. . . the point is to lean toward the discomfort of life and see it clearly rather than protect ourselves from it.
Pema Chodron
Candle by window (photo: flickr creative commons)
Once you've had time to allow yourself to grieve and developed some healing practices, you can step back and take a closer look at what happened. Kind of like taking a big breath and letting it out slowly. If you're like me, your mind is buzzing with questions: why me? why us? what happened? In order to understand the answers to some of these questions, you'll have to "let go." You'll need to develop enough detachment so your emotions don't overwhelm your ability to think. At first, the wound of estrangement is simply too raw for this. Time won't completely heal that wound, but it will hopefully provide you with enough space to be able to look more closely at what happened.
Reiki workshop (photo: Angsbacka Kursgard, flickr creative commons)
Letting go is hard for me. I "lost" my daughter to adoption when I was 17, then had three pregnancy losses in my 20s and 30s, and lost family members and friends to sudden death. So, when I hear the words "let go," it terrifies me. I picture clinging to a cliff and someone stomping on my hands until I let go, one finger at a time and fall and fall. I only realized that everyone doesn't see things this way after talking to a close friend who is a Reiki practitioner. She said that "letting go" was one of the most important practices in Reiki. Letting go in Reiki is important for trusting the healing process. Letting go for me, and those of you who are facing estrangement, is necessary to move towards healing and reconciliation.
What Do We Need to Let Go Of?
- Being right
- Being wrong
- Anger
- Denial
- Hatred
- Self-hatred
- Shame
- A false belief in our power to control the other
- Unrealistic expectations
Once you've let go of some of these difficult emotions - or at least started down the road of letting go - you should be able to be more objective about the estrangement. Clear-eyed honesty is essential to understanding. It's also important not to take things so personally, that you fail to recognize circumstances that provide fertile soil for estrangement. Here are a few:
- Divorce
- Death
- Adoption
- Caring for Aging Parents
- Intolerance about sexual identity, religion, or other personal issues
- Settling an estate of a deceased parent or family member
- Serious illness
- Geographic distance
I can see now that estrangement was a ticking time bomb in my relationship with my daughter. My daughter is adopted and we were reunited when she was 29, we live 2,000 miles apart, her husband died suddenly two years ago, then she saw me and her biological father together for the first time days after her husband's death. Everybody's emotions were on high alert and it was easy for things that people said or did to be misunderstood. Realizing this has helped me quit blaming myself - or my daughter - for what happened. Now what? There are many excellent posts on this topic. I found this post on dealing with an estranged adult daughter to be particularly useful. (estrangement, photo: flickr creative commons) There are many other posts out there and I'm sure you can find one that speaks to you.
What now?
- Give the estranged person space for as long as they need it
- Acknowledge and apologize for any hurtful things you may have done or said
- Try to see things from their point of view, even if you don't agree with them
- Don't respond to criticism with anger or defensiveness
- Don't expect the other person to acknowledge their hurtful behavior and make amends
- Maintain contact in whatever way the estranged person will accept (I'm writing to my daughter every few months and I remember her birthday and Christmas.)
- Be patient. (The hardest thing of all.)
Here is a wonderful poem by the Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai that reflects the importance of being open-minded during estrangement and conflict. The Place Where We Are Right.
And finally a song by the great Mavis Staples.
