Jandy Kelley, Author of the book, “Grief As I Know It”, brings you her latest life's study, “Beliefs, Boundaries & Balance”, Tools to Finding Your Way To Inner Peace. In this project, Jandy shares with you a straight forward account of how we become wired, tired, unbalanced and unhappy in today's hectic lifestyle. Once the reader has uncovered the mystery of why they are at their wit's end, Jandy provides the reader with easy and effective tools to work through the many difficult barriers of life and allowing them to come out on the other side and to ultimately obtain inner peace.

Beliefs, Boundaries & Balance

AuthorHouse

Contents

Chapter 1: Beliefs........................1Chapter 2: Boundaries.....................37Chapter 3: Balance........................139

Chapter One

Guard your heart above all else for it determines the course of your life. Avoid all perverse talk; stay away from corrupt speech. (Prov: 4 23-24)

You are:

Scenario #1

You have too many work meetings that run into late evenings. You are constantly juggling from one child's activity to another. You have church every Wednesday night and Sunday morning, as well as leadership involvement. You are married and have household duties to attend to, as well as family events with in-laws almost weekly. Your work is never done, and so you bring your work home with you, keeping you up at times into the wee hours.

Scenario #2

You have never really been alone. You went from home to a marriage or have always been in a relationship. You tend to be jealous and feel uneasy when you do not have others around. You get involved in your friends drama and tend to be the advice giver. You work very hard and over achieve in your job, yet feel empty inside. You have all of this going on, yet feel alone.

Scenario #3

You never say "no." Everyone loves you because you are so giving! People tend to think you are an angel because you are always there in a crisis. You volunteer at church and your local hospital. Your adult children often drop off their children with you at the last minute, but you are there for them in a pinch. You don't mention to your husband that you really do mind that he spends the weekends golfing with the boys even after not seeing him all week from work. Instead of taking much needed vacations you loan the money you have saved to your child who can't seem to keep a job and is still living at home. You KNOW though he has talent somewhere in there and one day will use it. You think the best of everyone and when disappointed think that it must have been something you did.

Scenario #4

You have always been admired for your beauty. No one thinks you have a care in the world. You walk strongly and confidently into a room. Friends talk about your jet-set lifestyle; if they only knew the debt that was behind it. Everyone thinks you have the best husband. You try to remember that when he is hitting you and you hide behind your sunglasses for days or don't leave the house. But, you are grateful to have the things that you have and your children need the stability of their father. This is what you tell yourself when you have those pangs of fear of leaving or of admitting that your life really isn't what is portrayed.

Scenario #5

School wasn't for you. That is for people who are privileged. You are street smart and proud of it. At least you don't have all those school loan payments. You know that you are a hard worker. You know your father always told you that you wouldn't amount to anything but you try not to think about that. You look around at your surroundings and think about how you wish you could win the lottery. Wouldn't that be a dream! Your boss tells you he doesn't know why you work in a menial job because you are very talented, but you laugh because he is the owner and you aren't worthy. Those kinds of opportunities are for other people.

Scenario #6

You work so hard all week and play just as hard. You don't shy away if a drink is handed to you. You don't see anything wrong with putting a few away at night after a long day. If it was okay for your parents it is okay for you. You know you should be better about getting up on time and not being late for work but feel that your boss shouldn't be so in your business as long as you get your work done. You don't know what the big deal is. It is hard for you to keep or make commitments when you said you would do something. People just need to understand you do things in your own time and that you don't like to be weighed down. You don't know why people get so frustrated or worked up when you forget details or conversations. Not having to think too much or hash out situations seems ideal to you ... then you aren't disappointing anyone.

Scenario #7

You REALLY think THIS one is going to be the right guy! He won't be like the rest who have opened up very quickly too you, even proposing quickly and then disappearing. Well, even though he has opened pretty fast and is starting to talk about marriage, you see a difference in him. He wants a real commitment. Even though you have only been dating three months he wants to move in already, he must really love you to want to make a REAL commitment like that. You know that he is having some hard times having lost his job and being behind on some bills, but you know he is going to get that fixed because he said he is looking for a new job and once that happens, all of these problems will be gone. He told you so. You know paying the rent and utilities by yourself won't last long. You are so excited because in a few months, when all of this is handled, he said he wants to buy you a big engagement ring. He knows how you've always wanted a big diamond. It will look beautiful on your hand!

