Hey there, it's Melissa Brunetti, and welcome to the
Mind Your Own Karma Podcast. Hey there, karma crew.
Thanks for joining me for another episode of Mind Your
Own, Karma. The Adoption Chronicles.
Today is a solo episode short but sweet, and it's a little
thing that I'm calling a PSAA, a Public Service adoptee
announcement. This is your friendly fellow
adoptee making some observations and wondering if you've seen the
same things happening. I don't know if there's an
eclipse coming. I don't know if it's because the
weather's been crazy weird here in California.
Mercury's and retrograde Venus took a hike somewhere.
I don't know what is going on in adoptee land, but have you
noticed that tensions have been kind of high and other adoptee
individuals are lashing out at other adoptee individuals and
there's just been kind of a lot of bickering and triggering and
anger floating around. I have to admit I myself have
been feeling a little unsettled and I haven't quite put my
finger on why, so I'm not really sure what's going on.
Like I said, maybe it's just me, but I have seen an increase in
heightened sensitivity on the adoptee sites and in observing
these things, I just had a few things come to mind that I
wanted to share with you today. You know, adoptee land is huge
and we are all on our own separate journeys, although a
lot of times we have a lot in common.
But at the same time, we have all experienced adoption in
different ways in how we were raised, in different things that
have happened to us over time that have maybe caused us to
lose our authenticity a little by little along the way.
So many things have shaped us into what we are in this moment
right now, and it's so important for us to validate other
adoptees and their experiences, even if it wasn't something that
we experienced. I have said this before and I
will say it again, it does not matter if you agree or not.
All you have to do is hold space for that other person and maybe
just say, wow, you know, that wasn't my experience, so I can't
really relate. But man, I'm sorry you feel that
way. How hard is that to do instead
of reacting and making a hateful comment about you're wrong,
that's not the way it is. And inflicting your own opinion
on somebody else's story. I have had many guests on my
show and I don't agree with everyone's opinions on things,
but that doesn't matter. I'm there to validate them and
hold space for them so that they can tell their story in the way
that they experienced it. One example is the book The
Primal Wound by Nancy Barrier, and there's a lot of adoptees
that really do not like her number one, because she's giving
her opinion as an adoptive parent and a lot of adoptees get
triggered just hearing the word adoptive parent.
Now, I've told you the story that my birth mother gave me the
book The Primal Wound to begin with when I was about 20-3 years
old when I met her. Soon after I met her and I read
the book and I was so angry that she gave me that book because I
didn't feel like any of it applied to me.
And how dare she give me a book about my feelings and how I
should be feeling and how other adoptees feel.
And that's probably how I feel. When she didn't know me from
Adam, I was very defensive, very angry, very triggered, and I
don't even remember if I finished the book back then.
I threw it in the trash. No way.
That's not me. I don't know what you're talking
about. This is garbage.
Now, looking back, why did that trigger me so much?
One of the ways it triggered me was it made me super
uncomfortable because we weren't supposed to talk about these
things out loud, let alone in a book that anybody could read.
And another way it triggered me is something I just mentioned
was it made me feel like my birth mother felt like she knew
me and I was like, you don't know me at all, lady.
And lastly, the things that were mentioned in that book, those
weren't me. I wasn't traumatized by being
adopted. Adoption is great.
What are you talking about? I'm not one of these walking
wounded people that you are discussing in this book.
No, that's not me. So I slam dunked Nancy Barrier's
book in the garbage and that was that.
I ignored these triggers that were actually treasures to me,
and I didn't stop to think about why it triggered me so badly.
And maybe if I would have stopped back then at 23 years
old, I wouldn't have half the body pain I have in my body from
carrying trauma for another 15 years.
Probably longer than that, because I still have a ton of
body pain and I'm still working through my trauma.
I've stuffed it for so long that it's caused me physical pain.
And it's just over the last 15 years that I've started to look
inside myself 1st and discover why I react the way I do.
And when I came out of the fog, I didn't know that I was coming
out of the fog. I hadn't heard that term until
about a year and a half ago. All I knew was that I had to
find myself my true self, my authenticity.
