Parents Doing The Best They Can.

Emotional patterns

As a child I listened to my mother rant and rave, but not to the wall, as the character in the film Shirley Valentine did. My mother’s continual rants were at us children about what a bad man our father was and how trapped she felt looking after us in an isolated house. At times I remember how her crazy mood swings would even make our two large (often fighting) Alsatian dogs go under the table. When the debt collectors called on my parents, we all had to hide and allow the dogs to bark so our electricity was not cut off. How crazy we were. (This is a scene I am sure copied on many poor housing estates.) When people are poor in consciousness and money, they do the most desperate things.

How I attracted what I felt I deserved—and my way to defend myself was run or lie

I learned very young to survive three very angry women—my mother and my arguing sisters—by trying to appease them in a myriad of ways, which I still see surfacing in my emotional relationships with women. If I feel criticized by a woman with whom I am intimate, I want to run and hide. If I see a woman cry a lot, I feel myself shut off inside from my true feelings; I feel inadequate. I take full responsibility for attracting intimate relationships that are so often critical and full of anger. Now I am willing to dissolve that emotional vibration in me that I so traumatically learned from my mother’s tears or rage. I am still working on this! Of course, in the past I have attracted relationships that were built upon similar emotional patterns. Now I have attracted a relationship that loves to give peace and genuine support and love. It is easy then for me to love from a place of freedom inside and out. It is so much easier not to hide behind lies for fear of risking anger and feeling so wrong. It is so refreshing to deserve positive and authentic love. I remember joking at my own expense to get attention from my family: “Nobody loves me!” What a crazy, damaging thought. I do regret this. I take full responsibility for this behavior. And I say a genuine, “I’m sorry,” to my parting wife and children.

My father

My father became a man I could not truly love; he frightened me in so many ways, and I never trusted him. He always lied to everyone, including himself—and the taxman! Yet he was so creative. He was a genius when it came to building. He was just a very frustrated man—big physically—who learned to hit before he thought! He once admitted to me, “I can never change, Roger. I am my own worst enemy.” What an affirmation! Somewhere, I think he knew how frightened I was of him, and that our relationship was based on fear and anger, even resentment. On birthdays he would sign the card: “As always, Dad.” It used to make me wince inside. However, to be truthful he did once say, “My love, Father!” I remember that was a miracle.

On one of my visits home after listening to The Power Is Within You by Louise Hay, I remember asking my father, “How were you brought up, Dad?”

I listened and heard my father reel off a whole litany of harsh reality that he had gone through. He relayed it with no emotion; he just drank his brandy and sucked on his cigar a little harder. At the end, when he got near feelings and emotions, he said, “Oh, we must not dwell on the past; we have had a great life, haven’t we, son?” I nearly cried in front of him.

Insight: When a son or daughter cannot trust a parent or both parents, it can be so hard later in life to feel true feelings and emotions. It’s hard to identify real feelings, because it feels as if there are so many personalities floating through the conversations of your mind. I found it so hard to say, “I love you,” to anyone—and certainly not to myself in the mirror. This is when my truth would become distorted and I learned to lie without ever feeling what love or truth is! My reality became so confused.