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| Parents Who are these Aliens? Is it true you marry your Father? Help! I think I'm becoming my Mother! Part 2 |
| Heal your Heart - Love your Body - Live your Joy! Simply Stunning! A beautiful and profound experience 3 guided meditations on one CD. Access higher wisdom, intuition and insights. Change habits, release fears and activate healing energies. Buy Now Full description. Read what others say |
My father was a bit of a raconteur so there were very few stories that we
hadn’t heard before. If anything, we had heard the same stories over and over so
many times that we would have known them verbatim, except that he was also
such an exaggerator, that with each repetition the stories became bigger and
more colourful. Still, we didn’t really mind, as he filled in a lot of family history
and we knew him well enough to sort out the black and white version of his
colourful tales.
A few years ago he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and was told that, “He
should get his house in order”. We were very fortunate to be given this warning
as it prepared us all for what was to come.
In his final year I spent most weekends sitting or lying on his bed and we would
talk. He had reached a point where he had accepted the inevitable, and as a
Christian his beliefs had him well prepared. I also think that his age, and the fact
that his body was so frail, had him feeling quite comfortable with it all. He had
time to do the things he needed or wanted to do and the opportunity to say what
needed to be said. He was at peace with himself.
An interesting thing that I noticed was that his childhood memories became
crystal clear. In the past when he referred to his childhood, he focused on what
had happened, which is to say, he described events that happened. The
difference now I noticed was that his stories involved how he felt about those
events. During this time my father was not in control, he was not big and he did
not speak with authority. His stories did not have a moral or some hidden advice.
These were just the memories of a small boy, in a big world, trying to make
sense of everything.
My father’s stories used to imply how much he knew, how brave and masculine
he was, how proud he was of his ability to work and support his family. Things
were always right or wrong, and he was the Patriarch and that made him ‘King
of the Castle’. I always thought that he was sure of himself and I believed that he
always felt that he was in control.
In his final year, through listening to his stories, I vicariously relived my father’s
childhood with him as the child and me as his best friend.
I won’t go into his personal life stories here, but I do wish to share some of the
things I learned about him during that year.
My father had never felt connected to his own father. He respected him and
learned a lot from him, but his father had never hugged him and had never told
him that he was loved.
Dad did badly in school and left at the age of fourteen to find work. His father
had told him that, “He was too old to be supported and it was time to make his
own way in the world”. He was frightened and alone as he made his way to a
sheep station to work twelve hours a day, for not much more than room and
board.
As a child he was humiliated and often picked on because he was much shorter
than the other boys his age. He tried to use humour to gain acceptance and later
took up music hoping that it would earn him some credibility or popularity with
his peers.
As a young man, he became fed up with being bullied and learned how to fight.
He found a job with a travelling carnival and became a boxer. He found, ‘Being a
man’ very demanding, and learned at an early age that to survive in a man’s
world he would need to be tough. He needed to compete and was always trying
to do better, have better and be better. Eventually he learned to hide his
insecurities and became an expert at being what he thought the world wanted
him to be.
He was always very close to his mother. He loved her dearly. I also learned that
year that his mother had come to Australia as a single woman of forty (that was
probably scandalous in itself, as she would have been considered to be an old
spinster) and pregnant with my father.
My father recalled all that he could remember of his mother’s early years. They
were dirt poor and uneducated. The shame that she carried and the contempt that
she had endured from those around her may have explained her protectiveness
towards my father. His father was actually his stepfather. He was an older man
that his mother had worked for and later married to give her son a name.
I remember her as having a lot of attitude herself especially towards ‘Class’. She
despised snobbery as much as she despised the fact that she was treated as low
class. In her later years she was a feisty woman. At eighty, she could still tear
you to shreds if you offended her or looked down on her. She was a women’s
libber long before anyone had challenged the inequality between the sexes.
Through these discussions with my father I found myself wondering about ‘The
gene pool’. I guess that I had always believed that we all start out equal and then
do the best that we can. I had always thought of our genetic makeup as
influencing physical characteristics such as the appearance and health of our
bodies. I really started to see the threads that link us all together and just how
much our parents and ancestors create a personal template for who, what and
how we are.
