Diary of an Intuitive - Blog 8 - "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree"

I miss my mom.  I miss her dearly.  What do I miss about her?  I miss all the things that a mother can give to her child.  I miss the long hugs at nighttime before bed.  I miss the kisses on the cheek.  I miss her fingers stroking through my hair.  I miss the sound of her voice in just everyday conversations.  I miss the look in her eyes when she would be surprised by something special I would do or say.  I miss being able to secretly rummage through her closet and try on her clothes, shoes, and jewelry.  I miss the smell of her hair and the closeness of her skin when we used to read books together on the couch.  I miss the times when she would take me ‘back to school’ clothes shopping.  These are only some of the things that I miss about my mom.  Despite her short life on this Earth, she impacted my life in many ways.  Many of the reasons why I do the things that I do in my own petty little ways are because of what I learned from my mom growing up.  For instance, it is important for me to always have lots of vegetables at the dinner table for everyone to eat.  My mother was a Sicilian Italian.  So lots of yummy vegetables were feasted on regularly with lots of olive oil, pine nuts, parsley, and garlic, mmmmm….yum!  I can smell the garlic and taste the melody of flavors in my mouth right now.  For this reason, I feel it is necessary to have at least two or more vegetables at our dinners in my home daily.  My mother loved to doodle and draw.   Whenever she was on the phone she always had a pen and piece of paper to doodle on no matter how long she was occupied.  Most of the time they were backs of envelopes that were lying around from the daily mail.  Everywhere there was a phone in our home, back then cordless phones did not exist, you could find envelopes with black ink doodles and a plethora of pens.  To this day, I take doodling seriously.  Whenever I am in need of quiet time or thoughtful contemplation you will find me doodling in a journal using a mixture of words and whimsical pen tip creations full of curves, angles, scribbles, and any type of figure that keeps me from thinking too much.  I do my best creating when I allow my hands to go and my mind to rest.  I think my mom felt the same way while on the phone. 

I have inherited some not so wonderful traits from my mother as well. For instance, I used to have an internal drive to be most critical of those closest to me.  I called my judgmental friend, Judy.  Judy used to come out often in my home.  I would always have a comment on how things could be done better or how somebody shouldn’t be doing this or shouldn’t be doing that.  Acceptance rarely turned her compassionate head for a very long time.  Judy Judgment was most critical upon myself.  My hair was never perfect, my body was always needing to be worked on, my thoughts were never Buddhist enough, and I never accomplished enough throughout my days.  Of course, since I judged myself I would always secretly bring out Judy in the presence of others.  It wasn’t until  I began working on myself and loving myself, as well as having a patient husband who would point this out to me time and time again, that I began to get to the root of why I felt this way and where it came from.  My mom was Queen of the Judy Judgmentalists that lurk throughout the Earth.  She was constantly correcting my dad for his choices, telling me what I did right or wrong, and then judging the service we received in a restaurant or the clerk at the shopping center counter.  As it seemed, there wasn’t enough things done right in my mom’s world and she let everyone know about it.  Where did she get this?  Well, it was passed down from generation to generation.  My mother’s side of the family is inheritantly judgmental.  Always seeing the bad and how things could have and should have been done differently.  Her mom was like this and her dad was like this.  It has been a trait that I have had to remove many layers of in order to realize that this was something I learned to do as I watched my mother do all of this as a child.  It is amazing what we soak up as children and how these ideas shape how we see the world.  Today I catch myself in the process as it is happening…Judy Judgment yearns to peak her head around the corner and add her opinions, I feel her icky presence, then I gently remind myself that I do not share this crown any longer,  as she withers away, grows smaller and smaller,  never to be seen again.  Kind of like the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz who melts away after Dorothy stumbles upon her weakness to water.  Ironically, our dark side’s weakness is awareness! 

There are many other trademarks that I learned from my mom.  Many are light filled as well.  My mother’s ability to know something before it was going to happen or be able to finish someone’s sentence.  She could just piece things together for people.  Through deeper questioning and simple discussions she could always see for others what they could not see for themselves.  (Maybe that is why she doodled so much while she was on the phone???) She could help them make the best choices by just sensing the proper path.  This is something I definitely received from my mom.  This may also have been why she could be so judgmental.  If you can sense or know the path of light for someone and they choose not to take it, it may become extremely frustrating.  Unless you are able to embrace the idea that we all have choices and lessons to learn in this ‘Earth school’ and that we all need to make these choices for ourselves.   One runs the risk of becoming extremely judgmental if you can see the highest path for others and they decide not to take it.  Now, that is a lesson in itself! 

My point is that we learn from our parents when we are young no matter what kind of upbringing we receive.  Whether they were there for you or not and how they were there for you, can be a tree full of ripe and juicy reasons why we make our choices the way we do as adults today.  There is simple truth to the phrase, “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” Whether it is something that we inherited that may be perceived as ‘good’ or perceived as ‘bad’ it is still something that we are challenged to ask ourselves why we make the choices we make and why we do the things that we do, especially if we are faced with turmoil in our life.  Often it is because we are unconsciously repeating the patterns of our parents or treating ourselves unconsciously in the way that we were treated as children.  When a client comes to me and is in turmoil about a current situation in their life it is often rooted back to childhood lessons learned that we unconsciously put in our childhood toolbox.  Whether it was a helpful tool or a tool that is not appropriate for the job it is always important to look at the tools in the toolbox and see why we use them.  This almost always gives us the answers to what is currently going on in our lives today.  Through heightened awareness we are able to stop ourselves in the moment of repeating the same patterns over again, reflect on what we have learned, and choose a different tool that many of us have forgotten about; The voice of spirit.  We have an internal voice innately connected to Source.  It is our light filled self that is not tainted by external forces but rather tuned into our spirit.  It has the ability to bring awareness to each and every moment and help us make new choices that would bring the highest outcome to each situation.  When we peel back all the layers we get to live an authentic life.  For you, for me, for anybody it will all be different.  An authentic life is authentically yours, no one else’s.  You get to choose what fills your toolbox and which tool would be the perfect fit for your desired outcome. 

Peace.