My son got mad at me this morning. It's not really surprising or notable when a teenager gets mad at his parents, it's part of their emotional development and really appropriate, but this was notable because I've been waiting for this to happen for a few years. Last night my son had a dream in which he confronted my ex-boyfriend from my long term abusive relationship and it made him re-examine his feelings about what happened. He wanted to protect me from him and he couldn't do it. Underneath his anger there is fear and sadness, from the little boy who watched his mother get hurt over and over again and could do nothing about it. He couldn't protect himself and he couldn't protect me. He can't see it right now all he can see is the anger and that's okay, that's his vehicle to get to the deeper emotions that accompany the anger.
That being said, it's important to acknowledge that he has every right to be angry with me; I blew it. I failed to protect my son and I failed to protect myself, these are inextricably intertwined. When we fail to protect ourselves and allow ourselves to be abused we hurt our children. Research has shown that for children it's actually less damaging to be abused than it is to witness another family member's abuse, especially a parent's a abuse. I can agree with that. If I just ignore the anger and try to get to the underlying emotions, I will do him a disservice.
There is a lot that I need to be aware of as a parent and as a person. To say this isn't about me is on the one hand true, it's about my son and the effects of his experience during this abusive period in our lives. But it is about me inasmuch as if I am not present, if I don't take responsibility for the what happened during that time, and if I don't do my emotional work so that I can be an effective and protective parent then I am failing him all over again. There is no wimping out here, that is not an option. His anger is both justified and appropriate. He needs to be able to express it and he needs me to be able to listen and to accept responsibility for the choices I made that drastically affected his life. Basically he needs me to be an adult about this. That means there's no room for denial or self-pity. It means that when he expresses his anger I have to accept it with my eyes wide open and provide a safe place for him to express it, acknowledging the truth of what he is saying.
He's a smart kid. He doesn't need platitudes, he doesn't really even need an apology right now. He needs to know that I love him through his anger, that I'll keep walking right next to him, that I know what I did and that I accept responsibility for my actions and their affect on him, and that I'll never let that happen again. Will he believe me? No, he doesn't trust me and why would he? I've given him no reason to believe what I'll say, I threw that opportunity out the window when I let my ex come back into our lives and hurt us again. I have to earn that trust every day by being an adult and a responsible parent and providing him the resources to process his hurt and his anger in a way that will allow it to become a strength and not a poison.
The work I have had to do on myself is separate from the work that lies between my son and I, but it's part of the foundation of being able to be the parent he needs as he seeks to come to terms with what he experienced during this time. It's really easy to try and hide from all of this, it doesn't feel good to look at the child you created and know that failed him. People have told me I didn't fail him, I had issues, there were reasons why I stayed in that relationship and allowed both of us to be abused, I shouldn't be so hard on myself. Bullshit. I failed my kid and that's not a statement made as a martyr, that's a statement made with full understanding of what it means to be a parent and the responsibilities that come with that role when we accept it.
Being an adult means that I don't beat myself up for what happens and indulge in a lot of guilt and self-pity. It means I look at what happened honestly, I accept what that means and the consequences that created and I get up, dust myself off and I face the problem. I can't take my son's anger away and I shouldn't. I can't go back in time and fix what happened, it's done. But I can be the parent my son has always needed every single day, right now, and never forget the lessons learned from that experience; and when we mess up as parents that's exactly what we need to do.
Be angry, my son. Tell me how I screwed up and what that did to you and what it means to you today. Tell me why all of those experiences make you so angry; explore it, express it, let it be real because you've hidden it away too long trying to protect me. I don't need you to protect me, I'm an adult I can protect myself, but I will not protect myself from your anger because it's real, it has value and it is justified. I will be there for every word you have to say. I will accept the truth of your experiences, I will accept responsibility and I will do better. I will love you through it all, I will not hide and I will provide the resources you need to craft the expression of your anger into a healing process so you can be free of the hurt and become an adult yourself in the true sense of the word. And when your anger has run it's course I will still be there loving you. And above all, my son, I will never forget for one moment that I wasn't the parent you needed me to be and I will never let that happen again.
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Integrity
As I have said before, each year at the Winter Solstice I choose a word to work with for the year; this year my word was integrity. I haven't written much about this word, but I have thought a lot about it. Usually when we think of the word integrity we think about in relation to ourselves; are we acting with integrity? Do our thoughts, interactions and behaviors align with our own values and ethics? Whenever I thought about this word and how it applied to my life this is what I would think about and I didn't see why I would get this word for the year because I always try to act with integrity. I might complain about it from time to time, but it is important to my being to act with integrity.
This morning I read the following, wonderful passage from "A Heart as Wide as the World" by Sharon Salzberg which helped me see integrity in a different way. "My teacher Munindra had a student, a woman named Carol, who had worked in the underground in Holland, helping Jews escape from Nazis for five years during World War II. She had been captured twice by German soldiers and tortured, and nearly all of her friends had been killed doing the same kind of work. Of herself she said only, 'I was always filled with an all-consuming pity for this world, with the injustices, wars, hunger, persecutions, and cruelties suffered by the human beings living in it. I lived my life as a fighter against all I saw as wrong and especially unjust.' The rightness and naturalness of Carol's response did not mean that the work was easy or that there wasn't a price to pay. She in fact suffered recurring nightmares and deeply ingrained fears for thirty years. But, connecting and caring were intrinsic to her vision of life, and her own integrity compelled her to act in accordance with that vision."
We don't all have the opportunity or ability to do what Carol did, but this passage makes an important point, there is something that we are all called to do, compelled to do, or deeply desire to do; for me it is social work. After graduating with my bachelor's degree in psychology I decided that the path I was on in psychology did not help me answer my call to help people, which is why I chose that major in the first place. I was on a path to become a quantitative psychologist, one who would work with statistics, developing statistical models and hopefully improving the process of statistical testing. My decision to leave psychology was not a popular one with some of the faculty and they tried to explain to me how my work in statistics would be beneficial to people, but it wasn't beneficial enough, it wouldn't help people in their day to day functioning and it wouldn't help ease suffering or unhappiness. But most importantly, it wouldn't allow me to live in integrity with the person I see myself as being.
Many people are unhappy in their lives because they choose to do things for reasons other than that it answers their deepest calling. We don't all have to want to help people, but we do have to find a way to heed the call of our own inner being. That is integrity. When we listen to the calling of our soul, whatever it is asking, we are living in integrity. When we ignore that calling, we often enter into a state of anxiety or stress because we aren't tending to our true nature and it hurts us.
The work I am doing in my master's program is often difficult and upsetting. I have a couple of cases that I would even call heartbreaking because I cannot make the situation better, I can only keep it from getting worse. That's hard for me, I want to help people, and there is a price to pay for doing this work. But to not do it, to not deal with the difficulty and do my best to provide service to people to the best of my ability would be a greater price to pay and would hurt me more in the long-term.
