In yoga, our final exercise involves lying on the ground and just being present with our bodies. In the past, I've visualized a greenhouse, sometimes in moonlight. On some nights the plants are withered and dry, on some nights some I picture some weakly flower struggling through, and on some nights I cherish one blossoming.
Last week, there were figures in my greenhouse. I noticed Shame, gray and frenzied. I didn't judge her, didn't assail her, didn't fight her. I noticed her. And when I looked, to my surprise I noticed Joy to the side, softly beaming buoyant yellow light as if she had just been outside of my field of vision the whole time.
This week, Shame was more distinct. She looked like me, cast in gray. Turned in upon herself, tortured brow, back caved in, softly sobbing, hopeless. Then I noticed Love. Graceful, rose colored. Love sat next to Shame, lightly caressing her back. Love did not recoil, Love did not flinch. Love stayed, her face filled with gentle sympathy. Shame's tears did not stop. But she folded onto Love, her head resting on Love's lap as Love cradled her, softly stroking her hair.
And as Shame cried, so did I.
And as Love loved, so did I.
Friday, May 30, 2014
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
As If There Was Never Any Other Way
I was so close. I was so close. And yet, here I am, flooded with shame yet again.
I spent almost all of last week cajoling, expressing, processing, reflecting upon, accepting my shame. I got tired of it, wanted it gone, saw no reason for it. I affirmed myself, explored where it comes from, looked at myself and accepted myself. And after a week of work, I found myself Sunday feeling anxious but without shame. Feeling that I was not a bad person, that I could connect with others, that I could conceivably be loved.
And then today, I made a misstep which was only significant in my own mind, which was painful but a learning opportunity. And I saw myself have the opportunity to say "We all make mistakes, and I made one, but I learned from it and won't make it again."
But like watching myself in slow motion, I felt the desire to feel ashamed. I so strongly felt the pull towards this mistake meaning that I was a bad person. To believe that everyone around me is better, is good, and I alone am uniquely terrible. I didn't immediately fall into it, which is a kind of progress I guess, for such an attribution is usually so fast as to be automatic. But even though I saw it happening, even though I reached out to others, even though I engaged in positive self-talk and affirmations and reminders that shame is intrapsychic violence, that shame doesn't help me connect to others, that I can learn without it, that it is just not necessary or what I want, it only delayed. And now, again, that harsh metal is inside me, cutting cutting cutting me, telling me I am toxic, I am poison, and that I need to protect everyone from my corruption lest they too be defiled.
I just feel so sad. It was so nice to be without shame. So nice to go a few days without hating myself. Without punishing myself. Without believing the world would be such a better place without me in it. It was nice. And I watched myself succumb to it. As if there was never any other way.
I spent almost all of last week cajoling, expressing, processing, reflecting upon, accepting my shame. I got tired of it, wanted it gone, saw no reason for it. I affirmed myself, explored where it comes from, looked at myself and accepted myself. And after a week of work, I found myself Sunday feeling anxious but without shame. Feeling that I was not a bad person, that I could connect with others, that I could conceivably be loved.
And then today, I made a misstep which was only significant in my own mind, which was painful but a learning opportunity. And I saw myself have the opportunity to say "We all make mistakes, and I made one, but I learned from it and won't make it again."
But like watching myself in slow motion, I felt the desire to feel ashamed. I so strongly felt the pull towards this mistake meaning that I was a bad person. To believe that everyone around me is better, is good, and I alone am uniquely terrible. I didn't immediately fall into it, which is a kind of progress I guess, for such an attribution is usually so fast as to be automatic. But even though I saw it happening, even though I reached out to others, even though I engaged in positive self-talk and affirmations and reminders that shame is intrapsychic violence, that shame doesn't help me connect to others, that I can learn without it, that it is just not necessary or what I want, it only delayed. And now, again, that harsh metal is inside me, cutting cutting cutting me, telling me I am toxic, I am poison, and that I need to protect everyone from my corruption lest they too be defiled.