I had to be me. I had gifts to give the world I
deserved, to be happy. I want to fulfill the purpose
that I was put here on this earth to do.
Let me tell you, it isn't the most fun thing to look in the
mirror and look at yourself and take responsibility for where
you're at in life. It's not fun.
It's so much easier to point fingers at everyone else around
you that it wasn't fair. It just wasn't fair.
And you know what? It probably wasn't fair.
And I'm so sorry. But this is the fact.
The fact is, healing happens when you acknowledge without
judgment the parts of yourself that you would rather ignore.
We all have parts of us that we want to ignore.
Every single one of us. But until we look at those parts
and figure out why they're so angry at us, whether it's
because we have hid them because we had to to survive, or maybe
these parts were put away in the shadows because it was easier
living day by day without them. But when these parts that you
have hidden away are truly a part of you, then a piece of you
is missing. So acknowledge those parts.
Now, those parts of you that are hidden behind the armor because
someone told you not to be that way or reacted in a negative
manner when you did that thing that you do.
There's this ancient Chinese proverb that says he who blames
others has a long way to go on his journey.
He who blames himself is halfway there.
He who blames no one has arrived.
There's no room for blame here in the healing process, and I
know that's hard for a lot of people to hear that blame has no
place in the healing process. Because adoptee, I know you have
been through a lot and sometimes it was at the hands of someone
else, and that is so hard to release, so hard.
But it's either release it or relive it.
We repeat what we don't repair and the warning signal keeps
getting louder and louder and louder.
It's like that warning light in the car.
You could ignore that light and just keep on driving.
You could do that. We do it all the time every day
and all of a sudden maybe start hearing and knocking or
squeaking or a noise, but we ignore that because the car
still goes and it gets me where I'm going and it still drives
the same. It's fine.
So we keep on driving down the road, the lights still on, the
knocking continues, and suddenly you find yourself on the side of
the road. Maybe there's smoke coming out
of the hood. Maybe you blew a tire because
you didn't pay attention to that light telling you that you
needed to air up your tires. Maybe you ignored that warning
light, telling you that your brake light was out and you got
pulled over by the police and now you have a ticket.
But these lost little parts that we hid along the way, these
little pieces of our authenticity, they tap us on the
shoulder and say, hey, you forgot about me back here.
I was hidden because you had to. Which was fine.
I totally understand. But now I'm ready to come out
now. I'm ready to be a part of you
again. It's safe now, but we just keep
ignoring the little tap and then it becomes a little shake on the
shoulder and we just keep going until maybe it becomes this huge
baseball bat that just hits us over the head.
At that point, we can't ignore it anymore.
You all know I was there. I felt like I was dying and I
still didn't want to stop and look.
I didn't want to stop and look at the light.
I didn't want to look at the warning light.
I didn't want to look in the mirror.
I didn't want to figure out what was hidden, what needed to be
done. It could be painful.
I was scared. It was the unknown.
Who knows what was going to be uncovered.
But until I was sick and tired of being sick and tired and sad
and miserable and unhappy and just hating life, it was sink or
swim baby. And I decided to swim.
And The funny thing is that I discovered in looking at these
small parts of me was that yes, it may have hurt looking and
digging these things up for a short time, but it was freeing
me from long term suffering. And that long term suffering is
like a slow death, the death of you and who you are.
The pain sometimes has to be greater than the fear.
When you finally decide that I can't take it anymore, the pain
is too great. I am ready to face my fears.
And you're going to find that some of those fears were
validated when you uncover them. And some of those fears are like
turning your bedroom light on as a kid when you thought you saw
the boogeyman and you realized that it was no big deal.
Pretty soon the uncovering becomes an addiction because it
feels so good. You just want to have more.
You want to have more of yourself and you just want to
keep releasing and integrating things back to you that are
authentically you. You just want more.
And the great outcome of becoming more yourself and more
authentic is you allow other people to do the same and you
aren't triggered as much as you used to be.
