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Fran. Dear Fran. Every morning at 4 a.m., before even the farm roosters began their morning crow, she lay in bed and began her planning. All the things. So many things. Strategic planning, hurried planning, responsible planning. Her solar plexus ached with a strong desire to do well and mean well, but she always felt cold, stiff, rigid. She was alive yet exhausted, reliable yet relentlessly busy, integrous yet demanding. A rumble of nausea rose in her gut, interrupting her thoughts, if just for a moment.
Her red-haired Scottish husband, who lay just a few inches to her right, was oblivious to her early morning list making narrative. He always slept hard, physically exhausted from all the work he needed to complete on his wife’s list from the previous day. Each morning, he would wake up slowly, yearning for silence. Quiet. Instead, he would wake to her intense enthusiasm and her lists. The obligation to make her happy crept in and yet, day by day, he felt more and more distant from his dear Fran. Fran dreamed of sitting on their front, wraparound porch of their enormous hand-constructed log cabin where she could view their fenced in areas for the animals that needed boundaries like goats and sheep. She would also see the vast, unfenced areas where the other animals ran free like dogs and fowl. But she was too busy to sit for they had developed a beautiful working farm growing food for themselves and others, just like the one that Fran’s grandmother left behind in Switzerland so many decades ago. Grandma’s name was Francis, and she began working at the age of five. She had become a furious list maker, like her daughter and now her granddaughter Fran. Three generations of never relaxing, busy, busy, constant movement and agitation. All three women felt irresponsible, guilty, and quite literally nauseous if they stopped for any measurable amount of time to take pleasure in their lives. No time for that. The ‘list maker’ in all three women appeared grandiose, lacking in vulnerability or warmth, yet the hidden hunger that powered its intensity longed for softness, love, and security. The degree to which list making constructed itself into a viable identity is to equal degree the longing for safety and love. Grandmother Francis and her daughter could not see this for they were loyally blind to its construct, driven to play out the role from beginning to end. Fran, however, had her husband to thank, for he saw. He wanted Fran to enjoy all that he had created in her name. Loyally blind to her lists and to her heart, his exhaustion woke him up and he spoke. So that morning, in bed, the farmer turned to his wife and whispered, “Let’s not waste the best years of our life Fran.” She immediately felt nauseous, spinning and alone. It was a feeling that her mother and grandmother knew as well. A feeling of desperation and fear that the women in Frans family conquered through making and checking off lists. Who knew when this way began. Fran had heard a bit about her great grandmother, that she too was caught in an inner whirlwind feeling of ‘something is wrong, so get it right.’ Fran allowed herself to feel that familiar feeling, asking her dear husband to hold her tightly. She breathed. She cried. He whispered that nothing is wrong. Everything is alright. She asked him to repeat that over and over again. And he did. He loved his Fran and the way she loved their farm and their life. Fran lay quiet and very still as her husband offered a blessing to the women from whom she came. He honored their way as the old way. A way that served their fierce fears and got them through. They would be remembered for their contributions and given a place in their hearts. He held Fran tightly and whispered that it was okay to let the compulsive list making go and know that she is intrinsically bound to her Swiss lineage too. She sighed. And relaxed. She could feel a bit more playful now, and softer. There were things to do on the farm, but Fran knew that they could wait. And so that morning they stayed in bed taking pleasure in each other, if just for awhile, on the bed that they had built together.
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Her Mamaw and Papaw could not see her for who she was when growing up, or even now, thirty-four years later. Both parents had an uncanny knack for pinpointing the faults they saw in her as not fitting in. And all those ‘faults’ were the very things that made her unique and special. In addition, the things that the little cowgirl cared about, like a kitten or a doll, would mysteriously disappear. Sometimes she would not receive presents at Christmas, her parents explaining how she had been a very bad girl that year.
