"Are Feelings Facts?"

 By Sandra L. Brown


Women don't know whether to trust what they feel or not. Are you confused over whether feelings are factual or if they are fiction? You're not alone. Women struggle where to draw the line between believing what they think and questioning it. 


On one hand, feelings can be red flags in the beginning or in the midst of the relationship. Red flags can be emotional, physical, or spiritual warnings of what is happening or what is yet to be. 


Emotional red flags are feelings you get while in the relationship--constant worry, dread, wondering, suspicion, anxiety, depression, or obsession. Often the emotional red flags are quickly noticed by other people in your lives who point out that you have changed since the relationship--and not for the good. Lots of times women don't want to 'hear' about their emotional changes since being in the relationship. 


Other times, women already KNOW they are having emotional red flags about him or aspects of the relationship.


In either case, it's important to know that emotional red flags can be GOOD PREDICTORS OF THE POTENTIAL LONGEVITY OF THE RELATIONSHIP. Many women notice that the red flags they had at the beginning of the relationship ARE the reasons the relationship eventually end. So emotional red flags can be great tools and often accurate. 


Waiting for feelings to become 'facts' before you act on them can be very dangerous. In the case of emotional red flags (and your intuition), responding NOW instead of later can help you exit the relationship quickly. By the time a feeling IS A FACT, many things could have happened.
(For more info on red flags, see the first few chapters of the Dangerous Man book.) 


ON THE OTHER HAND (there's always 'an other hand' isn't there?)--women wonder if the intense feelings they are having are an indicator of 'true love' or why would they be having them? Women often experience confusing emotions when trouble starts in the relationship. She either becomes confused when the relationship turns bad or she becomes confused when she has ended the relationship. This confusion takes the form of "if he was so mean to me, why do I still have feelings for him? I must still love him if I can't stop thinking about him even if he did bad things. Do my feelings mean I should go back with him?"


In these cases 'feelings' are not facts. It is human nature to seek attachment and bonding. When that is ripped away there is an emptiness that happens. Women often think that 'means' that they were in love if they experience the aftermath of 'loss.' It just means you are feeling the loss. 


Women often think that since they 'miss the good times of the relationship' they must miss him. What women actually often are missing is the 'feelings' that were generated in the relationship when it was good. Women miss feeling of being 'in love' or 'attached' or 'wanted and desired' or 'safe and secure.' When women can separate out what they really 'miss' they often can see that 'he' represented those feelings she was having. She misses the feelings of the illusion of being in a good relationship.  


Missing 'him' might not really be 'missing him.' Who is 'him' -- the dangerous man/cheater/liar/or pathological? You miss that 'him'? No. You miss the feelings of being in love. 


Tell yourself -- "What I am missing are the feelings of being in a good relationship.' Remind yourself of that when you mis-interpret those feelings as meaning you 'want him back.' Often that isn't the case. Recognize that this very 'feeling' thing is what propels women right back out there seeking to 'feel loved' again and attach to those feelings you are missing. It places women very 'at-risk' of repeating the same mistake. 


Here---try this. Draw a line down the middle of the page. On one side, list the feelings you miss having. On the other side, list the dangerous man traits/behaviors/incidents. 


Now take a look. Which do you really miss? 


Feelings can be accurate when we are getting red flags in the relationship. Feelings can be inaccurate when we are gauging whether to return to relationship because we think we 'miss' him when in fact, what we miss are the feelings that were generated in the relationship. 


Feelings can be inaccurate when we are gauging the intensity and equate that with love or something healthy in the relationship. Understanding the importance of 'feelings' in all stages of a relationship can help you recognize just 'what' your feelings are telling you and when to heed them and when to be a little suscipious of their messages to you! 

Natalee Holloway: Re-injury Cycle

By Sheryl McCollum

How much more does Beth and Dave have to endure from this guy?  Joran Van der Sloot has confessed yet again.  He now claims to have “dumped her in a swamp”.  This is their baby he is talking about.  The media of course seizes on this story with frenzy.  This information surfaced in 2009 but we are just hearing about it as though it is breaking developments. Its old news and Aruba will do nothing with it – standard procedure from them.