I just feel so sad. It was so nice to be without shame. So nice to go a few days without hating myself. Without punishing myself. Without believing the world would be such a better place without me in it. It was nice. And I watched myself succumb to it. As if there was never any other way.
Sunday, April 6, 2014
A Piece of Should
If you'd asked me a few weeks ago if I was depressed, I would have said "Oh, no. I have a lot of anxiety, but I'm not really depressed." I would have said that because, to me, "depression" was staying in bed for 12-16 hours at a time for weeks, loving the rain and winter because the dreary washed out gray mercifully made the world look the way I felt, and spending most of my free time on weekends researching suicide methods. Fortunately, that is no longer the case.
But I'm beginning to realize that I really am depressed. I'm pretty high functioning, but nevertheless I am depressed. And at the core of the depression, when I really get right down to it, is an unrelenting stream of "shoulds" so integrated into my sense of self that I don't even notice them (you should be better should be smarter should be faster shouldn't make mistakes should be happier should eat better should exercise more should have better work habits should shouldshouldshouldshould)
[I've heard other counselors aptly refer to this as "shoulding all of yourself."]
"Should" is a weird concept. It's pretty much the superego personified in word form. It's a sense of responsibility or obligation instilled from the outside. It's contrasted with "want." That's the id. It's desire, zest, joie de vivre.
Far too often, "want" conflicts with "should." Some "should" is probably a good thing. Much of Freud's theory of the subconscious centers around the idea that socialization happens when parents/society tell a child "no" (and because it's Freud, this is often surrounding sex/toilet training). The child starts to internalize those voices and gradually learns how to regulate themselves to fit in with the rest of society on their own.
And sometimes, that can be pretty great. But for me, I've internalized so much that I've lost touch with what I want. To various extents, it's made me a pretty responsible and conscientious person. But it's also left me pretty unhappy most of the time, too.
But one of the reasons I really like existentialism is because it basically says that we get to decide who/how we are in the world. There are limits on that, certainly, but working within those limits, we get to decide. There's not a clear answer, there's not much direction, it honestly might not work out. But we get to decide. And I am increasingly getting to the point where I want to consider what I want to do and how I want to be instead of how I feel I should be.
So a goal that I want to work on over the next few months is to figure out what I want. And not just in a broad, self-actualization sense. I mean, asking myself "How do you want to handle your mistakes?" Not "How do you feel you should respond to your mistakes?" but how do I want to. What kind of person do I want to be in my relationships? How do I want to approach stress? To approach uncertainty? To approach boredom?
Obviously, wanting alone is not enough. But I think moving away from depression will require some guideposts that I can hold onto whenever I start to slip into a sea of should's. And, at the very least, it will be better than all the ruminating I've been doing. I think that's something we all can want.
But I'm beginning to realize that I really am depressed. I'm pretty high functioning, but nevertheless I am depressed. And at the core of the depression, when I really get right down to it, is an unrelenting stream of "shoulds" so integrated into my sense of self that I don't even notice them (you should be better should be smarter should be faster shouldn't make mistakes should be happier should eat better should exercise more should have better work habits should shouldshouldshouldshould)
[I've heard other counselors aptly refer to this as "shoulding all of yourself."]
"Should" is a weird concept. It's pretty much the superego personified in word form. It's a sense of responsibility or obligation instilled from the outside. It's contrasted with "want." That's the id. It's desire, zest, joie de vivre.
Far too often, "want" conflicts with "should." Some "should" is probably a good thing. Much of Freud's theory of the subconscious centers around the idea that socialization happens when parents/society tell a child "no" (and because it's Freud, this is often surrounding sex/toilet training). The child starts to internalize those voices and gradually learns how to regulate themselves to fit in with the rest of society on their own.
And sometimes, that can be pretty great. But for me, I've internalized so much that I've lost touch with what I want. To various extents, it's made me a pretty responsible and conscientious person. But it's also left me pretty unhappy most of the time, too.
