Sniff!

I TOLD you I wouldn’t make it out of the weekend without crying!

The YNG troop were sitting around in a circle on our mats yesterday, discussing the inspirational reading we were asked to do for homework:

1.33 In relationships, the mind becomes purified by cultivating feelings of friendliness towards those who are happy, compassion for those who are suffering, goodwill towards those who are virtuous, and indifference or neutrality towards those we perceive as wicked or evil.

The class was discussing the idea of non-attachment, even when it comes to oneself. One of the women in the group mentioned that she’d been part of a retreat where participants brought in baby pictures and the group took some time at various points during the retreat to reflect on the photographs and leave messages for the owners (the pictures were anonymous - the participants were asked to write to the essence of the individual in the photos). The idea was to try to get people back to the spirits they were when they were brand new - before the world and all its stresses and influences and expectations intruded. They were trying to practice non-attachment to the labels we use to identify ourselves and get back to who they were when they just were.

While I thought that it was a lovely idea, I found myself instantly struck with feelings of panic and exclusion. I don’t HAVE any baby pictures. None. My biological mother, if she followed through on her threat, has destroyed them all. While I like to think that this doesn’t matter to me (and, on a practical level, it doesn’t), I also realize that the photographs represent a connection to the baby that I was that I can never really recover.

My classmate wasn’t suggesting that we do this activity, but I found myself expressing an objection to it anyway. I told the group that I thought it was a truly lovely idea, but that I, as someone who came from an abusive household, don’t have access to my baby pictures. While it might be rare for someone in a group to not have baby pictures, we should still be sensitive to the fact that it’s possible that an activity like that may alienate someone who really doesn’t need any more alienation in his or her life.

I surprised myself by saying that. I had no intention of sharing that part of myself with these people, and I’m not sure what it was about that moment that compelled me to reveal the nature of my past, but there I was, saying it anyway. I managed to hold it together enough to say what I had to say publicly, then Cicely called a break (whether her timing was intuitive toward me or not, I don’t know).

I sort of receded back toward the wall behind my mat, trying to regroup, when the woman who told the baby picture affirmation story came to sit with me. She was kind and gentle with me, and I tried, through my tears, to explain to her that I really am okay - that I believe that I CHOSE those people to raise me so that I could learn the important things that I learned as a result of the way they treated me - but that I am still - and always will be - in the process of healing. As we were talking (well, as she was talking and I was half talking, half sobbing), another woman came over to us and thanked me for sharing that part of me with the group. She recognized it as a difficult and painful thing, and said that I may have helped someone else in the troop understand or learn or grow as a result of what I’d said. They hugged me before they left - genuine and heartfelt hugs that I really appreciated - and then the lovely woman who was sitting next to me leaned over, told me how sorry she was that those were my experiences, and hugged me, too.

I am always going to be healing from my childhood. I am always going to be learning from those challenges. I think I may have gotten a step closer to whole through this afternoon’s experience. My hope is that, in my healing and learning, I can help others heal and learn, too.

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