Despite how much the girl could identify the illegitimacy of her parent’s behavior, she felt guilty for letting them down and responsible for hurting them. She also felt a chronic anxiousness made up of anger, sadness, powerlessness, and loss. She hated speaking with her Mamaw in particular, often not answering the phone when she called. She knew that this was a big step, but she also realized that her parents were not going to be around forever. It was still scary to imagine what her Mamaw would say to shatter her fragile world. The cowgirl still gave her parents the power to destroy her. That’s first, and second, she felt guilty, and third her hips sank under this weight rendering her immobile and silent. She was struck and stuck and barely keeping her head above water. Yet, she came to realize that she must honor her parents as they are, keep a healthy distance, and use the life her parents gave her to be true to herself without anger. She did not want to be a rag doll anymore, but a cauldron of love and self-care. Luckily the cowgirl had help. Her girlfriend saw too and supported her autonomy and agency and authority. She learned to take her parents off the imaginary pedestal and see them as they are too. Human. Conditioned. Stringent. She recognized their dire need for her to fit into a code of behavior that would guarantee belonging to a people and a place that was not hers. She started to move through the world not as her parents’ broken daughter, but as a composed and talented woman. Her reclamation came with the understanding that her anger was a signal that let her know that she had an unmet need; the need to be seen and celebrated and supported for all that she is. Rather than waiting to receive this from her parents, or even others, she learned how to see, celebrate, and support herself. This perspective and orientation were exactly what she needed to honor her lineage while stepping into a vastly different lifestyle. She would have liked to receive permission and a blessing to do it differently from her parents, but that would have been impossible. Their blessing would have been for her to be like them. So, she asked the soul of her long gone Auntie Sarah to step forward instead as the cowgirl knew that she was the right one for this message. After all, she was her namesake. The warmth of love that Auntie Sarah shared from her soul gave cowgirl the freedom to be. Auntie Sarah had a message that expressed how necessary it was for her great niece to do it differently so that the family tree could grow a new limb. She was not an outcast or a black sheep, but a forger of higher consciousness and for that, Auntie was so grateful for it was something she had tried to express. In her time there were too many constraints and who she was became an unbearable and unspoken secret. Auntie Sarah reiterated that she belonged, and she was different. She could be as she was meant to be now for it is what all children want. And the cowgirl turned city girl received the blessing in every cell of her body, appreciating her special role in her family. “I am a foreign object, lucky, but not worthy.” She worked in ‘big law’ culture representing people who were not as lucky and who felt equally unworthy. Her parents hailed from a small country that hosts the largest open-pit gold mine in the deserts of central Asia, north of Afghanistan. The lawyer would return ‘home’ every other year for weddings and funerals, but grew up in Adams Morgan, an upscale neighborhood in D.C.
Yasmina looked in the mirror once a day, disciplining her eyes to look downward any other time there was a mirror around. Bathrooms made this difficult, but she had mastered the art of not looking. No selfies or group photos either, at least as few as possible. This was especially hard since her many friends all loved to document evenings out with lots of pictures for memory’s sake. On one of these evening dinners out, she looked over at her best friend and shared that being a lawyer was not her first career choice; it was her parents. “I did what was expected of me and I made sure that I was very good at it. And now I have everything that I could want and more, but I do not like my job.” She explained how she functioned automatically, returning home every day to her sofa for hours of nothing. “What I really want, really and truly, is to be creative as a fashion stylist, teaching people by sharing the dos and don’ts of dressing well.” She has had a lot of practice in formal and more casual affairs owning three wardrobes full of clothing in her top floor apartment. Her friend listened and asked Yasmina why she didn’t or wouldn’t explore this interest more seriously. Yasmina paused and lowered her eyes, whispering that her greatest fear is being laughed at or worse, being called stupid. “Who would take me seriously; lawyer by day, and stylist by?” She thwarted every effort to express her genius by staying in the smart lane and avoiding the other. It had to be one or the other in her view, as both seemed impossible. Her best friend Maryam tried to understand Yasmina’s view, but her right brain made seeing her dear friend’s dilemma easy for she could be radically inclusive, seeing both her job and her interests as mutually