Finding another job, changing our lives drastically, may not be something that we can do right now, but we still have to find a way to answer the call of our hearts. I hope that whatever call you may not be answering right now, you are able to find a way to answer it soon. To live in integrity with our truest natures, to be the people we really want to be in the world is critical to our well-being. It doesn't mean that we will find happiness, and happiness is a transitory state in any case, but it will empower us to fully embrace ourselves and our journey through life. It will enhance the lives of the people around us, regardless of what that calling is, and in the end, it will bring us more satisfaction and well-being than not answering it.
It's not easy, we often have to juggle multiple roles and it may seem that doing what is intrinsic to our vision of our lives and ourselves may compromise the duties and roles we have with other people. I don't think it has to be that way, I think it is possible to find a way to answer the calling we have and still be true to the roles and responsibilities we have accepted in our lives. In fact, I believe that it will make us more effective in fulfilling those roles and responsibilities. So if you find that your life lacks satisfaction, if you find that there is always some voice inside of you calling you to do something, I hope you find a way. Because to live in integrity with ourselves, as well as other people, is one of the highest callings and is crucial to living an authentic and fulfilling life.
This morning I read the following, wonderful passage from "A Heart as Wide as the World" by Sharon Salzberg which helped me see integrity in a different way. "My teacher Munindra had a student, a woman named Carol, who had worked in the underground in Holland, helping Jews escape from Nazis for five years during World War II. She had been captured twice by German soldiers and tortured, and nearly all of her friends had been killed doing the same kind of work. Of herself she said only, 'I was always filled with an all-consuming pity for this world, with the injustices, wars, hunger, persecutions, and cruelties suffered by the human beings living in it. I lived my life as a fighter against all I saw as wrong and especially unjust.' The rightness and naturalness of Carol's response did not mean that the work was easy or that there wasn't a price to pay. She in fact suffered recurring nightmares and deeply ingrained fears for thirty years. But, connecting and caring were intrinsic to her vision of life, and her own integrity compelled her to act in accordance with that vision."
We don't all have the opportunity or ability to do what Carol did, but this passage makes an important point, there is something that we are all called to do, compelled to do, or deeply desire to do; for me it is social work. After graduating with my bachelor's degree in psychology I decided that the path I was on in psychology did not help me answer my call to help people, which is why I chose that major in the first place. I was on a path to become a quantitative psychologist, one who would work with statistics, developing statistical models and hopefully improving the process of statistical testing. My decision to leave psychology was not a popular one with some of the faculty and they tried to explain to me how my work in statistics would be beneficial to people, but it wasn't beneficial enough, it wouldn't help people in their day to day functioning and it wouldn't help ease suffering or unhappiness. But most importantly, it wouldn't allow me to live in integrity with the person I see myself as being.
Many people are unhappy in their lives because they choose to do things for reasons other than that it answers their deepest calling. We don't all have to want to help people, but we do have to find a way to heed the call of our own inner being. That is integrity. When we listen to the calling of our soul, whatever it is asking, we are living in integrity. When we ignore that calling, we often enter into a state of anxiety or stress because we aren't tending to our true nature and it hurts us.
The work I am doing in my master's program is often difficult and upsetting. I have a couple of cases that I would even call heartbreaking because I cannot make the situation better, I can only keep it from getting worse. That's hard for me, I want to help people, and there is a price to pay for doing this work. But to not do it, to not deal with the difficulty and do my best to provide service to people to the best of my ability would be a greater price to pay and would hurt me more in the long-term.
Finding another job, changing our lives drastically, may not be something that we can do right now, but we still have to find a way to answer the call of our hearts. I hope that whatever call you may not be answering right now, you are able to find a way to answer it soon. To live in integrity with our truest natures, to be the people we really want to be in the world is critical to our well-being. It doesn't mean that we will find happiness, and happiness is a transitory state in any case, but it will empower us to fully embrace ourselves and our journey through life. It will enhance the lives of the people around us, regardless of what that calling is, and in the end, it will bring us more satisfaction and well-being than not answering it.
It's not easy, we often have to juggle multiple roles and it may seem that doing what is intrinsic to our vision of our lives and ourselves may compromise the duties and roles we have with other people. I don't think it has to be that way, I think it is possible to find a way to answer the calling we have and still be true to the roles and responsibilities we have accepted in our lives. In fact, I believe that it will make us more effective in fulfilling those roles and responsibilities. So if you find that your life lacks satisfaction, if you find that there is always some voice inside of you calling you to do something, I hope you find a way. Because to live in integrity with ourselves, as well as other people, is one of the highest callings and is crucial to living an authentic and fulfilling life.
Monday, July 23, 2012
The Journey to Self-Love
Growing as a person has always been important to me, I want to be the best me that I can be, but I've come to remember lately that growing means letting go of things that no longer serve us, and letting go means first accepting those things about ourselves that may not be the best or most beautiful qualities. Lately, I've been reading a lot of blogs that talk about self-acceptance and self-love. It can be difficult to come to a place of acceptance for ourselves when we see things that we might perceive as flaws or even dysfunction, and that's what I've been struggling with.
There are so many messages that bombard us from the outside that tell us we are not as good as we could be. As children, many of us received messages from our families that we were not good enough, or that who we were was unacceptable, or even incomprehensible; I know I did. These messages have created in me an inner critic whose voice becomes quite loud especially when I am tired or stressed. This critic tells me that I need to do better, that I need to get rid of these qualities, that I'm not developed enough and that I need to grow, but what it doesn't tell me is that first, I have to love those parts of myself.
It's difficult to stop and love the parts of ourselves that we need to change. On a path forward it seems counter intuitive to stop and embrace the things within us that we see as holding us back, but it's so necessary. Any journey is a combination of action and inaction, something I sometimes have a difficult time remembering, but we do need to stop and not only smell the roses, but the skunk weed as well.
Taking the time to embrace ourselves, exactly as we are, without judgment, is a profound act of self-love. It helps us really see all that is within us and understand how all of our experiences have helped to inform the person we have become. When we don't do this, when we judge ourselves harshly, when we decide we just need to let go without first embracing each part of us, we exile those parts we want to have growth in. Always looking ahead to growth means that we aren't looking at where we are now, and without doing that, we cannot accomplish the growth we desire.
I'm a big fan of structure. I like having structure in my life because I feel as though I have some sort of framework to grow in, but lately I've become aware that too much structure, or too much rigidity in the structures I create can actually hamper growth. In order to embrace myself as I am, I have to come to place of self-love and love needs space to move freely. When we can allow this space to exist, love moves us into places within ourselves that we have not been able to access previously. We can then touch each thought, each wound, each perspective, each emotion gently and lovingly. We can observe all of these things and see how they move and act within us, and then we can move into a place of healing and loving growth within ourselves.
Over and over again, in the blogs I have read the past few days the writers have been searching for a way to be more loving in the world. Over and over again, the writers of these blogs have discovered that they can not love all those around them the way they would like until they learn to love and accept themselves. In many spiritual traditions we are reminded of this lesson. "Love your neighbor as yourself", the Golden Rule, Buddhist teachings, Hindu teachings how many times have we heard these reminders, agreed with them and never thought more about how we actually love ourselves?
