“Do you care enough? Do you communicate enough? Do you accept where you are in your life, your role, your purpose? Are you reconciled with who you are? Are you reconciled with others? Do you feel empowered? Do you empower others? Do you create thorns and stones in your heart, from the pain and suffering you felt? Do you do heart-centered communication? Or are you defined by others’ unfulfilled childhood experiences? Or are you defined by yours?” - Fr. Lester Niez, July 4, 2016.
“You should not allow others to dictate how you feel.” Or conversely, “who appointed you to be the regulator of how folks should feel?”
I am paraphrasing the pieces of dialogue I heard from watching the second season of “Madam Secretary,” a television program about a fictional Secretary of State, Elizabeth McCord.
Her husband, Henry, just lost his father and Henry’s grieving sister had thrown the blame of their father’s death on Henry, to the point that she hurled historical accusations on her family members, as far back as high school. The sister became their father’s caretaker in the last years of his life and while in her watch, the father died.
But, what the sister did not know is that Henry and his father had left their love unspoken in details to others, but forged a loving bond which got solidified through phone calls, over the years.
It got me thinking that what Henry McCord experienced was what I have witnessed in grieving families, including my own.
That what folks hold onto are rarely the positive memories of joyful exchanges: the laughter, the walks in the park, the moments parents said and surprised themselves to tell you, “I love you,” the picnics shared, and the shared meals. But instead, they unconsciously archive the hurts, the pains, then, project those painful memories as crushing mountains, crumbling rocks and pebbles at family gatherings, with a sorry audience for their eruptions.
A family centered on loss
Let me share an example of the Family Clark (a pseudonym). The mother was a former homemaker, who with pride, told me she sacrificed her life to take care of her three boys. Over the years, we talked about which public schools to send our children to. She took hers to Pacific Palisades, the best public school in her own book.
Fast forward to the present, Family Clark’s three boys are now grown-up men. One works in the insurance industry, another has a landscape business and another committed suicide.
The father, a retired judge, suffered a stroke, while the mother took care of him. Later, she became mentally imbalanced, triggered by a lack of sleep.
Two brothers were left to take care of their parents and they applied for conservatorship over them and their real estate properties, aka estate.
Without the sons processing their own trauma from a recent loss of their brother and the loss of health and wellness from their once, nurturing parents, these two brothers took out their pain on each other. They could not get along as conservators of their ailing parents.
The courts took over supervision of their parents’ welfare and appointed a public conservator of their parents and their estate. To this day, I have not seen the brothers visit their ancestral home, perhaps forbidden by the courts from disturbing the existing tenants.
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How much of that is true in our own lives? When we become paralyzed from our past trauma, and we somehow, unconsciously carry that series of traumas onto our present lives? How much of our pain body controls our lives?
Until I came across Eckhart Tolle’s book, “The Power of Now and A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose,” I was unconscious about my own invisible luggage of pain. I carried it like a backpack.
It started when I was 4 ½ years old when I was placed in kindergarten, quite early to allow my mother to teach. Four months after I was born, even while in her postpartum blues, my mom lost her father.
She already had two losses when she decided to put me early in kindergarten, from her postpartum blues and her father’s death. Newly married, my mom and my dad pursued their careers, one as a public school teacher, another as a government civil servant.
I remember waiting for my eldest sister, Rose who was just 9 years old to join me at recess in the playground. But, she got busy playing with her friends that she forgot. Understandable, yet there was the unprocessed trauma of once being cared for by a mother who was beside me all the time, now crying to be comforted by a sister.
From being lost in the playground at age 4 ½ then, it was followed by the loss of my dog Queenie at age 8, and then, a third loss, my maternal grandmother, Andrea.
I remember sitting next to her as we rocked the swing, while she told me stories about the garden, the birds, the bees and the butterflies. I cannot remember the lessons she imparted to me, but only her comforting voice. When she was taken to the provinces to be cared for by my loving aunt, I lost her companionship.
Instead of mourning those three losses, unable to articulate my feelings then, I simply vowed no more dogs for me.
Turn on the switch
It got me thinking that the heart is somewhat like a garbage disposal. It stores your pains, sufferings, suspicions and past wounds. If you don’t turn on the switch to break down the garbage thoughts, to allow broken down pieces of mind creations to flow out—out of the cells of your body—you might find that your heart has become the repository of toxic cells. Toxic cells that have gone amuck and are free to take over all the healthy living cells in your body and cause illnesses.
Or the heart can be filled with so much love, that like a tank, it can be overflowing with love, as my apo, Princess (a pseudonym), who at 1 ½ years old, gets excited about dropping blueberries for her dog, anticipating that he will eat them on the floor. Even when her dog is not around, she is dropping food for him on the floor, knowing that her dog is part of her life.
Had I simply stopped her from dropping food on the floor, without knowing why she does that, I would have made her feel unsafe. But by observing her while in my home and at my daughter’s, it made sense.
When she sees a neighbor’s dog, she makes sounds, “whew, whew, huh, huh,” to say hi.
I realized one can also talk to one’s heart, where we can process our inner thoughts, past grudges, grievances, and decide to replace them with happy memories. We can decide to clean our soul, to forgive and to love folks who betrayed us, at a distance, and to be present to give and to receive joys from family and friends.
I also know now that no one is obliged to love me. Not even my mother, my father, my sisters, my husband, my children nor my friends. It is enough that I am God’s beloved and that whoever loves me is a gift and God’s grace.
I also learned that I can just be like Princess, and be present.
Now, at the retired phase of my life, instead of expecting that my adult children “should visit,” I say yes to spontaneity and new opportunities for the day.
There are days when I cook a storm. Sometimes, I am lucky and my oldest joins us for an impromptu dinner or breakfast. I am most happy when she does.
Just the other day, I got lucky again, as our youngest invited us for lunch.
I simply think, what miracle will the Universe give me today?
I was feeding my toddler and as I paid attention to her, she gave me a flying kiss. She got me kissing her back and I bet, my chuckles could be heard up to my neighbor’s house.
Today I woke up, and without even saying anything to my husband, he had the same cravings for breakfast—pancakes to go with homemade strawberry preserves that I made. I was so grateful that “he read my mind” and made breakfast.
My lessons from trauma: Process your dark thoughts. Ask if these thoughts are helping you in the present? Are you allowing past trauma to have permanent, rent-free residence, glued as a heavy anchor to your past?
Instead, give daily love and serve others without holding anything back. Don’t define yourself by how others see you. Use your pain to create new opportunities to improve yourself, especially lives around you, and consciously build a legacy of contributions and service to others.
Being here is not about you, it is about your spirit encased in your skin to enlarge your own humanity. But, also, do not enable injustice, darkness and garbage definitions from others. Love is all that matters, but so do justice and peace.
Empower folks to be their best selves around you. Refuse to be others’ personal garbage can and instead, remind them to turn on their inner garbage disposal switch!
After all, this is freedom month, wherein we get to celebrate not just July 4th, but also the freedom to be our authentic joyful selves!
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Prosy Abarquez-Delacruz, J.D. writes a weekly column for Asian Journal, called “Rhizomes.” She has been writing for AJ Press for 9 years now. She contributes to Balikbayan Magazine. Her training and experiences are in science, food technology, law and community volunteerism for 4 decades. She holds a B.S. degree from the University of the Philippines, a law degree from Whittier College School of Law in California and a certificate on 21st Century Leadership from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. She has been a participant in NVM Writing Workshops taught by Prof. Peter Bacho for 4 years and Prof. Russell Leong. She has travelled to France, Holland, Belgium, Japan, Mexico and 22 national parks in the US, in pursuit of her love for arts.