The fight against becoming bitter.

Sometimes it is so hard to fight against the bitterness that tries to creep in.  I am aware that it is a choice I make and I make it every single day.  I do not want bitterness to destroy my inner peace. I deserve to move toward my future free of the burden of bitterness. 

What keeps me focused on not allowing this to overtake my life, is acknowledging that this is what estranging adult children do.  They become stuck in their anger and grudges and bitterness. Remaining stuck in that negativity serves no purpose but it is what prevents them from healing their inner wounds and hence their relationships with parents prepared to open their hearts to a repentant adult offspring.   

Bitterness is what stops them from resolving their personal issues and it prevents them from moving forward toward restoring relationship they have damaged in their anger.  They become entrenched in this rut of negativity and because they are stuck they continue to fuel their own anger towards their parents.  In essence, they have lost their way for harmonious family living because bitterness has frozen their hearts.

I acknowledge that I have been rejected, wounded and hurt.  It would be so easy to allow this to bear negative fruit and for me to remain embittered by the events in my life. 

And yet, even when hurting, I am clearly aware that I do not want to become like those who feel justified in hurting me through estrangement.  I do not want to get trapped with the feelings of negativity that is nurtured in a bitter cold and unforgiving heart. To become stuck in anger is my greatest fear.

Striving to be a better more forgiving more noble hearted person is what keeps me centered in my true self; the self that I know to be kind, loving, compassionate and giving. 

My fear is that my grief will bend and twist me into being the kind of person that my estranged daughter has become.  She is perpetually stuck with her anger towards me. She has become a person without pity or compassion or empathy towards any who do not agree with her stance.  She is stuck in waiting for / wanting me to solve her problems by absolving her of and protecting her from the consequences of choices she has made.

Every day I pray to find the grace not to walk that path that might lead me to become so entrenched in un-forgivingness that I become comfortable in hanging on to my anger to fuel in me a grudge, and filled with a need to inflict reciprocal pain. 

I will focus on letting go and setting my heart free to pursue the best future that I can, given the circumstances that I have been allotted to me .

Every day I will focus on staying true to the kind hearted caring person that I am.  

Every day I strive to:

• To constantly find a way to keep forgiveness alive. 
• To feel empathy for the sad place she has created for herself and her family, both those involved in her life and those cast out from her life. 
• To have enough compassion for her human condition, which is to make mistakes
• To leave room in my heart for possible atonement and reconciliation regardless of how small that possibility may be.

Every day as I process my grief and heal, I remind myself that I do not want to lose those very characteristics that are at the core of who I am regardless of what has been done to me.  The choice is mine and I will honour that choice by choosing to do whatever it takes to not become bitter. Instead I will focus on becoming better. 

Renate Dundys Marrello 

2015 – 04 – 28

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