16. Humbled Away from Critique

How feedback totally shifted this blog post.

Blog Overview: Reunion / Disappointment / Critical Destruction

“Even though you’re just crying out for a different version….what if there is no other version? What if there never will be a different version? What if this is it? How can you love her exactly where she’s at and be completely comfortable with who you are around her?” Saora kindly humbled me in a voice message, offering feedback on the first version of this blog post. As would any true friend, she called me on my shit. And quite frankly, I’m better off for it.

Let’s just dive right in, then I’ll explain where I went astray and how I found greater self-awareness through my slanderous writing.

Second Edition:

“If you need clothes, you can borrow this. Please do not go ‘shopping’ in my closet for something else.”

My little sister, a park ranger at Canyonland National Park in Utah, left me this note with a pair of sweatpants and a sleeveless sailor shirt striped blue and white, knitted, and likely worn by an 80-year-old woman who left it at a thrift store to find its next captain.

There was a part of me that stayed in gratitude with her consideration. Then, this other much louder part wanted to leave her a note saying, “WE’RE NOT IN HIGH SCHOOL ANY MORE!”

For ten days, I was in an RV with my parents and low-functioning grandma traveling the west coast. During half of that short trip, we visited my sister on her one day off and in the few hours when she wasn’t Ranger Sophie. I came with a very positive attitude, celebrating the fact that my family was reuniting after four years apart…and not just that. I was celebrating that we were in an RV, for God’s sake. My family. In an RV. 14-year-old me would never believe it.

During the trip I was meticulously tracking myself critique all the unconscious behaviors of my family, including Sophie…and even myself. It added up and I just wanted to shake them awake. More than anything, I wanted to be freed of my own frustrations, reactions to what I perceived to be my family’s anxious tendencies, violent communication, and quite simply, denser energy. But, somehow, I just kept reacting. The triggers were all too enticing, too in my face. Though bound together in a 30’ house on wheels, the desire for closeness, emotionally, was unmet and that bothered me.

Don’t get me wrong, there were moments of sweetness and beauty when I stayed unattached and amused, but every single day I was faced with my own internal dis-ease. I rejected the moment, preferring to comment harshly on their “faults” rather than choosing compassion…rather than returning to my breath and accepting my entire perception…rather than seeing them as exactly where they need to be in their soul’s journey.

But I’m human and far from perfect. I have my tender spots and fall out of appreciation. I convince myself that the separation is real. Because of that, my heart broke a few times, specifically in relation with Sophie. Our reconnection was nothing short of disappointing for me. I came with high-hopes, but they were just sparkly expectations. Part of me hoped my sister and I would at least share a sincere and vulnerable conversation. But during our reunion, we hardly shared any sincere connection.

The work I’ve done to overcome the avoidant and passive-aggressive behaviors in the face of tense conflict and discomfort are a great success, in my mind, but I was naïve to think that all the damage I had done earlier in my life could be resolved without much tending to in advance.

When I moved to Hawai’i, my life in Virginia faded away. And to loved ones, I disappeared and became a memory. Moving from my childhood hometown was expected, but the immense retreat from (and rejection of) my past self, including all my loved ones, was abrupt. I didn’t call often and was so consumed by my new reality on the Hawaiian Islands, a level of freedom I had not yet experienced, that I didn’t want to go back to the old version of myself…who they all knew me to be. I was finally “on the path” and touching aspects of myself that had yet been expressed and it was too risky to go home with my pent-up anger. I had not yet had the tools to forgive my immediate family. The pain was too intense.

But I did go home and faced my fears of rejection. If you’ve been following my posts, you’d know that earlier this year I experienced a major breakthrough with my parents in January when I visited my childhood home for the first time in four years. A huge wound healed within myself and it reflected outwardly in my mom, specifically. The effects, however, are not lasting less you tend to them, which I didn’t really do.

Ever since moving to Hawai’i, my sister and I haven’t once seen each other in person and our contact has been minimal. Most phone calls have ended quite similarly: with bickering or abruptly because someone (probably me) was done driving and needed to go. I’ve not tended to our relationship. Check-ins have been rare and, if I’m being honest, motivated by some means to an end rather than curiosity.

I didn’t give her the opportunity to stay close because I needed space from everyone who knew me. I pulled away and didn’t give anyone a chance to see who I’ve become, so naturally she wouldn’t know that I prefer to talk rather than yell…hug rather than fight.

