This or That

I have a friend who discovered late in life what she had always felt – her “father” wasn’t actually her genetic, biological dad. What is often referred to as NPE (not parent expected). Today, she wrote –

There is a stunning feeling when you need to take personal responsibility to wrongs done to you. It is stunning and confusing. Sometimes causes a wound that is blinding and at times suffocating. Running in circles, like chasing your tail, some things are hard to accept. Accept it. Done, work with it.

Many therapies work to meet injuries and reform and transform them on many levels, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually.

I have found some injuries lead to what I have come to describe as “this or that” mentality. There isn’t a remedy. There is no answer, there is no change, there is no hope. You have a rich milieu and a drive toward contrast. Second that drive lets up, feels like you are being drawn back to the “this” instead of reaching for the “that”.

“That” is the therapy, whatever is moving you away from the “this” which is the wound, the impossibility of circumstances that twist your heart, wounded your life. You have that to work against constantly, with endless, incessant pressure that if used well and correctly you can possibly actually reach the “that”.

You may face people saying you need therapy out of that, yet due to circumstances that became your personality structure. This is what you take responsibility for: the drive, the determination of that personality structure.

There are some things that cannot be undone and you may never stop feeling that. You are not “responsible” for that, but for the drive that it gives you.

This requires a high degree of self-education, character and discipline, to define an act and act upon it. Otherwise, seems the “this” swallows you up. An enormous cost for something you had no hand in deciding or wanting. How the cookie crumbles.

Crumbled a great deal of energy on your plate.

When questioned, she further elaborated – What I have been looking at and trying to formulate thoughts and direction is around these types of wrongs and any scale of wrong that you had no hand in. It comes up on you and your life and personality is defined by it.

You are left “dealing with it”, taking responsibility for something that you cannot change. It has to change you. You go through a great deal, bone cutting, soul cutting, breath restricting pain and change. You can’t “fix” it.

There is a lot of therapies to “fix” us, to heal, but some injuries don’t heal…then what?

I have been looking at a lot of circumstances, studying them, looking into the dynamics of what drive people in all types of ways. It is always some deep wound, a deep “wrong” that drive people one way or another. So I began to look at the drive…THAT is what we are responsible for. Not the wrong, but the drive.

Hard to take your mind off the wrong and the injury – and if you look at that too much, you might miss the opportunity to understand your drive painful and impossible situations might give a person.

I need to add one response to her – We have no say in the matter as to the wrongs committed upon us by others in this life. But we do have a say in the matter if such wrongs destroy us or not.

As a child, I had a horrible act committed upon me as six. A physical scar of which I carry to this day. I could have let the shame I felt, the anger, hate, and rage I felt towards the persons responsible simmer and boil in me for the rest of my life. But it would have destroyed the person I was before the event. They would have succeeded in utterly destroying the rest of my life.

It took me time. But for the sake of my life and sanity. I learned to “Let go” of that shame, anger, hate, and rage. Else, that poison would have gone on inflicting and reliving that act in my mind day after day the rest of my life. And my perpetrators would have succeeded in destroying “me.” So I let it go.

It doesn’t mean I forgive them! That will never happen!

But I can honestly say I’m back to being who I started out in life to be “I’m me” and the physical and emotional scar left over from that attack no longer has any sting, any meaning to me. Other than an old scar.

One of the core teaching Buddha taught about suffering in the world was that. One of the traits of suffering in the world is that it’s natural for humans to not ‘Let Go’ of past injustices. The violent act is over in minutes. But for the rest of our lives, we carry that suffering and pain like a great weight upon our souls. No one forces us to. We do it to ourselves by way of our Ego. And therefore we suffer for the rest of our lives. Not only that, but in time, we inflict that suffering upon others. Ie “Misery loves company.”

Therefore, we should learn to Let Go. And in doing so bring Peace to the Soul.

I never went to therapy for what happened to me. I was very young when it happened and my parents were of the generation that believed in that old motto and hope ‘He’ll grow out of it and forget.’ That never happened. I had to discover that healing on my own when I was older and I did.

I’m glad I never got therapy. For I feel therapists, though good intentioned, perpetuate that suffering by continuing to remind you that your helpless victim that somehow broken.

You only remain that if you refuse to ‘Let Go.’

I’m a Survivor!

A Home For Orphans

Milton Hershey School

There is a need to care for true orphans that do not have living family to care for them. Milton Hershey is mostly known for perfecting a recipe for milk chocolate. I love their Hershey Bars with Almonds but I really shouldn’t eat them because my biology is afflicted with a tendency to have high blood sugar. If I let myself eat one small miniature bar, I want more or something else that I shouldn’t be eating that is too sugary. Mostly I just don’t.

Milton Hershey was a leading philanthropist during his time. In the early 1900s, he was a visionary about providing better working conditions for his workers. He knew this support would also allow them to do a better job in his factory.

Eventually, he built a company town. It was beyond what most companies did at that time. Not only did he build homes for his workers but supported the growth of businesses in the surrounding area as well as a transportation infrastructure.

He and his wife Catherine never had any children of their own but they cared about child welfare. This motivated them to establish a boarding school for orphans. Even now, the school provides a home and free education through high school to more than 2,000 boys and girls.

Hershey is a good example of a visionary social entrepreneur. His efforts never diminished his financial well-being but kept on enhancing that further, so that he could do more.

Protecting Children

There has to be some kind of balance that safeguards a child without destroying family. We should care that children are loved, sheltered, clothed and fed and in some manner instilled with values beneficial to society. Money should not be the sole determinant of where the child’s welfare is best served and society really should do more to preserve a family’s ability to stay together.

Child Protective Services strikes fear into the hearts of many parents. When my sons were young and difficult to keep civil in public, sometimes requiring a strong response from me, I did worry some well-meaning person might misjudge what they witnessed, though I am certain that I pushed the envelope at times, I don’t believe I ever was entirely abusive. I did regret some reactions and there is one in particular my youngest son will never let me forget and that I more than deeply regret – though love was not destroyed and we remain very close. I suspect he also understands that one can push their parent over whatever boundary restrains them. I often think that if my children do not learn about going too far with me, who loves them, someone else could kill them someday for acting ignorant of their potential danger.

My grandmothers lost my parents (both of them) to adoption during the Great Depression (1935 and 1937) due to no other awful reality regarding their life’s circumstances than simple poverty. Sadly, in the modern times we live in, society discounts the importance of natural parents and thinks they’re replaceable, especially if they’re poor. This is something that is and should never be. In most cases, even flawed natural parents are better for a child than moving them into the home of someone totally unrelated (in the genetic sense).

Who among us, that has ever had the difficult and challenging job of parenting another human being, is pure enough to cast the first stone ? Yet some do precisely that with the best of intentions. I never try to judge another parent because I have not walked a mile in their shoes nor to I know all of the circumstances behind whatever behavior I may be witnessing. I’m not suggesting to stand there and do nothing if a child is being SEVERELY beaten. Discipline is a controversial subject in which parents are becoming more enlightened but for which there is no consensus.

Looking Ahead

Many of us begin a new year full of optimism and I am certainly feeling that way myself.

I have learned so very much in the last two years and during my first year writing this blog.

There is no reason to believe there won’t be more to come.

For me it is a balance between understanding what could be better, an acceptance of what is and a realization of how what is is actually what needs to be. Counting my blessings optimistically.

This is not a profound blog today but simply a recognition of the discipline of trying to post a new blog every day. For the most part, I do believe I’ve succeeded in that.

I look forward to offering more insights to those of you who read my blog during the new decade beginning with this new 2020 year. Best wishes for every happiness and all grace.