But one of the reasons I really like existentialism is because it basically says that we get to decide who/how we are in the world. There are limits on that, certainly, but working within those limits, we get to decide. There's not a clear answer, there's not much direction, it honestly might not work out. But we get to decide. And I am increasingly getting to the point where I want to consider what I want to do and how I want to be instead of how I feel I should be.
So a goal that I want to work on over the next few months is to figure out what I want. And not just in a broad, self-actualization sense. I mean, asking myself "How do you want to handle your mistakes?" Not "How do you feel you should respond to your mistakes?" but how do I want to. What kind of person do I want to be in my relationships? How do I want to approach stress? To approach uncertainty? To approach boredom?
Obviously, wanting alone is not enough. But I think moving away from depression will require some guideposts that I can hold onto whenever I start to slip into a sea of should's. And, at the very least, it will be better than all the ruminating I've been doing. I think that's something we all can want.
Thursday, January 9, 2014
Monday, January 6, 2014
Truth, Proof, and Having Faith Anyway
On Proof and 'The Truth'
My father never lost an argument. Like any skilled artisan, significant credit goes to his tools. And, by far, his most powerful one was The Truth.
Not just any 'truth' of course. The way he saw the world was The Way, and all other ways were lies, malice and/or idiocy. His trick, though, was that he didn't outright make things up. Instead, he used something everyone had to agree had actually happened. And then he'd use what had happened to hammer his perspective home.
For instance:
When I was 3 years old, I used to sleep in the same bed as him. I was always afraid to get up to go to the bathroom, because it might wake him up and then he'd get very upset with me. So I told my mother that I was afraid to go to the bathroom. When she talked to him about this, he yelled "What am I, some kind of ogre that won't even let my own child use the bathroom?" And he used me bringing up the concern as evidence that my mother and I did not love him and thought he was a terrible person. Which led to "If I'm such a terrible person and you are all so miserable here, I will call the divorce lawyer and end this right now." So we'd plead for him to stay and try to convince him that we did love him. But he would have none of it. "NO, NO, NO. You said that you were afraid to go to the bathroom. Didn't you? Didn't you?" When you admitted that yes, he was right, you had said that, he would then (armed with that evidence and your agreement) use it to prove that you did not, in fact, love him. And since you'd already begged him to stay and agreed it was your fault, he would win. He was the victim, we were his tormentors. And he had all the evidence he needed to prove it.
What do you do with that? Well, you try to do everything perfectly [i.e. the way he wants], all the time. To show him, to prove that you really do love him. But you're a stupid kid who is cognitively incapable of doing that. So you do or say something he doesn't like, and he's right back to "YOU DID THIS BECAUSE YOU DON'T LOVE ME." And while it's clearly a logical leap, if you can't objectively prove your love, his way wins. Your father, The Adult, tells you, a child, that although you think you love him you actually don't or you wouldn't do these things. Even though you know you love him, it's obviously not a good enough love to prove it to him. You don't have any proof that makes him believe. And he has plenty of evidence that you don't love him. So not only do you inconvenience and torment him all the time, you don't even love him well enough to be able to convince him of it. That pretty much makes you a monster.
My favorite example of The Truth is how, during one fight, he badgered my mother into signing a piece of paper that actually said "I no longer love John." His sophisticated persuasive tactic to accomplish this was probably the twentieth episode of the following routine:
"If you loved me, you wouldn't do <thing that displeased him #463>. But since you did it, you clearly don't love me. You did it, right?"
"John, I--"
"No, Mary, You. Did. It. Am I right?"
"John, that's--"
"MARY, DID YOU OR DID YOU NOT DO IT?"
<resignedly> "Yes, John. I did."
"Then it's true you don't love me. Admit it."
"John, that's not-"
"No Mary, you already admitted you did this. And since you did it, you can't possibly love me."
"John, that's not true."
"Yes, Mary. Yes it is. You already admitted that you did it."
