Bear the wound with love

I touched a deep place with my inner child a moment ago. The tears are still on my cheeks and I felt my mother’s wound too as I was processing my feelings. I watched the movie Wild last night it scared me to watch it earlier due to the deep pain Cheryl goes through but it echoed so much for me too. I thought of how alone she was with her grief in the wilderness walk for 3 or more months processin her memories, her past and the loss of her mother. The scene in which she and her brother get to the hospital only to find their mother dead tore at me. And her pain and struggle to contain it really resonated.

The final things she says in the movie resonated too. She asks the question. “What if I forgive myself?” As she reminds herself that every single painful experience has taught her something…even her addiction to random sex and heroin.

I thought of and cried more for my Mum last night. I understood today how lonely she was as a child. I am glad she found the love of my father but they were not affectionate parents like Cheryl’s Mum and it wasnt their fault they never got any affection and both lost their fathers in youth, but they tried their very best to be good parents often failing me in many ways.

One thing ill say though…even though she could not support me in my deep feeling work Mum always supported us girls in other ways and I am grateful for that. I wasnt tied up or abused only ignored as a child and left alone too much but that said even those experiences made me who I am a deeper soulful person but one who struggled to be, find my place, express and do in the world.

The wound in our family was one of relationship and hidden grief. My own unprocessed confusion and grief has run me for many many years as well as my challenges with containing difficult feelings…I am not alone in this, thank God but for a long time it seemed I was 12 step work and groups have helped, writing and therapy too, as has blogging and connecting to my truth and expressing it here.

I could really feel the full reality of Cheryl’s pain in the movie last night. It was hard to watch it through as certain scenes were things I also went through. When she was knee deep in snow and fording rivers I thought of what profound metaphors these were for the deeper spiritual and emotional work of soul retrieval. In the end she even questions the reality of ‘redemption’ instead she seems to go through a deepening and acceptance process that is deeply spiritual in its nature. The flashback scenes interspersed with her present really echoed my own process of healing. Today I could cry for it all while asking Mums forgiveness for certain things and feeling the forgiveness she also needed for things so far out of her control. I could feel the love that always cries out from deep inside asking us to dig deeper and expand wider to contain and bear the wounds we carry deep inside.