I've spent much of my life trying to get my ego out of the way so I can be more loving, but I never thought to love my ego exactly as it is, to understand it, to allow for it to exist. I just pushed everything away that I thought was unworthy to be a part of me, without understanding that it already was. This is a path to pain. The parts of ourselves (which I talked about in the Dark, Crazy, Strange and Unwanted blog post) more than anything need our love. They need to be heard, understood, observed, accepted and loved, only then can we heal those parts of ourselves and allow them to transform into something beautiful and valued within us.
This is what I am working on now. I find it difficult because although there are things I can read, meditations I can do, reminders I can give myself, there's no actual task that is going to bring me to self-love and acceptance. I just have to relax into it and relax into the loving arms of the Universe. Acceptance is not a task that can be checked off on a to-do list; acceptance is a sinking into love, a sitting back and observing without judgment, without criticism, it is something of a passive act that creates the space for love and wonder to come in.
I realize I write a lot about self-love and all I can say is that it is something I keep working on, I haven't got it yet and I think it's one of the most important things we can do for ourselves. I think that a lot of people think that they love themselves, but don't acknowledge all the ways in which they withhold love. Since this is on my mind, I'm sharing this process, hoping to reinforce what I already know, hoping to deepen in the understanding that I have and hoping that in continuing to talk about this and acknowledge this process it will stay in the light and not become hidden in the shadow.
As I write this, I am filled with wonder for the marvelous opportunities that we have to observe and participate in love and growth. I am grateful for the experiences I perceive as challenges and those that I perceive as blessings. I am reminded that for me, the Universe is a place of love even though the world can sometimes seem to be a place of pain, and I am grateful for my pain which keeps me awake to the process of living and becoming. I also feel sadness for the places in me that are still unloved and not healed, but I know that I will get to them in time. As much as I would like to snap my fingers and be instantly filled with self-love, it is a journey, a process that will probably never be completed. I will hear that inner critic all my life, but I know that in learning to love myself I will hear what my inner critic says in a different way and I will allow it touch and inform my soul differently. The inner critic doesn't need to be shut down, it needs to be understood and heard and I can learn to do that with love.
There are so many messages that bombard us from the outside that tell us we are not as good as we could be. As children, many of us received messages from our families that we were not good enough, or that who we were was unacceptable, or even incomprehensible; I know I did. These messages have created in me an inner critic whose voice becomes quite loud especially when I am tired or stressed. This critic tells me that I need to do better, that I need to get rid of these qualities, that I'm not developed enough and that I need to grow, but what it doesn't tell me is that first, I have to love those parts of myself.
It's difficult to stop and love the parts of ourselves that we need to change. On a path forward it seems counter intuitive to stop and embrace the things within us that we see as holding us back, but it's so necessary. Any journey is a combination of action and inaction, something I sometimes have a difficult time remembering, but we do need to stop and not only smell the roses, but the skunk weed as well.
Taking the time to embrace ourselves, exactly as we are, without judgment, is a profound act of self-love. It helps us really see all that is within us and understand how all of our experiences have helped to inform the person we have become. When we don't do this, when we judge ourselves harshly, when we decide we just need to let go without first embracing each part of us, we exile those parts we want to have growth in. Always looking ahead to growth means that we aren't looking at where we are now, and without doing that, we cannot accomplish the growth we desire.
I'm a big fan of structure. I like having structure in my life because I feel as though I have some sort of framework to grow in, but lately I've become aware that too much structure, or too much rigidity in the structures I create can actually hamper growth. In order to embrace myself as I am, I have to come to place of self-love and love needs space to move freely. When we can allow this space to exist, love moves us into places within ourselves that we have not been able to access previously. We can then touch each thought, each wound, each perspective, each emotion gently and lovingly. We can observe all of these things and see how they move and act within us, and then we can move into a place of healing and loving growth within ourselves.
Over and over again, in the blogs I have read the past few days the writers have been searching for a way to be more loving in the world. Over and over again, the writers of these blogs have discovered that they can not love all those around them the way they would like until they learn to love and accept themselves. In many spiritual traditions we are reminded of this lesson. "Love your neighbor as yourself", the Golden Rule, Buddhist teachings, Hindu teachings how many times have we heard these reminders, agreed with them and never thought more about how we actually love ourselves?
I've spent much of my life trying to get my ego out of the way so I can be more loving, but I never thought to love my ego exactly as it is, to understand it, to allow for it to exist. I just pushed everything away that I thought was unworthy to be a part of me, without understanding that it already was. This is a path to pain. The parts of ourselves (which I talked about in the Dark, Crazy, Strange and Unwanted blog post) more than anything need our love. They need to be heard, understood, observed, accepted and loved, only then can we heal those parts of ourselves and allow them to transform into something beautiful and valued within us.
This is what I am working on now. I find it difficult because although there are things I can read, meditations I can do, reminders I can give myself, there's no actual task that is going to bring me to self-love and acceptance. I just have to relax into it and relax into the loving arms of the Universe. Acceptance is not a task that can be checked off on a to-do list; acceptance is a sinking into love, a sitting back and observing without judgment, without criticism, it is something of a passive act that creates the space for love and wonder to come in.
I realize I write a lot about self-love and all I can say is that it is something I keep working on, I haven't got it yet and I think it's one of the most important things we can do for ourselves. I think that a lot of people think that they love themselves, but don't acknowledge all the ways in which they withhold love. Since this is on my mind, I'm sharing this process, hoping to reinforce what I already know, hoping to deepen in the understanding that I have and hoping that in continuing to talk about this and acknowledge this process it will stay in the light and not become hidden in the shadow.
As I write this, I am filled with wonder for the marvelous opportunities that we have to observe and participate in love and growth. I am grateful for the experiences I perceive as challenges and those that I perceive as blessings. I am reminded that for me, the Universe is a place of love even though the world can sometimes seem to be a place of pain, and I am grateful for my pain which keeps me awake to the process of living and becoming. I also feel sadness for the places in me that are still unloved and not healed, but I know that I will get to them in time. As much as I would like to snap my fingers and be instantly filled with self-love, it is a journey, a process that will probably never be completed. I will hear that inner critic all my life, but I know that in learning to love myself I will hear what my inner critic says in a different way and I will allow it touch and inform my soul differently. The inner critic doesn't need to be shut down, it needs to be understood and heard and I can learn to do that with love.
Friday, June 22, 2012
You Can Do it Afraid
I remember the first time in my adult life that my mother said those words to me, "You can do it afraid." I'm sure she said them to me a lot in my childhood because I remember that fear was not considered a reason not to do something, for the kids at least. But as an adult she said it to me when I had to start walking without crutches after a very bad kneecap dislocation. I was terrified, afraid it would hurt again, afraid I would dislocate it again, and that would hurt very badly, afraid that permanent damage had been done and I would never walk right again. It didn't matter, in the middle of a busy parking lot she grabbed my crutches from me and made me walk to my car and I did it. I did it afraid.
