It's been over a year now that I've been no contact with my mother.  I don't even count the months anymore.  For the first time since this has all began, it doesn't matter as much to me.  Instead of living in the hurt, I am choosing to attempt at living with acceptance and forgiveness.  I don't know if this will be possible or not, but this is the path I am on at the moment.

Six years ago, in 2012, I fully forgave my father of his abuse and moved past the pain into the light.  What light?  I don't know.  I just felt lighter and less heavy & burdened than I did when I lived with his abuse.  Now when I think of him and his actions, I feel absolutely no emotional response.  If you would have told me I'd be able to live this way seven years ago, I'd have laughed in your face.  I wore my pain like a badge of honor, as that pain made me survivor.  I was valid in my contempt of him.  I was justified.  And I hated him.

But then, 12 years ago, when my bedroom used to be on the first floor of our house, I was meditating (not something I normally do, but something I do from time to time).  And I had what some may call a spiritual experience.  I am an atheist, yes, but I am not opposed to these things (although I do not attribute them to anything but my own understanding being opened up).  I was reading "Dying to be Me" by Anita Moorjani, and I had an epiphany due to something she had said in her book:

If someone could choose to do better, they would.  Evil only happens when the human body is biologically broken: addictions, mistakes in brain development, etc.  

In that moment, a universal truth washed over me like a flood: if my father could have chosen to be a better father, husband, and human, he would have.  His broken body caused him to do the things he did and act the way he acted.

I am not saying what he did was okay.  Certainly not.  But did I have to still be carrying around his abuse 12 years after his death?  Did I have to live with all of those complex emotions between love and hate and back again every single moment of my life?  He was dead.  And I wanted to cut the chain between his bad behavior and my psyche.  There was no reason to let him still control me like that.  Not for that long.

So I cut the cord that linked us in that dance between abuser and victim.

I forgave him.  

It wasn't a difficult thing for me to do, surprisingly.  I mean, after all, it had been 12 years of distance between his actions and myself.  This epiphany stuck with me, too.  It's been 6 years since that day and I have only had about two instances where I still felt anger towards some memories.

So fast forward to a couple days ago, when I had another epiphany from reading a book (the best ideas are all in books, btw!).  The book is "Beyond Fear" by Mary Carroll Nelson.  It sums up Don Miguel Ruiz's ideas from his books.  (sidenote: The Voice of Knowledge by him changed my life as well)  Now, unlike his books, this woman goes deep, deep, deep into the Toltec ideas and teachings and I will have to say it's very "out there".  Kind of a crazy at times.  But, if you're like me, you can take anything and adhere it to your own belief system (mine is psychology) and take from it the lessons that are meant to be taken.

So the lesson I learned was that if you leave your mind on negative things, then it will just feed your soul more negativity.  So therefore, it becomes a cycle.  Like anger begets more anger, sadness begets more sadness, victim mentality begets more victim mentality (and also forces you to rally other victims into your mentality--which isn't always a bad thing, but eventually, none of you can move forward), etc.  My blog is an example of me being a victim, and attracting other victims.  WHICH is a good thing, or was.  But now it's time to take my victim mentality and turn it into forward movement, so we ALL can move forward.  I don't want to just be dwelling on her abuse anymore.  I don't want my page (or my existence) to create more space for you not move forward into healing.

Does that healing mean you have to forgive your mother?  Not if you don't want to.  Everyone has their own path.  But to me, for me to heal, I am working on forgiveness.  Something I NEVER thought I could ever do.  But here we are.  If you're not ready to forgive your mother, then please, do not even try to force yourself to.  I know from experience just how that can backfire and leave you feeling worse.  But if you feel that you want to move away from anger and sadness into the light (meaning feeling lighter and less burdened), then follow along from here on out.

Will this work?  Maybe, maybe not.  But I am going to try.  And I want to take this blog with  me, as it's always been chronicle of my own journey on this path.

I don't want to feed my negativity anymore.  Or at least try not to.

Well, here we go.  Let's hope this works :)