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This happened to me just the other day, where I was visiting my family for Christmas. My mother, per usual, was completely stressed out. She was all up in arms about my brother, who is now living with them again for he is going through a divorce. He was being especially nasty to her, too. Short and cutting is the best way to describe him, where he’ll sit on the couch and not want to speak to anybody and will get physical if anyone tries to show affection or love.

My mother, on the other hand, always wants to show her love and care for those around her. Today I can see it, some time ago, I could not, but their respective traumas work against one another, as well as their healing journeys are on much different paths. My brother was strangled by the umbilical cord as he was brought into this world, and for that he has had many developmental delays that have caused him to then be viciously picked on as a child. My mother, on the other hand, had an alcoholic, schizophrenic mother who wouldn’t take care of them at all, and a father that denied anything was the matter. Two paths that can really butt heads.

I can still see her now, she’s in the kitchen, her hair up as she’s reading a cook-book, her glasses falling from her face. She has this old, beat up apron on, that at one time was red and covered in yellow flowers. Now, it’s just white with flour, and the strings which go around her shoulders are starting to fray. She loves this apron. And over on the recliner is Eddie, he doesn’t even to get up to say hi to me as I’m walking in, just watching duck dynasty while drinking his NA’s.

So she’s going to town in the kitchen. She has some dish in the crockpot, another in the stove, and she’s preparing two other dishes to cook, all so that we can sit down and enjoy each other Christmas day. They are in the middle of a heated discussion about why he needs to go and see his wife, whom he is separating from both because of the physical abuse, as well as some level of infidelity through the internet. Now, there is no talking to my brother about anything. He will get physical as well if you have a different opinion than him, and due to his developmental issues, he doesn’t always see things in such a clear way. This is what I walk into Christmas Eve, him being verbally abusive to my mother who is slaving away in the kitchen.

I try to get her to allow me to help, and she’s like, “You know what, Charlie I’m fine, I just got a couple more things to finish up, and then wrap some presents, and then we can sit down and enjoy each other”. She’s responding from that hurt, that anguish. She thinks that she has failed Eddie, my brother, but that is not true, that is her trauma response. She also is responding to me with that pain that she is feeling, and the frustration which he can stir about when he gets in his little moods. Of course, I don’t take that as an answer, and I help her get some things done, and I help her center and we do a quick breathing exercise.

This was repeated plenty of times throughout my three day visit. Where she would get all worked up, and then I would be there to both help with cooking, cleaning, and whatnot, and to help her find her peace again. Just some thirty odd months ago, I would have been adding to her stress, making her even more on edge. You see, I’m a recovering cocaine addict, among other things. These past two odd years, I have been following the program of recovery, as laid out in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and have been helping others to find freedom from their suffering as well. The people in my life that have helped me in my sobriety have really given me the space to walk into situations such as this, and to be the calming center.

In this, I truly learned the ripple effect of bringing peace, of embodying equanimity. I witnessed first hand the way that others in my life have lived has rubbed off onto me, and that has then allowed me to be a vessel of the peace, as opposed to being part of the calamity. I too remembered why I am doing this, why I am actively choosing to align myself with spirit. Going through the drudges of spiritual growth, it can be difficult to remember these moments, but then something like this happens, it always does, where it is so clear and evident that this is not just about me, this is about other people and something beyond as well.

Thank you for allowing the space. With love, Charlie.