On the Trail Again

Tags

adoptee, Adoptee Recovery, adoptive parents, anger, birthparents, Empowerment, Hiking, Injury, Santa Fe National Forest

As an adult adoptee, I’ve learned that inward healing leads to outward recovery. Along the way, I found that the obstacles in my path cause regression. Whenever life presents a new crisis, I’m thrown off balance. Because of last Fall’s serious injury, I experienced not only a physical but an emotional setback… a “pre-adoption recovery” state of mind.

After all four of my parents died, I found that looking into the past helped me move into the future.

Balance ~ that’s what I lost eleven months ago, when a hiking injury threw me totally out of commission https://tinyurl.com/yb2ruz3k. Months of physical therapy and healing techniques such as acupuncture, Feldenkrais, water aerobics, strength classes at the gym, stationary cycling and neighborhood walks helped lessen the pain from a compression fracture. However, until I faced the main culprit – anger – I would not really get better.

Why anger? I fell during a hike, something that could happen to anyone in difficult terrain. My anger was mainly aimed at myself. For taking my eyes off the tricky uphill path. For a disastrous moment of inattentiveness. For not taking an easier hike, which half of my fellow hikers had opted for on that September 22nd of 2017. My anger was about the injury itself – a compression fracture that would take months to heal and would lead to related lumbar and joint issues.

Anger is a terrible thing. Unless one deals with it, it corrodes. It can seem there is no bottom to the Canyon of Despondency and that one can never escape from this negative emotion. Until I admitted that unresolved issues about adoption were the root of my unhappiness, I was doomed to be under the cloud of angry, hurtful emotions. Only when I looked the demons in the eye could I begin to recover.
I had to admit my sadness that I did not grow up in a biologically related family
Only after meeting my biological parents, (who were not “parent material”) did I fully realize how lucky I was to have been adopted. After five years of being shuffled about in foster care, I landed in a forever home. Adoption adds so much to a child’s life: parents who chose her (or him), security and stability, a room of ones own. But it also takes away: blood ties, growing up with people who share your DNA, a family tree that is connected to you. As a baby, you, the adopted one, resided for nine months in your mother’s womb; you were connected at a primal level.

When I was adopted at age five, which I describe in The Goodbye Baby-Adoption Diaries – I was afraid to ask questions. Instead, I grew up longing to know where I came from, why I was relinquished. Years later, I felt I’d answered the questions and silenced the demons. With my injury, however, the old anger crept back in. Only when I acknowledged my anger and worked to release it did I start to mend. I forgave everything and everybody, including myself. Last week I ended my 11-month layoff. from hiking. With my neighbor Joalie, I hiked up the Tesuque Trail in Santa Fe National Forest to a beautiful lookout point. Because I’d cleaned out my feelings of anger and resentment, the physical knots in my back left me. Being out of pain and back in touch with nature was an incredible reward.
What I learned from my injury and long, slow recovery was the importance of releasing anger. Perhaps it took the injury to make the lesson sink in. I can recommend the following. Do not take a fall, but instead spend time with your inner self to discover who you really are. YOU are worth it!

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Join Elaine on alternate Mondays for reflections on adoption and life. Guest bloggers with adoption-related stories are invited to inquire. If you’ve ever had an injury that served up a life lesson, we’d like to hear your story.

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How to Achieve a Happiness Breakthrough

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adoptee, Adoption recovery, Attitude adjustment, Authenticity, Empowerment, Happiness, Resolutions, Transformation

There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world. -Robert Louis Stevenson

Throughout three years of blogging I’ve touted the benefits of working through post-adoption hangups. OK, so adoptees have deep-seated challenges to deal with, issues that will never completely vanish but need to be tamed, subdued and controlled. Enough already! Having grown weary of these “issues,” I’ve set a new goal for the rest of 2017: ADOPTING HAPPINESS.

I’ve been greatly helped in this quest by Claire Cook’s new book, Shine On~How to Grow Awesome Instead of Old. This volume appeared in my life at the perfect time. As I embark upon this last part of the year, I’m armed with inspiration and optimism, thanks to Shine On. Unlike so many “self-help” books I’ve read and long forgotten, this charming volume will stay with me. Far more than a book, it offers a concept—a refreshing new “flip the script” approach. Claire Cook took me on her journey, sharing ups and downs, challenges I related to. The brevity of the chapters, the delightful surprises (recipes, lists to be made, beauty tips), good advice, and a friendly, confidential tone all made the reading sheer delight. Shine On was like a visit with a dear friend who had only my best interests at heart!

Google “happiness” articles and you’ll find a tsunami of lists, formulas, and “foolproof” methods for achieving happiness. These suggestions invariably include such advice as practicing gratitude, expressing emotions, and giving up on perfection. Fine, sensible ideas, and do-able. Claire Cook’s book is unique in that it helps the reader craft a personal list of top five happiness breakthrough resolutions.

Here are my five:
Write every day (this is important, as I’ve just started a new novel).
Have some fun.
Refresh wardrobe – not with buying new stuff but using the old with more flair. Eliminate the duds.
Take time daily to read. This relates to #2 on the list, as one of my most fun activities is escaping into a good book.
Return to playing bridge. I grew up with this card game but have grown rusty. Established a foursome; we plan to play weekly.

YOUR TURN: What are your top five?

