On the telly today

On the telly today, there was a video of a child being abused and after that, a discussion panel got into a lively rant about it. I became  uncontrollably emotional, flooded and sobbing in the hall, and wondering what the hell is going on. Why am I crying. Was I abused as a kid, cause even through the sobbing and pain, I had no sense of any abuse, no memory, not even the possibility of abuse. So what’s going on? I concluded finally, after racking my brains for an answer, that childhood the usual way we are brought up, might be the problem.

Children get their little selves torn apart, to fit the way parents want them to be. Parents are full of corrective’s. They will think of you in terms that are often simply untrue, but that horribly, you will take on board  because they are your parents after all, and  must be right. It takes us half a lifetime to find the many flaws in our parents, let alone their ways of bringing us up.

So that my dad for instance, was lovingly over protective, which made me think of myself as weak and fearful. Is that not abuse? Unintended to be sure, but no less abusive for that. When we are changed from who we are in any negative way, and by negative I mean anything that restricts, inhibits, and judges, it feels like abuse, and it hurts.

But no adult, and no parent would ever know that they were abused or abusing in this way.  If it’s the usual business of bringing up the kids, then I believe this kind of existential abuse goes unnoticed, but not unfelt. and that’s what jammed me up today.

The abuse a society instils in it’s people, is huge. Take competition for instance. It’s the single most fundamental key to understanding our western way of life.  However, the principles of love, heart felt kindness and compassion are not intrinsic to it.

 Competition  strangulates love’s free expression. It’s like having Asthma. Not being permitted to be you in full glorious extension, chokes the living breath out of you. Is that not abuse?

I think that the growing of children and the continued growth of adults, based on our currents ways of thinking are deeply flawed, and that we are all being continually hurt, abused if you will. Much can change though.

We could start again. We could learn to understand the principles and practices that allow us a willingness to express our loveliness, openness, compassion, and accountablity for our tribe. And we could investigate what values and beliefs we hold, that strangulate, isolate, and violate.  That could be a good start. Let the healing begin.

Paul