<just to get him to stop> "Fine. Ok, John, yes. I don't love you. You win. Will you stop now?"
"No, I want it in writing."
So after more of the same for a few minutes, she signed it.
And from that point forward, every single time my father needed to prove that he was the victim in a loveless marriage to a cruel, hateful wife, he would say "No, I know you don't love me. You haven't loved me for years. I have it on paper."
That was always what arguing with my father was like. Yes, my mother did literally do something which my father was displeased with. Yes, he got her to say that she did not love him. Yes, she even signed a piece of paper that said this. The facts that he berated her until she did or that there may have been motivations other than hating him or hurting him for the initial thing that displeased him are completely ignored. If you tried to argue with him, he used what you had said like a cudgel and beat you with it. He always had proof.
When you're in an environment where your abuser is Always Right (and won't allow any other outcome), where he will threaten to leave until you take the blame and beg him to stay, where he will always yell until you acquiesce, where he always has a litany of 'concrete evidence' to justify his claims, it's almost impossible to believe that he's wrong. *Especially* when you're a child. His Truth always trumps yours.
Having Faith Anyway
Why did he do this? Well, fundamentally, what I think my father wanted even if he didn't realize it is undeniable, everlasting proof that he was loved. Like many of us, he was hurt badly in his past (as a child) by the people who were supposed to love and protect him (his parents). Ever since, he has been so scared of being hurt again that he wants Absolute Proof of Love before taking the risk of trusting it.
In many respects, his fear is well founded. Love is trust. Love is risk. When I tell you "I love you," you can't really know how I feel or what that means. You can gather a bunch of evidence one way or another. But you can't really know. You just have to trust me. Yet when you've trusted in love in the past (especially as a child), and that love has not protected you, you are acutely aware of how risky it is to believe someone else saying "I love you." My father said "I love you" all the time. And every time, because I felt like such a terrible person since I did all these things to hurt him and convince him I didn't love him, I felt terribly guilty when he said it. Is it any wonder that I find "I love you" such a hard thing to believe myself?
It's a risk. You can gather evidence to help make it a safer risk. Still, on some level, you just have to trust the other person. You have to hold onto the belief without Absolute Proof. You have to have faith.
My father was too scared to take the risk of believing I loved him. So I thought my love wasn't good enough. That I wasn't good enough. So I have been too scared to believe I can be good enough for others, because I know so acutely well how much it hurt to try so hard and still not be good enough for my father.
And now, in my adulthood, I have internalized his voice, asking for Absolute Proof of my love. Of my worth. Of the validity of my feelings. I am constantly demanding, constantly dissatisfied. Some evidence of my worth may temporarily quiet the voice, but it always comes back. It always wants Absolute, Eternal Proof that I Will Be Good Enough.
More and more, though, I have come to accept that there is no Absolute, Eternal Proof. I can never prove to my father that I love him. I can never prove to myself that others love me. I can never prove that everyone isn't lying to me when they say I matter to them. I can never prove that even if I've been valuable to people in the past, that I will continue to be valuable to them in the future. I can get evidence that supports these conclusions. But there's always a chance I could be wrong. Always a chance.
For most of my life, I've let this lack of proof rule me. Because there is no Absolute Proof, I've been too afraid to take the risk. I've been too afraid to have faith.
Too afraid to have faith in others, but also too afraid to have faith in myself. What if I believe and I'm wrong? What if I trust someone and they can't help me when I need them? What if I trust myself and I'm not enough? And they're hurt? And they leave? Again?
Possibilities, all. But I don't want to live my life like my father. I don't want to deny myself love, deny myself worth because I am afraid of what will happen if it goes away. I don't want to always, incessantly demand a proof neither I nor anyone else can ever give me. I have to take the risk of trusting others. Of trusting myself. I have to have faith.
