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I come from a family of alcoholics. Part of my family’s means of survival in a world that challenged them, as human beings, was using alcohol as a healing salve.. It was a quick fix, a quick/trip run from fear. When it came to the time when prayer and faith in God did not work in solving our daily trials, alcohol became our pathway out of fear. I did not know I had to drop the rock of fear and work on life in a perspective of living in the long term, the journey.
I spent my early life as a child living in the midst of fear. My parents grew up harboring anger and fear. They passed it on to me. No matter how much they loved me, their human movement was silently imprisoned by the power of fear. A way of living and being was passed on generation to generation. The fear of losing in the race of life, not being able to see a way out of the societal box was my main two factors of fear.
I inherited their fears. Fear caused them to create anger and turn into a newfound form of power. A power which allowed them to live with a false sense of attaining internal peace. Without them realizing their habits, they passed on a legacy of living in escape mode, a consistent journey of a quick fix to a long-term problem.
My father, the oldest of three, was born from a damaged union. My mother the youngest of three children, was spoiled with love and strict demands of religious parents. They were both rebels looking for love outside of themselves. When I came into the world, all love was focused on me.
I never knew I was addicted to being loved, even though I was given unconditional love for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Yet, it seemed as if I would never have enough. I did not know I was addicted to a quick fix. My fear of pain or being abandoned caused me to crave a quick relief from any experience of feeling the pain of separation. Any feeling of losing love caused me to feel the pain of not knowing love. I was always on the edge of rescue, rescuing others, while I had not yet learned how to save myself.
So, when it came time for my daughter to be born, the chance of creating a new life gave me a renewed sense of having the opportunity to have a fulfilled life, a real life.
I didn’t want my daughter to feel my sense of abandonment I had felt because my father had not been physically present for the majority of my life. The sense of abandonment caused me to feel unloved and afraid of my own value, as a human being. Even though I was loved, I would mostly recognize the absence, the lack. It was because I had learned to live in fear and shame.
Today I do not live in shame, fear, or grief. After 15 years of sobriety, I have taken steps to create a life of rituals that hold me in place to be present to the grace of life. All of the emotions which use to cause me to fear now are just living indicators that I am of out of alignment on my human journey of being and receiving love. I have learned how to forgive myself and others, learned to drop the rock to know the freedom of being present in life, for life.
The birth of my daughter gave me a new lease on life and the death of my mother reminded me how my mother loved, even with her imperfections.
My mother taught me how to assist her in raising her children as the oldest of her brood of six. I learned how to live in the unconditional state of giving. Too soon, without realizing it, I had forgotten how to leave some love myself. I was a caretaker and gave love from habit. My mother’s death reminded me I had forgotten my purpose. So when my mother died on Thanksgiving day in early 2000, I realized I had to be a better son, so I could become the better father and son. I had to give of the character of the broken man. I did not want my personal sense of shame to be passed on to my own child. I wanted to gift her with an abundant life. I wanted her to have a larger and expansive like than I had experienced.
I had to learn how to be a better friend to myself. I gave her the love I could not give myself. I began to lose myself and my contract of loving her began to fade within my internal clouds of fear, my addiction to low self-esteem and victim pain.
In the midst of my upgrade, I began to build a new story, the love for myself that I could learn to pass on to my daughter, her mother and my community around me with true honesty. I became addicted to being love, giving love and being love.
Pain only gives you the right to forgive.
I began to live a ritual of living to honor the best of my family legacy and the best of me and my personal gifting. I began to release the fear and shame and learned to stand still to become a member in the circle of life. I forgave myself and gave myself a reason to love myself. I found faith in my love for my daughter so I could honor her and the legacy of family.
I learned how to listen without fear. I learned to be authentic and patience, even when I may feel unheard. I have learned to live my beliefs and promises.
I came to believe there is a universal human reason for my mother and my child being in my life. I came to believe in the beauty of the connectedness of the story of life. I no longer believed in the contract of life being a punishment journey.
I learned pain does not have to last forever, only if you want it too. I learned how to save myself by not wanting to repeat my broken self. I wanted to give my daughter a better gift as her father and a man.
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Photo by Arleen wiese on Unsplash