Monday 2 March 2015

You cannot control happiness but fear depends on it.

I have been deep in thought all week. And debate. I have had heated discussions on the current state of affairs in the Middle East,  debates on the Koran, the hypocrisy of Christianity, what colour a dress is, the ignorance of arrogance, the sadness of people that control and the misery of those that are controlled

And I figure that the root of all control, of domination, manipulation and plain unkindness - is fear, fear of not being in control.

And even for those that allow themselves to be controlled, it is the fear of taking control that paralyses them, the fear of what happens when they are not controlled. It's all a rather pointless self fulfilling prophecy.

So what is the point? None of it creates happiness. To feel the need to control others, to always get what you want, is the very thing that prevents ultimate happiness. You cannot truly receive until you can truly give. When you control others, there is a part of your soul that is simply closed off.

Religion is all about control. It is fundamentally a code of conduct that creates consequence for actions that do not adhere to the rules within it. This creates control through fear. Religion is a belief that many need and perhaps they are simply ruled by a fear that there is nothing more than themselves and it is the self that creates the life around, not a religion that tells them their view of the world. Perhaps it is merely fear of thinking for ourselves that creates the issue. I suspect it is really just fear of taking responsibility for our own thoughts and actions that is the real issue.

Controlling relationships create fear and yet the need to control someone else is all about your own fears.

Working your way up the corporate ladder? You are climbing rungs that are rooted in fear. You enter a world in which you will play the game to protect your own back. You will be terrified of putting yourself in a position of risk. Your fear of loss and status will make you play the game, because if you don't - there will always be someone coming up behind you to take over.

And then there are the bullies, the ones that fear not being socially accepted, not being strong enough, not being good enough or simply not being in control of their own lives. What better way to control those feelings than to make someone else feel worse than you do.

But really, where does all of this get us?

Take my marriage. My husband controlled me because he hated the control I had over him. He loved me in his own way, but he hated that I had that control over him and so he punished me with control. He was unhappy, so he made me unhappy. And the more he did it, the more I let him because by then,   I was too scared to take responsibility for my own happiness. Since I was unhappy, I carried on letting him control me. Then I learnt that control was about someone else need, not mine.

So imagine a world in which we walked away from fear. We simply stopped this fear creating the need to control others, to control life and everything in it. Imagine a world where we just accepted that the fear of the unknown, is just a response.

Imagine a world in which we were all simply contented enough that we didn't feel the need to control everyone and everything around us.

Imagine a world in which we didn't accept control because we were not scared of being ourselves.

Don't hold your breath






Adopting a new concept of family

I am in the midst of writing a reference for my brother and his partner in their quest to adopt. It is an interesting view to offer since no one really knows the ability to parent until they are given a child. It's a role like no other and very few achieve the one thing we should all achieve as a parent - realising that it is not all about us.

The concept of family is changing and it is about time. We hold on to the idea that family should be picture perfect, with sing songs around the Christmas tree. When they going gets tough, family should stick together and support through thick or thin. The reality is all too frequently different.

Children that are put up for adoption are rarely the result of a happy childhood where there status changed by way of bereavement. These are children that have had the kind of start that no one deserves. Almost all will have had their roots with parents that for whatever the cause, were ill equipped to meet their needs. These are children that may have seen the most terrible things, been neglected or perhaps abused. Whatever the history, all need security and safety. And it doesn't end here, because when you are rejected or neglected as a child, the effects can be life long.

My mother was one of these children. And whilst she went on to maintain a long marriage and children, she came with life long issues over trust and emotional security. When you have been rejected in your childhood to the degree she was, you see love as a pie. Anyone showing love to someone else is taking a piece of your pie.

You cannot ever truly get into the workings of such damage. In my own family, it is pretty universally acknowledged that it translates into an issue with girls, which is only a problem if you happen to be one. For my Father and brothers, they didn't really have to deal with it and since it didn't affect them, they didn't.

So for my entire childhood, I rationalised that the very strained and difficult relationship I had with my mother was as a result of her own traumatic childhood and as such, I had to understand it because no one deserved a childhood where they felt rejected. In doing so, I can't really say my own emotional needs were met. So I learnt not to have any.

You can rationalise all you like as a child but when you don't have a normal healthy bond with your mother, you spend your whole life never feeling quite good enough. Every choice you make, every partner you chose, is as an indirect consequence to your experience of the most important relationship you ever had - the one between mother and child.

And over the years you realise things: the reason you constantly had to prove that you could do anything a man can do was because yo learnt that you were only really ever accepted if you were male. So I learnt to strip a car engine, respray a car, plaster walls, never show female emotion, never have needs in a relationship. What I have finally managed to accept is that I am not a boy.

And the route of everything is in fear. For the boys in my family, there is a universal adoration and an unsaid rule that no one rocks the boat. And so no one rocks the boat except me. And I do that, simply by being me.

It is a family in which we are all expected to behave in a certain way. To never question parental authority, to never question our past for the actions of parents because if you do - you are banished for a period.

And as I find myself banished once more, but with that I gain the clarity that I always needed. Family is all embracing, it is about acceptance of every member within it and it is about love. It is not about control, it is not about punishment and the constant need to control by consequence is about as healthy as being bulimic. In fact, it's arguably a similar concept. My family is not made up of bad people but it is not one of healthy construct. If you do not exist in a family as yourself, or only exist if you behave in a way dictated by others - then the reality is, you don't have a family that actually loves you.

But I do. I have the family I created, the one with 4 amazing boys that I have raised without the benefit of a whole heap of support - have grown up knowing that no matter what they do, they are loved wholeheartedly and free of judgement. And the one thing we underestimate in children, is their capacity to see when you are taking something from them to fulfil your own need. I am guessing that the reason why these children (and two now adults) are so free to love is that it was so freely given when they were growing up.

Family is not the one that you are told to have, it's the one you create. We hold onto the past even when it has done us harm. We desperately hold on to the concept of family because we are taught to believe that this is where we find acceptance and support when often we find the opposite. When we don't find it, we assume the role of responsibility.  And this is the bit I am no longer prepared to do.


So  instead of looking as adoption as a solution to failed families, perhaps we should see it as the the start of creating families in which people chose healthy loving relationships instead of feeling failures for the ones that didn't work out. The creation of new families is not about blame, it is about acceptance. People don't stuff up being a parent on purpose, they do it because they do not have the skills to love without need and do not have the ability to face their own truth. For whatever the reason, they do not have the ability to create the one thing every child deserves - a childhood in which they are are raised to be accepted and loved.

So I look at the family I created, and I look towards the family that my brother is choosing to create and I cannot help feeling happy for this child, or children - that despite a traumatic start, will be raised to understand that love is in giving not taking.  The concept of family is and should remain a fluid one.