Seeing Through - Four

Mid-February and every surface is covered in layers of snow and ice. Stillness.  Even the brook is silent. The only sounds are of wind blowing through trees bare of leaves.  On a sunny day I might hear a steady drip of snow melting off the roof.  I hunker by the wood stove, awed that my child is out in this weather all day every day.

The task at hand, to which I am not looking forward, is preparing for the upcoming parent workshop by writing a “transparency” letter to my daughter.  In this letter I’m supposed to tell her how I feel about many aspects of my life—not only what concerns us a family—but what matters to me as an individual, past and present.  The parent therapist has given directions, encouragement, and two aids: a template letter written by a previous parent and a “feelings wheel.” 

The template letter is searingly blunt; the contents radiate so much raw emotion that I can hardly bear to read to the end. There’s no fancy stuff, no temporizing, no hiding behind pretty metaphors.  I put the letter down and turn to the feelings wheel hoping maybe this will be easier.

The circle is divided in half—one side shows the feelings one has when needs are not being met and the other the feelings when they are.  In the bull’s eye twelve primary feelings are presented, six of each.  These are divided into four further categories which are in turn divided into two more.  As I note the words “needs being met” I shy away. In private therapy and parent therapy, I’ve been edging around this rock in the road.  Intuitively I know that my needs do matter, but I’m finding myself unable to care.  What would meet my needs is for my child to be OK!  I return to the wheel.  

First, I look at the “unmet needs” side (which in itself is revealing and oh so human).  Curiosity fades as I realize I am floundering in unwanted feelings.  Next, I take a quick look at the emotions on the “met needs” side   Happily, I see I have much to be glad about.  Our little family has encountered problems and setbacks, but there is a lot of love and good will and this helps me.  Maybe with hard work we will sort ourselves out.  

Heartened, I take a deep breath and dive in. 

So far the work with the parent therapist has been reviewing personal histories with an eye to how our experiences (e.g. expectations) might affect our child.  The implication (to which I was then resistant) is that my own life history, no matter how self-aware I am or how hard I have worked in therapy, has had an impact on my child’s inner life.  Inwardly and outwardly,  I protest, “But I’ve faced these issues!  How can these experiences be affecting my daughter’s well-being?”  

For the time being, even with the insight and willingness I already have, I can’t stick with the task.  Every time I start writing I circle back to my relationship with my child which then morphs into dissecting “what happened” and the events of the recent past and “what went wrong”.  I can’t stay focussed on myself, my feelings, my needs.  Which says a lot.  I also feel pushed and somewhat resentful—on top of everything else I’ve had to do, now this?  

I persevere and eventually manage to write a letter that touches on most of the definitive events of my life and how they have affected me.  With this letter I started on my way to a change in my point of view:  our own life stories have a presence within a family, the effect of which can’t be predicted or controlled, because each child will weave our stories according to their own character and needs into their own stories and so their narrative will be different from ours.  The stories will be recognizable, perhaps, but different. 

In other words, the work I did on myself helped ME.  What my daughter makes of my history is HERS.  Writing this letter turns out to be a big step into the journey we, as a family, have embarked upon.  I begin to see that the only way we can go forward is by moving further apart and I have to believe that, difficult and even frightening as this feels for all of us, in the end, we will be glad.   Every true adventure has hard times; every winter has a spring.