Perspective, a New Take on Life’s Injustices

How do we reach a peaceful state? Point Zero, if you will.

We often get mistaken that life is more complicated than it is. We often make life harder than it needs to be.

Why do we complicate matters? Is it our own self importance? Is it our perception that others don’t find life just as hard? 

Our wounds, coupled with spiritual warfare, will always make simple problems or hiccups in life seem as if they are insurmountable. Remember our teenage years? When the hormones flooding our vessels made each difficult moment bigger than it was. An argument with our friends felt as if our world was ending. A “No” from our parents felt like they were ripping our social lives to shreds seemingly without a care. 

What answers, what perspectives are we and were we missing? As teens, we couldn’t see perhaps how tired our parents were when we asked if they could drive us somewhere. We didn’t know whatever financial issue caused the “no” to be stated. They may have said “we can’t afford it” but we didn’t see how that could be possible. 

Sure, every situation could have been handled differently, perhaps with more care, more kindness. Sure, they could have explained why “no” was given. Remember how argumentative we were. Blowing up, there’s those hormones again, for very little real reason. 

Have we considered that we did as much trauma to our parents as they did to us? Oh, that’s a tough one! 

That one hurts all by itself. As kids and teens, we didn’t know to take their mental health into account and yes, they could have tried harder to be kinder, gentler. Those of us who were people pleasers, you knew there was a hurt with your parents but they couldn’t tell you what that hurt was. 

I’m not excusing traumas that were dealt to all parties involved; however, if you’re reading this, you want to unpack your own baggage and your parents just happen to be a big part of that baggage. 

A new perspective is imperative to your growth and your healing. Not for them but for you. 

I’m going to give you my perspective of my own parents growing up. It’s not pretty. Following, I’ll tell you some of what I was shown while keeping their life stories their own. 

The Life of a Wounded Healer

I was the type of child who found joy in everything. From the ages of 1-11ish, all I wanted was to remain happy and joyful. I obeyed my parents when they gave instruction, I didn’t fight with my sister although at that age, there wasn’t a lot to fight about. Each day, I was presented with options of how to handle the everyday stressors and I chose the answer that brought the most peace to all under that roof. 

I was a very sensitive child. Wore my feelings right on my sleeve for all to see and touch. Now, I know that during that time, I was reading the energy of everyone around me and even manipulating that energy on occasion. I just wanted my family to be happy, to smile, to laugh. I wanted them to see life and the world as I did. 

A world of possibilities, a magical place where laughter and joy were right in front of you, you just had to pick them up. I saw this world as eternally beautiful, and sought to share those moments of glory every single time they happened. 

Glimmers, I believe they’re called? The opposite of a trigger, they’re micro moments in life that bring peace to your nervous system, spark of joy to improve your mood. Glimmers help you feel connected, calmer, and provide a sense of safety and relaxation. 

A beautiful sunrise or sunset, a waterfall in real life, a flower, a butterfly. For me, it’s consistently birds. I live in a slightly more suburban area and I see crows and hawks everywhere. 

All I wanted as a child was to share those glimmers so that the adults around me would remember the joy of simply BEING instead of DOING, constantly. 

What I received for my trouble was criticism, tired parents who simply didn’t have it in them at the end of the day. One parent was always busy, busy, busy. Too busy to sit and play with me for a few minutes. Too busy to share a few moments. Always something needed doing in the house. 

The other parent? Physically present, yet thousands of miles away. So tired from the work day or week, too tired to spare me a few moments of attention. 

I was alone. A lot. I didn’t want to bother the Busy One for I got yelled at for simply asking a question. I would get in trouble for voicing my desire to share one of those glimmers, hoping to lighten their day. The other, well. “Not now, Dee” or “Maybe later” that never came were often what I received. 

Year after year, my heart was broken more and more until one day, near those dreaded teenage years, I thought, “Why does my sibling get the attention I need? She’s loud, often in trouble, but she gets her way. The Busy One seems to give her whatever she wants simply because she wants it. Well, if you can’t beat em, join em.” 

And that was the beginning of my downfall. “If you can’t beat em, join em” was the idiom that did me, by far, the most damage. 

The Teen Years

I got angry. Oh boy, did I have fuel for that fire… 

Every hurt, every dirty look I got from the Busy One, my sibling, and the Far Away One, every time my sibling was chosen over me, every harsh word, every moment spent in abandonment, every single heart break became my weapon. 

I fought like a banshee. Looking back, I likely over did it in my quest to “join them” in their misery and suffering. I weaponized my own fire energy to a grand degree, never taking into account the pain I was dealing them. At times, I wanted them to hurt as I did, I wanted them to feel as alone as I was. I wanted them to PAY for the injustice I didn’t earn! If God wouldn’t do it, then I would see to it they would KNOW, and in knowing, suffer. 

