Verbal Insults.... What are their purpose & how can you respond?

 What is the purpose of verbal insults???

The purpose of bullying via personal insults is to undermine the strength of a messenger as they bear their message.

When we learn to each recognise that very intention behind verbal insults, it is the key to successfully retaining one's ability to deliver what we are purposed to deliver in our respective lifetime.

YOU have a message to deliver. YOU have a purpose to carry out. YOU are here on Planet Earth for a reason.... and YOU are therefore a messenger with a very unique and special message.

If someone verbally insults you, rather than buy into their intention to cripple you by hitting a potential soft spot they perceive or want to place deep within you, recognise the verbal insult for what it is:

You ARE totally on the right course, you ARE totally delivering your message, you ARE totally carrying out your life purpose, you ARE totally fulfilling the purpose behind your existence.

What happens next then, when you recognise you are being attacked with verbal, and very personal insults?

Well, you breathe deep and then fully breathe out and exhale any possible toxicity the insult may trigger within you at a biological level and THEN, you just need to keep going from strength to strength to strength!

A verbal insult IS actually A COMPLIMENT.... it means the bearer of the insult actually acknowledges you ARE totally on the good path you are to be on and YOU have a lot of amazing power!

Let's Not Bury Our Heads In the Sand When It Comes to Domestic Abuse

A post was shared recently on Facebook about how here in New Zealand there has been a shelter set up for pets, and other animals, of people that experience domestic violence and wish to escape from it.

This long overdue shelter is sure to provide so many, caught up in the hardship experience of trying to leave an abusive partner or spouse, with an additional much needed support, for them to make the break and get to safety.

Let's not bury our heads in the sand when it comes to domestic abuse being an issue here in Aotearoa New Zealand. It does occur. It occurs in various forms, and across the wide spectrum of socio-economic backgrounds that exist in our country.

Having been a small child myself who was caught up in a family situation that was, (to be diplomatic), 'difficult,' I know firsthand how worrying and traumatic a family break up is.

There is always history, often a long and lengthy, very painful history. What tips someone over to move away finally from the family home, may not always be just what was finally seen by outsiders viewing from the outside. Unless you are in it, experiencing it firsthand, the family unit and an actual family dynamic will not always be so very clearly apparent.

I know that I know trauma, as a result of what occurred in, around and beyond all of that primary family situation not being what it should have been, in my own family of origin home.

I know that I know memories that were not pleasant. They are vivid, they are significant and they are very real and in fact indeed true.

I know that I know the heartache and trauma a small child goes through when they suddenly face not having their beloved pet with them any longer, and they are in a situation that already makes them feel very terribly unsafe and vulnerable.

As much as there may be others who would wish for their own reasons that I never acknowledge or discuss in any measure the traumas resulting from my own childhood experience of domestic abuse, my memories, my experiences and the resulting trauma and heartache were very real and they are very true.

Let's never bury our heads in the sand in Aotearoa New Zealand when it comes to domestic abuse. Let's never say that verbal abuse is acceptable or not such a big issue, because no one was ever literally hit.

Let's never bury our heads in the sand as a nation, or beyond, when it comes to a family break up and say that emotional abuse is somewhat acceptable, or of no real significance, simply because the tyrant or the bully could put on their mask & cloak of charm, when in front of extended family or the wider community, and thus appear to never be surely guilty of such an atrocious verbalisation or act.

Let's choose to be wiser and more discerning, to not be lead along unwittingly by falsehoods orchestrated and fabricated to provide other reasons for why someone within the household is withdrawn, depressed or obviously jumpy and tense.

Let's not take it for granted that someone throwing away the comment that they bruise easily, does in fact just bruise easily. There can be other things clearly dropping out clues, that do not weigh up to the family home being one that is calm, peaceful, and literally safe for all.

Physical abuse can take a number of forms, and victims of physical abuse will have been groomed over time to let each act of literal abuse not necessarily stand as what it is: abuse. A shove one day, a strong handed grip on an arm the next.... right through to an actual debilitating slap, punch or kick. They all are abuse when the hand, the foot or any other body part striking out does so in anger, and with the sole goal & purpose of controlling another.

Keeping someone without access to communication, to transport, to having free contact with others; withholding and preventing them from receiving necessary medical or dental aid as required; keeping someone always financial bound at a level that is truly crippling....... at any given time these are all forms of abuse, and they need to named and identified as such.

