In these articles. I try to describe what I experienced in my childhood.
The reason this website exists(XXX), is that I love to share about how personal transformation helped me to become tremendously more alive. This huge contrast, has two sides. On the one side, I had many dark and destructive experiences in my childhood, that left me utterly alone, highly restricted in my personal power and dignity, intensely sad, and having extreme low self-worth. On the other side, through many transformational experiences, I was able to give meaning to what happened to me during my childhood. That journey is simply wonderful.
In a process that is still ongoing until today, I am able to accept and extract my truths out of what happened to me. These are truths, that automatically carry my life to a higher level, uncovering my dignity, my softness, and my powers and trust in life. Truths through which I face the future and meet the present moment. I keep on discovering myself, to be the light through my own darkness.
To be able to tell you what my truths are, implicitly and explicitly, I need to tell you about the alchemy of my truths: how I discovered them, and against what backgrounds they were extracted. The first background is my journey of discovery that I started in my late twenties, on which many articles exist in this website. The other background is the experiences of my childhood.
These articles are about my childhood, the first background from where I am able to extract my truths.
The main influencers of the background of my childhood, are my parents(XXX). They defined through what eyes I was seen, learning me how to use my eyes to look at myself and the world. My parents both are people with their own uniqueness, their own story, their own backgrounds, their own way of looking at life. I like to tell you about them, how you could perceive them, when you would meet them for the first time.
Meet my Mother
If you would meet my mother for the first time, it could be challenging to make sense of that experience. At first sight, for a split second, you could feel a subtle attentive, sweet, and playful energy, that has the potential to care for the whole world.
However, this subtle energy is very thin, and is for most people easy to miss, making you wonder who you have in front of you. If you miss that deeply hidden, precious beauty, your wondering will be met with something that is hard to put a finger on. Because she looks well dressed, behaves with a smile, uses language that mature people use, and talks, like she has her life in order.
But why don't you see peace in her eyes, and glimpses of dignity or joy? Why is it, that if you close your eyes, nothing of what she says or does comes alive, and you feel a big emptiness, as if she is trying to hide something, not knowing it herself. It even is as she doesn't exist, her words don't make sense by what you feel from them. She is pretending to be alive, but she has hidden herself very far away from life. And you can't get to her, because she almost isn't there at all.
Staying for a while, she starts to reach out to you. Initially masked as a gentle support, but she actually is pulling on to you. If you mention it in words, she will deny it. It makes you think that she doesn't know where she is. Hidden very far behind this pulling, an extreme desperateness is slightly noticeable, making you back up a bit. It is clear she is not aware about it. Suddenly you catch a well-hidden blank stare in her eyes, it starts to makes sense. What does feeling alive mean for this woman? It touches you that she doesn't seem to remember.
You become conscious about her pulling, and you decide to allow her a to tap into you. Immediately you feel an invasive energy in your system, as if her desperateness for life is trying to leech from you. An image of control and humiliation enters your thoughts. Having had enough, you close again. In her presence, other images start to appear, showing a little girl, who moves her arms and hands, but who cannot see what she is doing with them.
You continue talking with her, curious about that little girl. Hearing her talk, life is presented as being impossibly difficult and heavy. But interestingly enough, through her expressions and indirect language, she frequently is complimenting herself. It even seems contradicting. These compliments try convince you she is super hero, and a super victim at the same time.
You start asking yourself, why is she making her own life so difficult? And when was she so intensely humiliated, that she started doing that herself? What forced her to step away from her dignity? And how would she treat her children? She feels so very lost.., it can make you cry.
You feel a need to stay on guard, it is hard to relax around her. Along the conversation you spot another cliffhanger, to pull you further into her story. Out of kindness, you give her some sincere validation for trying her best so hard. But you see she can't bring to feel it inside her heart. It is used some kind of snack to which she is addicted, feeling her satisfied for only a few moments.
You offer her some questions of reflection. You notice her mind has no clarity for them. Furthermore she seems offended very easily, and her minds seems to go blank when processing your deeper inquiries. She can't really look at your questions, it doesn't help her anything. It needs to come from inside herself. You thank her for meeting her, sincerely wish her a rich life, and leave her be.
