Seeing the World Through New Eyes

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With all the pain, suffering, and chaos in the world right now I am sure many of you have felt as I have many times: helpless. It is easy to feel overwhelmed, anxious, angry, or depressed with the world around. When these feelings starts to rise up within me, I try to turn to the one thing I can change: myself.

I grew up on a farm in a small town in Vermont with my sister and mother. My mom and dad got divorced when I was a little over 2 years old and we saw him only a few times a year. I didn't spend a holiday with him that I can remember until I was over 25 years old. My sister and I had to meet him at the bottom of the road as my mom would not let him come to the house. I was the one that had to arrange many meetings over the phone as a child. My mom taught me to look to look at him with suspicion, always telling me he was bad and untrustworthy. I believed her. Why wouldn't I?

We had an amazing stepdad for a few years, Don, who actually noticed my interests and listened when I talked. I called him dad. As a family we traveled to London and Greece and throughout the US. Then him and my mom started fighting and they got divorced. We were not allowed to speak to him or see him after that. Again I heard harsh words about him from my mother. He was bad and wrong and the reason it did not work out.

Something in me snapped as I was transitioning from childhood to the teenage years after that divorce. I began to act out. I got suspended for drinking in school. I got into verbal fights with my mom and felt angry, worthless, and helpless most of the time. I remember my mother always telling me "you are so manipulative, just like your father." I believed her. Why wouldn't I?

At around 13 my mom sent me away to a wilderness camp - escorted by people I didn't even know at the crack of dawn as they stormed into my room and woke me up to take me away. From there I bounced in and out of wilderness programs and emotional growth schools. I ran away for a month when I was 17. I was so sick of all the pain and being discarded like a broken item left to be fixed by someone else. I had little to no self-worth and was so angry. I remember this always feeling so foreign to me, even as a young teen. It was not my nature to be this way. 

College was a mix of drinking, smoking weed, and bad relationships to numb out reality. Somehow I graduated on the Dean's List. I left behind a perfectly amazing kind man for a drug dealer who was abusive. My mom went through another divorce. At this point I stopped even trying to care about the new father figure in my life. I was taught this is how to love. I believed it. Why wouldn't I?

I went through life until I was 25 years old thinking that I was the "problem child" and that I was damaged goods. Defective. I was so caught up in codependency with my mother that I did not even have the ear to listen to those who tried to help. I still was estranged from my stepdad and distrusting of my father. I was depressed and alone and had no sense of purpose or worth. It was not until I was able to see the world more clearly, after years of therapy, finding a good man, self discovery, and having a child of my own that something clicked. I was actively participating in this life. I was allowing the ongoing abuse from my mother. I was avoiding saying something because I didn't want to make her uncomfortable or those around me uncomfortable. It was a sobering reality check to the gut. 

I went from complaining about my mom and life in therapy and feeling like a hopeless victim, to changing therapists and finding a new path. I studied yoga and Ayurveda and found a spiritual teacher. I developed an amazing supportive relationship with my father and stepdad, who it turned out were both able to give me more unconditional love and emotional support than I ever received from my mother. When I had my first session with my new therapist Jessica Richmond last spring and started my usual very real and valid complaints, she asked me the life changing question: "what can you do about it?". Huh? That's not what I want to hear. I want to complain and feel validated after years of verbal abuse and accusations. I had taken the higher road. I was never the one to write or text mean things to my mom. I was a good compassionate kind yogi who never responded with anger or hate towards others. Why did I have to change? I have done all the work!

Last year I made one of the most difficult decisions of my life: to stop talking to my mother. I decided to take responsibility for my own reality. I cannot change others, no matter how right I am, or how messed up their actions are. But I can change myself. This decision has caused many tears and changes in other relationships in my life for both good and bad. But I am now able to see the world through clear lenses, without the filter of my mother's view. 

Almost my entire life I thought that this was normal and okay. This was just how things are. This is how I should be treated and this is how I should treat others. From the outside we seemed great. We were white, well off, had no shortage of material items, and traveled the world. We had a farm and I competed in equestrian shows. It was more comfortable and easier to deal with the abuse and pain than to turn inwards and do my own work or break ties. I remember at one of the schools I attended, one of the counselors told me that she thought that my mom was the issue. I vehemently defended my mother and recall being so angry. The idea of accepting that felt like my wold would collapse.

The decision to stop talking to my mother and seeing the world through her eyes felt like my whole world was being torn down. How would I survive? What if she disowned me? But it had come to the point where I could no longer take care of myself or my family with her in my life in a healthy way. I still do the work every week in therapy and every day in all my interactions. I continue to grow and ask myself what I can do to change my reality and better myself, even when it means lots of tears and discomfort. I am constantly learning and seeing the world in a new light. 

Sometimes we do not see things clearly because the way things are is just normal - how else would it be? And when we do it can feel like someone is ripping away everything we hold dear and that keeps up alive and comfortable. It can be hard to believe what other people are going through or even be able to see it from the outside. But there is always more that we do not see. Until we are confronted with the truth and are actually opened to seeing it we cannot see what is and cannot change ourselves. Reality is not always what it seems to be. We have to be willing to dig deep and do our own work. Those feelings of discomfort, shame, disappointment, anger, resentment, fear, jealousy....this is where the real work lies. This is the key to change. As Pema Chodron says, "lean into the sharp points".

I believe that we need to be that change we want to see in the world. Incidents like George Floyd's murder have continued to occur, but many of us just have not noticed or decided it was too uncomfortable to deal with. Being able to actually see the pain or things like white privilege is hard. It is part of our nature to avoid it. We do not want to be uncomfortable or feel pain. We do not want to watch videos of animals or people being harmed because it is uncomfortable and it tears our carefully constructed reality apart. But this is the world in which we all live. 

I challenge each of you this week to turn inwards. Do not let your own conditioning run your decisions each day. Question everything. Dig deep. Lean in. Everything that happens in the world is our responsibility as we are all connected. Ask questions, have conversations, see God and love in every sentient being you encounter. There is no "out there". We are the mirror. Everything we hear, see, and experience is our responsibility. Any other thinking just absolves us from responsibility and allows us to blame others or situations. 

Below I have outlined some resources to help you along on your journey. These are all resources that I have personally used and trust. I have added embedded links for ease of use. Please make a commitment to yourself and to others to do at least one of them this week. Buy a book. Have a therapy session. Watch a video. Do something that makes you vulnerable or uncomfortable. No need to feel badly about the past, we can do something in the present moment which will change the future. 

ACTIONS YOU CAN TAKE TODAY

READ:

WATCH & LEARN:

DO THE WORK:

DONATE & PETITION:

FOLLOW ON SOCIAL MEDIA:

  • The Holistic Psychologist @the.holistic.psychologist

  • Light Watkins @lightwatkins

  • Shaun King @shaunking

  • Sadhguru @sadhguru

  • Rachel Elizabeth Cargle @rachel.cargle


““We but mirror the world. All tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.””
— Mahatma Gandhi
Hilary Bent-Mullings