I saw this image on Facebook and it immediately sparked an argument between my mind and my emotions. Let me share some things with you.
Sometimes these arguments are so instantaneous, the back and forth conversation seemingly overlapping it happens so rapidly, that the whole thing takes only a split second, start to finish. Information comes in very quickly, is either immediately accepted or immediately rejected, and I am left with both a sense of wonder, and a knowing.
When these rapid fire internal discussions are over, every time and without fail, I find that I have learned something about myself, and I have been given an insight that will serve to make me a better person. Not all of my internal arguments go this smoothly. I think that sometimes the insight, or lesson, is so painful or complex that we subconsciously protect our self by instinctively abandoning the process of facing it. Other times we circle around the issue, take smaller steps toward the lesson in order to prepare ourselves, and, often for me, the truth just smacks me in the face and I deal with the aftermath the best I can.
So, what started the argument? I identified with the statement written on the photo, was instantly startled by the fact that I did, and why, and then immediately mourned the fact. I felt an acute sense of loss. Then, the emotional part of me rather forlornly asked, “Why do you believe you can’t have the prince?” My “higher self” decided to chime in, “You know your outer world is a reflection of your inner world. If you really believe that, then you’re the problem.” Shut-up “higher self”! Mind was a little taken aback by that, couldn’t argue with that, but immediately pulled the answer from a deep well of unrealized truths that it had secreted away, “Because my father made me believe.”
Clearly, my most complicated, messed up, somewhat terrible, not necessarily healthy, relationship is/was with my father, and that’s saying something considering the relationship difficulties I shared with my mother. I want to believe he had so much love for me, that he tried to be his best version for me, and that every word and deed came from his love for me. I choose to believe that he loved me to the best of his ability. He has, without doubt, been one of the most influential people in my life in terms of who I believe I am and my sense of self-worth. Having said that, he was, at times, a destructive force in my life.
Lately I’m hyper-vigilant about the focus of my thoughts and the words that I bring forth because I become more aware of the power of both every single day. In turn, I hear the truth of what people are saying to me more clearly than I ever have before. I’ve mentioned before the “gifts” that people give to us, often without knowledge or forethought, and in the context of this writing, my father often gave me two gifts simultaneously, without realizing the power of his words. What follows is the essence of a familiar “talk” that I received from my father over and over during the course of my formative years. There were many, but this one is representative of my point here.
“Ain’t no knight in shining armor going to come save you, sissy. Nobody is coming over that hill on a big white horse to save the day. Don’t ever put yourself in a position where you have to rely on a man. Make sure you have your own job, your own money, and your own car.”
Do you see what he did there? The epitome of the mixed message, he repeatedly told me that I’m on my own, I can’t “count on” anyone, but I most definitely can’t rely on, and certainly should not trust, men in particular. He also gave me some solid, indisputably good advice; be prepared and capable of taking care of yourself. Advice that has served me well and which I have passed along to my own daughter (minus the knight in shining armor part). In trying to prepare me for life, he both handicapped me and gave me strength in very short order. Rinse and repeat until it became a mantra in my head and both were set in stone in my subconscious.
Fast forward to adult Ginny. I’m strong and independent. I can take care of myself and I pride myself on that fact. The flip side, not surprisingly, is that I rarely ask for, expect, or accept help from anyone, even if I desperately need it. It’s also rare that I fully “trust” anyone. I extend to everyone a trial size amount of trust, and a not insignificant amount of unearned respect; tokens of friendship and courtesy in an otherwise uncivilized world, but I’m on guard. Baby steps going in, but retreating like the hounds of hell are after me at the first hint of betrayal, perceived or real.
I’m often so protective of myself that I rarely reveal the true depth of my feelings or express the entirety of my thoughts. Odds are you’ll never really know unless you evoke an emotion so powerful, or so overwhelming, that the sudden onslaught prevents me from masking it and the evidence of it is written all over me, or welling up unchecked in my eyes, or, it overflows and I return the same to you, now so powerfully magnified that all who bear witness are left to marvel at what happened.
Best case scenario, and what I am slowly learning to do, is to regulate all the emotions in a healthy way. Not for my own protection, because if I feel affected or injured in any way it’s already too late for that. All that's left for me at that point is the lesson. No, it's because I understand that “hurt people hurt people”. Let me show you.