Getting to know my Mother
After having met her, if you find yourself thinking about her, you may arrange to get to know her better. Maybe you will go walking in nature, or visit museums together, which are things she likes.
Through knowing her, it might touch you deeply why she keeps ending up in situations, in which she is either the super hero or the helpless victim. It appears that, tragically, she just doesn't know life in another way. Her childhood was so immensely heavy for her, that thirty years later, it is a pain she constantly feels inside of herself. But her memories are simply too intense to feel inside herself: the feeling of not knowing when the chaos ends, constantly physically abused and humiliated, and constantly being tossed around by all the heavy conflicts and emotional violence that is going on.
And because she cannot feel it inside of herself, she keeps creating distractions outside of herself: creating situations that evoke similar feelings, to camouflage her original deep pains. And as long as she can't feel the pain inside of her, she will do anything to feel similar pains outside of her.
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You will also learn that she was literally defenseless when she was a child. Constantly being surrendered to the incapacities and violence of her parents, which were also traumatized in their own childhoods. When my mother tried to defense herself, her defenses were systematically broken down, and she was attacked even harder.
The only strength she could find was attacking subconsciously, and striking very hard. Being attacked subconsciously, her parents would be less aware of it, she having less change of getting attacked back by them. Her way of fighting back has many elements of mean, and manipulative humiliation. It was the only defense she had left when she was little, being constantly attacked by her parents: humans twice her size and double as smart.
Seeing the fear and holes of emptiness in her eyes when she is reminded of that, you totally understand. She still is stuck in that pain: That is why she tries to manipulate and humiliate you, when you are with her in disagreement about something. She doesn't know any other strategy, she needs to repeat her story outside of herself.
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Every now and then, you will notice that it is hard to reach her. It is as if her mind goes totally blank, and she is not responding to anything outside of her. You wonder where she could be during such moments, and you ask her about it. You may hear that her childhood at sometimes was so dark for her, that she even could not talk for a while when she was young. And from some other conversation you remember, that she has trouble doing relatively simple math. You start to assume she has some kind of cognitive impairment as a result of her abusive childhood. It constantly dims her capacities, and periodically overloads her brain, appearing unreachable.
Knowing her stories, you empathize for her: what is she processing when she is away? Down there, is she experiencing it all over again? It seems the only explanation. She seems to have learned to live with it. Regularly you see her missing clarity on what matters, making her emotionally unstable. Her emotions seem to take her in to all kinds of states, making her disconnect with herself. Sometimes, you feel a wish to hold her, and say everything is going to be okay.
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Spending time together, you notice many indications, that she yearns for a normal and happy life: to have hobbies, respect, and relationships like happy people do, and have a happy marriage and an harmonious family. But when she is feeling and thinking about it, she can't imagine and focus it, neither can she bring her heart power with it, nor can she put her life into action for that. Her aspirations of happiness, very closely touch the intense pains she suffered when she was young. But she cannot feel her pains yet, so her powers stay imprisoned.
Somewhere, she knows what she want, but she can't just bring it together. It feels like a child trying to make a sand castle on the beach, just by throwing sand on a pile, and demanding confirmation from bystanders that she really is building a nice sand castle. Her actions feel so unconnected, and at the same time she is trying to convince herself she is doing a good job. But deep down she knows it is not what she want, still she keeps on trying, and looking for outside validation to get herself on track.
If you find yourself bothered by her, you might say she is keeping up appearances, being hypocritical, and looking for attention. But when you find time and energy to open up to her, you feel she actually needs is encouragement, admiration, and some guidance. It touches your heart, to see someone trying so hard, but failing so clearly, not getting the lesson. You wish for her to simply be happy, but sadly she cannot feel what it takes, she cannot bring it together.
<todo she tries to make you feel guilty if you do not play along>
Meet my Father
It takes courage to meet this world with softness, kindness and loyalty, living by your principles at the same time. That is what you can feel, when you would meet my father, even from seeing him over a mile away. Moving closer to him, your anticipation of him grows. How does he shape his life? In what way would he use his qualities to spread his wisdom? Is he a musician? Or maybe he is leading some community, in which respect and being welcome truly goes hand in hand?