compatible. Meanwhile Yasminas left brain saw her dilemma has mutually exclusive, eliminating any possibility of a blaringly obvious compatibility! Yasmina gave the suitable name of ‘Fear’ to her left front and back brain. Maryam gave the suitable name of ‘Love, Awe, and Wonder’ which she called ‘LAW’ to her right front and back brain. When Maryam shared this with Yasmina, her eyes lit up hearing this acronym! She could imagine tricking her left brain by using LAW to take down the flood gates that blocked her years of unique and creative ideas. Her fear brain had no idea what to do with her genuine inspirations but could be convinced to let LAW take over simply because it loved the name! Slowly dear Yasmina reoriented her inner perspectives enough to speak of her skills at work. “Please help me find my look,” one coworker exclaimed, and “Yes, please help me, I have a huge function coming up next weekend and I have no idea what to wear,” said another. Yasmina’s eyes lifted upwards this time with a look of awe and wonder and not a shred of fear. She had made the journey from her left brain to her right and back again as she organized her ingenuity! The best part for Yasmina is that her parents approved. In fact, she was asked to design her cousin’s wedding ‘back home’ giving her the freedom to explore her country’s national costumes that boldly featured ornate brocade, lace, and layers of colors. Yasmina found her place in both of her home countries, slowly but surely, and no one, absolutely no one, thought her stupid or laughable, not even herself. She was a teeny tiny snail hiding against the furthest back wall of the open inner cavern of her shell. The left side of her viscous body contracted into a declaration of overwhelm, as every day she brilliantly performed ‘all the impossible things’ to keep the peace. The right side of her body however, contracted into a declaration of “NO!” that felt loud, unapologetic, and angry. On occasion the inner cavernous experience became too much to bear since she was chronically enmeshed with either the right or the left side of her body. So, the tiny snail would burst out of her shell, if just for a moment, to experience what she called a ‘’bubble of awakening.’ In these rare moments she felt free, blissful, and limitless. These moments were brilliant, but ultimately overwhelming since they were short lived and without lasting effect. This was a difficult life. She felt projected from her inner life experience to the outer moments of bliss, only to collapse back into her heavily conditioned and familiar inner reality. One day the ageing, wise snail of her small group slowly slithered up to her side. He had been eyeing her, seeing her suffering for some time. He parked his shell close to hers and waited patiently and peacefully for he was in no hurry for her to realize his presence. Eventually she did, and her tiny snail head slowly slid out from the shell just far enough to see him. She blinked and squinted, and magically his presence alone gave her permission to begin a rather long monologue of lament. She whispered at first, a small voice strained with pain, but as she came further out of her shell, her voice got stronger and louder! Her complaints were valid, he nodded, as her fatigue was monumental, and the aloneness she felt failed her precious life. The wise one asked her how it is that she wanted to feel. “Safe,” she replied. “Safe to be me without being responsible for other people’s happiness and enormous expectations.” She could feel the weight of this burden along with the old, old longing to please. Eventually the tiny snail had said enough. Wordless, she allowed all sensations to rise and fall. The paramount effort of critical self-awareness dissolved, and the vast, open, transparent field of Awareness became the foreground and background, infinitely and eternally. All that rose as a thought, feeling, or sensation, simply dissolved back into the wordless void of love without any desire for attachment or identity. This was no ‘bubble of awakening ’discovered as an exit strategy from the inner shell story, but a realization of God and Beingness. Truth and presence surrendered the story of the tiny snail as a transient creation with no judgement. God as Awareness and Love experiencing its creation through the snail and the snail knowing herself as That. As her personal identity project collapsed, she realized the truth of all beings, and she could simply, beautifully, purely, be. The two snails relaxed in the sun with nothing to do, change, or fix. A bubble of quiet, palpable joy emanated from their tiny snail souls providing a lens of silent awe and wonder. The solidity of their shared inner stillness witnessed the movement of life in, through and around them with a deep, abiding care. An impersonal, cosmic love that beckoned no action, but a silent recognition of itself. The tiny owl insisted on wanting a life partner, yet wondered if she was ready or how she would know who that right owl coco was! After a string of disastrous and dangerous partnerships, she chose to be single, refraining from looking and focusing on healing her heart, mind, and feathered body. She constructed a nest of security and learned to live on her own.