Scenario #8

You know your place as a good Christian girl is to not stir things up. Your mom and dad taught you so many wonderful and proper things in how to be a good young lady. You know your husband doesn't really mean it when he calls you those names. You avoid your feelings because once again you will just be a "drama queen" if you bring that stuff up. You know your friends really love you even though they seem to go away when they don't need something from you. You know at times they talk down to you but figure you deserve it. You know you don't make the best decisions at times and they are probably right.

Scenario #9

You know last night you should have just gone home instead of saying yes. Now you are trapped yet again. Hopefully he won't invite you to breakfast ... that would just be painful. You said you would never do this again. You want to say no but when you are in the moment can't seem to. This is the third time the last few months that you have done this. Maybe you can get up and sneak out, just in time to go home and clean up so that you can go to church and make your parents proud. You don't want to disappoint them.

Scenario #10

You are the baby of the family. You know your parents love you, but you never seem to measure up. You make a good salary ... but it isn't exactly what your siblings make. You make a lot of effort, even more than your siblings, but fault tends to find you first, even when not warranted. Comments towards you are not clear and you often feel guilty or like a failure. You just wonder why or how this happened. You think you are a good person, but don't know why you tend to be left out.

Scenario #11

You are always tired. Maybe it's because you are sick all the time. You know you should take better care of yourself. The doctor even said you really needed to lose 70 pounds. Exercise is just so hard and you are so busy. Well, at least during the day at work. But you are so tired when you get home. That couch just feels so good and you don't have time to really cook so the drive-thru is your friend. Next year, you will make it happen!

Scenario #12

You don't know what you feel. Is there even such a thing as feelings? You have long forgotten. It's just too much to remember. Who would want to remember all of that pain? You are just protecting yourself. Yes, that is it! If you don't feel anything then you won't have to admit what is boiling on the inside. I know people must wonder why you cry at the drop of a hat but then swear life is good. You have it all together!

Does one of these scenarios resonate with you? Do you recognize yourself to the point that you feel like I was standing outside your house and was writing specifically about you? Maybe you even see yourself in several of these scenarios. The issue is that it only takes one of these situations to know that we are not in a healthy state of mind, body or emotion.

This is where our lives become unbalanced and it is difficult, if not impossible, to ever reach a state of peace. Maybe you have a different scenario, but at the end of the day all of these situations boil down to the same feelings. Your story may not be like the person sitting next to you but that doesn't matter. Sadness is sadness. Anger is anger. Fear is fear. When we don't have peace in our lives, we have something else, something that may prove to be destructive to our goal of having inner peace.

What is peace anyway? It is something often talked about and often desired by many, yet few really grasp what it means or definitely what it feels like because they have never achieved it. For years now, here is how I have described peace. I see peace being a place that's achieved if you were to be locked in a dark room with no possessions, no loved ones, no clothes, NOTHING, and you would still be okay. In your mind, even though you would miss your loved ones and your possessions, you have so much self-love, esteem and a strong relationship with God, that you are internally happy. Of course you would have sadness and pain over your losses, but, you are okay. Sound impossible?

Look at particular prisoners of war who suffered for years being locked up in solitude with no possessions and no contact with the outside world. I remember seeing old footage of Senator, and once presidential hopeful, John McCain when he was held captive by North Vietnam. He spoke about how when he came into the war he was not exactly the most moral guy or particularly happy but more arrogant and self-centered. He went on to say how the years of solitude helped him to achieve an internal peace and resolve that changed him to the man he is now. This is only one account; I have seen others out there who talk about this occurring.

So, what does it take for the rest of us ordinary individuals to achieve peace without being detained in solitude? First and foremost, we have to have good beliefs about ourselves on board. If you fall into any of the twelve scenarios, I can pretty much guess that you may still have some negative beliefs about yourself. The reason why I say this is because when we feel good about ourselves, we make good decisions. When we feel good about ourselves, we stand up for ourselves. Not that someone who has positive beliefs about themselves can't make occasional mistakes or have situational issues of over doing, but, for the most part, their lives are well balanced. A person with negative self beliefs will tend to live in a chaotic cycle that tends to lean in the dysfunctional range.

Beliefs are deep seeded. They grow who we are. We are brought into this world by God and given a personality, but then we are directly influenced by those who raise us, usually our parents. We have to understand who is accountable for our behavior today. As previously stated, I'm not saying that you have to throw your parents under the bus. However, you do need to take an honest look at your life and distinguish exactly where you got your ideas, opinions and beliefs about life and yourself.

