Being A Better Person: Learning to Forgive Update #1

This is part 1.

AGENDA ITEM #1: FORGIVE (UPDATE)

Well, this first agenda item is going OK.

I spent a lot of my Road to Oprah time working primarily on forgiveness for my mom. I think that one’s the jim dandy and if I can forgive that, then the rest will come easy.

For years, I’ve reacted with anger or silence when prompted to talk about the dynamic I had with my mom. It’s caused me much pain. I never really understood why I’ve been so mad about this even this many years later…but I think I realized it shaped me and gave a pattern to my interpersonal dynamics that I’ve grown to detest. For instance, I married my mom and I live the same dynamic even now. God works in mysterious ways. He really wants me to figure this out, so he put it right there in my face. Now, every day I struggle with not falling into the same pattern with my husband that I did with my mom.

My husband, like my mom, is a Rock. This brings good tidings. But it also brings stoicism, a certain emotionlessness (at least compared to my kite flying in the wind emotion), and an unflappability I find disconcerting, as I’m very flappable.

I read this as lack of caring, of unlove, of not worshipping the ground I walk on.

So, I set out to get as much affirmation from The Rock as possible, just as I did with my mom. And, when he doesn’t respond as I would have him do, I get angry. Really, really angry. And hurt.

I simply do not understand calm lovingness. I relate best to crazy, unpredictable, full frontal love. Not that I need that anymore, thanks to my stalker (that’s in a later broadcast). The fact that people can love me quietly is a lesson I’m learning.

Anyway, this was about forgiveness, wasn’t it?

Well, I think what I’ve discovered is that who I really need to forgive is myself. I did a lot of horrible things while trying to pull love out of my mom. Things like locking myself in my room and loudly shaking my contact lens saline pill bottle so she’d think I was going to OD on pills. Things like bad mouthing her to anyone who would listen. Truly soul-stripping, ugly things.

It’s not my mom I need to forgive. It’s me.

I need a minute…

Part 3.