From Housewife to Film Maker

Okay, due to getting 3 times the hits over here then at my new addy I must post the following…

fromhousewifetofilmmaker — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 08:33:07 +0000

I am baffled by the number of hits I’m not getting at my new site. I’ve dropped like a rock. This site is getting triple the hits. This doesn’t make any sense. It’s nuts. So there’s this internal conversation going on between those two parts of me that co-exist in uneasy stability…

One side says, “You need to double post… here and back at our old home.
The other side says, “One of the reasons we came over here was to stop double posting on Blogger and WordPress.”
The nervous, jittery, twisting a tissue around her finger side says, “Then we need to go back to our old site.”
The calm side says, “Now we can’t do that, it’ll confuse people and they won’t know what side is up or down.”
The trembling side lowers her voice and says, “Then we need to double post.”
This side of me says, BLAH!

What is the deal??? Anyone know?? Got ideas??
So you just like it here better?? WHAT??
Oh and you all know right that all I did was change addresses. My blog continues on over there, from here. No content change. What was here is there. The biggest change is that I’m now with an addy that ends in .com.
Night, love ya,
Theresa Jane

I MOVED…Same old Blog, Just New Addy . . .

fromhousewifetofilmmaker — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 08:51:58 +0000

I moved from this “apartment” at wordpress.com to MY new .com “house”

Please come visit my new place…

http://www.fromhousewifetofilmmaker.com

I’ve MOVED… finally. . .

fromhousewifetofilmmaker — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 08:21:08 +0000

Hello, and thank you for coming to by. Some of you will remember that I was planning to move to my own self-hosted blog so I’ll just be www.fromhousewifetofilmmaker.com and not fromhousewifetofilmmaker.wordpress.com.

Well I did it!!! I made the big, and scary move. Finally. Here’s the click and go link:

http://www.fromhousewifetofilmmaker.com

Please move your RSS feeds and if you’ve linked me on your blog and whatever you have all done to read me to this new addy. I will really appreciate it.

And to any and all that have done the above THANK YOU, I appreciate your support. You’re all my great friends.

Hope to see you at my new place

Theresa Jane

All the King’s Horses and All the King’s Men Couldn’t Help Me . . .

fromhousewifetofilmmaker — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 04:07:38 +0000

As I said in the last post, “All the king’s horses and all the kings men” couldn’t fix the problem that had developed between me and my child/ren. Only I could belly up and take RESPOND-siblity for what I had created. Own the whole mess.

So here’s how I RESPOND-sibilited .. for months…

BACKED OFF:

Stopped calling.
Didn’t take advantage of situations where we were in the same place, like in “their” father’s house with my other children, to attempt to engage “them” in conversation
If “they” interacted with me I was careful with my RESPONDses, kept it to the reason “they” were talking to me and I only embraced that moment: I didn’t go on to look for any more from them, then or after.
I kept my pain to myself and looked for nothing from them to ease it. I had created it, I deserved what I got, I needed to be a big girl and swallow it.
When there was opportunity I mildly suggested that “they” consider !BLAM!ming me.

Thankfully “they” have done mini-!BLAM!s a few times so far.
When “they” have I…

TOOK RESPOND-sbility:

SHUT my mouth.
Done my level best to not cry. This was about them not me.
I didn’t correct or interrupt.
When “they” were done I would say:
–”I agree with everything you said. You’re absolutely right, I did do those things. I’m very sorry for hurting you and causing you pain when you were a child.”
–Another time “they” mini !BLAM!med me “they” weren’t so very upset and coming right at me with seething anger, so I felt I might be able to say just a bit more…so I re-said what I said above and added:
“I’m thankful you told me this. You’ve helped me see things about myself that I did wrong and can still do. Now that I see what you’ve shared I can fix it and I’m going to.”
In every case I asked, “Do you want me to respond or would you rather just end right here?” I felt it important to ask this question. To show that I cared about what they said and I just needed to know what they wanted/needed from me.

