Dear Peter,

you’re asking how we can know for sure if we’ve forgiven and let go (How do you know if you have really forgiven, let go, moved forward…?).

For that purpose, I’m including what you said about letting go:

My parents grew up in the 40’s and 50’s were it was  parents calling to do the “carrying”. I knew they would be horrified to have me “carry” them.  Letting go of that was something I could do for them. That was the realization. I might not have been able to let go for myself but I could for them. That was what they needed from me, even while they were alive, and that was how I could, would, honor them including the disappointments and hurt we gave each other.

So what changed after this letting go? Everything… nothing… The ‘mountain is back to being a mountain’. There is temptation  to go back and climb it again.. the moment of letting go can be intoxicating, and what if I forget…

Earlier I was talking about the temptation of going back, re-crossing the river, over and over again to make sure, make perfect, to recreate the ‘high’ and or peace of that moment of ‘knowing’ that is beyond knowing. 

From your words I gather that you’re asking whether you’ve truly let go of guilt that you’ve felt regarding your parents. You had an experience – perhaps a peak experience or a realization – where you felt like you’ve let go. It gave you a “high” and a sense of peace. It was intoxicating and you felt good in that moment. What has changed for you after that experience? “Everything… nothing”. My take on that is that you had a realization – an insight that changed how you look at things, and even how you feel for a brief moment, but on a longer run, your life and your emotional experience haven’t changed much. You tend to “forget” the “intoxicating moment” and are tempted to go back to cross the river again – to go back into your old patterns, your old feeling of guilt, perhaps, forgetting that you’ve already let go of it once.

This is how I am interpreting your words. Feel free to correct me if I misunderstood them.

Dear Peter,

it was just my opinion, based on the way you’re expressing yourself here, on this forum. I don’t know anything about you and your life.  You and only you know that. You know if you’re happy and fulfilled, or there are areas that bother you. If, as you say, you experienced lack of emotional nurturance  and intimacy with your parents – and this wound hasn’t been healed – you would likely have issues in your adult relationships too. If you don’t experience guilt and disappointment any more, and you have satisfactory, fulfilling relationships – I am happy for you!

Dear Peter,

I am sorry that both your parents passed away. What I am reading from your words is that you felt guilty for disappointing them (“The inevitable experience of being disappointed but more so the fear of disappointing”, and “honor them including the disappointments and hurt we gave each other”).

It appears you couldn’t let go of the feeling of guilt for them “carrying you”, but then with the help of therapy, you managed to let go. Am I understanding this right? Could you talk a bit more about your guilt for not “carrying them” – is it that you didn’t help them enough, you weren’t there for them when they needed you?

This feeling of guilt sounds like the central theme for you. You say the disappointments were mutual, and that you were all “idiots”, even though you – both you and your parents – tried your best to be “reasonable good person to those we cared about”.

So they tried their best, and you tried too, but it didn’t work. Although you understand it and have forgiven yourself and them somewhat, the injury has nevertheless happened and needs to be processed. That’s the wound on the foot we were talking about…

For that wounded inner child that still exists. I still see him standing alone on the school ground vowing never to let others get to close to hurt him, hurt me.

This is the protector part in you vowing to never allow your wounded inner child to be hurt again. You closing your heart is a consequence of that original wound – of not having received the love and care you needed. And perhaps that’s why you later closed your heart for your parents too. Now this wound needs to be healed…

• This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by Tee.

Dear Felix,

I appreciate you sharing some more, and telling us more about your family. I understand your love and loyalty to your family. I love my parents too, and they help me whenever I need it. However it doesn’t mean that their style of parenting, specially that of my mother’s, didn’t affect me and my life even as an adult. Because we all carry the wounds from our childhood with us into our adulthood, and we employ various defense mechanisms to protect us from pain. Whether we like it or not, we’re directly impacted, even programmed, by our childhood experiences. So when you say “It’s big boy time“, it’s not completely true, because the little boy is still inside of you. You may try to make it work without tending to him, but it will be very very hard, and there will be always something missing.

You seem like an independent, capable man, who’s been through a lot, and came on the other side. You also know what your values are, and you don’t want to sell your soul for profit. Excellent! But still, you’re suffering because it’s so damn hard. You feel lonely, and on top of that, the universe is throwing you curve balls. You’re trying to let go, to not expect anything, to toughen up even more…  but as you say, it’s exhausting. You’re tired, you can hardly take it any more.

What if the way is not in toughening up even more and not hoping for anything, but instead, to soften? To connect to the vulnerable, fragile side of you, that needs help, needs company, needs respite from the constant struggle? That dares to hope in providence, in good things to come, in love… To change the approach and allow yourself to be vulnerable, and yet not weak (because the two are not the same)?

