I’ve been having dreams of my grandparents’ house every night this week.
This morning, as I was journaling about my latest dream episode, I had a string of insights flow through on the subject of healing and family relationships. (To maintain a semblance of privacy for my family, I’ll refer to them simply as my parent and my grandparent without any gender identifiers.)
In this stream, I saw how my parent is essentially trying to reparent themselves and get a childhood “do-over” through their choice of profession, and even many of their hobbies, which are very immersed in the world of childhood. It’s as if, this time around, they’re going to get it right and finally experience the childhood they always wanted.
I see how, in many ways, I am doing the same. (I own a dollhouse miniatures business.)
My grandparent (who also had a very difficult childhood), will share anecdotes in which someone they know or a person they meet remarks on how childlike they are. My grandparent is clearly getting something powerful from these interactions, judging by the look on their face and their tone of voice as they relate these stories. It doesn’t take much to imagine that they, too, are trying to go back and revise their own childhood chapter.
Connecting the dots
I then noticed something interesting. Whenever my grandparent relates one of these stories, my parent gets really, really triggered. They get angry, and I see something akin to disgust or repulsion in their face and energy. These stories are clearly pushing a major button.
I also see in myself a similar dynamic at play. When my parent comes off as exceedingly childlike and naive in certain situations, major buttons get pushed within me. “Pushed” isn’t quite accurate; it’s more like a game of Whack-a-Mole on crack.
Part of this is because seeing my parent in such a vulnerable state triggers fear in me, but I’m realizing that another piece of it is resentment. Resentment that my parent is acting like a child, which triggers memories of them acting this way when I was a child and the terror that came from feeling, “Well, who’s in charge then? It can’t be me–I’m only five! Oh my god, we’re doomed…” until I’m sitting in a stew of fearful resentment–yum.
Burying the hatchet
As is often the case, it’s easier to notice behaviors in someone else before I’m ready or able to witness them in myself.
Watching my parent and grandparent interact around this issue, it seems clear that my parent resents any attempts by my grandparent to heal. I imagine the following subconscious thought process occurring: “Oh, no you don’t! You totally screwed my childhood, so you sure as hell don’t get to heal yours!”
The irony, of course, is that if my grandparent was able to experience healing, this would only increase the chances of them being a better parent, thus healing some of my parent’s childhood wounds.
I am now aware that this dynamic is playing out in my interactions with my parent, and I can see how subconsciously resisting (and perhaps even working to prevent) the healing of past generations out of hurt and spite prevents all of us from healing.
Yet another reminder that we are One, and we can’t heal ourselves in a vacuum.
I open myself to self-healing.
I open myself as a witness to and loving agent in my family’s healing.
May all beings experience healing.