Staring at the words on the page, I realized that there were tears flowing down my cheeks. “I hate myself. I hate what I look like, how I act, who I am.” I must have read that line 5 times realizing that the handwriting was not mine but the sentiment was, at least at times in my life. I put it aside and sadly thought how heavy carrying that weight of self-judgment was and how much I wish I could take it away from her. I put it aside and began to go through the box of my stuff that I had taken home.
I found letters and cards from my high school/college boyfriend who became my first husband. Those cards and letters validated for me that he did once love me and it wasn’t all a lie. That had stayed with me for a long time, that perhaps the entire 16 years together was a lie. Very often, the person who is ending the marriage, at least in my 2 cases, says a lot of horrible things at the end to justify their decision. The things varied but sounded a lot like “I never loved you,” “I only married you because I was expected to,” or my favorite from hubby number 2, ” I was in love with the lifestyle you gave me not you.” These cards and letters reminded me that there was love there at one time.
I found letters that my friends in college sent to me during the summers (we didn’t have cell phones) and I found some letters my mom sent me in college as well as high school during gymnastics camp that helped me to see our relationship in another light.
Then I found the piece of notebook paper in my handwriting that began, “I hate myself. I hate my body, my personality, who I am.” That note stopped me dead in my tracks. That was my handwriting. That was a letter to me, a way to get out my frustration with myself. A way to articulate how I felt about myself without anyone else knowing. And it sounded just like her. Just like my mom.
I always knew that as I healed some of my wounds that had created low self-esteem and self-image, my mom would be with me. When I began this blog, 7 1/2 years ago, I printed out the first two I wrote and brought them to my mom. I had her read them. Her first comment to me was “I could have written these.” She had all the same feelings that I had. I knew that and let her know. We shared the wounds around body-image, around thinking we weren’t worthy, we weren’t good enough, smart enough, pretty enough.
Now as I re-read things we each wrote at different times without the other’s knowledge, I see the undeniable truth. Whether passed down to me intentionally or not, we both spent much of our time believing our not good enough story and wallowing in insecurity, disappointment, frustrations, sadness and hatred. The hatred was mostly for ourselves although we both had a habit of lashing that hatred out to others, especially the man closest to us. My mom did it with my dad, me with my husbands. She had a man who stuck by her through all of it, I did not.
As I continue to do all the work to change my belief system, thoughts, feelings and actions, and heal so I can grow and expand, I know I am doing it for her as well. I know that as I heal, her soul heals. My mom has shown up in powerful ways over the last few months, in dreams, meditations, with signs. She is with me on this journey and we are healing together. As we heal, I hope to heal the generations to come. I see some of these same image issues with some of my nieces and want to help heal them as I move through my own stuff. This idea of self-judgement and flagellation only holds you back from being your best self. Focusing on external validation in order to feel a certain way doesn’t help you grow. It keeps you small and always seeking, grasping, needing. As we turn to allowing ourselves to feel what we want to feel and then attracting what we want, everything changes. You vibrate at a higher energy level, you focus on feelings such as joy, gratitude, flow, ease, love. Things change when you begin to see life from that standpoint instead of external validation.
This generational healing is even helping my 97 year old Aunt. As she and I talk, she has begun to share with me things she wishes she had done differently. Instead of letting her wallow in her self-pity and blame, we talk about now, we talk about letting that go and understanding that we do the best we can with the information we have at that moment. When we know better, we do better (thank you Maya Angelou for that one). My Aunt is beginning to let go of some of those “should haves” and giving herself some grace.
Healing, growing and expanding includes generational healing. Our souls are more intermingled than we think and our healing is just as expansive.
As much as reading those two letters made me sad at first, that we both battled this, I am equally in awe of the healing process and the generational aspect that I feel and witness.