Thursday, May 22, 2014

busted

A week ago my husband marched into my office waving three sheets of paper. You could feel the chill in his veins fresh on the scent of fraud. He perched on the most uncomfortable chair, back erect, drugstore readers at full magnification and on the edge of hyperventilation like we were in the middle of an active home invasion. The numbers one to twenty-four rattled off his lips tallying the sum of a righteous day of "iTunes therapy".

"We have a problem.", he stated. "I think there's fraudulent activity on our credit card!"

We mobilized. My husband Jeff was on the phone to various gatekeepers and I in the fluorescent cubicle of CSI to flesh out fingerprints and the smoking gun. I swept through my iTunes purchase history to the relief of three books and my son's history of two books and five songs.We checked out clean and were free to leave the station.

My daughter, on the other hand, had some 'splainin to do. Her purchase history was littered with a month of of iTunes LOOT. The trojan horse was operating from inside the castle walls! In its full, pixelated form, there, like a deer in headlights, my eyes met with the baffling charge after charge of virtual bling and armaments to build and fortify her online kingdoms.

All tolled she was harboring a $750 secret.

"There must be some mistake.", I thought. "She must have made these charges without realizing that it was REAL money she was using...? No WAY would she would do this."

Moments later she waltzed in from her day at school, set the mail on the counter, hung up her back pack, brought her empty pink lunch sack to the counter and plunked down on the hardwood floor of the kitchen to drape herself over the dog. I appreciated the lean process she followed after years of 4 pm weekday protocol. Her attention to detail and thoughtful manner in which she tended to her homework and chores lent themselves, seamlessly, to what I expected to be a simple misunderstanding.

Having pre-coached ourselves with the priority of keeping cool, Jeff calmly inquired what she knew about a hefty iTunes shopping spree. I watched her reaction; How she walked, how she spoke, how she breathed. Instead, what grew more apparent was how I began to feel the ice in the veins, the shortness of breath, the narrowing of the pupils that overtakes the system the moment they are busted. She held her hands to the sides of her face almost as if she was trying to prevent her head from exploding. No tears where shed yet the genuine remorse was palpable.

In stunned silence, Jeff and I, scratched our heads as we watched the instant replay of the past eleven years in the feverish attempt to comprehend how this egregious breach of processing and decision making skills had jumped the tracks. Was she absent that day we taught Moral Conduct and Values 101? Yes. She skipped that course in favor of auditing the enrichment class entitled, Lock Picking to Gain Access to Your Favorite Candy Store. Yes, I think she did.

She fessed up with total disclosure and stood bravely at the emotional guillotine to receive, what felt like the impending doom of a decapitating punishment. Jeff and I eeked meagerly out on the limb of this previously, uncharted territory. As self proclaimed push-overs and famed for parenting through hypocrisy we looked at each other with a blank stare of "Ok. Now what."

the punishment
The old-fashioned word "punishment" fit as well as high-rise jeans. It's constricting stature didn't leave any room for opportunity, growth or (my personal faves) psychoanalysis, symbolism and the ripple effect of consequence. For this reason, we donned our helmets, shields and galoshes and marched into the cave we feared that held the treasures we sought. Because, what this meant was way bigger than what appeared at the surface. But I'll get back to that.

logical restorative consequences (LRC)
Logical Restorative Consequences (LRC) applied to this incidence of Family Moral Code violation as read in chapter 1, section 2, page 3, line 4 indicate: Bummer, Dude. This is going to be a long, rocky road for everyone. The LRC implemented but not limited to:

1. Removal of iPad for the duration of lapse in judgement.
= 1 Month
2. Restoration of factory settings in iPad
= Pain in the Ass.
3. 1 1/2 hours sitting at the desk with Dad changing all the AutoPay accounts to the new credit card number.
= Boredom teetering on the verge of a coma.
4. The opportunity to explain herself to the ultra-chill Apple employee the faulty logic behind her crime.
= Mortifying.
5. Repay the money to us through added chores and a payment plan the eleven year old's equivalent to the amount of student loans.
= Painful.

the backfire
I'm a proponent of random acts of kindness. However, I'm learning that sometimes that throws a wrench in the plan. The "backfire" was Apple's unexpected refund. "Cool!", we thought at first glance. To Jeff's "classified folder" this was an open and shut case keeping Tatum's payment plan on course. Yet, opacity was at the root of the problem. If we withheld the truth from her we would: 1.)Feed this closed circuit loop of dishonesty and  2.) Miss the opportunity of acknowledgement that the world is a friendly and abundant place as was witnessed at the merciful gesture by the guy in the Apple confessional.  

What would happen with the truth? We all had to risk that outcome. We told Tatum of the Random Act of Kindness that had been extended to us. She leaped for joy. Of course she did; The soul loves the truth. Little did she know...

the puzzle piece
In order for LRC to be effective, we felt the puzzle piece of "Pain" couldn't be left vacant. For Tatum to understand the value of $750 was going to require one more mortifying conversation and "pain". We asked her to 1.) Select a local charity of her choice, 2.) Call them, 3.) Inquire of what they were most in need and 4.) Spend $750 on the requested supplies in combination with a stint on the chain gang.