Not a foolhardy faith, not a faith built upon what I want to be true. But a faith informed by my experience, by what I think I know, by what I feel. I know there are things about myself from which I can build a sense of worth. I know I have people in my life who, imperfect as they are, truly care about me and will advocate for me and won't easily let me go. I may fail. They may fail me. But I am at the point in my life where I am convinced that the pain of that failure is less than my constant fear and the loss I would feel at spending my entire life never believing in myself and those who love me. Like my father, I will never have Proof that I am and always will be loved. But unlike my father, I don't have to let an absence of Proof deny me the chance of having love at all.
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
The Im-Perfect Resolution
This year, my New Year's Resolution is to be imperfect.
I pledge to make countless mistakes.
I vow to struggle at the things I want to do better.
I agree to not be the person I wish I was.
I swear to do some things very poorly, to do a lot of things moderately ok, to even do some things really well but *only* some of the time.
I promise to disappoint people. *Especially* the people I care about.
I am determined to not be the best at anything. Nor will I receive unparalleled accolades, significant fame, anything greater than marginal influence, or anything approaching prodigious success.
I fully intend to not only fall short of my goals, but to be inadequate even in my pursuit of inadequacy.
In 2014, I resolve to give up perfection. And, most challenging of all, feel good doing it.
I pledge to make countless mistakes.
I vow to struggle at the things I want to do better.
I agree to not be the person I wish I was.
I swear to do some things very poorly, to do a lot of things moderately ok, to even do some things really well but *only* some of the time.
I promise to disappoint people. *Especially* the people I care about.
I am determined to not be the best at anything. Nor will I receive unparalleled accolades, significant fame, anything greater than marginal influence, or anything approaching prodigious success.
I fully intend to not only fall short of my goals, but to be inadequate even in my pursuit of inadequacy.
In 2014, I resolve to give up perfection. And, most challenging of all, feel good doing it.
Friday, November 29, 2013
What Change Is
For all my doubts and fears, I do firmly believe in this: change is possible. It can be hard, and there is always a limit to what you can and can't change. But we can change ourselves. We can change our patterns. We can even change patterns that have been entrenched in our families for decades, for generations. Change is possible.
I've believed this so devoutly for so long because I need it to be true. It's why I started blogging, actually, over a decade ago: I wanted to explore myself, understand myself so I could find a way to change and avoid the endlessly repeating patterns of destruction my father seemed trapped in all his life.
And slowly but surely, I've been changing. I have some honest-to-god friendships with people I trust not to leave me. I have some confidence in myself. I can, increasingly, not only identify my feelings but vulnerably express them to others. And, perhaps most difficult but most important, I can separate my responsibility to others from how they are responsible for their own reactions and own choices.
I have changed. So very much. I'm still changing. And today I decided to truly test it.
I've not talked to my father in a few years. I have had very brief, very superficial conversations. But I've not said anything of substance to him in three years. It's been really good for me. To remove such an omnipresent source of fear and guilt, to free myself from constantly feeling responsible for him; it's been really really good. But I also felt really guilty about it. Not because I wasn't talking to him, but because I didn't tell him why, didn't at least give him a chance to respond. So finally, I felt like I'd grown enough to meet with him and talk to him.
So, today, I did.
We walked for a little awhile, easing back in, catching up. And then we sat down and I told him.
I told him that there were many reasons I'd distanced from him. The main one, though, was what happened the last time we'd really talked, three years ago, about me coming out to his parents. He felt that me telling them would kill them, and he made it clear that if I did against his wishes he would really, truly hurt me. Back then, I did what I knew: got really quiet, felt really guilty and scared, and gave up. But today, I was able to tell him that that conversation was not only terrifying but immensely hurtful because it felt like he felt as if I really wanted to hurt him and he had to do whatever it took to stop me.
He agreed with me, and said he still feels that way. He still feels like my mother, my sister, and I do want to hurt him. He said he's felt at least since we were in high school that we didn't care about him, that if he was across the street bleeding to death in a ditch we wouldn't do a thing to help him.