If they said they were done, I said, “Ok,” and WALKED away.
WHY??
BECAUSE:

What had been important was that “they” had done what “they” had needed, at that moment. Expelled the poison. Began to cleanse the toxins from their system.
That was what was respectful. How dare I arrogantly decide that this needed to be dealt with longer? That would be being a bully and controlling, even though what I would have said would have been to have supported what was said. Anything I would have said would’ve fallen on deaf agitated ears and only proved that I was all they said, I continue to be, I won’t change, and they are right to cut me out.

If “they” wanted a response. I gave it.

Although they never said it I can tell you that they needed a response because they needed me to “prove” my WORDS: “I’m so very sorry for hurting you as a child.”
To hear and feel if I was genuine…

Their UNSAID screaming QUESTion was…
“Yeah! If you’re so sorry then PROVE it.
Tell me what YOU did,
support my points…”

So I did…
Tomorrow I’ll show how I went about saying more…

Night, love ya,
Theresa Jane
-whose wondering if anyone has their experiences to share in my comments???

Taking my paRENTal RESPOND-sbility . . .

fromhousewifetofilmmaker — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 23:33:51 +0000

Tonight there was another step forward healing my relationship with my adult child that said they wanted nothing to do with me. We spent an evening together, that they initiated, and it was wonderful. So wonderful that we were supposed to watch a movie but we never got to it because we talked so long. The talking was light and easy. No stain, like old times. Another step forward. Thankfully.

I was going to write more about our evening, but then I watched one of the videos that my business partner, John Solomon, created and posted yesterday. It compelled me to go in a different direction. Because what’s more important than our relationship healing and improving is how we’ve been getting to the improvement. If you’re in the same place I’ve been you want to know. You’re desperate to know how to reunite with the child/ren you love and care for but nothing seems to work and everything stays the same.

It begins with…

PARENTAL RESPOND-sibility
is the straightest path to our children healing.
(And relationships mending.)

How do I know??

Well, let’s look at me. You can’t miss the difference between how I’ve related to my mother and step-father in my prior posts.

Then there’s my children. As I related in prior posts like this one: Click here. Let’s take the one who came over last night. For over a year “this one” had growing issues toward me and I wasn’t sure why. But that we were on a slippery slope downward had been obvious, till we reached the bottom and “they” told me, “I want to have very little, to nothing, to do with you ever again.”

A relationship broken
and all the kings horses and all the kings men
couldn’t put it back together again.

(And this was one of the children that I had had the closet relationship with through the years.)

Things were so bad, that honestly, I thought we were looking at years of NO relationship, if ever at all. And if ever, then I expected it to be a fragile, delicate relationship.

Thankfully our relationship has recently been improving. Little by little. Baby step by baby step. However it would not have unless I honestly took my responsibility for what I created.

So there had been hope.
There is hope.
It comes in the form of me
bearing my responsibility.
That has been creating (we’re still in process) the improvement.

The Ice Age Movie, an acorn, and Me . . .

fromhousewifetofilmmaker — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 04:54:34 +0000

Frozen Water Fountain

So why did mention in my last post that it felt like the Ice Age movie?

Well, in the last post I told about a conversation with John. During it I had mentioned that there was a “crack” in me and that was what triggered it…
See, when it came to my mother, I knew, that when I was young, I had frozen into an Ice Queen.

Soooo mention a “crack” in me, and it was an instant carry over seeing myself in my own personal “Ice Age” chasing an acorn as it bounced off the frozen landscape of my hate. I’d get a hold of it and lose it in the same breath. But happy just the same to keep unconsciously chasing, feeling justified to not allow a single crack invade my perfect, shiny layers of ice that blanketed my being and kept me trapped in it’s frozen prison…

Course the problem was, all along the conscious and sub-conscious part of me wanted healing. To have the true-freedom mentioned in Red Book and Cotton book that I had read and re-read. So those parts of me were busy at work doing all they could to heal. And because they were, one day that nut “happen” to fall out of my hands, tip down and pierced the thick ice with the tiniest of crack. I may have been frozen solid but all I needed was the smallest of “cracks” to appear…

“Great oaks from little acorns grow”
-OR-
Big explosions from tiny cracks begin…

You know, I don’t think it was any coincidence that the creators of the Ice Age movies have a squirrel chasing an acorn. The acorn served as a symbolic foreshadowing of great things to come…Lions and Mammaths living together in peace. I hope that for my mother and I, but intent to have it be the case within me.

