How about if the new rule disrupts a process already hard? What could be the consequences to the very people the facility is responsible to serve and help? I could only speak for myself…

This post might seem mysterious, as I do not name “names,” but the problem of  a rule made by a specific institution, affected me profoundly and  is at the core of what inspired this writing. Why I decided to write about it?

I made a commitment to JUSTICE  and TRUTH and am holding myself responsible to the promise I made:

Always write the NUDE TRUTH. I am still in a process of “discovery” and this post will have a follow up. It will have the same title (plus PART II.)

Meanwhile,  I’d appreciate your opinions on the basic question of laws and rules, who they serve and how could they be changed through a more expeditious democratic system when and if they cease to accomplish the very purpose for which they were made in the first place? Could you think of any such laws/rules, that affected you?

Happy thinking!

 

 

In Response to Today’s Comment Regarding Identity Theft and China

In Response to Today's Comment Regarding Identity Theft and China.

The Single, Married Mom!

The Single, Married Mom!.

The Single, Married Mom!

Hmm… this must be a mistake, she is married or she is single or divorced or widowed. Single but married is  clearly wrong, as the two terms contradict each other, or do they?

If you are one of the Facebook perfect mothers, whose husbands remember your Anniversary, mows the loan without you asking him ten, eleven, twelve times, reads or sings or whatever, spends “quality time,” with your children every day and participates in all their activities, PLEASE STOP READING NOW!!! You are wasting your precious time which could be much better used posting the latest box of chocolates you received from your hubby and red roses.

This post  is written for the  less fortunate,  the “OTHER GROUP OF MOTHERS,” the ones who “act happy,” but are desperate and hide their desperation behind fake smiles… the ones  who stay in married relationships hoping that is the answer and the best thing to do for their children: To have both parents, regardless the secret  truth that one is absent and present only on paper, when BOTH signatures are required by the school!

Never mind that the man, with whom the single married Mom, stays in a relationship, never praises the daughters, and later, when your daughters pick the wrong partners, the single married Mom, wonders why!!! Later, as in TOO late, she has an epiphany:

The FIRST man in a woman’s life is their father! If the father gave the  daughter the message, “you are worthless,” well, she will feel worthless at the very core for the rest of her life (if something, such as good therapy doesn’t interfere with the hidden tragedy of low self-esteem. MARK MY WORDS: GOOD THERAPY! BAD THERAPY WILL DESTROY HER FURTHER!)

Most times, the “worthless”  children do unforgettable, shameful,  wrong acts! If such disasters happen, they suddenly become “your children,” as if you conceived them alone, in the convenience of your single bed. An immaculate conception, or worse!

If once in the Blue Moon, the same worthless children who were ALL yours, do something worthy, accomplish something, suddenly the SAME kids are entirely claimed by Dad and his everlasting efforts. Who cares that you, the married single Mom has been waking up  daily at 6:00 AM, fed the pets (how could we forget, any respectable family must have pets too!) and then made lunch and then shook the kids to make them conscious enough to sit in the back of a van, and drove them to school.

Once upon a time, before going to  the “real work,”  you stop back home in hopes you and  the Dad (not your Dad, the pretend one to your kids,) might have an adult conversation. Translation: A FIGHT!

It doesn’t start as a fight, it never does. He still sips coffee and watches the news or whatever relaxes him before going to work.

After the story that follows, my “pretend” single, married Mom stopped trying to rush back for adult conversations, and this is why…

It feels like yesterday… actually, it feels in the moment, that morning, when the married single Mom attempted to economize and made him lunch because she secretly noticed the credit cards were maxed. She prepared a tray with four compartments, and decorated it with a flower and presented it to the man of the house, while he was still watching the news. What a mortal mistake! To interrupt the intellectual activity  of watching television!

Here is the moment when she  first questioned her intelligence: She presented  the tray and mumble something to the effect that “they” (as in the household) would save $3 to $5, daily if he would consider the humiliating act of eating  lunch from home and not eat  “out” at a vendor, or worse a restaurant.

How could the single married Mom ever forget? His  memorable look, his eyes, which years ago whispered with ease, “I love you,” now spoke flames of hate: How dare YOU insult me! Lunch from home! NEVER!

Before any words were exchanged, he picked up the tray so lovingly decorated, and threw it against the French doors of the perfect American family living room. Shattered glass everywhere, mixed with crushed dreams and tears, topped with sadness and lies, lies to cover the…TRUTH!!!

(How lucky! one might think.  No human victims! What if the kids were at  home, what if they saw what happened? Would anyone be interested in THE TRUTH? WHY WOULD THAT BE RELEVANT?

Truth be told, the kids were  home. In all honesty, one daughter was in the single, married Mom’s  arms and the other still unborn, in the uterus, but why would the truth be revealed now… may be later, may be never… it ALL depends.

For now, let’s say there were just those two adults, once upon a time loving  couple and the lunch off the plastic tray spread everywhere. More precisely, the tray thrown in a corner,  the food allover among the peaces of shattered glass, and the single, married Mom, disoriented and speechless in the mist of it all, watching Him storming out the door! End of adult conversation!

The married, single Mom, cleaned carefully, before the dog had a chance to eat the ham mixed with the shattered glass. She wiped her  pretend tears of happiness and off she went to her job which made money. That job was  her recreational time, the ONLY time when she felt appreciated and needed… and let’s not be too theatrical and stop here for now.

After all, it is a show, isn’t it and Facebook is real!

There are NO such families, there are no single married Moms.

 

This post… is a joke!    Or is it?

Please if it resonates with you, let me know and we’ll continue to explore what happens to the single married Mom…

A HAPPY FOLLOW UP TO THE SAGA T-MOBILE/SPRINT EARLY TERMINATION FEES!!! (PART II)

A HAPPY FOLLOW UP TO THE SAGA T-MOBILE/SPRINT EARLY TERMINATION FEES!!! (PART II).

How Important are the Covers of a Book?

How Important are the Covers of a Book?.

Peace Settles At Last…

Something broke at the core of my heart

Into millions of pieces…

A vague, uncertain feeling whispered:

‘Look through a magnifying glass,’

I did.

All the way down, at the very bottom

I saw a shape darker than the dark,

“It must have been my hope,”

I  concluded, but was not certain.

Did it matter anyway?

What it used to be, was now at the bottom.

It could not be saved!

It could have been love, or trust too,

All the noble ideals we invent 

To survive.

Especially hope.

My mind knew all it mattered

Was the  NOW, but the irrational Soul

Hung onto the past…

Millions of pieces crushed

Under the burden of lies, pretense,

The illusion of forever, the fear of death.

God answered me at last:

There is NO forever,

Only the dust  which suffocated me, 

The millions of crushed dreams,

Which sparkled in the darkness of life,

Giving me the illusion of hope!

I refused to believe,

I looked again, closer,

Through the distorted, magnifying glass 

Of human emotions.

The hole deepened,

More and more…

A bottomless hole!

Somewhere, deeper than the hope,

I sensed another shadow,

Darker than the dark,

I was not certain what it was…

I needed the artificial light of 

Human pretense and vanity

To dictate  the rules

Of what it was that,

Which I saw!!!

Perhaps it was FAITH!

I turned around, and around,

Faster and faster,

No matter where I turned,

I was blinded by random pieces

Of Truths.

They were senseless and hurtful…

The wider I opened my eyes,

The greater the hurt…

I closed them quickly,

Tight and forever…

Peace settled at last!