One day...

...at a time. I see now why 12 step groups use that mantra: because speaking in generalities is terrifying. "Will I _never_ make that horrible choice again? Will I _always_ do the right thing?" It's tricky. And challenging. It's the eternal process, ever unfolding.

I think the biggest lesson I am learning is about forgiveness. Mostly learning how to really forgive myself. Because I had grown up in an abusive dynamic as a child, I learned that I was my own worst enemy. I was conditioned to see all of the things that I did personally that brought about negative effects. If I got nervous about my first day of school, or got angry about the way the family dog was treated~there were consequences to my emotive actions. It wasn't my dad's fault for getting angry, it was my fault for provoking him. And slowly I became conditioned. If I do such and such, compassionate love will be withheld, impatient aggression will be doled out.

Because children really are dependent on their care taker's offerings of nurturing support, it is in the children's best interest to modify their behaviour to still get the requisite love needed. So, we silence parts of ourselves, and suppress/repress what we feel doesn't bring us that desired affection. But there is always a backlash. There is always a reservoir of hurt and pain when we implement those modifications. Some of us are better at draining those emotional pools, so we won't drown in them later down the line.

As for me, I was horrible at it. My pool of emotional reserves became tsunami status whenever I was required to add a new facet to the "suppression" list. It wasn't until my teen aged years when I started to stage a coup. I was angry that I wasn't allowed to be the scared little kid that I felt I deserved to be. I wasn't held and told it was going to be okay, or that I was going to be okay. I was never taught how to self-soothe as I got older. Instead I was scolded, punished, humiliated for feeling upset. It was inconvenient to my parents that I had any emotions at all. I was labelled as "difficult" and analyzed. What was there to question? I just needed even the tiniest amount of compassion. Was that so impossible to see?

I have spent my lifetime trying to heal from these early developmental wounds. I have tried to learn the skills of intimacy, and the power of compassion and empathy. I have tried with all of my focus to be a "good" person, knowing all too well the damage that occurs when "non-good" people have too much of a presence in our lives. And yet, I still fall short. As good as I have tried to be, I often feel like I am somehow still that jerk that screws up. That failure that has emotional responses that make me unlovable, rejected, abandoned. I get angry, too angry and I am the jerk. I get sad, too sad, and I am pathetic. I get frustrated, too frustrated and I should back off.

Ironically, one of my best qualities I believe is also my biggest weakness. I think my capacity for compassion and my attempts at patience have really devastated me, and left me wide open to give not so mindful people the benefit of the doubt, and really crush me time and time again. I say that now, from a place of just having been leveled. Again.

Having grown up profoundly wounded, I have always fought for the underdogs. In elementary school I was well liked, but aways rallied around the kids who were teased. In high school I worked at art programs, and sought out the kids with emotional disturbances. In college I studied Conflict Resolution to ensure the less fortunate weren't going to get bullied anymore. Professionally, I worked with~ and later adopted animals that no one else could handle because they were not "tamed." But unfortunately, I think this applied to many of my relationships as well.

Because in theory, I empathize with wounded people, I often put myself in the line of fire accidentally. I think many of us have bumps and bruises, I mean~ we all must if we have been conscious... But there is a difference. A difference between those who believe that they are capable of handling challenging things, and working through their fears to achieve a sense of closeness and openness, versus those who have felt so profoundly "wrecked" by the course of their lives that they can not restore faith in the possibility that they can heal and turn things around.

Maybe because I saw myself as so profoundly "wrecked" by much of my life~ so conditioned to think that my reactions were bad, and made me unlovable, that made me feel like I deserved to take whatever punches came my way. Sometimes working for the "victims" can victimize us along the way. Hurt people hurt people. Hurt people hurt me.

So, where does it end? How do we stage that coup, start a revolution where is it about healing and not fighting? When it is about compassion and empathy, not "one upping" each other? When the things we were taught to silence within ourselves are heard, and still make us lovable? When do those elements within us that make us feel most broken become our greatest assets?

How do we get there from here? One day at a time, right? But with what exactly do we fill those days to make a genuine transformation happen? When do we decide to let down our defenses to find true intimacy when we have been so conditioned to think that we literally can not exist without those shielding mechanisms?

How can I love you if you keep wounding me, because you feel unlovable and wounded? How can I love myself knowing that I have not loved you "well" enough to make you feel safe enough to let down your defenses with me? How do we not trigger the historic emotional landmines that every person we ever loved planted in our hearts? How do we diffuse those bombs we are about to drop, and heal from the ones already dropped?

