We are born, we are nurtured we meet new people make friends have experiences we age we die. Game over, and then it starts again and again. When you die you might look back and think oh hang on, that little child lady talked about healing a lot maybe she was onto something; I don’t know why I am still floating around not really sure whether I am dead or alive or dreaming. The lawn mower suddenly becomes too loud and boom you wake up! A little confused in a bit of a daze but grateful to be here. You think oh my what a crazy dream I had. But it makes you think whether it’s worth to have a sneaky peak into your childhood that might just explain why you simply cannot relax.
You have been running in circles trying to figure out why you can’t just stick to one career path. Your relationships pretty much stink. You cannot stay in one place too long. The place starts to grate. You can’t stand being around friends whom you want in your life but only in dribs and drabs, for more than what you can bear. You feel defensive and very guarded about self preservation. You have the same dreams. You yearn to be close and in authentic relationships that reflect who you are. They come, but again you want to get back in the cave. You cant keep your pants on. You keep thinking about that very seductive woman you met in Dubai. You are married have a wonderful life on the outside with beautiful children a career and a lovely home. You cannot stop straying from home. You say it’s just in built. Someone else doesn’t stray is happy to be around wife but he will secretly think of someone or many others. Apart from that you might be the most polite spoken and then behind hidden doors tell your children off in a manner that instils a fear in them of you.
Add to this list what you may. All of the above is just a generalisation. We all have some pattern or something that grates at us. It could be our in-laws. Maybe the neighbours. Or your boss.
I wonder how much of that comes from a place within that needs attention. Could that place be in the folds of your babyhood? Can your remember any of it? Are you a parent who might be doing to your child what was done to you? Do you carry the same flavour of your parents or primary caregivers? Do you feel comfortable with how you deal with anger?
Do we need to know of wounds? Does it matter whether these were placed deliberately or not? Perhaps we can call the wounds, our “holes”?
Many people automatically assume that children coming from a broken home will also be broken in spirit in some way or another. What if a child whose parents were divorced (the effect also depends on when this happens and how), had a constant caregiver? Maybe like a nanny that would become his attachment figure. Would you still feel the hole of not having both the parents? Depends on what the he caregiving was like before the divorce and after. Stable and steady caregiving in which the child is seen, feels secure loved and wanted, will reduce the impact of the divorce.
What happens when there is no obvious reason to look into ones childhood? When you look back, all you find is a normal stable home, parents who have been there and nurtured you. Can you recall anything before the age of 4? What are your memories from back then? Try to be as specific as possible. And now, what reactions in you are so automatic that it almost feels like you cannot control these despite all of your better knowing?
When you have the more obvious forms of childhood breakdowns such as divorce death of a parent early or “abuse”, you are more than likely to look back to those years and moments as an explanation of a lot of you that might have gone missing. You might for example have a very low sense of self so much so that your boundaries are very weak, you over give, over do, and over stretch yourself until nothing is left of you to give to you, the one that needs this the most. Perhaps that loss came from a continued persistent trying to please an overly critical and dismissive parent? Maybe mother father had no time for you?
One can still have holes to fill even without the kind of “horse poop” that overspills on the canvas of your childhood from an obvious reason. We might have both our parents there but maybe there is a policy of not airing our dirty laundry in the house. Perhaps we don’t speak about our feelings. You lose a pet and this is not mourned. You don’t see anyone crying. You might have both parents again and all seems very well. Here, your mama cleans until she is sore. You are admonished for leaving any mug on the table after having your tea. You cannot look like your hair is out of place. Your father may be very very subservient almost codependent and mama is the boss in the house. This friends is where our modelling starts. Infants don’t learn from what is told to them but what they absorb from what is shown.
We pick up these little tools of how life “should” be from the very first modelling. The automatic reactions are encoded in our implicit memory. This need to be made explicit or out there so they can be included in your narrative of your life story. Not for us to judge and hold our caregivers at fault, but to realise it wasn’t your fault. And still is not except now what’s needed is to fill in the gaps.
I wonder though whether we will all have holes and give some regardless of our best or worst intentions. Even the most well meaning parent might hurt a child in a way the child cannot comprehend. The infant child doesn’t have a fully formed brain. He will only understand what he can. Are these holes inevitable? Is it all part and parcel of the game of finding myself. Of returning to innocence?
As a mama, each time there is a rupture or I can feel that my bubba might not have felt good about something or not quite got it, I will swiftly move in to explain it all but use a lot of visuals and maybe act it all out so he can understand. When he laughs and there has been a morphing of the original discord into a time for bonding I sigh and think I might have recalled a part of him that might have thought of fleeing the scene.
Holes are an inevitable part of life and for some there are craters; wholeness is ready to be lived when we become aware of these, get what we most resonate with to fill them to the brim, and return to our innocence.
Love is all encompassing – it is free, we don’t need to transact for it, or lose any parts of us to it. It requires nothing at love. Love just is.