Puzzles and solving them...

1000 piece jigsaw we just completed!

Today I am busy with looking at my part in everything and my own history. This is prompted by my reaction (and indeed some might say, overreaction) to a friend's behaviour. I am the first to admit that I have many judgments about others and what I deem to be correct or incorrect behaviour.  My inner judge is active so much of the time and because of this I am not surprised when people come up wanting.  I am even less surprised when I myself come up wanting since I am both my own harshest judge and jury.  I am inevitably found guilty and I use the same filter of my own ego and my own past to see others.

If this sounds a bit obscure it's because I don't want to go into too much detail about this except to look at my own actions and what is truly mine in this situation.  I see and believe that it is ALL mine.  My reaction to others has little to do with the behaviour they display. Most of the time the behaviour is not even displayed towards me, but is only observed by me. I put my own spin on things and then put myself into an emotional state based on how I've interpreted what I see. I have to admit, albeit very reluctantly, that I am sometimes wrong. Please, stop protesting, those who know me, know that being right is a full-time occupation for me and to admit otherwise, well, it takes some facing!

During the past weeks I have begun to explore an unfinished piece of my history.  My son died over 26 years ago and I really thought I had resolved all the feelings I carried about this for so many years.  I was certain I had explored, catharted and released all the feelings around his death. Mostly I have. This week I was almost smacked round the head with an awareness of specific unresolved feelings relating to events connected to the time of my son's death. I realise that I am still carrying resentments and feelings about how my mother related to me at that painful time.  For my mum, I think that this death triggered many, many deep, buried painful feelings around the death of her own sister in the ghetto, during the war.  She never talked to much about this as I was growing up, except to mention that it had happened and I think it was one of many traumas that my mum buried in her psyche.  Clearly the death of her grandchild, my son, provoked old pain and became virtually intolerable for her.  At the time I was obviously going through my own stuff and sorely felt the lack of my mother and the strength to cope that I was looking for.  My mother was in her own process and could not be strong for me.  Indeed, to some extent we had to be strong for her since she was in such a bad way.

Looking back from the stance of so many years I see that some part of me still resented that lack and was still carrying much anger.  I was at the time totally unable to see my mother as a separate person with her own pain and her own feelings.  The death of my son was possibly the first death of someone she loved since the war ended.  It was unbearable to her.  I began to see that this week and maybe now I can begin to let that go.  Now when I look back at the pain my mother was suffering I recognise that it didn't change my pain, my sadness, it just meant that I looked elsewhere for that strength.  I was lucky enought to have others to look to.  I see now how taken by surprise my mother was by this onslaught of memory and feeling. She seemed to be shocked by the depth of her despair. For so many years she had tried to repress that pain and suddenly the floodgates opened and she seemed to drown for a while. 

I am sorry now that I couldn't see her then in that state.  I was unwilling, unable to put aside my feelings and I really didn't need to, I just needed to let go of the idea that because this woman was called 'mother' she should have been stronger.  She wasn't. Fact.

We all do what we can. I do believe the people in my life are all doing the best they can.  I am not surrounded by people who live a life of malice and mean-spiritedness.  My friends and my family are good-hearted.  They all strive to bring more love into the world.  It is good for me to see my harsh verdicts on people since these judgments take something healthy away from me and replace it with vindictiveness and negativity.  This hurts everyone, especially me. Forgiveness, of them and of myself can happen after 26 years, 26 minutes or even 26 seconds.

I am learning to live more accurately.  It sounds odd, but for me it means to see facts as facts, to see behaviour as what it is, rather than how I interpret it or interpret the meaning I give to it. This is an on-going process and rather like the jigsaw puzzle of 1000 pieces that we just completed, it takes time and patience and a willingness to carry on looking to see where things fit. After all this time, adding another piece to the puzzle feels very good.