I mean~where the hell do we begin?

Perhaps forgiveness is the first step. If I can forgive myself for the lifetime of telling myself I am unlovable because I was that scared kid who didn't know how to handle things~then maybe I can liberate myself from those paralyzing, self-sabotaging confines. Maybe telling myself that all kids get scared, it makes us human~ that what I felt was in the scope of the struggles of humanity will help me heal. I couldn't choose my parents' reaction to my struggles, but I can change the context of how their reactions now affect me.

I was a scared little kid, who was bullied into more fears, instead of bullied out of them, like they would have hoped. With that realization, I had always tried to exert a calm patience with others when they were struggling most. But as we struggle we can lose perspective, and lash out at those who witness our vulnerability. I was wounded there, in that place of wanting to be an ally, for being close enough to reignite those older fears of being told we are unlovable.

I was told that I became my father. I was leveled. How could I have become what I hated most: the impatient, abusive bully that wrestled some anxious person into submission? How could I have seen so much of myself in that person hurting so badly, and want to be the ally we never had, and yet ironically and horrifically became yet another aggressor to be added to their list?

Conflicted... How could I have become the enemy that I despised?

Somewhere in here I am trying to find the roots to forgiveness. Forgiving myself for being the scared little kid that I felt brought on the abuses endured. Forgiving myself for being the person who took a lifetime to learn the skills to self-soothe, all the while desperately depending on others to "fix" it for me. Forgiving myself for consistently putting myself in positions where I would relive those old wounds over and over again. Feeling rejected, unlovable, abandoned because I did not reach out in the "right" ways. Seeking out patterns that I thought would help me transform those old patterns instead of affirming them. Forgiving myself for disappointing all of those whom I loved most. Forgiving myself for not "making" these people feel as loved as I wanted them to~as that desperate little kid in me had always hoped to feel. Forgiving myself for suppressing my anger every time someone hurt me, and twisting it around on myself, like it was my fault, so I could only punish myself and continue the cycle. Forgiving myself for the ways that the depression and suicidal tendencies were the modes that the self-punishment manifested, and in turn punished and hurt others. Maybe somewhere in there I am even learning how to forgive the father with whom I now identify. Perhaps if I have made the same mistakes, even while trying to desperately to be a good person, I can learn that others can make the same missteps. I can forgive my father for being human, and hurting those we love accidentally from that place of giving in to the pain, rather than learning from it.

I don't want to forgive myself for loving the "wrong" people. I don't think the people were wrong. I think what was wrong was the power I forfeited that kept me tethered to giving myself away under the guise of "love."

One of my best friends told me over dinner last night about an anecdote that really helped her ten years ago. That someone was really hurting and went to her best friend and said, "So and so really screwed me over. I hate them, how could they do that to me?" This friend replied: "You need to thank that person." Of course the woman upset was floored. How can she be expected the "thank" the person who most devastated her? The friend said: "You will learn more than you could ever imagine from this experience. That person has just granted you the opportunity to learn about yourself in a way that wouldn't have been possible otherwise. And for that, you need to thank them."

I see what my friend was saying. Maybe I never would have known the importance compassion and empathy would play in my life, had I not felt that trauma throughout out my childhood. Perhaps I wouldn't have invested myself in making it the focus of my life's work, be it in Conflict Resolution, friendships, romantic relationships, my own transition ~ my own healing, had my past been different. Perhaps I need to "thank" my father for granting me the opportunity to see that is what matters most. This is the foundation that he helped me to create for myself. Despite it being so crippling and debilitating at times~like all growing pains~we can become stronger by healing through that growth and development.

Times like now, I see what matters. I see through the haze of my broken heart, and believe that it will heal again BECAUSE of this opportunity to learn more. This opportunity to heal and find more answers BECAUSE of the fear, the pain, the delivery into an arena in which I am completely unfamiliar. If I could muster up enough courage to make the leap of faith to change my life during this transition, and see that as a metaphor to learn more despite the fears that surfaced, I know I can learn from this period of change as well. Transforming what had hurt me most into what teaches me the most... But I need to be the one ready to make that paradigm shift.

The grass is only greener on the other side if and when we finally commit to being gardeners, rather than the ones pissing all over our own yards...

I can forgive and be grateful for all that has hurt me the most. It has crafted my character and gotten me here, to this place of deeper understanding and ultimately peace. Thank you for breaking my heart, it will serve me well. Much love and gratitude... Will