In keeping with Judge Constantine Harm's sentence, this felt like an experience that Homer and Bart endured in the episode, "The Parent Rap", tethered together in LRC's after Bart stole the town's police cruiser. The theory behind this sentence being that had Homer instilled Bart with good moral conduct from the beginning none of this would have happened. But, really, the question is, did Homer have these skills to teach to his son. The answer was no. "You cannot give what you do not have." So, now they had to learn the basics and forge these skills, somehow, tethered together. Brilliant. But what did this have to say about me? Apparently, I had some learning to do too. But I'll get back to that.

tethered
Where it stood, Jeff and I had grown very accustomed to the iPad as a playdate. We were worn out similar to being pecked to death by ducks, and had just, simply, given up on our desire/ability to monitor the amount of unsupervised time spent in front of a monitor. We like the quiet and the time it affords us to, honestly, watch our own monitor. Now we are forced to be tethered together; To grow and engage with each other and in this circumstance, learn from each others mistakes. The perception as something negative is really loaded with incredible information if you choose to look more closely. And this is where the road got rocky for me. Could I teach Tatum to do what was right if I hadn't come clean myself?

shadows
In a jaunt through the woods the day after this discovery it was raining. The short vlog I captured that day related to the gems hiding beneath the surface of this recent experience. I don't care who you are, we all have shadows - my daughter and myself included. In analyzing her shadows I found myself admitting my own. Just like Homer and Bart, my parenting through hypocrisy was playing out in a long winter's shadow. I brought up a portion of my dirt that, for the last 38 years, had been a slow battery drain of shame and guilt. In the vlog I admitted that I had never gotten "caught". In truth, however, 38 years ago I caught myself in a web of subconscious debris that has followed me ever since. I admitted to my weakness of stealing beautiful jewelry from my friends and family. Just like Tatum, I just couldn't resist.

At eight years old I stole a diamond and aquamarine ring from Kim. At 8 1/2 I stole a tackle box of colorful beads from Tanja (which I returned). At 20 I stole a fake diamond ring from my blind grandmother's jewelry box. The beauty was too difficult for me to resist. Then it dawned on me...look what I am doing now! I make jewelry, own a jewelry company and have the privilege to coach others to mine for their own gems of self-worth, confidence and inspiration. I'm on a hot track, I thought. What are Tatum's shadows revealing about her future joy and prosperity? Will she be a computer programmer, a jeweler, a money counter at the Bureau of Engraving & Printing, a Barbarian Clan King?

In his youth, my father set fires in his basement; He made his fortune selling wood burning stoves. A friend admitted to stealing horses in her young adulthood; She now makes beautiful leather, hand-tooled saddles. Another person fessed up to epic mis-truths; She is now an auditor able to spot a lie from a million decimal points away. Yet another person, aborting her own urge to shoplift music (pre-MP3) was apprehended and nearly thrown in German jail; She now devotes 80% of her discretionary time to live concerts, new music trends and teaching herself how to play the piano.

making friends with the shadow
Most people come to me for coaching and energetic restoration because, somewhere along the line, they lost track of the entire notion of fun. Ironically, the cumulative shadows are in part to play for loosing the connection to joy. Burdened by shame or guilt, without the confidence to look more deeply into the powerful messages they hold, stunts the healthy, productive, thriving purpose of the human soul. Slowly, lives erode into perpetual doubt, confusion and an immutable sense of unyielding doldrums. When asked what they do for fun, a surprising amount of people draw a complete blank. For some, perhaps it is the shadows where one needs to begin.

the march
I marched home after making the video and headed straight for my daughter's Winnie the Pooh jewelry box. Contained within were the chronicles of pre-marriage adornment; Ceramic dove pins, Venetian glass necklaces, mimosa seed bracelets, starfish earrings, rhinestones from what had been in my grandmother's collection of gems she wore on stage performing in the opera.

Still dripping from my walk, I sifted through this box with one question in mind.What had become of the aquamarine and diamond ring that had buried itself so deep into my soul? If I find it, what type of LRC would I have to self-implement? "Crap, I still have it." I whispered as I fished it out from the bottom of the box. "Ok. Now what."

With the ring in hand, I felt squeezed between a rock and a hard place. There was no where to escape except to pass through the "Ring of Fire". My persistent remorse, in it's pesky, nagging, fully engorged way was finally going to receive the attention it had been requiring. I snared myself the moment I lifted the ring and for 38 years accrued the lay-away suffering package. What I can unequivocally tell you is that unveiling 38 years of guilt doesn't look pretty on Facebook. Just like the stomach bug that runs rampant through elementary school, I barfed this secret out faster than I could loose my nerve. And just like the projectile vomit, I felt much better afterwards.

my LRC
My LRC followed much the same format as what my daughter endured. I slogged through 38 years of regret, met the nagging challenge, purchased a beautiful, grown-up version in 14K white gold with diamonds and aquamarine. (I can honestly say, this ring is just as tempting now as it was when I was eight.) Parting with the beautiful replacement ring as I sent it off to the recipient was a relief. But the best part of this experience was sharing with my daughter how I learned from her, how we are all blessed with imperfections, and how we can strive to do better the next time.



the unmistakable message
I thought that that was the end of the story until later that day when I was fishing through a different jewelry box in search of a gold chain. Right there in front of me tumbled a huge aquamarine ring set in 14K gold that had belonged to my grandmother. I had never noticed this ring, until now. It was as though all the forces in charge had rewarded me for having, finally, done the right thing. The Universe responded with this ring as an unmistakable message of approval.

doing what's right
Although doing what's right may at times be uncomfortable, the alternative is emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually detrimental. When faced with the choice of long-term suffering or a short-term action step in the direction of logical restoration, the benefits far outweigh the squeamish task.

Taking the time to face this shadow has permitted me to accept myself as more fully present, authentic and alive. It has assisted in my ability to judge myself less and help others understand what lies under the surface of their long held secrets and shame. It has helped me be more honest and, in doing so, gives permission for others to ferret out the debris keeping them separate from their true joy-driven life.

Ask Yourself: 
What's my ring-thing? What's one step I can make towards its logical restoration to clear the path to joy?


Julie Bowes - Metalsmith/Spiritual Facilitator/Indentured Hash Slinger
P.O. Box 82
Sherman, CT 06784
203.240.4397 





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