Unearthing the Dark
Ever wanted to burn old journals? What do you do when you unearth the dark?
Daily, I have been writing journals for over 5 decades. A few weeks ago, I felt the urge to unpack my journals that I have dragged from place to place over a lifetime. The compulsion to do so grew until the day before my 67th birthday when I enlisted my husband’s help to move my journals from storage into our office. A part of me wondered why I was starting this make-work project as I have nowhere to shelve journals.
Opening a box, the first journal I retrieved, titled Flower Notebook had buckets of gay yellow and red blooms upon it. It dated back 24 years. Reading the words aloud to my husband, my heart hurt reliving an account of me hitting my young son when I was a single mom. Despite years of therapy/group work it took little provocation for me to feel attacked, to overreact and to lash out back then.
Black shame of hurting my child fell like a tombstone upon my chest. Aloud, to my husband I wondered, “Why this pain - yet again?” Pain I had hoped was healed in me and my son decades later. Over the years my son and I have spoken of my harsh behaviour and its effects on him. I’d apologized for harming him, always emphasizing it was never his fault or wrongdoing but rather my dysfunction. And yet, here I was the day before my 67th birthday pained by the past. My first impulse was:
“Burn the journal. It’s the past!”
However, from a lifetime of listening for God’s guidance I knew choosing the Flower Notebook from a pile of 67 journals, the day before my 67th birthday was no coincidence. I knew healing never comes from efforts to “get rid of.”
I sat and grounded in myself (one of the skills I’ve developed studying Dr. Stanley’s Mindfulness-based Mind Fitness course – training body and brain to work with and recover from chronic stress/trauma). Not pushing anything away, I felt my body’s contact with the couch, my feet heavy on the floor.
I observed images/ thoughts/old stories/false beliefs/damning self criticisms, and emotions arise within. Shame sat heavy upon my chest. Over and over, I let go and returned to my body seated, supported, grounded, resisting nothing… breathing…making room for it all.
The stab of “I am the worst mother” was amplified by waves of sorrow of what my son suffered as a child and has worked to heal as a man. I remembered that same hurt inflicted on me as a little girl. In therapy, I had faced this past hurt, but now a new realization anchored in me. The “sins” (Greek/Hebrew translation: missed the mark) I committed against my son were not my burden alone to bear.
Both, my son, and I were hostages on the intergenerational trauma train. The grief and love I felt for my son flowed to embrace me…. flowed to encompass all the sweet innocents – me, my son, granddaughter, my mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, and great/great family members.
An ancestral lament, spanning endless generations (past and future) howled through me.
After a bit, I came to a shaky calm within. As I sat, breathed, and felt, I heard the heavy footsteps of my son upstairs where he lives with his wife and daughter (my husband and I dwell in the suite we built downstairs). A wave of gratitude buoyed my being. Despite the pain, shame, abuse, aching vulnerability, and sorrow suffered by all, Grace allowed love to endure throughout generations of trauma.
Love Trumped Trauma
Here we are – still a family. Here I am – more whole after bringing home my shamed, hated, hurt self.
A piece of green ribbon lay upon my desk. Tying the ribbon around the Flower Notebook, I reverently placed it atop my pile of journals. A birthday gift of deep healing for me (and perhaps my son) never imagined when I unearthed the dark or began journal writing so long ago.
