“When you bring peace to your past, you can move forward to your future.” ~Unknown
It amazes me how things that happen in our childhood can greatly impact our adult lives. I learned the hard way that I was living my life with a deep wound in my heart.
My father was a very strict man with a temper when I was little, starting when I was around seven years old.
He had a way of making me feel like all my efforts were not enough. If I scored an 8 in a math exam, he would say, “Why 8 and not 10?” and then punish me. It was a time when some parents thought that beating their children was a way to “put them in place” and teach them a lesson. All this taught me, though, was that I was a disappointment.
His favorite phrase was “You will never be better than me.”
As I got older, his temper cooled down a bit, but one thing didn’t change: his painful remarks. “At your age, I was already married, had a house, a car, two daughters, and a piece of land… what have YOU accomplished? See? You will never surpass me.”
It was his way of “inspiring me” to do better with my life, but it had the opposite effect on me. It was slowly killing my self-esteem.
When my father passed away, I was seven-year-old Cerise all over again. At the funeral, I asked him, “Daddy, did I finally make you proud? Did I do good with my life?”
This was the trigger that made me rethink what I was doing with my life. I had to stop for a moment to look at the past. This can be very difficult to do, but sometimes we need to face those painful events in order to understand the nature of our poor decisions and behavior.
It helped me realize that, unconsciously, I was looking for my father’s approval in the guys I dated. And you know what? It got me nothing but disappointment and heartache, because I was looking for something that they couldn’t give me.
Inside, I was still that little girl looking for her father’s love.
When you are a child, you are considered a victim, but when you are a grown up, it is your duty to heal from what was done to you. You just can’t go through life feeling sorry for yourself and complaining about the hand you were dealt. This just keeps you stuck in a sad, joyless life and jeopardizes your relationships.
In my case, I had to give that little girl the love she so needed in order to stop feeling lonely and stop making the same mistakes.
The only approval that I needed was my own! When I realized that, I started learning to love myself—regardless of my accomplishments—and I also developed compassion toward my father because I recognized that he was raised the same way he raised me.
He probably also felt he needed to be the best at everything he did in order to win his parents’ approval. And maybe he thought if I wasn’t the best at everything I did I would never be valued or loved by anyone else.
Understanding this enabled me to forgive him, break the cycle, and finally let him go.
So, what makes us slaves to anger, resentment, and abandonment issues? I think it’s the way we keep telling the story in our heads, and this is something that we can transform.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not suggesting we sweep things under the rug and pretend like nothing happened. We cannot change the past, and certainly we cannot turn a blind eye to it, but we can modify the way we retell the story to ourselves, and this can be a step toward inner healing.
I decided to give the difficult parts of my childhood experience another meaning. I edited the way I tell myself the story, and this is how it sounds now:
“My father was a strict man because he wanted me to succeed in life. He taught me to give my best in every task assigned to me; he didn’t make things easier for me because he wanted me to become strong in character and to find a solution in every situation. Daddy constantly challenged me because he wanted me to develop my potential to the fullest so I could face life and its difficulties.
I’m certain that when my father departed from this world, he did it in peace knowing that he left behind a strong and brave daughter.”
This is now the story of my childhood, and you know what? I think I like this version better! It’s helped me close the wound I had in my heart. My childhood left a scar, but it’s not hurting anymore.
My gift to you today is this: Close your eyes and picture a pencil. Do you know why a pencil has an eraser? To remove the things we don’t like, giving us the freedom to rewrite them into something that we feel more comfortable with.
You can’t change the facts from your past, but you can change how you interpret them, so feel rewrite as much as you need.
Your wounds will hurt a lot less when you broaden your perspective, try to understand the people who hurt you, and change the meaning of what you’ve been through.
About Cerise Knight
Cerise Knight is a writing enthusiast and a cat lover. She uses her own experiences behind her articles, in hopes of inspiring other people to heal their wounds, practice forgiveness and live a happier life.
Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine.
Thank you so much for your courage in sharing your story. A couple of years ago, I was in a very dark place. Eventually, I talked to a counselor. One day, we were discussing family and she asked, who are you more like – your mom or your dad. My instinct was to say, “Mom, of course!” because I always had thought mom and I were just alike. She’s a writer, I’m a writer. She’s kind and outgoing, very intelligent. All the things you’d want to be. And I’m not saying I’m not like her but I don’t think anyone had ever really asked that question. The answer was a shock to me. I am JUST like my dad. And that comes with some profound complications. My dad, who sadly passed away last year, was a complicated man. Socially gruff, no filters, loud, and so many bad habits, it’s hard to single out just one. He made mistakes. Big ones. Then he spent a lifetime regretting the biggest. As I sat there, I realized, I was just like my dad. There were some great things about my dad though. One on one, there wasn’t a better person in the world to talk to. He didn’t mince words, he really listened and he deeply cared about the person across the table. It is the one thing about therapy that I look back on as the most revealing and initially, to be quite honest, the most painful. And that’s the thing about painful stories. After time and in the end, we gain perspective and have, as you pointed out, the power to rewrite our story. I have that honor now and I am determined to use it. Appreciate your insightfullness, as always.
Thank you for sharing! I’m glad rewriting your story helped you to heal. However, there are some things that can’t be rewritten and in those cases you have to come to terms with that you were simply born to a person incapable of looking after a child. The sooner you leave that situation behind and create a new healthier life for yourself the better. As well as a really good psychologist!
Cerise, what you wrote is so beautiful and healing. I love it!! Having compassion for other (imperfect) human beings is the most healing thing we can do for others and MOST IMPORTANTLY for ourselves. It’s not easy to raise children, but we do the best we can and hope we instill strength and love in them without scarring them in the process. Your ‘why does a pencil have an eraser’ analogy is one of the most healing things I’ve ever heard. Beautiful, beautiful! We could live in pain from our scars or we could try to treat them and move on to a better mind set. 💜
Having gone the same experience recently It was great to read how you worked through it. Memory can be a trickster.
Thank you for sharing this! Very helpful!
I agree with you, memory can either make us remember the good things, but also the painful ones, best to rewrite them and work them out. Thank you for reading!
My heart goes out to you @mariannaali:disqus I’m glad you were able to forgive him, perhaps there is a part of us that wishes things were different? having a loving father instead?
When I feel sorry for myself, I go to the mirror and say to my reflection “It is what it is, but you survived, you are safe now, you are loved, and you are going to be ok” and that helps me to move on through the day. I hope this helps you too. I send you a big warm hug!
I totally agree. Cerise’s father loved her. It was his ignorance that was unhelpful. My stepfather behaved like Cerise described, but he actually meant to hurt me. He never wanted to have me as his child, never mind loved me. So it is quite difficult to rewrite the story in a nice way and try to justify what he did. I know that he had the same treatment in his childhood and I feel for him. I forgive him, but still feel sorry for myself. I know I must move on, but it is so hard not to feel like a victim when you are.
Thank you for your kind words!! <3 you mentioned something important: Compassion! and that is so hard to achieve, specially towards someone who was hurt us, but the process is very worth it, helps us to heal and mature. I send you a big hug!! <3
@helenacook:disqus I agree with you! indeed there are things that can’t be rewritten, there are people who are just incapable of giving love and instead, they just pass on their traumas to an innocent child. I loved your comment, I send you hugs!