Mercury In Retrograde, or What and Why...?
Maybe it has something to do with the politics of the election campaign creating a climate for ugly, but our family dynamics started getting totally out of hand and crazy these past two months. Some would blame it on Mercury in retrograde, or the rare eclipses, or the meteor showers, or the moon, stars and planets in rare alignments.
Whatever made these old family issues resurrect their skeletons last week, ugly got even uglier and ugliest when an overly-sensitive family member misinterpreted something I had said in a very brief moment of frustration and ran with it. She decided to include fourteen other family members in a group e-mail, taking my words out of context and making it her mission to warn the family about me, even after I tried to clarify and apologize for the misunderstood comment.
The issue started with me sharing my pursuit of a career as a stage hypnotist. All hell literally breaks loose whenever uneducated bystanders have their own uninformed and misinformed understandings of hypnosis. So, that was all that was needed to start chains of e-mails, in which I was called everything from deceived to evil and dangerous. Even other family members (including my own adult children) were warned to keep their kids away from me).
If I must say so myself, I did impressively well by not replying in self-defense and for staying pretty cool, calm, collected and classy. My adult middle daughter, a very awake and aware individual (and prolific writer) contributed to the discussion with a profound and well-thought-out piece of her own heart, soul and mind. However, even after that, the ugliness still continued in private and group texts and phone calls. Only so much can be said for staying quiet, though.
My Dad, being the devout Roman Catholic that he is, decided to join in on the “discussion” breaking his own vow of silence, after reading the railings against me, but still not knowing the full scenario. In the effort to settle the “feud”, he had a beautiful message to share with the family, about the recent movie and book on Mother Teresa’s life. He was calling for a truce between all family members who had left the Catholic tradition to follow their own versions of Christianity. I must mention that to this day, he is very disappointed and dismayed that not one of his five children is still a practicing Catholic. And I must add that I am the first-born child and the first to pioneer this “Exodus” in 1975.
However, I was also the first of the “Born-Again, Fundamentalist Evangelical” family members to make another paradigm shift in 1995, after 20 years of Bible-thumping and leading worship in many of the sister off-shoots of those churches. It seems that every 10 to 20 years or so, some life-changing event puts my feet on a new path of spiritual understanding. This time around, I am making my way back to simplicity.
So, in childlike simplicity, I decided to finally contribute my own piece of heart, mind and soul for my own internal peace. After releasing my frustration and annoyance for the ignorance that prevails, I broke my silence and wrote this to the group... And because I know that this is a common denominator among many American families today, I thought I’d share it here...
Breaking Silence: My Reply to the “Why..?”
Honoring Mother Teresa’s ExampleDad, thank you for taking time to express the truth you embrace as head of this tribal circle and for starting a new discussion that includes the grandchildren you love so much. The other discussions were getting old and ugly and felt like a step back into the Dark Ages. Maybe this is the modern-day tech version of having family pow-wows when we can’t do the Round Table thing anymore in our homes, that would include all family members who cannot always be there in person, because of work or distance or raising young kids.
And again I say to you, I love how Mother Teresa chose to dedicate her life to live her own version of a universal truth... the call to embrace and heal through love and compassion. It gives me chills to think about it, and I would have loved to have gotten a hug from her. However, we can only follow her example in as much as we can play out our own roles by dedicating our own lives to making a difference in the lives of others wherever our stage may be.
Honoring Our Gifted “Game Changers”
In my case, I work with hundreds of young people whose traumatic family dramas make our family’s saga look like a sit-com or a trip to Disneyland. Not one day goes by that I haven’t listened to their stories and tried to respond the best way I know how to help them see and know their worth in the world.
I live and work to create a level playing field by teaching basic life skills and trying to empower these kids to discover what unique gifts they have to offer and how they can turn their past mistakes into stepping stones to a promising future, instead of stumbling blocks from a past they can’t escape. I tell them that the best way they can predict their own future is to co-create it themselves with the positive choices they make. If we want to change anything that doesn’t work for us, just change the way we think.
