– thoughts which were not correctly assessed and evaluated and may therefore have replaced your capacity for rationality and impartiality with dogmatic opinions and prejudices.
To assist you in the unearthing of your own ‘unfinished business’, complete the following exercise, which will help you review your emotional life to date. Remember that:
1. In looking for material we are not necessarily looking for ‘the Truth’, i.e. what actually happened, but merely your emotional reaction to your perception of what was going on. For example, your mother may not have been actually baring her teeth and threatening to kill you when you knocked down your brother’s castle or came home late from the disco, but you may have thought she was and therefore felt the terror.
2. We are not necessarily looking for major events or traumas. It is often in the everyday common experiences that most unfinished business lies. Indeed, the very ordinariness of the experiences may have resulted in their not getting the attention that they needed. We say to ourselves:
‘Well, almost everybody has failed an exam in their life, haven’t they?’
‘All sisters quarrel with their brothers.’
‘All my friends’ Dads were just the same.’
‘Every girl is terrified on her first date.’
It’s up to you to decide in which order to look at your life events. Some people like working backwards, while others must always start at the beginning and others prefer working with whatever pops into their head – vive la différence! Just check out with yourself from time to time that sticking to your particular method is working in your best interests and is not just an old habit acquired from someone else with different kinds of aptitudes.
The examples I have given are merely guidelines rather than suggestions and should be used to help you structure your work. The next exercise can be completed over several days or weeks – but don’t leave too long in between sessions or you will lose momentum.
Exercise: ‘Unfinished business’
Using your picture of your emotional history as a guide, try to summarize and highlight your own legacy of hurt from the past, noting how it may be affecting your feelings and thoughts or behaviour in the present. Try to be as specific as possible.
For example:
1. Mum’s migraines just before holidays and any other exciting event left me with an expectation that there is a price to be paid for every pleasure.
2. Dad’s inability to express any feeling except anger has left me wary and resentful of this emotion.
3. Mum’s moans about having to work and the constant quarrels over who should do what at home left me cynical about the possibility of combining a career and motherhood.
4. My brother’s bullying has left me with a fear of authority – especially if it is male.
5. My sister’s gloating over her gleaming blond hair left me convinced that ugly ducklings like me are nicer people.
6. My family’s general prudishness about sex has left me with a tendency towards frigidity.
7. Missing out on opportunities to make friends at school has meant that I have become too accepting of my loneliness.
8. The double standards of the nuns at school left me suspicious of all matters spiritual.
9. My dislike of the maths teacher has left me afraid to face figures.
10. My best friend’s habit of flirting with the lads I fancied left me feeling that women can’t be trusted if there are men around.
11. The extreme poverty of the neighbourhood in which I lived left me feeling guilty about indulging in any luxury.
12. My sheltered and over-protected childhood didn’t prepare me for the real world.
If you have completed this exercise, you may now be feeling ‘churned up’ and a bit depressed because you have probably reactivated some sad or perplexing memories. You may even have begun to feel a bit sorry for yourself – but believe it or not, that’s good news! Of course, I certainly would not want anyone to remain in that position for very long, but to be there for a while can be very healing. I believe that it is vitally important that at some stage you must reach the point where you truly feel that, for whatever reason, you did have an unfair start or influences in life and that this has handicapped your ability to think and act in a positive way. I am not suggesting that you now become submerged in a sea of self-pity, but rather that, having recognized and acknowledged the injustice, you will be energized into righting the wrongs. You will be better motivated to give yourself a break, to beat destructive habits of self-blame and self-torture. So frequently I see these demonstrated by negative thinkers who depress and immobilize themselves with thoughts and comments such as:
‘I’m a born loser.’
‘That’s just my luck!’
‘Trust me to put my foot in it … I’ve always had a big mouth.’
‘I’m the jealous sort.’
‘“Trouble” is my middle name.’
Emotional healing
When you start to love yourself, everybody wants to be around you because you have something very marvellous going on.
Susan Taylor
On their own, the individual and personal experiences which you have highlighted in the last exercise may seem insignificant, but when they come in excessive doses they can turn even the happiest and most carefree children into depressives and cynics – unless they have been followed up by the kind of action which will encourage emotional healing. By this I mean action which allows:
– appropriate feelings to be discharged
– the experience to be assessed in some perspective.
When we are children it is up to our parents and parent figures to help us to heal. Ideally, when something happens which hurts or frightens us, whether it be a broken toy, a sick parent or a nasty nightmare – or indeed a war in the Gulf – a caring adult will encourage us to express our feelings and, if necessary, hold us while we cry or shake with fear. If the emotion should be rage or anger, they will help us to discharge this in a safe and sensible place or channel it into constructive action. When the feelings have died down, they will sit quietly with us and talk about what happened – helping us to understand the whys and wherefores, and accept the imperfections of the people concerned (even if these are themselves!), encouraging us (and showing us how) to put right what we can, or simply giving us ‘tea and sympathy’ to help us bear inescapable pain.
If we have been fortunate enough to receive this kind of help, as we grow older, we learn to take ourselves through this healing process or seek similar assistance from other people. We do not get stuck in the role of ‘victim’ – we get hurt but we are empowered to heal ourselves, pick up the pieces and move on in a positive direction. Moreover, we have the energy, skill and motivation to help others do the same, and we can gain much pleasure and satisfaction from being able to give such support.
The sad reality is that many people have not acquired this precious life-skill. Many parents can’t, or won’t, consistently help their children to heal emotionally from hurt. Sometimes they are simply too busy, too tired or too frightened. Perhaps they themselves have never been taught the skill. It is only a small minority, thank goodness, who are knowingly or intentionally neglectful. But whatever the reason or excuse,