New phone

Margie’s loving children have provided her with a new phone. Her 95th birthday is next week, and we were making plans for our next coffee date when she discovered to her great frustration that she could not get the calendar to show her this year. It was stuck on 2022, and she couldn’t navigate from the calendar to email or text messaging. The new phone is so different from her old phone that it's a huge challenge to use it.  Irritated, she threw the phone into the drawer in her walker and then laughed, “First world problems!”

As usual, we talked about larger issues too. I watched a “webinar” by Lama Rod Owens yesterday, “Exploring Grief and Ancestor Practices.” What I appreciated most was his assertion that it is sometimes difficult for us to receive love “because of the trauma of conditional love.” The trauma of conditional love. Brilliant, I thought.

Margie responded with memories of her mother, whose love was strictly conditional. She mused, “Our parents shape our unconscious beliefs about ourselves. I always undervalue myself, which can be tedious for those who love me. My first reaction is to think someone must be dumb if they think I’m worth something. Then, if I notice I’m reacting that way—and I say IF, because it’s unconscious and automatic—I may pull myself together and say, ‘Oh that old stuff,’ and let it go, returning to listen with attention and gratitude to what’s being said.”

I agreed, nodding enthusiastically, as I have exactly the same neurosis. The result is we push people away, dismiss them, ignore praise and give more credit to criticism. It’s not fair to those who love us.