• This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by Tee.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by Tee.

Dear Peter,

A stumbling block many have may be associating the idea of forgiveness with the idea that a forgiven person can no longer be held accountable. That would not be Love or a path to healthy boundaries. Unconditional Love becoming a unhealthy unconditional allowing.

I agree. Unconditional love or unconditional forgiveness can be just an empty phrase, and is sometimes used by spiritual people who find it hard to face their pain (or to accept responsibility for their actions), so they’d rather transcend their pain and pretend that all is love and light. I also agree that true forgiveness doesn’t mean allowing others to abuse or disrespect us, or to cross our boundaries. Even if we forgive our parents for having treating us badly, it doesn’t mean we’ll allow them to do it again. If they don’t want to change, we need to protect our boundaries and e.g. reduce contact with them.

I also wonder if that some times instead of healing our wounded inner child the tendency isn’t to cling to them.

Many people react from their wounded inner child. Actually, according to Internal Family Systems, our wounded inner child is only one part of our personality – the most fragile one, which was hurt by the lack of love, care, appreciation, support etc in our childhood. But we have other parts, called the protectors, which serve to protect that wounded inner child from pain. A protector part is e.g. when we act tough and distant in a relationship because we’re afraid of intimacy, we’re afraid of actually being hurt again. So we use various defense mechanisms to protect our wounded inner child. Those mechanisms are dysfunctional, they don’t help us, but still, we believe they shield us from pain.

So yes, we can cling to those defense mechanisms for a long time, till we decide to feel the original pain and heal it, so that we don’t need the false protection any more. That means that e.g. we heal from the fear of intimacy, which enables us to become open and vulnerable in a relationship. We aren’t playing defense any more. As a result, we can have deeper and healthier relationships.

What makes you wonder if Felix hasn’t found his way to heal the wounded child?

I don’t feel comfortable talking about Felix without him participating in the discussion. But I’ll just say that whenever we don’t want to look into something, it’s a sign that a defense mechanism is at work.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by Tee.

Dear Peter,

Part of that process is pulling back our shadow projections and ‘becoming our own mother and father’, learn to nurture and protect ourselves. Or set healthy boundaries. Having the best or worse parent, the task is the same. Finding peace with our parents inevitable failures while creating healthy boundaries.

I agree that we need to become a loving, compassionate parent to our own inner child, and learn to nurture and protect ourselves, as you say. Eventually we need to forgive our parents, regardless of how inadequate they might have been. What I was saying is that we can’t forgive by simply changing our thinking – we need to also process it emotionally, i.e. work on those unmet needs from our childhood, i.e. our wounded inner child.

The memory of the pain we felt as we step on the piece of glass is just that a memory. Perhaps their is even a scar and a lesson to be more careful around broken glass.

Until we heal our wounded inner child, i.e. give ourselves the love and affection we didn’t get as children, the wound will be active and festering under the surface of the skin. It first needs to be cleaned in order to start healing and a scar developing. Only then can it become a memory which doesn’t hurt any more. We can then truly forgive our parents and hold no resentments, because we know that they too were just a wounded children themselves and didn’t know better.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by Tee.

Dear Felix,

There’s something else I’d like to add. When you say you’ve forgiven your parents and love them unconditionally, without actually having done the inner child work, you’re invalidating the feelings of that inner child. You’re telling your younger self that it doesn’t matter that he was hurt by the actions of your parents (“My parents did some bad stuff in the past when I was younger. And by bad, I don’t abuse or something terrible in that sense. I mean neglect and absence of love and care.“)

Emotional neglect can be very hard on the child, because we feel unseen and unappreciated. From what you’ve written, your parents didn’t see the real you, but were only interested in superficial things. (“They are so different that if we weren’t related I would not look in their direction and they would not look in mine. They are obsessed with wealth, superficial things, Kardashian culture, and truly believe that only material wealth brings true happiness. I am 100% opposite of that.”)

They most likely didn’t appreciate the real you, because they weren’t in touch with their authentic selves either. So you probably felt not understood and very alone. Actually you said it yourself: “The ONLY thing that still bothers me through all my actualization, realization, etc., is my aloneness. It has been with me since the beginning of time.”

I imagine that you felt alone since the beginning of time because your parents never saw the real you, nor were they interested in the real you.

“What matters is that I am learning to love myself, not in a vain selfish kind of a way, but in a way where I see that my mind, body, and my consciousness are starting to work together in unison.”

If you want to truly love yourself, you need to embrace your wounded inner child. You need to validate his feelings, validate his pain, and truly see him, rather than push him away (which is quite the opposite of how your parents treated you). Only then can you truly love yourself.