An epithany about children and the energy that can get trapped in their fields.
Often I see things that go on with parents and children, and can relate.
Parenting is a hard thing now a days. Kids do stuff, they learn from their parents what they can and can't do. Starting from the moment they start moving on their own.
It's a process, and believe me, children are resilent. Mom's yell at them, Dad's yell at them,
most of it they will never remember. I do and I don't from my childhood. Not most of it, and I have a really good memory, probably to about 2nd grade age, though it is spotty, just really the striking things stand out.
However, I was reminded once again of something I do not remember. Not that long ago. By my father.
From the time I was a toddling baby, in Hawaii. And for the life of me, I never liked to hear about it, it just seems mean and pointless to bring it up.
So, apparently I wandered off one day. Not far from the Quonset hut we were living in, but enough to scare my parents. My father went to look for me.
He found me, he says, messing about with garbage cans, shaking them, rattling them he says.
He couldn't see me as they were bigger than me.
So he gets a stick and gets ahold of me, yells I am sure. Then beats my legs with the stick all the way back to the house.
This is painful to even write down to be honest. And every time I hear this story, I wondering why he keeps repeating it to me. Does he know it was child abuse, and why does he think it was funny?
By now, you know my childhood wasn't truly horrible, but not perfect. I have in the past pretended it was, and understood that a lot of people have had worse, horrific childhoods.
But, the dynamics of mine were not even handed. Being a military family, we were a closed group. We had good times, and bad times. But there were differences in overall treatment of each of us.
Maybe two of us got more preferential treatment. Maybe one did in some ways, but a lot of
weight laid for being a boy, and expectations that I would say were unfair to him.
And two of us were made to feel, on a energetic level, that we had better comply with our father's rules and be good girls, or else. Not truly special. Oh they loved us, but looking back, I see the uneven handed treatment. Because it is reflected in how each one of us behaves toward each other today.
I remember my father always making remarks to my baby sister about her not knowing stuff, she was really little and shy. He would tell she was a member of the "I don't know club." She was around three to four years old, what the hell was she supposed to know? Today she is amazingly intellegent, has a degrees in vet tech medicine and childhood pyschology. Works hard to support her family, and like me, a bit of a independent thinker.
But two siblings still tend to treat her like she doesn't know anything if she offers an opinion. Same with me, I don't know anything, plus I am a little "out there". Looking back I see more going on, but am not sure my father was aware of the foundations he laid for the future. Some worked hard to excell in school, others we did ok, but it wasn't what he thought it should be. He would pay for grades based on how you did. I still find that unpleasant.
But it was that demeaning way of talking to us that did leave impressions, both energetic and emotionally.
Once when I was singing while doing dishes, my father made a point to tell me I sounded like a man. Not jokingly, just really stood there and told me so. I felt so bad, I loved to sing, still do.
But he just left a shadow over me by doing that. Great self esteem builder.
A few years later I found people actually like to hear me sing. Good thing I kept singing in my car, and later in my own homes. But it is this sort of thing that you should not do while raising children. It is damaging in more ways than one. It is one that lingers too long.
The funny thing now is they seem to like hearing me sing too. But I went years of not singing in front of them.
I grew up very secretive at a certain point, closed off to allowing my parents to really see me.
I now understand that maybe as an infant, I was imprinted energetically in a manner that made this so. And it was reinforced by my parents behavior. With so many things they said and did, yet all the while they did love me in their manner.
My father grew up without a mother, and had a few stepmothers who didn't stay long.
My grandfather appeared to be there but not there. All the while looking after his younger kids, who were at times really badly behaved, and when he did disclipline, it was by whipping with a razor strap.
He was a farmer, it was the Depression, his loved wife had died, and most of his older children were married, or had died. He had a 12 year old daughter to look after the little kids left at home, and a 15 year old son who didn't.
I loved my grandfather, he was always good to me, and I am sure he had it hard too. But looking for live in babysitters to marry was not a good solution.
So my father learned that this was how it should be. They were like that in those days he once said. My mother was a very careful butt paddler with a hairbrush, three times. She had been
punished in the manner of "those days" maybe too harshly as she grew up.
When I have gone to talk with someone who is a energetic therapist, or pyschic, almost immediately they ask about my father.
