When I first started writing my blog ‘Healing the Matriarch’ we were all in the midst of the Covid pandemic. During the isolation of April 2020, I wrote my first few pieces on what living life during the pandemic was like. It was a way to reflect on how this major world event was personally affecting both myself and those around me.
As the blog posts continued, they focused on the stage of life I was in – midlife reset and the emergence of the matriarch. The blogs also became a compilation of what I was learning through study, online courses and copious reading on positive psychology. I delved into mindfulness, self-compassion, emotional intelligence, motivation and manifesting life change.
It’s amazing how the busyness of life can make us internalize rather than fully process what we’ve lived through. Trauma and grief are really good at hiding from us for a while. Yet they eventually surface no longer able to be ignored. We know they are there because we feel directionless, numb and unable to feel and express our emotions fully. They also surface when we have less responsibilities and more time to make sense of our lived experience.
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
My own healing journey started in my early 50’s when a lot of the earlier experiences of my life resurfaced ready for review. As a woman, I had read that turning the age your mother died brings on a realisation and reflection of the fragility of life. That year was 52 for me. I continually felt the surreal nature of inhabiting my body at the age of my mother’s death. It brought home strongly how young she was at the time and all the subsequent life events she did not experience in her own life. She was not at our weddings nor met our children and grandchildren. If she were still alive, she would now be a great grandmother and surrounded by her extended family.
That same year I was experiencing the final stages of my father’s life. A difficult cancer journey that meant I made the decision to move back to my childhood community. I also abruptly resigned from my work as an early childhood teacher to provide physical and emotional support to family. When I returned back to my home eighteen months later it was difficult to resume life as normal. I felt enormous guilt for leaving family unsupported in their grief and loss. I also largely grieved alone in a world that resumed quickly back to ‘normal’.
My journey of healing stretched over the next decade, and it wasn’t until I was in my early 60’s that I began writing and sharing about healing, particularly for women entering the latter stages of life. Women that had sufficient life experience stored that were finally ready to process it more fully. It was an obvious progression. It’s said that the last part of a personal healing journey is about sharing and educating on what we’ve learnt along the way. Becoming a guide and mentor for others.
Dr Gabor Mate from his book ‘The Myth of Normal’ introduces four A’s – authenticity, agency, anger and acceptance. Each represents a guiding principle for those following a path to healing. Qualities in ourselves that we need to recapture our lives.
Authenticity – It’s the ability, through the healing process, to discover more of who we are and be able to express that in our interactions with others. It’s about accepting ourselves fully and noticing when we aren’t being true to ourselves in our connections with others. For example, we might notice our people pleasing tendencies rather than setting healthy boundaries in our relationships. This can result in increased anxiety, irritability and fatigue. It may also surface when we fail to call out hurtful comments or share our true feelings with others.
Agency – Where agency exists is when we make some personal choices around who we are and how we exist in life. It might mean renegotiating relationships as we build confidence in our own identity. Stepping outside the box of what we’ve always believed about ourselves or what we think the world expects of us. It may also be in making personal decisions that may not sit comfortably with others. We have to be brave enough to stay with our convictions, even if they are challenged. It may also mean questioning opinions and advice from others and viewing it through our own lens.
No one else can give us our agency. It’s something we give to ourselves as we evaluate our life fully and freely. Then we can make decisions based on our authentic gut feelings, clarity and understanding of what is best for us.
The interesting thing is once we take steps to make good personal choices, to give ourselves agency, we become more accepting and appreciative of the need to allow others to do the same.
“ When we heal, we are engaged in recovering our lost parts of self, not trying to change or better them. We are coming to wholeness“
Dr Gabor Mate
Acceptance – is a powerful understanding as we recognise that resisting reality creates a stumbling block to moving forward. Instead, we can find ourselves sitting in bitterness, sadness and anger believing life is unfair and shouldn’t be this way.
In accepting life as it is, we allow the floodgate to open to the other important attributes of healing –
- permission to feel anger and other emotions that are present.
- permission for agency to make valid choices around life. Acceptance is not about tolerating a situation particularly if it involves abuse or neglect. If we want to make changes in our life, it’s important to know that also carries an element of risk. It can mean impacting some relationships, life stability and our comfort zone as we move forward.
- permission for ourselves to become more authentic.
Anger – We can be afraid of expressing it, seeing others flying into a blind rage of energy and spite. It looks and feels scary. We can also be shamed for expressing anger and told we are hysterical or hostile or hearing ‘Don’t take it so personally’. As a consequence it can be difficult recognising our own need to express anger in a productive way.
Yet anger is both normal and healthy. It is one of our three primary emotions. It helps protect us from physical and emotional threats. It is situational – meaning when the threat is over our anger usually subsides. It helps us advocate for both ourselves and others. It can also be a catalyst for change.
It’s important when we express anger to get curious about any underlying causes. Anger can mask a multitude of harder to recognise emotions. If we are willing to explore our anger, we can heal emotional scars and stop suppressing emotions internally which can lead to physical illness.
Part of our life experience is to recognise and heal the difficult moments we have been through. We owe it to our physical and emotional health to find ways to process the impact they have had on us. It’s a lesson I learnt later in life and a healing journey that has brought me both wisdom and understanding.
I look back on my younger self with more compassion and empathy. I also forgive my younger self for not having the maturity and ability to be there for others in their grief and loss. It was mainly due to the fact I couldn’t find my way to my own grief experience at the time. Yet I’m proud of who I have become and my ability to venture toward healing and wholeness.