Having a small talk with him, you notice something is off. Every reply of him seems to make the conversation a bit more stuck. You are talking with each other, but it is hard to have a flowing conversation. It feels analyzed, processed, as if you are just exchanging facts, frames, and bits of information. Talking with him doesn't move you at all. Except for the fact you can feel the potential qualities of this man. They feel anything but alive in him. It is like he has very little left in him to back up his qualities, to bring them into this world.
Sometimes, when he shares his thoughts, they surprisingly seem magical. Almost making you believe that thinking is the only way, that the world is finite, static, as-is, and that there is nothing else in life. Allowing his thoughts to be yours, feels like the world losing its rich layers, its power to surprise, and its creativity. Without you realizing it, your heart gradually fades away, your breathing becomes shallow, and you lose touch with what happens in your body. Life seems simple, logical and predictable. There is nothing to fear, nothing to live.
When you step out of his mind, it feels like the world inside and outside of you comes alive again. It shocks you, that for a moment you really believed, that life is so extremely thin.
Through the conversation, you start to explore him further. When you make a clear statement that he doesn't agree on, he seems to somehow jump back. He does that without moving his body, maybe startling a bit, giving you all the space. His voice changes a pitch higher, and he brings an intellectual reply to your statement. There just is no real body and power to it, it seems as he feels you stepped on his balls.
Hidden very far behind his fear to stand his ground, an enormous aggression is activated for a split second. As if you gravely humiliated and physically attacked him. But he keeps controlling his emotions, imprisoning himself and his powers. Probably you could take advantage of him if you want. With compassion, you wonder how severely he was attacked and humiliated in his life, that he had to stop protecting himself. You fear in what way his children are at the receiving end of his aggression.
Does this man feels seen? By himself? By the world? You ask him about life. Yet again he gives processed answers. But in between the lines, you feel that life is tough on this man. He feels extremely tarnished. You are impressed that he still tries to be courageous and kind, yet you see he brings it out unconnected, through the mind. You compliment him about his intentions. He replies with an intellectual "thank you" and a disconnected smile. You notice he can't feel what you mean.
You conclude he cannot pull the strings to his heart and his emotions, to make them join his life. And without connection to his emotions, he seems to have no clue why he is making his own life so hard: He keeps living in his mind. You can hear it churning, on how to 'fix' life. He seems restless, his body tensed.
You start to feel sorry for this man. In front of you is standing the body of an adult male, but if feels as if you are talking to a little boy. Behind his helplessness, you feel a constant asking, asking you to help him life, to care for his emotions, to care for what he needs, to feel life.
It is time for you to move on, and you indirectly suggest to close the conversation. You feel a sudden impulse to part him with a hug. He reluctantly agrees to it, and while hugging, you feel his heart to be very cold. As if he was never hugged. Out of sympathy, a crying starts inside of you. From your heart, you send him all the warmth you have available. You let go of him, and with compassion, you go your own way again.
Getting to know my father
On the occasion you will meet my father more often, you might do something active together, like playing soccer, or visiting a live performance of any music.
Interested in his life, you ask a few questions about his youth. But when asking about his parents, you get answers with very little information. To a tiny extent, he seems to be empathetically aware that his parents had incapacities caring for him, but it is far from an emotional awareness of the different contexts and dynamics he was raised in. He says he doesn't love his own mother so much. He doesn't question his own upbringing so much, he takes is own tough life as it is.
Once, he was a little boy full of life, full of everything. But through systematic beating, emotional violence and humiliation by his parents, he had to gradually shut down his life inside of him. For him it was very dangerous to live in his body and through his emotions, interacting with the world around him. So he had to start living inside his mind.
He was made into a helpless boy, prevented to know and to feel, what it is like to be alive and to take responsibility. Now being a grown up, he still lives inside that prison, falsely believing there is no one who really cares for him, there is no way to express his anger in a safe and dignified way, showing his grief will lead to more humiliation, becoming alive will get him in danger, that he has little emotions, and they don't have any magic that can make a difference for him.
