Holistic Health & Emotional Healing – Page 8

Maverick

This week I watched ‘The Darkest Hour’ with Gary Oldman playing Winston Churchill. One of the core pieces that I loved within this film was how clear it was that Churchill was an emotionally messy individual; by all accounts an alcoholic, perhaps without financial savvy, fractious, demanding AND alongside this a brilliant mind, a wordsmith, family man, and the one who determined to save Great Britain from Adolf Hitler.

He was a maverick: ‘an unorthodox or independent-minded person’

When my brothers and I had to decide which three words we would have on my father’s gravestone, I pushed for Maverick. I can’t even remember now what the other two words are but I knew I wanted a word to honour his fuck-ups and his genius all at once. That is who he was to me.

What I saw from the film was that it took the character of a Maverick to save us from invasion, it took that single minded belief, that ability to walk against the tide, and a little bit of ‘crazy’. I watched the film and I saw my father.

My father did terrible things, he sexually molested me, he paid little attention to the emotional needs of his children, he was frightening in his temper. And he did wonderful things too. He transformed people’s lives both through his psychiatry practice and his generosity in bringing in to his home those in need, including the homeless. He invented psychometric computer programs that are still used globally today (he just forgot to patent them!). His mind was brilliant and broken.

I was not really able to see my father this way until after he died, until then our relationship was just too painful. In watching ‘The Darkest Hour’, I was reminded how important Mavericks are in the world and how an individual can be two parts simultaneously – dark and light.

There is a cleansing going on in our western society right now, where anyone who has ever faltered, made a mistake, royally fucked up or, worst case, been severely abusive is being silenced and shut down. I’ve seen on social media something to the effect of: ‘it doesn’t matter what good they have done, abusive behaviour wipes all of that away’. Does it? Should it?

I just don’t know if life is this back and white, that right and wrong is so clear cut. What if someone can have blurred and damaging boundaries and also create magic in the world? My relationship with my mother is super toxic but she is also a wonderful friend to others. I worked with Jamie Oliver once upon a time and I personally found him difficult (others found him inspiring) but I also hugely respect his drive to change the health of our children through food. My experience of someone can be diametrically opposite to someone else’s. I can also dislike one aspect of someone and appreciate another. One person can experience abuse another healing at the hands of the same person. So how does this tally? How do we bring abusers or fault makers to justice without cleansing our society of the inspiration and necessary change that they sometimes bring?

It makes me wonder how Einstein, Marie Curie, Van Gogh, Michael Angelo, Mother Theresa, Alexander Fleming, Emmeline Pankhurst, Jesus or Mary Magdalene would fair on social media today? Would we celebrate their achievements or chastise them for their failings?

How I reached this place with my father, of being able to respect his achievements whilst not accepting his abuse, was through conversation. Before he died we spoke about my accusation of molestation, he said his mother had done the same to him and there wasn’t anything wrong with that. It wasn’t an apology, it wasn’t really even an admission; soulfully, he still had a long way to go before being accountable to his actions. Yet from that conversation I could understand that he had been taught as a child that this behaviour was ok, that to look at it from my perspective (and indeed much of society’s) was something quite unfathomable to his psyche. He was acting from trauma. I have compassion for that.

And before I am shouted down from the rooftops, yes I still believe abuse must be called to account and appropriately dealt with. But that is the extreme end of our current cleansing and there are multiple shades of grey in between for all the characters and individuals of the world.

I am a flawed and loving person, which part do you see?

Victim Complex

When I was 22, I was operated on to remove a large ovarian cyst. Keyhole surgery and back home that afternoon was the suggestion; instead I nearly died.

The operation did not go as planned and I had to have four blood transfusions to replace my significant loss. I was a week in hospital and it was several months before I felt my strength return on so many levels.

During my recovery at home (if memory serves, just a few days back from hospital), I became upset when my mother left me alone in the shower to answer the phone. I couldn’t lift my right leg more than a few centimetres off the ground and I felt trapped within the high bath sides. My mother returned to find me in floods of tears. She sighed and told me that I was getting a ‘victim complex’.

