As we start today our thoughts are with Katherine and the children as they begin a lengthy battle in court with AEG. My hope is that you too will offer prayers for their well being and safety. When I reflect on Michael's life I see how our childhoods have played such a large part in our current situations. I thought the following was appropriate for today. It has been contributed anonymously:
"When we speak of our families most of us paint a flowery picture of loving parents wanting to be there for their children. Most often we see images of Thanksgiving dinner with family seated around the table and enjoying a meal. Most families, however, have only glimpses of these "picture perfect" moments. For life itself is not perfect and so the family unit is often dysfunctional and sometimes even destroyed.
I have had glimpses of my family life while living away from home. I have come to realize that all that I had thought about what a family "should be" is not. All that I would like one to be is somehow diminished by the reality. I have spent my life wearing rose colored glasses trying to see in the people that I love the most what I wanted to see instead of who they truly were. I made excuses for them, tried to be kind so they would like me and pretended to be something and someone I thought they wanted me to be. In the end I failed everyone, including myself and my own children. Allowing others, including my own family to trample over my very soul damaged even the brightest light living inside of me.
How many of us live in these lies? We offer stories to cover the abuse, the insensitivities and stay in situations that damage and abuse our very souls. We explain our behavior by telling ourselves "it's family", when most often it is the family that is sometimes the most damaging. In some cases they have groomed children to become subservient and obey. As they grow into adulthood they are ingrained with that behavior. The individual may have grown up on the outside, but on the inside, he is still a child. Obedient to those around him because that is what he has been taught.
This leaves little room for discrimination and opens the door to further abuse. Masking the truth and putting on rose colored glasses, denying that you may have problems with members of your family does not make them go away. We must confront them head on knowing that they are only people too, that the one thing that ties you to them is only your longing for what you wish them to be and sometimes not for who they are. The DNA strands that you share are the same DNA strands that tie you and I together. If we find we can not be treated with respect and loved by our own family, we can always find another connected family in others."
"When we speak of our families most of us paint a flowery picture of loving parents wanting to be there for their children. Most often we see images of Thanksgiving dinner with family seated around the table and enjoying a meal. Most families, however, have only glimpses of these "picture perfect" moments. For life itself is not perfect and so the family unit is often dysfunctional and sometimes even destroyed.
I have had glimpses of my family life while living away from home. I have come to realize that all that I had thought about what a family "should be" is not. All that I would like one to be is somehow diminished by the reality. I have spent my life wearing rose colored glasses trying to see in the people that I love the most what I wanted to see instead of who they truly were. I made excuses for them, tried to be kind so they would like me and pretended to be something and someone I thought they wanted me to be. In the end I failed everyone, including myself and my own children. Allowing others, including my own family to trample over my very soul damaged even the brightest light living inside of me.
How many of us live in these lies? We offer stories to cover the abuse, the insensitivities and stay in situations that damage and abuse our very souls. We explain our behavior by telling ourselves "it's family", when most often it is the family that is sometimes the most damaging. In some cases they have groomed children to become subservient and obey. As they grow into adulthood they are ingrained with that behavior. The individual may have grown up on the outside, but on the inside, he is still a child. Obedient to those around him because that is what he has been taught.
This leaves little room for discrimination and opens the door to further abuse. Masking the truth and putting on rose colored glasses, denying that you may have problems with members of your family does not make them go away. We must confront them head on knowing that they are only people too, that the one thing that ties you to them is only your longing for what you wish them to be and sometimes not for who they are. The DNA strands that you share are the same DNA strands that tie you and I together. If we find we can not be treated with respect and loved by our own family, we can always find another connected family in others."
1 comment:
Excellent observation. Being part of a famitly is no guarantee for being treated kindly. The bullying we observe among pupils in schools is certainly not confined there, but rears its ugly head at the workplace, and follows certain people right into the adult world, often having originated in the family by members with a mean character disposition.
For the victim of mental cruelties abuse generally creates an inferiority complex which can take a long time to overcome. My best advice for victims of mental cruelties is becoming selective of who your friends are. Toss the bullies out of your life and do not attempt to cater to them just to gain their favours. They will just not respect you if you do.
The worst thing the abused can do to is to become abusers themselves. That would defeat the purpose for an incarnation which is to experience possibilities in either the positive or negative, and if we are given the negative in life experiences, then the lesson is not learned if we then begin to dish out in like manner. We need to always remember that where mistreatment hurts our souls, then that is not what we should hurl randomly at others around us.
The quickest way to recover from abuse of any kind is to simply not abuse, but become an ethical person aloof of even considering to dish out to others that which was hurtful to the own soul.
Good topic to talk about, Deborah. I also enjoyed writing my own comment! :)
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