lightness of being

yesterday, I embarked on a bit of woo woo healing action, and worked with my friend Michelle, an energy healer, to dig deep into some stuff that's coming up for me.  in my latest bout of self exploration, I've come to the realization that I have developed an intimate relationship with my anger.  it's not something new, it's a hindrance that has walked along side me for most of my life.

as a little girl, there's a moment indelible in my mind, I'm with my father.  in this moment I'm complaining, gossiping and judging, and he turns to me, and says, "when did you become so negative?"

that is a very good question.  you see, I was not born negative.  my true nature is not to be negative or down.  in my heart, I am light, optimistic and filled with love. so how did I end up becoming so negative.  when did I birth this inner wounded one who throws tantrums deep inside me, trying to get noticed and heard by others?

in my session yesterday, we danced backwards in time where I recreated all the incidents where scars occurred.  whether I was at fault or someone else, that was irrelevant, it was the reliving of these moments in a chronological memory tapestry that illuminated some things for me.  it really doesn't matter who did what, it was the scarring that carved out a road map to the wounded one who lives within me.

I was given the option to correct my past experiences or be different or just get out a hose and blast them out.  guess which option I went for?  yes, the Hose!  I picked that thing up and aggressively doused out these moments.  there's no way to change our past, so why pretend I could possibly design a new trajectory to get me to this very place where I stand now?

here's what I have to takeaway ... I am afraid of letting go of my pain, fear and anger.  if I truly choose happiness in its purest sense, it would mean letting go of these cultivated hindrances in my life.  the problem is, I have this codependent relationship to my anger, my pain and the armor I've built up around myself to deflect the possibility of being hurt more.  the pain I carry continues to hurt me, but it keeps me from letting in more.

hanging onto all this negativity has another side effect.  it it keeping me from letting in the good stuff, the love that is all around me.  my boyfriend tells me he loves me, and I question it constantly.  how can that be? how can he love me when I am so incredibly unlovable?  there's more to me than the wounded one inside.  he sees my light. he loves my capacity for unconditional love.  he sees my magic.

as I dig deeper into this self reflection, the thing I love most about myself is my capacity to love others, to see the good things in them and lift those things up.  to acknowledge others and raise them up, to hold them in high regard and gift them love without anticipating this in return. I do this for people all over my life, strangers I meet for the first time, friends I make, the man I love and of course ... MY CHILD!

my boyfriend has often told me that one of the reasons he is so enamored of me is that I make a mark or leave an impression on everyone I meet.  I really see it, he is right.  my love, laughter and levity is such a gift.  it encompasses so much of who I am, and it is what I lead with in most of my daily life.

this giant weight of pain has been lifted, I let it go.

someone said the other day, it is far easier to let love into a broken heart because there are all those cracks to let light in.  if this is true, then my broken heart is capable of taking in a lot of love.  at Kol Nidre services tonight, the rabbi asked us to let go of the 'husks' that we think 'protect us' and make room to let love in.  how timely that tonight's sermon was so closely related to the transformative lessons I've had in the past few days.

this new lightness comes with boundaries.  I've let three very 'important' people go from my life this week. deleted. blocked. 'dead' to me by being removed from my citta (heart mind) and let go of (for my own good).  they have their own path, and mine wasn't designed to care take their toxic misery and illness and lead to authentic happiness at the same time.  there is not a way to have both or do both, so I surrender.  there's no chance in pleasing the people who have destroyed me, and trying to get their approval is killing my light and my beautiful soul.

I think, like the fear around questioning what life would be like without fear, holds the same kind of aversion to wondering if I can manage going on without having these 'constants' in my life.  it's ok, I'm making myself ready to be ok with just not knowing for the sake of my joy.

the intention here is to make room for love to come to me, to come in and fill me.  I have a beautiful child, a wonderful boyfriend, fabulous friends, a robust career life and I have ME.  there is much to be grateful for, and I realize it's ok that it doesn't look like how society says it should and it's ok if it's imperfect.  I have loads of love, and doesn't that defy perfection and expectations?  I mean, love is what we want to attain and look how much I have. It's abundant! It's amazing.  It is mine, and I am worthy and deserving of it.

so, I stop trying to plug up the cracks in my heart.  instead, I am celebrating all those cracked bits, the places that are letting the light and love in.  I am open, I am vulnerable, practicing compassion, slowing down and my commitment for  5775 is to make room for all the love and let it in.

divorcing my mom (working title)

I think most daughters have challenges in their relationship with their mom.  It's probably also true that most people struggle to identify and connect with their parents.  We all have things about growing up we wish we could change.

... and for a long time, I thought my life at home was just those things. My parents taught me I was a difficult child.  My mother wished I had never been born, and scolded me and hit me for so many things I lost track of all the wrongs I committed from when I was very young to the very present.

I don't know how many times I've said sorry but not really understood why, or felt I had to appease my mother because I'm so 'bad'.

The reality is, I grew up with a mom who is mentally ill.  Her sadness, depression and narcissism corroded anything good we could have had.. and now as a septuagenarian who's recovering from a stroke, it all seems different.  Worse, because I am made to feel obligated to accept her vitriol and apologize to her for her pain.

I keep kissing her ass, spending money I don't have on gifts, dinners and events, telling her she is beautiful and that I love her.... even though my words are met with, "You're fat" "I can't stand you" "Get out of my sight" "I prefer to surround myself with beautiful people, that makes me feel better. I wish you'd get out of my sight because you're so hideous"  "I'm embarrassed for my neighbors to set eyes on you" "You're ugly" "No one can stand you" ... sigh, or far more damaging words like, "I love your son the way I could never love you" or yesterday's, "No Elissa, I've never liked you and I never will," when I went to visit her with my son despite my preference not to.