What does this latest “confession” mean?  Is this last “confession” enough to convict him?  Could it be that he is trying to get on TV?  Is he trying to send searchers away from where the body is?  Is he just hurting the people who loved Natalee?  Is he just a pathological liar?  Does he know where Natalee’s body was disposed of but gets off during every search?   

Review

·       May 30, 2005 Natalee missed flight home

·       Early morning hours was seen leaving a bar with Van der Sloot

·       Last Known Person Seen with Victim

·       At first Van der Sloot claims was he did not know Natalee

·       Then claimed she was drunk and preformed oral sex on him

·       Then he stated he dropped her off at the Holiday Inn

·       Days later he fingered two black hotel security guards

·       June 5^th the security guards sre arrested

·       June 9^th 10 days after Natalee disappearance Van der Sloot is arrested

·       On June 10, 2005, Joran claimed that the Kalpoes dropped him off at his house and drove off with Natalee.

·       On June 11, the Kalpoes said they actually left Joran and Natalee at the beach

·       On June 17, police arrested Steven Croes, a local disc jockey who played music at bars and on a party boat called the Tattoo. Croes was a friend of Joran and Deepak and backed up their story that they had dropped Natalee off at the Holiday Inn after riding around the island in Deepak's car.

·       Ten days later a judge decided that although Croes had lied to police, he wasn't directly tied to Natalee's disappearance.

·       June 18 and 19, Aruban police spent a total of seven hours questioning Joran's father, a lawyer who was training to become a judge. Four days later the police arrested him.

·       On June 26, without explanation, a fellow judge ordered Paulus van der Sloot released from custody

·       Joran said he lied about taking Natalee back to her hotel because he was scared. "I didn't want anyone to know," he told ABC News. "I didn't want anyone to know I left her at the beach. I lied because, yeah, I was scared. I had a girlfriend at the time. I didn't want my dad to think bad of me. I didn't want my friends to think bad of me."

·       In another version of the story, this one reported by Jossy Mansur, editor of the Aruban newspaper Diario, Joran told police investigators that he suspected Deepak may have returned to the beach after dropping him off at home.

·       According to the police report the suspect J.A.P. van der Sloot, the suspect D. Kalpoe had returned to the girl after having left her sleeping on the beach. To our question to the suspect J.A.P. van der Sloot what he thought had happened between the girl Natalee Holloway and the suspect D. Kalpoe, he declared that he thought that the suspect D. Kalpoe raped and killed the girl. To solve the problem, Joran again adjusted his story. He said he walked home from the beach, a 30 to 40 minute walk.

·       Later, Joran changed his story again. He called Deepak for a ride, he said, but Satish picked him up instead, in Deepak's car.

·       Then on August 26, Aruban cops arrested the Kalpoes again, citing "new facts and circumstances" that implicated the brothers and others in "premeditated murder and rape." Six days later, on September 1, a judge ordered the police to release Joran. The next day, the judge ordered the release of the Kalpoe brothers.

·       On April 27, a team of 20 Dutch forensic investigators began two days of searching and digging at the van der Sloot estate on Aruba.

·       Jordan writes a book about the case 2007

·       February 3, 2008 Van der Sloot “Confessed” in vehicle on an undercover camera that Natalee began convulsing and died and a friend disposed of the body

·       An Aruban Judge denied the arrest warrant based on the tapes

·       November 2008 Van der Sloot gave an interview where he stated he sold Natalee into “white slavery” and his father paid off police officers

·       February 2010 it was reported that Van der Sloot “Confessed” to a friend in 2009 that he “dumped her in the marsh”

·       Aruban authorities dismiss this latest information as “unbelievable”

Aruban authorities have dismissed every single bit of evidence and did not look for others. 

Joran’s home was not searched until June 15, 2005.  What could be covered up, destroyed or altered in just over 15 days? 