What I really had was PTSD.

My mother’s family and background is one of army and boarding school, so I fully understand that she had been raised to have that stiff, British, upper lip and empathy was not a trait much nurtured, but wow those few words smacked me hard.

They spun around my head for years and years trying to tally with the way I had felt post that operation (and all the others shifts that had been made because of it – change of job, country and relationship). I believed my mother. I believed I was not handling my trauma ‘well enough’.

What I also noticed over those years was how invested I was in telling the story of my operation. It felt like such an enormous part of who I was; I would drunkenly insist on revealing my physical scars to all those that listened; it became an excuse for all my failings – weight, relationships, jobs. Most telling of all, I could barely recount the full story without feeling like collapsing into unending tears.

It was only when I began to explore the world of healing that I started to empathise with that younger self and the overwhelm I had been dealing with. I realised that without the right tools and support I had been left with two choices, the stiff upper lip of denial or the Groundhog Day story that defined me completely.

But there is a space in between denial and holding on to the story, neither of which serve, and that place is one of healing. That delicate place of acceptance – something happened to me and I was a victim without becoming victim to that trauma. I think that nuance is key to addressing how trauma can be honoured and processed and also crucial to moving beyond the potential to remain fixed in a story that can inhibit growth and vitality.

That space is one of liberation and is the right of everyone and it is a space that needs to be consciously chosen and strived for. It is a doorway that requires effort and application to open. It is not easy nor is it meant to be.

As Scott Stabile’s quote says ‘…I could survive it. It wasn’t comfortable, but it didn’t destroy me.’

Scapegoat

I have so much to say and I’m not sure how’s it’s all going to come out but it’s a real mixture of what’s tumbling around my head, heart and soul and also how that relates to the pertinent space the global media is reflecting right now.

I received a real lashing for a recent post (Weinstein et al). It hit me hard and I have taken some time to reflect on it. As much as I work hard to construct my opinions as solely mine and I endeavour to use ‘I’ statements to emphasise that, I have realised that when I post something on someone else’s social media page, it turns my I statements into a ‘you should’. It can feel as if I am telling someone that my opinion belongs in their space. So I have learned from that and will be more cautious about how and where I share my thoughts.

But the essence of that blog still stands for me and I have delved a little deeper into my psyche as to why I hold these beliefs which are perhaps in conflict with a majority. What are my reasons?

What comes up for me is the concept of the Scapegoat. Because not only I have created a scapegoat to escape facing my own issues in the past but I have also been heavily labelled as the scapegoat in my family of origin.

Being the scapegoat within my family dynamic has meant that I am the excuse for them to not be accountable and responsible for their own actions and parts within a story. If I am the person who is ‘wrong’ then that makes those labelling me ‘right’.

And the water is murky because as sure as some of what I’ve been accused of are downright lies, some rumours are carried in truth. Which, more than anything, gives them greater fuel. But what I have come to learn is that my truth and their truth are two very different animals. So whilst my behaviour may be judged by one to be sordid, or untrustworthy, neurotic or perhaps even a little bit crazy. My truth is that I can see the cause and effect on how these events unfolded. I can see the beginning of pain and woundedness that developed into acts of desperate love seeking, or unhealthy out-letting. Once I stopped believing the stories about me from them, I started to see how unhappiness evolves.

And truthfully, it has been the most extraordinary gift, because now I can no longer see ‘bad behaviour’ but only brokenness. I can no longer label someone a predator or an abuser because I see their desperation, their shattered spirits trying to find a way home. I know that being labelled the bad one only spiralled me into deeper despair and I can’t see how it is a solution to anything except the abdication of accountability for all parties.

Because not only have I been the scapegoat but I have also made others my scapegoat. I have been abused and I have abused. When I think of the #metoo campaign, I wonder how many of those speaking out have ever abused others in some form? How many people have used their power to manipulate a person or scenario for their own gain or safety? And why is sexual abuse the pinnacle of this discussion? Some of my experiences that have had no sexual overtones or physical violation have been far more damaging to my spirit than the more overt domination. None of it is right but perhaps neither is it simply wrong.