You notice that in his state, it is hard for him to take care of himself: He feels little impulses to go outside, meet people, get warmer clothes when he gets cold, get out of bed at the right time, eat the right food, and so on. It can make you feel wanting to care for him, maybe even telling him what to do, because he is clueless about life. It reminds you, that he almost always seems to be nice to people, even when offended, and you assume the main reason is, that deep inside, he always needs help.
When you are busy caring for your own life, it can be distracting to be with someone, that subconsciously always asks for help and attention. But when you are open to him for any reason, you realize that his self-respect and personal powers were almost completely destroyed when he was young. He was gravely incapacitated, and sadly, he still lives in those very dark shadows. He needs empathy and encouragement, to step out of his shadows. But it is only his step to take.
After a while, it becomes clear to you that he has withdrawn to his last line of defense: his mind. When you get into a discussion with him, and touch upon something that is important for him, it makes him heated, and his words venomous. You imagine what would happen if you would be living together with him, making it more personal. The arguments could become furious and even violent, like he is fighting for his life. On the surface, he could make the impression of someone that is authoritative, stubborn, arrogant, or claiming to be what is right and what is wrong.
But you identify the deeper reason, that he fled to his rigid mind, mistrusting anything outside of it. When you find yourself in a conflict with him, you are talking to a men whose life was taken away, has fled to his mind, and can't get life back himself. He is defending the only straw of life he has left: thoughts about life, instead of having life itself.
Because my father has almost given up living, it is challenging for him to convince others of his viewpoints. When he makes a statement or gives his opinion, it feels as just some line of a rulebook was read out aloud, not the connected to the current situation of life. There is no real power behind it, there is no life in it to move you. Listening closely, you can hear a whining in his voice, like he really wants to be heard. It makes him come across has someone who doesn't feel taken seriously, constantly fighting to be heard and seen. In his fight, you feel a big loneliness, as if what he thinks does not matter, as if what he feels does not matter, as if he himself, does not matter.
Once, you are talking with him about raising kids. Suddenly, you find yourself shocked to hear him say, that "the only way to control kids, is to beat them", and he "does not know any other way to steer them".
It makes a knot in you stomach, and your heart feels frozen.
It makes you understand that he has disconnected with his inner goodness, and his trust in himself. You suspect that when my father was young, he was gravely attacked, every time he tried to live from the truths of his heart. The truths that can make him flourish. Instead, he was forced to believe in another system, made-up rules from the mind, that bring darkness, fear, and death.
He does not believe anymore, that when he gives himself space, trust and encouragement, he will transform into a fountain of harmony and beauty, spreading it naturally around him. But instead, he is very hard on himself, punishing himself for every "mistake". And when beating himself up all the time, he automatically create a life around himself, that constantly beats him up as well. It makes sense now, that he sees the world as a very though place. Seeing such a needless hardship in him, it can make you feel very sorry. Life doesn't have to be hard all the time. But on a deeper level, he chooses it that way.
What is even more horrific, is that his mind believes that he is doing the right thing, when he is physically attacking and torturing his own children. You even heard him say "I would rather have that my children hate me and don't know the rules of the world, instead of my children loving me and not being raised properly". Feeling that he can be physically very intimidating and uncontrolled, you fear for his children. It touches you deeply, to see a man so extremely lost in his mind, a man that values honesty and kindness so much, who is terrorizing and traumatizing his children, putting them into fear and agony every day. Your thoughts wonder off to his children, how day by day, their innocence is taken away from them, their integrity is being comprised, and the loneliness and sadness in their eyes and heart grows, and grows.
Marriage of patterns
The reason why my parents live together, is very ironically, that their patterns are compatible with each other.
Two examples of my parents's patterns are: constantly playing the hero or the victim, and being emotionally helpless. As describe above, they learned this behavior in their own childhood, in order to deal with their harsh environment and protect themselves. For someone that has a tendency to behave as either a hero or a victim all the time, it fits to be around someone, that has a tendency to be emotionally helpless all the time. And it fits the other way around as well.
When listing the patterns of someone, the big danger is that the person is reduced to their patterns. Focusing on the patterns, it becomes difficult to see the pain behind the patterns. But it is important to realize, that each single personal pain is completely unique: It is a direct expression of the unique beauty of a person, in a unique painful context. If the unique context was not painful, the unique beauty of the person could be expressed in another way, for example, in a unique expression of joy.