This case is a textbook study for re-victimization.  The arrogance of the number one suspect only compounds the damage.  Every “confession” and lie was just retracted as though it was no big deal.  He has stated that he would “hate Natalee” if he met her for putting him through this.  The title of his book refers to what happened to him.  He stated he was “shaking the bitch” on the beach saying “what’s wrong with you man”.  Now that daddy is gone and can’t pay off police and can’t stop Joran from running his mouth will we get another confession soon?

Transforming Radiance

By Charles Moncrief

When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the LORD. ~Exodus 34:29 (NIV)

Exodus 34:29-35 is a standard passage read in churches that commemorate an event classically known as the Transfiguration of Christ. In 1998 I wrote an academic paper (cite) on this passage, so it holds particular significance for me. While I made an “A” on the paper, my professor and I disagreed on the significance of one element in this verse. In the years since, and especially as a result of my experience with this blog site and with the other contributing writers, I’ve come to the conclusion that my professor was wrong.

My professor and I agree that Moses’ face was radiant because of his encounter with God. Where we differ is on the reason why Moses was unaware of this radiance.

Before continuing, allow me to pause for a moment and invite you to look at the pictures on the right side of this page -- all except mine. These are the other contributing writers on this site. As you scroll down the page, notice the radiance in their faces.

(pause)

Most if not all of these writers have survived major traumatic events in their lives. They are survivors of one or more violent crimes against them or their loved ones. Each of them has known injustice, violence, betrayal, and loss. And yet, because of their encounter with something greater than themselves, to some extent each of them has known hope, healing, and restoration.

In the 33 chapters and 28 verses preceding this narrative, Moses had known injustice, violence, betrayal, and loss. A prince of Egypt became a desert nomad. A leader of slaves marching to freedom stood accused of failure by the former slaves and by God Himself. But as he returned from his special encounter with God, his face was radiant. And Moses didn’t know this until someone else pointed it out to him.

The contributing writers, if told their faces are radiant, might express surprise. Their humility, as that of Moses, would be the reason for their unawareness. But that is only part of the story. Moses was preoccupied with returning to his people with a message of assurance, that God had a plan for them, and he was too busy to dwell on anything special about his own appearance.

Likewise, on this site all of the survivors of violence participate with a sense of purpose. And one of the driving forces in their purpose is to provide readers with a message of assurance, that there is a future, and that we can all trust in something greater than ourselves.

No one would deny the devastation that occurs with physical and emotional violence. No one would diminish the further devastation of a criminal justice system that worships at the altar of a faulty system of laws. And no one would discount the implications of this devastation on future generations in your lives.

But let me offer one more thought for your consideration. This site’s writers would also be quick to tell you that they are not the only survivors with radiant faces. They would name countless others in their personal lives, on TV talk shows, and on talk radio, who have been transformed by healing experiences. They would tell you that the transforming experience is occurring in countless persons, and that it’s happening daily. The transforming experience is available far and wide. And it is also available to you.

Grace and Peace,
Charles+

The Waters of Romance

By Karen Rae Elkins


It's time to expect more. Make no mistake, I live the life I love.

It's not a fish until it's in the boat or on the bank. I've had many fishless days that I remember happily without regrets. My life to date has been about fishing, everything fishing: be it the latest tackle, the lake fishing reports, or the newest technique. My fishing calender is full from now until October. Almost every weekend I'll be on a lake competing. You can find a way to repress abuse but it always finds it's way out. Monsters live in the dark. So what am I running from? In a profession that is 99% male dominated, I run from dating.

It wasn't until I was recently asked to take time off from my busy schedule of fishing to spend time with a guy, that I realized how I set myself up to not date. He said, "Well, when can we have some time to get to know one another?" It was January. I told him I thought I had some time off in mid April. My response was insensitive, stand-offish, and kinda down right mean.

When ESPN canceled the Professional Women's tour. I scrambled to find local events and team partners to fish my home waters. I'm looking forward to revisiting the Alabama lakes I fished over the years. Alabama has the most diverse and beautiful rivers and lake. An angler can find a tournament every weekend. Not only are the waters familiar, they are a source of confidence. I expect more than a zero on the lakes. Just as I expect more from the lakes in Alabama, I expect more when it comes to dating.