I cannot stand on a pedestal and say #metoo without also saying that perhaps I have left others uncomfortable, damaged, hurt by my own actions – from a place of unconscious woundedness maybe. But isn’t that the same for most?

Speaking out, speaking up, reclaiming our power is vitally important but with that comes the core piece of accountability and compassion. Where are our own wounds reflected in these others? How can healing really occur without understanding?

I am a scapegoat, I am an abuser, I am a wounded and healing woman.

Time to Fly

In the past few weeks I have been assailed by anxiety; heart racing, breath suffocating and waking for hours in the night.

This is not new to me but it has been a long time since I have experienced such a prolonged and unceasing episode.

Old habits rise up and tempt me to ease the sensations, the desire to numb (food, drugs, alcohol) or distract (replacing with the physical pain of self harm), but my commitment to myself and my children helps me to reach for the healthier soothers that I have developed over these years of healing. One tool has been the learned ability to sit with the feelings and witness them unfold rather than a trying to escape them. Ooof! A hard one but it has been enlightening to observe the trail of my thoughts in the early hours of the morning.

Another of my soothers is reading. Falling into a world of delicious and enticing fiction calms me and takes me out of my own world for while, a break from the pressure on my chest. When it’s not fiction, I choose works that inspire me to reconnect with my spirit, to bring me back to faith and trust in the Divine; words & belief that can draw me away from my obsessive and destructive anxiety spiral.

Last night, my early hours were occupied with the words of Dr Eben Alexander, a neurosurgeon, who experienced a profound NDE (Near Death Experience) that filled him with the ultimate trust in the Universe, in Love and Light. His words and description of his journey between life and death are beyond beautiful and a wonderful reminder for me to hold that bigger picture in my daily life.

When I was growing up, my mother used to say that I would need to meet somebody who could let me fly but who could also ground me. She was half right; I do need to be around people that don’t inhibit my wish to fly, to dive into the world of divinity and philosophical exploration, but the grounding she spoke of was a need to be held back into the ‘reality’ of our practical world and what I have realised over the past few weeks is that it is those details that create so much of my anxiety. Constantly pulling myself back into the minutiae of daily life, I keep forgetting my core belief of trust, I step too far into the fear of left brained conditioning and up springs my anxiety.

Eben Alexander’s ‘Proof of Heaven’ is one of those gifts that reminds me to reconnect with my spiritual reflections.

It’s time to fly.

Weinstein et al

I have encountered many ‘Weinstein’s’ in my time, from my own father to bosses, strangers, even those I thought were friends. From the ‘playful’ pinches all the way through to rape. I have experienced the gamut of ‘toxic masculinity’.

But I will not stand and make them my enemy. I will not make men an evil entity that need to be punished for their heinous behaviour. What I see are deeply wounded and damaged individuals who have had their innocent child hearts hurt and broken in unimaginable ways. They have become adults desperate for validation, for control and emotional ‘safety’ and this comes out in toxic, wounding and terrible actions.

I am not condoning a single thing that they have done as accountable, responsible adults. Do they need to be brought up and held to account? Do they need the awareness of their behaviour brought to light, do they need support, therapy, counselling? Yes to all this. And in the very worst cases, prison is probably the first port of call before any rehabilitation can be implemented. I am not, for a moment, suggesting allowing or permitting this type of behaviour but what I am saying is that by making these men into inhuman animals worthy only of our hatred and scorn we are only perpetuating this dynamic in our society.

As a global society we are failing our children. We have forgotten, disassociated ourselves from, the crucial attachment needs that create respectful, kind, thoughtful humans. These are the roots of the problems that we are witnessing today in our men and women. If our sons and daughters were raised with loving consciousness and presence, is it even possible for them to become the monsters that we vilify in the press? No, it’s like a law of science, we cannot provide wholesome parenting and create evil.

