Troublesome family dynamics

Not my grandfather, but he did used to sit looking out of his window

When I look back over the life of the maternal side of my family, troublesome family dynamics was the corner stone for how my grandmother connected with her children, my Mother and Uncle, which in turn, effected my relationship with my mother, the relationship she had with my Dad and probably the relationship I have with my own offspring (I also include 'past conquests' within that statement because I can now see clearly what an absolute arse I was at times, simply because I didn't know how to be anyway else. To those affected, I apologise and hope you can forgive that past version of myself you hold within your head).

The troublesome family dynamics I am referring to is the fact my maternal Grandfather was caught in a 'compromising position' with a young land girl in WW2; my grandmothers response was to banish him to another area of the home and forbade him from speaking to my Mother and Uncle. My mother was very young when this happened so that's all she remembers. My uncle, thankfully, remembers the home as being a happy one prior to this marital nuclear blast.

Infidelity is heart and soul crunchingly painful; it shatters trust and can unleash kraken levels of anger, to which my grandmother, if anger was an Olympic sport, would have won gold every...single...time! I hope you've never experienced it.

This anger went on some 35 years, well into the 1970's. When my grandfather was in hospital, my grandmother refused to get her own treatment as there was no way she was going to be in the same hospital as that old b.....d. My Grandfather passed away without the opportunity of 'putting things right' and simply accepted his lot in life.

In a way, I admire my grandmothers commitment to her cause but also sad for I saw how this effected my Mother and her behaviour towards me and how that effected my own attitude and approach within relationships. Boy, was I angry at everyone, especially men.

Loving Healing Hearts

I recently saw a post on social media that roughly read 'I now love all past versions of myself because I knew they were doing the best they could under the circumstances'.

This hit home to me in realisation which prompted this post.

When we do that, love all the past versions of ourselves, we acknowledge that we have emotionally and spiritually grown, evolved if you like, with the understanding of why we were the way we were. When we understand the whys, we demonstrate compassion for how we got to that place to begin, including towards the others involved. Many times we are behaving in a knee jerk way that we had demonstrated to us during our formative years, which we soaked up like a sponge, replaying displayed aspects in our adulthood, be that pertaining to behaviours or attractions to people that are no good for us.

I have to say, whilst I can still 'sass' with the best of them, I'm much calmer than I was, especially as a teen and in my twenties; to be fair, my thirties was ropey and the early part of my forties was no bloody picnic either! The latter two were the beginning of my conscious, on purpose, healing period. And boy, did I have a lot to get through and no doubt there are many more layers to go.

You've got allow things to fall apart for them to fall back together in the way they're meant to fall.

Whilst we were in no way responsible for the treatment we received as children, as adults, it's our responsibility to heal trauma to minimise passing it on to our own children. When we consciously do this, it's like throwing a pebble in a pond, the ripples go up and down the timelines which can, if allowed, go to heal generational traumas.

All the older members of my family are now in spirit. With that in mind, I hope my grandparents and parents have felt the healing I have done on myself and I hope my child and my grandchildren reap the benefits whilst they're still here.

No doubt they'll make their own mistakes (when I look at my adult child, I know this is the case) but I hope this angry energy is fully healed and won't come back to haunt them as it did me.

My grandbabies all seem to be calm and placid in nature, therefore, fingers crossed, so far so good.

Thanks for getting this far with my ramblings. I hope my words and openness regarding my family traumas are of benefit to you dear reader, even if it's simply to let you know you're never alone.

With love and healing

Minister Nicola Shortland-Neal