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February 1, on a long drive from Michigan to Minnesota. The Growing Edge podcast in hand, listening "Hope, even for the past". As if years of grime suddenly fell away, hope for the past reframing what has been fixed in shame, regret and pain, into a lightness of spirit. It is as if I have received the maintenance manual to caring for Harold, and the albatrosses that I have carried have been set down. My soul has been touched, Carrie and Parker, my soul has been touched.

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Ah Harold, This is a very touching post. I'm grateful for the message. It was a powerful podcast for Parker and I. Most of us have burdens we carry, the ones that others placed around our tender shoulders, the ones we picked up for ourselves. I love your "Maintenance manual to caring for Harold." I think compassion, especially self compassion, is one of the most important chapters of that life-giving text. thanks for posting....may we all lay down the burdens that no longer serve. May we all frame our own stories in a way that allows for what was...but embraces a way forward that is lighter and more compassionate.

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Your conversation and the Frost poem reminded me of a time when I was in my 20s. I had decided to go to film school in upper New York state. This was a bold step for me. My mother as well as other members of my family were totally against me following film as a vocation, much less going to a film school hundreds of miles away. My time at the university involved hardships with the school and in relationships, including a marriage and subsequent divorce. After four years, I came back home viewing my time away as a failure, a perspective my family reinforced. They saw this exploit of mine as falling away from the path of Catholic righteousness and into sin. However, over the following years, I reframed this exploit not as a failure but as a triumph, partly because of the hardships. These difficulties enriched my life and continue to do so both in relationships and as a writer. So reframing can be a powerful tool.

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Thank you Michael, This story is so powerful for me. Sometimes it takes awhile to be able to reframe a time period of our lives with perspective and a greater understanding of who we are. I love the poem in this podcast because it gives the reader a sense of grace and encouragement to reframe, to acknowledge what happened, but see it with wiser more compassionate eyes. Others had framed the story of your life in a particular way, one that fit within a narrow world view of what is appropriate and safe for a persons life and livelihood. As a parent I understand a little better the desire to protect my daughter, my longing for her to be safe and secure in an uncertain world. But I also love her enough to want her to be deeply and truly authentic in her life and vocation, I want to love her for the amazing person she is and the gifts she possesses. And as an artist I also know that a call to the creative life is deep and abiding, it lives at the heart of a person. As my friend Parker Palmer says, "True vocation is the thing you cannot, not do." Im grateful you followed your heart. The world needs all the songs and stories we can give it. I'm sorry for the hard parts of the journey that brought you here, that gave you insight and empathy you might not have learned otherwise. thanks again for posting. I always love your posts Michael.

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I struggle with the idea of the first part of Frost's answer in the David Ray poem. I suppose I've learned to accept what has happened in my past because it happened, and I can't change that. But I'm still not sure it will "turn out to have been al right for what it was," for what it was something I could not reconcile for 50 years, until I was told something that changed how I understood what has been the primary formative episode in my life.

When I was five, my parents divorced, and I never saw my father again. Years later, when I asked my mother why he left, she simply said that he could not handle having a family. So I blamed myself for some 50 years. In my 50s, an aunt told me that my mother basically kicked my father out for what my aunt said was an attraction to underage girls. I don't know if that was true, but it made a sense that allowed me to somewhat accept what happened all those years ago.

But there is an anger or perhaps a bit of a resentment that the path of my life was directed and shaped by what seems to have turned out to be a lie. At some level, I understand that my mother did what she thought was best, but I sometimes wonder what direction my life would have taken and how I would have better survived my childhood (a story for another day) if she had told me the truth. The albatross turned out to be very heavy indeed.

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Hi Walt, Thank you for this heartfelt story and experience. I really appreciate the realness and humanness of your experience. It is so hard to process the mistakes that our parent (or others who were significant in our growing up) made that had lasting consequences. As the story unfolds, we learn more than we knew at the time it happened. Maybe that is what Frost meant. Not that the action itself was ok. Your mother made a bad decision that caused you great hurt and harm. I'm grateful you got a more complete story that has helped you reframe the old story not as one of blame and shame, but of being a little kid in the middle of a very grown ups situation of conflict and crisis. Yes, it would have been so much better to have not had that albatros handed to you to carry for so many years. Anger and resentment are totally human responses to something that was unfair and hurtful that happened to you. But what I have found...and that I really like about the poem....is that it doesn't have to stop at anger and resentment, but we can feel it, own it, and process that very human experience.

There are things that I have finally, after a lot of hard inner work (and work with a great therapist) been able to release. I don't have to walk around carrying the blame or shame, but I also don't have to carry the anger and resentment forever either. It takes time...and often deliberate effort to lay down what is limiting. We don't have to say it was that it wasn't harmful or hurtful or that someone we love made a terrible catastrophic mistake. Forgiveness does not mean forgetting, it means releasing what weighs us down. I don't really like the language of "acceptance" because that feels a little passive. I tend to use the word "allowance" because we participate in allowing what was, to be what it was. But then choosing the way we want to live with that experience going forward, with support and self compassion for that little boy, who didn't understand grown up issues and assumed the problem must be him. That little guy deserves so much love and kindness and encouragement to embrace the new story of wholeness and worthiness. I believe we have the capability to give ourselves that kind of love and nurturing and to be a champion for that little person that still lives within us. Thank you agin for your story...im sure others will definitely relate to letting go of an old story and embracing a new one.

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Thank you both 🙏💛

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I loved this. As one who has often struggled with my story, and the past, it cleared up for me the notion that there is any need at all to rewrite that story! It is fine and acceptable right where it is. No excuses, no lies, just the growth we all experience through life as stories unfold.

Thank you so much! ❤️

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Thank you Martie. I like the word "allowance" We participate in allowing what was, to be just what it was. I don't have to say it didn't happen or that it didn't matter. But with self compassion I can move forward, release the burdens that may weigh me down or limit me. yes, I very musch love ... "no excuses, no lies, just the growth we all experience through life as the stories unfold."

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Moments of truth and wisdom I’ll keep. Great hour well spent.

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Feb 6, 2023
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oh Joseph, this is very profound. You didn't have to grow up to become "somebody". You were already true and whole, and somebody of value and worth, from the day you were born. I remember reading some of the writings of Jung about midlife. He talked about how the first half of a persons life is filled with the question "where do I fit in the world". but the second half of a persons life is filled with leaning into the question "where do I fit with my own soul." I remember that shift in myself, and it reframes the story in a way that is life-giving and encourages self compassion and more authentic living. Thanks for posting. I loved your comment.

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