But just loving our children is not enough, I adore my children but that doesn’t stop me passing on my insecurities, my wounding. What will break my ancestral cycles is bringing my awareness to the psychological needs of my children and my own childhood, becoming conscious of what created my wounds and my anger and working hard to provide what I lacked, owning my mistakes and attempting to do it differently next time. Only by taking full responsibility for my own actions will I model that possibility to my children and my descendants.

So when I read the powerful hatred towards Weinstein et al, all I really hear is hatred towards ourselves. What I would love is to embrace the possibility that Weinstein’s willingness to enter rehabilitation might just birth a shift in his perspective that could create healing. What I would love to hear is how these moments of unveiling could push us to reflect on why men exist in this way. How can we create the changes in our world to bring forth the necessary shifts to our humanness? Can we learn from our mistakes or will we just continue to punish them?

Holding On

I believe fiercely in the importance and value of attachment; that our healthy independence comes from our trust in the solidity of a secure foundation. This is a core tenet of my parenting philosophy and why I am happy to surrender these years to care for my children.

But there is more….. my youngest child is five and happily ensconced in kindergarten and I have been envisioning increasing hours of rediscovering myself again. And I still will to a degree….

…. but I have just finished the extraordinary book ‘Hold On to Your kids’ (by Neufeld and Mate) and am thankfully awakened to the realisation that ‘attachment’ reaches way past the early years and through to early adulthood.

I have not come across Gordon Neufeld’s work before but I have long been struck by the wisdom, depth and sensitivity of Gabor Mate. I was first introduced to him by my late cousin who included interviews of Mate for his short films on addiction and the roots of it from early childhood. Powerful and compelling.

I have read a gazillion parenting books (most I have loved and drawn huge inspiration from) but two have stood out to me as carrying core concepts to feed my philosophy. Neither have been comfortable or easy reads, both have shown me the mistakes I have already made, but equally they have fed and stoked the fires of truth and passion for being the very best parent that I can. Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn and Holding On to Your Kids are these essential reads.

Right now I am full of the later, having turned the last page just a few hours ago. I am inspired by the tools and opportunities and I have already seen the benefits in the last week as I start to implement the ideas.

I did attachment very well in the early years. My babes were in arms, co slept, full-term breastfed and stayed with me until 4 or 5 before heading to Kindy. But I have made a critical error by thinking my foundation has been laid and stepping a little too far back.

What I have witnessed is my eldest getting a little lost, expressing hurt and discontent, and I was flummoxed as to why. And this book explains it all. It details how our society, in less than a hundred years has moved, from a place of secure attachment to our parental lines, to insecure attachment to our peers. We have forgotten to hold our children close enough to be able to seek their wisdom from their elders rather than scrabbling for answers with friends who are scrabbling too. The effects have been devastating. Mental health issues in children and teens are sky rocketing and suicide is through the roof. Our children are floundering and in desperate need of our help.

Just like a tomato plant growing from seed, which requires a tall and
solid stake from which to anchor itself, my children need me to be their base-point to hold on to. Once they have flowered and born their first fruit, they can sow their seeds and decide where next to plant themselves but for that they need maturity and experience and I intend to stand by their side until then.

This book opened me up. It showed me why my daughter was hurting, it enabled me to reflect on my own childhood and the desperate years I spent seeking attachment in my peers. It is a statement for our society, frightening in its implications and simple in its healing.

Hold On and they will let go when ripe and ready, blooming with vitality and with faith in the world and that hardy, weather worn stake.

Belief vs. Intuition

I was involved in a discussion on social media recently; one of those totally random engagements with complete strangers whom I will never cross paths with again, yet had a compelling urge to connect to for a flash of time.

One of those.

I was hooked into this one by the curiousness of her statement. She stated that her intuition has told her to have a c-section ‘knowing her baby was too big to birth’. Doctors had refused, her labour halted and off she went for her section.

Well, a few of us jumped straight onto this. ‘That’s not your intuition, that’s your belief’. We petitioned her in numerous ways to explain that her conscious or subconscious belief that she couldn’t birth big babies was leeched into her by who knows whom, but that it certainly wasn’t an innate inner knowing that told her this, babies just aren’t too big to birth.