The other thing… like the acorn, there are parts of me that must be buried in the dirt and DIE so I can be re-born.

Close-up of the fountain

Night, love ya,
Theresa Jane
-BTW the pictures of ice are as common as dirt when one lives in the North, which I did all my life till the last 8 years of living in Alabama, but down here you don’t see such sites. It’s so rare that my oldest, John, went to get his brothers, Caleb and Daniel, and his sister, Grace to see this fountain, to walk across the ice, and pull chunks off the frozen waterfall which resembled icicles so that they could have this “common/rare” experience before it thawed.

A tiny crack . . .

fromhousewifetofilmmaker — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 09:33:49 +0000

John, my friend and business partner, called…
“Theresa can you go to YouTube and watch the new movie I posted.”
“Sure.”
…….watching movie……
“Wow John, very powerful. Better than the last one. Amazing. I’m able to see the extremeness of the fear I have for my mother to a degree that I hadn’t seen until now.”
“Yes, others can see what we can’t…”
……..converstation……..
“When my mother sees these videos it’s either going to cause her to be furious and shut me out or… possibly they’ll finally break her.”
……..conversation……
“Well, Theresa, the thing that’s most important is that you heal your issues with her. And that will also take your energy out that’s contributing to her stuff and what she does. Whether or not she changes is up to her…”
…….conversation……
“Well, I hope that one day, for her sake, she decides to do something to change and heal,” I said.
That’s when I stopped. Right there in the middle of my kitchen. I stopped. I had to. I had completely surprised myself by what I had just said. I had to process this. More importantly to feel what I felt. It was unfamiliar and it was warm.
“John, that’s the first time I’ve cared one way or the other about what my mother does for her healing. I mean I know it’s up to her what she does but what I just said I said from an emotionally sincere level. Those words came out effortlessly. With compassion. Just like I have for others in the past that I have felt compassion for and I was hoping would be able to stay with their healing to get their freedom.
“Wow…..
“My….
“Goodness…
“Something is happening…
“This is new. Totally new.
“You know even just this weekend I was wondering how I’d ever have any compassion, let alone love, for my mother at all. I was frustrated and concerned at how hard and cold I was. I was talking to myself about the seriousness of my condition and how I must overcome this and even in spite of how she may treat me in the future. First for myself then for her. I certainly don’t want to die in this hate. Every human being deserves compassion and love no matter what they’ve done. But I couldn’t imagine how I’d get there, even in spite of the fact that I now have compassion, forgiveness, and love for my step-father when I once, as you well know, hated him like the Jews hated Hitler.
“…those sessions and emotion treatments I ‘ve gotten the last few weeks surrounding this, the !BLAM!, the work I’ve done up till now, all the prayer, meditation, asking for dreams–I’ve asked for so many dreams I felt like one of those kings out of the Old Testament–has all complied to today, to allow this tiny crack to begin.”
I backed up slumped against my refrigerator for support, and extinguished a rush of stale air that I think has been stored in my lungs for 37 years and said, “Oh thank God.

Night, love ya,
Theresa Jane
-ya know what??? This makes me think of the movies: Ice Age…

John’s new video:

A Duck, on a Frozen Pond, Demonstrating Einstein’s Definition of Insanity? . . .

fromhousewifetofilmmaker — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 07:53:16 +0000

10 this morning: I was in my truck to go to my life coach/therapist appointment and I noticed these ducks “on top” of the lake–really it’s a very large pond but they insist on calling it a “lake”. I say they were “on top” of it because the water is frozen.

So picture this, there are three ducks. One was walking, one was resting, and one was paddling her web feet trying to swim for all she was worth.

This was too much, I took my camera and videoed her to show my kids.

