Who I Am.

The past is the past. It's become for me a story of parental and familial disfunction, which I endured and later worked through and now I am free from. Because like all of us, we can't pick and choose our parents and the earlier stages of our lives which they have such a large impact on guiding us into.

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Like any typical young boy from the 80's, I looked up to my parents, and particularly my father. He put on a good show of being quite a stand up kinda man. Until he could no longer hide behind the own masks he created, along with all his supressed thoughts and emotions that he kept to himself. (Until he could no longer keep to himself, and instead it came out in his behaviours).

 

I watched as his own supressions, and inability to maintain any kind of life he'd built for himself and his family eat him up from the inside.

 

Looking back today, what I was watching was a very steady and slow decline of my parents mental health and well-being, and how my fathers own ways had got the better of him.

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My father left the country, abandonding his family with a huge mess behind him - we were running a family business together, and it became extremely difficult to keep the business and family home going, especially without understanding all the financial side of things that he was managing.

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The truth soon became clearer. There were various accounts of identity fraud and miss-leadership from my father against myself and Mum. Debtors were coming to us for payments of debt that were my fathers.

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I helplessly watched our family home and all possions become repossed from underneath us, leaving myself, Mum, Sister and Nonna - all homeless.

 

The family business fell into adminstration, and I found myself with no career or work.

 

I was 23 years old when I reluctantly signed for personal bankruptcy, just to stop all the letters and threats at the door for debt being chased that wasn't mine.

 

Significant harm had been done. And the subsequent years were not easy. I suffered PTSD symptoms from a whole host of events.

 

I also didn't want to remain being dragged down and over consumed by the life that I grew up into. 

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Whilst my life was in ruins and my future became hopeless - this wasn't my path or future.

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At 24, I entered into the worlds of hypnotherapy, psychotherapy, counselling and coaching - not wanting to follow my fathers footsteps, I reached out to find some form of 'help' for the trauma I experienced and a lot to learn with how to get myself and my own life on track - this in and of itself, became traumatising.

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It's only when I took a personal stand for everything, did my life actually begin to change - in my mid 20's, I conciously decided to take full responsibility and accountabilty for myself and my own life and actions (this in itself wasn't easy) - However, I discovered I then began having greater amounts of internal space for deeper forgiveness, for people who miss-led or miss-treated me, as well as for parts of myself for own past mistakes - and I learned to deeply accept the rest, so that I wouldn't get eaten up with resentment, bitterness or any ill thoughts that would only result to impacting myself anyway.

 

By taking full responsibility and accountability, I could also warmly embrace the present again, much like I used to when I was very young child, way before all the mess and chaos. I became the happiest when I could be present again with all of my emotions, and they wouldn't spin me so far out of wack or drain all of my energy. This was only possible because I learned what I needed from or to do with each emotion as it came up, particularly in how to contain or handle some of the more difficult emotions, or find healthy ways with others who might be able to help me process them, or comfort me.

 

Taking deeply radical responsibility and accountability also meant I could begin taking courageous actions for myself, and the future it is that I want to see for my life - this part is still a work in progress...

 

... should I be so lucky, I am still praying for the opportunity of being someones life partner one day, and me being theirs, with the possiibility of raising a family together within a safe, stable, secure and trusting home. :) 

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In the meanwhile. I continue to live, create and build my own life.

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My little takeaway here - Healthy relationships are always two way and require great communication across various levels - and families require everyones input, including the childrens, along with a really great vision, leadership and role modelling from parents.

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Accept. Embrace. Be Courageous