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Friday, March 07, 2014.  There are a million more things I cannot say on this blog right now that what I can say.  Our family is “in crisis” – which can be more rightly called “a state of emergency.”  (When what hurts and ails one member of a family breaks through past the patterns of status quo as they have operated for years and years such a time brings with it the emergence for ALL members of a family everything that lies deeply below the surface.

The difficult things.  The HUGE things that have affected everyone since their beginning as members of such a family.

What is happening right now for me as the mother in this family could not be more important and could not be more personal.  At the same time the privacy of the family has to be preserved I also need to find ways to express what is happening for me – the best that I can while respecting and doing my best to protect that vitally required privacy of *.

As of Wednesday the highest priority hope of my life for many, many years has been fulfilled.

The local treatment program being accessed for *’s recovery on the residential “high intensity” level for advanced alcoholism means that these professionals now have the entire future of one the most important, loved and cherished members of my family in their hands.  I am most grateful for all prayers and thoughts for healing that can be offered in *’s and our family’s direction.  Thank you.

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I could not be more powerfully aware of the complexity and toughness of the kinds of things I have been recording on this blog about what Dr. Daniel Siegel is telling the world about “making sense” of traumatic pasts so that the power locked within traumas can be erased by their integration into the narrations of people’s life stories than I am right now.

I find myself wondering, “Does Siegel have ANY IDEA how hard this work actually is within people – and therefore within the family those people are members of?”  Can he even IMAGINE the depths that have to remain as open channels that run directly back to the original traumas themselves in order for continued healing and the changes that healing requires to take place?

My answer is, “No, I don’t think he does.  I don’t think Siegel can possibly even begin to know how tough the lives of people affected by severe early abuse and trauma truly is.  How can he?”

This in no way, however, diminishes or negates ANYTHING that Siegel is saying.  How do I know this to be truth?

I know because everything I am finding of what Siegel says matches what I have discovered on my own during my own 30+ years of trying to find ways to heal from, to understand, to comprehend, to make sense of, to-straighten-out-the-bent-and-crooked parts of my own trauma-laden life (that could have been SO MUCH WORSE than it was in so many significant ways).

There is no emotion of which I am capable of feeling that is not being triggered right now by what is happening in *’s life.  Statistics report that at least 50% of American families have at least one close family member who suffers from alcoholism/drug addiction.  We cannot leave dependency on prescription drugs or marijuana out of this equation.  And no matter how the past has been flowing along once one of these family members reaches out for help EVERY family member will be affected.

New truths HAVE to emerge for all as they emerge for one member of a family.  When this happens everything one of us knows from “making sense” of our life as we heal our self (as we heal our life story) toward the integration Siegel promotes as the only REAL solution to healing trauma HAS to change. 

All life is linked together.  Every part affects another part.  The powers these connections have within the “shared emerging mind” (again go back to recent posts on Siegel’s work) on members of families is nearly astronomical.  We are probably not as apt to FEEL this within our conscious awareness when things seem to be going well.  But we sure will notice this when things are happening in the realm of difficulties.

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There is nothing about me in my life going all the way back to my birth that will not be touched by this current “emergency.”  What I know even going back to the generations before me is also flashing back into my conceptions about myself in my life and therefore of myself in *’s life.

There is great, great sorrow and pain for many things that have happened that I had no power over.  Then looking back at my much younger self – and the choices I made, at my own behaviors – how could I have known more than I did so that I could have lived better?

Oh I have FOUGHT for healing for so many years.  Did I fight “good enough” to spare my children?  No. And yes.

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There is no possible way we can make the choice for another person to take the step into the roaring inferno of healing.

We cannot remove the pain from our children that we – no matter how inadvertently, innocently, naively or selfishly — caused them by the way we have lived our life.

As a parent this fact becomes the filter through which I yet again begin the revision of my own life story as I wait to provide * with any help I possibly can toward healing. 

The “making sense of traumas” and the “integration” of which Siegel so knowledgeably and wisely speaks never ends in our lifetime.  We cannot pick and choose which truth of our life we can include and which we can leave out.  But these truths are ALIVE because they are OUR truths.  They can be worked with.  They CAN be healed.

And then – as life goes on – with those we care about and have most powerfully influenced in our life as they live their own life – those truths come back up again – so they can be healed some more.

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But – in spite of how difficult the journey for all of us can be at times – or often — we ARE heading in a positive direction – and that makes all the difference in the world!!  (Thanks for the song, Sandy!)

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Here is our first book out in ebook format.  A very kind professional graphic artist is going to revise our cover pro bono (we are still waiting to hear that he has accomplished this job) – what a gift and thank you Ben!  Click here to view or purchase: 

STORY WITHOUT WORDS

It lists for $2.99 and can be read free for Amazon Prime customers.  Reviews for the book on the Amazon.com site are WELCOME and appreciated!

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