The duck walking on the ice walked straight at her looking like, “What are you doing?” Then he turns and walks the other way. Then the one resting gets up and the two walk away while she keeps paddling… Going no where.

I couldn’t help but think…”There’s a message here for me. I’m on my way to my appointment to deal with my “mother hate” issues and I’ve got a duck demonstrating Einstein’s definition of insanity:

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

So today’s message from my duck friends? STOP DOING THE SAME THING if you hope to get off the “ice”/hate… heal my hate issues…
I’ve been that paddling duck. It’s time I stop the insanity, be like the other duck… up, walking around, in charge, enjoying life for all it’s got to offer and even leading the other duck. He was getting some where. I went to my appointment with that on my mind and I’m glad because the appointment got intense…

The Appointment: For all I was worth I wanted to resist what my couch was trying to help me see. But thank God I didn’t and I pushed through and as a result I’m coming more out of my “insanity”. A chunk of what I came to see? I’ve allowed my mother to control and have so much influence over me that she’s my god. She possesses me. She lives through me. I fear her, I talk about her a lot, I can do things that she does: get cold, shut down, mean, temper… All things someone does who worships someone or thing.

That was unnerving. Tasted like vinegar and sent shutters down my spine. But then I had to admit it’s true. She’s my god. This processing dislodged a memory: when I was a kid I used to always sardonically say, “My mother is God himself.” Well, I took that a little too seriously…

After: I went to one of my all time favorite spots: my library… While there I found a book on CD: Dolorus Claiborn by Stephen King. In all the years I’ve gone there and checked out books out on CD and, always look at the SK choices, I’ve never once saw this. In the words of my daughter, “That’s crazy!”
So… I mean, really…
Did I have a choice about taking it out? No! I know you remember that it was only days ago that the movie version cracked me wide open showing me my hate for my mother. Click here for that post.
So of course I immediately popped it in when I got to my truck, I’ve got to see why this “coincidence” happened. Isn’t life totally cool???
I’ll keep you posted….

Later: we had a terrific business meeting. Exciting things to come is all I can say…

Night, love ya,
Theresa Jane
-three hours later when I return home. That duck was still paddling… four or five feet away from where she started and now she was moving in a circle…insanity…a reinforcement, keep pressing forward to “do different” or you’ll stay on “your ice”…made me shiver
Here’s my ducks…

If you get a kick out of them tell your friends to go to our channel: http://www.youtube.com/JohnSolomonSandridge and view them, who knows maybe they’ll go viral?! Boy wouldn’t that be great for our business?

There’s a richness with my kids . . .

fromhousewifetofilmmaker — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 07:13:13 +0000

I just got in, it’s 12 ish and I have to say it’s with a smile that I’ve come to share with you…

I’ve been so focused on where my life and healing has been going for the last month or so and there has been the need to fill my blogs with so many words just to cover that topic that I haven’t taken the time to veer into other areas in the effort to not overwhelm you with more to read. So tonight I’m going to make my post about areas that I’ve neglected…my kids.

Interestingly since I !BLAM!med my parents there began cracks with the children that have issues with me, as I mentioned in prior posts. Click here for those posts.

Of them I mentioned one wanted to have as little to do with me as possible. And I’m happy to share that it’s been slooow going but we’ve progressed. One night about a month ago, ‘they’ did let out about an hour of steam, in a calm fashion, towards me about the things that upset “them.” ‘They’, in a sense, mini-!BLAM!med me. I listened, apologized, and told them they were right.

Since we’ve inched along and I have to say Christmas was very nice, and surprisingly we even went to a movie together. But today was better. It was super really. We talked a long, long time, two different times, like we used to. And I’m thankful. But I’m also wise enough to know that ‘this one’ still has things to work through. Although matters between didn’t seem quite as delicate, there was a hint of it skimming the edges. So, I respected the “edges.” At the end of our conversation I again encouraged ‘them’ to do a full out !BLAM! with me. I had shared during the course of our talk how liberating and healing it has been for me and that I wanted that for ‘them’. I do hope that one day ‘this one’ will be able to do so.

