WEEK 6 OF 52 Changing The Power of My Escape Artist!

REFLECTIONS

Was it worth it, I ask myself? 5000 kilometres, 2 weeks, 10 beds. Why did I have to actually experience the town, the house, the street, the school, the people,  where I spent my first 12 years? Wouldn’t it have been enough to look up the town’s news on Google? Check out my old house on ‘Street View’ of Google Maps? If I wanted to change my perception of my childhood in the hopes of feeling more positive about it, why not just try some of the suggestions from my .28 second search that produced 137,000,000 sites about positive thinking!! For example:

1. Always use only positive words while thinking and while talking. Use words such as, ‘I can’, ‘I am able’, ‘it is possible’, ‘it can be done’, etc.
2. Allow into my awareness only feelings of happiness, strength and success.
3. In my conversation use words that evoke feelings and mental images of strength, happiness and success.
4. Before starting with any plan or action, visualize clearly in your mind its successful outcome.
5. Associate yourself with people who think positively.
6. Always sit and walk with my back straight. This will strengthen my confidence and inner strength.

 I would have spent the 2 weeks reciting positive aphorisms, instead of having the real experience if I believed it would have resulted in any real, long lasting change. But I know, because I learned it the hard way,  that there is a real difference in thinking about a potential experience and having that experience. 

My drive towards The Pas occurred with the brakes on…virtual brakes…internal brakes…ones that screamed “I don’t want to go there. Bad things happened there. Dogs died, kids cried, goblins lived under the beds.”

And then I was there, my daughter behind the wheel, driving into The Pas. We passed the town Cemetery where I celebrated Birthday parties. The grounds were lovely with massive oak trees, rolling hills and beautiful grave markers. Nearby hills of sand provided a setting fit for a party! No longer did I question my Mother’s choice for the location of my party. This was the first shift in my perception of my childhood.

Then we drove down Constant Avenue, my family home mid way down the block. In my ‘Story’ about my childhood I have always used the street name ‘constant’ to reflect the constant despair I felt as a child, the constant practising I had to do, and the constant work as child labourer I endured.

But now the street looked so pretty with flowers in neatly kept yards,and shade tress welcoming a traveller to come and sit awhile to enjoy the peace. Unexpectedly, I began recalling happy childhood events;  riding up and down the streets playing Chicken on my bike…you know where you drive as fast as you can towards another biker to see who turns away first!

Then I remembered the countless games of marbles I played and the skipping and hoola hoop games I created with my friends Marilyn and Jocelyn.

I could almost picture the walls of snow in winter where I built huge snow forts, with a kitchen and living room, the hills for sledding and our rink in the back yard, that Dad built for us each winter.

Where were all these positive memories before? Why now? What has allowed me to feel the joy and happiness of my childhood now? Why had I clung only to the pain of my childhood? Where was the balanced view? The mix of the yin and yang, the good with the bad, the dark with the light?I am not entirely sure why I can see both sides now, but I hope I come to understand this during my exploration of The Other Woman. No doubt my past adherence to my ‘Story’ contributed to my ‘stance’ on life, the one that has had me repeating patterns of behaviour that were destructive to me and those I love.

My most unexpected experience in The Pas though, was the attitude others had towards my Mother…they loved her, unequivocally. I heard this from my childhood friends and from kids who had lived on our street and from her friends, and from people she sang with in the choir. Why had I held such a jaundiced view of her? Had I not experienced her love as they obviously had, or did I just get stuck, like a burr on a bear, to the negative?

The first step of any 12 Step Program centres around admitting one’s powerlessness over something. But this step presented a conundrum for me. Being the First Step it was apparent to me that the next 11 could not be attempted without acquiescence to the first.

But feeling powerless made me feel weak and weakness is obviously not an admirable trait, so I skipped over the step and have asserted my will over most everything and everyone in my life…for years.

I pictured myself as The Little Engine that Could…do anything if I tried hard enough. And as I am a Romaniuk, I have a very strong will.  I willed my way through life, bulldozing what needed to bulldozed, building what needed to be built…with me as architect/creator! Well I did this until my body cried “Uncle” and quit cooperating with willful Contrary Mary.