Dave Rudbarg's Blog, page 5

I Am That Child

When a child, desperate for love, meets a parent with a set of narcissistic beliefs, what occurs is subtle, covert and devastating. Neither party is aware of what is happening. In fact, the parent is completely clear that he/she is right and that the child has the problem; and the child often grows up feeling flawed, alone useless and resigned to his place in life. And, although he will actively participate in life doing and being of service to others, at the core, he always knows the truth they learned from the parent: he is bad, wrong and ultimately unworthy of being loved or belonging — and that is a horrible way to live.

I am that child. And over the last twenty-three years, it is really only in the last three that I have been ready, willing and able to look at how unconscious the human machine is and how my interpretation of events has been rooted in the beliefs of a confused lonely child. It also has become apparent to me that sometimes desperate, wounded lonely children with narcissistic parents can become narcissists themselves as a survival tool. Ultimately, some are never able or willing to see any other possibility.

The willingness to be vulnerable and open to creating a new possibility is intensely powerful and scary.

And, the willingness to consciously and continuously embrace forgiveness, particularly for whom I have seen for years (cue irony here) as undeserving of such forgiveness. This requires me to have a create a new way of being, one where my need to be insightful, justified and self-satisfied that my opinion is the truth.

But, instead it becomes a personal red flag indicating where the spirit, intent and practice of forgiveness is missing on my part.

And so it is…

#workinprogress

@CoachMeDave

Why Making A List Of Grudges Worked For Me (And Might Work For You)

1- The list forced me to get specific. Upset looks much bigger when it’s vague.

2- I began to realize how I had few, different complaints about someone.

3- The sudden realization that the ways of being that I felt victimized by were not only much more devastating to the other person (in terms of the impact on their life) but also the realization that my ever expanding willingness to do the work- to not be at the effect of it, to be able to choose the beliefs and ways of being, in every moment, that I would have liked to have experienced earlier in my life, makes me the man I am today.

And who am I?

I am a King surrounded by Kings and Queens

(Thanks to @Ed Bohlke for great coaching)

@CoachMeDave

Today’s Mantra

Take nothing for granted.

@CoachMeDave

The Truth About Truths

I usually like to write about something after I’ve gotten to the other side of it; however, I think this process is a bit different.

I’ve never learned to drive because I don’t have peripheral vision.

I have repeated that sentence thousands of times.

I said it to a dear friend the other day who did something nobody else had ever had the nerve to do. She looked at me and said,”Really?”- and then proceeded to test that fact and found out in that moment it wasn’t true, it was a limiting belief. I don’t know if it was when I was an adolescent, but it never ever dawned on me to question it- so I have suddenly learned that something I thought was the truth about me wasn’t.

The emotional pain I have been feeling for the last 24 hours is some of the deepest I have ever known. I called my elderly mother to ask her about it- and she said- “That’s what your father said that the doctor said so we all just accepted it. Why, did you want to learn to drive? Are you going to learn now?”

Wow. Great questions. The one question that has haunted me for the last day is this one-

What other truths about me delivered by authority figures did I accept as truth- that wasn’t?

Fascinating… I will keep you in the loop.

@Dave Rudbarg

Emotionally Available Men?

There are no emotionally available men. There are just men. What all great couples seem to share in common, at their core, is that they just really like and respect each other as people. Before you start making lists, qualifications and conditions- look at whether you like and respect yourself first. Then find some way to deal with any major issues with parents (you may resolve with others)- such that your relationship with your partner can be with your partner – creating a paradigm of partnership, affinity and a shared context for life.

It’s not anyone else’s job to compensate for what you think was missing in the people who raised you. It’s their job and yours to be a person of integrity who loves and respects themselves.

@CoachMeDave

Courage

The courage to be someone other than your parents have told you to be should not be dismissed as “no big deal.” Looking for approval and validation, for many of us, is our full time job and we often find things, like work and relationships, to be a needless distraction from our mission.

The problem is that the rest of world expects that just because we look just like a grownup, we might actually be one. The day that we truly begin to own who we are being as well as what our true motivation is for getting up in the morning – without beating ourselves up about it— this is the beginning of the slow, fascinating, confronting, life altering and, ultimately, fulfilling path to the realization that, at your best and most divine, you are, now and always have been, whole, complete and just like every other human being — a work in progress.

