Daily forgiveness and lies we tell ourselves

 I am still doing my daily out loud forgiveness. Saying the names of the three people I still feel resentment towards sometimes. It doesn't seem like lip service anymore and it really doesn't seem like anything at all. The solution is always inside my own head but it has taken this long to get to the point where I know I have the solution.

The brain is the collector of all the things we have ever experienced the words that have been said to us and the things we have seen. Repetition is the root of all the negativity we have experienced  Starting with when we are young and a  seed of negativity planted by someone we thought knew everything or someone that loved us or maybe someone that was trying to help.

For me it started when I had problems in school.  The first week of school ending up in the hall of Mrs. Outz's class a women my mother went to college with. This was stressful and was the beginning of a long life of just not fitting in really. I quickly got the impression that there was something wrong with me and it was very upsetting to my my mother.  

She addressed this as a discipline problem and up the number of whippings I received then put me on a sugar free diet.  In the second grade I had my eyes tested and I am legally blind without my glasses.  This did help my grades a lot but not really my behavior.  There was some discussion of medication but my parents didn't like the idea and although they weren't hippies but they did think diet was important hence the no sugar regimen. 

I even spent a few months in special ed with Bobby who lived on my street. I thought it was strange that they gave me this time off from class to play with Bobby who obviously had some serious problems. The truth is no one could explain why what we were doing in class was so important.  It seemed so dull to me I could think of a million different things I could be doing with my time. 

When my mom got cancer in the third grade the focus shifted to her and I had to figure things out for myself.  I had to make myself invisible as much as possible and entertainment myself. This led to many hours in our basement alone coming up with projects constantly creating things. I had some friends mostly younger kids who didn't mind having a leader to follow.  I made things fun and no one got into trouble. It was a good time in my life but it did shape the person I became.

I have always believed that I am a problem and even to this day I try to not bother people if I don't have to. I am self sufficient in every way possible which makes me come across and not needing anyone. I am sure my exes would agree with that. They wanted someone who didn't need anything from them and could be autonomous. I remember the few times I needed emotional support they ran away.

This how I have become me. The difference now is that I don't think I am a problem. The child in me learned that a long time ago.  I have made it a habit to not ask for help because in the past I haven't gotten it from the people that said they loved me. The difference now is that I know it is not my fault. Humans are messed up and we live alone in our heads with only our own feedback. We hurt the child in others as well as the child inside without even realizing it.

I am constantly listening to what I am telling myself and when it is negative I ask myself "why do you believe this?" It is always the patterns we have laid down in our brains that we have repeated over and over again. We have to make an effort to stop repeating and replacing them with positive thoughts about ourselves.

My 21 days of forgiveness is an exercise of re-writing the past and replacing the bad with the good. My point is that we have the power to stop the words in our own mind. We can stop believing they are true and get out from under the lies we tell ourselves. We can experience freedom for the first time.

What is going on? Spritual Awakening

I have spent a lot time alone this holiday. Being alone shows me exactly where I am emotionally and ultimately spiritually.  I have been doing some writing this weekend about my childhood journey and my mother's sickness.  The writing started out very objective but scene after scene that I relived started to feel physically heavy to me and I wanted to run. Could I still have emotions tied to something so long ago? The running is really the painful part not actually feeling the emotions.

In an attempt to run emotionally I actually decided to physically run on my treadmill.  Now you know this is definitely a desperate way to avoid having feeling when you would rather exercise. At first it really worked focused and sweating I was moving fast.  Then the old song I think it is called What's Going On started to play.  When the emotions came to the surface tears streamed down my face.

I am writing about a little girl who was living in a household where something was wrong but no one was talking about it. Even when it was obvious that there was a secret and things were happening but it was clear to me that I shouldn' ask questions so I didn't.

We were told that if you don't speak the words of faith that the miracle you are looking for will certainly not happen. If we doubted that God would heal my mother then she wouldn't be healed.  I took that to heart and assumed that she would be healed because that is what I was told.

When she died I couldn't understand how that could have happened.  During the years of her sickness I learned how to be autonomous. Before her sickness I was the problem child demanding with ADD and an endless stream of ideas and questions about everything. When she got sick I learned to take care of my own needs and stay out of the way as much as possible. Be helpful or be invisible if I could. Even before she was sick my life was easier when I entertained myself alone in my room or in the basement.  I didn't get in trouble or get whippings and everyone seem happier especially my mother when I stayed out of the way..

I have felt like that throughout my life and during extreme periods of pain and sadness I especially didn't want to be a burden to anyone. Until writing about this time in my life this weekend I didn't really see that this is how I came to be who I am now and why I don't reach out. Why the only person I have ever really trusted with my emotions was ex husband and that ended with him running away screaming.

People like strong people and I have been strong since those early days in the basement. My sister recently told me that when she was leaving for college at 17 she didn't want to leave me with my stepmother and I said to her "don't worry I will be fine I can take of myself."  In her mind this gave her permission to not worry about me.  She was telling this story saying "you said I could go."  I was twelve and evidently had the authority to do that.

I am not a fan of re hashing the past like I am doing in this blog today but sometimes when you have spaces in your life and you don't try to fill them with some kind of entertainment even exercise you can have a spiritual awakening that can cause you to cry while running on a treadmill.

I can see where the idea that I should take care of myself came from and why I believe everyone should be responsible for themselves and work through their own problems. I have helped a lot of people along the way realizing they weren't like me autonomous but something happen and I have grown tired.  I take take care of myself  and try not to be a burden to anyone.

I know this is wrong and that I do need emotional support and I need to support others.  I will see where this thinking leads me.