In the past, I would have been wracked with guilt and stayed silent. I would have felt like I couldn't do anything to change his mind, and I would have been paralyzed.
But because I've changed, I didn't do that. I knew I couldn't convince him of anything. But what I could do was tell him how I feel and then let him do with that as he would. So I told him that it hasn't felt like that just since high school. That I could remember telling him that I loved him when I was six years old and that he would still tell me "No, you don't." That I tried for years and years even as an adult, despite his furious drunken rampages, despite being called a traitor and harangued for hours during his divorce, despite being terrified of him all my life, that I had tried and tried to keep caring for him and not give up. But that when he threatened me, it became apparent that nothing I could do would ever be good enough to convince him that I cared about him. So I stopped trying.
And then, astonishingly, he said that I was right. He said that he's felt this way in all his relationships, that he can't trust anyone and that everyone wants to hurt him. It didn't really affect me that much, not at first. He's apologized before, and he's really good at saying what a "bad, terrible person" he is. I've always known he hates himself, and he's so filled with guilt and shame that it's not uncommon.
So I didn't trust it. I still don't. He's tortured and has so many years of dealing with his demons that I'm not going to jump for joy and say "Oh Daddy, I love you so!" and believe everything's going to be ok in the end. But, as we kept talking, I started to let myself listen. I let myself hear him say "It wasn't right for me to transfer my suffering to you as a child." I let myself hear "I made my own choices and it wasn't your fault." It wasn't my fault. It wasn't that I wasn't good enough to prove I loved him, it was that he was not in a place to believe that love. He decided, influenced by so many of his past experiences, to reject me. It was his choice, not a defect of mine. And he said this. Over and over. And even if it was a statement made from guilt, a statement made to convince himself he was A Good Person, a statement he will forget, a statement disconnected from his emotional core, it was also a statement I think part of him really believed.
In a movie, this might have been an epic turning point. Or it might have been vindication or a momentous event for me. But it wasn't. I keep wanting change to be A Huge Moment where things "click" and I am the optimal, self-actualized person I feel I can be. I keep wanting The Answer or The Experience which makes everything different. Yet change, as I've experienced it, has never been about Big Moments. It's a bunch of small, but significant moments. It's slow, inching growth.
Today, I grew. Instead of responding with fear, self-blame, or guilt, I responded with vulnerable honesty from a hard-earned place of compassion and self-worth. Instead of disbelieving or not trusting the affirming things someone else (my father, of all people!) said, I let myself listen to them. Instead of taking responsibility for his self-hatred, for his guilt, for his anger, I was better able to let those be his own choices and reactions and to let authentically expressing myself Be Enough. I was not in a place to do any of these things three years ago. I don't think I could have even imagined them. But today, I did.
Again, it's small. I don't know if my father will change or how our relationship will look in the future. But it feels good to put myself in a situation that used to completely overwhelm and defeat me and come out the other side intact. There is some guilt. There is some doubt. My heart is still hard with mistrust. But not as much guilt, not as much doubt, not as hard. And I think that's what change really is.
I've believed this so devoutly for so long because I need it to be true. It's why I started blogging, actually, over a decade ago: I wanted to explore myself, understand myself so I could find a way to change and avoid the endlessly repeating patterns of destruction my father seemed trapped in all his life.
And slowly but surely, I've been changing. I have some honest-to-god friendships with people I trust not to leave me. I have some confidence in myself. I can, increasingly, not only identify my feelings but vulnerably express them to others. And, perhaps most difficult but most important, I can separate my responsibility to others from how they are responsible for their own reactions and own choices.
I have changed. So very much. I'm still changing. And today I decided to truly test it.
I've not talked to my father in a few years. I have had very brief, very superficial conversations. But I've not said anything of substance to him in three years. It's been really good for me. To remove such an omnipresent source of fear and guilt, to free myself from constantly feeling responsible for him; it's been really really good. But I also felt really guilty about it. Not because I wasn't talking to him, but because I didn't tell him why, didn't at least give him a chance to respond. So finally, I felt like I'd grown enough to meet with him and talk to him.