They are beautiful and gifted souls just wanting to be loved and accepted for who they are, right where they are, when the world around them has called them misfits or mistakes, just because their round pegs don’t fit into the small, expired boxes (of old paradigms). They have so much to offer the world, because they are fresh Game-Changers who can have the creative answers we need to stop wars, crimes against humanity, poverty and oppression... if society just stops treating them like criminals themselves for just thinking differently.
Some have decided that if they got the name, they might as well play the game, and that is how society has created many of its criminals. Can some of us relate to them..? This is and has been my personal “mission field” for over thirty years, if I count the ones I’ve worked with troubled students since 1985.
My only advice to them is... “Use your mind, know yourself, think for yourself, and then be true to YOU, because there is only ONE of you who was chosen to BE YOU. And as human beings we all possess the power to ignore the negative voices around us (and in our heads) of others trying to mold us into their image or what they consider to be the perfect life. We make good choices when we choose ANY thought that focuses on encouraging and building others up and that pushes us to shine our light outward and become a radiant Star in a world that can never have TOO many stars. We only become Black Holes in this Universe when we turn our light inward and stay stuck in fear.
Every day, I get up and ask my Maker to let me make a difference today. Let me bring joy to someone who’s hurting when no one else may notice or pay attention. I don’t have to go to any Third World country, because they are right here in my own “hood”... And even as Mother Teresa’s energy had limitations, I may and do miss a lot when my energy gets caught up in personal or family drama, but for the most part, I am aware of my surroundings and try to be fully present to the needs of the young people in the hood I serve every day. That’s one reason why I keep getting requests for these long-term assignments.
Honoring Our Inalienable Rights
With all due respect, Dad, there is no feud going on here, only a perceived one. It takes two or more to feud, and I am not in it to win it, other than to follow other examples of exercising my inalienable rights to freedom of speech and freedom to worship the way I choose (why the Founding Fathers came to America in the first place).
You will never hear me say, “STOP... I am NOT interested...!” Because if I truly wasn’t interested in what you or anyone here has to say, then I wouldn’t spend time reading any of these all the way through and engaging in the discussions that validate others’ inalienable rights, including freedom of speech. If I stop being interested, then I would just say, “You can keep talking or writing now without me if you want... I have to disengage now, but thank you for sharing.”
I stayed quiet for a while on some of the former e-mails where I was targeted as the main attraction, even though other people were also inadvertently hurt and offended publicly. And because we can’t always be at family gatherings where we can air out our differences and have these discussions in person (but really shouldn’t) I thought, why not engage...?
To Engage or Not to Engage: That is the question
I like to write, I express myself best in writing, I have thoughts that may be appreciated by others in this group e-mail, and no one has to read them if they don’t want to. So, why not engage...? This could be like turning on my favorite Netflix series that I get sucked into (and I’ve watched many of them while jumping on the mini-tramp for months at a time). So, as long as I am not getting personal and slinging stones at anyone, why not engage...? And as long as I have boundaries by not standing still to get hit by stones flung at me, why not engage...? Something good just might come out of it... Hmmm...
The beauty of e-mail is that we can even delete them all without the sender knowing that we were not interested. It feels good just to exercise our freedom of speech, though, doesn’t it...? And if there are silent readers observing from the outside, then there must be at least a little interest... Even they are engaged in thought as spectators, Like...
“What will she or he say next...?” Or... “Wow... If she had said that to me, I would have...” We can all choose to engage or not. What does not feel good, however, is to get personal by slandering others with name-calling and other forms of emotional abuse. It goes against the Law of Love, which should be the ONLY law we apply in this group setting with such diversity as ours.