Patterns serve to protect and to hide the pain of a person and thus its uniqueness: patterns defend a person from itself and its environment, and make it anonymous at the same time. So when saying two people are compatible in their patterns, it means each of them is hiding his and her unique pain in a way, so that both ways of hiding can exist in the same relationship, in a practical manner. It is about the way of hiding and defending. Nothing else.
When children are born into a family, they will develop themselves based on the relations that already exist. If the existing relations are (mostly) dynamic, children are free to develop their own personality. If the existing relations are (mostly) static, in the case of a marriage of patterns, children will adapt their personality to fit inside these patterns. In my parents's case it was a marriage of patterns. The patterns are as follows.
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Because my father is emotionally helpless, my mother can help him all the time and she could feel being a hero. At the same time he was emotionally incompetent, so she could be a victim of his misbehavior well. Because of my father's emotional near blindness, he is easily emotionally manipulated, and humiliated if necessary. This fits my mother's perspective that you should either control, or be controlled and be humiliated. She needs to be married with someone who is easy to control, loyal and honest: she definitely won't be controlled herself.
She pays the prize of being with someone who is very stubborn and emotionally helpless, fueling her desperateness with frequent sudden outburst of hysteria. Next to that, she is not able to bring in her thoughts, they are quickly overruled by the thinking power of my father.
My mother's desperateness for validation, is complemented by my father being very loyal. She can whine and draw as much attention as she wants, but he will never leave her. My father thinks that you can only receive love my sacrificing yourself, which is a manipulation strategy on itself. My mother has difficulties using her brain: She fled to her emotions, that are still overflooding her, making her emotional unstable. For the lack of clarity in her brain, she can support on my father that fled towards living in his brain. My mother feels respected for bringing in her (unstable) emotions in the marriage, because my father can't bring in his, they are out of reach for him.
My father was attracted to my mother, because his brain is controlling him, becoming emotionally numb. He needs the emotional instability of my mother to get his feelings stimulated and feel alive. Because my father cannot connect to his own emotions, he can not care for himself and needs my mother to do so.
He pays the prize of being controlled and manipulated all the time, creating frequent sudden outbursts of anger, threatening physically. And he cannot speak for his own emotions, they are quickly overshadowed by the multitude of emotions his wife brings in.
My father feels respected for bringing in his (mind based) thoughts, because his wife can not bring in hers, they are out of reach for her. Because of being with a woman who can be very manipulative and mean, my father can stay in his pattern by being too nice all the time, and living with unhealthy boundaries. It makes him have frequent outbursts of authoritative anger, which in turn allowed my mother to go in the role of victim. The anger of my father could also be manipulatively used by my mother to stay in control.
Summarizing, my father and my mother desperately needed each other, to support each other's patterns, so they can live in a parallel universe in which they would not have to look at themselves. This made my mother and father holding each other in a very tight and invasive grip, always too close so that anything could happen for someone to feel offended. They were fighting a lot, during which my mother used emotional violence and my father used physical intimidation. They were in a marriage of patterns, based on avoiding fear and pain at all costs. And while being in this almost impossible deadlock, they would support their patterns, continuing their pain.
Next to the above, my parents had the theme of 'helplessness' in common. They both increased this pattern by practicing the christian religion. Christianity is a religion that enforces helplessness, by making followers believe they can not shape their own reality, can not have their own truth, and that they should be saved by someone else. Being able to have and evolve your own truth, is anyone's primary spiritual power, to literally create your own world and life. Christianity takes away their own opportunity, to understand that they naturally have the powers to create their own life, and to take responsibility for that understanding. This is a spiritual form of self-humiliation and self-imprisonment.
Making Sense
It might be hard to make sense of having met my parents. They are both very-hard trying people, trying to make life work for them. But because of their inability to connect with the truths of life, it sadly is almost impossible for them to achieve something sustainable.
It is a very unfortunate conclusion, that they are living from one disappointment to the next disappointment, craving for compassion and feeling seen. Many well-hearted wishes and intentions can be send their way.