It is there with in my energy field. I had learnt to deal with my lack of self esteem as a child by becoming a rebel who had no cause, but staying very under the radar. So I did things I wouldn't get caught at. Like smoke with girl friends on the way home from the bus stop, drink booze later on when it really was a stupid thing to do, then sneak home and into the house, etc. I was very careful for a long time.
I have come to understand that my father felt very vulnerable as a child. Kids need a safe structure and love to grow in, with security. He really must not have felt secure growing up.
So he became driven to make his life secure and sucessful. And in control of it. He still operates in that mode. I love him dearly, but feel my father has Obessive Compulsive Disorder.
And no understanding of parenting skills, he was just 20 when he and my mother married.
She was 26. Both were in the military after World War 2, and met in Hawaii. I was born there, and my mother got an honorable discharge. They struggled to make ends meet.
I was an unplanned pregnancy for which they got married. Took me a while to learn to count the months between the wedding and when I was born. Not that I care about that, but I do care that it maybe wasn't something they each had planned for their lives.
So a active little baby girl with a profound curiosity, which I still have, must have been a
strain. I am not making excuses for my father beating my legs, but it has given me insight into his pysche. All he knew for disciplining was physical striking. And emotional intimidation with things he did not approve of, but did not require physical punishment. He wasn't emotional, but it left a mark on me when he did so. Still does.
So I have had to work on why he keeps bringing the details of this incident up. Maybe I
can get close in this story. And mind you, not doing this out of hatred for him, but love for myself and him.
He still has a really horrible control freak attitude about his family. We are all adults and are way past grown up with families of our own. He feels like he has to remind me of the fact I was a
little girl, I was a "bad girl". As if he is taking credit because I am not one now. He feels this need because I was a uncontrolled event in his life.
Like the other things he used to lay on me, throwing away my paper dolls and drawings, etc.Because he considered it wrong to keep them. And they really were not a fire hazard. But he rationalized it that way. The truth is he didn't approve of the fact I liked to draw so much. Or my younger sister who shared the bedroom. To him it was something worthless, even if done by children.
I got to hear about that one last fall. Guess what, I am 62 years old. I have never found it funny. And double the dislike for the leg beating story. And at this stage of my life for him to keep doing so, actually dysfunctionally inappropriate. What about all the good things I did? I don't think I have ever heard him constantly relate any good thing I may have done. Only what he considers the bad things.
I should let them know I was smoking cigarettes upstairs a time or two, now that was a fire hazard. That was when I was feeling secretly brazenly rebellious.
Funny thing that. When I am emotionally upset, that is when I smoke. Or I am working over something hard in my head and heart. But not always, like once a month or not, sometimes twice.
Often it is due to some damned family crap. Some of us can leave it out of their lives, some of us get hit pretty hard in the heart. And some do stuff just to make it harder than it has to be, without taking a long deep look at why they do it. Or say the things they say, behind closed doors.
So what I am saying is we don't all pull together, far from it. Oh we can for a short time, but as the parents are getting older, not so sure. I find at times like these, I tend to want to step away by
myself. I have decided no attachment to outcome is the best way for me to view things.
Odd thing is for all the times I smoke, I can go without for a long period of time. Still do. And now keep them in the house, like other people keep booze. For those crappy moments. Maybe it is a bad way to do things, but even people who are learning enlightenment maybe need a way to calm down, breathing deeply and visualization doesn't always do it fast enough. Later on, yes.
Growing up feeling you were not measuring up to someone elses standards is not fun. I understand now that I had just enough rebellious spirit to be able to break away. And learn to become my authentic self. Oh, not overnight. Decades, of raising my kids in a different way than I was raised. Living in a place my parents didn't approve of, doing the things I loved to do. And some things, I felt I had a late start at. But better late than never.
I believe my siblings all have had to be tough enough to break free, even if they are in denial about it. One may still try to be the child he expected her to be, so maybe he would still love her.
Now that is a tough energetic imprinting. I think a lot of people have grown up with that in their energy fields.
I was that way for a long time too, then I stopped. Well the news is, I still love him, he loves me in his way. I just learned how to stick up for myself, fight back.
And I have had to work on all of me, to do it. But it sent me down a path, which may have saved me when my son died, by the teeth in my skin.
I like that old saying, "Today is the first day of the rest of your life." Just what day that exactly was? I think it may have been a series of days, each after a new insight into myself.
