CHAPTER 16

Reformatting an Abused Disc

   Every situation holds the seed for positive or negative reaction. Energy is energy. We get to name it. We hold the option for how that energy activates within us. Whether it's suppressed, vented, resolved, or evolved.

EXAMPLE:

When I was a kid performer, I felt the necessity for re-naming stage jitters into creative adrenaline so I could let that energy work for me rather than against me. Not sure where I got that notion, but it seemed like a better path than fear.

   Ergo! I guess, we all have the ability to reshape negative energy directed toward us into a positive force, and to find worth in what appears to be worthless setups C if we choose.

   Within every receiver of the Abuse Bull there lies the ability to convert the bitterness vented by their abuser into a self-strengthening energy.

   I feel we can greatly assist receivers of abuse if we can help them learn how to access the turnaround ability through their creativity keys and help them learn to use imagination to unearth gateways for growth amidst the bull pit they tripped into.

   Without doubt, the isolating abyss of my kidhood forced me to explore and activate creativity. It forced me to realize legitimate reasons to go for the gusto, or go nutso.

   Circumstance forced me to look beyond logical veneers to unearth a deeper purpose for being born into my quasi-family.

   Looking back, stress occurred when I struggled to cling onto people no longer meant to be in my life. When I tried to right what I felt was wrong outside me and my bailiwick.

   Serenity occurred when I let go of what was beyond my control and what was not mine to control… consciously reprogramming that pressure by letting it catapult me to the next rung on my Learning Ladder. The positive energies from my kidhood showed me:

   The Freedom Key works when we don't get stuck in the stress filled questions any longer than it takes to see WHY they've been asked of us. We turn the Key by launching our quest for answers, for solutions, for the reason life shakes us up and out of our uncomfort zone.

   The Why-Quest greatly animated my at-home still life.

EXAMPLES:

My mother wouldn't cook, so I learned to invent recipes and I cooked my way into the parties I adore hosting.

She wouldn't shop, so I learned to trip through markets, track down bargains and juggle our budget which became a great Adult Survival course never taught in regular school.

She wouldn't sew or mend clothes, so I learned to stitch and create patterns, eventually working as a designer for a Kowloon ski wear corporation.

She was ambivalent to our home setting, so I learned to decorate, choose colors, slosh a paint roller, haul furniture around for extra space design and lighten up the gloom, eventually using this tool as a decorator for shops, home interiors and TV set designs.

She wouldn't let me vocally express, so rather than grow up into a pent up mute-ation, repelling from communication, or into a walking time bomb of repression, I learned to vent my thoughts via painting, where I talked to canvases, and via writing, I talked to paper … as I am doing now.

   By translating what I held inside into a form I could see as an outsider, I was able to offer myself advice. As with most of us, it's easier to solve another's dilemma than our own. Problems take on new perspectives when transposed into detached forms.

   Ergo! I became my own Dear Abby, offering myself possible answers. Next step was to listen C or not.

   My survival exercise converged to form my adult careers, leading me to become a professional artist, creative director and writer specializing in people and emotions.

   I gave myself so many pep talks to keep my spirits up that I became my official cheerleader through life's hodgepodge of happenings C defeating, victorious or silly.

   The next challenge in the Pep Course was replacing the ME in the mirror with actual people as a public speaker and confidence caterer for others by serving food for thought.

   I comprehended the need for supportive nourishment.

   Ashley's indifference offered a seminar on the futility of struggling to make another think our way, or else. It caused me to de-stress my pep talks by disconnecting any ties to whether or not others followed my suggestions.

   On the huggyside of life, my mother denied physical affection so I could've bitched myself into being the youngest member of the Untouchables.

   Instead, I reasoned God gave me arms for more than hauling groceries and garbage; and, a heart for more than breaking. If Ashley didn't want to love, that was her mask. Not mine. I vowed not to let her make-up rub off on me.

   Every setback held a chance to advance, every spin on the unmerry-grow-round offered a snatch at the brass ring. I just had to keep reaching for it.

   This is not to imply I'm some super creative genius. But, I am curious. I prefer being busy than bored. As I see it, being creatively busy is an energy I have control over as it sources from my own attitude.

   Somewhere along the line, I heard that people use only 10% of their brain power. That seemed illogical. So, I decided to stretch the odds by exploring. Why let 90% re-main stagnate? It had to exist for some purpose. I wanted to discover why.

   Sure, I could have regressed my creative tenacity into a never-give-up-mode to redesign my family picture. But why? That would have been as productive as devoting my life to mastering the art of dribbling footballs.

   Whenever my Little Voice said: "Terminate!" I listened.

   I share this crossroad to show what can be accomplished when we consciously choose, without judgment toward who, or what, is right or wrong, to face the reality of who we are, who and what we are dealing with, what others are choosing to be and do, then choose to reach the highest good within our OWN potential without the handicap of struggling to strap on someone else's slippery negativity.

