All We Ever Knew

So I've got this cough. It's quite impressive, really: It feels like I'm going to swallow my own tongue when I get going on a coughing jag. Really unpleasant.

This morning I looked up what my pal Louise Hay says about having a cough. I knew it would be fifth chakra related, and lo and behold, it is: Coughs are associated with a deep need to make a point.

And that fits. Because I do, in fact, have a deep need to make a point.

As I wrote about in this post-election post, I am deeply troubled by so many American's willingness to sweep Donald Trump's sexual assaults under the rug and cast a vote for him anyway. I reckon this hit me so hard because of the nature of my own trauma and my family's desire to sweep it under the rug too. My whole life, including the part where I was conscious of the abuse and all the time that came before (which was thirty some years), I have been more concerned with my father's well-being than my own. Even when I confronted my parents the first time, I was really worried about that, and my actions afterward have vacillated between trying to live in my truth and trying to please or placate.

As a result, I've been stuck in this place with my parents where I feel no genuine emotion - just a sense of going through the motions. The only genuine emotion I feel for them is related to my kids. I love that my kids love their grandparents. I knew that was possible, and important, because my parents had strained relationships with three of their four (collective) parents, but I adored them, especially my Father's parents. It's this knowledge that propelled me to work through my trauma to the extent that I have.

I dropped out of my trauma recovery group partway through. I felt that there was too much emphasis on the misogynistic nature of our culture, too much attention given to the misdeeds of the perpetrator, too much wallowing in self-pity because we've all been through these big traumas.

And then, Trump was elected over Clinton. And I realized that my trauma recovery instructor was right. Is right. It's as bad as she says and then some.

I also continued reading a book I've been picking up and putting down for years: The Body Never Lies: The Lingering Effects of Hurtful Parenting. And one of the things it said was you will never do your parents any good by having a relationship with them based on shoulds. I should love them, because they are my mom and dad. I should appreciate what they have done for me. Nope. Maybe I will come around to that, to either of those, once I finally let it be known what their particular brand of parenting did: it left me with only a shadow of myself.

Now I'm reading another book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F#(k, whose author would say that their parenting may be their fault, but it's my responsibility to deal with its effects.

I completely agree. And that's what I'm finally doing. By letting my parents know exactly what those effects are, by letting them know that I no longer intend to abide or enable a culture of denial, by finally worrying more about how I feel about it all than how my father (or mother) feels.

It's not easy. I don't want to cause my parents pain. But that's the thing: I didn't cause it. It's there, in their twin lifelong struggles with depression. I'm just naming it. And in my experience, naming something can lead to relief.

But that's out of my control. All I can do is admit that all we ever knew, as a family, was fatally flawed. What passed as love was something much less spacious, and forgiving, and nurturing, and life-affirming.

It's super fitting that the song for today is by a band called The Head and the Heart:

When I wake up in the morning
I see nothing
For miles and miles and miles
When I sleep in the evening
Oh Lord
There she goes
Only in dreams, she's only in dreams

Well, well my love
We've been here before
Don't drag me through this again
We've tried everything under the sun
Now I'm trying to wake up from this
I'm trying to make up for it

All we ever do
Is all we ever knew

I know that in my Father's body, the head and the heart are separate. I believe the same is true of my Grandfather's. And I know that in my life, mine were separate for a long, long time, and still revert to that separation when frightened, because that's how I found safety as a child. By leaving my heart, and the rest of my body, and just existing in my head.

It's all we ever knew, Dad, until I learned so much more. And now I can genuinely say that I hope you too will experience the integration of your head and your heart in this lifetime, but whether you do or not, is up to you:

You don't see why your world has no love to give
Well, what goes around comes around
I know sometimes you get so caught in a dream
But now it's time to wake up from this
It's time to make up for it

It's time to wake up from this
Yes it's time to wake up from this
It's time to make up for it

All we ever do
Is all we ever knew

(La la la la la la...)

I'm feelin' low, feelin' high
Feelin' down, why isn't this enough?

I'm feelin' low, feelin' high
Feelin' down, why isn't this enough?

All we ever do
Is all we ever knew
All we ever do

I'm only in charge of me, and of my children. And I know, from the deepest regions of mind, heart, body and soul, that:

It's time to wake up from this

(La la la la la la...)

Truth and Honesty

I think I've written before about the problems I've had with my right knee. It was really hurting for a while, to the extent that I could not even sit cross-legged, which was a real drag. It's getting better now, but it still hurts from time to time.

Yesterday after one of my yoga classes, the teacher began saying what he always says at the end of class: "Hands to the third eye to know the truth" -- and as I did that, I felt a sharp pang in my knee. Hmmm, I thought to myself, there is something I know (and am perhaps refusing to acknowledge?) that is related to what's going on in my knee.

