My inner sociopath
It’s Mother’s Day... and doesn’t that conjure up a lot of images and feelings. I’m sitting in the sage green kitchen of the terrace house we live in, looking out the French doors to the courtyard. Over the baskets of clean washing I can see my colourful whirligig happily spinning. It must be breezy today. My whirligig is spiked into a pot where I have unsuccessfully tried to grow many herbs. Next to the whirligig pot is my 9 year olds pot in which she has grown chives and other herbs over the last 18 months. The chives are still alive. My thumb is brown, hers green.
The courtyard brings so much to mind. As far as inner city courtyards go, it’s a medium size courtyard. Ours is run over with native violets (which I love) and dead leaves from the neglected avocado tree. Compared to our northern beaches quarter-acre-block backyard, it’s tiny! It’s a matter of perspective. Like my life. I could say I have had a horrific childhood liberally littered with abuse and neglect. Or I could say that my soul has been thoroughly tested and I am stronger and wiser for it and this makes me the good therapist that I am. As Padraig O Touma would say in a podcast I half listened to, it helps to hold your story soothingly and with compassion rather than regret and self-criticism.
The inner critic. That sociopath within that has been able to thrive in the absence of kindness and understanding and even explanation. Maybe if someone had said,’it wasn’t your fault’ I might have had a less voracious inner voice, gobbling up feelings of abandonment and confusion and terror and turning them into razors that lacerate my soul.
Well.... I have been calming this frightened childish sociopath with self-compassion. After years and years of therapy I have been able to see the compassion in my therapist for that little girl that was me. And as a direct result, almost instantaneously, I felt compassion towards her too. Over time I have come to hold my story in a soothing way and with compassion and even respect. So that on a Sunday.... today... I can peacefully sit and watch my whirligig. And this simple little piece of clever ingenuity and plastic brings me so much comfort and happiness.
