The Pain of Banishment
Have you ever felt excluded from the life of someone you dearly loved?
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I think that banishment, isolation, or shunning of a family member or friend are the worst punishments and pain possible. Divisions like divorce, politics, and other individual choices, seem to have just made our experience in the world worse.
I think that divorce has contributed, but now we have the 'politics of division' as well, and further disagreements about health and medicine. The phrase 'parental alienation' doesn't quite describe what happens with adult children and divorce, but the pain and misunderstanding is crushing.
Violence doesn’t always have to be physical in order to produce the same effect in our lives. Whatever happens in a child’s home to cause him/her to feel unsafe initiates a neurological fight or flight syndrome that dumbs down the prefrontal cortex. If the home was a war zone growing up, or you are in an unsafe situation now, this needs to be addressed and healed as well as any physical issues.
I don’t know that I would have ever recognized the feeling, the pain of disapproval, until I was forced to go deep enough to understand why I was so hurt.
The pain of regret, the pain of disapproving of myself, can hover like a storm cloud in the unconscious mind, and can last forever, until we discover it hiding there and release it.
If you’ve ever heard the words, you are better than that, spoken by a trusted and respected mentor, and were not motivated to improve, I would be very surprised. It’s ‘built into the ego mind,’ this need for inclusion and approval.
Unfortunately, some of us have earned a PHD (pity her despair) in regret and disapproval of ourselves. We are still looking back into the mucky past.
There was a time that I thought I would never get over that despair - and then something amazing happened - and I don't know 'how' - I just 'let go.' Something in my heart went to 'understanding and forgiving' and I saw the entire 'story' as so very silly and insignificant. It feels like some kind of miraculous freedom, and I'm grateful.
These issues are very common now in families of divorce. The break up of a marriage is painful enough, but ordinal theory, and the natural inclination to feel closer to one parent than the other, often complicates or prevents healthy attachments and relationships.
No matter how dysfunctional the family system, each individual is still responsible to do their own recovery work, and if that is neglected, blame, anger, projection, and transference continue to contaminate and disrupt trust and closeness.
Our personal and emotional landscape can provide a fertile field for growth, or a swamp of despair and doom. It’s our choice.
Blessings,
Copyright 2019 © by Rachel L. Neumann of Your Pathway to Empowerment. All rights reserved. You may quote, copy, translate and link to this article in its entirety as long as you credit Rachel L. Neumann, the author by name, and include a working link back to this web page. All other uses are strictly prohibited.