And then this morning, during a meditation class, the teacher said:

"When you take just one single step toward the truth, the truth takes a thousand steps toward you."

So beautiful. And as my friend said after class, "I really hope that is true!"

As do I. I'm still trying to figure out what taking a step toward the truth looks like, although I think that's what I've been doing.

Here's what Aretha has to say on the subject:

I would like to see a show of hands
Nothin' concealed, roll up your sleeve
Nothin' up my sleeve except my heart
And I believe we've come apart

I would like to see you play your cards
Reveal your hands and show your heart
Maybe we could get it back

With truth and honesty that's what we need to hold on
To the good stuff we believe in
Before we land up loose and sad and free
Before we find that it's gone
We could pull it back together, truth and honesty
Open up your hands, show me your heart

Let's stay up till dawn and talk it out
Nothin' concealed, no alibi, retunin' to light
Before we start, then all we do is fall apart
If I can see the sunlight in your eyes

Then maybe we all could shine, yeah
Maybe we could get it back, oh baby, yeah baby

Truth and honesty, you know what we need, sure enough within
To the good stuff, the good stuff baby
You got to be real, you got to be real, you got to be sugar
To the good stuff we believe in, you got to, you got to...

Yep, you've got to be real. And for me today that meant returning to CamRock for some more fun riding after my many yoga and meditation practices this morning, and then sucking it up and cleaning my basement (with the help of a friend) this afternoon/evening.

As a result, I had another killer day in my body, my ex-boyfriend's bed is gone, the couch where mice were nesting is gone, the dead mice are gone, and I sent an email to a contractor about the possibility of replacing the ceiling where they are so clearly living.

I'm gonna keep working on taking steps toward the truth, but I think that dealing with what scares me -- e.g. mice in my basement, letting go of what's left in my life of the New Englander -- is a good step in that direction...

Father and Son

Part of the Breathe for Change Family at Concert on the Square

Tonight a group of us from my yoga teacher training went to Concerts on the Square.

We couldn't actually hear the music, but that was fine with me -- I'd had this song playing on repeat on the inner jukebox all day long -- and it's such a classic:

Father
It's not time to make a change,
Just relax, take it easy.
You're still young, that's your fault,
There's so much you have to know.
Find a girl, settle down,
If you want you can marry.
Look at me, I am old, but I'm happy.

Now I don't exactly understand why it's his fault that he's young, and I'm not exactly old, but I am older than most of the people I was hanging out with tonight:

I was once like you are now, and I know that it's not easy,
To be calm when you've found something going on.
But take your time, think a lot,
Why, think of everything you've got.
For you will still be here tomorrow, but your dreams may not.

And that's ok -- that's part of how I am able to mentor some of them over these two plus weeks that we have together.

I think I'll play a little Cat Stevens when I'm teaching tomorrow, too, this voice just transports me -- we'll see if that feeling holds for the younger generation:

Son
How can I try to explain, when I do he turns away again.
It's always been the same, same old story.
From the moment I could talk I was ordered to listen.
Now there's a way and I know that I have to go away.
I know I have to go.

Father
It's not time to make a change,
Just sit down, take it slowly.
You're still young, that's your fault,
There's so much you have to go through.
Find a girl, settle down,
if you want you can marry.
Look at me, I am old, but I'm happy.

Son
All the times that I cried, keeping all the things I knew inside,
It's hard, but it's harder to ignore it.
If they were right, I'd agree, but it's them you know not me.
Now there's a way and I know that I have to go away.
I know I have to go.

I've made it clear to everyone in the training that I no longer keep things I know inside. It's no way to live. Every day I'm taking another step into my truth, and I'm so grateful to have so many awesome people to walk beside me...

Any Other World

Tonight in my trauma recovery group, I got to tell my story. The story of my abuse. The story of how I left my body all those years ago, and the story of how I came back. And somehow, just as the lyrics of today's song describe, it feels like everything has changed:

In any other world
You could tell the difference
And let it all unfurl
Into broken remnants

Smile like you mean it
And let yourself let go

Cos it's all in the hands of a bitter, bitter man
Say goodbye to the world you thought you lived in
Take a bow, play the part of a lonely lonely heart
Say goodbye to the world you thought you lived in
To the world you thought you lived in

I tried to live alone
But lonely is so lonely, alone
So human as I am
I had to give up my defenses

So I smiled and tried to mean it
To let myself let go

Cos it's all in the hands of a bitter, bitter man
Say goodbye to the world you thought you lived in
Take a bow, play the part of a lonely lonely heart
Say goodbye to the world you thought you lived in
To the world you thought you lived in

I'm ready to say goodbye to that world, and ready to live in one where my truth is not in the hands of a bitter, bitter man. It's in my hands, and the hands of a Universe with big love for me...