"I'll NEVER do the things she did!" That was me so many times throughout life, stating this to myself in my judgemental (immature) thinking about my mother. Foolish thinking....
Mom has been gone 10 years this fall. In some ways that seems like it was a hundred years ago, in other ways like it never happened at all and she's still somehow here, yet in other ways - like it was yesterday.
I was really only able to finally stop analyzing my childhood and young adult life recently and put to rest the continual questioning inside, some 50 years later. The wondering what I had done wrong, what caused their divorce, trying to comprehend how she could have said and done the things that she said and did, acted as she did toward me. This lasted for many years and was an endless battle, a painful one, and never conclusive. I spent many years wondering what I had done at 8 and 9 years old to cause losing my friends, my dog, my home, my sisters, my social status, my dad. Moving across the United States back "home" was not home to me. There was never an answer. There never is because a child is the innocent party. I should have let it go....
I just made my mind up that I would never repeat the things she did. I set off in life trying to figure out who I was, who I was supposed to be, how to make it in life. Yet still deep inside the feeling of somehow being a tremendous failure that caused my family to not want me lingered. I spent a lot of years searching for the me inside, many times in the wrong places. I made my own mistakes, my own failures, my own life. I spent a lot of time trying to 'belong' to someone else's family. I spent extensive time with Aunts and Uncles and later different friends in high school living with other families thinking to myself, "if only I had a family like this, stable that actually loved me for who I am." My friends who lived in those great Ingalls and Walton-like families would complain, I would tell them be glad you have a family that loves you.
My poor choices compounded feeling like a failure since most of those did not produce very postive results in my life, and so I turned to the church in which I was raised. I found the "checklist" and thought, "if I can only do this, they will accept me and God will love me." This quickly became frustrating since the list was infinite. I was constantly still failing, either doing something I shouldn't be or not doing something I should be. I realized God apparently isn't happy with me either since I was the sinner who could not get it right! It was a cycle of unhappiness and frustration still never finding what I was looking for, love - acceptance - value. It was an inside job, I just did not realize it.
So many times I asked myself, "Is this my destiny, karma, fate, a result of my ignorance, God's judgement upon me, what???" I began to think there must be something wrong with me since there was no other logical answer. I knew better, I knew God's word, I know the expectations of family, yet I was still failing in life. Never could I find the illusive answer no matter where I looked! This went on for years. I should have let it go....
Life began showing me in the funny way it does, that I was not perfect. I was making the same mistakes Mom did and hurting people I loved. I was failing in my committment to myself to not be her. How????
Then I began studying myself, my own self-image, not what other people thought of me - that doesn't matter. What I thought of me, how I saw myself was all that mattered, for therein lies th e keys to freedom. I began to understand something very important; circumstances do not matter, they just are. No one is exempt from the circumstances of life, mistakes, sins if you will, no one. I began to find my worth and my potential inside, and I ran with it.
I became a highly successful business woman with several college degrees, raised a family virtually by myself, and overcame a lot of huge mountains in life. Then the love of my life, my daughter, left home eloping with a man much older than her and that was so painful. She then spent the following 6 years telling me off, cutting me off, cutting the family off. Not long after my son delivered the news on Mother's Day of my first grandchild's upcoming birth - 5 months after conception to someone he was not married to and while in college. Tremendously painful for me, both of those events. I spent weeks crying, lost hair, turned inward and saw the old me saying, "see you are still a failure-everyone was right and this is what you get for your stupidity." I then became a workaholic to cope and spent so many hours at work I couldn't even put a number on them.
I kept studying myself, though, and finally truly understood that circumstances just are. The keys to freedom were there the entire time, in my own thinking. I realized it is how I see the circumstances of life that causes the experiences that stem (or do not) from them. The light at the end of the long tunnel began to show up and was coming closer, oddly enough at a sort of warp speed. I began to realize it is impossible to escape the circumstances of life, no one is exempt, and my failures in life were common to everyone. Maybe in different forms, but still a part of everyone's life. I began to understand Mom more at that moment, and myself. I began to see I have to see things from a distance and realize there is always good no matter what, and if I want to truly be free I have to deliberately direct my thoughts to only see the good. I finally understood my power is in me, not in what happens or in anyone else's opinions! In controlling my thoughts and my life, I am finally able to put to rest the past and forgive. Forgive myself mostly. That is really where it all must start.
As I am holding my 21 month old grandson in my arms last night, I look at my aging hands. They are Mom's hands. For the first time in my life, I see my mother in myself and I suddenly realize none of the hurt I tried to figure out for so many years even mattered. That was all just the circumstances of life and it was up to me to let it all go. Finally I can. The burden has lifted, the end of that long painful tunnel has arrived, I am now in the beauty of life. All that matters now is lying in my arms and I truly realize every single moment of each day is not only a gift, but a miracle that I am part of. I am fortunate to still be here to experience this and in the time I have I can love others and make a difference. Freedom.
Mom, I know you can hear me, I understand now. I love you, and I forgive us both. Thank you for raising me with morals and values, with knowledge of the Lord and with the love and motivation to be great. You succeeded, Mom, and so have I! When I look down and see your hands now, my hands, I will look with love and appreciation for who we both are and all the great things we both have done in life. I know it was not easy for you, really I do.
Love, Jess
Do you want to find yourself and the freedom inside? It is there, but it takes study and a committed decision to find it. There is no other way. I have proven this to myself over and over again, I know it works. Contact me and let me show you what I have learned, it's worth it. You are worth it. You are the only thing in your life that matters and you have the keys to who you really are meant to be, it just takes some help in finding them.
To your love and success, xoxo.