Let's never stand back and blame the victim, because it is just too threatening to think that behind closed doors someone might be under a cloud of such mental abuse that it tips them over to appear to act, or even outright act, irrationally.

Sexual abuse does occur behind closed doors, and even in a marriage or partnership, rape is rape. Sexual intercourse should be consensual always, no matter whose in bed with who each night.

Sexual abuse of children is never, ever acceptable and we need to guard the children of our world and nation by giving them the voice to speak to someone they trust, rather than keep them in a pit of shame and silence, because who should have been their primary caregiver proved to be their first or primary abuser.

There are those who don't like to know that there can be such skeletons in any given wider family circle, particularly their own. Yet, the desire to not know about them, or to acknowledge them, simply do not make them disappear and not exist.

It can suit our own sense of balance and security to simply turn a blind eye, or even accept at face value, stories spun about why families parted and why a spouse or partner allegedly left. Such attempts at ignorance however are not bliss for those at the receiving end of domestic abuse. Nor does it actually make the victim less of a victim, and less in need of the wider community's actual support and help to get to safety.

The truth of the matter is, that there are no advantages to trying to hush away and avoid the untold realities, the undisclosed traumas and heartaches, that are often behind a woman and her children leaving their family home.

Society as a whole greatly loses each and every time a family situation has become so difficult, that yet again, another family unit has dissolved due to it becoming so dysfunctional, so broken and so disengaged to the point of no return.

Those behind this latest shelter, for the protection of family pets and domestic animals, have finally put in place what has been long needed.

They have acknowledged and done the work to solve one of the key issues that can exist for a number of people, who are needing to leave an unsafe and unhealthy family home and environment as soon as possible.

It's brilliant and it's smart, and it is long overdue. May those that need to make the most of this new provision, find the peace, the sense of balance and safety they desperately need again, as soon as is humanly possible.

When Change is not on the Agenda

It can be extremely painful to realise that change is not on the agenda. You can have been holding out for days, months, even years, with the promise of change repeatedly told to you. Yet, change does not always prove to be what is on the agenda.

It was a vivid dream, that finally made what was kept hidden be put clearly to the front of her mind. There was little if any room for anything but seeing clearly what the dream revealed. All the hope that had been held on to was actually to flower as false hope. All the promises of effort and change were just words and going to remain just words.

It can and is extremely painful to realise that change is not on the agenda. Years invested, were years to be never recovered. Dreams and plans held on to and hoped for, were never going to eventuate. The expectations and the anticipations were all simply just that; expectations, and not actual real life occurrences. The pain and heartache of what was actually on the agenda cut deep.

Where once upon a time there was complete emotional trust, now there was a sense of defensiveness needed. Where once upon a time, words could be deemed to be coated in truth and reliability, now they seemed to be just simply that: words. It was hard to have trust, to have respect, to anticipate feeling loved and cherished ever again, because change truly was not at all present and on the agenda.

People often don't realise until it is too late what they have lost. They can claim to be blindsided. They can protest innocence. They can claim to be completely in the dark about the fraction that entered into their relationship, all the while the reality of their actions, and the consequences of their actions, are looking them squarely and finally fully in the face. When necessary change was continually withheld from being on the agenda, the reality of the resulting consequences finally come literally home to roost.

Perhaps it is primary human nature to protest our innocence. We desire to retain some cloaking of self deception because to face up to ourselves, and our words and actions, is ultimately sometimes too unpleasant to be confronted by. It suits to cast about for blame. It suits to cast about for reasons to justify our own lack of true commitment. It suits to never admit that change was not on our personal agenda, at the expense of what the relationship could have been.

Change involves a commitment to address habits. Change involves conscious thought and conscious behaviour. When it comes to breaking free from habits, particularly addictive or compulsive habits, it takes more than just a verbal promise to set the new in place. Time always reveals what is at the heart of any intention. Time always reveals the truth of words that were spoken. Time leaves a permanent and definitive record of whether change was ever really on the agenda.

For those experiencing the fallout of a lack of true change to revive and restore a relationship, the pain and heartache is real. The underlying devastation may be cloaked for a while in continued busyness, simply because the reality is so terribly and utterly painful. To have invested time in hope, to have invested time in patience, to have been willing to have just that bit more expectation and anticipation than was really perhaps deserved from the first and second significant signs of dysfunction creeping in, it all wounds terribly and extremely deeply. Change sometimes is just not on the agenda to ensure a relationship is saved, and the resulting wounded are deeply, extremely deeply, wounded and left to try and pick up some semblance of the pieces.

