Day in and day out I wake up. I go through the motions. I go to sleep. I keep going over the same thoughts in my head..I can't live like this anymore! I can't take it any longer! I'm so tired. I can barely get out of bed every morning. I just can't take it! STOP! Please make it STOP!
Does this sound familar? Maybe it's exactly someone you know OR maybe it's you! So how does this go away? Well as long as you go through the motions and you allow your life to keep going down this roller coaster ride day in and day out then it will never go away. But if you take control of your life and change your thought process AND who you surround yourself with, then you can guarantee that your life will go in a different direction. You WILL start to push forward and feel better. You have to learn to take life one day at a time. Most of you have been through a tragic event. Most of you are still not over it either. In your mind you are still a victim. That's ok. But my question is..when is it enough? So many people have went through something bad in their lives yet they've learned how to push forward and to not allow the tragic event to take over their life. You see when you concentrate on the bad that happened to you and you rehearse that night/nights over and over again in your head, you are allowing that person or those people to win. Most of us hold anger inside and we hold a grudge against the person or people who did the wrong to us. How is that making them pay for what they did? Before you know it ten years have gone by and you have so many lines on your face from in depth anger which has caused you to grow old very fast. It's time to stand up and make a change. So you can't change the order of events that happened. So what! You CAN change YOU though. You can set a short term goal for yourself and plan to accomplish that goal. You can change your thought patterns. You can choose to have only positive friends in your life. You see all of this is nothing more than a choice. A decision. All of which YOU have control over! So it's time to say enough is enough and make that change! Don't allow another ten years to fly by. Start now. The person or people that did you wrong will pay sometime down the road. You can count on it! Don't allow your anger and resentment though to drive you in your life. Find ways to make a change and to bring happiness to yourself and to others around you. You do matter and you do deserve only the best life has to offer. Don't let anyone tell you differently. So let's get started! Write out your short term goal and then let's see if you follow through.....Good Luck!
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
The Pain Within by Joy Morris
So many times we walk among the crowds and we smile yet we hurt so badly inside. We are afraid of anyone seeing the pain we have within us. We want the pain to go away but we don't know how to make that disappear. We forget that we have our own voice and our own minds to stand tall. We also forget that we make a choice everyday to just get out of bed and to push forward through another hard day. We choose to keep going and we choose to put on that fake smile. So why is it that we choose to allow the ones who have hurt us to win? Why do we tuck our tail between our legs and say we are worth nothing? It's time to take a stand and to realize that our lives our just as valuable as the next persons. Just because someone has power or someone has money does not mean they are better then you or me. We have the will to stand on our own two feet and walk through the streets each day. Now we need to give ourselves the permission to have the will to say we choose to win! We choose to be happy and we choose to fight for what's ours. So make that promise to yourself today. Do not allow the person who hurt you to win. Do not allow the one who took something from you to continue to take more away. Stand tall and stand proud. You ARE valuable. There are many of us that believe in you and believe you will find that happiness and inner strength. So now it's up to you to do the same. Believe in yourself.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Message To Victims
New post by Joy Morris: Finding The Inner You. Go to the Iana The Book website by clicking on: http://ianathebook.com/ and click on Support For Victims: http://ianathebook.com/category/joy-morris/
Friday, April 8, 2011
Trafficked Victims Become The Hand Of God
My mom died this past week. With the hand of God, the help of a dream, and the girls from the shelter, I move forward.
“Ms. Matei, your mother’s passing is close.”
The nurse’s words through the phone brought me fully awake. “I’ll come right now”
When I arrived at the hospital, I held my mother’s weak hand. I kissed the cheek of a slight version of the strong woman who had raised me. Then she was gone. I was left to reflect not only on her life, but also on the dream I was having when the nurse had called me.
In my dream, soft, light bathed my mother’s bedside while I stood in a darkened corner. I couldn’t see my mother because friends and family surrounded her. They were speaking softly to her, stoking he head and her hair. Then they began to weep and I knew she was dead.
Now, grief clutched my throat so hard that I could barely breathe. My mother and I had wasted so many years living in a strained relationship with one another. She wanted to protect me. I wanted to see what was possible and push beyond the limits. My mother grew up in the communist era, where the goal was to go unnoticed and do nothing to upset anyone in order to stay out of prison. I chose not to live my life in fear so I excelled in making her feel uncomfortable. My lifestyle provided her no assurances for my safety.
When a student demonstration went awry in the late 1980’s the police showed up at her apartment searching for me. Later, when she learned that I had fled Romania and was in a Serbian jail, she worried about me and pleaded for me to change. While I decided to move to Australia, certainly a more docile environment, the geographical distance created a different kind of strain on our relationship. For years, the two people she cared for most, her grandson and I, were out of reach.
Even ten years later, when I returned to Romania and started the work with the trafficked victims, to avoid what I perceived as her pessimism, I continued to put emotional distance between my mother and myself. Years of disappointment had left my mother hard and tough. I, in turn, created barriers that didn’t allow me to recognize the good that God had also placed within my mother.
Her illness had forced her to recognize that there was no way to control her outcome or her surroundings. When she embraced a gentler side of herself I began to see my mother as the warm, loving woman God had created her to be.
I had so hoped for another twenty years with my mother so that we could enjoy our new way of relating to one another. Instead, I had to leave her at the hospital, dead and alone.
When I finally arrived home, it was the middle of the night. I lay down and tried to rest, but thoughts of the days ahead almost caused me to hyperventilate. My car sat in the driveway completely out of gas. According to Romanian tradition, I would need to prepare a meal for all those who would come to mourn my mother’s death and make all the funeral arrangements. In larger families, these tasks are divided between the siblings. But I was an only child, so I would need to do it all. Somehow, I’d still need to be mommy to my four-year-old twins at a time when I just felt like huddling in a corner and grieving. How would I accomplish it all?
