Accepting Estrangement

Accepting does not necessarily mean “liking,” “enjoying,” or “condoning.”
I can accept what is – and be determined to evolve from there.
It is not acceptance but denial that leaves me stuck.
~Nathaniel Branden, American Psychologist

It took most of my 14 years of estrangement to reach a place of accepting the loss of my entire family of origin. It is difficult to mourn the loss of the living.

No matter the condition of our family soil, when we become cut-off, our roots are severed from the garden of our origin.

Although the pain of estrangement did lessen with time, it was not easy to gauge any healing progress. On a scale from 1 to 10, my initial agony was certainly a 10. A few years later, I didn’t recognize that my hurt had diminished to a 6 and so on. My awareness was simply that I was still in pain, and I wanted the ache to go away completely. Sometimes the anguish did go away, and then I’d hear of my exclusion at a family event, or some words of judgment from a bystander. My wounds would grip me all over again and I’d wonder, “Will this pain ever go away?”

For many years, I worked at healing and filling the void where my family used to be. All the while, the lingering hope of reconciliation remained.

I’d wake up each morning to a feeling of on-going rejection and I had to learn to somehow live with the pain.

Sometimes, no matter how much we may desire peaceful resolution – reconciliation doesn’t appear on the horizon. We have no power over the emotional progress, healing, or choices of our family members. We can only control our half of the relationship and perform our own emotional work.

I found support to help me accept the reality of estrangement; to continue to heal from my abuse; to focus solely on myself, and to move on to live the best life possible.

Accepting what is – as what is - afforded me the opportunity to free myself from the bondage of the past, and fully experience the present.

The irony for me was, after healing sufficiently to accept estrangement, I did reconcile with my family. In an odd way, no longer needing my family left me in a stronger position to explore the possibility of reuniting. All of the love, acceptance, acknowledgment, and help with healing I used to yearn for from them, I had received from other people and from myself.