Parenting is a hard thing now a days. Kids do stuff, they learn from their parents what they can and can't do. Starting from the moment they start moving on their own.
It's a process, and believe me, children are resilent. Mom's yell at them, Dad's yell at them,
most of it they will never remember. I do and I don't from my childhood. Not most of it, and I have a really good memory, probably to about 2nd grade age, though it is spotty, just really the striking things stand out.
However, I was reminded once again of something I do not remember. Not that long ago. By my father.
From the time I was a toddling baby, in Hawaii. And for the life of me, I never liked to hear about it, it just seems mean and pointless to bring it up.
So, apparently I wandered off one day. Not far from the Quonset hut we were living in, but enough to scare my parents. My father went to look for me.
He found me, he says, messing about with garbage cans, shaking them, rattling them he says.
He couldn't see me as they were bigger than me.
So he gets a stick and gets ahold of me, yells I am sure. Then beats my legs with the stick all the way back to the house.
This is painful to even write down to be honest. And every time I hear this story, I wondering why he keeps repeating it to me. Does he know it was child abuse, and why does he think it was funny?
By now, you know my childhood wasn't truly horrible, but not perfect. I have in the past pretended it was, and understood that a lot of people have had worse, horrific childhoods.
But, the dynamics of mine were not even handed. Being a military family, we were a closed group. We had good times, and bad times. But there were differences in overall treatment of each of us.
Maybe two of us got more preferential treatment. Maybe one did in some ways, but a lot of
weight laid for being a boy, and expectations that I would say were unfair to him.
And two of us were made to feel, on a energetic level, that we had better comply with our father's rules and be good girls, or else. Not truly special. Oh they loved us, but looking back, I see the uneven handed treatment. Because it is reflected in how each one of us behaves toward each other today.
I remember my father always making remarks to my baby sister about her not knowing stuff, she was really little and shy. He would tell she was a member of the "I don't know club." She was around three to four years old, what the hell was she supposed to know? Today she is amazingly intellegent, has a degrees in vet tech medicine and childhood pyschology. Works hard to support her family, and like me, a bit of a independent thinker.
But two siblings still tend to treat her like she doesn't know anything if she offers an opinion. Same with me, I don't know anything, plus I am a little "out there". Looking back I see more going on, but am not sure my father was aware of the foundations he laid for the future. Some worked hard to excell in school, others we did ok, but it wasn't what he thought it should be. He would pay for grades based on how you did. I still find that unpleasant.
But it was that demeaning way of talking to us that did leave impressions, both energetic and emotionally.
Once when I was singing while doing dishes, my father made a point to tell me I sounded like a man. Not jokingly, just really stood there and told me so. I felt so bad, I loved to sing, still do.
But he just left a shadow over me by doing that. Great self esteem builder.
A few years later I found people actually like to hear me sing. Good thing I kept singing in my car, and later in my own homes. But it is this sort of thing that you should not do while raising children. It is damaging in more ways than one. It is one that lingers too long.
The funny thing now is they seem to like hearing me sing too. But I went years of not singing in front of them.
I grew up very secretive at a certain point, closed off to allowing my parents to really see me.
I now understand that maybe as an infant, I was imprinted energetically in a manner that made this so. And it was reinforced by my parents behavior. With so many things they said and did, yet all the while they did love me in their manner.
My father grew up without a mother, and had a few stepmothers who didn't stay long.
My grandfather appeared to be there but not there. All the while looking after his younger kids, who were at times really badly behaved, and when he did disclipline, it was by whipping with a razor strap.
He was a farmer, it was the Depression, his loved wife had died, and most of his older children were married, or had died. He had a 12 year old daughter to look after the little kids left at home, and a 15 year old son who didn't.
I loved my grandfather, he was always good to me, and I am sure he had it hard too. But looking for live in babysitters to marry was not a good solution.
So my father learned that this was how it should be. They were like that in those days he once said. My mother was a very careful butt paddler with a hairbrush, three times. She had been
punished in the manner of "those days" maybe too harshly as she grew up.
When I have gone to talk with someone who is a energetic therapist, or pyschic, almost immediately they ask about my father.
