Real growth

My mother-in-law doesn't like to take responsibility for her actions, her behavior, her happiness, her feelings, her emotions, and in short, her life. She is hyper observant, judgmental of those around who aren't being responsible in any way towards her feelings, and when it comes to taking responsibility for her life, she tosses it aside as if without any care and gets often trapped in her past narrative of how much trauma she was caught in and how helpless and humiliated and stripped off support from family she was. In truth she keeps people at a distance even if it's for a small drop in their attitudes and communication which she takes the right to interpret, and even if as intuitively done but projected on others as if they are in the wrong and that she is flawlessly perfect as she assumes herself to be.

Just because people have been on the worse side of trauma, does it give them the right to devalue, judge, compare and put down others and simply become more and more bitter nitpicky, nagging, and a thorough energy vampire who can gaslight others to flames effortlessly. My mother-in-law is one such prime example of growing up bitterly through age and being on the extreme ends of looking at life or people and maybe never seeing, accepting, and empathizing genuinely with the middle shades. She locks herself in her myriad world of emotions and feelings which she feels intensely and expects others to understand her without her expressing clearly, objectively the purpose behind so many emotions and feelings. 

It's like she sets herself up to ice-skate on slippery ice made from her frozen tears, her unresolved emotions, and a fragile mind which is so prone to breaking up at the drop of a hat.

And her life if at all anything has been a repeat way to push her to strike a balance within herself and not look for shortcuts by blaming others for her losing her way in the world of extremes. 

I feel sad for her lack of objectivity, her intense want to discern people and read situations without allowing her feelings to come in the middle, and wanting her ego to say it all and have the final word, as if proving to the world over and over again that she is significant and that her traumas have made her feel really important and that the world outside is too insensitive to not wholly acknowledge it, and so giving her the license to be bitter, vengeful, manipulating, bad mouthing and gaslighting people. 

Do traumas make us more ego driven and entitled people? Or do they really help us change our perspective from a victim with a sympathy seeking persona to that of a open hearted person who empathizes with others troubles mindfully, who cares for others on the grounds of humanity without personal bias.

The harsh truth is that my mother-in-law is real when it suits her needs and dramatic when others get what they want seemingly "easily" as if implying it's by fluke, and as if all the efforts in the world so far have been done only by her as she witnesses the "injustice" of the victorious over the victims. The extremely dramatic attempt to relive her past, and yes it's been completely stressful at best and a lot of forgiveness from her towards herself and others are the only key to free herself from her locked in past which she sees as a mark of weakness as holding on and not forgiving is what she thinks reminds her of how strong yet helpless, how controlled yet individually skilled she was and she has been all along. 

Trauma is a teacher to some and a cause to self sabotage for others. Our karmic account doesn't feel the pinch of our hurts, regrets, conflicting emotions and tumultuous feelings, and yet all these need to be felt, grieved, released, forgiven sometimes, expressed through art, journaling, talking, singing and so much more, and in short to open a portal within ourselves to create possibilities to recreate ourselves through the seedings of trauma and blossoming through inner truths.

Real growth is painful. And the more we resist growing up, the sadder and lonelier life seems to get without any exceptions. Humans, until they are alive and until their karmic account is active for their current birth, will have to learn to become subjects of vested interest from themselves individually and from that of others so that the fine balance of connection between both is alive - because we don't live only for ourselves and neither can we live only for others - we just need a good blend of both so that we grow up whole and full as much as possible in this lifetime.

My faith has grown stronger and even if fears threatened to lurk in the shadows like uninvited guests, but when the spotlight of my truths came to the centerstage, it was as if I finally found the courage to come out and to be me. Whether people liked this version or they criticized, or were utterly indifferent, it didn't matter anymore. Faith in a higher energy and faith in myself have been the constant tug of war within me and when both these come together as potent synergies, they blend to become one.