A belief is entirely different to intuition.

She was having none of it and was enraged that we were trying to squash her intuitive vibe, which had, seemingly, proved her right.

Then I heard it again a couple of days ago, someone describing their difficult interaction and judgements towards another as an ‘intuitive response’. They ‘knew’ with absolute assurity that a stranger was a particular personality because their intuition told them so, full stop, end of story. That person was then tried and sentenced based on that intuition.

It’s a hard one. I do believe that as a western society we are certainly low on the intuitive front, we prefer solid, hard and immovable facts over anything vaguely floaty or unclear. AND I think it’s sad how squashed and dampened our intuition has become. But what exactly is our intuition?

Mine was definitely hiding in some dark recess of my forgotten self, until more recent years when I have braved the fear and poked it into the cracks of light. What I have discovered about my intuition is that it is super subtle, so used to its banishment that it is quick to flee under any cross examination. But when it does rise up, it is a moment of knowing deeply, feeling without confusion and total clarity. It’s the moment when the words fall from my heart onto the page; when I know my child’s mood by the movement of their eyes; when a sentence pours from my mouth and brings healing to a client’s soul. Subtle, gentle, quiet….

What I have learned also is that my anxiety and beliefs can pretend they are intuition, giving me countless messages to listen to and to heed, added to which they name themselves as my intuitive voice: ‘listen, this is your intuition, there’s a car coming and it’s going to run over your kids’; ‘listen, this is your intuition, that person has hair like your old abusive friend, they must be an abuser too’; ‘listen, this is your intuition, no one will like your book, don’t bother writing it’.

Except that none of those, self proclaimed intuitive memos, are really my intuition, they are simply my fears. And my fears can come true, and they can prove me ‘right’, but they are still not my intuition.

Learning to distinguish between the emotional beliefs and the inner wisdom of our intuitive selves is like unraveling two identical, twisted and impenetrable balls of yarn, anciently meshed and knotted. They look the same, feel the same, but as they unravel, one leads to heartache and one leads to happiness.

Listen carefully. Which one is speaking to you?

Role Models

I am sensitive to the role models that pass through my children’s lives. Not for the obvious reasons, I care less about their differing values to mine (as long as they’re not morally corrupt!) in fact I enjoy my children being exposed to different view points and exciting their curiosity and questioning, but I mind greatly about their consistency in our lives.

I know I can’t control where life takes us and friends pass through over the years and that itself is a great lesson for my children, but there is still a place for acknowledging the importance of each role model and their influence.

I speak from a place of loss. I speak from a place of sensitivity to those moments where an adult left my childhood world without word or explanation.

Growing up, the role of father was a gaping hole in my life, my own being emotionally incapable of filling it. Later in life, my early choice of boyfriends certainly reflected my desire for a father figure before therapy and personal development moved me beyond it. But in my childhood itself, certain men stepped forward to offer themselves as a surrogate; family friends, my mother’s boyfriend, uncles, many spoke directly to me, acknowledging the gap and asking permission to represent a father to me.

Every single one left me.

Not a single one remains in my life as a guide or elder. This is not a pity party, I have beautiful support around me now, but at the moments of their leaving, I grieved a loss every time, alone and unacknowledged. Each one just disappeared from my life, sometimes out of loyalty to my mother; sometimes out of separation from my mother; others, I project, because I was too challenging or difficult for their perspective, but for whatever reason they felt no need to say goodbye. And that hurt beyond measure.

So for my children, I ask, when life takes you away from us, when our paths diverge, please just take a moment to say farewell.

Acknowledgment

I have been accused, at times, of raking up past events without the ability to ‘let go, forgive, move on’.

I will not deny that there is probably some truth to that but not quite in the negative vein that implies.

