"You don't have to apologize for being alive Kristi",my Dad would say;I always thought he exaggerated, but he was onto something big. We women collectively operate out of guilt. Our culture is steeped in mother guilt. The advertisers know this; it's their oil field.
I happen to have a bad case of it. That is my personal story and if I start off in the past I will not make inroads to the freedom I sense beyond all that head talk.
Yesterday I realised that what I had said about my marriage did not have a sense of gratitude about it. Guilt is completely eliminated when we feel grateful. When we are immersed in the joy of being a mother there can be no feeling bad. Guilt has its roots in time. When we are fully present and in the now, it cannot exist. Gratitude plants us in reality, in the now.
Last night I missed an exciting game of spotlight in the dark with my kids and three others; seven wonderful beings wanting me to share their excitemment. Instead, overwhelmed with the feeling that I had written something that was not fair to John, who works long and hard in not the best conditions, without his family, I wanted to set the record straight.
Now I have woken with a knowing, this mother guilt is a driving force of the modrrn world and I carry my share of it but from now on I am dropping that hot potato and picking up instead the lighter and more joyful load of gratitude.
P.S. it is interesting that the game last night ended with my daughter Evie seeing something spooky. What comes first the mother spooked and trying to change the past or the children suddenly feeling abandoned and scared?
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