So, today, I did.
We walked for a little awhile, easing back in, catching up. And then we sat down and I told him.
I told him that there were many reasons I'd distanced from him. The main one, though, was what happened the last time we'd really talked, three years ago, about me coming out to his parents. He felt that me telling them would kill them, and he made it clear that if I did against his wishes he would really, truly hurt me. Back then, I did what I knew: got really quiet, felt really guilty and scared, and gave up. But today, I was able to tell him that that conversation was not only terrifying but immensely hurtful because it felt like he felt as if I really wanted to hurt him and he had to do whatever it took to stop me.
He agreed with me, and said he still feels that way. He still feels like my mother, my sister, and I do want to hurt him. He said he's felt at least since we were in high school that we didn't care about him, that if he was across the street bleeding to death in a ditch we wouldn't do a thing to help him.
In the past, I would have been wracked with guilt and stayed silent. I would have felt like I couldn't do anything to change his mind, and I would have been paralyzed.
But because I've changed, I didn't do that. I knew I couldn't convince him of anything. But what I could do was tell him how I feel and then let him do with that as he would. So I told him that it hasn't felt like that just since high school. That I could remember telling him that I loved him when I was six years old and that he would still tell me "No, you don't." That I tried for years and years even as an adult, despite his furious drunken rampages, despite being called a traitor and harangued for hours during his divorce, despite being terrified of him all my life, that I had tried and tried to keep caring for him and not give up. But that when he threatened me, it became apparent that nothing I could do would ever be good enough to convince him that I cared about him. So I stopped trying.
And then, astonishingly, he said that I was right. He said that he's felt this way in all his relationships, that he can't trust anyone and that everyone wants to hurt him. It didn't really affect me that much, not at first. He's apologized before, and he's really good at saying what a "bad, terrible person" he is. I've always known he hates himself, and he's so filled with guilt and shame that it's not uncommon.
So I didn't trust it. I still don't. He's tortured and has so many years of dealing with his demons that I'm not going to jump for joy and say "Oh Daddy, I love you so!" and believe everything's going to be ok in the end. But, as we kept talking, I started to let myself listen. I let myself hear him say "It wasn't right for me to transfer my suffering to you as a child." I let myself hear "I made my own choices and it wasn't your fault." It wasn't my fault. It wasn't that I wasn't good enough to prove I loved him, it was that he was not in a place to believe that love. He decided, influenced by so many of his past experiences, to reject me. It was his choice, not a defect of mine. And he said this. Over and over. And even if it was a statement made from guilt, a statement made to convince himself he was A Good Person, a statement he will forget, a statement disconnected from his emotional core, it was also a statement I think part of him really believed.
In a movie, this might have been an epic turning point. Or it might have been vindication or a momentous event for me. But it wasn't. I keep wanting change to be A Huge Moment where things "click" and I am the optimal, self-actualized person I feel I can be. I keep wanting The Answer or The Experience which makes everything different. Yet change, as I've experienced it, has never been about Big Moments. It's a bunch of small, but significant moments. It's slow, inching growth.
Today, I grew. Instead of responding with fear, self-blame, or guilt, I responded with vulnerable honesty from a hard-earned place of compassion and self-worth. Instead of disbelieving or not trusting the affirming things someone else (my father, of all people!) said, I let myself listen to them. Instead of taking responsibility for his self-hatred, for his guilt, for his anger, I was better able to let those be his own choices and reactions and to let authentically expressing myself Be Enough. I was not in a place to do any of these things three years ago. I don't think I could have even imagined them. But today, I did.
Again, it's small. I don't know if my father will change or how our relationship will look in the future. But it feels good to put myself in a situation that used to completely overwhelm and defeat me and come out the other side intact. There is some guilt. There is some doubt. My heart is still hard with mistrust. But not as much guilt, not as much doubt, not as hard. And I think that's what change really is.
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