healing

Chapter Nineteen: Healing Wounds – “Half Adopted”

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I often conceal my weirdness, but any semblance of normalcy disappears when I listen to the internal dialogue inside my head. My inner monologue chatters incessantly most of the time, and it’s something that I just assumed everyone did. I realized recently that my childhood loneliness made me fast friends with my inner self. I don’t know how unusual this is. Still, I frequently speak to myself at length within my mind, often trying to figure out how to solve issues without openly discussing everything with others.

This approach is helpful, and I can speak about issues at length because that’s how I work through it. As someone who can’t afford therapy and often must figure things out independently, it has been my way of dealing with everything. As a child, I sometimes felt like I wasn’t allowed to express my feelings about issues, and I think it was a coping mechanism I learned very early on. I could remain entirely within my little world, and I developed daydreams and internal conversations with myself to survive.

My mom did her best and insulated us to the best of her ability. She raised my brother and me independently; he and I often marvel at how she did it. I have zero doubt being a parent is one of the most challenging jobs in the world, but I’m also positive that my mother endured immense trauma in her early years, some of which she had inherited from her parents, and I know life wasn’t easy for her. I can’t even begin to imagine how she dealt with her many life hardships and the experiences her mother and father went through in their own lives.

The world is becoming a gentler place. From a historical context, it’s hard to fathom how different we experience things now versus centuries ago, but we are progressing to a gentler way of being. There are exceptions to every rule, but even the simple fact that public executions are no longer something you take the wife and kids to or the fact that we don’t witness gladiators fighting to the death in colosseums anymore is an indication of that reality. There is much less brutality and much more self-reflection now than there has ever been.

Do I think my maternal grandfather, fresh out of serving in World War II, would have focused a lot of time and attention on being bullied, and what kind of ramifications hurt feelings had on those he interacted with? Hell no. I’m sure he sees things differently today and maybe sees value on the other side, but I also know he wasn’t afforded the time. The ability to navigate those emotions when he dealt with the trauma of watching his best friends die in a war and had to go on living after that and support a family of 5 children.

Wars continue to rage when so many of us wish they didn’t. I feel that, on average, people are afforded the ability to be gentler with one another now more than ever before, and use the examples of the rise of veganism, the recognition of the Black Lives Matter movement, Trans visibility, and the legalization of gay marriage to help make my case that we are heading in the right direction. At the very least, we are beginning to allow people to live their lives more openly without fear of repercussions.

I am so grateful that I live during a time when immense generational trauma and family karma seem to be more on the forefront and that we as a planet have become more self-aware of where our shortfalls stem from. Even though recognizing that healing needs to take place, taking steps toward emotional healing is often extremely difficult. There are so many systems in place and unspoken rules within family dynamics that make it difficult to transcend all the learned behaviours and coping mechanisms we have developed and internalized as we have made our way through life.

Some of my feelings about otherness stem from only interacting with my mom’s side of the family. My father couldn’t be a father and struggled with his demons. He just wasn’t there in the way either of us probably wanted. He wasn’t a paternal figure in my life, and I have immense empathy for what he’s been through. I’ve never considered him my “actual” father since I never felt I could rely on him.

I remember I travelled across the country to see my grandmother when she was close to the end of her life and began making her journey home. I remember sitting in her hospital room surrounded by her loved ones, and I recognized so much of myself in these people I didn’t know. It was so interesting because I always felt half adopted growing up, just because I didn’t see that aspect of who I was, and there was some solace in those moments. I have consistently recognized specific quirks, personality traits, and interests I didn’t realize were genetic. I felt privileged to see aspects of myself reflected in other people who didn’t know anything about me other than who my grandmother was. 

My father is Irish Catholic, and I feel like I inherited some of the traits associated with that culture without ever interacting with it. My father struggled through life, and I became keenly aware of nature versus nurture when I met his family members. I also wondered about what kind of inherited karma we gain through our genetics and how impactful DNA is on a subtle level.

My love of films and ability to thrive at trivia games has been inherited from that side of the family. I recognized some genetic predispositions, too, and wondered about the notion of “Catholic guilt.” When I was 20 years old, I visited a psychic and was told that I had inherited Catholic guilt even though I hadn’t been raised Catholic. I passed it off like it was silly to say until I interacted with these people who were effectively strangers. I was not raised with religion and spent little time in the Catholic Church. While spending time with these people who were genetically my relatives but knew nothing of my life, I realized they had similar ways of expressing themselves and had similar creative leanings. It just made me wonder how deeply connected we are on a genetic level.

Nobody is perfect in life—thank fuck! It would be super annoying if that were the case. Still, I think there’s something to be said about the idea of recognizing how issues have been inherited and how much things often get swept under the rug, or we feel the need to continue specific cycles or patterns because somewhere along the line, we were told it was better to continue doing what has always been done rather than charting a new course because it seems too difficult to change.

As I’ve grown older, I feel more at ease with who I am and see the value I offer. I realize I possess many inherited beliefs that I would like to question a bit more. In terms of being told what is true versus what feels right to me, my hope is that I continue to develop as a human that I continually strive to heal in every way I can.

I think the more we work through our traumas, shed light on the darkness and help others through their processes, the more we can free ourselves of those layers, the weight we’ve picked up along the way, and all those things we were told to carry that were not ours to carry in the first place.

