They say pain travels through a family until someone is strong enough to face it. Oddly enough, I never saw myself running up Katniss Everdeen style shouting, ‘I VOLUNTEER AS TRIBUTE’, but here we are nonetheless.
In my journey of healing and exploration, I have had to acknowledge that hurt people hurt people. Those (not all) that have caused me significant trauma were hurt themselves, truly only knowing how to make the pain stop momentarily by hurting others. This is more common than you think in the manner of belittling, degrading, stealing or in fact, causing physical pain.
One cycle in particular I have been actively working to close is one that has lead me into the fire with several harmful people. Recently, I have been evaluating in particular why I continue to not only attract but also seek validation from those that do not treat me well. Why do I not run for the hills at the first red flag but instead stay until I’m drowning in them?
I went from the most recent incident and continued backwards until I found the root, my unhealed wounds from my mother. The person who was given the task of showing me what love is and how to value myself but instead has continuously showed me physical, verbal abuse and humiliation. Try as I did to separate myself entirely from here, I’m going towards two decades of no-contact, that did not heal the wounds.
In turn, I continued to unconsciously seek out those that would treat me the same. Without even giving it a second thought, I would immediately fall into the pattern of seeking their validation and approval. If they mistreated me, I would often find a way to blame myself and allow the pattern to continue. The rare moments where I did find their approval or we had a good moment, I felt like the Sun had finally fallen across my face after years of darkness.
Obviously, this relationship was not sustainable and would come to a head eventually. I could do a entire story on the friends I’ve loved that didn’t love me. There would either be a large breaking point of a fight, I would finally stand up for myself or I would have a rare moment of clarity where I realized I did not deserve to be treated like this.
This not to say I was not without toxicity. I shrunk myself down to make these people feel tall, would often put my happiness onto them for their approval and looked for them to make me feel whole rather than understanding that is an inside issue.
That’s not say it was a clean and easy break. I would often spend an embarrassing amount of time over analyzing the warning sides and things I could have done to prevent it from even reaching that point. I believed that because it continued happening to me I had to be the problem, right? Afterall I was the common denominator in the situation.
Well, the truth is while I did not deserve that treatment I did continue to not heal this wound from my mother which is ultimately my responsibility. I would think by recognizing it it was enough yet I still kept attracting the same type of people and continuing to engage in the same negative self talk. I thought it was acceptable and normal for your inner voice to essentially say ‘you are a piece of shit’ all the time.
The only way I learned to actually break this pattern was my mentor Brittany telling me to look at myself as a child again (this is also referred to as inner child healing) and say the same things I said to myself to her. My immediate reaction was a knee jerk reaction of ‘What? Noooo!’. Brittany doubled down with, ‘Okay, then why say it to yourself? Would you say those things to your son?’
And the light bulb went off.
While I would never say anything like to my beautiful son, my mother had no trouble saying those things to me which is why I still struggle with positive self talk and visualization. While I continue my journey of manifestation and growth, I am often talked out of it by subconscious that believes we are not worth it. It has been a lengthy battle to say the very least.
What I have come to realize is my own mother never healed the very same wounds given to her from her mother (my Grandmother) and the cycle continued. As a double edged sword, my father also never learned from the wounds he had given to him throughout his life.
In comes little ole me, attempting to heal multi generations of pain and trauma to permanently break the cycle and now allow the flames to hit my son.
Through my healing, I am recognizing that the more I avoided healing this, the more I manifested that treatment in my life. It’s what I thought I deserved, what I thought love was and what felt like home.
Chaos and yelling? Calming, normal.
Respectful motivation and admiration? I’m sorry, what?
As I sit here typing this blog and essentially opening my deepest wound to anyone with internet access, I realize that I have never fully had love that was not narcissistic in nature. In fact, I have spend half of my life with it and the past three years attempting to unweave it.
I believe that the Universe never takes away anything that it will not replenish, so while I may be at a point where I am closing dozens of cycles right now and feeling the enormous weight of that. While I may be in a period of somewhat isolation (much like Matt Damon in the Martian), I do acknowledge that is this so I do not self sabotage the love, friendships and future I deserve once they come in.
I’m going to say that louder until anyone who feels the same hears it (aka me) 😉
To learn more about my Mentor Brittany or to begin your own healing journey