Behind Closed Doors

You just don't know what goes on behind closed doors. Too often we think we know exactly what is the nature of the relationships of those around us. We are surprised to find that what appeared to be a good solid relationship in fact was one that was dysfunctional, and even abuse riddled. We simply don't know what goes on behind closed doors any more.

In this day and age when everything is becoming more and more digitalized and more electronically dependent, it can be even harder to really know what those around us are experiencing. We have lost the great sense of face to face community that we once experienced before the Internet age. Loneliness has crept in to relationships that once upon a time would have never have been thought to have been those riddled with loneliness. Dysfunction can be kept hidden and even dressed up to look like anything but what it actually is, because the smoke and mirrors of that able to be shared online enables it to be kept in seemingly good check.

A wife can become an Internet widow, as night after night, her spouse indulges in lengths of time facing a computer or cellphone screen. In the silence of the home, the greatest of marital tragedies can actually quietly be unfolding to the point of no return, and noone outside the immediate relationship will consider anything amiss.

No one likes to be treated as if they are taken for granted, and unfortunately competing with an electronic screen is becoming more and more common place in today's society. More and more people are waking up to the harsh reality of finding that their spouse actually has an addiction, an addiction that others may not pick up on so quickly, because it is one that from the outside looking on, may seem fairly harmless in nature.

Yet it is anything but harmless. Instead, the addiction to screentime, to be logged in to at least one electronic device as often as possible, is eating away at the core of what keeps actual relationships healthy and safe. The ability to communicate well and engage in quality time, face to face with each other, is being put in great jeopardy, because the online world is deemed more enticing. The addiction to be logged in, switched on, and engaged in screen time has become powerful and sadly, very compulsive for many.

It has become normal to see people constantly with their cellphone always in hand. The addiction to being logged in can seem to not be an addiction at all, until closer inspection is carried out. In reality, on closer inspection, it becomes very clear that the compulsion to be online has a stronghold and it is in fact steadily eating away at many of the close relationships people would choose to have.

We just don't know what is truly going on behind the closed doors of those we are neighbouring and who are part of our extended families. The window of opportunity to escape as often as possible via the Internet has sadly created for many a doorway for relationship dysfunction to creep in. It is a window more often than not opened quietly and often seemingly innocently at the start.

In a time when Facebook, Twitter and Instagram can help us project a desired and orchestrated image before the masses, we have got far more deceptive about hiding what really goes on behind closed doors. The perfectly put together composition of domestic life may in fact not hold as much bliss or peace as is really being experienced.

Behind the scenes, small children may be being bathed while a parent sits alongside, scrolling repeatedly on a screen, endeavouring to keep up with what is the latest news and weather report. Children are seeing and learning firsthand from a tender young age, that what is electronic and able to be held in the hand is far more engaging and more deserving of attention than any other toy.

We are creating generations upon generations of people who are less people focused, and less able to really engage in face to face communication that is healthy and conducive to real relationship. It has become the norm to send texts rather than handwritten love notes. It has become the norm to stay home and watch a movie on Netflix, rather than actually plan a budget-friendly date out with a loved one. It has become the norm to keep the electronic enthroned in a position of significance in our homes and in our relationships.

The nice guy who is always polite can actually prove to be the most addicted of addicts. He can arrive home from work and after dinner be solely focused yet again on logging on. Be it the cricket score, the weather report, from one online site to then another, the journey through the chain of online indulgence can be quickly pursued, until not just minutes but hours of time have been indulged in within the abyss of the Internet.

Just because it is not actual pornography, does not mean it is worth looking at or engaging in repeatedly for huge lengths of time, at the expense of actual face to face relational time with our loved ones. Anything that draws us away, at the expense of real connection and real relationship with those we claim to love and want to spend time with, is not material we should be repeatedly choosing to have before our eyes, before our minds and to which we are committing quantities of time to. What occurs behind closed doors for hours on end, has sadly for many become totally directed by that found through the doorway of the world of electronics and the quick swipe of a finger keen to be always connected to that online.

It has pretty much become socially acceptable to attend family and social functions and have someone sitting logged in and switched in to the wider world of the Web. We have accepted this as the new normal and simply put it down to being part and parcel of being in the Internet Age. Yet, much has often been sacrificed, even if it is not acknowledged until it is in fact too late.