Then I remembered the dream I was having when the nurse had called to let me know my mom didn’t have much more time. In my dream, as I had stood off to the side in the dark and sobbed, a hand had come from behind. It rested on my shoulder and as it did so, peace flooded me. I didn’t turn to see whose hand patted my shoulder. I didn’t need to turn. I knew by the peace that inundated my entire being; the hand could only belong to the one who created me. Only God could possibly know what I needed and provide for me at this time. Remembrances of that dream stilled my racing heart and I drifted off to sleep.
When the sun rose, the woman who comes to help me with my twin girls arrived and set some things in motion. She saw to it that I had gas in my car. She contacted the shelter. The social worker and the girls (trafficked victims) decided they would take care of all the food. The girls lightened my load as they shopped and prepared a wonderful meal for my mother’s funeral. Then, later at the church, they sat with me. They held my hand; they hugged me; they reached out and rubbed my shoulder.
My interaction with the girls has been bumpy at times. They have been physically wounded, emotionally hurt and abused in every way. When they arrive at the shelter, it almost always begins as a one-sided relationship. They’re so used to self-protecting emotionally, that they’ve built walls around their hearts. I, on the other hand can at times be a bit tough. My attitude is often, “OK, so you’ve been hurt. Does this make you the center of the universe?” The girls’ attitude and mine sometimes clash creating emotional distance.
But on the day of my mother’s funeral, when I was so needy and all my toughness disintegrated, these girls became the hand of God to me as they stroked my hair and wiped my tears.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Iana The Book Website
We've launched a new website called Iana The Book Iana The Book
On this site we provide more information about Iana's work and ways you can become involved. We welcome your comments and response.
On this site we provide more information about Iana's work and ways you can become involved. We welcome your comments and response.
Response to African Angle....international pedophile ring smashed
Human trafficking is growing because we fail to act or re-act. It’s the Government's responsibility to fight organized crime. How much more are we going to talk about this? When are we going to take measures? I mean real measures, measures that will stop (not reduce) human trafficking?
When more individuals, governments and law agencies insist, perhaps we will see more news like the news that came from the Netherlands today.
http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-world/20110316/EU.Netherlands.Pedophile.Ring/... international pedophile ring smashed
By MIKE CORDER, AP
4 hours ago
Must Read?Yes 136
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Police said Wednesday they have smashed a huge international pedophile ring, rescuing 230 children from abuse and arresting 184 suspects — including teachers and police officers....
Monday, March 14, 2011
Human Trafficking, The African Angle
By Ifeanyi Onwumere
Human trafficking is the modern day slavery. I’m sure we’ve all heard it before, but until we find a way to purge it from among us, it bears repeating. Just as slavery proved an extremely cruel, yet profitable business venture in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, modern-day slavery (human trafficking) provides enormous profits with little risk to the trafficker. Today, for every 20,000 persons trafficked, only 1 trafficker is imprisoned. It’s no wonder that this form of human brutality has defied all governmental efforts to eradicate it.
Impoverished or distressed victims place their faith in those who promise a better life somewhere far away. By the time reality reveals the lies contained within the promise, it’s too late. Someone owns them and they are the property of masters, who treat them worse than animals by caging them, tying them up, burning them for infractions, and imprisoning them within the confines of the pimp's twisted world.
There are many facets to human trafficking. In this writing, I speak of human sex trafficking--the most lucrative business when compared to other forms of modern slavery.
Wikipedia defines Sex trafficking as: “The recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act in which a commercial sex act is induced by force….”
In parts of Nigeria, Togo, Cameroon, Liberia, many third world countries, and in Eastern Europe and Asia, it’s often the parents, who for a small profit, lead their daughters into this unethical venture.
Poverty and ignorance on the part of parents who can’t afford food for a family and the lack the financial capacity to train their daughters in school, tempt parents to hand their children over to men and women in this business hoping to receive financial returns in the future. The patrons or madams as they are called promise to take the girls to Western Europe where “a job is waiting for them.” Upon reaching Europe, especially Western Europe, these girls will find that there is no job. Their madam or patron forces them to into prostitution by demanding the girl repay the money spent on her travels. At times, the parents are threatened with death unless their child pays the full amount, which in most cases, is triple the amount the trafficker spent.
The most painful aspect of the whole profession remains that these pimps strip away a girl’s freedom by placing her under constant surveillance. Many girls have no access to a telephone, or if they do, calls are carefully monitored to ensure they speak only with clients. In most cases, a telephone does them little good as they are somewhere strange and don’t know the language.
Some girls never make it as far as Europe. Like the slave trade in years past, they die en-route under perilous conditions.
To buttress my point, follow this link to an article that appeared in Sahara, an online news outlet based in the United State of America but edited by a Nigerian.
Conclusion: “ Charity they say begins a’ home”. Parents, I must say, must share the blame of these ugly and horrible trends. They should know to whom they hand over their child. Poverty is not an excuse to encourage a child into prostitution. Of course, some of these parents know that their daughters are going into prostitution and encourage them. But what they often fail to comprehend is the hazardous nature of the business and its after effect and life long trauma. All national governments in collaboration with international agencies as well as the immigration officials must place all hands on deck to eradicate this ugly monster that has reared its head into African society. Stiff penalties which are not easily recovered from must be melted out to those directly or indirectly involved and serve as a deterrent to participants in this modern sex slave industry.
Trading in humans is not acceptable, no matter how impoverished the nation, people group or family. Only when education and spiritual/family ties override greed and poverty will we see a decrease in human trafficking and sexual slavery.
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