Permission to Relax
How we unconsciously seek permission to have our human experience.
Photo by Christian Erfurt on Unsplash
Inspired by and his post about seeking permission.
At what point in life have I felt I had permission to relax? Permission to not care about what others care about or told me to care about. Basically, why did I never feel permission to have boundaries?
Maybe it comes back to poor childhood development. The normalization of shitty schools, shitty parents, and shitty adult egos that look down on children. Something adults lie about, but their actions show what they truly believe. Kids are a burden and not worthy of respect. The basis of love is appreciation, yet we have a culture of doing anything but. Kids aren’t appreciated, and when they are, it's only because they have conformed to an adult's idea of how they should act.
The lack of freedom embeds in the nervous system and many fight this feeling consciously and/or unconsciously, unaware of how they lack the ability to calm themselves. Their nervous system is so damaged by the demands of childhood they cannot intentionally relax. They can only do so through the distraction of drugs, relationships, and/or hobbies, activities they can lose themselves in. Yet they cannot lose themselves in life, because they never had the experience of freedom. The constant judgment they’ve experienced their whole lives keeps them on edge. They’re ignorant to the fact they no longer have to seek permission and can give it to themselves.
And this ignorance kills. Stress on the nervous system begins in childhood and intensifies as one gets older, only you become better at hiding it, ignoring it, and are “free” to choose how to distract yourself from it (if you are unaware of a habit, how much “free” choice is taking place?).
Calling most adults shitty sounds harsh, but it's the function of indoctrination by a shitty society. With selfishness encouraged, what kind of human being results? Certainly not one who seriously wants to benefit their community and is willing to give up resources to do so. Whether in the form of time, money, energy, etc.
Understanding The Big Picture
Shitty is a loaded word and ignorant probably works better. When you stop blaming individuals and notice how many people act in similar ways, you must admit society’s structure encourages unbeneficial beliefs. You begin to see through the lies of placing blame solely on the individual because their ignorance was not grown in a vacuum but embedded within them. Embedded by actors who suffered the same fate due to society’s structure. A structure based on the ignorance that is “win at all costs”, even if you have to hurt yourself and others in the process.
Shitty isn’t the most accurate word when placed on the individual and not society… Maybe idiot works better? Haha I kid, I kid. That type of judgment prevents the open minded compassion needed to understand why poor mental and physical health run rampant.
In the past, I resented adults. The hypocrisy and lack of respect that taught me not to respect or trust myself. The same abuse they suffered simply being recycled onto the next generation. You resent it and them because you’re hurt. It hurts to witness other vulnerable children go through the same thing. Then you open your eyes and take away the specification of age, and realize these so-called adults are just hurt children masquerading as someone choosing their direction. Yet they still seek permission in the same ways they force children to.
People look to satisfy their own ambitions and pass it off as love for their children. But it's not love they feel for their children but responsibility. They do not appreciate their children beyond their ability to force them into the mold they’ve created for them.
Hurt People, Hurt People
My dad was this way, desperate to relieve himself of the emotional work necessary to be there for his wife and children. He was a workaholic who tried to fool himself and others that he worked hard to provide for his family, all the while, he only cared about his advancement in business and the ego massage he received from it. Turns out, while me, my mom, and my sister constantly stressed about money growing up, he had more of it than we could have imagined. It's only after my mother finally decided to divorce him that his lack of transparency has been revealed. His own insecurities led him to portray a false image to the world. But his performance was not convincing. Least of all to those most vulnerable to his lack of love and appreciation, his wife and kids.
I realized at some point, my father must have grown up in a fucked up way, which caused him to fuck his family up as well. I am not giving him excuses, especially when he has been given opportunities to do better and has doubled down on being an insufferable asshole worthy of A Christmas Carol style intervention. But I do seek to understand. To look through and past my own resentment of him, to see how I ultimately resented society and the negative lessons it teaches. Finally moving towards acceptance and realizing there are no mistakes in the flow of time, so some growth is meant to occur based on adverse experiences I and others had as children. And finally to appreciate these experiences for the lessons they’ve brought.
Will We Be Free?
But will we choose to break the cycle? To stop the normalization of physical and emotional violence against not only children, who we can all see need protection, but against humans in general? I want to and believe others want to as well. I believe humanity is in a state of growth when it comes to consciousness and the eradication of ignorance. But who doesn't believe they have permission to break the cycle? To think differently? To act differently? Who is willing to free themselves and free others from the burden of seeking outside validation?