Were You Welcomed?
During 2013 I have very much engaged in my own personal and spiritual development and I thought I would share some of my journey with you here. During my life's journey I have struggled for years with a feeling that I can only describe as there being something within me that was broken. I hadn't been able to put my finger on it or describe what exactly it was that was broken. All I knew was how this brokenness affected me, pretty much on a daily basis. My brokenness led me to feel depressed, low, unworthy and as if I didn't belong or fit in anywhere. Quite painful feelings as you can imagine! Through my journey this year I have come to see that my brokenness happened as a result of my entry into this life and the early years which followed. I know that there was a lot of fear surrounding my arrival into this world (my parents not mine) I know that I was not wanted for the right reasons (to be loved and cherished as every child should be) but instead was conceived and born out of selfish desire rather than love. So my brokenness was inevitable. My journey this year has taught me that every child needs to be loved and welcomed into this world. It needs to know that it is loved and wanted and is welcome. It needs very much to know that it is safe. Unfortunately this was not my experience and so the brokenness that has haunted me all of my life is no longer a mystery. Through a lot of work on myself and with the support of a wonderful therapist, I have been able to see that my arrival into this life was nothing less than traumatic and the years that followed compounded my trauma and helped to develop my brokenness. I have worked hard to move through anger and blame to a place of acceptance. I have had to accept that this is just the way it is and that in an ideal world things would have been very different. However, it is not an ideal world. These words from Viktor Frank who endured some horrors in the concentration camps “In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.” have been inspirational to me and I have learnt that to live means that suffering is inevitable. I say this not in a depressing or negative way, but with the spirit and attitude of acceptance and optimism. It is true, who gets through life without suffering? What I have come to see is that when suffering has meaning, the suffering becomes less. This is certainly my experience. In understanding that my entry into life was less than welcoming and in accepting the suffering that my small infant self experienced, I have come to see that I can be to my self what my parents couldn't be. Loving, caring, welcoming, hopeful and delighting in my arrival. Through revisiting my birth and early years I have seen just what I needed and have seen that the compassion I so freely give to others, had to also be given to myself. Finding meaning in my suffering has led to me to appreciate the work that I do and move beyond hurt, anger, blame and suffering to love and peace. If there is any meaning to be found in my unwelcoming arrival then it is that I have come to understand the necessity of self love and of good loving, supportive parenting. This inspires my work now. I aim to be to myself and the world, all that I wasn't given. To conclude, I will end with these words from Viktor Frank “Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.”