Don't You Dare Disagree

The house I grew up in was our way or no way.  You didn't dare disagree.  No way - no how!  You had to go along with whatever the "supreme ruler of the house said!"

It didn't matter if what you were saying or thinking might have been right.  If it conflicted with what the supreme ruler said, you were wrong.  If you did not heed that warning and the following smack down, then you were exiled within the house.

Being exiled within the house meant that others just automatically knew to treat you as if you were less than.  They automatically knew to not talk to you unless it was absolutely critical.  They knew to keep their distance from you because you were toxic according to the supreme ruler.

It didn't matter how important what you were saying was or how truthful or factual it was.  If the supreme ruler didn't want to hear it or didn't accept it, you were wrong - plain and simple.  You were spoken to as an idiot.

No matter what, you had to keep the family secrets and tow the family line.  You didn't dare speak out to anyone about any of it for fear of retribution so hard that you would never ever think of speaking out.

God would bring down punishment...

If that wasn't enough, then the minister was brought out to get you in line and counsel you and pray for you.  If that didn't work, then you were threatened in all kinds of ways that God would really bring down punishment upon you.

The supreme ruler was fearful of anyone that didn't agree with him or dared to challenge his ways.  If you ultimately paid the price of a challenge, you were labeled as being brainwashed.  You were discarded by the family and all your friends that knew you, were told just how terrible you were.

This is the house I grew up in.  I lived under the supreme ruler and was told that I was brainwashed because I dared to speak the truth.  I ended up leaving all my family behind and striking out on my own.  I had to let them go in order to survive.

I will not hide from the truth...

I will not hide from the truth of what I have been through.  These monsters in my house were horrifying creatures who abused me, molested me, and threw me out when I was no more use to them.

My life is better now, but I still struggle with the family aspect.  Yes, I know we create who we want to be with, but the biological bond is still critical.  Without the biological bond, there is a gaping hole left in our lives.

If you're in this situation, don't stand for silence.  Find the courage to break the silence and take care of yourself.  You matter more.   Forcing someone to be silent is where the brainwashing happens.

It was abusive and brainwashing...

The supreme ruler of the house is now living his miserable life out in his last days.  He will answer for it at some point when he dies, but until then, what he did was brainwashing and abusive and should not have been done to anyone.

I used to run a website forum called Breaking The Silence.  I did it for others to help start their own healing process of child abuse.  In my own life, I had been silenced and in order to heal, I had to break the silence.

Child abuse is never right.  No child should ever have to go through what some do, including myself.  While I work to continue my own healing, I hold accountable those that harmed me.

If someone says, don't you dare disagree with me, they are not to be trusted.  They are not there for your best interests and more than likely, they will not be good for you long term.  Do not let anyone tell you that can't disagree with them.  That is brainwashing and mind control!

#Respect

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly

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Do We Need To Engage?

Balance is not alive and well in our country today or in the world.  It seems that everyone is at polar opposites and either on one side of an issue or another.  There is no common ground.  Furthermore, we take that to social media and we engage on every subject and tweet that comes across our screen.

I think being human is learning to pick and choose your battles.  If an army fights every enemy that it thinks exists, can it sustain this?  Can the fighters go continuously before they are exhausted and depleted?

This is what I see today online in social media and in the news if I happen to catch it.  We are so conditioned that we need to have a response to every situation and event and statement put out in a day.  It is that moment where we engage when maybe we do not need to engage.

At one time, I would have heard this as someone creating drama, but these days it is so commonplace that we don't even know drama from reality.  It all appears the same to us and we can tell that by what gets tweeted, liked, and shared along with the topics that are trending.

It will take something so outrageous...

If you keep your engines revved up constantly, you are going to burn out or run out of gas.  Everyone will get used to hearing your engine and will no longer notice it as something out of the ordinary.  The more you try to rev the engine up, the less it will get noticed and so it will take something so outrageously loud for anyone to hear you.

Sometimes we need to focus and find balance.  We need to find that moment where we really are passionate because it is something that personally affects us and we need to go for it.  However, make sure you don't become a clanging symbol in the band, or the music will not be anything anyone wants to hear.

 

We are losing site of what matters in life and we are doing it at breakneck speed on social media as if humanity has already been obliterated.  Sure, I am passionate about subjects as well, but a well thought out answer or plan to help elevate the discussion will get you much further than throwing bombs everywhere you go.  Not everyone that disagrees with you are bad people.  We need to learn to embrace that from our heart.

We need to find balance because the more we yell and scream at one another, the more we are hurling this planet into a galaxy that may not be good for us.  It may take us to the point of no return and we all have a choice in the role we play in this every day.  Choose wisely because choices have impacts upon others and the world in ways we don't always see.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2016 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

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Control Is Fertile Grounds For Abuse

I tweeted this out the other day because I see many parallels to current events that were identical to what I went through as a kid.  I take no pleasure in this connection.

It is extremely triggering to me.  It allows me to see things from a different perspective because I have lived through them once before.  The triggers are overwhelming right now and I really have to modulate my time seeing some events unfold.

I know I'm not alone.  I know others have had to deal with this very same thing, especially those that have endured child sexual abuse.  In order for abuse to take place, there needs to be someone in control.  That person in control has absolute power over not only the victim, but all those associated with them.

The tweet I wrote was, "I grew up in a home where you could not disagree with those in charge.  It allowed abuse to flourish.  It was brainwashing."