What if my father’s “truth” hadn’t come from his own traumatic childhood experiences, during which he watched his beloved mother suffer at the hands of his own abusive father? What if his mother had been more loving and protective toward him and his siblings, instead of the cold, hard woman that I perceived her to be? What if his childhood mind hadn’t grasped onto the idea that his mother was tied to his father, and therefore couldn’t save any of them, because she was unable to take care of herself? The actual truth, from my own adult perspective, is that his mother was incredibly strong and resourceful. She stayed in that situation for reasons of her own.
But, that wasn’t my father’s belief and he never healed enough to view it from any other perspective. This is how generational curses work. It’s why they work. His unhealed and damaged father was drawn to his, most likely, unhealed and damaged mother, and, together, they caused enough damage that it affected the reality of at least four generations. From that context, his motivation for the constant reinforcement of the “knight in shining armor” story to his little girl did come from a loving place, but it didn’t come from a healed place and was therefore damaging.
What if my father had healed that pain before he gifted it to his own child? What if he had then had something more positive and cohesive to pass on to her? What if he had been able to set her on the right path, from a healed perspective, instead of setting her on the path littered with ticking time bombs, faulty expectations, and harmful beliefs? Maybe she wouldn’t have self-sabotaged her way through much of her own life.
See, for me, the prince is but a metaphor and is representative of my default expectation of everyone that I encounter, and I’m rarely disappointed in that because that’s exactly how limiting beliefs work. They tend to be self-fulfilling. Yes, there have been exceptions, exceptional human beings that have overpowered my default, some to disprove, others to reinforce. Yes, I did come to this realization rather late in life and have therefore caused damage with my own children. I have to live with that.
But I’m aware of my own brokenness, and I seek healing so that I can repair some of that damage now and prevent it from being passed on to yet another generation, though I fear I am too late. I can still make my children aware, admit to and take ownership of my own mistakes, but only mine, and begin the healing process.
My children are, in many ways, already better versions of their parents; from my own perspective it’s a truth. There is the chance that their damage just looks different than mine and therefore I perceive it as better or not as extensive. I want to believe that they know that, in spite of my faults, I loved them more than anything else in this world. I guess only time will tell us the truth of it.
So, that’s the effect that little picture had on me today, and it ended up dominating the whole day, truth be told, while I shifted through it all and came to my final thoughts and conclusions. That picture serves as yet another reminder of how powerful a force thoughts and words can be. Someone I don’t even know had a thought, slapped it on a meme, and sent it out into the world, a veritable bear trap waiting for me to stumble across it.
Be careful what you send out into the world. Be mindful of the weight of your thoughts and the power of your words, not only on yourself, but on others as well. Be careful what you “gift” to others.
When these rapid fire internal discussions are over, every time and without fail, I find that I have learned something about myself, and I have been given an insight that will serve to make me a better person. Not all of my internal arguments go this smoothly. I think that sometimes the insight, or lesson, is so painful or complex that we subconsciously protect our self by instinctively abandoning the process of facing it. Other times we circle around the issue, take smaller steps toward the lesson in order to prepare ourselves, and, often for me, the truth just smacks me in the face and I deal with the aftermath the best I can.
So, what started the argument? I identified with the statement written on the photo, was instantly startled by the fact that I did, and why, and then immediately mourned the fact. I felt an acute sense of loss. Then, the emotional part of me rather forlornly asked, “Why do you believe you can’t have the prince?” My “higher self” decided to chime in, “You know your outer world is a reflection of your inner world. If you really believe that, then you’re the problem.” Shut-up “higher self”! Mind was a little taken aback by that, couldn’t argue with that, but immediately pulled the answer from a deep well of unrealized truths that it had secreted away, “Because my father made me believe.”
Clearly, my most complicated, messed up, somewhat terrible, not necessarily healthy, relationship is/was with my father, and that’s saying something considering the relationship difficulties I shared with my mother. I want to believe he had so much love for me, that he tried to be his best version for me, and that every word and deed came from his love for me. I choose to believe that he loved me to the best of his ability. He has, without doubt, been one of the most influential people in my life in terms of who I believe I am and my sense of self-worth. Having said that, he was, at times, a destructive force in my life.
Lately I’m hyper-vigilant about the focus of my thoughts and the words that I bring forth because I become more aware of the power of both every single day. In turn, I hear the truth of what people are saying to me more clearly than I ever have before. I’ve mentioned before the “gifts” that people give to us, often without knowledge or forethought, and in the context of this writing, my father often gave me two gifts simultaneously, without realizing the power of his words. What follows is the essence of a familiar “talk” that I received from my father over and over during the course of my formative years. There were many, but this one is representative of my point here.