@CoachMeDave

The Power Of “YEAH!”

In my experience, I have found that human beings, at some point in their lives, step out of their comfort zone. They risk doing something new and unfamiliar. They read a poem in front of a room full of people, or they do yoga for the first time, or they say hello to a stranger who looks unsure, or they take a class to begin creating a whole new future, or they ask for help from someone or they get up and sing at karaoke after twenty years…

That’s a big deal. Many of us have been given evidence to support the perceptions handed down to us as truth by our “loved ones” who only want the “best for us” or so they say- and they often really do think that.

Sometimes we just need one person to hear us, see us or have a sense of us – sometimes, just one person, to make that magic sound — YEAH!

That one word can be make a huge difference.

Say it to someone. Say it to yourself. Say it often.

YEAH!

@CoachMeDave

Connecting

Taxi drivers and local bus companies, in the Journal Square area of Jersey City, tend to make up their own rules. I discovered this in 1998 when I moved to the area. I would be waiting on line for a cab and presumed that being next I would hop in and we would just go.

Instead, the door would remain locked. The driver would roll down his window and ask “Heights?”

“No,” I would respond.

Dismissing my communication- he would ask again to people behind me as if I wasn’t there-

“Heights”?

And 3 or 4 people would happily jump in the cab and go…

Inconvenient, annoying and unpleasant but not…

I rarely take cabs anymore. I manage my life to be able to take the last bus from the Port Authority to where I have lived in (you guessed it…)

“Heights?” since 2004. I do take local bus companies to go to Journal Square. They either go into the Journal Square structure Bus Lane B4 – or across the street in front of a bank. Yesterday, the bus driver didn’t stop at either place. He drove another two blocks and prepared to drop us off four long blocks from Journal Square.

“Where the hell are you going?”, I shouted.

“Oh”, he responded happily. “The bus stop is down there”, pointing another block to the right.

I had him stop- and I paid my fare and got off the bus quickly as did the only other passenger, a muscular young black man with short locs.

We were waiting for the light to change and commented to one another about the challenge of transportation in the area.

I talked about cabbies choosing what areas they wanted to go to and how unfair that was.

“You know”, he began, “I have a problem getting cabs to go downtown where I live. And one cab actually wanted me and my wife, with our two children and a stroller, to take two cabs – because they “couldn’t fit us all in.”

I stood there. I looked at this lovely man and my heart broke into a million pieces. We talked a bit more about how often stupid and selfish and racist often share common space.

” Because”, I said. “At the end of the day, it comes down to this-

There’s a mommy and daddy and their kids – and they just want to go home.”

And that’s how I became Facebook friends with @Anthony Rashan Chambers.

I am A King surrounded by Kings and Queens.

And so it is.

@Coach MeDave

The Power Of Respect

The cultural assumptions that men often make in their heads about women whom they find very attractive- are often diminishing- not only about the women but also about themselves as well- which might begin to illustrate why, so often, men are reduced to monosyllabic expressions or declarations of desire- with no consideration for the impact it might have.

As a man, I call on my Brothers- my Kings – to begin to talk to all women coming from a different mindset. Perhaps, create some new assumptions that allow for not merely acknowledging women as a way or an “in order to”- to achieve their short term goal- one that many never actually realize- and which only widens the gap between the sexes.

Perhaps men- let us begin to create something different-for example, a way of beginning to see what else is admirable or interesting about women…Suppose we bring a sense of respect to how we approach this- there will more than likely be respect returned. I like that prospect.

And, if your boys think this makes you a punk or soft- start hanging with men. You never know…anything is possible.

#shifthappens

@CoachMeDave

Everyone

Everyone is scared, wounded and a little defensive. He/she is not the image that you hope to buy into. He/she knows that. He/she secretly wishes you did too.

Sometimes it’s the gift of offering kindness with no evidence that it’s a good time or warranted or welcome for you to do so. The willingness to do so and the courage to act – is where you will find your divinity, your core, your soul and it may make you weep for every time you didn’t do it before. It just might give you a whole new context for why you are really here.

Namaste……

@CoachMeDave