When I behave in ways that sadden me towards my own children, I rely on a promise I have made to myself, to help me forgive myself. That promise is to remember to acknowledge their feelings, if not instantly, then at least after reflection. When they come to me in their midlife and relay how such an event between us caused a shift in their emotional trajectory, that something I said or did hurt or wounded them, I have promised myself that I will acknowledge that seriously and soulfully.

Because that is all I have ever wanted for myself.

When I look back at the shape forming events in my life, those that have been painful and hard, I don’t hold blame, condemnation or anger towards any of the protagonists, in fact, more often than not, I understand enough of their own history to see why and where their stories connected with mine. But if there is to be any deep connection with them, a deepening and growing relationship, then I crave acknowledgement of my feelings. I struggle to move on, not from anger, lack of forgiveness or misunderstanding, but from the lack of acknowledgement that my feelings had been affected or created by the dynamics of an event.

Ultimately, I struggle with the sense that my feelings have been dismissed or denied.

And I see this classic fracture point arise from the smallest to the largest scale; I see it in every toddler tantrum and minor domestic dispute, right the way through to the diplomatic negotiations between warring countries.

Acknowledgment doesn’t mean a retraction of behaviour or action, it doesn’t mean one party is right or wrong, it literally means ‘I can see that this event has caused feelings in you’. It’s really that simple and basic. When I think of every argument, or rather every reconciliation, those that have created connection and healing are those where I have been heard for my side, my feelings, no matter how unwarranted or unreasonable someone might judge them to be; they are still what I felt in that moment. Equally when I have accepted another’s feelings, without insisting on correcting or changing them to suit my own agenda or story, I have witnessed how freeing that has been for them.

It is so easy to underestimate this, I can see how I have often dismissed or redacted my children’s, my husband’s and my friend’s stories for fear that it will reflect badly on me; create bigger issues; or for numerous, ultimately spurious, reasons. It’s societally habitual to ‘not want to hear’ the other side, so that I don’t have to face my own story with honesty and perspective. Long term, that will not serve me, it simply creates alienation and resentment.

What I wish for myself, and for my relations, is to be soulfully heard. How deeply and powerfully healing that would be.

Emancipation

I wasn’t sure if I would ever write this post, if I would ever talk about it so very openly. It is delicate, because I am not wanting to hurt those involved and yet inevitably, just by broaching the subject, I will. So the choice becomes between knowingly causing pain to another and healing myself.

I have chosen to heal myself.

I have chosen to withdraw contact from my mother, for the time being. It has not been an easy or light decision, but after 40 years of a very fragile and damaging relationship, it is time for a break.

The rain is buffeting ferociously as I type these words and I feel the chill run through me from the safety of my sitting room. The fierce rain reflecting the power of my tears.

I am not going to discuss the minutiae of wounding that has occurred to create this breaking point, that would be unnecessary pain for all involved, but it is important to know that it goes against every aching cell of my body to cut the energetic life line to my mother; that this has been the very last resort of a gazillion resorts. To feel that I have no longer have a mother, and not by death, is the most painful thing I have ever had to experience.

And I write about it because there is huge shame surrounding these dynamics in life. Shame that my mother can’t love me enough; shame that I have failed as a daughter; shame that the most primal and most basic of relationships has been severed; shame that I deprive my children of their grandmother. Shame, shame, shame…

We went to therapy before Christmas, my mother and I, one of those last resorts….. It didn’t bring us closer as I had hoped. It didn’t help to create a mutual understanding. It did help me to see that I cannot keep asking, begging for something that cannot be given. It did help me see how the shame I carry for not making it ‘work’ poisons my own family, the heaviness of rejection and pain leaks out in unhealthy ways.

And with that I saw that I needed to take a break. To give myself a chance to be the best I can be without the burden of being a ‘difficult daughter’. To give my family a chance to start afresh without the binds of ancestral suffering.

I hope that one day I will be able to walk beside my mother again in total acceptance of who she is, but for that to happen I need to be clear and strong and grounded with who I am without her.

I need to emancipate myself.

With grateful thanks to Bethany Webster and her phenomenal work ‘Healing the Mother Wound’.