Desperately Seeking Acceptance

 

My upcoming book, How My Unborn Children Saved My Life, is a spiritual story of my journey to wholeness. It navigates the terrain of abortion and narcissism and how my unborn children led me to find my way out of a world of unhealthy behaviors.

Often we do not realize how broken we are and it takes an earth-shattering event to shake us from the world of illusion that we live in. 

We are born and raised into a world that over time becomes our “normal” way of living. Yet we can become so disconnected from the truth of who we are that we have little hope of discovering who we truly are without a crisis to ignite our transformation. 

I recently met two women who grew up in a household where narcissism was their mothers’ defining character trait. Both of these women were givers and both of them wanted more than anything else to be loved and acknowledged by their parents. And yet their mothers were so self-centered that it was impossible for them to clearly see their daughters and recognize their needs. I understood their stories well. Their stories were so similar to my own. 

I realize as I come full circle in my own life and understand why I made certain choices, why my life brought me in the directions it did. I understand that as human beings we all have one thing in common:

We desire acknowledgment and love from our parents. 

Our unborn children are no different.

I believe whether we have had an abortion or we have lost children through miscarriage, they are spiritual beings who chose us as their parents. They saw a beauty and light in us that made them want to be a part of our lives. 

Part of the healing journey from our pregnancy losses is their healing journey as well. They desire what we also desire – acknowledgement and love from their parents. 

It makes sense, doesn’t it? How many of us strived for a good part of our lives wanting to be seen and cherished by our parents? How many of us studied to get straight A’s or perhaps even developed a negative behavior just to get our parents’ attention? I think it is an unusual human being who has not been caught up in wanting such recognition. 

Why would our spirit children, our unborn angels, be any different?

The moment I connected with my unborn children, my life began to change. The heaviness in my being lifted and my transformational journey began.  

In fact, opening up to the bond of my unborn has led me to a deeper connection with my embodied children. Both my born and unborn children have taught me so much. The very least I can do is acknowledge and thank them for it.


Namaste.

Destiny: Predetermined or Taught (Part 1)

My parents had a story they loved to tell me when my kids were first born. It was about when I myself was a newborn, perhaps six weeks old at best. 

Although they say I was not colicky, apparently one afternoon during my first spring, I was crying for no reason. Despite their best efforts they couldn’t get me to stop bawling, so they put me in my crib, shut the windows and door to my bedroom, and then left the apartment with me wailing inside. They say they sat on the stoop for over 30 minutes until they were sure I must have stopped crying. Sometimes my dad will tell the story and joke that I learned from that experience to keep my mouth shut. The interesting thing is, over my childhood years, I heard the expression that children should be seen and not heard so many times, that even as a joke, it wore thin pretty quickly. My dad had a quick temper at times and between that parenting philosophy and a devout Catholic upbringing, I grew to be quiet and studious, rarely stepping out of the tight boundaries that were erected around me.  

It’s no wonder that I met and married a man who treated me very much the same way. His ‘normal’ and my ‘normal’ way of living were far from most people’s usual ‘normal’ behavior, but very similar to the type of home environment in which we were each raised. His role model, his step-father, was physically, verbally and emotionally abusive as well as an alcoholic, spendthrift and womanizer. He brought this emotional template into our marriage, along with approximately $35,000 of mostly credit card debt. This was back in 1989.

Despite using birth control religiously, in 1992, less than three years into our marriage, I found out I was pregnant while hospitalized for profuse vomiting. When the doctor told me I was pregnant, I burst into tears. My husband looked at me and said “I know what to do.” I knew what he meant, agreed between my wrenching sobs, and within days I had had an abortion. I am sure that I left my body that day, and while I may have been back in it over the next eleven years in the physical sense of the word, I certainly was not aligned with myself in any way, shape, or form. It wasn’t until a miscarriage in 2003 that the memory of the abortion flooded my being and brought me to my knees, literally and figuratively. 

It took me many years of therapy and other experiences to find answers and wholeness from my pregnancy losses. Along the way, I have learned many valuable lessons, lessons I now believe were available to me because of my experiences with abortion and miscarriage. And with that realization has come a healing that is deep and lasting. My eyes have opened to the incongruence’s of my life to that point, and been the impetus for a transformation of all my long held beliefs about myself, my family, and my religious upbringing.   


One of the biggest lessons I learned in healing was that keeping a secret (and that could be any secret, not just an abortion) kept me stuck right where I was. The more I held onto that secret and repressed it, the heavier the weight guilt, shame and other negative feelings became in my body. That secret took up valuable space that I needed to build a better life. It needed to be released so that my being, in every way possible, could have room for love, joy, and freedom. 

Letting go of all those feelings has been some of the hardest work I’ve ever had to do in finding my way back to being in alignment with my soul. There was another pivotal incident which I’m going to share with you next week that also helped me enormously regain my footing on the path to wholeness. This incident not only changed and transformed me, but it changed the life of my children, most notably my daughter, as well.

