I met a wonderful
woman the other day. She is passionate, loyal and kind-hearted but
she also carries a heavy burden. She is attached to the notion that
it's her responsibility to fight against evil and for over ten years
she's devoted her life to fighting the system, moving from one
protest site to another, living from skips, sleeping in make-shift
shelters, living under a false name. Always putting the needs of the
cause before her own.
When she was young
there was a lot of violence in her family. She and her younger sister
developed different ways of coping with the fact that as children
there was no way for them to prevent this violence, and no way to
protect themselves or their loved ones. The younger sister seeks to
defend others from such harm, and is training to become a police
officer. My friend has taken a different path, but the burden is the
same. Both feels it is their responsibility to prevent evil from
taking place. Although one perceives this evil in men who commit
domestic violence and the other sees it in the domination of
multi-national corporations over nature, both are projecting their
feelings of failure and inadequacy onto the outside world instead of
facing it within themselves.
We all know the
saying, 'the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children,' and
we've all seen this principle at work in our own lives. Our parents,
bless them, never had a chance to rehearse their roles as mums and
dads. They were simply thrown into the task and we are the result of
their failings, as well as their many successes. Sometimes, in
situations where parents are under a lot of stress, or not mature
enough to deal skillfully with the challenges of parenthood, the
failings are very great and children grow up carrying around all
sorts of misconceived ideas about themselves and the world around
them. In fact if we look closely at ourselves we find that almost
everyone is carrying around some kind of burden bequeathed on them by
their parents.
My friend grew up
watching violence she could do nothing about and at some point her
little mind was made up: there was no way she was going to let that
sort of thing happen again. This makes logical sense to a child, but
what it translates to in her adult life makes no logical sense at
all. Instead of recognising that evil has been a part of human
history since we made our first faltering steps on this planet, and
likely will be until we breathe our last, she devotes all her energy
to struggling fruitlessly against it, exhausting herself with one
failed fight after another.
As with all
projection, my friend has an inner conflict that she is
externalising. Instead of looking directly at the anger and pain she
carries inside her, she directs it into the outside world. Until she
can reconcile this conflict her struggle against evil will never
cease. Nor will it bring about the justice for which she strives.
This is because she will not allow herself justice. For what does a
frightened child need but nurturing, freedom to play, to be creative
and to be loved. Instead she berates herself for even the smallest
acts of selfishness. Taking a break from the cause after so many
years is a cause to feel guilty. She feels herself to be a sell-out
for wanting a home, the small comforts of warmth, good food and
stability.
By recognising
where we are carrying burdens unwittingly left to us by our parents,
and withdrawing the projections we've created to shift responsibility away from ourselves, we are empowered to
enjoy fully the abundant, joyful life and creative life that is
waiting for us. When we can see our parents flaws as human instead of looking at them through the idealistic lens that expects perfection, we see they were doing the best they could with what they had. We can forgive them and free ourselves from this unwanted inheritance.