But the deepest truth is that as a result of their painful childhood, they made all kinds of subconscious assumptions about life and themselves. And while believing in these assumptions, they are automatically creating a world around them that reflects those assumptions. And as long as they do not realize their outer world is reflecting their own subconscious assumptions, they will stay a victim of their own assumptions.
But a change can happen if they would ever begin to realize that they are extremely powerful. They need to accept they actually create their own world, having that enormous power. Accepting they create their own world based on their own assumptions. And they need to discover that they have the power to transform their own assumptions, through feeling what is really hidden behind these assumptions.
Feeling your deepest feelings will harmonize them with your conscious truth, evolving your assumptions, evolving the outer world you automatically create around yourself. When these things begin to fall in place, they will set themselves free.
Moving on
Moving on, the personalities of my parents and their marriage is fundamentally based on very unhealthy dynamics. When seen in the different contexts of raising a family, these dynamics practically translate into the following:
- so many ways in which they have abandoned themselves, so that they will abandon their children in the same ways,
- so many unmet emotional needs they will burden the children with, so their children will constantly be caring for their parents instead of the other way around,
- so many ways in which they abuse themselves, so that they will abuse their own children in the same ways,
- so many patterns of destructive behavior that will constantly steer the family to go off the rails,
- so many blind spots preventing self-reflection, forcing their children to make them blind to truth, what really happens,
- so many misunderstandings about how to stay lovingly present, constantly inviting conflict, and
- so many ways in which they can feel offended, making them shame and blame their children.
Anticipating on how they can raise a family: they simply are ill-equipped for that task. Even if they would try their true best, which they did, it would be virtually impossible for them to raise a family in harmony and joy.
Now looking back at my childhood, thinking about the possibility if I could go back in time, and give my younger-self an advice: I would not go back in time. Even though I love my younger self very much. My life was meant that to happen that way, including all the extremely difficult moments, of which many I have not fully transformed yet.
It simply is impossible to reject the deepest dynamics of life, because at the core, I am life itself. I want say yes to life, to myself, to all of my truths, to all of my lessons, to all of my beauty. The more I uncover this belief, the more it becomes part of my deepest truth, the more I become alive.
Now that you have some knowledge of who my parents are, it might become easier to understand how they shaped the foundations of my childhood. The unfolding of my childhood can be read in the next article: My Childhood: Parallel Universe.
it is important to realize that every person is unique, an expression of beautiful life itself. And patterns are just a prevention of this expression of uniqueness.
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If one them would not have so many patters, it would not need the other. So that means that the biggest part of their relationship is patterns that are based on very painful childhood experiences. For them, being together, is an extra way in which they run away from fears, not having to face them.
It becomes complicated, because they are compatible on their patterns, not on the pain behind those fears. So every time they are drawn together because of their patterns, they become more intimate, and they will meet each other in their pains. But their pains and assumptions are
This is a recipe for disaster for creating a family, because every new member of the family, will have to adapt to their every newborn child, will have to adapt its way of behaving and perspective on life in such a way, that the pains and fears of the parents are not confronted.
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The timeless concept of a marriage, is the most intimate relationship there is. Typically, you live in the same house, sleep in the same bed, discuss many decisions that impact both sides, visit many people, events and countries together, and if having children, you have them together.
To the extent that both partners are conscious, a marriage is a way of growing and enjoying life together. Facing life around them, they both stand upright next to each other, curious and courageous about what life has in store for them. They don't need each other, but they simply enrich each other's life.
To the extent that both partners are not conscious of their life, emotions, patterns, and assumptions, all their relations and thus their marriage as well, is used to keep running away from fear. Not facing life, they stand facing each other instead, constantly leaning in each other arms, fearing life. Like the two sides of the capital letter "A". While they assume they are helping each other not to fall down, they are actually supporting each other's imbalance. This keeps them from falling down, preventing life's valuable lessons to occur.
An unconscious marriage is kept alive by each partner having compatible overgrown strengths and undeveloped weaknesses. The overgrown strength is controlling the partner that has it, for example someone that always needs to care for other people, without having a choice of doing it or not.
having overgrown strengths that control the behavior partner, and thus automatically supporting a related weakness in the
that support the weakness of the other.