There have been many times in my life when fear has stopped me from doing something I really wanted to do or knew I needed to do. Fear seems to be a colossal obstacle to overcome. It looms large in our consciousness, it whispers poisonous thoughts into our head, "What if you fail? What if you get hurt? You'll never overcome that and everyone will know..." But something I've learned over the years, whenever I've had to face something that generated fear inside of me, is that I am bigger than the fear.
Looked at logically, if the fear resides inside of me, then by definition I am bigger than it because something that is inside of me must be smaller than me to fit in that inner space. From a neurological standpoint fear is a combination of chemical and physiological reactions generated by various parts of my brain and I'm bigger than that too. Yes, it's true, the fear response in me is triggered by past experiences when I have been hurt before or when I have failed before, but they don't necessarily apply to the present situation.
Currently, in my life, I am preparing to go back to graduate school and get my Master's degree in Social Work. It is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream to be able to have a career in which I get to be of service to people and my community. As I was talking with a friend the other day, after my internship interview, it occurred to me that some of the pieces of my life I have dreamed about for many years are coming together. My first response, fear. I have chosen an educational path that will have a very specific outcome. No longer will I be relegated to clerical jobs that have little meaning for me and very little importance in the company I work for. I will be changing lives, the decisions I make could have very serious outcomes for the families I work with, and I will no longer be able to justify not giving my all by saying to myself, "It doesn't matter, I'm just a secretary." But this is what I want, this is what I have worked for and although I have fear over the journey I am about to take and the outcomes that lie in my future, I can do it afraid.
The other piece of my fear comes from the understanding that if I want to make drastic and positive change in my life, I can do it. It's easy to sit and dream about doing something and then let the fear stop you, to give in to those treasonous messages in your brain that tell you you can't do it. Then I get to see myself as weak and ineffective and I never actually have to do anything, it's an easy way to keep my life safe and small. But I'm better than that, and eventually the little voice that has been playing counterpoint to my fear the whole time gets louder and louder and I begin to hear, "Of course you can do this. Just try and maybe you will surprise yourself. You are capable, intelligent and strong. You have overcome fear far worse than this." and then a quiet little harmony comes in and I hear my mother's voice saying, "You can do it afraid." and I know I have no more excuses.
Over and over again we hear the messages that we are ineffective and powerless, but there are also messages out there that we are more powerful than we can ever imagine. It's simply a matter of which messages we pay attention to, which window we choose to view the landscape of our lives, that determines what we are going to believe about ourselves and our abilities. If there is something that calls to us over and over again but we are too afraid to do it we will never see the capacity we have to be effective in our lives and, ultimately, in the world. We can accomplish our dreams, we can achieve success, we can have healthy and loving relationships, but we have to get past the fear.
I'm not saying it's easy, it's not. It would be much easier to stay in my safe little world and never venture out, but I wouldn't be happy or fulfilled. It certainly won't get me what I really want, health, financial stability and the relationship I am working to create. If I want to create the life I dream of, I have to face my fear, I have to find the courage that waits inside of me, I have to do it afraid, and I HAVE to do it because deep down, in the most honest place inside of me, I know I can and to not do it is to betray the person I have come to know that I am.
So what is it that keeps you from doing the things you know will bring you happiness? What are the insidious voices that feed your fear? Listen to them and understand them and know that you are bigger than them. No matter what shape your fear takes, that keeps you from taking the steps to a happier life, know that you are bigger than the fear inside of you. And even though that won't make the fear go away, it's okay, because you can do it afraid.
There have been many times in my life when fear has stopped me from doing something I really wanted to do or knew I needed to do. Fear seems to be a colossal obstacle to overcome. It looms large in our consciousness, it whispers poisonous thoughts into our head, "What if you fail? What if you get hurt? You'll never overcome that and everyone will know..." But something I've learned over the years, whenever I've had to face something that generated fear inside of me, is that I am bigger than the fear.
Looked at logically, if the fear resides inside of me, then by definition I am bigger than it because something that is inside of me must be smaller than me to fit in that inner space. From a neurological standpoint fear is a combination of chemical and physiological reactions generated by various parts of my brain and I'm bigger than that too. Yes, it's true, the fear response in me is triggered by past experiences when I have been hurt before or when I have failed before, but they don't necessarily apply to the present situation.
Currently, in my life, I am preparing to go back to graduate school and get my Master's degree in Social Work. It is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream to be able to have a career in which I get to be of service to people and my community. As I was talking with a friend the other day, after my internship interview, it occurred to me that some of the pieces of my life I have dreamed about for many years are coming together. My first response, fear. I have chosen an educational path that will have a very specific outcome. No longer will I be relegated to clerical jobs that have little meaning for me and very little importance in the company I work for. I will be changing lives, the decisions I make could have very serious outcomes for the families I work with, and I will no longer be able to justify not giving my all by saying to myself, "It doesn't matter, I'm just a secretary." But this is what I want, this is what I have worked for and although I have fear over the journey I am about to take and the outcomes that lie in my future, I can do it afraid.
The other piece of my fear comes from the understanding that if I want to make drastic and positive change in my life, I can do it. It's easy to sit and dream about doing something and then let the fear stop you, to give in to those treasonous messages in your brain that tell you you can't do it. Then I get to see myself as weak and ineffective and I never actually have to do anything, it's an easy way to keep my life safe and small. But I'm better than that, and eventually the little voice that has been playing counterpoint to my fear the whole time gets louder and louder and I begin to hear, "Of course you can do this. Just try and maybe you will surprise yourself. You are capable, intelligent and strong. You have overcome fear far worse than this." and then a quiet little harmony comes in and I hear my mother's voice saying, "You can do it afraid." and I know I have no more excuses.
Over and over again we hear the messages that we are ineffective and powerless, but there are also messages out there that we are more powerful than we can ever imagine. It's simply a matter of which messages we pay attention to, which window we choose to view the landscape of our lives, that determines what we are going to believe about ourselves and our abilities. If there is something that calls to us over and over again but we are too afraid to do it we will never see the capacity we have to be effective in our lives and, ultimately, in the world. We can accomplish our dreams, we can achieve success, we can have healthy and loving relationships, but we have to get past the fear.
I'm not saying it's easy, it's not. It would be much easier to stay in my safe little world and never venture out, but I wouldn't be happy or fulfilled. It certainly won't get me what I really want, health, financial stability and the relationship I am working to create. If I want to create the life I dream of, I have to face my fear, I have to find the courage that waits inside of me, I have to do it afraid, and I HAVE to do it because deep down, in the most honest place inside of me, I know I can and to not do it is to betray the person I have come to know that I am.
So what is it that keeps you from doing the things you know will bring you happiness? What are the insidious voices that feed your fear? Listen to them and understand them and know that you are bigger than them. No matter what shape your fear takes, that keeps you from taking the steps to a happier life, know that you are bigger than the fear inside of you. And even though that won't make the fear go away, it's okay, because you can do it afraid.