Years later on a dating app called ‘Who, Who is right for You, You?’ she met a male owl and started to get to know him. She flew an hour to meet him in his territory for each of their visits as she was too cautious to invite him to hers. Her fear and control caused her to reflect on her inner turbulence and as she did, she made an interesting realization. Her owl parents were extremely promiscuous, both having many partners, insecurities, and troubles. She became the same way as an owlet, seeking a partner based on the color of his feathers, moving into his nest, and then leaving a short time thereafter for another. Boundaryless, she mimicked her family’s ways and met a lot of danger and a bit of heartache too. So, in her abstinence, she became the opposite, enacting the truth that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Life moves in dialectics – action, reaction, synthesis. Repeat. Now she was too boundaried! The owl went from partying to sobriety, carefree to serious, many partners to no partners and both extremes were no longer working. But, when her new friend did not call back right away, for example, she felt anxious and afraid, her mind full of ‘what if’s’ around fidelity, questioning her perceptions and wondering if being single was best. The tiny owl was not in danger, nor was she ignoring anything important. She realized that at the beginning of her journey she needed crisis as a catalyst for change, to make the massive shift from out of control to highly controlled. But the catalyst she was now ready for was progress. She no longer needed a crisis to grow as she felt that she could learn to trust her owl wisdom and intuition and relax into a new way of being with an owl that might be the right one. She would take her chances and do it differently this time, so with a bit of fear and a lot of excitement she invited him to her nest for their next weekend visit. Look, this is no laughing matter. The mother took her 9-year-old son and fled her husband’s violence and unbridled tyrades to a different continent. The father in turn found them thousands of miles away and kidnapped his son, scurrying back to that unnamed country. Unbelievably, the father was entirely supported by the woman’s whole family. Every one of her family members supported the father in taking his son away from her because they value a boy’s life more than a girl.
Well, she returned to that unnamed country, found her son, and once again took him back with her to live a life of hiding. She felt betrayed, sad, hurt, lonely and truth be told, the betrayals started at a very young age. At two she was burned, at seven years old she was blamed for the string of molestation's that continued for years by various family members, all while being indoctrinated into a culture that branded all girls as useless. She could trust no one and no one trusted or believed in her. Her life experience exuded a fowl odor of utter disrespect. None-the-less, this brave woman wanted to break free from the feelings and their stories and forgive her family. She also knew that what she wanted and needed most was to be loved, and that if she were, she would feel fulfilled. No doubt. She held a pillow tightly as if holding the many layers of accumulated pain in her arms. It helped. She imagined her whole body being saturated with a soft pink honey like nectar, speckled with yellow and gold, that held the frequency of unconditional love. Her body relaxed. She shared this nectar with the pain pillow, and she perceived it softening too. She took ten minutes to lie down, legs bent, pillow held, to invite the chronic tension in her jaw, neck, and shoulders to relax. It was a start. Some of her stories were just too brutal to share. Many were lost in a chronic brain fog. Her body needed recalibrating out of adrenal burnout, shame, and fear, back to a more livable setting first. So, she willingly committed to this practice for as long as it would take while slowly finding her words, one story at a time, when the timing was right. No hurry. No pressure. No judgement. She began to breathe just a little more deeply and the look in her eyes was that of extreme relief. For the first time in a very long time, she felt love for herself. Have you ever met a problem detector; someone who can see everything that is potentially wrong in any situation? This wee girl learned to be this way as she grew up during the war that devastated her country, her neighborhood, her family, and her life as a teenager. She felt like a huge, disorganized cloud of fury and chaos, not able to breathe while averting panic with every step.
Her job was to stay uber-attentive, trying to sense, see, and hear what might be happening next. Outside, inside, anywhere, everywhere, she was figuring out how to be okay with chaos in her family and her country, but the pressure was insurmountable. She was full of ideas about how and what to do, but sharing was pointless. She swallowed her words and became a handful for her parents who had essentially given up in the face of terror and uncertainty. This girl became a highly educated woman who fled her country through marriage. She became very successful, and professional, raising her child with perfection. But her second husband and his son were chaotic, troublesome, and desperate. She recognized these feelings as if she had grown up drinking a measly broth of them every single day, and she hated it. She had so many ideas on how to fix her husband and stepsons relational dilemma. She spied on them from the next room over in their upscale home preparing to fix them with her expertise. She was prepared. Ready. Precise. But they would not listen to her. The innocent arrogance that she had developed growing up shaped her sense of self so thoroughly that she could not, would not, let go, and it threatened her marriage and peace. She had it all and her problem detector protector part was still vigilant. She lost sleep, was giving up, and more, began to disrespect her beloved husband. The desperateness in her saw the desperateness in him. That is the rule of thumb: What I don’t like in you, I don’t like in myself, and what I like in you, is what I like in myself. Whoa – a mirror! The desperate feelings of her youth crawled out of the depths of her deep, deep belly and sat right in her chest. Feelings of loss, being panic stricken, not belonging, and especially, loneliness. These feelings were as big as the fancy living room she sat in, filling her heart and home with agony. But now she could at least feel, sense, and see them herself. She felt them for her teenage part since she masterfully hid them beneath her problem detection systems. She breathed easier, releasing years of denial that softened the way she saw her husband at war with his son, and herself at war with her husband and her original family too. She felt a soft empathy rising and a sense of belonging that reminded her that she has always known that angels were listening to her deepest desires. She sensed their grace now opening the channels of her heart, inviting her to relax into the life of her dreams. Have you ever met a problem detector; someone who can see everything that is potentially wrong in any situation? This wee girl learned to be this way as she grew up during the war that devastated her country, her neighborhood, her family, and her life as a teenager. She felt like a huge, disorganized cloud of fury and chaos, not able to breathe while averting panic with every step.