And we all know the meaning of agape love and how to apply it in these discussions. In the most civil circles, it’s also known as having good netiquette... Anyone can and should ask to be removed from any group where their names have been included, if they want to stop receiving these e-mails. When there is no one left to engage in any discussion, then Game Over.
Honoring Our Founding Fathers
Now back to our Founding Fathers and the early settlers... If they wanted to suffer religious persecution (which has taken on many more subtle forms in this day and age... of emotional and psychological abuse and rejection / intimidation of family members for not embracing someone else’s dogma, even if it came from their beloved parents) then they could have, would have and should have stayed right where they were in Europe.
I have been guilty on that end of applying a type of negative energy or pressure on people “back in the day” who did not see things my way... “the one and only true way..” Yet, I couldn’t help shake the feeling of it being unnatural back then to mimic and follow suit with the examples I had from those who claimed to know the whole truth, yet did not practice what they preached.
And in response to that, my pendulum swung in the opposite direction, where I became guilty of ignoring some people’s fears of what they don’t understand by trying to “educate” them, so that their fears can be eliminated. My apologies to all of you who have been subjected to my attempts to relieve the collective fears of an ideology I no longer serve. If you so choose, do your own research and be open to any possibility, because even many of you profess to believe, “With God, ALL things are possible...” Nothing to feud about there.
Internal Feuds from Infernal Programming
Now if we are talking about internal feuds, in that case everyone on Earth has had them... Not just our family. (My) truth be told, reaching deep inside from my childhood memories, I didn’t see unity in our family and relatives just because we went to the same church, said the same prayers or went through the same rituals. I laughed at it afterwards when no sooner we got out, everyone started gossiping, yelling at each other in power plays, manipulating to get their own way, or trying out guilt trips and the “fear of God,” because that seemed to work in church.
And I don’t know about the rest of you , but I have a very clear memory and still recall the image of Mom and her sisters literally pulling each other’s hair, yelling and slapping each other, and probably over something so petty. I never knew what started it... Now, to me that is the definition of a real feud... That was also probably the root of my internal feuds... The duality of hearing one thing preached in Mass and seeing another thing practiced at home or family gatherings.
If we were born into Muslim, Jewish or any other fear-based religious tradition, we would be “feuding” with other “holy” scriptures. So really, what’s the difference between you and the others who claim to have “the one true religion”...?
And I am ashamed to say that as a young and ignorant parent without knowledge of healthy communication skills myself, I mimicked that pattern in another church setting with my own children ~ may they forgive me for that. Different rituals, different interpretations of the exact same words (minus the 14 books that were removed from the Catholic bible) and different agendas for manipulation and power plays. So, in essence, I guess you could say that I quite literally learned the “Faith of Our Fathers” from old programming and by example.
Honoring Divine Comedy and Humor Me
On a lighter note, some here may think that the doctors secretly X-rayed me inside Mom behind your back, Dad, and that would explain my brain damage. Anyway, I thank you for the gesture of trying to protect me and my creative abilities. But keep in mind that some of the most creative people in history have been considered mentally ill. Is it too late to sue the hospital where I was born...?
And I certainly don’t mind being the subject of loving and playful teasing, like we often do when we get together with our brothers or even our kids... Most of the time 😉
If you want to humor me and my beliefs about having lived past lives, then I can and have joined in on the fun. I can and have made the best jokes myself out of this Divine Comedy... Who cares...? Is it really hurting anyone that I believe what I do...? I just wanna have fun... Life is way too short to be arguing over words and dogmas.... I do believe, however, that if Jesus’ words were accurately recorded and literally translated, then I want to enter the Kingdom as a child.
Honoring Jesus’ Kid-Friendly Kingdom
When we were younger, you siblings might recall how I’d sit at the table with adults listening to and engaging in their adult conversations, while the rest of you played pranks and games, when you thought no one was paying attention. To this day, I still laugh to remember the one where you and our cousins kept going through the kitchen where we were sitting, then down the stairs to the basement, and then climb back up the laundry shoot that was in our hallway closet, waiting for one of us to notice that you were always going down the stairs and not coming back up.
