While Jay had talked about physical and ritual-based house-cleaning measures, I will talk of a basic, yet profound way to “clean house,” so to speak..

Most of us go through life hurting and in pain simply because we were offended or wronged by our parents. Hurting from the mistakes our parents made in raising us keeps us from living life the way it has been intended to be lived. Nursing our hurts from our parents usually keeps us in a state of anger and colors our perceptions of the world.

I never really realized how deeply I suffered from this, until I finally had a dialogue with my parents and threshed things out with them.

This issue is not exclusive to my own experience. Rather, I share this problem with countless of others. Heck, I believe I share this issue with my parents, in reality.

But of course, I cannot pry them to share their wounds if they don’t want to, so let’s not go there. Instead, I will share how I was able to deal with my own hurts, pains and anger, and what the impact was on our family.

Actually, I dealt with it badly. As a close male friend used to declare, “It could have been handled in a better way.”

My anger actually snowballed out of control till it reached the point that I had verbally abused my mother through email. I do not mean to embarrass her, but I guess I don’t want to project a veneer of innocence where there is no innocence to back up that veneer.

On that same day, I was able to confront them, and a huge load was then lifted from my shoulders. Yes, I didn’t have to, nor did I mean to, or want to do things the way I did. I wish I just sat them down and and talked to them honestly and calmly. But then, in my family dynamics, just as in countless of other families, we operated on denial. But my disclosure actually helped jolt my family into life again. Well, at least on my end, I feel the life returning to my existence. As for them, I hope they won’t dwell too much on the bygone. I hope my parents will realize that I have forgiven them completely, simply because they had listened to my plaintive cries over Skype, for two straight hours.

I hope that someday, people will realize that they do need to address their own issues with their parents, release forgiveness to the people who have helped bring them to life, and took care of them. They may have done some really crazy things in the past, but those days are gone now, and the only life-giving reaction to hurts and pains would always be to learn from these experiences, take the positive lessons from the experiences to heart, and then move forward to forgiveness, then healing, then ultimately, wholeness.

Photo Credits:

http://www.dovechristiancounseling.com

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