Love is like the lakes and rivers I fish. I can't conquer a lake in one visit. It takes many trips to establish an evolution of knowledge. I've come to believe that a successful relationship requires falling in love many times, always with the same person, but deeper and deeper every time. Each time on a whole new level, you together, open to reveal a new truth. There is no limit to the beauty of love. 

My dating calendar is empty for the moment but I expect changes this year. I often say fishing never disappoints me. And if I had to complete the phrase it would read fishing never disappoints me but many men do. This excludes my friends and fishing partners. I have casual weak moments with men, but they never leave the dock because I just frankly didn't see the point of letting any one person get in the way of fishing because fishing is safe.

I expect more from a man that wants to date me and often shake men off the line too easily. My motto to date was, I fish, I don't play baseball. One strike and you are out. It has kept me safe and I have no regrets but it's time to step into the dating game. Give men a chance. It's time to believe that only one in three men are abusive, and I am capable of discerning the abusive man.

The uncertainty in romance throws a kink in my fishing line every time. When I'm fishing and feel a kink or the line feels rough, I pull the bad line out past the damage and cut past the damaged spot, re-tie the lure and continue fishing. The last thing I want on the lake is to lose a fish because I didn't check or change the line.

The sport of angling has many lessons to teach. The message of the waters are the same as the ones of love, work out the issues, be patient, and enjoy the moment. Persistence is a virtue that transcends patience. However, the waters of romance are unfamiliar, unexplored, and sometimes unpredictable. When I come to a kink in the line of dating, it never took much to replace the whole spool of line with new line all the way down to the leader. I strip the reel clean.

One of the turning points in my life was when I got my first bait caster. Each trip to fish became a communion with the nature that God created as much as it was about the fish. There seemed to be a certain peace in all was right with the world. The joys of fishing were not confined by the hours on the water. The best fisherman can't catch a fish if the fish isn't there, and so it goes with love. I can't have romance if I sit in my home alone. Funny, I went to the shallows last weekend, knowing where the dangerous stumps were, but when it comes to romance how can I avoid the stumps if I never launch the boat?

When you've had someone step all over you, it isn't easy to open your heart or your mind. I've come to another turning point in my life. I believe the tide is changing and I'm willing to change with the tide. I made that step this past week.

It was the Bassmaster Classic, the top 51 anglers in the world were competing for 3 days. In the end, the top angler walked away $500,000.00 richer. I worked a booth at the Classic. The knowledge I learned about myself was worth more than money. I realized that the fishing friendships had replaced my need for romance. Each day, I saw friends from all over the US, and the local boyz as well. We all had one thing in common a passion for fishing. Somewhere over the years I have put my passion for men in my pocket close to the memories of abuse.

Two hours after the Classic I was sitting at the dinner table with my fishing buddies. We were talking and having a good time discussing the weeks events and the people we'd met.  I picked up my phone to send a text. It was a simple text. Thinking about how much I'd like to see ya. love karen. A minute later, the phone rang. It was him.

It's time to expect more and add a different kind of passion to the life I love. 


Fish Steady my friends. love karen.

Train Wreck

By Susan Murphy Milano

“Someday maybe there will exist a well-informed, well considered and yet fervent public conviction that the most deadly of all possible sins is the mutilation of a child’s spirit

-Erik H. Erikson

Anyone who believes that children are not affected by violence in the home is very mistaken.

There is nothing, absolutely nothing more terrifying than hearing your parents scream at each other in anger.

And that terror is magnified tenfold when you see your father, whom you love, beating, knocking, bashing, and kicking the mother you adore.
As a child, you want to make it stop; after rushing to your mother’s aid and getting knocked across the room yourself a few times, you learn to run away from the mayhem rather than toward it. Your feelings become confused, swirling between the fear of being hurt yourself and even worse, dread that your mother will be killed if you don’t make him stop. In the mind of a child they feel responsible for the destruction. “If I cannot make it stop then it must be my fault.”