Like all addictions, the addiction and compulsion to be logged on to an electronic device affects the brain's executive functions. Like anyone engaged in any form of compulsive behaviour, those addicted become unaware and desensitised to the reality that their behaviour is causing problems for themselves and others. They develop an immunity to just how harmful their behaviour is to relationships, to fulfilling promised commitments and other real life centred obligations. They can become so disengaged to what is occurring around them, they progressively lose the ability to keep track of time. Memory function can be affected. The desire for instant gratification and for things to be done at the speed of the pressing of a button becomes deemed their desired new norm. Life and its pace can become seemingly less inviting and less engaging, because it does not allegedly compete well with the world and timing offered and experienced via the electronic keyhole.

It is not just the younger generation that have an unhealthy appetite for all things offered via the world of the electronic. It is also being indulged in by those in the retirement years of life. It has become far too easy to plug in and log out from real life, no matter what stage of life we are in. We have become less concerned about what happens behind our closed doors, and more interested in what we can follow and link into, via the windows that our keyboards offer us.

We just don't know what is really going on behind seemingly peaceful closed doors. It is worth surely some considerable serious consideration for each of us to face straight on what it is we are choosing to put our hand to and are prepared to put significant amounts of time in to. If there is a level of electronic engagement occurring that is proving to upset others, surely it is wise to take heed and weigh it up most carefully against what is truly worthy of the use of our time and energy and resources!

What is it that we are prepared to allow into the relationships we engage in with others? Is it healthy? It is safe? Is it wise and actually constructive in nature? Just what is it we are upholding and allowing to be deemed okay and acceptable when interacting with each others? Is it conducive to building and keeping relationships healthy and our own sense of self worth in healthy balance?

It is surely worth some sincere personal reflection and auditing to determine just where we wish to see current, potential and already quietly shattering relationships heading, if the desire to be logged on and linked into electronics is at a level that others are questioning whether it is in fact healthy. The choice to switch on or switch off is a simple one. Being logged in or logged off, is a choice that requires greater discernment and greater self control, being exercised by many.

What is occurring already behind closed doors can be changed in an instant, but the one with the addiction needs to acknowledge it firstly, for any real breakthrough to occur. It takes considerable careful steps to break the habits of addiction and not to fall back into them. Help often needs to be sought at a professional level, when breaking free from any and all forms of addiction. Asking for help is a good sign, not one to be ashamed of at all. May those who need to face up to the path they are on, be prepared to take stock, before those they continually left widowed by their behaviour join the rank of others who also chose to move on for good.

The Art of Gossip

It seemed to be, from the outset, an innocent conversation. There was something akin to concern and worry expressed in the eyes, and the body language and facial expression appeared sincere enough. Yet, some time later when reflecting on the conversation all I felt was a sense of ill-ease. I had been clearly duped by the speaker, what was shared........ it was purely gossip.

There is an art to gossip. It is so cunning how cleverly it can be mastered and dressed up to look like it is dripping in concern and care. It is so cunning how you can be lead along a pathway that appears so innocent from the outset, yet when you look back with hindsight you realise that it was in fact not a pathway lined with flowers of lightness, of affirmation, appreciation or celebration, but littered instead with tidbits of rubbish about another.

How often do we get duped? How do we think we are hearing care and concern, but actually there is an edge to what is spoken that is tainted with judgement and even condemnation?

The family member who walked out or is about to walk out on their spouse. The friend who doesn't keep on top of their home commitments. The sick, the depressed, the struggling new parent.... how often are the words spoken about them actually edged with a layer of rebuke and dissatisfaction about how they are allegedly not measuring up?

There is an art to gossip. It can plant seeds of distrust. It can cause people to put on masks and keep things superficial. It can keep families locked in dysfunction and individuals on the edge of community.

"You should have seen..."
"I can't believe..."
"I wonder why.."
"Did you realise..."

All could be sentences starters that capture and ensnare you to go down a track that causes someone else's reputation to be up for question.

Just how much of what is said about a friend, an acquaintance, a family member, a workmate is based on actual fact and the truth of their circumstances? Just how much truth is actually being shared, rather than opinion? There is an art to gossip.

Tongues love to wag when hands are not kept busy on good and right things. Tongues love to fool and woo us into believing it is because there is underlying care and kindness intended. Yet, how destructive, how negative, how plain old judgemental is the content of what is being spoken actually truly being? There is indeed an art to gossip, and some have mastered it deceptively well.

