Yesterday someone made me notice the difference in my vibe between last winter and now when I engage myself in discussions about what is happening in my country of origin. It’s true I have lived a hell of a spectrum of emotions and states over the last few months. It’s a freaking journey. Still unpacking some of them and integrating others.
I was born in and grew up until my almost 14 years old in Ukraine. My mother and most of my family still live there. I have relatives in many different parts of the country, including Crimea and Russia. I have the most wonderful spectrum of diverse opinions and sides within my family system on what a hell is going on out there, who is right and who is wrong. Or maybe it doesn’t matter that much, no matter how you look at it, this war makes zero sense to most.
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All 4 of my grant parents were directly affected by the Second World War in their teenage years. Many of my uncles were soldiers that went to Afghanistan, Chechnya, and other similar places in the 80th. In short, there were some fucked-up stories and vibes I grew up with about the war subject. Sometimes, very hard to process for a child. I understand that a bit better now.
Especially the unintegrated part of the generational trauma that our ancestors passed to my sister and me as a mysterious gift to unleash somewhere in the future.
Today, many of my cousins and friends are literally at the war right now. All my family is directly affected by what is happening. My roots are burning in hell. Meaningless to say, the war in Ukraine was a quite hot topic for me over the last few months. I had a very hard time connecting and being able to share with someone and feel safe at the same time. I felt misunderstood. I felt judged. I felt lonely and scared.
No wonder, it had also burned me…hard. It was extremely confusing, painful, and just a WTF-kinda state most of the time. I had no idea how to talk about it. It was hard for me to completely stay present in my body and be connected to my inner world. I wanted to escape. I wanted to hide. I didn’t want to feel the pain.
But I tried. Really hard. Too hard tried.
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Back in February, the first day of the war I received a call from my mother saying that our city was bombarded during the night. I heard the terror in her voice. I felt the deepest sense of fear and powerlessness in my life. I was able to sense her at the same time and it was way too much to feel. It was way too much to process. My system was not ready for this. I had no idea what a fuck I was supposed to do now.
When our conversation ended, I literally collapsed on my kitchen floor. I could not stand up for hours. I yelled. I cried. I did movements and noises I had no idea my body was capable of. I was not thinking clearly, I am not even sure I was thinking. Time and space started to have a different shape and be a very unusual experience for me. I probably passed out too in the process, still not sure what exactly happened.
However, when I finally managed to stand up, the survival/protector self was ready to take on the driver's seat. Full on. No questions asked. The part of me that took the co-pilot seat was the one I call ‘’it’s not about you, it’s about saving the world now. Suck it up!’’. They do quite a spicy duo. Hell of a ride with those 2 in charge.
I have not even realized how deeply asleep I was during that ride…for a while. I did not seek help or support. I completely forgot about my reality and my needs. I had the stuff to do. When I stood up, I directly called my sister and said to her what was up in our hometown and that we need a strategy to deal with that. Fast. To take care of our mother. To move her somewhere. To have a list of siblings to call to make sure they are ok. To do. To think. To have a plan. Act now. To move. To check the news way too often. To panic. And Repeat.
I forgot to feel. I forgot to sense. I forgot to reconnect myself. I forgot to breathe. The big chunk of who I usually define as ‘’me’’ was already gone. The spicy duo was running the show full-on. The couple of weeks that followed was intense on so many different levels. I needed back a full kit of my survival and coping mechanisms. I needed to be in control of myself. But I was failing over and over to do that. My learned strategy and skills were not enough this time. Everything was just falling apart. The boiling water inside of me was under too much pressure, but it was not yet enough to explode.
My mother’s life was more important than my own feelings and sensations about it at that moment. My personal trauma became instantly unimportant and unjustified compared to what was happening with my family. I managed to numb some of it. Because I needed to deal with the ‘’saving the world’’ thing. The guilt and shame I felt to take care of myself, and my own needs were too hard to process and apparently impossible to compute for my brain at that moment. I had no time for that.
Some of that inner charge did come out by moments, mostly in a very raw and incomprehensive way with the set of emotions, thoughts, and behaviors I have never experienced before, and some of it I still don’t understand.
I failed to be mindful of my inner world. I failed to remain present. I failed to ground myself in my body. I was seeing the parts of me and my world shuttering in the pieces in all the different dimensions and I could not do anything to make it stop. At least, that is how it felt back then. My self has fragmented once again. I was between the moments of full control and the complete loss of it.
