We all enter adulthood with some baggage or other. As I reached adulthood I came with a truckload of rejection baggage. When my Mom left home when I was 12, it didn’t matter how often I was told my parent’s separation was not my fault, I still believed my Mom had left ME. I felt rejected and throughout my teen years and into adulthood I felt I had to live up to my Mom’s requirements and requests or else she would not accept me.
I was in my 30s when I traced the root of my anxiety to the rejection that I had lugged around whenever my Mom was in town. Eighteen months before she passed away I dumped the baggage, forgave her entirely and moved on with my life. It could have happened earlier had I known that I was mentally and emotionally carrying around an unwanted and unnecessary burden. But it was a lesson I learned early enough to enjoy the rest of my life and to feel a freedom that comes with forgiveness.
Not so with my Mom herself. She carried regret with her for more than 2 decades. A couple of months before she died, she called my sister to her bedside and asked her to forgive her for a mistake she had made more than 20 years before. Of course, my sister didn’t hesitate, but if my Mom had asked earlier, she could have lived without the remorse and put the guilt behind her. My Mom made mistakes. My Dad made mistakes. We all do. We do the best that we can at the time.
Sometimes the anger and hurt we bring into adulthood from past childhood experiences is very deep-seated. It is important for you to deal with past hurts. This may entail getting professional counselling to help you deal with childhood events that are impacting your adult behaviour and responses. For some, until that happens, it may be difficult to put the past behind you. For us to cope with emotional damage that we may feel we experience due to our parents mistakes, there has to be forgiveness.
Robert B. Simmons says that children who have been raised in a home where there was alcohol or drug abuse all display similar characteristics as adults. These traits impact directly on long term intimate relationships. They include difficulty in trust, poorly defined personal boundaries and a lack of identity. They often don’t express their feelings or emotions and are bad communicators. Children from alcoholic parents may become either over responsible or irresponsible. Often those abused during childhood themselves become abusive. There’s a lack of self-esteem and confidence. All of these are really bad attributes to take into marriage.
Simmons suggests steps that adults who grew up in a dysfunctional home need to take in order to move on. Firstly they need to accept and admit that they came from a dysfunctional family. That is probably the hardest part of the process. You need to come to terms with your past and understand that current negative behaviour could be as a direct result of your painful childhood experiences. To move on, there needs to be understanding, forgiveness and acceptance. The truth is your upbringing is no excuse for your bad behaviour.
You cannot change the past, but you can make a new start. Individual therapy, pastoral counselling, support groups as well as educating yourself & understanding what is going on will assist you in making a fresh new start.
When it comes to mistakes we make after we’ve married, forgiveness is essential. We all make mistakes and regrets are hard to live with. It is vitally important to forgive and move on. Once one partner has forgiven the other, the onus lies on the forgiven party to also forgive themselves. It’s easy to rue past errors, beat oneself up over them and live life miserably when the freedom of forgiveness both humanly and spiritually is available, instant and free.
Ephesians 4:32
Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
Some valuable tips for putting the past behind you:
- Accept your past and acknowledge that it can’t be changed.
- You can create a new history by living each day to the full and being positive about the future.
- Forgive those who you need to forgive, even if you are not able to tell them you forgive them. Forgive them in your heart and move on.
- If you have hurt someone else, seek his or her forgiveness. Call, write or visit them, tell them you’re sorry and ask them to forgive you.
- Remember life is short and you only have one life to live. Don’t hold grudges and keep a clean a slate as possible with those you love and those you don’t.
- God loves you very much, so much so that He died for you. He’s given you this life and you have the opportunity to make of it what you will.
- Don’t harp on about the bad life you have. Acknowledge that you may not be able to change circumstances but you can change your reaction and attitude to them.
- If you still cannot deal with your past, seek professional counselling. Don’t let years past by without dealing with it.
- Life can be so good for you and your spouse. Don’t let constant bitterness and negativity over your past change that. Stop now.
- Smile often and stay positive.
Ja! Keep the smile going.
God bless you!
In His Grip,
Helga xx 🙂