I’m sure that our genes influence our personality and psychological make-up as
much as they influence out physical bodies. Perhaps emotional memory is also
passed on genetically. Maybe things like phobias, past life recall and de-ja-vu are
the emotional memories of our ancestors. I used to believe that our emotional
make-up, personality and behavioural patterns were pre-determined by our
childhood conditioning, environment, experiences and personal choices. All of
these things and probably so much more make and shape us, but I now believe
that who you are, how you are and what you are, initially come to you via your
parents.
What I learned from these discussions is that our lives are really like a relay race.
When you watch a relay race the first runner starts out with a baton and races to
the next person. That person takes the baton and races to the next and so it goes.
If one person falls behind, then the next person will need to make up for lost time
or the relay team will fall further behind. Ideally, there will be members within
the team who will make up all of the lost time and lead the team to victory.
In life, we need to take the best of what we are given, we need to change what
needs to be changed, and we need to improve all that we can. We all start out
with advantages and handicaps. It’s not about how you started out, it is only
about how you play the game and where you finish.
Too often, we get caught up in resentment. We blame our parents for what we
consider to be our personal baggage. Too many people get so locked into their
parent issues or victim histories that they never realize that what they start out
with is not what they have to finish with. This game of life is about what each
one of us adds or subtracts, and ultimately what we carry forward.
I thought about my grandmother and wondered how many generations before
her had struggled. They must have had enormous obstacles and handicaps, as it
seems to me that she started out with so few advantages. She probably gave the
best of herself and all that she had to my father. I realize that she couldn’t give
him anything that she didn’t know nor could she give him what she didn’t have.
He could only take from her what she was. His challenge in life was to do better
than his predecessors. He could do the things that his mother had done and learn
through imitation, or he could add to the knowledge passed down to him and
improve himself. Like the relay runner, he could pick up speed and give me a
better chance.
When I wanted to know why my father did something in a way that seemed to
me to be totally unacceptable, he would often respond with, “That’s just the way
things are done”. I never found this an acceptable explanation. I noticed that
many of his generation used that phrase. It seems to me that my father’s
generation and all of the generations before him had a very strong mind set about
continuing to follow the old ways, regardless of whether or not they thought
them correct.
My father’s father used to strap him as a way of teaching him good behaviour.
“Spare the rod and spoil the child,” he would say. Strapping was also the
punishment for bad behaviour when I attended school. We called it ‘Caning’
back then, but the principle was the same. These days we refer to it as ‘Child
Abuse’ and it is punishable by law.
My father’s generation did not appear to question or challenge. My generation is
probably the first to really challenge the old ways of doing things. The generation
coming behind me has really turned things up-side down. The generation coming
through now are asking all the right questions and demanding better solutions. If
we all do away with blame, focus on our own input and take care with our
choices, things can only get better and better. If we can’t forgive, let us try at
least to understand and accept what went before.
For a long time, I resented many of the things that my parents did or didn’t do. I
am now able to see that my father fought long and hard to pull himself out of the
poverty cycle. For many years he must have been extremely tired and stressed as
he worked three jobs to support his family. He was not only driven to be a
provider but also pushed us to educate ourselves. We went on to become self-
employed and financially self-reliant. Our children have all gone on to higher
education. He instilled in us strong ethical beliefs and reinforced the importance
of self-esteem.
My grandmother had to overcome social status issues. I believe that this made
my father an excellent communicator. We have no tolerance for class or race
discrimination. My father’s controlling and domineering traits taught us to stand
up for ourselves, think for ourselves and fight a good fight. If my grandmother
was too far to the left, my father may have swung too far to the right. I believe
that we have found balance.
I also believe that everything that I am today is a result of everything that went
before.
Life’s relay is about understanding and accepting our parents. Like my father and
yours, and all of the fathers and mothers before them, our parents gave us all
that they had. It is up to us to use that and do well with it. Most importantly, we
should not condemn the actions of our parents, but accept that all that we are
comes from a long chain of learning, loving, hurting, trying and experiencing.
Our task is to take the best of what they had to give and to add to it. Life is not
about what your parents start you out with, but what you do with it, what
qualities and advantages you add to your own life and pass on to the generations
to come.
