"None of us deserves blame and all of us deserve compassion. Sometimes you can't really forgive your parents until you have allowed yourself to cry for them."
-Marianne Williamson
I often come across people who believe that because they are spiritual they are beyond having to do any inner work. However, there is a such thing as using spirituality as avoidance to face wounds. I am not a fan of rehashing old pain, and therefore I was one of those people who used my spirituality to escape from my past. But I did not realize how my past was following me everywhere I went.
When a friend asked me last week what I believed helped me the most to heal my past I realized that it was the combination of psychology and spirituality. Prior to immersing myself in psychology, after numerous life challenges, I began to doubt God even existed. This was in spite the fact that as far I could remember I always desired communion with God.
When I learned why I was stuck in certain patterns and why I believed what I believed my whole life began to make sense. I also started to truly understand my parents and many times I indeed did cry for them. Then I was able to transfer what I learned when I came across someone who was not behaving how I desired. While I had learned not to allow others to treat me poorly no matter who they are, at the same time I was able to have compassion for them and love them from a distance.
Psychology also taught me why I was so passive aggresive and I learned many better ways to handle my negative emotions without lashing out on others nor supressing them with workaholism or food. On the other hand my spiritual practice has helped me heal as well because I began to trust God again no matter how ugly my circumstances were or what challenges I comfronted in relationships. Also, I was able to center myself and get back to the feelings of peace and harmony much quicker than I would have been able to do in the past. My spiritual experience also gave me the strength to look at my past so that I could stop suppressing my feelings about it and truly be able to heal. Then spirit advised it was time to let it all go.
Like many brilliant psychiatrists have written, you do not talk about the past to blame others or remain a victim, you bring it out so that the inner child who is in severe pain is finally heard and therefore stops sabotaging your success efforts. If we keep denying the pain of the inner child she will keep throwing tantrums until she is heard. This is why I often advise people to see a Therapist if they are finding themselves having to justify their emotions. Please note that when your intuition is pushing you towards healing, many of those who you least expect will not speak your language and you need to find those who do otherwise it will be harder for you to heal. Healing could be challenging enough as it is.
Please also note that when we are children we are not able to analyze things like adults. Dr. Alex Loyd has a book called The Healing Code in which he describes a woman who had an IQ of 180 and gradutated from an Ivy league school but was not able to get a job. After talking to Dr. Loyd it was discovered that when she was about four years old her mother would not give her a popsicle because she did not eat all of her food and then gave a popsicle to her sister because she did eat all of her food. And although the mother did clarify why she was not giving her a popsicle, the woman's inner child only remembered that she did not get a popsicle and her sister did. Therefore she developed feelings of unworthyness and felt unloved even though her mother was, for the most part, a good mother.
Psychologists, Psychiatrists and Therapists are trained to understand that while to another adult the things that caused wounds in the past do not make sense, to the child within it was a big deal. Also even among siblings people get affected differently. Some siblings are more sensitive. Others block their whole childhood and when you ask them if they remember even the good stuff they do not recall. Psychologists say that this is a clue something bad is being suppressed. Other siblings become rebellious and even as adults never seem to grow out of it. Some siblings develop addictions. Psychiatrists especially pay close attention to those who claim they had the perfect childhood because it is another form of suppression. Not saying that the perfect childhood does not exists. It is just that it is very rare.
Not until the woman discovered that it was her inner child that still had the feelings of unworthiness and of being unloved, was she finally able to achieve success. Shortly after meeting with Dr. Loyd she got a job in Wall Street.
Most of us had parents who were not intentionally cruel. Like I tell others who are worried they screwed up or are screwing up their kids, "Hey none of us are given a manual, all we could do is our best." In the past people never thought about these things. Like Marianne Williamson wrote, "...we and our parents have all been living at the effect of energies of the unevolved, fear-based energies permeating this world...Our parents were wounded children too..." If you would like to read more on lower energies I recommend Power Vs. Force by Dr. David Hawkins so that you could understand why the patterns and cycles have been difficult to break from generation to generation. He advises those who want to break the negative patterns of the family to begin communion with God. He says not necessarily with religion, but with an honest spiritual practice.
Other famous psychiatrists and authors who combine spirituality with spychology for healing clients are:
Dr. Doreen Virtue
Dr. Wayne Dyer
Dr. M. Scott Peck
Whatever path you take to begin healing, do not do it alone. I did it alone at first, and it was very hard. While it was still difficult for me after I found a loving high energy support group, it helped just to know that there would always be someone there for me no matter what. Now I am beyond healing the past, but I still consult my wise friends for present challenges.
I sometimes come across people, especially men, who consider it a weakness to seek support or to review the past in order to heal it. Please note that if this is you it is because you are still stuck erroneously believing what our low energy ancestors believed. According to the late Dr. Hawkins this is part of the reason it is taking humanity to evolve onto higher energies. Because people just don't get that their perceptions are wrong and stubbornly cling to false beliefs. Why? According to A Course in Miracles, people rather be right than happy.
Also, according to psychogists it takes more strenght and wisdom to heal and it is more of a weakness to live in denial and suppress emotions using externals such as alcohol, drugs, workaholism, OCDs, busyness, compulsive eating,etc.
Most of us are not victims of our parents, so much as we and our parents have all been living at the effect of the energies of the unevolved, fear-based energies permeating this world...Our parents were wounded children too...The greatest gift you could give your children is to heal your own wounds as best you can."
-Marianne Williamson
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