You will notice that. Have you ever seen someone, or
have you had someone in your life that gets annoyed about
something that other people do, but the person complaining does
the exact same thing? That's because that annoyance
that triggers that person is something that they don't like
about themselves, but they're not willing to look inwards at
it. But they can see it in other
people and they don't even realize they're doing it.
And it's clear as day to other people around this person.
And don't you want to just say that sometimes and just say you
do the same thing? But that probably wouldn't go
over very well. Now what it but that kind of
brings me back around to Nancy Verrier's book The Primal Wound
and what's triggered me. I think the first thing I said
was that we aren't supposed to say those things.
You can't say those things that she said in that book We're not
allowed to. And why was that triggering?
I had to look at myself and realize that the anger was
coming from me, not feeling like I had permission to say how I
felt about adoption at all. I didn't know I could have
permission to have feelings about it.
I didn't know I could voice an opinion, and I was envious of
Nancy Verrier. This woman was saying these
things that were supposed to be secret, that we weren't supposed
to say out loud, and not only that, the things she was saying.
I didn't want to admit those things might be me, that I could
be that person in the book, that I could have this primal wound.
It sounded horrible. I didn't want to be that person.
I didn't even want to think that I could be that person.
Which brings me to being triggered by my birth mother for
even giving me the book and being so bold as to think that
she knew me. Why did that make me angry?
Is it because I was angry that she knew something that maybe I
didn't? That she knew me better than I
knew myself. That this stranger that was
biologically linked to me knew a secret about me that I wasn't
ready to look at or examine. And I definitely wasn't ready at
23. And I wasn't ready until
probably two years ago, when I repurchased the book and read it
again and was able to discern what I owned and what I didn't
own, what rang true for me in that book and what didn't.
I had to come out of the fog. I had to look in the mirror.
I had to reexamine everything about my life and stand on my
own 2 feet, releasing all of these people that I blamed for
so long, And only then could I look at that book and digest it
in a way that was helpful. I took what I needed and I left
what I didn't. And let me say a quick word
about releasing people. When I say release, I don't mean
forgive. I think forgive has kind of a
sour taste in your mouth, right when you feel like you've been
wronged and you feel like if you forgive this person that you're
giving them a get out of jail free card.
And I totally get those feelings and I validate that.
But when I say release, I don't mean forgive not asking you to
forget what happened. I'm asking you to release
yourself from the pain, to release yourself from the
bitterness of that anger prison. You're not saying what happened
was OK, but you're saying it's OK to move on and be happy.
Releasing means I'm going to stop drinking the poison and
hoping the other person dies, because that's just not working
for me. I'm telling you, it's time to
live a life that you love and let everyone else do the same.
You know, I had an SMGI client this week that realized this
exact same thing. She realized that being happy
and letting go of her anger wasn't saying that it didn't
happen. And how freeing is that to
realize you can be happy and live a life that you love and
still that doesn't negate what happened to you.
Now let me be clear. I'm not saying that letting go
of anger is easy, because I know it's not.
But here's just a little food for thought and just listen to
what I have to say. Sometimes we cling to anger
because we are scared that once that anger and hate is gone,
that we will be forced to deal with the pain.
But once we do that and start looking at the pain and dealing
with the pain, that is where freedom and power are.
Freedom and power are in the healing process.
So let's flip the script on our triggers and let's look at our
triggers as treasures. Treasures to look for and dig up
and discover and be curious about instead of reacting.
If you know me, you know I love quotes and I have this quote on
my wall and it's from someone unknown.
And it says the more you hide your feelings, the more they
show. The more you deny your feelings,
the more they grow. So, so true.
So I'm asking the adoptee community to come together and
to stop hurting one another. There is enough space for all of
us. There's enough space for all of
our stories. There's enough space for all of
our viewpoints and beliefs, and there's definitely enough space
for love, love, understanding, and validation.
I respect your opinion and I hope you respect mine.
That is it for my PS:. A, A Today.
I hope I gave you some food for thought.
And as always, take what you need and leave what you don't.
And always remember to mind your own karma.
I'll see you next time.