   We lose when we lessen our potential by reducing ourselves to the lowest common denominator for the carrots of promised happiness, love and success in the vain hope of fitting into someone else's limited cubicle.

   We win when we become supportive caretakers of our lives. As we liberate our spirits, we strengthen our ability to govern ourselves with wisdom and balance. And shed the absurdness of fighting to make others responsible for us. Or us responsible for them.

   As in karate, I learned to let the momentum of Ashley's indifference work for me, as my creativity was never praised, belittled, encouraged, or discouraged. I turned her indifference into a springboard for risking my pursuits.

   Ergo! I saw the world as a creative candy store open for sampling.

   Creating in private meant I had no mortal teachers, but that was a plus as no one stood guard to control my output, or force me to create according to their rules for a good grade; no one sought ego strokes by forcing me to clone their techniques or visions. Every challenge became a viable temptation to explore my individual ability to succeed.

   I realized my only inhibitor would be self-doubt, showing:

   Competition against others is futile. The only other we compete against is what our fear says we cannot accomplish.

   By not knowing what I was creating, I was unable to judge my work. Ergo! I learned to enjoy the process. What manifested as the result was merely a pleasant by-product.

   Throughout the years, I received extensive acclaim for the unique intensity of my water colour style. When it was first pointed out to me that water colour is the toughest medium, my reaction was: "Really? I didn't know. I’m so glad no one told me or I might have been afraid of it!"

   Lack of formal creative education was the greatest education, as no one ever got deep enough into my system to program their self-restriction into my heart-drive.

   My theory causes me to decline whenever I'm asked to judge art competitions. Who am I to judge a process as subjective and unjudgable as art? I can't imagine Dali, Warhol and Di Vince vying as rivals in an artistic showdown.

   This reminds me of a Toronto story. The courtyard at City Hall was setup for a giant outdoor sculpture exhibit. The night before the event, construction workers had repaired a side of the building. Done for the day and thirsty for a cold brewsky, they dumped their mess in a heap and forgot it.

   The next day, the exhibit went on as planned. Afterwards, the guard was questioned by the organizers as to why the worker's heap was left there for the show. He replied: "We saw it, but didn't move it for fear it might be art."

   An interesting commentary that shows the pointlessness of judging creativity in others, ourselves and life.

   This also explains why I feel creative expression, without judgment, needs to be an integral part in assisting abusees recover from negative setups.

   Anyone who has endured suppression, be it from parents, mates, bosses or even their kids, needs to be encouraged to develop their creative skills, whether it be in reading the messages their subconscious serves them through art, or stripping the deception concealing the true reasons for their abuser's actions and their reactions.

   Abusees need to have their cosmic fannies nudged into the creative coliseum so they can liberate their hearts by extinguishing the fires they may secretly stoke against their abusers. Fires that eventually burn their self-love letters.

   In essence, so they can put all that has happened to them into perspective, trash the guilt, filter out the constructive messages, withdraw the positive use from past negative abuse, and get on with becoming masters of their own happiness and potential. So that their insight may help them to see:

   Letting Go is possible. I say it because I was served, as others, from the Abuse Menu. Ergo! I can truly say that we were not born to be trapped by the limitations of other peoples' fears. I say this because I DID escape.

   Limitation is an elective course. As is unlimitedness.

   Creative therapy may be a main key to enlighten us out of the Clonehood of Abuse and the resulting self-abuse that arises from buying the traditional fallacy that to be good guys, we must inherit embargoes on our ability to be joyous and pursue the lifestyle our spirit craves.

   We need to help ourselves to maintain our natural God-gifted sense of creativity. A sense we all exhibit, abused or not, unless it's bullied out of us by society. By traditional education. By the Tyranny to Fit-In.

   Creativity is the ultimate pardon to liberate us from a Pasthood of imposed torment. A way to reverse indoctrinations into anger, unlovability, doubt and hurt. A way to constructively rename our energies.

   A way for us to look into the WHYS of our abuser's anger. To see we weren't the cause, rather a handy target. To see our soular birthright grants us permission to choose how we rewrite our continuing life:

   To live it as a rerun, or a premier.

   There is only one area of creativity that is limited:

    We cannot rewrite the past nor resculpt others

    into who we wish they were.

   When we Let Go of what-might-have-been, we can get on with what-is possible.

   When we acknowledge the futility of judging others, we can dump the greater futility of judging ourselves at fault for what happened to us.

   When we see that every restriction offers a door toward liberation, and every exit is an entry into a new life, we can then turn around to open and embrace it.

   When we delete the apparitions of animosity programmed into us during kidhood, we get to reformat our power disc from regret and anger into hope and beneficial energy.

   Clarified Releasing may be the simplest antidote for the aftershocks of abuse. A way to earn our wings to freedom via creatively breaking the chains to the past. A way to comprehend the need to re-name negativity, because:

Copyright © 2004 by Krystiahn