Tags
Anger, concrete, flat screen TV, Forgiveness, highly sensitive person, Kinesiology, Love, Repression, thyroid, unicorn sightings
Forgiveness. I’ve written about it before, both in terms of forgiving myself and others. For ages it was a very nice concept but like the top shelf in your wardrobe, out of reach. Seems that understanding how to forgive is about as elusive as unicorn sightings.
I’ve worked out why though. It’s because forgiveness isn’t so much about getting over stuff that’s happened. Instead it’s about seeing things as they really are. Like, really. Down to the bones, with no elaborations.
Like a lot of the work I’m doing lately, it’s all been going down on the kinesiology table. That’s where I was when I saw for myself how it’s always been and why.
A few weeks ago, I lay there on the treatment table staring wide-eyed and open-mouthed at my kinesiologist. Joining the dots and dropping pennies in slots.
Fuck! So THAT’S why I’ve never been able to forgive my parents for anything, my whole life!
Clarity provides space and understanding and suddenly forgiveness isn’t even an issue any more.
So what happened, I hear you ask? Something came up in that session around the idea of “feeling overlooked and betrayed”. Immediately I knew this was OLD. Sure enough, back we went (back… back… back) and further again, to four year old me.
What do I recall about being four? Not much really. I was in kindergarten, I guess. I remember painting, the sandpit, story time, and the room with the hooks for our wee bags. The odd flash of kindergarten kid faces. My sister was two, my brother was six. This represents the sum total of my conscious four year old knowledge and memories.
But the conscious mind knows jack-shit sometimes, yeah?
Without a doubt, I’m what they call a highly sensitive person.
Highly sensitive people are born with fewer filters between themselves and the world than “regular” people-types. We feel everything more intensely. Our highs and lows are more extreme because that’s the way we’re built. There’s nothing wrong with us. It’s just a slightly different way of being.
For example, today the fact that I live in a place where there’s too much concrete was causing me a great deal of pain. Yeah, I know. It sounds stupid, right? But a lot of creative types are like this, and I suspect most people with mental health problems are, too.
My parents are NOT highly sensitive. A thousand and one times while growing up, I was labelled “too sensitive/emotional” and made to feel as though my reactions and experiences weren’t acceptable.
What I learned in my kinesiology session is that four year old me was both enraged and deeply saddened at being overlooked like this. At having her feelings belittled and constantly being told she was “too much”.
That rage? I’m pretty sure it’s fuelled all the anger I’ve ever felt in this lifetime.
The way my parents dealt with me must’ve been similar to what they told me about how they deal with my eldest niece. She’s like me – extra-sensitive – and to my horror, they calmly explained how they tell her “don’t be so silly”, or to “shake it off” when she’s “in a mood”. I saw major red flags right there, both for myself and my niece (I’ve had words with my sister since then)!
Of course, I was born to a mother who began grieving for my stolen half-brother way before I was born and a father who is so emotionally shut down that he remains a mystery to me, even today.
Knowing all of this, and working on my shit with kinesiology allowed thirty-nine year old me and four year old me to put all the pieces together. We finally got it!
Four-year-old me never felt acceptable just as she was and this set the stage for feeling like an alien pretty much my whole damn life.
My parents, despite their own emotionally crippled natures, did the best they could (I know – such a cliché right?). They never meant to wound me the way that they did. They didn’t know any better. However, that four year old girl has been seething in anger ever since.
Until now.
I was telling my neighbour about this and she asked – so how do you let something like that go? It’s like this: seeing things clearly and getting kinesiology work done just clears it the heck out.
This has allowed me to transform my relationship with my parents. No, we’re not best buddies all the sudden but I find I’m just not triggered by their actions the way I used to be. Even my sister has noticed the difference.
My folks don’t really do “I love you”. They also don’t do love and caring the way I do. They’re not so much into affection or the cooking of meals or the offering of lifts – the sort of practical things that would’ve been so beneficial to me when I was very sick earlier this year, not to mention all of the years I lived in PTSD-landia.
Instead, they’ll do stuff like give me a flat screen TV.
Yep. You heard that right. I might not see or hear from them for weeks or months, but I’m the first person they thought of when they wanted to off-load their old (but not actually that old) one; they’ve bought a monster-sized replacement (looking at their new TV makes my brain dizzy).
It should be said that spending money on a TV is possibly one of the lowest priorities in my life. But the gift was welcome enough, if only because I now watch DVDs on a better screen.
If this was a different time in my life I’d be cynical and bitter about inappropriate gift giving instead of more useful and supportive actions.
Now, I just see it for what it is: its love.
A few weeks back they also gave me their old digital video camera and I couldn’t really turn it down because I get that it’s their way of showing me they care in lieu of hugs or conversations.
And I’m good with that.
As my thyroid heals, so do many other things. After all, our minds, immune system, physical body, our sense of well-being – none of it is separate.
~ Svasti
Svasti: A Journey From Assault To Wholeness 
I think sharing stuff like this is a form of forgiveness as well.
I sometimes wonder if my parents overindulged the over-sensitive tantrum throwing me. Which is why I still think I can get away with the tantrums… something to think about for sure.
Thank you for sharing brave and lovely lady xx
A loving and thoughtful post Svasti. As I was reading it, I nodded along as I have had similar experiences. If I had a dollar for every time I was told “don’t be such a drama queen” growing up…like you, not only did I feel that who I was and my responses/feelings were unacceptable, but also answering back or questioning other people’s judgment of me was not ok either. Strangely, as a child I compensated for this by getting louder and more exuberant (!) but when I reached about 14 I started withdrawing. I was so angry, but had been taught anger was a bad emotion and would make me even more unlovable, so I shut down. As such I reached the end of my adolescence a very insecure, scarred and socially backward person who had no idea how she was going to do all the things she wanted in life, who felt she couldn’t reach out to others for help and guidance (because she thought she would just be dismissed), who never felt like anything she did was good enough, and who truly believed she had to just accept whatever was offered to her because that might be all she ever got. And all of that was contained within a blanket of anger, hurt and sadness that you’ve described. I look back at that time and can see with absolute clarity why I made the decisions I made. I was trying to make all that anger, sadness and hurt go away without ever addressing the cause of it.
But, also like you, I’ve worked through it all over the past five years to realise that my parents did the best they could with what they knew, they did not intentionally set out to damage or hurt me, and they loved me, and continue to love me, the only way they knew how. They were only doing what they were taught. It might not be what I expected or needed, but it’s still love. And because I know this now I’m no longer triggered by things the way I once might have been.
I wonder if I had realised this sooner how different things might have been. But that only came with becoming more self aware on my part, and being able to see that they are just like me, wanting love and acceptance and making mistakes. The Louise Hay exercise of visualising your parents as children that need your love and understanding has been very helpful to me as well.
Getting this kind of clarity really does make such a difference – once you have that clarity then forgiveness isn’t really an issue any more.
Thanks for this post. And keep up your great work of joining the dots and dropping pennies in the slots 🙂 xx
This comment of yours is worthy of writing your own post on the topic, my dear!
You know, if I listed out the things my parents have done as well as not done, it’d make your eyeballs curdle. BUT, I’m finally in a place where I can see past all of that.
Despite the madness of my childhood and teen years, I still see that they love me. And even if their way of showing it is to give me material goods, so be it.
We are much happier people, I think, when we move beyond the need for forgiveness. But we can only do so when we’re ready. I’m just glad I got to this point while I’m still relatively young. 🙂
this one is so much reflection+goodness+kindness+truth. a beautiful post.
Thanks, Miss YIFY!