So that we can fully embrace the “weird” and not worry so much about how it’s interpreted and how we are perceived because, ultimately, it’s so much more affirming to be who you are and do that rather than try to appease people that aren’t even worth it in the first place. Life is way too short to focus on trivialities like that, and I think a lot of it stems from just working through the things we inherited and sifting through what works for us and what doesn’t anymore.

Most of the things we’re told to continue doing are done in the guise of, “Well, that’s what works,” but there are a lot of institutions in this world, and many things don’t work that well. Sometimes, it’s good to have a fresh perspective on everything and question the nature of specific institutions. I think it’s essential for growth on an individual level and for society to continually challenge frameworks and adjust the lens through which we see our realities because that is where the magic happens and how progress and innovation are made. We don’t evolve as individuals without questioning our current existence and shared history, which is part of why knowing about our past in a social sense is essential, but also knowing where we came from helps us understand who we are and where we are going.

Chapter Fifteen: Storing Tears – Revisiting Ourselves as Children

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I’ve always had issues with crying, even as a child, not because I didn’t feel my emotions profoundly but because I often felt I wasn’t allowed to express myself in that way. As a result, I developed a knack for saving tears until I thought I could cry without feeling insecure about it.

Somewhere along the way I learned that it was easier to store everything inside and bottle it up—until I felt safe enough to release it. This manifested in a way that I didn’t fully feel emotions for my life for a very long time. I could recount the most tragic events from my past with a sense of detachment, as if it took place in someone else’s life, like I was reading a stranger’s story, but I might become overwhelmed by a random inconvenience.

Until recently, I would cry maybe once or twice a year about something in my life, and it was usually when I was on the phone with customer service or some other equally inappropriate time. It would feel like a faucet being opened, incredibly overwhelming and uncontrollable like my body would store these emotions and lock them away but would occasionally relieve the pressure in awkward ways.

I realized quickly as a child that crying during a movie was more acceptable, and I didn’t need to worry about being “teased” for expressing myself freely within a darkened room. My brother worked at the town theater and could get me in for free, and when the film The Sixth Sense came out, my mother and I went to see it a few times. During one of the scenes in the movie, Cole tells his mother about his grandmother, who was deceased, and he can relay information to her about her past. It was a very emotional scene that I relied on during that time to help rid myself of the tears I had been carrying. 

When the film was released, my neighbor had killed one of my pets. It was clear that he had done this, and it was something that my mom made apparent that she was aware of. We lived when things like this were more acceptable than they are today. Social politics deemed his behavior more acceptable in an area of the world than it should have been.

I feel he was unaccustomed to a person rejecting his claims of innocence, and he called her a few times to deny any wrongdoing. He was a fisherman who beat his wife and his children and ended up admitting himself to the hospital for psychiatric care shortly after this took place. I’ve since made peace with having to experience that, and I am grateful that I didn’t need to spend any more time with him than I already did.

I became more sensitive to my well-being and childhood wounds through my spiritual development. As a result, I went from crying twice a year in the most awkward ways to fully feeling my emotions and being completely caught off guard by them. It felt like I had been wearing protective clothing my entire life without feeling any sensation—to suddenly being over-stimulated by every emotional upset while simultaneously reliving the past and sifting through my memories, trying to recount and make sense of myself.

It was a lot. It was a lot for me to adjust to, and it felt akin to feeling absolutely nothing to everything all at once. For a time, it became easier to hide from the rest of the world, and I lingered in that energy a little longer than I would have liked to, but it felt necessary at the time to be able to get through to the next phase of my life. It felt like the butterfly was wrapped in a cocoon, where transformation occurs at the height of the pain.

Around this time, I saw a video on TikTok. It was about healing childhood wounds by spending time with your younger self. The woman in the video suggested that going out and doing an activity she loved as a child and spiritually, including that version of herself, brought her immense healing.

It’s funny how things like listening to music loudly, privacy, or even being alone amongst the trees signify wealth. We often don’t consider how those opportunities aren’t always available to everyone. But it is very much the case, and being alone in the woods was my safe place as a child, and I tried my best to spend some time in a park within walking distance of my home.

I started to think of my younger self as I sat on a park bench and what kinds of signifiers would have mattered to her. I imagined her sitting next to me and telling her about my life, and I realized she would have loved our time together. She would have found me kind and funny and would have been excited to hear about my big orange cat. She would have been so happy to know that I still write and get excited about life the way she did.

I realized how unimportant those perceived deficits would have mattered to her, and ultimately, they don’t matter to me. Sometimes, it’s easy to see yourself as a failure, no matter who you are or how others might see you. And I was relieved thinking about myself at that age being OK with who I grew up to be, and that gave me so much solace and made me way happier than I expected. It was an exercise that I found so much more emotional, but it felt good to see myself with less judgmental eyes, and I highly recommend it to anyone feeling less than, unaccomplished, or struggling. Just as a practice in reconnecting to your sacred self and finding a more compassionate view of who you truly are.

If you find that it brings up heavy emotions, try to work with that energy and speak to that version of yourself and let them know they are safe now and that you thank them for the lessons they have taught you and the emotions that have resurfaced. You can thank them and let them know it’s no longer necessary to feel those heavy emotions and that sadness, and you can pray that Source takes away your burdens and rids you of what you’ve been carrying.

I can only speak to my personal experience, but I did find this exercise extremely helpful in healing. I am unsure what your experience will be. Still, if you put out the intention that this exercise is beneficial and gentle in its approach, then I feel there is so much opportunity available to you and how you can change how you think and experience life.