The first time you experience it, the horror is unimaginable. Your whole warm, safe, comfortable world is exploding in front of your eyes. How can this be? Why is this happening?

The Peterson Children
This made me think of Chris and Thomas Peterson, the boys of Kathleen Savio . Her body was discovered “dead” shortly after ending a violent marriage, in a bathtub in 2004. Their father former police Sgt. Drew Peterson was arrested for her murder and he is currently being held in an Illinois jail until the trial.

Their lives are literally a train wreck. Not once, but twice. After Kathleen's death their father was quick to marry a girl close enough in age to be the boy’s sister. There was no time to process and grieve for their mother and it is likely their father, a stern task master, whom set the tone for what would and won’t be tolerated with their new step-mom Stacy Peterson. Imagine your mother dies and as a child you are commanded by someone whom you likely fear to "suck it up" and move on. The only difference in this abusive household the boys have experienced a triple dose of what I term "rollercoaster hell" in an environment deeply rooted in power, control and violence.

The boys are young enough to bond with step-mom Stacy and old enough to have experienced loss, uncertainty, fear and tragedy. Stacy takes on the task of immediate motherhood with Kathleen's boys. She goes that extra mile preparing their favorite meals, being there when they come home from school to tucking them in each night. Slowly the boys begin to trust Stacy and after about a year as a family things settle down a bit. Although Stacy gives birth to a boy and a girl during the marriage she is always consicious of the boys and their feelings working overtime to build a solid foundation for Kathleen's boys Chris and Thomas.
Suddenly, the bright light in the Peterson home is once again burned out when Stacy Peterson vanishes.

Do these children re-live and witness the same horrors as when their mother was alive as the household begins to crumble? The answer is yes.

The boys have now experienced two life devastating train wrecks within a 5 year time period. During the following months the tension is so thick in the Peterson houselhold you could cut it with a knife. Their home is invaded by the media. Police presence both in and outside the home is omnipresent. Everyone in the country soon knows the name Peterson and its' association with something evil, violent and tragic.

The third train wreck happens when Drew Peterson is arrested. The boys are devasted. Regardless of what we may think of Peterson these young men only know him as their loving father. And after his arrest the boys are sent to live with relatives.

I hope and pray in the years ahead Chris and Thomas Peterson have the opportunity to experience joy, love, hope and most of all peace.

Re-Setting the Energy of Anger

By Jillian Maas Backman


As I sat and pondered my topic of discussion for this blog entry, I kept coming back to the idea of “energy of anger” and its advanced stage, the “energy of rage.”


How many of you hold onto the energy of anger, mindlessly exploiting this erratic behavior as a catalyst for getting ahead on your path to success? How many of you are in an ANGER RUT?—unwilling to consider the thought of relinquishing this detrimental pattern while fearing you will stagnate in your own inadequate resentments.


The energy of anger often masks itself behind other emotions and obscures our vision of the world around us.  Dominating and relentless, it will ultimately suffocate all other emotional energies.  It will subject you to a life of surface dwelling—an inability to commit to intimate connections with those around you.  Instead, you shuffle though relationships like an old set of “hand-me-down playing cards” for the sole purpose of avoiding the possibility of feeling vulnerable. At some level, we all can relate to that. Living in a state of vulnerability is very risky business. You must open your heart and your soul to all sorts of subjective, painful passages.  In a suspended state of anger, you may be able to avoid the human fall-out of uncontrollable experiences.  But ask yourself this question; what blessed events are you missing because your veil of anger is holding you back?


I want to share a few thoughts on how you have the opportunity to shift that anger into a moldable paradigm of reality.  From childhood on, we are taught to use this statement when we are unhappy with others:  “I am angry with you.”  If you remove two simple words from the statement, you’re essentially left with “I am Anger.”  After years and years of repetition, one begins to accept the possibility that this is true.   You are anger, and anger is you.  You become one with the anger. In the old paradigm, human emotions such as anger, are characterized as personality traits.  Unfortunately, the chances of reversing a characteristic trait are very rare.  It takes years and years of commitment and accountability. 