It is there with in my energy field. I had learnt to deal with my lack of self esteem as a child by becoming a rebel who had no cause, but staying very under the radar. So I did things I wouldn't get caught at. Like smoke with girl friends on the way home from the bus stop, drink booze later on when it really was a stupid thing to do, then sneak home and into the house, etc. I was very careful for a long time.
I have come to understand that my father felt very vulnerable as a child. Kids need a safe structure and love to grow in, with security. He really must not have felt secure growing up.
So he became driven to make his life secure and sucessful. And in control of it. He still operates in that mode. I love him dearly, but feel my father has Obessive Compulsive Disorder.
And no understanding of parenting skills, he was just 20 when he and my mother married.
She was 26. Both were in the military after World War 2, and met in Hawaii. I was born there, and my mother got an honorable discharge. They struggled to make ends meet.
I was an unplanned pregnancy for which they got married. Took me a while to learn to count the months between the wedding and when I was born. Not that I care about that, but I do care that it maybe wasn't something they each had planned for their lives.
So a active little baby girl with a profound curiosity, which I still have, must have been a
strain. I am not making excuses for my father beating my legs, but it has given me insight into his pysche. All he knew for disciplining was physical striking. And emotional intimidation with things he did not approve of, but did not require physical punishment. He wasn't emotional, but it left a mark on me when he did so. Still does.
So I have had to work on why he keeps bringing the details of this incident up. Maybe I
can get close in this story. And mind you, not doing this out of hatred for him, but love for myself and him.
He still has a really horrible control freak attitude about his family. We are all adults and are way past grown up with families of our own. He feels like he has to remind me of the fact I was a
little girl, I was a "bad girl". As if he is taking credit because I am not one now. He feels this need because I was a uncontrolled event in his life.
Like the other things he used to lay on me, throwing away my paper dolls and drawings, etc.Because he considered it wrong to keep them. And they really were not a fire hazard. But he rationalized it that way. The truth is he didn't approve of the fact I liked to draw so much. Or my younger sister who shared the bedroom. To him it was something worthless, even if done by children.
I got to hear about that one last fall. Guess what, I am 62 years old. I have never found it funny. And double the dislike for the leg beating story. And at this stage of my life for him to keep doing so, actually dysfunctionally inappropriate. What about all the good things I did? I don't think I have ever heard him constantly relate any good thing I may have done. Only what he considers the bad things.
I should let them know I was smoking cigarettes upstairs a time or two, now that was a fire hazard. That was when I was feeling secretly brazenly rebellious.
Funny thing that. When I am emotionally upset, that is when I smoke. Or I am working over something hard in my head and heart. But not always, like once a month or not, sometimes twice.
Often it is due to some damned family crap. Some of us can leave it out of their lives, some of us get hit pretty hard in the heart. And some do stuff just to make it harder than it has to be, without taking a long deep look at why they do it. Or say the things they say, behind closed doors.
So what I am saying is we don't all pull together, far from it. Oh we can for a short time, but as the parents are getting older, not so sure. I find at times like these, I tend to want to step away by
myself. I have decided no attachment to outcome is the best way for me to view things.
Odd thing is for all the times I smoke, I can go without for a long period of time. Still do. And now keep them in the house, like other people keep booze. For those crappy moments. Maybe it is a bad way to do things, but even people who are learning enlightenment maybe need a way to calm down, breathing deeply and visualization doesn't always do it fast enough. Later on, yes.
Growing up feeling you were not measuring up to someone elses standards is not fun. I understand now that I had just enough rebellious spirit to be able to break away. And learn to become my authentic self. Oh, not overnight. Decades, of raising my kids in a different way than I was raised. Living in a place my parents didn't approve of, doing the things I loved to do. And some things, I felt I had a late start at. But better late than never.
I believe my siblings all have had to be tough enough to break free, even if they are in denial about it. One may still try to be the child he expected her to be, so maybe he would still love her.
Now that is a tough energetic imprinting. I think a lot of people have grown up with that in their energy fields.
I was that way for a long time too, then I stopped. Well the news is, I still love him, he loves me in his way. I just learned how to stick up for myself, fight back.
And I have had to work on all of me, to do it. But it sent me down a path, which may have saved me when my son died, by the teeth in my skin.
I like that old saying, "Today is the first day of the rest of your life." Just what day that exactly was? I think it may have been a series of days, each after a new insight into myself.
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