Here's another long one. I've been going through it... again. I am recent out of getting really good care from a hospital in which I had to be admitted for psycho-emotional difficulties. If you know me intimately at all, you know that that has been one of the children that I've been given to tend to for most of my life. And as many of you know, this unsettled, hurt and crying inner child is not the easiest to learn to tend to.
Being a teacher and feeling the need to be a model of possibility, hope, light and love can come with a tremendous amount of challenge when the wounded child within is flaring up. Ironically, the very same model/mentor aspect of my being (a.k.a the "well adjusted adult") is both, the savior and the tormentor of this beautiful crying inner infant.
And as anybody who's signed up for the task of true healing will attest to, it is not easy. It is not for the faint of heart.
I post this to keep modeling what it is like to be open, honest and vulnerable as I have been doing for as long as I've been able to. And if you're wondering where such a cooky decision came from, I'll tell you that it comes from how alone and hurt I've personally felt due to a lifetime of lacking people in my immediate life that know how to consistently model what healthy, honest and undefended transparency and vulnerability look like. Truth be told, the culture of secrecy, shame and extreme emotional privacy (in conjunction with the idealization of putting out an image of indestructible happiness, success and pride) has not only not worked for me. And I can unequivocally state that it has sincerely been the single most painful aspect of society that I have had to experience as a human in this world we all share.
As someone who currently is and has been in a handful of intimate relationships and as someone who is serving in the roles of private voice teacher, acting coach and self-esteem mentor, I know full well that I am not alone in my feelings. I know that, although most of us are afraid to publicly open up about it, many of us are deeply crying inside. Sadly, we sensitive types feel like unlovable freaks for being the only ones openly hurting. All while many others are masterfully pretending to have a completely wound-free life. And even though I understand that being private is everyone's prerogative, I know how isolating and invalidating this chosen privacy can feel for us highly sensitive people. And even though I know people have their valid reasons to hide their pain, I feel that somebody's gotta do the dirty work and come forward. Let that fool be me.
Also, none of this is new, it seems it has always been this way. In fact, it is rumored that the Buddha (whom I deeply admire and love) stated thousands of years ago that life is suffering (the first noble truth). And I suppose that as humans we're each karmically hooked up to suffer more or less over different things. I in particular, have suffered a lot because of people's understandable tendency to project and present and image that is not consistent with their truth. I wasn't always as conscious about this as I am today, but this has truly been the bane of my relational existence.
As a child, what I always wanted more than anything else was for things to line up. I wanted English teachers to have good spelling and grammar, I wanted priests to be loving and compassionate, I wanted presidents to be wise and lead their countries with great sincerity, love and intelligence. I tightly associated what I saw that I heard people say they were with what their job description was. I anticipated no negative surprises. I expected consistency and honesty. Or at least honesty and transparency alone.
Little did I know that I was in for the ride of my life. Little did I know, that I had incarnated in a dimension of reality where more than commonplace, hypocrisy happens to be absolutely normal and the standard of our social living.
In line with all of this, those of you who know me intimately are probably aware of my attribution to a lot of my inner conflict to the broken marriage that I was an offspring of. And again, I know I am not alone in that. In fact, I know so well that I am not alone in that, that I know for a fact that more people suffer for this very reason than people themselves are aware of.
I grew up hearing my mom and my dad saying how much they loved each other, but although initially I was naive and buying it, it didn't take long before I ended up feeling deeply confused due to the fact that this love was not becoming manifest in a way that made sense to me.
For most of my childhood my parents had a long distance relationship. A very long distance relationship, with an ocean and 1,553 miles of distance in between, to be more specific.
But love conquers everything, doesn't it? Well it does and it doesn't. Although my parents did have great love for each other, they had what I understand to be very little capacity to make their marriage work. And love didn't conquer that. Avoidance did.
It took a long time for all of this to surface and become as clear as it is now, and a lot of difficult shit went down in between. I, for one feel quite traumatized and battered by it, and although my siblings claim to be over it, I am not.
I write this to reach for support as I have in the past, with good results. I don't ask for prayers because, at least for the time being, I'm not too hooked up to be a prayer type. But in spite of that, if a prayer is all you can offer, I will gladly take it.
I also write this because I don't want to be one more of the bunch that copes and bottles this stuff up inside. That has not worked for me at all in the past and it doesn't seem to be working for other people. No matter how much they pretend to be fine. But who knows, maybe it's more than I'm higher maintenance than most and have high standards.
Funny, my original intent was to write something like: "Nothing angers me more than privileged people who take credit for their privilege by claiming that their privilege was something they created through their hard work." (Think Donald Trump who seems to believe everything he's ever accomplished is all due to HIM.)
Instead, all this other stuff came out. And I'm glad it did.
Your words of empathy and support would be deeply appreciated. The retreat helped all of this beautiful expression of an honest crying heart to emerge. And I am so grateful for it.
I trust that you will handle this tenderly. And if you don't, it's your loss and not mine. That last line I just wrote for those who would be concerned about me for publishing my heart on this sleeve called Blogspot.
With great love,
Gabriel
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