The Mother of All Epiphanies

When I silenced the demons, my soul spoke and for the first time in my life -
 I understood. 
 I chose my mother for who she was, who she came to be and how she lived.
~ J.V. Manning

There is a belief that our soul chooses which life to be born into.

There are some who hold the belief that our soul figures out, prior to our entry into life, what we need to learn, experience and accomplish. Then, once that is ascertained, we make our decision on which parents and family to be born into based on who we feel will give us the best chance of attaining our goals.

If this is true, it means I chose every single life lesson I have faced to date in order to learn and evolve into a better human being. Which is the ultimate lesson in personal responsibility. It also tells me - my soul is an overachiever. If I am to believe that I chose this life; the family I was born into, the trials I have faced and lessons I have learned, then I must also see it as my responsibility to make sure I put it all to good use. Otherwise, if I do not weave the lessons I have learned into the very fabric of my soul, it will all have been for naught and I will probably have to make up this life later in order to get it right.

But, like I said, my soul apparently is an overachiever and I am determined to get it right this time around. Which means living with eyes, heart, mind and soul wide open. Living open to everything brings opportunities for amazing experiences and also brings a clarity to my vision and feelings with the world and people around me. It also, for today, has me reassessing some life events and relationships, like the one I had with my mom. 

It is Mother's Day after all.

If you had asked me yesterday what my relationship with my mother had been like, I would have totally sidestepped the question. It is hard to say, let alone for another to hear, that your mom didn't love you. That because of a mental disease, she was incapable of being a "traditional mom" to her two daughters. Today. Well, today I would have another answer. Because today I shifted my perspective and thought about why I would have chosen to be born to her. I asked myself - what had my mom taught me? What had she given me? Why did I choose her?

When I silenced the demons, my soul spoke and for the first time in my life -I understood. 

I chose my mother for who she was, who she came to be and how she lived.

From my mother I learned; warmth from her coldness, love from her aloofness, honesty from her lies, trust from her mistrust and I learned the value of life from her ending her own. Throughout my entire journey with my mother, when it was I taking care of her, she had been teaching me all along. I just never saw it. I learned to see reality and confront things head on from her hiding out and never dealing. I learned that in the face of trouble I had depths I never knew existed in order to handle it, from her always running away. I learned to take personal responsibility, from her always blaming others. I learned to have compassion for those who hurt me, from her constant reminding of how awful a daughter I was. I learned to work hard and be dependent on myself, from her dependence on me.

I learned to be whole, from her brokenness. 

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I have always thought that I grew into the woman I am today in spite of my mother. But, this couldn't be further from the truth. I grew into the woman I am today - because of her. I learned to fight. I learned to love. I learned strength and perseverance. I learned to nurture. I learned to take care of myself. I learned responsibility. But, the big thing I learned - is to love myself. For had she loved herself enough to fight harder, to get the help she needed, to take personal responsibility - she would still be here today.

We are all responsible for ourselves. While having a mother who loved, nurtured and encouraged me would have been awesome - not having one taught me, too. Maybe this is why I chose her. She had the lessons I needed and my soul recognized that.

I am who I am because of my mother and on this Mother's Day I send a whispered prayer of thanks to the heaven in hopes that she can hear. A thank you for the lessons she taught me, a thank you for the innate strength I discovered within and a thank you for teaching me how very precious life is.

Happy Mother's Day.

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