The Next Phase in Healing Trauma with My Mama
For a few months now, the relationship with my mother has been holding steady. It hasn't been too dramatic, we talk frequently, and we rarely have any squabbles.
Over the past couple of days, I have been reflecting, overall, about life and I realized that I have reached a new phase or stage in the relationship with my mom.
My husband, my biggest and closest mirror, has been recently saying that I am a lot like my mom in my mannerisms, how I react, and even little things I say. If he would have said this to me years ago, I would have been so upset with him, but now I am (somewhat) at peace with it. I am really noticing the subtle ways that my mother shows up in me and quite frankly, it trips me out a bit everytime because it is completely subconscious.
I am aware of how even the characteristics of my maternal grandmother are coming though me. The awareness of the strength of my maternal lineage is a blessing and also a cause of frequent frustration. I have shed many tears of anguish because I don't even want the generational thoughts, behaviors, or character traits, but here they are showing up in my mind and body. This phase of my journey is truly exposing how deep generational patterns run and how challenging it is to go against something that has essentially been cemented in our bloodline for centuries.
The patterns that show up in me has brought up feelings of fear, sadness and anger. Fear of becoming like my mother/grandmother, fear of becoming a parent and traumatizing my future child. Sadness and anger of not wanting these things in my being and knowing that there is no easy way of removing them. Sadness of being aware and knowing that I cannot convince or change anyone other than myself (regarding knowing what I know about the origins of these patterns).
This phase of healing that I am in is deeply internal, personal and spiritual. I know that this is something that cannot be necessarily worked out in interacting or interfacing with my mother or my maternal grandmother. I have come to learn that they are both in their (Capricorn) ways and they will change only if and when they want to. My work now is to focus on myself.
The goal now is to prioritize the practice of unlearning and course correction which requires a high degree of staying aware of how I show up with myself and others.
This unlearning is comprised of:
noticing the unwanted behavior/thought
exploring where it comes from + why it was helpful in the first place (especially in the context of familial history ie. my family is Jamaican, we come from enslaved people, we were poor, etc. so certain habits stemmed from traumatic events or times)
replacing the behavior/thought with something that is more aligned with who I am becoming/my Highest Self
What has been helping me GREATLY has been ancestral veneration and having a relationship with those family members who have transitioned to the realm of the unseen. They help and guide me along this journey and often times provide insight to the origins of what does not serve ME in this lifetime. In my veneration, I assist those that came before me and in return, they assist those that are still earthside. [**I have also seen how in my personal veneration, other members of my family have benefitted in their own lives**]
The healing journey is one of committment and continuation. It really doesn't ever end while we are alive and it doesnt always get easier, although we can become better equipped and trust our well-built discernment.