Light or Dark? Your Choice!

Joy or Depression?

A friend who was reading one of my recent columns said she enjoyed seeing me portray my family in a positive light. This made me think about how I have portrayed my family, and her question encouraged me to think about my own vulnerability in speaking so openly about my experiences. 

I came to realise many years ago that the idea of "black and white" was an illusion — nothing is ever good or bad. Even within the past four years, I have come to realise that there is no dual nature of anything. Experiences are just what happens, and judgment is something I place upon this experience. What I do with the experience is what forms me. If, as a child, I had cowered whenever my mother was angry, I would have learned to approach life in this manner. But, for whatever reason, that did not happen, and I learned I could survive whatever appeared to be dangerous and move forward.

I made a decision with this writing to be open about my own experiences in order to give permission for others to do so, as well. It has been my observation that we spend a considerable amount of energy hiding from who we are, and we do not realise that everyone else sees us, except ourselves. By opening my own life and allowing you to see it, I am not only healing myself on many levels, but I am giving you a glimpse into my own processes. The first person I must heal is myself. It is the reason I waited until my 79th year to begin writing about these things. Interestingly enough, I never felt I was ready to do so. I saw so many in my profession of psychology who were unable to handle their own emotions and who did not realise they projected these  upon their clients. I also have dealt with so many parents who have done the same thing, with only limited recognition of their own feelings.

While speaking with parents, I have often had a parent tell me how much one of her children was so much like her own parent. What was the mother like? "Oh, she was a raging alcoholic and we haven't spoken in years." Or I hear she was so highly anxious, she worried about everything. In my interactions I noticed incredibly anxious behaviors on the part of the mother, such as wringing of hands, picking at skin on the arms, etc. When I asked if this parent considered herself anxious, the answer was often "No." Or I might ask if a parent considered himself an angry person. And again, the answer was often "No." However, when looking at the reason the parent came to see me, the child, I would see the answer as "Yes."

Often, the child was referred for an evaluation because he or she was withdrawn, angry, refused to cooperate or might just downright lose it and destroy the room. No one could understand why, nor could they figure out the reason. To suggest the child was acting out the feelings of the parent was considered ridiculous. The parents might speak about how much they loved their child and therefore how could I suggest that they actually tell the child they love her? There was something wrong with the child; the child needed medication. The school did not know how to deal with the child. It was the school's fault. It is always easy to blame external factors or people, such as the parent who left the house, the school, and particularly the child.

I rarely have heard a parent say, "Yes, you are right and let's work together."  But it is always amazing to see what happens when suggestions for change are listened to and acted on together. When I first started heading schools, we would make a point of calling parents whenever the child did something right. At first, parents were leary of these calls. The first words from them were often, "What did he do now?" It was usually a boy, as a girl often becomes the "quiet child" who learns how to act out in other "quiet" ways, like a serious eating disorder or getting pregnant at age 15. When the parent heard we were calling to compliment their child, sometimes there were tears. We would set the stage for the parent to see their child as "good" -- which often changed the parent, as well. We would actually observe the parent change from only seeing the child in a negative light and begin realizing what they did like. When we saw the parent change and become more positive about themselves, it also changed the interaction between parent and child.

When we hide from ourselves, we deny permission to allow light into our souls. We remain in darkness, and we give this darkness strange names. Most often we call this darkness sin, Satan, etc. We never seem to see it for what it is — our own denial of our light. The Eastern Orthodox believe that Lucifer, or whatever other name you give it, has no power in and of itself. Evil exists because we feed it. When we stop, it loses its ability to influence us. More accurately, one can compare it to a spiritual vampire.

Native Americans tell a tale of two wolves: one made of love and one made of hate. Which wolf we become depends upon which one we feed. So which wolf within our children are we feeding? Do we want our children to see themselves as beings of light...or of darkness? Believe it or not, the choice is ours.

And if I see my child as god and treat him as divine, it does not mean I give him everything he wants. Doing that leads to some extreme malfunctioning, as well, such as narcissism and an inability to work within the eternal world. 

As with our children, it is our choice how we see ourselves. Even as I write this, I am strongly pulled to see myself in a negative light, to put myself down. My friends and I have an unspoken pact to not allow each other to speak negatively about ourselves. It does not mean we do not speak the truth about what we see, but we recognize it as our perspective and say so. We also retain the right to refuse what the other is saying and to look within for our own answers because that is where the answer lies. AND most importantly, we look for the light in each other. This does not mean we do not make mistakes, nor lose our temper – we are still human, after all.

But when we make mistakes -- and make them we do -- we admit them, whether to our child, our friend or our partner. We admit them, but first we admit  them to ourselves….and then we move on, because we understand mistakes are just that. We understand the land of victimhood and anger and self-pity become harder and harder to move out of when we dwell there. In denial, the light becomes cloudy and everything seems to conspire against us, especially ourselves. When we move into seeing ourselves as light, it is amazing how the world changes. More importantly, it is amazing that when we change our attitude towards ourselves...how our children change, as well.

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