Most of us are planning a get together with our family or other significant people in our lives at the Christmas season. For some of us, like me, this is an exciting and fun time. I have a wonderful family, with children and grandchildren and extended family too.
This is not always fun for others though. Families that have been pulled about by all that is difficult in the world. I read Facebook posts from many who are feeling real dread about getting together with their family.
That is sad. We all have dreams of having a family of love, and family that cares about us and wants the best for us, but it is just not the truth for everyone. I really do understand.
I have been able to create the family of my dreams, and my children are wonderful, but that is not how I grew up. My mother was an abusive alcoholic who deserted us a number of times while I was young and ended up leaving us finally when I was 14. My father did not cope very well and it is was very bleak Christmas made slightly better by one of his friends inviting us around to their house.
When life is not like the pictures and movies, it can feel really stressful. When there is abuse, anger and hurt, it can be very difficult to even be around.
I spent most of my life trying to overcome the pain and hurt that my mother’s abuse and my fathers neglect caused. When my mother was fueled with alcohol and the legal drugs that she mixed with it, she was crazy and as her oldest daughter, I was the brunt of most of it.
Counselling helped a tiny bit, my own pursuits helped a bit, but the real healing came with learning about EFT – emotional freedom technique. It really is a modality that helps you to free your emotions, to heal, to forgive and to understand.
By healing my wounds of being treated with emotional and physical abuse, I have been able to heal the feelings of lack of value, lack of self-confidence and lack of self-esteem that affected the first half of my adult life.
It is hard to see when you are hurting but the people who are hurting you are actually doing the best they can. It might not be very good, it might be quite warped, but somehow they actually think they are doing the right thing.
So when they are telling you how you are no good, or that you will never amount to anything, or all the other mean things that people seem to say to children, they actually think they are helping
We do not have the power to change them. We can’t fix them; we can’t help them see the damage they are doing. Nothing we say or do is going to change them no matter how much we wish it would.
The thing that we can change is US. And that is all we can change.
By tapping on our hurts and feelings we can change how it affects us, we can change our story.
I could tell you all the bad things that happened to me, and my brothers. All the disasters and all that we did to try and cope. And unfortunately that is where my brothers are at. Life has been very hard for them.
But my story is one of success, of achievements, of love. Plenty of learning and growing too. I decided at 16 that my life was going to be different. I made the decision very clearly that I was in charge of my life and I was going to be successful and it didn’t matter what either of my parents did. And I proceeded to act on the plan.
It has been an eventful and a long process.
What I would love for you, – everyone who feels the pain from a less than ideal childhood, and even those whose childhood was “normal”, but still feels the pain of hurts not recognized,- is to learn how to heal those wounds with EFT – tapping. It is the quickest easiest way to change how you feel, and heal the hurts.
When you have cleared the pain of the past, the present becomes so much easier to deal with. When you see people as they are and not through the lens of who you wish they were, you can then learn to accept them.
Can you imagine a life where you are not triggered by anyone, no matter what they say or do? Where your emotions are one of love and joy, even if that is not exactly what is around.
This is possible. This is doable.
You can enjoy your family and your sanity too.
It might be too late for this year, but imagine how different next year could be.
Check out my one on one clarity session where we can talk.