Moving into adulthood, I began to perceive human emotions as human conditions, which are curable.  When you start accepting this truth, wonderful events will begin to occur.  One can experience human emotions without being overtaken by them.    This can be accomplished by “re-setting your emotional paradigm”.

Many teachers, including myself, encourage others to make decisions from a place of love, not fear, human- based emotion.  It helps to give yourself permission to detach from the emotional components of your personality.  Think of the process of detachment in terms of an archery target.  The target is composed of concentric circles of different colors, rings inside of rings, all encircling the core center, which is always pictured in red.  The red represents your soul center.  This center is steadfast and grounded in the pure essence of love, peace, calm and balance, and most importantly, isolated from outside forces.


The outer rings represent human emotional conditions, accumulated over time as protective mechanism.  These accumulated emotions can be either positive or negative.  As a functional person, you have complete control over human conditional emotions.   Are the emotional rings of your target negative, positive, or perhaps a mix of both?    


It's all right to experience both positive and negative emotions.  What is important is to remember that the soul, the center of the target, never wavers.  It is the essence of who we are, even when we feeling a myriad of human emotions.  By becoming aware of the separation of the “rings” we can develop more conscious control over our emotions.


In loving gratitude, Jillian.


Jillianmaasbackman.com


Listen online every Sunday 9 am to 10 am, central standard time,  www.lake961.com.

Courage

By Tanya Warrington

Today I want to salute all those women, men, teenagers and children who have had the courage to tell about their abuse. Courage. It takes bravery to do what you thought you could never do.

The first time that I was told that I was courageous--I thought the other person was crazy. At that point, I felt fear in huge heaping doses. I had driven away from my home with my three children in a desperate effort to keep my children safe from my abusive spouse. I felt panicked. I was in the grips of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), but no one would label until a couple of months later my intense fear that haunted me both in my waking and sleeping hours.

I didn’t feel brave at all.

I had thought that I was brave when I endured abuse and didn’t cry. That type of courage I had learned as a preschooler when my dad sexually assaulted me and told me “big girls don’t cry.” I thought I was brave when I kept horrible secrets deep down inside, because I didn’t want to be responsible for “killing” mother by telling her things she could not bear to hear. I thought I was brave when I kept my life somewhat together when a teenage boyfriend raped me when I was 17. I thought I was brave when I wouldn’t let my husband see my pain, because he fed off signs of pain or weakness. I put up a strong, feel nothing, say nothing front…until the day I understood that my children were in danger because of their father’s worsening “anger problem.”

Now, years later, I understand the courage the friend saw in me. I see it now in other courageous individuals. It takes tremendous courage to believe that there is a better way of living and to risk everything you have and that you know in order to seek that different, abuse-free life. 

Bravery is necessary to leave all that is familiar and plunge into an unknown future. 

Guts are essential to reveal the buried secrets. 

Tenacity is needed, holding onto what feels like a tiny edge, while feeling waves of fear and pain in the aftershock of embarking on the road of truth.

Coping, ever coping, while feeling totally weak and exposed as you ask for help from strangers at shelters or counseling offices or in an emergency room. 

The pain feels like more than you can survive. The reality that you told yourself could not be--is the ugly truth. And facing the truth of abuse can’t be done with anything less than courage.

So, to all of you who have faced the unbearable, I say well done. No matter where you are on the journey of healing, I see the courage in you. Bravo! Bravo! You are making it. You are taking steps toward a better future. You are learning new ways. You are doing things you didn’t think you could do. 

You are like the shaking child at the top of the high dive who finally jumps off and raises to the top of the water to hear the sound of the pool patrons clapping. That kid was terrified, but did it anyway. Others saw the fear and then the courage. They saw and they clapped.  If you and I were in the same room right now, you’d see a big smile on my face and my hands clapping for you.