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Forgiveness
I just recently read a wonderful newsletter about forgiveness, by Robert and Diane Masters. Forgiveness has been a powerful topic for me in the last year, it was a word I worked with intentionally and consciously. Having worked with rape victims and experiencing abuse in my own life, I know how difficult forgiveness can be, but I also know how important it is.
Forgiveness is directly related to love; eventually love for the other person, but ultimately love for ourselves. It is also a two-sided coin as we don't just have to forgive the people who have hurt us, but we also need to forgive ourselves for putting ourselves in situations where we were hurt. That doesn't mean we deserved what happened to us, or even that it was our fault, but we do have to take responsibility for the actions we took that put us in the position to be hurt in the first place.
It's easy for me to look back on my past relationships and feel angry, hurt, and justified in holding on to those feelings, but the truth is I am hurt more by holding on to those feelings because I am blocked from the self-love and Universal love that is always there for me. If I can't forgive those who have hurt me, I cannot forgive myself for allowing myself to be hurt and therefore I cannot move into a place of self-love that the hurt parts of my psyche so desperately need.
My dear boyfriend once said, and I'm paraphrasing here, that all people, even those who hurt others, are trying to achieve grace. There are those who have better tools than others to seek grace, but it's really what we all want. When people are hurtful, abusive, violent it really speaks to their inner pain and their inability to find that grace within themselves; that alone is a reason for compassion. How horrible it is to crave that divine love, the beauty and peace of grace, and never feel as though you can achieve it.
The people who have hurt me in my life are all people who are in deep pain and probably always will be. They caused me pain out of their own deep pain, not because they are evil. As someone who strives to bring love and healing to others, I cannot ignore the cries of pain that their actions belie. My own heart hurts at those expressions of pain and because of that, I can forgive.
I don't have to hold on to my pain and anger as a way to continually punish them (and ultimately myself), their lives are punishment enough. Instead I can forgive them and even love them in a certain way, knowing that they are doing the best they can with a very poor and unsuitable tool kit with which to do better. Has it been easy? Certainly not! In my weaker moments, when I am tired, stressed, overwhelmed or just a bit down, those feelings of anger and hurt can easily come creeping back in. But then I remember who I am and who we all are, that we are all beings on a journey trying to reach grace. In my worst moments, my own inability to achieve grace hurts. I understand that pain and then, I can understand their pain.
Forgiveness is one of the many paths to love, for ourselves and to others. It provides a deep healing that doesn't excuse the pain others have caused us, but allows us to see it in a different light. When we can forgive we move from a place of victimization, a place stuck in the past, into the glorious present, where hopefully, we are not being hurt anymore.
I will never be able to change the fact that I have been hurt, but I don't have to live there anymore, because that is no longer my life. In my journey to heal I have come to a place where I am loved and cared for by many people, and although I still have contact with a couple of people who have hurt me in the past, I am no longer hurt by them anymore, because their path to causing me pain has been paved over by the love and forgiveness I have worked for. Do they still annoy me sometimes? Yes, but that is more about my expectations that they be different than anything they do.
The power to not be hurt by others ultimately lies in our hands. When we are taken by surprise, or have specific expectations of another's behavior we can be hurt; I can still be hurt. But what I am no longer is a victim, because now I have the tools to understand where that hurt comes from within me. The focus is no longer on those who hurt, but how I am vulnerable within myself to be hurt. That's actually an empowering perspective. When I understand the source of that within me, I then have the power to transform that hurt into deeper understanding and strength, which ultimately leads me to forgiveness and love.
Forgiveness is difficult, but it is also vital to our well-being and our own growth. It takes time and a lot of work, but the love and grace we receive and then can give, through forgiveness, is worth every effort we can make. Love yourself enough to forgive and eventually you will find enough love to embrace the world.
Forgiveness is directly related to love; eventually love for the other person, but ultimately love for ourselves. It is also a two-sided coin as we don't just have to forgive the people who have hurt us, but we also need to forgive ourselves for putting ourselves in situations where we were hurt. That doesn't mean we deserved what happened to us, or even that it was our fault, but we do have to take responsibility for the actions we took that put us in the position to be hurt in the first place.
It's easy for me to look back on my past relationships and feel angry, hurt, and justified in holding on to those feelings, but the truth is I am hurt more by holding on to those feelings because I am blocked from the self-love and Universal love that is always there for me. If I can't forgive those who have hurt me, I cannot forgive myself for allowing myself to be hurt and therefore I cannot move into a place of self-love that the hurt parts of my psyche so desperately need.
My dear boyfriend once said, and I'm paraphrasing here, that all people, even those who hurt others, are trying to achieve grace. There are those who have better tools than others to seek grace, but it's really what we all want. When people are hurtful, abusive, violent it really speaks to their inner pain and their inability to find that grace within themselves; that alone is a reason for compassion. How horrible it is to crave that divine love, the beauty and peace of grace, and never feel as though you can achieve it.
The people who have hurt me in my life are all people who are in deep pain and probably always will be. They caused me pain out of their own deep pain, not because they are evil. As someone who strives to bring love and healing to others, I cannot ignore the cries of pain that their actions belie. My own heart hurts at those expressions of pain and because of that, I can forgive.
I don't have to hold on to my pain and anger as a way to continually punish them (and ultimately myself), their lives are punishment enough. Instead I can forgive them and even love them in a certain way, knowing that they are doing the best they can with a very poor and unsuitable tool kit with which to do better. Has it been easy? Certainly not! In my weaker moments, when I am tired, stressed, overwhelmed or just a bit down, those feelings of anger and hurt can easily come creeping back in. But then I remember who I am and who we all are, that we are all beings on a journey trying to reach grace. In my worst moments, my own inability to achieve grace hurts. I understand that pain and then, I can understand their pain.
Forgiveness is one of the many paths to love, for ourselves and to others. It provides a deep healing that doesn't excuse the pain others have caused us, but allows us to see it in a different light. When we can forgive we move from a place of victimization, a place stuck in the past, into the glorious present, where hopefully, we are not being hurt anymore.
I will never be able to change the fact that I have been hurt, but I don't have to live there anymore, because that is no longer my life. In my journey to heal I have come to a place where I am loved and cared for by many people, and although I still have contact with a couple of people who have hurt me in the past, I am no longer hurt by them anymore, because their path to causing me pain has been paved over by the love and forgiveness I have worked for. Do they still annoy me sometimes? Yes, but that is more about my expectations that they be different than anything they do.
The power to not be hurt by others ultimately lies in our hands. When we are taken by surprise, or have specific expectations of another's behavior we can be hurt; I can still be hurt. But what I am no longer is a victim, because now I have the tools to understand where that hurt comes from within me. The focus is no longer on those who hurt, but how I am vulnerable within myself to be hurt. That's actually an empowering perspective. When I understand the source of that within me, I then have the power to transform that hurt into deeper understanding and strength, which ultimately leads me to forgiveness and love.
