Monday, November 07, 2005

I swore I would never be like my mother...and yet I am.

I swore I would never be like my mother. Actually, I have hardly spoken to her the last few days so furious am I that she does not listen to me, constantly invades me, and only thinks of herself. I try to be so clear about my needs to her, about my desire to be heard, to be given space. I feel sad and frustrated, not wanting a relationship with someone who is so unable to take anyone else into account.
Tonight, I learned a tough lesson. I do the exact same thing onto my body that my mother does to me. Boy do I ever not want to see this!...

• My body tells me what it needs and I don't listen
• My body tells me when it's had enough and I just keep putting more and more in, invading it violently
• My body uses all kind of language, subtle and not so subtle, to express its displeasure to me and I just ignore it
• My body is my object, to be used for my purposes only. I do what I do when I want to do it, regardless of the consequences onto my body.

When I look around, to my family, friends, or clients, I often find that this is not so unsual. People often act onto their bodies the very things they judge as outrageous in others. I know of one client who is desperate because her mother abandoned her, but yet keeps abandoning her body when her body tells her it needs rest, or food, or exercise. I know of another client who suffers daily from having being rejected by her father, yet cannot see how her every day criticism and rejection of her body compares quite nicely.

Many of us are quite proud that we have managed to be different from our caretakers. Better. We may not spank our kids, make every effort to listen to our mates, and make sure to manage our control issues. We have unfortunately forgotten one place where a part of us IS carrying on our childhood legacy: in our relationship with our bodies. Unfortunately, because our bodies don't show their pain as our crying children do, or their anger like an irate husband, we can easily overlook our destructive behavior. It often takes until we get sick for us to see how badly we have mistreated our bodies.

Today, when I realized that I treat my body just the way my mother treats me, I felt humbled and scared. I truly believe that my mother could do much better than she does, that if she made just the slightest effort, truly wanted to love me, she could change easily. But when I realize that I need to spend more time truly listening to my body, focus less on the short-term pleasure of doing exactly what I want, give my body more space to be in relationship with me, I'm not sure if I can do it. I am just like my mother.

Will I call my mother tomorrow and cry with compassion and humility? I'll let you know. Tonight, I would still so much rather stay on my pedestal of the victim child. But my full belly keeps reminding me that it spoke to me tonight and I didn't listen. That it told me to stop invading and I refused to see. No one knows better than me what that feels like. My heart breaks. I am sorry. It is time to walk the talk.

PermaLink posted by Isabelle @ 8:39 PM 0 comments