“Ain’t no knight in shining armor going to come save you, sissy. Nobody is coming over that hill on a big white horse to save the day. Don’t ever put yourself in a position where you have to rely on a man. Make sure you have your own job, your own money, and your own car.”
Do you see what he did there? The epitome of the mixed message, he repeatedly told me that I’m on my own, I can’t “count on” anyone, but I most definitely can’t rely on, and certainly should not trust, men in particular. He also gave me some solid, indisputably good advice; be prepared and capable of taking care of yourself. Advice that has served me well and which I have passed along to my own daughter (minus the knight in shining armor part). In trying to prepare me for life, he both handicapped me and gave me strength in very short order. Rinse and repeat until it became a mantra in my head and both were set in stone in my subconscious.
Fast forward to adult Ginny. I’m strong and independent. I can take care of myself and I pride myself on that fact. The flip side, not surprisingly, is that I rarely ask for, expect, or accept help from anyone, even if I desperately need it. It’s also rare that I fully “trust” anyone. I extend to everyone a trial size amount of trust, and a not insignificant amount of unearned respect; tokens of friendship and courtesy in an otherwise uncivilized world, but I’m on guard. Baby steps going in, but retreating like the hounds of hell are after me at the first hint of betrayal, perceived or real.
I’m often so protective of myself that I rarely reveal the true depth of my feelings or express the entirety of my thoughts. Odds are you’ll never really know unless you evoke an emotion so powerful, or so overwhelming, that the sudden onslaught prevents me from masking it and the evidence of it is written all over me, or welling up unchecked in my eyes, or, it overflows and I return the same to you, now so powerfully magnified that all who bear witness are left to marvel at what happened.
Best case scenario, and what I am slowly learning to do, is to regulate all the emotions in a healthy way. Not for my own protection, because if I feel affected or injured in any way it’s already too late for that. All that's left for me at that point is the lesson. No, it's because I understand that “hurt people hurt people”. Let me show you.
What if my father’s “truth” hadn’t come from his own traumatic childhood experiences, during which he watched his beloved mother suffer at the hands of his own abusive father? What if his mother had been more loving and protective toward him and his siblings, instead of the cold, hard woman that I perceived her to be? What if his childhood mind hadn’t grasped onto the idea that his mother was tied to his father, and therefore couldn’t save any of them, because she was unable to take care of herself? The actual truth, from my own adult perspective, is that his mother was incredibly strong and resourceful. She stayed in that situation for reasons of her own.
But, that wasn’t my father’s belief and he never healed enough to view it from any other perspective. This is how generational curses work. It’s why they work. His unhealed and damaged father was drawn to his, most likely, unhealed and damaged mother, and, together, they caused enough damage that it affected the reality of at least four generations. From that context, his motivation for the constant reinforcement of the “knight in shining armor” story to his little girl did come from a loving place, but it didn’t come from a healed place and was therefore damaging.
What if my father had healed that pain before he gifted it to his own child? What if he had then had something more positive and cohesive to pass on to her? What if he had been able to set her on the right path, from a healed perspective, instead of setting her on the path littered with ticking time bombs, faulty expectations, and harmful beliefs? Maybe she wouldn’t have self-sabotaged her way through much of her own life.
See, for me, the prince is but a metaphor and is representative of my default expectation of everyone that I encounter, and I’m rarely disappointed in that because that’s exactly how limiting beliefs work. They tend to be self-fulfilling. Yes, there have been exceptions, exceptional human beings that have overpowered my default, some to disprove, others to reinforce. Yes, I did come to this realization rather late in life and have therefore caused damage with my own children. I have to live with that.
But I’m aware of my own brokenness, and I seek healing so that I can repair some of that damage now and prevent it from being passed on to yet another generation, though I fear I am too late. I can still make my children aware, admit to and take ownership of my own mistakes, but only mine, and begin the healing process.
My children are, in many ways, already better versions of their parents; from my own perspective it’s a truth. There is the chance that their damage just looks different than mine and therefore I perceive it as better or not as extensive. I want to believe that they know that, in spite of my faults, I loved them more than anything else in this world. I guess only time will tell us the truth of it.
So, that’s the effect that little picture had on me today, and it ended up dominating the whole day, truth be told, while I shifted through it all and came to my final thoughts and conclusions. That picture serves as yet another reminder of how powerful a force thoughts and words can be. Someone I don’t even know had a thought, slapped it on a meme, and sent it out into the world, a veritable bear trap waiting for me to stumble across it.
Be careful what you send out into the world. Be mindful of the weight of your thoughts and the power of your words, not only on yourself, but on others as well. Be careful what you “gift” to others.
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