Brave Enough To Be Bliss

Chapter 3 — A Reason to Live

“Your childhood is an explanation for the way you are, but not an excuse to stay the way you are.” Dana Carretta

I grew up a small-town Kansas girl. I had one sister who was four and a half years older than me, and my parents were married until I was 12 years old. My mom and I moved to another town after my sixth grade year, so my sister and I didn’t live together after that. I don’t remember many details of my childhood, but when I look back at pictures, I don’t see a girl who was very happy. And while it would be understandable to feel badly about the clothing and hair styles of the 70s and 80s, I see more than that: I see real sadness and loneliness in that little girl’s eyes. While I can only provide a brief description of my childhood because I don’t remember much, it illustrates how important it is for everyone to heal their own childhood wounds, so as parents we can

offer our healed and very best selves to our children.

“Forgive your parents. They were learning too.” Unknown

There are no perfect parents, including me, and that shouldn’t even be the goal. The goal should be to become the healthiest parents we can be. We are all hurt as children in some way, since there are no perfect parents. It seems like when we become parents ourselves, we tend to either imitate the way our parents hurt us or do the exact opposite of everything our parents did . I’ve learned the healthy place for me is generally in the middle versus either end of the spectrum on most everything. Like many parents, I believe mine raised us similarly to how they were raised. Many “unpleasant” things were never discussed. Unpleasant covered a wide variety of topics, but basically boiled down to anything that would make a person feel or express too much of any emotion. However, if there was an exception to the rule it was anger. I heard about, and even more, sensed a lot of anger present in those around me. And even laughter wasn’t acceptable for good little girls. As an example, if someone passed gas or belched, it was to be ignored. One time, my sister and I giggled in the back seat of the car after hearing one of those sounds, and we were promptly scolded making it clear to me that normal bodily functions were off limits for acknowledgement. And to avoid getting in trouble for anything else, I moved forward with the assumption that allowing normal bodily functions was off limits too, or at a minimum they were to be hidden. While I don’t remember many details, there were extremely limited times we could play with friends, many hours were spent cleaning the house including “raking” the shag carpet to perfection, and we were told if you’re going to do it, do it right. My sister, unfortunately, took the brunt of the punishments because “she was older and should know better.” Understandably , she may have thought I got special treatment, but I just learned in order to stay out of trouble, I needed to be quiet and never express myself, follow all the rules without question, always behave like a little adult, never express emotion or opinion, and always be aware that just because things are OK one minute, they could change in a split second.

T o be safe, only speak when you are spoken to because…

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