Resentful

I am not ashamed to admit, I am kind of an Oprah junkie!  It's true, and has been since I was in high school.  I have learned a great deal from many of her shows, and find many of the things she has to say reaches me in ways that nothing else does.  Her new OWN network is no exception.  I am truly a life class student.  This week her life class was on forgiveness, and well I have a lot to learn when it comes to this subject.

I had a miserable childhood.  Without question, things happened to me as a kid that should never have happened.  There have been lasting effects from all of that dysfunction and abuse, things that have made me bleed for many years after the events happened.  Through therapy and self help, I accepted years ago that it was not my fault.  I was a child and in a child's body, there was nothing a child could do to fix or stop the things that happened, I was not to blame in any way.  I have acknowledged and fully accepted that reality for years, but there are parts that still, to this day, stay with me.  There are things that come up from time to time that I know are a direct result to my childhood, things I cannot control today, but cause me a great deal of resentment, hurt, and overall dissatisfaction.  There is also a great deal of frustration that goes along with many of the things that happen today.  This show explained to me what forgiveness really is.

I allowed myself the time to watch Oprah's life class, and really listen to what the 4 guru's in the area of forgiveness had to say.  I learned so much about my life now, how it relates to the life I had as a child and where to go from here.  I actually got more from that two hour show than I have gotten from 8 months of therapy.  I would like to explain what I have learned.

The first thing I learned was from Ms. Iyanla Vanzant.  She said, "until you learn to heal the wounds of your past, you will continue to bleed into the future. You can bandage that bleeding with food or drugs, you can bandage that with work or sex, but eventually it will stain your life.  And you will continue to bleed".  What this says to me is, if I don't acknowledge what happened, accept that nothing I can do now will ever change it, and forgive myself and others I will always have this making me sick. 

Forgiveness has always been a difficult thing for me, mainly because I, for some reason, have always felt like it was a get out of jail free card.  I have learned that forgiveness has nothing to do with that, but more to do with me.  I realize now that I must give up the hope that the past will ever have a different outcome, and that what was done to me, although has effected me, does not have to define me.  I need to forgive those that trespassed against me, and move on.  Until I can do that they will always have a hold on me. 

Deepak Chopra says "if you beat a dog, the dog will attempt to protect itself.  When you see that dog again after two years the dog will attack you, but it did not spend those two years planning that attack".  This spoke volumes to me.  I have spent so much time holding what other's have done to me, expecting an apology, an acknowledgement of what they did to me.  I have held onto this, while they have gone on with their lives living it as they will, forgetting all about me.  I hold them in my life as long as I don't move beyond it.  Until then, they still have control of me and they know nothing about it.  He goes onto say "Holding onto resentment is like holding onto your breath, you will start to suffocate."  I know exactly what he is saying there.  There have been times in my life where I have felt smothered, stifled by the things of my past, not having the energy to live for today.  I expel so much energy on my enemies that I don't have any left to give to myself or the people in my life who love me.  He further says that "pain like pleasure is a signal~ saying something is out of balance in your emotional life or your physical life.  You have to process the pain  or it will resurface.  It will resurface as anger and hostility, anticipated pain in the future, because you didn't know how to deal with it in the past, results in feelings of fear and anxiety.  This leads to the redirection of pain~pushing it back on yourself, which manifests in guilt and shame and all of these things deplete your energy to the point of depression."  Every one of these things have a physical component, where something physical goes wrong with you.  I have eaten my pain away for most of my life.  Yes, from time to time I have been able to lose weight, but each time reaching the same weight again and again.  I need to let go of those things that bind me to the past, those people, and more importantly, I need to learn to nurture myself like I would my child.  I need to put myself in a place where I am able to functionally deal with the pain and acknowledge it for what it is.  I need to accept my pain, and give myself the permission to feel it.

Bishop T.D. Jakes had the biggest impact on me, what he said really rang true in my ears, and were exactly what I needed to hear.  He says "unforgiveness, unchecked, is a cancer to the soul.  A cancer that will not stay where it starts~it spreads throughout your life, into every aspect of it,  until it has built walls around you."  That is so true.  Unforgiveness has done that exact thing.  I am not able to forgive those, so now I live in fear.  I fear my son walking through life without my watchful eye on him at every moment.  I fear letting people into our lives, in a more than casual way, in fear of letting the wrong person in.  I have felt that I would rather have Zeb beaten in the school yard ever single day of his life than have to endure sexual abuse, and have put him in a cocoon in order to prevent it.  Walls!  We are surrounded by so many walls that he can't even enjoy the simplest things like going to a friends house after school.  I have to keep saying to myself that I am not going to let what you did to me continue to effect how I choose to live now!  I need to cut the ropes that bind me to what was once, and free myself to what can be!  This does not mean that I have to forget what happened to me, remembering makes it possible to not repeat the past again, he goes onto say "if you forget, you lose the wisdom that can be extracted from the incident."  This is when the light bulb went off like the Fourth of July!!  I don't have to forget, I don't have to accept them in my life further, I just need to forgive them.  He also goes onto say that "you can pick one part of your life out, examine it, and it may bring a bitter taste to your mouth, but when you examine the whole of your life together it tastes pretty good."  For me that is so true.  I have defined myself by the story I tell.  I define myself by what happened to me, but in reality what happened to me made me a person who is compassionate to other's, gives to others with no feeling of needing repayment, and it has enabled me to live my life loving with my whole heart.  With out the events of my childhood would I be the kind, strong courageous person I am today?  No!

Someone then goes on to ask the Bishop "what can I do when the person who has hurt me still has to be in my life, and I have to deal with them on a regular basis, what then?"  His replay to that was this "you can't expect a broken radio to still play music, so you change your expectations of the radio until it is fixed.  If you continue to expect someone to love on a gallon level and they are a pint person you are going to be frustrated the rest of your life!  Lower your expectations, accept they are only a pint person, and fill your life with as many gallon people so that the pint people play smaller, less active roles in your life."  This changed everything for me.  I needed someone to say just that.  I have expected so many things from the pint people in my life, things they just never had to give.  It's not exactly that they didn't want to give them, but rather because they aren't lying, they don't have it to give.  I have so wanted my mother to be the mother I want, but she just doesn't have it to give.  Now I get it, I am a gallon person and that is why we have always clashed.  I have spent my life finding other gallon people.  All this time I thought I was trying to find replacements for the things I lacked, but instead I have just been looking for other gallon people to fill up the space the pint people have left.  This was truly a light bulb, life changing moment for me. 

This show has really made me think and re-evaluate my past thinking.  I think now that I have a lot more ammunition to go into the future with, things that can help me accept other's better and most importantly, to cut the ties to people who have no place in my life.  I think it's time they stopped getting free rent in my head!