Just got back from golf, it is late, and I still need to take our wonderful dog Pax for a walk. I am tired but want to write a first draft of tomorrow’s post and I am waiting for inspiration. I just went to take care of something and the ideas started to flow. My hope is that this will talk to you in way that is helpful or that it gets shared with someone who it will help.
Yesterday I was working with a very troubled client who was born a “Crack" baby, as was his twin sister. He doesn’t even know his biological parents. The two older people who adopted he and his sister did their best but they were overwhelmed and ended up being very harsh and abusive, which brought out the worst in my client. He is now full of anger towards them (both have died) and himself. He doesn’t know what to do with all these emotions and yet he senses something has to be done.
He is right, unexpressed anger and hate eats away at a person, uses up so much life force, and makes living in the present almost impossible. If he doesn’t resolve or at least release some of this emotional turmoil, he will not be able to walk the road of recovery. These kinds of powerful emotions can cause a person to feel so hopeless that the self-medication of addiction may seem the only answer.
My challenge is to assist him to live each day and to quit beating himself up about the past. He needs to forgive and move on but he has doubts he can forgive his mother who he said treated him as if she despised him and the feeling was mutual. “I love her and I hate her,” he said.
An unwillingness to forgive would be a big barrier to his recovery but there seems to be a small window of possibility. That window needs to be expanded and with counseling together we can do that. He needs to come to the place of letting go and moving on in his own time, which I can help along in a gentle and supportive way.
We need to all quit beating ourselves up with our self-talk/thoughts. We can do that by being mindful of what is going on in our mind. If we pay attention to our thinking we will see that so much of what goes on there is learned. We learn so many things about what is not ok about us that we actually believe that to be true. That is incorrect. We are in each moment a perfect creation of the divine in us. The past beats us up because we keep hitting ourselves over the head about it.
Make a commitment today to do these two things and never break that commitment not matter what.
• First forgive all of the past today and keep on forgiving for the rest of your life. Forgiveness is about you and your well-being. Nothing is worth holding onto and poisoning yourself over.
• Today stop talking to yourself in any other way but supportive, encouraging and loving. This means no more unkind words and judgments are to be directed towards you by you. Today free yourself from beating yourself up every again.
I hope these are clear. If not email me at (josephteach@hotmail.com) and ask any questions that you need to so that I might help you get clear of the importance of these two steps. I will even offer you two free coaching sessions to help you make these two commitments to yourself.
Be fully present each moment by talking to yourself in loving and kind ways and forgive, let go and move on. Do this all remembering these wise words, “People are about as happy as they choose to be.” President Abraham Lincoln