Copyright Sonya Green
hadn’t heard before. If anything, we had heard the same stories over and over so
many times that we would have known them verbatim, except that he was also
such an exaggerator, that with each repetition the stories became bigger and
more colourful. Still, we didn’t really mind, as he filled in a lot of family history
and we knew him well enough to sort out the black and white version of his
colourful tales.
A few years ago he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and was told that, “He
should get his house in order”. We were very fortunate to be given this warning
as it prepared us all for what was to come.
In his final year I spent most weekends sitting or lying on his bed and we would
talk. He had reached a point where he had accepted the inevitable, and as a
Christian his beliefs had him well prepared. I also think that his age, and the fact
that his body was so frail, had him feeling quite comfortable with it all. He had
time to do the things he needed or wanted to do and the opportunity to say what
needed to be said. He was at peace with himself.
An interesting thing that I noticed was that his childhood memories became
crystal clear. In the past when he referred to his childhood, he focused on what
had happened, which is to say, he described events that happened. The
difference now I noticed was that his stories involved how he felt about those
events. During this time my father was not in control, he was not big and he did
not speak with authority. His stories did not have a moral or some hidden advice.
These were just the memories of a small boy, in a big world, trying to make
sense of everything.
My father’s stories used to imply how much he knew, how brave and masculine
he was, how proud he was of his ability to work and support his family. Things
were always right or wrong, and he was the Patriarch and that made him ‘King
of the Castle’. I always thought that he was sure of himself and I believed that he
always felt that he was in control.
In his final year, through listening to his stories, I vicariously relived my father’s
childhood with him as the child and me as his best friend.
I won’t go into his personal life stories here, but I do wish to share some of the
things I learned about him during that year.
My father had never felt connected to his own father. He respected him and
learned a lot from him, but his father had never hugged him and had never told
him that he was loved.
Dad did badly in school and left at the age of fourteen to find work. His father
had told him that, “He was too old to be supported and it was time to make his
own way in the world”. He was frightened and alone as he made his way to a
sheep station to work twelve hours a day, for not much more than room and
board.
As a child he was humiliated and often picked on because he was much shorter
than the other boys his age. He tried to use humour to gain acceptance and later
took up music hoping that it would earn him some credibility or popularity with
his peers.
As a young man, he became fed up with being bullied and learned how to fight.
He found a job with a travelling carnival and became a boxer. He found, ‘Being a
man’ very demanding, and learned at an early age that to survive in a man’s
world he would need to be tough. He needed to compete and was always trying
to do better, have better and be better. Eventually he learned to hide his
insecurities and became an expert at being what he thought the world wanted
him to be.
He was always very close to his mother. He loved her dearly. I also learned that
year that his mother had come to Australia as a single woman of forty (that was
probably scandalous in itself, as she would have been considered to be an old
spinster) and pregnant with my father.
My father recalled all that he could remember of his mother’s early years. They
were dirt poor and uneducated. The shame that she carried and the contempt that
she had endured from those around her may have explained her protectiveness
towards my father. His father was actually his stepfather. He was an older man
that his mother had worked for and later married to give her son a name.
I remember her as having a lot of attitude herself especially towards ‘Class’. She
despised snobbery as much as she despised the fact that she was treated as low
class. In her later years she was a feisty woman. At eighty, she could still tear
you to shreds if you offended her or looked down on her. She was a women’s
libber long before anyone had challenged the inequality between the sexes.
Through these discussions with my father I found myself wondering about ‘The
gene pool’. I guess that I had always believed that we all start out equal and then
do the best that we can. I had always thought of our genetic makeup as
influencing physical characteristics such as the appearance and health of our
bodies. I really started to see the threads that link us all together and just how
much our parents and ancestors create a personal template for who, what and
how we are.
I’m sure that our genes influence our personality and psychological make-up as
much as they influence out physical bodies. Perhaps emotional memory is also
passed on genetically. Maybe things like phobias, past life recall and de-ja-vu are
the emotional memories of our ancestors. I used to believe that our emotional
make-up, personality and behavioural patterns were pre-determined by our
childhood conditioning, environment, experiences and personal choices. All of
these things and probably so much more make and shape us, but I now believe
that who you are, how you are and what you are, initially come to you via your
parents.
