Isolation. Separation. Divorce. The opposite of oneness...wholeness...and safety. This is often what we are modeling and reflecting to our children. From the moment the nurse takes our newborn...he is placed in an isolated plastic container. Our boys have an added bonus of circumcision. Later we are told to let him "cry it out" in a separate room...and told "he needs to self-soothe." Mommy and daddy just blindly follow the instructions...disconnecting from our own intuition.
We wonder why our children grow up and...seem so...DISTANT.
They're basically getting the message from early on that their feelings don't matter. Their suppressed and ignored cries become passive sadness or aggressive anger. And this is just the beginning.
As for me...I tried my best to do things differently from the start with my youngest child. I fought for a chance at a natural birth after two c-sections. Immediately after we delivered him I kept him close, nursed him "on-demand" and vowed to let him tell me when he was ready to wean. We opted out of circumcision to keep his perfect body intact and to avoid unnecessary trauma. We wore him against our bodies until he was ready to walk on his own. We slept together. This was my attempt to avoid the separation I felt as a child. What I believe contributed to my insomnia, depression, disassociation, panic attacks, and deep seated anger.
I was doing "all the right things"...superficially... but my relationship with his father was falling apart. There was deeper work to do. Attachment parenting was not enough to unravel thirty plus years of programming...within a culture of isolation and suppression. My beloved husband...over in his corner of the house...was also a product of a similar upbringing. He was doing his own inner work. Both of us learning to parent ourselves. Feeling so much grief... not knowing how to begin to heal it. Pushing each other away...yet our inner children were just crying to be held...to feel safe.
One day the D-word was mentioned and it hit me like a Mack Truck. The process of divorce was so humiliating....the abandonment was more than I could handle and my heart broke into a million pieces.
All we knew was that divorce and separation was how our parents coped with the fighting. So that's what we did. We thought it would solve all of our problems.
Once we were finally divorced on paper, the realization hit...our deepest work was yet to be done. Our son...in his innocence could not comprehend our separation. He seemed to want us together...as a family...like it was supposed to be. His anger and uncontrollable emotions awakened us to his inner disintegration and confusion. And ultimately to our own and to society's as a whole.
On many occasions, our little one's rage was so powerful that I could feel myself clenching my jaw and balling up my fists...witnessing my own inner rage being reflected back at me.
We tried our best to soothe him...wavering between creative tactics to redirect him and just holding detached presence as he discharged his emotions. And sometimes I found myself blindly resorting to coercion...to suppressing or ignoring his feelings...exactly what I was trying to avoid.
One day, during one of his rages, I was just too tired to bargain or fight with him. I decided to FEEL his rage with him...all the way. I saw and felt all of the fights between his father and me, all of my parents fights, all of the other fights I had witnessed in my life. All I could say was, "I'm so sorry bud!!!"...over and over, until I collapsed next to him...sobbing. He stopped immediately and started to wipe the tears on my face. "It's ok mommy." "I'm sorry mommy."
And in that moment was the greatest awareness...forgiveness. That's what he was demanding from us. Not more separation and blame...more togetherness...ohana!!!
What he wanted was for us to surrender...to put down our weapons once and for all. Our weapons...and our shields...which came in the form of words, threats...or setting physical and abstract boundaries. He wanted us to forgive...ourselves and each other.
How can we expect our children to put down their weapons when we so desperately cling to ours...in fear...in blame...in judgement?
How can we expect our children to have compassion when...from day one...we show them that their feelings are not important?
What I have learned through this whole experience is that every one of us deserves forgiveness and a second chance.
The healing is in the return. The return to the body. United in wholeness.
What is the most unifying force known to mankind?
Tragedy. What kind of behaviors do we see increase after an earthquake, shooting, or terrorist attack? We tend to see more physical contact, cooperation, and selfless acts of service. Tragedy brings unity. It is an unfortunate wake-up call to our culture of separation. When we blame guns and the powers that be...we are missing a deeper truth. We are merely continuing the battle with this "us against them" mentality.
Our power to transform this pattern from the root source is within us and within these four walls. It's not "out there".
This is our call to duty...and clearing the battlefield starts within and with our immediate interpersonal relationships. The only way to stop the fighting is to...be the first one to stop the fighting. Lay down our weapons...because love requires no defense.
What would happen if unity became our preventative strategy to avoid tragedy? What if we collectively sent a message to the universe that 'we got the message' and we no longer need a wake up call. In what ways could we immediately start to instill this feeling of unity within ourselves and our children?
We can start by using non-violent forms of communication instead of punishment, separation, and coercion, with our children and loved ones. This way of communicating cultivates partnership and equality amongst all of the players. We can take action to make things right between our current and ex-partners through practices like Ho'oponopono and radical forgiveness. And we can stop abandoning or suppressing ourselves when our own inner child cries for love...through anger or sadness.
Through the work of integrating my own inner child and family...I've realized that radical self-forgiveness and love is a process that unifies...and brings into wholeness...the fragmented and disowned parts within us. It is a process similar to gestating and giving birth to a baby. It is not easy to love the anger and rage within...but eventually an inner oneness is birthed...as an innocent soul...who knows no separation.
"Core-rage" is the inner conflict that your life requires to give birth to the "courage" to surrender as LOVE!!!
~Matt Kahn
As for my relationship with my beloved soul-mate...there are happy endings after all. Well, not really an ending at all...but a new beginning. The many self-improvement tools we have both used have been crucial to our success, but ultimately "loving what arises" and learning how to meet our own needs has been the backbone of our co-transformation...from soulmates to whole-mates. We are the empowered co-writers of this narrative, and our greatest inspirations are our children. Showing us the way back to wholeness and integration...as extensions and reflections of us.
Aloha and Ho'oponopono,
Pachee