So, during the few days my lil sis and I had to reconnect, it didn’t surprise me that she still saw me as her cruel, older sister who would rummage through her closet and take without asking…and on occasion damage her clothes. To her, I’ve aged and chopped off my hair, but I was still her adversary, whether or not she consciously saw me as such. I felt it in her body language, which suggested a lack of openness to reveal all the tender parts that make her, well her, a unique individual with layers.

When we were little, she was my best friend, but adolescence tore us apart. I called her a dumbass on too many occasions. I ridiculed and harassed her to the point of total rupture. And by the time I realized the effect, the damage had been done. My longing for closeness would require what every broken relationship needs: consistent nurturing.

The window into a slower moment with Sophie felt impossible to create in our few short moments together during the trip. I kept thinking, “If she would just see me afresh, then maybe she’d understand that I sincerely want to fix what is broken between us.” Not only that, I wanted to make new memories together. But she was so stuck in all the pain I caused her, fixed in her perception of the world. Depth requires trust, which I had not earned since disappearing to Hawai’i.

Okay, reader, pause. Yes, you.

So, this is the point in the first draft where I started to go wildly astray. Thanks to the angels watching over me who gave me a little nudge to go to my wise confidant, Saora, for her honest review.

If it weren’t for Saora’s feedback, I would be writing in service to my shadows. She does not sidestep my unconscious behaviors, rather confronts them head-on in the name of love…and keeps doing that until they no longer are in the driver’s seat. She reminded me that speaking so critically wouldn’t serve the healing between me and my sister and pointed to its lack of humility.

If I had shared the first version of this blog, I’d be acting from a place of superiority and criticism, believing myself to be on a pedestal looking down upon peasants (aka those who do not meet my standards of excellence). I’d be telling a story that upholds an image of me knowing what’s best for others, the sly little “helper” part of me who is undermining all her relationships by casting them away when they don’t meet some ridiculous expectation (one that I obviously set for myself). If it weren’t for her, I’d be representing a version of myself that wants to be the older, “smarter” sister….the version of me in high school who berated my little sister. Dumbass. Dumbass. Dumbass.

I’m going to share a few snippets of the first draft so you can get a sense of what that voice sounds like. I want you all to know that I share this simply so that these topics become less taboo. In my own experience, hiding from my shadows enables them. If I face them in total vulnerability, they too become vulnerable…shakable. They have no foundation to stand on anymore because I am more curious about the esoteric “Self” than the monkey mind collective thinking, which wants nothing more than to derail the path toward fulfillment, the path of compassion.

In sharing these snippets, please take into consideration that I analyze this writing without bias, genuinely curious about my past convictions and how I can learn to see my unconscious words/behaviors before acting on these outdated patterns. I share these snippets with radical ownership. Deep down, I know that there is immense magic on the other side of unlearning these unconscious patterns and am willing to do the work.

Here’s the worst of it:

“For her, it is safer to identify as strong and dominant. In control. “My rules,” she reminded me. Her OCD is reliable. She likes knowing how she likes things. ACL limits her mobility and forces Advil down her throat. PCOS is to blame for the rest. She claims these titles like it’s as honorable as her ranger badge. Like my dad, she thinks she “can’t change.” Her whole life revolves around these mishaps, and they self-generate. But they’re so familiar to Sophie…reliable. Moreso than I am to her….

Wake up!! I screamed in my mind. Can’t you see that you’re drowning in those beliefs? Is ignorance that blissful?”

Phew, talk about high and mighty. This is the tyranny of my domineering Alpha and critical Omega. And it sure as shit won’t get me what I want. What part of me thought this kind of dumping was actually supportive? Did I really need people witness me in my frustration?

No. Absolutely not.

I’m learning that I have such a critical ego and that may never change. But my relation to it is changing and that’s all that matters. I want to live a life where I go first, initiating with vulnerability and letting go of outcome. I want to be gentle like feathers when my words bite. I want to love everyone exactly as they are.

May I ask for forgiveness. In the face of challenge, I pray that the least I do is voice my desires for unity and show my willingness to heal.

Like Hanuman said to Ram Dass: “When I do not know who I am, I serve you. And when I do know who I am, I am you.

I turn dark to light so that I may become my soul’s entirety.

With humility,

Riddle

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