Her job was to stay uber-attentive, trying to sense, see, and hear what might be happening next. Outside, inside, anywhere, everywhere, she was figuring out how to be okay with chaos in her family and her country, but the pressure was insurmountable. She was full of ideas about how and what to do, but sharing was pointless. She swallowed her words and became a handful for her parents who had essentially given up in the face of terror and uncertainty. This girl became a highly educated woman who fled her country through marriage. She became very successful, and professional, raising her child with perfection. But her second husband and his son were chaotic, troublesome, and desperate. She recognized these feelings as if she had grown up drinking a measly broth of them every single day, and she hated it. She had so many ideas on how to fix her husband and stepsons relational dilemma. She spied on them from the next room over in their upscale home preparing to fix them with her expertise. She was prepared. Ready. Precise. But they would not listen to her. The innocent arrogance that she had developed growing up shaped her sense of self so thoroughly that she could not, would not, let go, and it threatened her marriage and peace. She had it all and her problem detector protector part was still vigilant. She lost sleep, was giving up, and more, began to disrespect her beloved husband. The desperateness in her saw the desperateness in him. That is the rule of thumb: What I don’t like in you, I don’t like in myself, and what I like in you, is what I like in myself. Whoa – a mirror! The desperate feelings of her youth crawled out of the depths of her deep, deep belly and sat right in her chest. Feelings of loss, being panic stricken, not belonging, and especially, loneliness. These feelings were as big as the fancy living room she sat in, filling her heart and home with agony. But now she could at least feel, sense, and see them herself. She felt them for her teenage part since she masterfully hid them beneath her problem detection systems. She breathed easier, releasing years of denial that softened the way she saw her husband at war with his son, and herself at war with her husband and her original family too. She felt a soft empathy rising and a sense of belonging that reminded her that she has always known that angels were listening to her deepest desires. She sensed their grace now opening the channels of her heart, inviting her to relax into the life of her dreams. Within the family atmosphere of emotional breadcrumbs, shame is often hidden in plain view, unclaimed and unrecognized.
It disguises as self-sabotage and disgust through projection onto others, often coupled with hate, rage, or fear. Or it needs perfectionism, control, or pleasing as its savior. Only the child in this bubble of unclaimed shame does feel its anguish and will valiantly claim it as personally his. From the unconscious perspective of the child, if they own the shame, they can at least try to fix it. This shame ultimately takes the form of a core inadequacy belief that demands: I am shameful, unworthy, wrong, bad, unlovable, or broken. But this shame was never the childs to begin with! And taking it on never works anyway. Ever. Instead, the child grows up feeling responsible for fixing their parents health or well-being. The adult child grows to feel that they know better than their parents. And they embark on a lifetime of self-improvement seeking peace or resolve. And we often get caught in a viscous cycle where we shame the parts that feel shame. We reject the parts that feel rejected. We feel anger toward the part of ourselves that is angry! All to keep the feeling at a safe distance. It is energetically inefficient to pile affirmations on top of this state. It must be felt and allowed, with the space of the silent, conscious, awake, aware Self, preferably with another nervous system. In this way we can give shame its place in the evolving consciousness of not only our family, but humanity at large. Working with Mother and Father Wounds can bring peace to generations. |
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