Hi there! Welcome to this week’s episode of Charlie’s Toolbox. Today we are going to discuss why suffering is not your birthright, but before we get into the main topic let’s discuss what’s going on in my world, the song of the week, and finally the main topic.
What’s Going on in my world
So, what’s going on in my world? This week has been filled with hella anxiety. I have weird anxiety that is only triggered when I must do small things. So, things like going to the post office, renewing my passport, or returning packages stress the fuck out of me. I don’t like minor tasks and I see why people have personal assistants to do things like that.
So, I am learning how to manage my anxiety and not rely on weed or use one day out of the weekend to disconnect completely. I am learning how to manage my stress and one thing that I’ve taken up is now going to the sauna every other day, massages, stretching, and taking daily walks. I don’t know why these things relax me, but they do.
But beyond that, I am learning about green noise. Green noise is sound that is in the center of the frequency spectrum and centers around 500 Hz . Green noise is supposed to represent ambiance that stems from nature. This noise for some reason puts me at ease. It feels like an empty city or a hike in the morning. There is something very still about it and I am using it to help me with my anxiety. Unfortunately, I am used to fatalistic thinking. That means I am always preparing for the worst or for things to go wrong. This sort of thinking is very much reflected in my anxiety, and I have to change it soon.
Song of the Week
My song of the week is Kelela Happy Ending. This song just feels like me and the video is a good time. Those types of parties are what make me love life even more.
Main Topic
The other day I was talking about parenting. I stated quite bluntly that we give parents too much grace and that the statement, “they did the best they could” isn’t a good enough solution or balm to the pain they caused. I reiterated that many of them did not attempt to try nor are they attempting to seek resources now that will help improve their parenting.
This simple tweet wreaked havoc. People were upset with me. They were telling me their life stories. They were preaching against reading parenting books, and it made me realize two things:
1. The first is how we are generally ok with people never preparing for their children. There are so many people out there who have children and swing it. They have children and don’t read about parenting styles, developmental stages, or how to handle their emotional outbursts when their children are tiring or frustrating them.
2. The second is that they aren’t improving or doing the best they can. They don’t do their best to make amends when children express how difficult their childhood was. They aren’t growing and accepting accountability when their adult children point out how bad their childhood was. They are only wreaking havoc in their children’s lives, and the best these children can do is accept that they suffered tremendously, forgive, try to hold their parents accountable, resent them, or separate from them completely.
I highlight these points because I’ve often wondered why so many people accept that suffering is their birthright. Why do they stay in places that hurt them? Why are they trapped in cruelty? And the answer is they were taught.
While we were excusing parents' behavior with phrases like they didn’t know any better, they had no resources, (which if you are in America, we have free public libraries), or for the time they did the best….While we were excusing them! their children were powerless and abused and they had to accept that suffering is their life and the only thing they can do to get through it is endure and forgive.
Parents who don’t grow, who don’t try, who won’t listen when their children say this hurts me create a welcome mat for abusers. Of course, nobody deserves abuse, and nobody is destined for abuse, but when that glaring red flag shows up, the child who has endured does what they know best and that is become powerless and forgive. I mean they did that with their parents, why shouldn’t that with others?
People believe that suffering is their birthright because for a long time it was. Their whole childhood was suffering and so they expect their adulthood to be the same. They not only expect it, but they also welcome it, they choose it, they know it, they love it, they take care of it, and they become friends with it because that is what they know and what they know is what their parents taught them in words and actions.
Why should society continue to protect this group and give them grace when they destroy children? Why should we be as forgiving as we are when they teach children that they deserve pain? Why should we take it easy on them? We do children a disservice when we lie or placate parents about their aberrant behavior.
Parents as a group need to know that their best was not good enough. Not in the hopes that they will be perfect, but in the hopes that they will stop teaching their children in words and actions that they are supposed to suffer. Children's first taste of cruelty should not be from their parents, and yet there are more children with this story than not.
Suffering is not your birthright abused child. Suffering isn’t what you are supposed to have. It is not supposed to be most of your life. You do not own suffering, so you do not hold onto it as tight as you do. You can let it go and fester in the person who gave it to you. You can create a hard no and never deal with suffering again because peace is yours to have.
Peace is yours to have because you exist. That’s it. You deserve it because you are here breathing air and if you have a hard time believing this. And you think you are supposed to earn this, think about your suffering. You did nothing to deserve suffering and yet you got it and you accepted it for what it was. Why can’t that same logic be applied to peace? Why can’t you do nothing, receive it, and accept it for what it is? You accepted one why can’t you accept the other?
Your suffering has been prolonged because you have accepted that it is yours. Do yourself a favor and let it go, remove it from your life, and remind yourself that this isn’t life! Pain is not life, you may go through pain from time to time, but it isn’t supposed to be most of your life.
And on that note, you take care!