Also, another adult child did !BLAM! me and their father several weeks ago. Right after I had done mine. At the time none of my kids knew about my !BLAM! with my parents, but I knew and I offered them the opportunity and ‘this one’ took it and ran. ‘This one’ and I have talked on and off since, in small sessions, and I’m glad to say that this relationship is also healing. I will also add that we both see the need for ‘this one’ to do it again. That the first was only the beginning. So when ‘they’ are ready ‘they’ have said ‘they’ will.

So that’s the fast forward catch up with my kids. It’s wonderful and I’m thankful and am committed to doing all I can to assist them to heal, in as much as it has to do with their issues with me.

Now, for me, well, tomorrow is my “life couch/therapist/Naturopathic Spiritual Intuitive”. And I have to say I’m locked and loaded. I’m ready. I’m sure there will be pain and tears as he takes me even deeper into my issues of unforgiveness and the hate I carry for my mother. But I’m ready. Today, I’m so ready. I want to be free. I’m going to be free. I’m going to transform.

An interesting thing has taken place inside me since I… saw, then was honest and confessed the hate and unforgiveness I’ve been carrying…both have been deflating. Like the helium that leaks slowly out of a mylar balloon. I’m not going to even try and deceive you into thinking that “I’ve got this one”, but I can say that I’m not so searingly uncaring as I was. It’s the honesty that brings that about, it’s sets a person free. So tomorrow I’m going to be as honest as need be. Because tomorrow I’m going to go about killing these “demons” a little bit more…

Night, love ya,
Theresa Jane
-above I have creative ways of not letting you know which of my children I’m referring to. That’s out of respect to them. I’ve not asked if I can share their names yet. So for now they’ll be, ‘them’, ‘they’, and ‘this one’

From Pandora’s boxes to where? . . .

fromhousewifetofilmmaker — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 08:19:09 +0000

So where do I go from “here”? All I wrote about in my last post. From my “demons” of Mother Hate and Unforgiveness?…

In the Steven King movie I talked about last, there was a female character who was dying a terrible death. It was made obvious that it was due to her holding on to hate. Her line: “Sometimes being a bitch is all a woman has to hold on to.”

Translation: this was what allowed her to survive.

The movie shows us that she was obviously hurt in her childhood and then in her marriage. Her “demons”, Bitterness and Hate, permeated her and in the end they devoured her with sickness and twisted her outside body into a terrible form reflecting what was inside… She wanted to die. It was the only way she knew to “kill them off” and release her from them and her awful existence.

These “demons” we/I co-exist with exact a terribly high price to allow us to live off from/hold on to them…

I want to be released from my “demons”. However I know that I don’t have to die to be released, but they have to. I can go on to live a beautiful and peaceful existence after I’ve killed off my “demons” (my issues) and replace them with “angels”. In this case “angels” of Forgiveness and Love for all people including my mother.

This is also the message of the book John Solomon wrote: Red Book and Cotton. It is the entire theme really. How to overcome the issues that keep us from “true-freedom”. The man, Nimrod, had every reason to hold on to his anger and hate, he was born and raised an African American slave. Who was treated worse than the slaves?? But in spite of his childhood and adult treatment and existence he was able to overcome and go on to live in not just the paper freedom that the government granted in his lifetime, but he was able to arrive at his true-freedom as well. By learning to love and forgive those that had been atrocious to him and his people.

To me it has been a tremendous eye opener to how I needed to live. His life story has played a very powerful role over the years to my inner healing. Because if anyone “deserved” to hold onto to their hate it would have been him. But he learned to let it go, “kill off his demons” and because he did he was able to experience true-freedom and this is the message to us that is in the book. Through his life story we learn of his pain and traumas, the horrors committed against him and were all around him and then we are shown how he learned to free himself of the anger, hate, and unforgiveness he harbored toward the white people.

The book has been inspiring. Provided me tremendous guidance and self-revelation to jerk me awake and to keep me on the path to my inner healing/True-freedom. Read it. You’ll be glad you did. Check out John’s blog too, click here, it’s based on his book and the truths that lie within.

Night, love ya,
Theresa