Blog is part of the Whole Communities Newsletter “All Black Everything”
Very recently, as I was helping my elderly mother through a bodily waste situation, she told me to “shut the hell up. At that moment, I identified the outburst as a pattern from her past behavior of verbal abuse. was immediately triggered to go into soul repair and asked my mother to apologize to me. I know this would be very difficult for most people—even more reason for soul repair.
To my surprise, without any fallout, she replied, “I’m sorry.” I feel this affirmed for me that people know what they are doing to you when they do it, even if they don’t intend to harm you.
When I was finished cleaning her, my mother said: “I know you hate this–I know you do, I know you do, I know you do,” repeating herself in her cognitive condition of stage 2-3 Dementia.
To my surprise, I replied, “Mommy, I want to help you because I love you.”
Wow! Where did that come from?
She replied, “I love you too.”
There is a saying that goes: “I am not the sum of my past, but the potential of my future.”
Still, I dwelled in this place, the place of “being the sum of my past,” even though I was given gleams of who I truly am and what I authentically bring to the table in all of my relations.
It was not until I was brought back to my past, by way of having my presence of caretaking for my mom during her illness, that old the past feelings, pain, and emotions of my childhood surfaced in a big way. I was the elephant in the room, the rooms of myself.
Suddenly, I stood with only two choices before me. One was to numb, stuff, and ignore my anger, pain, and feelings of unfairness and mistreatment, and the other was to look at them, feel them, and face them as they ran parallel to the source of my existence, my first relationship, my mother.
It’s true what they say: children blame their parent(s) for everything they go through, good and bad. But there comes a time, a day when every child must grow into an adult, become responsible for their lives, and harness the potential that was inherently bestowed upon them.
I’m speaking of putting the emotions of pain and anger in the rearview mirror by tapping into your own courageous heart, carrying yourself through your life with your potential in the windshield, and rediscovering your pleasure and purpose. Once my soul identified and could speak to the habits and patterns of my own doing and that of others, I had to decide that my next step was action.
I also realized that my expression, the art of articulating a course of correction for my own patterns, came forward through ‘self-talk.’ I tell myself, “You are OK.” Sometimes, I call my own name and say, “Corinthia, you are OK.” As for others, I’m learning to speak my truth despite the discomfort and vulnerability in telling another person my truth, as well as the untaught behavior of simply asking the other person to apologize when they mishandle me. My call this setting a boundary. Setting boundaries means saying aloud to another, “It’s not OK, nor will I tolerate the thing.”
These days, I bear witness to my anger and pain towards my mother, her flaws, and my childhood. In that moment, I was able to respond to my mother’s verbal abuse with pure compassion. I reached toward my potential versus the pain in my rearview mirror.
Let me take a moment to reflect on what I had to overcome to move myself through the road of anger to the destination of compassion: the fear of the self-perceived limitations of ‘what if’; learning to trust my feelings and heed my intuition; witnessing my imperfections and practicing the art of speaking my truth through the lens of truth-telling; and finally vulnerability and risking it all in the name of self-compassion.
Compassion has taught me that the heart has temperature melting points. It’s one thing to consciously decide to become more compassionate, which is the willingness to become compassionate. Then, there is the physical transmutation of the heart reaching its temperature melting point organically when compassion becomes you. This is when I’ve found that compassion does not need conscious thought, rhyme, reason, a timeline, or circumstance. It just is because it was gained and obtained on a cellular and heart level.
Now, I truly see others from a compassionate perspective and not an angry heart. Yet, above all, I see my lessons and my growth. Growth and self-improvement are invaluable, my dear Beloveds. May we walk the road often.
Beyond the stones, CORINTHIA PEOPLES is a warrior against the cycles of financial struggle, standing with families as a life insurance broker who understands the deep significance of Black life. She is challenging the GoFundMe and fish fry culture, offering tangible solutions to secure dignified farewells in times of loss.