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This summer my sister and I went to Ukraine. It didn’t happen for 20 years, us being together back home. It was emotional. It was very special for both of us but also it felt weird. The timing was shitty. Well, the country is in actual war. I guess that alone is quite challenging and a bit scary. But it ended up being one of the most eye-opening and empowering experiences, in the end, I believe for both of us.
We went because our mother got sick. Very sick. She was literally losing her mind and control of her physical body. Emotions, well… she has a very hard time sensing or expressing many of those. None could be sure what was up there for her. You know she is one of those cold poker-faced eastern European women by excellence. She is a strong, independent, resilient, proud, and wild woman. She is the warrior. She always was. And it worked out for her perfectly, well until now. I
guess her inner boiler was on fucking fire as well. She also failed to stay present, to open, to see it coming, to let go, and… to breathe with it.
Both of us were vomiting our '‘I can’t take it anymore'' in actually very similar ways. I guess, no surprises on that one. The apple doesn’t fall too far from a tree. We were both losing it. I could relate to what she was going through, and I was able to feel her so profoundly, like never before. This was probably the hardest part for me to be able to sense the intensity and depth of her suffering and despair. I saw her in me, I saw me in her. We were in it, together. Somehow, it gave me hope.
She recovered. Fast. She did it like a pro. She became the queen of her world again. She literally turned that shit around like a freaking magician. In a few days, she was transformed. She was cooking a nice dinner for us, and we were already arguing about all kinds of topics like in old times. She took care of herself. She was back. She was again the powerful and wise woman like we remembered her.
Seeing her strength and inner power literally flabbergasted me. I was mind blown. She proved to me I can do it too; she gave me my faith back. She showed me the path. Since I can remember I always had a very complicated and painful relationship with my mother, mostly because of the shadow part of that amazing power she just showed me. That has flipped my mind around. What I hated the most about my mother (and myself) were just a different side of the same coin, of her truly impressive inner resilience and determination.
Just like that, she showed me why I should maybe consider loving those creepy shadows of mine a bit more and ask myself what the entire deal of that kind of power is. She showed me the bad and the good use of it. She made me understand a bit better. She made me forgive a bit more. She made me accept and reconnect to myself in a more profound way.
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So back to the war. The story of my mother was relevant because, through her experience, I was able to recognize and see those qualities and superpowers in the wider tribe I grew up in. In my family. In my city. In my country and its neighbors. Everyone, I had the chance to meet and exchange during my personal experience.
Resilience, determination, inner power, and strength are actually way too common over there. Seriously, it’s in the blood of those people or something.
Today, I try to remember to contemplate more often the beauty of how the most powerful gifts of my origins are deeply interconnected with the most painful suffering those people went through since the beginning of their history. I can see a bit more clearly now, how what is happening in Ukraine opens so violently so many wounds in people over there and in our global community in general. I can appreciate more what is emerging once you start integrating small pieces of it in a more conscious way.
It made me also reconnect in a more profound way to the deeper wound, to the generational trauma we carry in our hearts and our bodies from our history. I remember the stories; I slowly unpack my ancestry baggage in my own body. There is quite a bit. It’s hard, very hard sometimes.
It’s painful as fuck. It’s confusing too. It takes time. A lot of time.
But I know we have no choice but to deal with it one way or another. We have no choice, but to truly unpack the ugliest depth of it, to breathe with it, to accept it. And to Forgive. Truly.
Otherwise, the survival & savior duo takes over the control and we do some nasty stupid shit that adds up on top of it and just makes it even more painful in the end for all of us and for everyone else around us.
Now, I also know how important it is to not be alone in this. Connecting and sharing what we are going through in a safe space with people we trust is important. I also hope I learned at least a bit about how important it is to take care of ourselves and reconnect with our own feelings and needs before trying to save anyone else.
But I also see how hard it is to do so.
We should not feel guilty or ashamed to seek support and appropriate help when what is happening in the world is triggering some pretty deep unpleasant sensations and emotions in us. The world is crazy, and some pretty intense shit is happening all over space these days. It could feel too much to digest. We often fall asleep when it’s too much. We forget.
We need to help each other to remember and to remind ourselves who we truly are. We need to take care of ourselves and our community. We are all in this together. We have no choice but to accept, forgive, and move on. And, of course, find a way to co-create a peaceful future that makes sense together.