Forgiveness is difficult, but it is also vital to our well-being and our own growth. It takes time and a lot of work, but the love and grace we receive and then can give, through forgiveness, is worth every effort we can make. Love yourself enough to forgive and eventually you will find enough love to embrace the world.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
The Loving Energy of Obligation
A lot has happened in my life over the past few months, the biggest change being that I moved from my apartment in Hemet, to live with some friends in another city, and as happy as I am to be living away from the city of Hemet the transition has had its share of challenges. It's to be expected, of course. Any change brings challenges and new opportunities for growth. Adjusting to living on my own with my son, to living in a house with three other people is going to have some bumps in the road.
The biggest challenge for me has been finding the time I need for me. I need a certain amount of time alone each day, and I got used to having easy access to that time living with just my son. Now I live with friends who are involved in graduate school, who study things I'm interested in. We enjoy watching movies together, going places together and talking together for hours on end. As much as the extroverted part of me enjoys all the intellectual stimulation, the introverted part of me has been starving for a little privacy.
This has impacted my personal spiritual practice as well. It's been incredibly hard for me to find time to meditate, to journal, to exercise, to reflect on the things going on in my life and connect with my deeper Self on a daily basis. This makes me short-tempered, impatient, grumpy and extremely on edge. I have weekly goals to ensure that I get what I need to continue building the life that I want and I haven't been meeting them at all.
In discussing this with my boyfriend we both agreed this was not a good thing and needed to change immediately. He encouraged me to think about meeting weekly goals as a job and my head went right to a sense of obligation, I wasn't happy with the connection. I tend to think about obligation as something that I feel I have to do, but don't want to do and it's usually something I have to do for other people, not for me.
We talked about goals again a few days later and he said the word obligation. He told me that I am obligated to meditate, to journal, to exercise, to find time for myself because it was important for my well-being. I shuddered at that word again, obligation, as though I could feel the yoke coming down over my neck and taking away all free will. Obligation was a heavy weight for me and not one I wanted to carry.
He told me about a website he had found where people could post their weekly goals and if they didn't meet those goals they would pay a penalty. The penalty could be financial in nature and I flinched at the thought. A real consequence imposed for not meeting my goals? Losing money would hurt, that could be a great motivator! But then I realized how backward my thinking was. I fear losing money more than I care about taking care of myself? How messed up is that? What kind of priority is that? I mean sure, ensuring your financial situation is stable is a form of self-care, but I would hope that I love and value myself enough to see the consequences of not caring for myself just as painful, if not more so, than losing a little money.
It was then that I realized my thinking was backwards in terms of obligation, too. Obligation does carry a heavy weight in meaning. Generally when we feel obligated to do something, we don't really feel that it's optional. I had seen the weight of obligation as something imposed and unwanted from outside of myself, but the truth is the only person who obligates me, is me.
So why is it that I can inflexibly commit myself to doing something I don't want to do for someone else, but I can excuse myself out of action that is good for me? Why do I reserve that heavy, immovable weight for people outside of myself, who aren't looking out for my best interest? Don't I deserve that weighted commitment to my own well-being from myself? Of course I do!
By looking at obligation the way I was, I have an easy way to get out of taking care of myself, which isn't the easiest thing for me to do. I get to relieve myself of responsibility for my self-care because I just have to do this for so-and-so and because it's for someone else, I can't get out of it. Easy excuse and a complete lie. The truth is before I can do anything for anyone else, I have to make sure everything I need is taken care of or I'm not effective.
When I neglect my needs so badly that I am snappy and short-tempered with my son, I'm not being an effective parent. When all I can do is complain to my boyfriend about things that don't even matter, I'm not being an effective partner. When the press of people is almost painful, I'm not being an effective friend and I'm not an effective caretaker for myself. And guess what, baby? No one else is going to fill those needs, only me.
So now I have begun to look at obligation differently. Instead of seeing the weight of obligation tie me to activities I don't want to do for other people, I see obligation as a fortress. It is an immovable force that keeps out all other influences until I have given myself what I need. Obligation will not be negotiated with. Instead of a yoke being imposed from the outside, I see obligation as an adult dose of responsibility and self-love. I am obligated to give myself the things I need because I love and value myself enough to do so. And beyond that, other people count on me to take care of myself so that I can be a patient and attentive mother, a loving partner, a good friend and a good spirit in the world.
Obligation is a blessing when we look from the right angle, although it can be difficult to do sometimes. The truth is, it's the greatest gift we give ourselves. When we truly invoke the energy of being obligated to ourselves we create a very powerful partnership. That inflexible commitment to giving ourselves what we need and doing what we need to do to create a powerful and happy life is a loving action and brings about powerful results. We deserve it, we deserve that much love every day.
The biggest challenge for me has been finding the time I need for me. I need a certain amount of time alone each day, and I got used to having easy access to that time living with just my son. Now I live with friends who are involved in graduate school, who study things I'm interested in. We enjoy watching movies together, going places together and talking together for hours on end. As much as the extroverted part of me enjoys all the intellectual stimulation, the introverted part of me has been starving for a little privacy.
This has impacted my personal spiritual practice as well. It's been incredibly hard for me to find time to meditate, to journal, to exercise, to reflect on the things going on in my life and connect with my deeper Self on a daily basis. This makes me short-tempered, impatient, grumpy and extremely on edge. I have weekly goals to ensure that I get what I need to continue building the life that I want and I haven't been meeting them at all.
In discussing this with my boyfriend we both agreed this was not a good thing and needed to change immediately. He encouraged me to think about meeting weekly goals as a job and my head went right to a sense of obligation, I wasn't happy with the connection. I tend to think about obligation as something that I feel I have to do, but don't want to do and it's usually something I have to do for other people, not for me.
We talked about goals again a few days later and he said the word obligation. He told me that I am obligated to meditate, to journal, to exercise, to find time for myself because it was important for my well-being. I shuddered at that word again, obligation, as though I could feel the yoke coming down over my neck and taking away all free will. Obligation was a heavy weight for me and not one I wanted to carry.
He told me about a website he had found where people could post their weekly goals and if they didn't meet those goals they would pay a penalty. The penalty could be financial in nature and I flinched at the thought. A real consequence imposed for not meeting my goals? Losing money would hurt, that could be a great motivator! But then I realized how backward my thinking was. I fear losing money more than I care about taking care of myself? How messed up is that? What kind of priority is that? I mean sure, ensuring your financial situation is stable is a form of self-care, but I would hope that I love and value myself enough to see the consequences of not caring for myself just as painful, if not more so, than losing a little money.
It was then that I realized my thinking was backwards in terms of obligation, too. Obligation does carry a heavy weight in meaning. Generally when we feel obligated to do something, we don't really feel that it's optional. I had seen the weight of obligation as something imposed and unwanted from outside of myself, but the truth is the only person who obligates me, is me.
So why is it that I can inflexibly commit myself to doing something I don't want to do for someone else, but I can excuse myself out of action that is good for me? Why do I reserve that heavy, immovable weight for people outside of myself, who aren't looking out for my best interest? Don't I deserve that weighted commitment to my own well-being from myself? Of course I do!