Many of my clients have a hard time making their parents or caregivers accountable. I explain that it is not about staying in the blame, but about knowledge. You see, you didn't sit down with a note pad at age 1, 4, 6 or 8 years old and begin creating a list of the things you are going to "sign up for" in life. At any point, did you decide that you wanted to be co-dependent, with low self-confidence, without boundaries, feeling worthless or any other negative feelings that you may be harboring? NO!

It is frustrating when I hear a client say, "I'm just this way, I'm just hard on myself." Most of the time, through further probing questions, the client will reveal a situation that put pressure on them to take on these issues.

Don't believe me? I love giving this homework to my clients. I tell them to go watch 2-3 episodes of a "popular" television show where two wives of two different families swap places for 2 weeks. It AMAZES me on that show how you will see two completely different families with two completely different value systems and the small children who will angrily defend the "family beliefs." These children will yell, cry and stomp off while arguing with an outsider adult. Where do you think they learned it?

Again, not to throw the parents under the bus, yet we need to have an honest understanding of where we learned things. It's not that our caregivers meant to give us a less than productive upbringing, yet it happens. It happens because they themselves were victims. They learned from their parents and then they pass it down. So, often times these issues are generational.

Take for instance, if your Great Grandma had been sexually assaulted. Your Great Grandma may have lived in the mid to late 1800s. During that period, situations like this were often hushed and the victim was told not to speak of it ever again. On top of that, the victim may have even been made to feel responsible by a parent or caregiver saying something like, "I've told you that you shouldn't wear your hair that way. Men find you attractive that way." Now the parent may have been trying to be "helpful", but how do you think most would hear that statement? Yep, as they are responsible for the situation happening. This is where shame begins.

Now let's say that Great Grandma has a baby girl ... your Grandmother. Baby girl is born in the mid to late 1920s. What do you think she will receive from her mother emotionally? Well, probably not a lot. Great Grandma may have closed up emotionally because the situation taught her that she wasn't valued enough to be taken care of. If this was the case, she would have taken on shame and then likely passed it on to the baby girl. The behavior may appear to be a lack of emotion with her child, either verbally or physically. To be affirmed, a child needs love through words, as well as hugs and touch.

Your grandmother does not grow up with these affirmations and so therefore when she has a baby girl ... your mother, what do you think she receives? Probably the same, right? If her mother did not receive a lot of love through words and touch she will not know how to give it to her. So, your mother did not receive that ability to give emotionally because she did not have a good example of it. So then, your mother has YOU. Guess what you get?

For example, if you were born in a time period after the 1960s, when society became more comfortable with talking about emotions, as well as public displays of affection, you saw a more forward approach and availability of "self-help" books. Now, for you, in the twenty-first century, you are sitting here looking for affirmation from your parents or caregivers and you feel empty. You ask yourself, "What's wrong with me?" "Why don't my parents love me?" "Why don't they like me?" You get the point.

The bottom line from this scenario is that you may be carrying shame that is four generations old and isn't even YOURS!! Your mother, your Grandmother and your Great Grandma DID NOT receive the (1) belief that emotions were important and (2) the example (behavior) to learn how to be emotional. Therefore, you may not have received it. It may have NOTHING to do with YOU. But, unfortunately that is exactly what we do. We take it personally!

Please also understand that back in the 1700-1800s, many families had children to have workers for the farm. The philosophy was very much about survival and getting the work done. There wasn't a whole lot of time or tolerance for a lot of emotion. That door really began to open in the 1960s.

The crucial point is that now you are an adult. Now it is YOUR responsibility and you can not be in a position of blame. You can understand where your situation is accountable to, but without blaming into the future. We can't change our past. It is a futile effort to stay in the past and hope for a different outcome. We now have to make a decision to learn from our past experience and use it to our best abilities.

Often, our old negative beliefs as well as the inability to face our own past will keep us in our system of blame. This is an immature action and an immature way of thinking. If we have the internal belief that we are not worthy, then it can cause us to have the feelings that we are not respected and externally we may act that out by not standing up for ourselves in a situation.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Beliefs, Boundaries & Balanceby Jandy Marchand Copyright © 2010 by Jandy Marchand. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.