| I am not the words of my Father I am the seed of our Creators love Abuse emotional, physical, spiritual it scars the soul and hardens the heart it comes to you in the middle of an ordinary day as a memory as a thought as a anchor that drags you unwillingly into the past. Whether it is subtle or brutal, spoken or unspoken, acknowledged or brushed aside, abuse all abuse leaves a mark. You are branded as one would cattle “this is my mark I have put it on you within you”. It is an invisible reminder of something loss of something taken of something stolen. Others see it you can tell you just know they know but in reality they do not in reality the bars of my cage are self made the guilt the shame I wear like a badge here I am come and get me give it your best shot there is nothing you can do that will hurt me anymore. Ironically the very thing that keeps me where I am the very memory that stops me moving forward I cling to I refuse to let go I need this memory to feel anger to feel just to feel….I need to feel something anything don’t make me let go……. The words they came tumbling down upon me his words, words no child should ever hear. He stood and delivered them with such conviction the mirror of his own inadequacies too much for his soul to bare there was only a child who had no way of rebutting his arguments a child too young to see the bitterness and regret in his eyes a child who because of her love for him stood and took upon herself all his guilt his shame his self loathing took aboard and made it her own. And when he died when his body could no longer protect his soul when his walls came down she had so many of her own she could not cry for him. The body it was buried under the heading ‘Loving father’ but I knew better. Still even after he was gone I could not let it go could not shed the skin of abuse that threatened to turn my life and me into the very thing he predicted. I gave away my spirit my soul my greatness gave it away to him and he took it to his grave or so I thought. I blamed him for every decision every made I blamed him for every wrong turn I ever took I blamed him for every relationship that failed blamed him for telling me I should never have been born. I couldn’t see I wasn’t that child anymore I wasn’t defenseless wasn’t at anyone’s mercy. I wasn’t twelve I was forty….but while everyone saw the anger of the 40 year old the child within cried but no-one listened to her not even me. And that is the lesson.... While the adult me wanted to get angry get mad get even didn’t not want to forgive and let go I never really ‘Got it’……never really understood the adult woman who looked back at me was merely a reflection of words of experiences of situations of unfairness of untruths….I never really understood that healing the Adult would never work, never understood that the adult woman had adult emotions and feeling had adult rationalizing had adult ways at looking at things….I never really understood. Then it dawned on me it was the child who was hurting still maybe the adult was acting on her behalf requesting all this justice but the child the little girl of my childhood she didn’t really understand all this adult stuff. The child she had always been just looking to get his attention to have him notice her for a second and the regret the only regret wasn’t that she never had the chance to berate him make him feel like she had all those times....her only regret was she never got to tell him she loved him despite it all she loved him....the adult in me refuted this fact for years, but the child….the child always held that one regret. I do not like the term inner child because it separates my soul the little girl is not a separate entity from me she is me. And order to heal in order to move on I have to become her feel her pain feel it in a way a child does. Feel it raw explosive not labeled by adult words but felt by a child’s heart. I have to know it as a feeling not a word not a word an adult word but a feeling a raw hurt to the core feeling. I have to feel it to know it again in order to let it go….that has been the problem as an adult in therapy I have always been letting go of adult feelings and then wondering why I didn’t feel any different. I let go of regret loss of abandonment of guilt of shame but the child the little girl she simply stood there not knowing what all those things meant she hurt and didn’t know why she wanted someone to come and take away the pain take away the hurt. You really have to step into the child to feel her pain you can not stand to one side and throw labels at the feelings….you have to feel them one by one bit by bit feel them acknowledge their existence, accept the loss and grieve for all the things that are never going to be. It’s hard because no one wants to go back to the scene of the crime no one wants to be that little girl again too much loss of power in that….but that is exactly what has to happen you have to surrender to the moment and trust everything will be okay. That is what I did all my life look for the person who was going to be able to say “it will be okay you are safe now”. I didn’t realize the only person whose words would really matter would be my own. Healing the child within involves listening to that child and all her fears, doubts and insecurities no matter how silly they may sound. I always said I felt this or that but never once did I allow myself to feel the emotion safer to bypass that road. I always felt my Fathers presence when I got angry when dysfunctional behavior surfaced when I started to tell myself unhealthy lies stories. And I always felt the little girl there scared afraid waiting to be told everything would be okay but I didn’t do that instead I ignored the little girl just as my father had done I didn’t let her speak just as my father had done I didn’t give her a voice just as my father had done….it wasn’t my father who kept that child from healing it was me. I was determined to get angry be angry stay angry because if I wasn’t angry then I had to accept my role in keeping the legacy of my father’s words alive. Be accountable and worst yet there would be no more excuses for why things in my life were not working. I went back and felt what the child had felt didn’t try to analyze it didn’t try to put it in a box simply felt it. I went back and forgave the man didn’t forgive the actions but forgave the man. I went back and released the chains to the past Abuse all abuse leaves a mark but it does not have to anything but a reminder of how far you have come and how courageous and brave you really are. |
| Steps to Healing and forgiveness |