Now as an adult, I just love paying attention to all of the little ones in our family gatherings, engaging them in conversations about what they like and what they do at school... Just to let them know that they are not being ignored, while the adults are sitting at the table sharing stories of who they saved or led to the Lord or what the Bible means when it says this or that.
Kids don’t argue scripture... Watch them playing with each other on the playground. They don’t care what the other kids believe in or even if they can quote scriptures verbatim. If and when they do have a spat, it’s usually over something that was taken away from them or said directly to hurt their feelings.
We can step back and watch how they resolve their conflicts, and only step in when someone is about to get physically hurt. Then if we’ve been paying close attention to the whole scenario, we can exercise good parenting skills by teaching them how to use THEIR words (not scripted words) to resolve their conflicts.
That is the kind of guidance I wish I had done more of with my older kids. I work on that with Olivia, and she is learning to be one of the best communicators I know. She and I have been practicing these skills within the context of over own differences at home.
So, in the spirit of childLIKE, not childISH behavior, can we just go back to loving and playing and put all of these petty differences aside...? Please...??
And if you think I don’t pray at all...in the same vein, speaking from the heart of a child, here is one way I pray... My paraphrase of the Our Father...
One Way I Pray
Hey, Dad (aka, Father in Heaven...)
I get that people call you by a lot of different names, mostly to describe what you DO, not really who you ARE. Male or female, it doesn’t matter which gender term is used, ‘cause to me you are always Perfect Parent. But I know you don’t mind that I just keep calling you “Dad.”
I get that you are everywhere AND in my heart, so it’s really cool that I don’t have to go anywhere special or even outside of myself to talk with you, ‘cause you can hear me just fine right where I AM.
And whenever I stay still long enough and just breathe, I know I can hear you just fine, too. I may not always like what you have to say to me, but I can hear you.
And I get the fact that you get me. That’s the coolest part about hanging out with you, ‘cause no matter what I say or don’t say, you always know EXACTLY what I mean.
That makes me feel free to be ME all the time with you. After all, you made me out of your own DNA, so seriously, what part of me can’t you get, anyway..?
That being said, I know that you absolutely get my Wise Ass Self, too, ‘cause you’re the one who gave me that trait in the first place... just to keep things in perspective and on the lighter side of life. Also, to keep me from wanting to punch anyone’s lights out whenever they say something really stupid to try and hurt me.
And whenever I do take time just to listen to you, I know that you got my back, when you remind me to think before I say or do anything stupid, so I won’t get my own lights punched out by anyone.
And that’s the part of you that I’d like to have more of. I want people to know that I get them, too, no matter what they say or do. I also want them to know that I have their back, if and when I remind them to think before they say or do anything stupid, ‘cause I want to keep them from getting their lights punched out, too.
Yeah, yeah... I know... It’s those times when we refuse to listen to those reminders that we probably deserve to get our lights punched out.
But I know you’re still here for me, waiting for me to come back and own it. You never ever preach to or AT me... You just ask me what I learned from the experience and how I can handle things different the next time.
I also know that YOU know that I mean NO disrespect when I joke and say, “Thanks for getting on my good side today, Dad” cause I know YOU know what I mean... that you gave me something I asked for, or at least something I realized that I really needed MORE than what I asked for... Even BETTER than what I asked for.
So, yeah... Thanks for getting on my good side again today. Way to go, Dad..!
And it’s so comforting to know that in this day and age, when too many relationships have become meaningless and thrown away so easily, that you’ll always be my Dad, and I’ll always be your daughter.
Just thought I’d tell you this publicly, ‘cause I probably don’t say it often enough. ‘Nuff said for now, ‘cause there really will never be enough words to say everything you are to me... So, just thank you for BEing my Everything ALL the time.
Your loving daughter,
Joanne of Frank