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.