Somehow, I believed her to be right so many times, I can't see anything else in the mirror but the hideous worthless monster she always says I am.

She broke her wrist mysteriously over a week ago, and refused to get treatment.  On the phone she'd call me and say it was my fault for annoying her so much, that somehow from 130 miles away, I broke her wrist and caused her that pain.

When my mom had her stroke two years ago, I was the first on the scene.  With my child under one arm and my phone in the other hand, I was juggling calls, speaking with doctors, ensuring she'd live and be safe.  I was the one who contacted my sister and father and made the initial arrangements to get my mother to the ER and to safety.  I made the tough calls, and did my best.

My mother was immobile ... and I stayed by her side, cleaned her, fed her and took care of her.  Even in this fragile state, so close to the possibility of death, I had to sit there and take her vitriol as though I deserved it.  Despite everything, I held her hand, made sure she ate, told her I loved her and did my best to give her whatever comfort she needed.  My son missed months of school, my job went south, I was unable to keep up my life and gave it up (again) to care for her.

It was during that time that I found her will where it was explicitly stated that I was to get nothing, that I was a 'threat' and a 'danger' to her.  Despite the fact that I cleaned her like a baby because she kept soiling herself and demanded she be cared for by the nurses, that I was ALWAYS the one to be there to get her to emergency rooms, nurse her after surgery and do my best to help her through one illness or another... I was a threat.  She had blogs and stories I had written over the years stapled to the document proving that my expressing my challenged relationship with her made me a horrible person and she was afraid for her life because I was writing such things.

(I'm pretty sure this blog will be the last nail in that disowned coffin)

You see, up until my mom's stroke, I really thought that I was a really bad person.  She had me believing I really was a challenging child to raise, and a difficult person to love.  Her abuse seemed justified and I somehow thought that I was truly unlovable.  This sort of scarred view of myself, this repugnant picture created for me ... has made it difficult for me to accept love the way I deserve, or realize that I'm not really the things she says.

My mom is depressed and mentally ill.  But as a kid, I thought this was just how moms who have difficult children behave.  That all of her upset was on me, I made her unhappy.  I never really understood or could realize that this had nothing to do with me. I was forced to go to therapy as a kid, and I hated it.  Each therapist wanted to 'dig deep' and figure out why I was such a horrible kid.  They tried to medicate me, scold me and treat me as though I were this miscreant they should all find a way to tame.

All this time I was put into programs, boarding school, therapy... my mom was the one who really needed to do lay down on the couch.

To be clear, around the time of my mom's stroke, I had a major life changing lightbulb moment.  When I came to the realization that she was clinically depressed and that she was really very sick, I was able to see that she did the best she could and that she didn't have the capacity to be the mom because she was so damaged.  I made a conscious decision to break the fetters of my constant pain by practicing acceptance and forgiveness.  It was an unbelievable breakthrough, to see my mother for the broken bird she is and be able to love her despite her inability to love me.

This forgiveness hasn't changed.  I rationally know that she did the best she could, and that was incapable of giving me the mother's love I craved and needed my whole life.

To be clear, no matter what has happened, I've always and still do Love my mother unconditionally.  Even now, in this moment of excruciating pain, I still see her as this beautiful woman and love her with this desire that she'd one day approve of me and love me back.

I've been told many times that I deserved to have a mom who loves me unconditionally... but I got a bum hand.  That it is ok to feel like this bad deal hurts and to wish I had more parental love in my life.  It's why I over compensate with my own son, treating him with extra love, hugging him so much it can drive him bonkers, telling him all day long I love him and that he is awesome just the way he is.  I get to love my son the way my mother never loved me, or something twisted like that.

In a dharma talk I heard at the beginning of my buddhist journey, the teacher talked about boundaries and taught me that they are necessary for our own survival.  I've gone extended periods of time not talking to my mom, or reluctantly screened a call from time to time to preserve a moment that is happy.  Right now, I'm going to create a different kind of boundary.  I'm divorcing my mom.  It's not out of hate, because I love my mother so much.  That may seem inane but... I'm a kid who wants my mother's approval.  I'm that kid who goes out of her way so much to obtain my mom's attention that I'll do anything for it, even if those choices have been unhealthy.  I wasn't difficult, I was a child starving for affection and love from a women incapable of loving me.  This quest has been very damaging to me, and it's time to stop searching for the holy grail of love and approval from the person who is supposed to love me ... It's time to end the pain of the seeking, and to break out of the prison of this pain.

I'm divorcing my mom.  It's not out of hate or spite ... but more like self preservation.  As my 45th birthday approaches, I need to reevaluate what my life looks like and the life I want to have.  I can't go another day craving love from a person who has chosen to resent me for being born.  It's unhealthy for my well-being to be blamed for every horrible happenstance even when I'm over a 100 miles away.  I can't keep looking in the mirror and hating the person I see because the tape I keep playing over and over is my mother's voice telling me I'm hideous.

On a holiday morning where everyone is having a dreamy breakfast, filled with laughter and fun, I'm realizing that I need to break free of the relationship that causes me the most harm... to preserve myself, I have to divorce my mother.

At this moment, I am mourning the potential to have a good relationship with my mother because any sort of spark or belief that my mom would be a 'mother' to me is a fantasy as fantastic as a furry creature leaving me gobs of chocolate in colored eggs today.