I remember one time, I can’t for the life of me remember what we were arguing about, but I remember the Far Away One once saying in absolute bewilderment, “Did she put the toilet paper on the roll wrong?! What is wrong with you?!”  I tried telling them what was wrong but they blew me off time and time again so after a while, why bother? “You don’t listen when I speak so why bother telling you? It’s a waste of my breath.”

I came home drunk at 13 once. The Busy One made me do homework anyway. I do remember a moment of vulnerability telling the Busy One, “It’s nice that you know. I don’t have to try to hide it.” She was, quite understandably, pissed off. 

I found a boy (for the love… insert eyeroll now). He was… a wounded piece of work. I won’t go too much into that but the Busy One said, “I don’t like him” which only made me hold on tighter. Thinking, he’ll help me escape! Well, he didn’t. He ended up being my domestic abuser, only physically this time. We got pregnant. I was 15. 

I knew what awaited me at home and I was terrified. I was right to be! Years of further abuse began. One morning shortly after making the “announcement” I woke to the Busy One washing dishes. I sat at the bar in front of her to wake up and she said, “I called Planned Parenthood. They wouldn’t let me make you an appointment for an abortion so you will be calling today.” 

This was my first REAL experience with Great Holy Spirit. It may have been Yeshua but regardless, I felt someone else take over by vessel, my soul pushed to the back of my mind in the way embodiment works. The energy felt safe, warm, and protective. I wasn’t afraid for in the next moment I heard my vessel speak.

One word, “No.” To my surprise, the Busy One got… let’s say stiff necked but said nothing and accepted that fate. 

In the intervening years, I tried so very hard to be what I saw I needed to be for my son. It was never good enough. I was constantly ridiculed, belittled, demeaned. One choice, one path, and it lead to further wounding. I tried and tried and tried and nothing I did or said or didn’t do was enough to ease the onslaught. 

The Far Away One recently said, 23 years after all of this, that he’d forgiven me but he was still angry at how his life had been changed by my decision. I responded inquisitively,

“Are you sure you’ve forgiven, then? When I forgive, all emotional attachment to that circumstance is gone. If you still feel, is that actually forgiveness?”

He was speechless. That was an interesting sight I hadn’t seen in a while. 

The Answer Is Always The Same

I’ve been in an active healing cycle for going on 2 years now. (My spiritual path has been much longer but actively healing? Seemingly constantly? A few years.) My outside world hasn’t changed a whole lot. I have the same work, sure I moved but not far, my friend groups are the same, but on the outside not a whole lot has changed. 

On the inside though? That’s where the magic has occurred! 

Every emotional problem I’ve come across in the last few years, the answer was forgiveness. 

Forgiving myself and forgiving them. 

Yes, I had to release the pain, the resentment, the anger, and all the rest. I also had to forgive myself. For not knowing better, for playing into the stupidity, for not seeing the cycle I kept repeating, for following the temptation of snapping back. 

And this is where the true power lies, forgiving those who worked and conspired against us. Likely still do, if I’m honest. Especially if they’re religious. Religion seems to breed obsession.

The Busy One is still terrified that if she let’s go of control, her whole world will end. The Far Away One? Is afraid that he’s wrong. In everything he’s done and believed. The sibling? Well, she’s afraid of not belonging. 

While each of those fears were the root of why my life has thus far been this hard on the sensitive heart the Most High gave me, they aren’t my fears. 

I had to take a good hard look at each person individually and objectively view how life had treated them so far. If my own emotional life had been a battle ground, wouldn’t it stand to reason theirs was too? 

They were just as abused, more so in both cases of my parents, and while it’s not an excuse it is a reason. 

They didn’t know. They didn’t know how to love me the way I needed to be loved and at the time, I didn’t have the vocabulary to tell them. They were living with their own hurts, their own pain. 

While that is not an excuse, it does leave room for compassion. They don’t have the gifts I have. They don’t have the sight I’ve been blessed with. They don’t have the heart I was given. You don’t know what you don’t know. If you aren’t ready to process what you don’t know, then your mind will act to protect itself. Cognitive dissonance is real and it’s hard to work around but if your people aren’t ready, and they may never be, then you have to act for YOURSELF. 

Find forgiveness for YOU. You’re the only one that’s hurting. They don’t know and I truly believe they don’t currently have the capacity to care. YOU care. YOU can do something for YOURSELF.  For your kids, if you have or want them. 

YOU are too important to hold onto pain. You didn’t deserve what was done to you, just as I didn’t. It was wrong. Push comes to shove, we can’t change it, it’s in the past. We can, and frankly need to, forgive them, forgive ourselves, and release it all. 

You’re the only one who can heal this part of yourself. Do the 5 year old you who’s inside the service of practicing forgiveness.