By looking at obligation the way I was, I have an easy way to get out of taking care of myself, which isn't the easiest thing for me to do. I get to relieve myself of responsibility for my self-care because I just have to do this for so-and-so and because it's for someone else, I can't get out of it. Easy excuse and a complete lie. The truth is before I can do anything for anyone else, I have to make sure everything I need is taken care of or I'm not effective.
When I neglect my needs so badly that I am snappy and short-tempered with my son, I'm not being an effective parent. When all I can do is complain to my boyfriend about things that don't even matter, I'm not being an effective partner. When the press of people is almost painful, I'm not being an effective friend and I'm not an effective caretaker for myself. And guess what, baby? No one else is going to fill those needs, only me.
So now I have begun to look at obligation differently. Instead of seeing the weight of obligation tie me to activities I don't want to do for other people, I see obligation as a fortress. It is an immovable force that keeps out all other influences until I have given myself what I need. Obligation will not be negotiated with. Instead of a yoke being imposed from the outside, I see obligation as an adult dose of responsibility and self-love. I am obligated to give myself the things I need because I love and value myself enough to do so. And beyond that, other people count on me to take care of myself so that I can be a patient and attentive mother, a loving partner, a good friend and a good spirit in the world.
Obligation is a blessing when we look from the right angle, although it can be difficult to do sometimes. The truth is, it's the greatest gift we give ourselves. When we truly invoke the energy of being obligated to ourselves we create a very powerful partnership. That inflexible commitment to giving ourselves what we need and doing what we need to do to create a powerful and happy life is a loving action and brings about powerful results. We deserve it, we deserve that much love every day.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
The Power of a Word
Every year at the Winter Solstice I choose a word for the year. The point is to be mindful about how the word plays out in my life and to work with the word whenever it comes up. Last year my word was "forgiveness" and I thought when I drew it I was sure I knew what it would mean in my life. After ending an abusive relationship with my ex-boyfriend obviously this year would be a journey in forgiving him for all that had happened between us. I was prepared, open to forgiveness and ready to come to a place of peace about our relationship. Surprise! It's never what you think it is and I have to say, I've struggled with the lessons of forgiveness that come my way.
It's true, I did need to come to a place of forgiveness for my ex but that was such a small piece of the work I had to do around forgiveness. The biggest hurdle, even up to a couple of weeks ago, was not forgiving my ex, but forgiving myself and not just in the context of my broken relationship but for all the hurts I have experienced and have inflicted on myself. It sounds simple, if we love ourselves it should be easy to forgive ourselves. But there's a lot that's tied up into forgiveness and forgiving ourselves is harder to do than we think.
In order to forgive myself I first had to accept responsibility for the unloving acts I committed against myself. Sounds pretty intense when I put it that way, but all lessons begin with us and we are harder on ourselves than we are on others. All the secret grudges, all the failed expectations, the betrayals, the withholding of love made it incredibly difficult to forgive myself. As I worked through the things that happened in my past relationship, I realized that I kept not only myself but my son in a hurtful and abusive relationship and forgiveness seemed to slip further and further away. And it wasn't even limited to this past relationship, but was a theme in my whole life. I realized that the journey to forgiveness wasn't just about forgiveness, but was also a journey to love.
Many of us have hurtful stories about our past and mine, in comparison with people I know and have talked with, is nowhere near as bad as it could have been. But as my first therapist said, "Pain is pain and the damage done makes no comparison with others' pain". My parents both deal with personality disorders and eating disorders, alcoholism and drug addiction run rampant in my family. It was an emotionally abusive household and to help with that we were part of a very strict and unforgiving version of Christianity. The messages I got growing up were that I didn't matter, everyone else mattered more than me, my feelings were not to be tolerated, and expectations were ridiculously high; I could never be good enough. I was a sad and lonely little girl, desperate to have my parents' love and approval and quick to punish myself at each and every failure of their expectations and desires, and I failed often.
This theme followed me into my marriage. I wanted to be the perfect wife and perfect mother. I wanted my husband to see me as an equal, to be a partner, to earn his love, respect and admiration for all that I was and all that I could do. But the people we choose are reflections of ourselves. I believed that my feelings didn't matter and everyone else mattered more than me, so I chose a man who could never see me as his equal, whose value of me only came from how I made him look in other people's eyes, who couldn't appreciate the various quirks that made me the person that I was and in that marriage I was, again, a sad and lonely little girl.
By the time I met my ex-boyfriend, I was desperate for any thread of love I could put my finger on and I was swept away by him. But in spite of four years of therapy I hadn't learned to love myself so again, I chose poorly. I was so desperate to be loved and to not be alone that I stayed in an abusive relationship and kept my son there too. We fought constantly and said horrible things to each other and I believed every criticism and every accusation. My self-worth and self-love weren't really low, they weren't even realities I could recognize. The best thing that happened in that relationship was my ex leaving me and I regretted that for a single day.
It would be so easy to say I just need to forgive my parents, my ex-husband and my ex-boyfriend and be on my merry way, but it isn't that easy. Forgiving others is so much easier than forgiving ourselves. I have to forgive myself for the choices that I made that hurt me and others. I have to forgive myself for every poisonous word I whispered in my head when I failed. I have to forgive myself for shutting out the inner voices of a hurt little girl who told me to leave so many times, for turning her away when she cried for love and I wouldn't give it, for hurting my son. And to do that, I have to love myself enough to know that withholding forgiveness of myself continues to hurt me in a way that is totally contrary to self-love.
So that has been my journey. Learning to love and value myself enough to forgive myself for the hurt I have caused both myself and those I care about. Forgiving myself for the choices I made that hurt me was hard enough, forgiving myself for the choices I made that hurt my son has been the most difficult, but I'm getting there. As I've gone through this journey I've had the opportunity to talk to a lot of people about self-forgiveness and so many of us struggle with it, but it really is a key component on the path of living an emotionally healthy life; and it's worth the struggle.
This is probably something I am going to struggle with for a long time. I learned self-forgiveness as an adult and it's certainly not second nature, but even though my year with this word is done, I am not done with this word and it is in my best interest to be mindful of it as I move through my life. When I started this process of healing ten months ago, I thought the end-point would be my healed self, and so it will be, but not in the way I was thinking. There is no end-point until I'm pushing up daisies and while healing is an important component along the way, this isn't a journey of healing so much as it's a journey of love. I know, enough with the love already! But it is.
The over-arching theme of my life has been one in which I seek union with the Divine. But how can I possibly understand Divine love if I can't even love myself? And if I can't love myself, how can I hope to draw people to my life who love me? And if I can't love myself, I can't forgive myself and I can't move forward because I'm stuck in a swamp of self-loathing and recrimination. They're all connected. So as I move along this path of love I must hold forgiveness close, understanding that love and forgiveness are inextricably intertwined.
