Mindful when it matters most

How mindfulness helps you stay steady whatever comes your way

Photo by Raphael Renter | @raphi_rawr on Unsplash

Hi friends,

A couple of weeks ago I had an email from my estranged mother who had managed to get past my defences by using a different email address and contacting me via my business website. If you’re a new reader, some context for you — I’ve been estranged from my family for seven years. My mother is a narcissist and my stepfather, who has been with my mother since I was a year old, was violent, and verbally and sexually abusive, when I was growing up. As was my stepbrother, who is eight years older than me.

The last time I saw my mother and stepfather was when they turned up at an author event for my debut novel where I was doing a reading and a Q&A. They hadn't told me they were coming and my stepfather heckled me. Afterwards they waited around, took one of the books I had for sale off the table and put it in a shopping bag, then my mother gave me a list of presents she would like me to buy her for her upcoming birthday.

That was in November 2016. Just six months after I had started to try and process the suppressed memories of abuse that had resurfaced. The last time I spoke to her was a couple of months later. The last time I heard directly from her was a couple of months after that when her latest email filled with all my wrongdoings arrived in my inbox. After that I blocked her from my email and my phone. I just couldn’t do it anymore.

Before this estrangement there were several shorter ones. All of them before I had remembered the abuse. My relationship with my mother has always been fraught and I have always tried to turn it into something positive. It never worked.

After each of those earlier periods of estrangement she would get in touch and I would let her back in, and the honeymoon period where she tried to be nice would always end. She’d always revert back to constant demands, constant criticism, constant me, me, me. I would then see them once or twice a year for strained duty visits. But she would email me and leave voicemails most days.

So seven years ago I knew for my own sanity and well-being, that I had to leave the family for good this time. With the help of therapy, mindfulness and spiritual teachings, I forgave them, and myself, a long time ago but even though I have found that forgiveness, I know that I can’t have them in my life.

My mother has tried contacting me several times over the past seven years via letters sent to my husband’s sister’s house. I never open any of them. So the shock of seeing her name in my inbox two weeks ago was huge. And I don’t know what made me open it and not delete it without reading it. But open it I did and in it she told me that my stepfather is dying and it’s his dearest wish to see me again before he does, that the whole family love and miss me.

A great big mix-up of feelings rushed through me — alongside the shock was grief for them. My mother has no emotional maturity and she has been with my stepfather for 50 years, I feel for her. I know that the way she behaves towards me, and everyone else, is because of her own mental anguish. It took me a long time to know that though. That none of it was my fault. But I did feel anger at her too. For invading my space when I have chosen to leave. For still pretending that our family life was something very different to what it was.

I feel sad for him that his life is ending and that he never recognised the amazing gift it is. Or maybe at some point in the past seven years he did. Maybe they have both changed. But my gut feeling is that they won’t have.

But I do know that I have. I know that I’m finally a different me, that my mindfulness practice is working. Before, a situation like this would have seen me obsessing over it. Constantly turning it over and over in my mind. Raking up all the bad memories. Feeling guilty. I would’ve lain awake at nights and drunk too much wine to try and make myself feel better.

But all of the mixed emotions I had on receiving the email were fleeting, there’s been no anxious thought patterns, I’ve slept soundly every night, and had no more than a glass of wine with dinner.

I’m a different me.

And it’s mindfulness that has enabled me to find this version of me. It’s mindfulness that is keeping me steady and helping me to stay focused on the many positives and things that really matter in my life. It’s mindfulness that is keeping me strong, healthy and happy.

In a society where we’re told that family are the most important thing, no matter what, many people find my decision to leave, and to not go and visit now, hard to understand. Before I would’ve worried about that too. That people thought badly of me.

But now I know that having the strength it took to do this in the first place, and to keep on doing it, means I no longer think badly of myself, or of them. And that is what really matters, and I know that is better for all of us than how things were before.

What about you? How has mindfulness made a difference in your life? In what ways can you see how you have changed because of it? Do let me know in the comments as I love hearing from you.

Another way I can tell that I really have forgiven us all is that I am finally able to write about it without anger appearing on the page. For a long time whenever I tried to write narrative non-fiction pieces about my family, they would be filled with the hurts I hadn’t processed. But now I can write it all in a compassionate way.

I will be sharing the first piece I have written for my paid subscribers next week and discussing how we turn our memories into narratives. Then I am going to be posting these ongoing as I write them.

With love,

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