As our children grow up, I am often saying to them, "Unless it is helpful, unless it is kind, do not say it." This small and simple guidance I am endeavouring to impart to them is intended to plant a forest of wisdom. There is far too much mis-information shared in family and social circles that only proves to keep people from being in sound and good relationships with each other. There is far too much whispers and sideways glances as to the intent behind someone's actions or words. A hasty and quick judgement can seal a door that once was previously open. Unless it is helpful, unless it is kind, we should be far more careful about releasing our words than we are.

There is an art to gossip. There is an art to practising tall poppy syndrome. There is an art to looking down upon others and their circumstances. There is an art to generalisations and determinations of the underlying intention of a completely separate individual. There is an art to keeping people locked up in cages and surrounded by boxes.

There is an art to gossip, to what is in fact slander....... and it really ISN'T a pretty picture. It pays to take an audit occasionally.

The Value of I'm Sorry

"I'm sorry." More often than not, they are the first words spoken when a mistake is made and when an error of judgement occurs. Yet, what value do they really have?

Being a full-time home educator, and being with my children on a daily basis (notably now also during what would for many be the usual daily working/schooling hours), I am very privy to the ins and outs of relationship dynamics between my children, as well as how they go about their interactions with others.

As we journey the homeschooling journey, we are engaging together in those aspects of teaching and developing their social and inter-personal relationship skills that are all important life skills; alongside the usual and typically taught academic areas of study. This has recently got me really thinking about the value we place around saying sorry.

"I'm sorry."

We have all had some experience with these very words. Whether we were brought up to speak them out, (preferably quickly, was the typical emphasis also!) when we ourselves transgressed. Or, we have been at the receiving end of them. But what do they in fact achieve? What value does saying, " I'm sorry," truly have? It has been something that I have been thinking about lately. 

"I'm sorry."

They are words that seem to float around occasionally, as part of inter-personal interactions. They are used to appease, to hopefully voice to the recipient something of an acknowledgement of our guilt, our self-knowledge of having done wrong. Yet what does saying "I'm sorry" really achieve?

Have we pacified our children, by bringing them up to respond with "I'm sorry," when they transgress? Have we provided them with a false sense of manufactured ease to be able to step away from responsibility and accountability, by instructing them to say, "I'm sorry," each time they fault?

Have we watered down an awareness of the importance of making amends, of self-correcting, of putting that which was dis-placed back in place?

Has the use of the word sorry, aided our sense of guilt becoming the major primary focus; rather than our need to put right the wrong we set in place?

As the one at the receiving end, how often are we left feeling dissatisfied? How often are we left with the full outcome of the mistake and error, to deal with it in fact ourselves?

At times it can well seem that the tables are turned, and suddenly the wrong-doer is now the one seeking to have their feelings soothed. There can be that sense that to not accept their voiced sorry-ness as all that is completely required to put the wrong right again, will show a lack of social grace, or even good character on our part.

"I'm sorry." It acknowledges the wrong-doer's position in the experience had; that of wrong-doer. It is expected to serve as an acknowledgement of guilt. Yet, how many times does the word sorry actually make amends? It doesn't.

Words cannot make actual amends. Actions made amends. Actions create correction. Until actions take place, the words "I'm sorry," are a sticking plaster on a gaping wound. In themselves, they simply do not achieve anything, with regard to constructive restoration and the righting of a wrong carried out.

Do we as parents place the emphasis far more on an expression of guilt, by drumming in to our children the need to apologise, rather than putting right that which was wrongly done?

Have we created the situation where the feeling of guilt is supposed to be at such a level, that our children are in fact to be guided and directed by guilt in their decision making, rather than their sense of right and wrong, when it comes to instructing them in life skills?

Have we endeavoured to make guilt the big monster that will prod them into behaving? 

We may well have fallen very short by teaching generations upon generations of children to apologise, and not to see the necessary value in amendment, the need for active responsibility, and for literally participating in helping assist and restore that which was created as a result of their error.

These are thoughts I have been challenged by recently, and they have got me really thinking about what it means to guide our children in their inter-personal interactions with others. We all want our children to communicate well, and have positive inter-personal skills in place when socialising with others - so perhaps we need to really think through what are the real consequences of what we are teaching them, that little bit more.