Winter Solstice 2011 just passed a few days ago and indeed I chose another word. This year's experience with forgiveness has made me a bit wary of this process and it was with some trepidation that I chose my new word. The word for this year is "integrity". I put the word back in the bowl with the others and chose another word. But integrity is my word for this year and so I fished it out knowing that I can't avoid the lessons. I am interested to see how this word plays out in my life in the coming year, but I know it's not going to be anything I expect. I have some preliminary thoughts about places I can go with it, but that's going to be nothing in comparison with what life itself will bring about.
It is my hope, as always, to be open to these lessons and accept them with courage and grace. My eyes and heart will be open, but I have a secret hope that it won't be too hard. I guess we'll have to see. In the meantime, I am mindful that words are powerful when we work to give them meaning in our lives, they can be transformative. There is now enough forgiveness and enough love in my life to face this new word's challenge. I value integrity and am committed to it in my own life, we'll have to see where the lessons lie.
As we are in the holiday season, I'm very aware that this year the most precious gift I have received is forgiveness and I'm so grateful I could find it. I'm holding on tight to it so I don't have to go in search of it again. It's been a powerful word for me this year, transforming, and I'm grateful that attention to a single word can be so powerful if we are willing to pay attention and to open ourselves up to the lesson.
It's true, I did need to come to a place of forgiveness for my ex but that was such a small piece of the work I had to do around forgiveness. The biggest hurdle, even up to a couple of weeks ago, was not forgiving my ex, but forgiving myself and not just in the context of my broken relationship but for all the hurts I have experienced and have inflicted on myself. It sounds simple, if we love ourselves it should be easy to forgive ourselves. But there's a lot that's tied up into forgiveness and forgiving ourselves is harder to do than we think.
In order to forgive myself I first had to accept responsibility for the unloving acts I committed against myself. Sounds pretty intense when I put it that way, but all lessons begin with us and we are harder on ourselves than we are on others. All the secret grudges, all the failed expectations, the betrayals, the withholding of love made it incredibly difficult to forgive myself. As I worked through the things that happened in my past relationship, I realized that I kept not only myself but my son in a hurtful and abusive relationship and forgiveness seemed to slip further and further away. And it wasn't even limited to this past relationship, but was a theme in my whole life. I realized that the journey to forgiveness wasn't just about forgiveness, but was also a journey to love.
Many of us have hurtful stories about our past and mine, in comparison with people I know and have talked with, is nowhere near as bad as it could have been. But as my first therapist said, "Pain is pain and the damage done makes no comparison with others' pain". My parents both deal with personality disorders and eating disorders, alcoholism and drug addiction run rampant in my family. It was an emotionally abusive household and to help with that we were part of a very strict and unforgiving version of Christianity. The messages I got growing up were that I didn't matter, everyone else mattered more than me, my feelings were not to be tolerated, and expectations were ridiculously high; I could never be good enough. I was a sad and lonely little girl, desperate to have my parents' love and approval and quick to punish myself at each and every failure of their expectations and desires, and I failed often.
This theme followed me into my marriage. I wanted to be the perfect wife and perfect mother. I wanted my husband to see me as an equal, to be a partner, to earn his love, respect and admiration for all that I was and all that I could do. But the people we choose are reflections of ourselves. I believed that my feelings didn't matter and everyone else mattered more than me, so I chose a man who could never see me as his equal, whose value of me only came from how I made him look in other people's eyes, who couldn't appreciate the various quirks that made me the person that I was and in that marriage I was, again, a sad and lonely little girl.
By the time I met my ex-boyfriend, I was desperate for any thread of love I could put my finger on and I was swept away by him. But in spite of four years of therapy I hadn't learned to love myself so again, I chose poorly. I was so desperate to be loved and to not be alone that I stayed in an abusive relationship and kept my son there too. We fought constantly and said horrible things to each other and I believed every criticism and every accusation. My self-worth and self-love weren't really low, they weren't even realities I could recognize. The best thing that happened in that relationship was my ex leaving me and I regretted that for a single day.
It would be so easy to say I just need to forgive my parents, my ex-husband and my ex-boyfriend and be on my merry way, but it isn't that easy. Forgiving others is so much easier than forgiving ourselves. I have to forgive myself for the choices that I made that hurt me and others. I have to forgive myself for every poisonous word I whispered in my head when I failed. I have to forgive myself for shutting out the inner voices of a hurt little girl who told me to leave so many times, for turning her away when she cried for love and I wouldn't give it, for hurting my son. And to do that, I have to love myself enough to know that withholding forgiveness of myself continues to hurt me in a way that is totally contrary to self-love.
So that has been my journey. Learning to love and value myself enough to forgive myself for the hurt I have caused both myself and those I care about. Forgiving myself for the choices I made that hurt me was hard enough, forgiving myself for the choices I made that hurt my son has been the most difficult, but I'm getting there. As I've gone through this journey I've had the opportunity to talk to a lot of people about self-forgiveness and so many of us struggle with it, but it really is a key component on the path of living an emotionally healthy life; and it's worth the struggle.
This is probably something I am going to struggle with for a long time. I learned self-forgiveness as an adult and it's certainly not second nature, but even though my year with this word is done, I am not done with this word and it is in my best interest to be mindful of it as I move through my life. When I started this process of healing ten months ago, I thought the end-point would be my healed self, and so it will be, but not in the way I was thinking. There is no end-point until I'm pushing up daisies and while healing is an important component along the way, this isn't a journey of healing so much as it's a journey of love. I know, enough with the love already! But it is.
The over-arching theme of my life has been one in which I seek union with the Divine. But how can I possibly understand Divine love if I can't even love myself? And if I can't love myself, how can I hope to draw people to my life who love me? And if I can't love myself, I can't forgive myself and I can't move forward because I'm stuck in a swamp of self-loathing and recrimination. They're all connected. So as I move along this path of love I must hold forgiveness close, understanding that love and forgiveness are inextricably intertwined.
Winter Solstice 2011 just passed a few days ago and indeed I chose another word. This year's experience with forgiveness has made me a bit wary of this process and it was with some trepidation that I chose my new word. The word for this year is "integrity". I put the word back in the bowl with the others and chose another word. But integrity is my word for this year and so I fished it out knowing that I can't avoid the lessons. I am interested to see how this word plays out in my life in the coming year, but I know it's not going to be anything I expect. I have some preliminary thoughts about places I can go with it, but that's going to be nothing in comparison with what life itself will bring about.
It is my hope, as always, to be open to these lessons and accept them with courage and grace. My eyes and heart will be open, but I have a secret hope that it won't be too hard. I guess we'll have to see. In the meantime, I am mindful that words are powerful when we work to give them meaning in our lives, they can be transformative. There is now enough forgiveness and enough love in my life to face this new word's challenge. I value integrity and am committed to it in my own life, we'll have to see where the lessons lie.
As we are in the holiday season, I'm very aware that this year the most precious gift I have received is forgiveness and I'm so grateful I could find it. I'm holding on tight to it so I don't have to go in search of it again. It's been a powerful word for me this year, transforming, and I'm grateful that attention to a single word can be so powerful if we are willing to pay attention and to open ourselves up to the lesson.
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