What I learned from these discussions is that our lives are really like a relay race.
When you watch a relay race the first runner starts out with a baton and races to
the next person. That person takes the baton and races to the next and so it goes.
If one person falls behind, then the next person will need to make up for lost time
or the relay team will fall further behind. Ideally, there will be members within
the team who will make up all of the lost time and lead the team to victory.
In life, we need to take the best of what we are given, we need to change what
needs to be changed, and we need to improve all that we can. We all start out
with advantages and handicaps. It’s not about how you started out, it is only
about how you play the game and where you finish.
Too often, we get caught up in resentment. We blame our parents for what we
consider to be our personal baggage. Too many people get so locked into their
parent issues or victim histories that they never realize that what they start out
with is not what they have to finish with. This game of life is about what each
one of us adds or subtracts, and ultimately what we carry forward.
I thought about my grandmother and wondered how many generations before
her had struggled. They must have had enormous obstacles and handicaps, as it
seems to me that she started out with so few advantages. She probably gave the
best of herself and all that she had to my father. I realize that she couldn’t give
him anything that she didn’t know nor could she give him what she didn’t have.
He could only take from her what she was. His challenge in life was to do better
than his predecessors. He could do the things that his mother had done and learn
through imitation, or he could add to the knowledge passed down to him and
improve himself. Like the relay runner, he could pick up speed and give me a
better chance.
When I wanted to know why my father did something in a way that seemed to
me to be totally unacceptable, he would often respond with, “That’s just the way
things are done”. I never found this an acceptable explanation. I noticed that
many of his generation used that phrase. It seems to me that my father’s
generation and all of the generations before him had a very strong mind set about
continuing to follow the old ways, regardless of whether or not they thought
them correct.
My father’s father used to strap him as a way of teaching him good behaviour.
“Spare the rod and spoil the child,” he would say. Strapping was also the
punishment for bad behaviour when I attended school. We called it ‘Caning’
back then, but the principle was the same. These days we refer to it as ‘Child
Abuse’ and it is punishable by law.
My father’s generation did not appear to question or challenge. My generation is
probably the first to really challenge the old ways of doing things. The generation
coming behind me has really turned things up-side down. The generation coming
through now are asking all the right questions and demanding better solutions. If
we all do away with blame, focus on our own input and take care with our
choices, things can only get better and better. If we can’t forgive, let us try at
least to understand and accept what went before.
For a long time, I resented many of the things that my parents did or didn’t do. I
am now able to see that my father fought long and hard to pull himself out of the
poverty cycle. For many years he must have been extremely tired and stressed as
he worked three jobs to support his family. He was not only driven to be a
provider but also pushed us to educate ourselves. We went on to become self-
employed and financially self-reliant. Our children have all gone on to higher
education. He instilled in us strong ethical beliefs and reinforced the importance
of self-esteem.
My grandmother had to overcome social status issues. I believe that this made
my father an excellent communicator. We have no tolerance for class or race
discrimination. My father’s controlling and domineering traits taught us to stand
up for ourselves, think for ourselves and fight a good fight. If my grandmother
was too far to the left, my father may have swung too far to the right. I believe
that we have found balance.
I also believe that everything that I am today is a result of everything that went
before.
Life’s relay is about understanding and accepting our parents. Like my father and
yours, and all of the fathers and mothers before them, our parents gave us all
that they had. It is up to us to use that and do well with it. Most importantly, we
should not condemn the actions of our parents, but accept that all that we are
comes from a long chain of learning, loving, hurting, trying and experiencing.
Our task is to take the best of what they had to give and to add to it. Life is not
about what your parents start you out with, but what you do with it, what
qualities and advantages you add to your own life and pass on to the generations
to come.
Copyright Sonya Green
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found yourself thinking about someone who would benefit from visiting these
pages - Trust Your Intuition and send them the link.
If you would like to copy an article to your site or blog, you are welcome to do
so, but must note copyright Sonya Green and refer to
www.reinventingmyself.com
If you would like to support this site you might consider emailing in suggestions
or comments, a small donation, purchasing a product or visiting the links to our
sponsors.