"We need to reframe our thinking, for our inclination
to hide our mistakes increases the likelihood we will not own and learn from
them. We need to reframe our
understanding of mistakes as opportunities to learn, to increase our
consciousness and our creativity.@
_______________________________________________________
I’m going to come back to Wood’s mention of increased
consciousness. But a couple more
pitfalls. The fast pace of our
lives. We so rarely have time to just
be with ourselves or with family members.
Many things take away our time –dealing with children, perhaps with
aging parents -- use up our emotional energy, making it harder to do the
emotional work of healing.
Probably THE BIGGEST IMPEDIMENT......to healing B is fear of change, fear of the unknown B a reluctance to go into hurtful places.
Joyce Rupp, author of Praying Our Goodbyes says, AWe can never move on until we let go of whatever binds us
to the past. If we have a memory that
eats away at our integrity or an anger that gnaws at our peace, we will not
move on in freedom. Why do we hang on so tightly? It=s natural to want the known, the
secure. Few of us like the uneasiness
that change brings. We would rather
cling to the present pain, than face what is unknown, no matter how good it is
for us.@
Yet pain is a language that commands attention.
Caroline Myss says that:
We are not meant to stay wounded.
AHealing and change are one and the same thing.@
AHealing, like spirituality,” she says, “is an on-going process
... of opening the heart. It's not supposed to consume us indefinitely and it
is supposed to unfold.
Myss also talks about another pitfall -- defining ourselves
by our wounds, making them permanent badges of honor. She recommends that our long term soul mates not be people we
repeatedly exchange the same wound stories with. If I keep telling someone the same wound story, I need to be
asked – Myss says -- what I’m getting from the re-telling.
Another (sort of) impediment, ironically, is the flip side
of the family benefit – we’re not alone.
Doesn’t it take at least two people to heal? What if my daughter won’t talk to me, no matter what I do? To begin, WE ONLY NEED TO HEAL
OURSELVES. ONCE WE EXPERIENCE HEALING,
WE CAN EXTEND OUR FEELINGS TO FAMILY MEMBERS WE’VE HURT AND BEEN HURT BY. HERALING IS POWERFUL. IT SPREADS, SOMETIMES NOT RIGHT AWAY, BUT
OVER TIME.
AN INDIVIDUAL CALLING
I believe we each have an individual calling to heal
ourselves and our family wounds in order to achieve our own wholeness. This healing is a process we’re called to
take on in order to fully develop ourselves.
Going back to the guided meditation. Recall what you felt like with a sense of
your parents being near you on the beach -- is there something you=d like to resolve with your parents – or with a child? Will you take the risk – pulling up those
old feelings and welcome the change?
Healing is dredging up old pain and risking being
overwhelmed by it for a time. It’s
focusing on unresolved issues. And it’s
counterintuitive – because opening up emotionally can actually free us from
dragging that pain around for the rest of our lives.
HEALING is letting go, being vulnerable. This is difficult but healing comes about
when we give up control, stop making logical points and go the places of our
feelings.
________________
When feelings about family hurts are brought into the light
they can be cared for, we can put them in a place of understanding and
love. Healing family wounds is a
journey that begins with emotional openness and a major part of this openness
is increased consciousness, or awareness, as Gretchen Woods advocates.
Increased consciousness, or increased awareness, may be
misnamed. It’s not about more thinking,
or being in a more intellectual place.
Increasing our awareness is becoming more alert with an open mind, a
mind that’s not filled with a barrage of to-do’s, and have-to’s. It’s getting in touch with ourselves on a
quieter more genuine level.
Meditation of any kind opens us to receive insights because
it clears head space for new ways of seeing things and for previously
unrecognized emotions.
Increased awareness is a way to be more alive.
It’s a pathway to buried emotions that – while bottled up
-- keep us wounded. Increased
consciousness is a way to break unhealthy patterns that may keep us
wounded. Being robotic, sleepwalking
through life, being too busy for reflection – are all states we occupy that are
contrary to fully knowing ourselves, to being fully aware. People who are in denial can’t know that
they are until they exchange some of their habitual responses for new
approaches.
_________________________________________
And while meditation is great, other practices and
resources can help us realize it.
Personal, inward practices like journaling, walking, yoga, or tai chi,
gardening.
Telling someone a hurtful part of your life story or
writing it down -- keeping a journal -- or a dream journal. Dreams are often about our emotions.
Reading children's books is wonderful (especially the ones
you enjoyed as a child).
The Artist=s Way by Julia Cameron is a
workbook that offers guidance for self-discovery. Cameron’s practices help to open natural pathways that increase
consciousness.
Any inner, quiet time that helps open us to recall memories
and reflect is important.
Whatever form your personal healing takes, experiencing
past Losses and Hurts lets us become more intimate with the feelings. Regular time spent in these activities lets
us slowly unwrap, layer by layer, hurts that may have felt lost to us or too
overbearing to deal with. This
unbundling brings those hurts out where they can be cared for and where they
heal. It’s like opening that doorway to
the beach, to reconciliation and peace.
WHY BOTHER WITH HEALING
-- FORGIVENESS
In our journeys toward wholeness, healing family wounds
also takes us to a place of forgiveness.
Forgiveness, Myss says, makes sense to us intellectually
but we don't complete it until we approach it on an emotional level. Our
emotional involvement in the healing process assures us that we have options
(and that we are not victims) even in the face of the most unjust
circumstances."
Myss says: "One of the greatest struggles of the
healing process is to forgive both yourself and others and to stop expending
valuable energy on past hurts."
___________________
SUMMARY
What=s left then when we recognize
and deal with guilt, anger, and blame?
Negative feelings can be let go.
What fills that space ….forgiveness
..... Just the openness that comes with being more aware... where
there’s listening.... receiving.... and connecting.