Monday, December 7, 2009

Letting all the voices be heard ...


Choir on The Great Wall of China
Originally uploaded by North Sullivan

After a tender and honest session today with my kabbalistic healer, a crack in a door of my history widened significantly. It was a door for quite some time that I'd much have rather kept shut -- like the closet you know is full of junk and there's simply no point in looking in. This particular messy space is the place where my little one's emotions and thoughts and voices have been kept captive -- specifically, in relationship to our mother. Up until today, this is a room that's been boarded up, perhaps even deemed "condemned". It is nowhere I've wanted to visit, not even take a peek. I have a sense that it is cluttered and dirty and even smelly. And now it's time for a major overhaul. Nothing that a quick dusting or vacuum will clean up. This will involve a great deal of unpacking, unfolding,  on-my-knees-with-a-scrubbrush kind of tackling.

As I have begun to attend to, even "mother" my little one who is making herself known in larger and louder ways these days, I have sensed in the far reaches of my consciousness -- the messy room described above -- that there is a great deal of anger and resentment and disappointment and sadness that have not had a place to be expressed in relation to my mother. It's felt far too scary and quite unsafe to have these things alive and known. As my healer identified with me today, I need to "let all the voices be heard".

It was so easy to target my father. He was so visible in his raging drunkenness that I couldn't miss taking shots at him. It felt justified and reasonable to outright hate him because of his behavior. My mother, on the other hand, blended into the background. I almost didn't know sometimes that she had a significant part to play in this dysfunctional drama. I spent so much of my life feeling sorry for her for putting up with my father and being the sitting duck at the mercy of my father's unpredictable trigger-finger. Afterall, my mother went to church every Sunday and made sure we had a hot meal on the table each night and ironed clothes and a clean house; it would be blasphemous to have any "ugly" feelings toward her.

Hence, the origins of the "messy mother room". Kinda like a "G-d box" minus any gratitude. Just crap. Stuff that wasn't allowed to be thought or uttered yet was absolutely felt. My little one has been tugging at me to let these voices and thoughts and feelings out. As my healer shared with me today: "My fists are up". This is the anger that my little one would have been punished severely for. This is the venom that was swallowed and swallowed back down again that made her sick inside. This was the tiger that got tamed by being dowsed in enough alcohol.

One of these voices is: "I hate her for _____". There are many things that go in the fill-in-the-blank part. Any one of these will fit:
- Marrying my father.
- Adopting me into this dysfunctional home.
- Not protecting me from that monster.
- Not standing up for herself.
- Abandoning me when I was sick.
- Spoiling my brother.
- Not letting me play the viola.
- Making me take ballet.
- Threatening to call my father when I was upset.

Another voice is: Shut up and be grateful you even have a mother. My little one wants to tell that voice to "fuck off!"

A related voice is: "You shouldn't think bad thoughts after all she did for you." She let you get your haircut short when you found it unbearable to have it long. She gave you money for the carnival. She made sure you had sports equipment. She made sure you had Christmas gifts under the tree. She helped you fill out Student Loan forms to go to college. She helped you out when you fell into severe credit card debt because of your drinking. This is the voice that has dominated my psyche and not allowed the other voices to have a place.  This is a voice governed by excrutiating guilt.

My little one is stomping around right now and my insides hurt. I am understanding my healer's term "wrestling" in a way that is now pliable and visceral and very much alive, like the twisting of intestines. I feel like I've been punched in the gut several times.

I also understand in this moment that I have only scratched the surface here. The door has been opened just wide enough to take a good hard look. And I'm ready to shut it now so I can get a decent night's sleep.

I am committed to this work, however. Until all the voices are heard. And claimed. And, as my healer stated, are "just the truth".

No comments:

Post a Comment