I grew up in a home where you could not disagree with those in charge. It allowed abuse to flourish. It was brainwashing.

— Don Shetterly (@mindbodythought) November 19, 2016

Not only was I sexually abused as a child, but the brainwashing that followed me every day of my life was one that I still struggle with today.  I was taught how to think, what to say and what to do.  At no time was I allowed to make my own decisions or follow what I thought or felt.  I was not allowed to say anything that went against what the supreme ruler dictated in our family.  The minister in the church was just as bad as what I faced at home.

Of course, the supreme ruler and his subordinates will be the first ones to claim I'm the one that is crazy.  They will say I was led to say these things by others.  They will claim that they gave me nothing but love and respect.  They will claim that they were great and loving.  They will claim that I was always allowed to think and say and do what I needed to.  They will claim, I am wrong and have no clue what I am saying.  They will claim, I was brainwashed by others outside of the family and church.

Their ego is too large...

You see, those that control others will never admit they are wrong.  Their ego is too large.  I used to think that people who controlled others were very strong, but I've since learned that they are so fearful of everything in life.  They are so full of fear that they will do anything to keep others in their line of thinking and control, so as to not allow them to touch their own vulnerability.  They will not risk anyone seeing the real person they are and they do that by controlling and abusing others.

But, it isn't just the ones that control others that allow horrible abuse to take place.  It is those that sit on the sidelines with their eyes closed.  They were just as plentiful back in the days I was being abused and raped and to this day, they still sit with their eyes closed.  You cannot care about others and have love if you sit by and watch others be abused.

Humanity is not about the control of one another even though it appears that way at this moment.  Humanity is about working together and coming to know more of who we are each and every day we are alive.  It is about inspiring one another to be more than we are and reaching for the outer limits of what we cannot see in this moment.

Control and manipulation and abuse are not signs of a strong person.  They are signs of a weak person.  A strong person allows someone to say and think and do what seems normal to them, while honoring and respecting that individual as a human being.  A weak person just controls and holds everyone down, thereby extinguishing the flame within us.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2016 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

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Dare To Disagree

Many of us want to show how enlightened we are.  We spout off new age rhetoric or feel good phrases.  We show the world just how much we know.  We often claim we are much more than we truly are.

Yet, do we really do as we think we do or are we disillusioned by the cloud of rhetoric we spew online and that which we give to those nearby.  Are we really practicing what we preach and portray or is it a facade that is a persona we give to the world.

Being vulnerable is not easy.  Just ask Brene Brown how vulnerability shows up and just how much it can take you down.  As a result, we hide our vulnerability with our puffed up words and actions.  We portray one thing to the world, while holding our true selves as a secret and hidden entity in our life.

If you want to test this thought, try reading social media postings from the people whom you disagree.  See if you can hold your tongue or your fingers from typing for 2 minutes, not wanting to obliterate the other person's thinking because you are right and they are wrong. See if you can have the same love and compassion for your fellow man that you portray every day to the people that vehemently disagree with you.

See if you can hear their anger and poison filled words and yet be okay knowing that this is their issue, not yours.  I know that is not easy to do.  I struggle with it as well just like most of us do.  The media and various issue groups use this to their advantage as they pit one person against another.  This is how they win.  This is how they hook people into following their news and political revolutions.

I think you do need to be careful that you don't immerse yourself in the rhetoric that seems hateful and full of poison because it can truly drive you insane.  There is far too much of this posted every day on social media and it is not good for society or humans as a whole.  We don't have to pick fights and take sides.  We can rise above this.

Sometimes the best thing that can be done is to just say nothing.  Allow the people to rant and rave all they want but if they don't have an audience, they will soon burn out.  They will be like a candle flame that consumes itself.

The media loves the people who are outside the lines because it emotionally engages those that follow the stories so they will be hooked for days and weeks to come.  It isn't all the media's fault though because the people who consume this stuff are just as much a part of the problem as the media or the ones spewing the rhetoric.

We owe ourselves a lot more in this world and a better experience of what it means to be a conscious individual.  We cannot say we love one another while calling each other all kinds of names and showing our hatred for those who dare to disagree.

We cannot say that we enlightened only if we have others in our lives that agree with us and what we think.  It is a shallow part of the pool and dangerous indeed when we only huddle with those that share the same water.

At the same time, being human requires us to learn how to be conscious and aware.  It requires that we learn what civility and respect is all about in life.  It means that even though we may disagree with others, we need to see the big picture and will this disagreement define our entire existence, or is there more common ground that we share with those that are unlike us.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2016 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

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Group Think

I'm always amazed at humans and society.  We know how to bring others into line with group think.  Sure, you can say what you want and we have a freedom (at least in this country) to say what we want, but if it goes against group think, there will be heck to pay.  It may be in politics or religions or in the job, community, or family.

Before you think that you don't participate in this, try saying something in your circle of people that goes against what they think or believe.  See how far you get before you get the rolling of the eyes, the clicking of the shocked faces or the silence of the key people.  See how long it takes before you notice how people look at you differently or out of disbelief.  See how long it takes before they gang up and smack you down?  Even in the groups that say they don't do this!

We have so many ways that we keep our circle in life within our means of what we want to hear, believe, speak, or think.  It happens every day.  Virtually no one is immune or able to hold this off.

In jobs, they want the best and the brightest, but when it comes to a differing opinion, they often want you to not share that with the boss.  After all, he/she doesn't understand what you all do, so it is far easier to just keep it between you and your immediate group and not rock the boat.