And the most amazing thing about this other happening is that it came from a source I least expected: my own family.

Until next week, 

Namaste.

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What IS Normal Anyway?

What is your “normal?” Have you ever found out that your view of normal was not the healthiest way of being? My nine year old son Ryan helped me see in the last month how I could create a new normal in my life and let go of the past. Isn’t it great how kids can be some of our greatest teachers? 

Ryan has never been a big fan of sports. His only experience with organized sports to date was in pre-school playing soccer. He literally sat in the middle of the soccer field watching the butterflies and picking dandelions that year. Despite my best attempts to support him (including being a coach for the team), Ryan never took to the game. Other than gymnastics, he did not seem particularly inclined towards any sports at all.

That is, until this year. We had a 10th grade exchange student – Gilad – living with us this past fall. Ryan and Gilad became close friends. They would play basketball in our cul-de-sac almost every day. I feel certain it was Gilad’s influence that inspired Ryan to become interested in that sport. He bugged me daily to play basketball and couldn’t wait to get started. 

He had a blast during practices, but once the actual game started, he felt lost. He couldn’t figure out what was going on with two teams moving around on the court. He was confused and overwhelmed. It was no longer just a one-on-one game in the cul-de-sac. So much so that the first game he was scheduled to play in, he hid his jersey under the sofa hoping that if he couldn’t find his gear, he wouldn’t be able to play. That’s a story for another time, but he did end up playing that day, running up and down the court, managing to look engaged while at the same time staying as far away from the ball as possible. 

His last game was on February 23rd. My parents were in town visiting that day. I had told them the week before about the game. They did not offer to come, nor did I ask them to. As the stands filled, Ryan’s best buddy Brady came in with seven of his family members. It was not unusual for Brady to have several folks in attendance at the games – typically his parents and often his grandmother and uncle. Today there were three more there to support him. To be honest, all season I found it sad that I was the only one watching Ryan play. The beginning of this game was no exception.  

By the second half of the game, Ryan had not scored. He was the only player, in fact, not to have scored all season long in a game. Rather than substitute Ryan out as he did the rest of the team, that day, Coach left him in. He was determined not to let Ryan end this season without giving a 120% effort in helping him score. Every time Ryan’s team had the ball, Coach yelled to the boys to pass to Ryan. It wasn’t long before the kids figured it out, and Ryan was the first one back to the net after each rebound, waiting for the pass to make his shot. (Ironically, the other team saw all the passes being made to Ryan, and had their best and tallest defender on him that whole second half too.) 

I imagine most of the parents knew Ryan had not scored during season. He kind of stood out all season long with the various ways he had of avoiding being engaged. Twirling the string on his shorts, biting his nails, etc. At one point during this last half, I muttered to myself, “I so want Ryan to score before this is done.” Brady’s mom, sitting right next to me said, “We all do Christina, we all do.” 

It was then that I noticed what was going on in the stands. The other parents were yelling for my kid too. Telling him where to stand, how to escape the defender, rooting him on, wanting him to score as much as I did. And Ryan was in the moment, fearless and in the flow, like I had never seen him before. He never did score any points, but he couldn’t have been any happier at the end of the game.


This moment shifted everything for me. Suddenly all the games that I had as a kid that my parents never went to didn’t matter. The fact that my parents were in town and chose not to see their grandson did not matter. That Brady had seven family members there cheering for him did not matter. The illusions that I had carried with me all my life about family were shattered. I felt an experience of empowered love, coming from the coach, the kids on Ryan’s team, and the parents that day completely and utterly overwhelmed me. That my parents missed this was truly their loss. And I had changed the cycle of non-parental support for my son – I was present for him in a way I had never had from my parents.

This past week, I tried to call my parents just to say hello. I did not hear back from them, so I tried again later in the week. My mom finally called me back on Friday. Turns out they had been in town on Wednesday and Thursday visiting with my sister, but hadn’t felt it important to call or stop by. I realized while talking to my mom that if I had known, they could have seen Ryan get an academic award at his school on Wednesday. For a few seconds I thought about saying something to them about what they missed, and then realized it did not matter. It was okay for me to let go of all of it – the illusion, the anger, the resentment. They are who they are where I and somehow that got me to this point of here and now: where it is all perfect, am able to be who I am without apologizing or trying to be something moreIt was all really okay. 


We continued our conversation, with no mention of the timing on Ryan’s award and their visit. As our conversation ended, I told my mom I loved her and I meant it. 

I have known for some time that my normal was not healthy for me. But something was missing in bringing that full circle for me. Last month, being in a gymnasium watching a Sunday morning basketball game, I learned how to love and how to forgive. And I am so excited as I feel my new “normal” unfolding.



Namaste.