I pay attention to patterns when they show up from various places, people, and inner ponderings.
This week, geez, it has been about the heart. I listen for a living. This week I’ve listened to the stories of childhoods gone amuck from adult indecision, immaturity, negligence, and badness. I will say and then move on, that all parents who are doing it badly were 100% parented into a wounded place which they never matured out of. But that is another bit of writing.
As I listened this week to the stories of grief and longing about what had been and what never will be, the universe sang in my ears a refrain; we are our own redemption.
I see it like this.
The very skills we developed as kids to survive whatever it was that we were living through (and lets face it, no comparisons here….childhood wounds are childhood wounds. period.)….are our very strengths. A common refrain I hear is “No one took care of me unless I took care of me.” It is spoken, sometimes with spit of truth and hurt propelling from the telling. It is spoken, sometimes with resignation. Once, I heard it spoken….then a pause……then an inward gaze that lasted a lifetime…and finally “I know exactly how to take care of myself!” Eyes big and bright as if seeing for the first time life on earth from the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. Her own life as she lived it from the center of her knowing heart. I knew that in that moment the one who uttered those words would never tell her story the same way again. She had tasted her own power….that had been there the whole time…..and it tasted like grit and lemon and 60 year old scotch downed in one gulp (swiping her mouth with the back of her hand.)
She knew best how to take care of herself, so she did.
This completely flips the woe to Whoa. It flips the victim into the super hero.
And that is the point. We are all our own super heroes. What would it look like if we as adults, parented and friended with the following:
nourishment
comfort
safety
respect
curiosity
empowerment
play
failure and getting back up
While also:
teaching our kids/engaging friends that they have everything they need to be mighty already within them.
guiding their gaze back to self discovery
And I think we can do this now if we are the adults who still carry our childhood wounds. The wound points less to actions taken against our well-being, and more to being bereft of any knowledge that we are amazingly gifted to live this complex life.
I watched it yet again this morning with a beloved client who is past retirement and still freighted with bags of burden that were thrust onto him when he was a kid. We’ve taken everything out of those cases, have touched them, have had some fall apart from dusty age. Leave ‘em be. Set them down and walk away. Live the life ahead. ( I find the image of a person walking down a dirt road with that suitcase in hand, but the top is open and there is a line of strewn clothing and objects from the past falling out, until the case is empty and finally tossed aside.)
And this is the core of what I know now to be a healthy, fully alive healing human:
we must acknowledge what happened
walk away from whatever we need to walk away from
craft our living from this day forward according to what we know is best for us
There are about two-thousand other points that go with these three….we have to love ourselves and stop waiting for anything outside of us to love us as we need.
Because we know how to love ourselves and are the best at doing just that.
The magic is that once we begin that healthy self-discovery and self-love….it expands. I love that. Love always expands.
And that is my hopeful thought for this day. Love yourself. Tell your story. Note your power to survive. Craft your life from here on out.
I already love you,
Amy