TwitterJan 20 2010
More On My Praental RESPOND-sibilit… What Really MATTERS and Nothing about King’s Horses and Men . . .
CONTINUED FROM YESTERDAY, which is a continuation from the day before and the day before that…
I think it’s important to say right here I felt that THERE WERE POINTS here and there I COULD HAVE TAKEN ISSUE WITH with each of my children that has mini !BLAM!med me.
AND….
MAYBE I would have been right (or worse maybe I would’ve been wrong).
But did that really matter?
Did my being right matter more than their hurt?
Did my being right matter more their soul healing?
Did my being right matter more than their need for me to love them and admit I had been wrong.
Did my being right matter more than me RESPOND-sibly shouldering my stuff in order to assist their wounds to heal?
Not to me it wasn’t.
Because today, I’m clear enough and adult enough to say that whatever happened was how “they” had interrupted everything, and how they had been hurt by me. Whether or not I thought it should have hurt or effected them, it had… and that’s what mattered.
You know it’s funny, if I poll my kids to see how each of them reacted to any situation I receive eight different responses to each situation. Some will react negatively and then some more than others. Some will shrug their shoulders and have no problem at all and wonder why the ones that do do. Even when we’re all having fun. Someone’s fun isn’t as great. Or all but one of us will be saying we’re having fun and there’s one crying.
I’ll tell you what, having eight kids sure gives me a lot of examples to look at. And a lot of voices to respond and let me know when and how you I’m wrong. Which gives me lots of opportunity to grow as a person, if I only LISTEN.
So with that said I’ll say… bottom line what mattered was that they were hurt and I was the cause. So why should I sweat over the details and pick apart what they said or decide if they were right or wrong? Why? I had a cousin once that always used to say, “Don’t sweat the small stuff Theresa. If you do you’ll never be able to handle the big stuff when it comes along and that’s what really matters.”
My being right, is the SMALL stuff.
And if I’m willing to listen to them, not correct them and pick over details maybe the day will come when they’ll have the ears to hear what I said when I was telling them I was sorry and why and how I was wrong or what was discussed last week may finally processes inside them and unlocks their hurt and shut down heart and open them a bit more to me… (Doing otherwise would have been clearly heard by them and shut them right down. Angered them. Caused them to draw the conclusion that what they felt and had to say didn’t matter.) And maybe, just maybe, in the future I may be able to set a detail or two straight…IF that point even matters anymore since NOW I have a healthy, happy, peaceful, loving relationship with my child…which matters MORE than details of the PAST.
Night, Love ya,
Theresa Jane
-who went from being confident about switching to being a self hosted blog to today being nervous. If your out there let me know will you? Leave me a comment. Thanks
Theresa Jane,
Greetings to you…I’m here listening and being so very affirmed inside as I read today’s words. I laughed as I read what you said about having so many avenues to learn from with your 8 kids because I try to take in all there is to learn as I interact with my husband and 2 cats!
I want to make a comment about why this writing was so potent to me. I have recently begun to reconnect with myself and so I am in touch with how I feel and what I need and want. Now this sounds like all good stuff, but if I choose to stay open to what I am hearing inside myself then I must stand up and be heard (live instead of hide and stay buried) and risk whatever anybody’s response to that might be. In recent days, and incident happened. I was hurt by something my husband said and started feeling a really deep seething anger in my gut. Now his words/tone was not anything new. It was disrespect – what I had accepted all our married life so when I spoke up about it telling him how I felt and that I wouldn’t stand for it because it hurt me He turned the issue around making it ALL ABOUT HIM re: “now you know how I feel when you do that to me!”
For me to keep my heart open to say what I feel and what I need is removing my armor/defense system that I have used all of my life. Because I can not control the responses of others, I then get to sink my teeth into the reality of going deeper to learn even more about my internal reaction to other’s response to me speaking my truth. I chose to do just that in this particular incident and am learning to sit with the deeper wounds in me that this event leads into.
I say all of this to let you know how cool I think it is that you see that as your children speak their truths your response is a healing one for them because you give them room and space to BE without making it about your own hurt/pain in the moment. What a gift you give to them in doing this. How great that they don’t have to compete with you for time and attention.
Part of what I am seeing is for me that w/ a mother who was focused on my alcohol addicted father as a child growing up I had to try to compete for attention to just be seen. Well that hurt way to much so I chose basically to become mute and invisible. As I said in an earlier post I also had 12 siblings who were also caught in all this…so we all created our own way to survive through the pain of not being seen. It makes so much sense to me why I have chosen to not be competitive with my peers as an adult. It would have put me in direct contact with this deep wound. Anyway, thanks for processing on paper, my fellow healing friend. And hooray for you to be able to allow your kids to be seen and heard!
Kate
Hello Kate,
Thank you so much for commenting. I appreciate you letting me know you’re out there and I certainaly appreciate your sharing your life with me. This interaction is very meaningful and enriching. We are all sisters with another mother so similar inside. The hurt may be defined differently from one to the next by each having their own personal experiences but still even those overlap but inside we all seem to have the same pain. The same reactions. The same inner healing that must be faced in order to heal it.
These inner issues are so crippling. We carry them around and don’t even see them. But they are never asleep and always in charge keeping us withdrawn, lashing out, improperly reacting to a situation, misreading something, making a wrong decision… But when we get down and dirty with them and come to see that they’re there and the negative effect they are having, then we can find the way to remove them and replace them with positive ways of living.
You refer to a armor/defense system and I am overwhelmingly aware of what you mean. This has been my biggest challenge to overcome. And why not it’s what allowed me to survive my childhood. It became a well ingrained part of me, removing it has been painful. But as I do I am freed up. Able to move around and experience life so much freer and happier. (like your use of the word armor: imagine a knight never taking his armor off after battle, that would make life difficult…lol)
Glad to hear that you’re able to know that you can’t control the responses of others that was a tough one and can still at times be tough, for me to except and not set out and try to “fix”. And to remember that the way they are reacting isn’t about me, they have their issues and trigger points as well and something in them was triggered. It’s so hard at times to remember that esp. when they can be being so mean and nasty or unjust or whatever. But it’s true, I’m not the only with “issues” that get triggered. If we just all go around and communicate this way wouldn’t we all heal so much quicker?? Like say to the other person, “Now something you said just triggered something in me. Why don’t we look at that?” Or, “I see you’re reacting strongly to what I just said, would you like me to work with you to explore what’s really going on inside of you so you can come to see it and heal it?”
Anyways, at the very least when we can get past our own “triggers” and listen without defending we can always find something to take away that may benefit us in our healing. There’s always truth somewhere in everything that’s said.
Terrific hearing from you
I’ve enjoyed our sharing and looking forward to more.
Love ya,
Theresa Jane