________    ________    _________    __________    _______

Read Claire Cook’s book to learn specifics about the list of five. But until you do, just go for it, make your own manifesto.

As Sarah Ban Breathnach puts it in Simple Abundance, “Be courageous. Ask yourself: what is it I need to make me happy? The deeply personal answers to this vital question will be different for each of us. Trust the loving wisdom of your heart.”

Join Elaine every other Monday ~ for reflections on Adoption and Life

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Adoptee’s Poetry Monday

Tags

adoptee, Adoption Month, Amelia Island, Atlantic Ocean, Attitude adjustment, Empowerment, Florida, Friendship, national adoption month, Searching

Note from Elaine: Just remembered that November is National Adoption Month! When I was adopted at the tender age of five, I adjusted to a whole

Seashells remind me of simple pleasures

new paradigm. A load of baggage came with that. My personal silver lining might have been “adaptation” and “resourcefulness.” (I’ve been told that these are some of my best traits.) Like many, I am striving to give the recent election results a positive interpretation. This reflection (by Rabbi Rachel Barenblat) was sent to me by dear friend Joalie, one of the smartest women I know. I’m passing it on to you, dear readers, in the hope it will help you as much as it did me.

A PRAYER AFTER THE ELECTION

Today mourning and celebration commingle.
Jubilation and heartache are juxtaposed
In neighborhoods where lawns proclaimed
Support for different candidates, on Facebook walls
And Twitter streams where clashing viewpoints meet.

Grant us awareness of each others’ hopes and fears
Even across the great divides of red state and blue state,
Urban and rural. Open us to each others’ needs.
Purify our hearts so that those who rejoice do not gloat
And those who grieve do not despair.

Strengthen our ability to be kind to one another
And to ourselves. Awaken in us the yearning
To build a more perfect union. Let us roll up our sleeves
Whether today we feel exultation or sorrow, and together
Shape a nation of welcome and compassion.

Let ours be a land where no one need fear abuse
Or retribution, where every diversity is celebrated,
Where those who are most vulnerable are protected.
May bigotry and violence vanish like smoke.
May compassion prevail from sea to shining sea.

By Rabbi Rachel Barenblat

 

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Join Elaine on alternate Mondays for reflections about adoption, hiking, and life. I’d love your comments. Include your email if you’d like to continue a dialogue. Thank you for reading my blog!

Visiting the ocean: Fernandina/Amelia Island/Florida

The Double Whammy

Tags

Abandonment issues, adoption, Divorce, Empowerment, Rehabilitation, Resiliance, Self-acceptance

I have abandonment issues.

My birth mother had to give me up when I was five years old. I landed in a

Death Valley, California
symbolizes my feelings-around being adopted and divorced.

wonderful adoptive family, but my adoptee status was never discussed. The time: right after WWII, and closed adoptions were the rule. My college professor Dad and my schoolteacher Mom decided that it was best not to talk about the circumstances of my first few years. I had memories enough to know that the foster care situation in which they found me was grim. You might say that I was born again, but I paid a price. I grew up feeling that I had to be perfect or that I would be sent back. Never mind reality; I imagined that I had to pretend to be the “real” daughter.

Outwardly, I was an exemplary daughter, but inwardly, I feared being abandoned. Fast forward to adulthood. The feelings returned after my husband of 15 years and I went our separate ways. Even though it has been over three decades since my divorce, I still feel the sting of splitting up.

Am I over the divorce? In most ways, yes. Does it still hurt? Definitely. When I feel happy and successful, my abandonment fears are in remission. However, at other times, I feel that life has served me a double whammy. Twice trusting, twice abandoned.

For the past few years, I’ve focused on adoption recovery. For the most part, I enjoy a sense of progress in my adoptee’s journey toward wholeness. Some days, however, I feel like Sysiphys, the character in Greek mythology who pushes a massive boulder uphill, reaching the top by sundown but the very next morning starting again at the bottom and pushing uphill all over again.

As I talk with friends about challenges they are facing, I realize that I am not alone. One does not have to be a divorcee or “recovering adoptee” to find life full of problems to be overcome and conundrums that seem to have no end. And while I am blessed to have wonderful and compassionate friends who are never too busy to listen, the best solution I’ve found is to be my own best friend.

Having said that, I offer five ways to nurture and appreciate yourself:

1. Let the past be the past. Do not hold grudges against yourself.
   2. Remember, when troubles seem to be ganging up against you, that “Mama said there’d be days like this.”
   3. Be true to YOU. As far as your self-definition is concerned, be an island. Quit comparing yourself unfavorably to others. Jealously isn’t called the “green-eyed monster” for nothing.
   4. Work on fine-tuning your sense of humor. Learn to laugh at yourself.
   5. Remember that YOU are not your thoughts.

Combined, adoption and divorce are potentially lethal. In fighting the abandonment trap, I’ve decided to not let either throw me off course. Life is like a river. We can either enjoy the journey, rowing gently down the stream, or we can let our emotions control our thoughts, feeling despair, a vague dissatisfaction and lack of contentment. One very powerful way to row gently down the stream is to treat yourself as you would a dear, cherished friend.

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Based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA, Elaine Pinkerton is the author of seven books, including The Goodbye Baby, From Calcutta with Love, Beast of Bengal and Santa Fe Blogger. Today’s blog was originally published under the title “Adopted, Divorced and the Fear of Abandonment” in The Divorce Magazine.co.uk.