Roseleen is my mother’s name, but most people called her Rose, like the beautiful flower. She is on her own now as my father passed a few years back. Since my father’s passing I have noticed much change in my mother: she seems more at peace with herself and the time and space she has now to ‘be’ with herself is something she’s never had before.
My mother has had a hard and difficult life. She raised six children and worked full time. My father stopped working when I was growing up, so my mother went out to work. On top of being the breadwinner, she still did all the cooking, cleaning and shopping; she took it all on. This created an imbalance in the relationship with my father.
How My Mother Coped
My mother had two ‘pleasures’; smoking and alcohol. In the beginning when she started to drink alcohol I am sure this felt like a relief, and something for herself, but as the years went on she grew more and more dependent and before she knew it she was addicted and drank daily.
A few months back I went home to visit her. In the plane, just when it ascended into the air, I got overwhelmed and the tears started to flow. I remember only one thought running through my body and that was:
Take Me Home
I was on my way to Scotland, which is where I was born. But I was thinking of another home, a home I had left a long time ago…
Early next morning, I sat alone drinking tea in my mother’s living room. My mother’s house had changed so much. It was not just the change in the furniture or the lovely warm red colours she had chosen, there was a feeling of cosiness and warmth, which seemed to comfort me. In contrast I remember feeling how cold the house was when I was a child.
Then into my awareness came a beautiful ornamental angel who sat on a table with her long legs dangling down in a very playful way. Her face was beautiful, soft and delicate with rose painted lips. When I looked all around the room I saw many angels, in corners, on the wall, on the window ledge. I knew that most of them, if not all these angels, had been given to my mother.
I don’t know how I knew, but as I looked at these angels I felt a deep knowing that my mother was an angel.
I didn’t see a halo around my mother or some golden light or golden wings. What I did see after removing the outer veils of alcohol, emotions, drama and smoking that she herself had chosen, was a beautiful, tender, sweet, humble and very precious woman with a heart that was pure. This made me wonder if those friends who had given my mother the angels had also known that part of her that I too was just coming to see.
I could see clearly that these veils she chose were to numb herself from feeling:
- how disconnected she was from herself and her body
- the disregard and neglect of herself as a woman
- how she let people walk all over her
- and how hard she pushed her body.
All of this was not who she truly was.
Without the alcohol, there was not one selfish bone in her body: my mother is as precious and delicate as a soft rose petal blowing gently in the wind.
Poisons or Pleasures?
Drinking alcohol and smoking over many years has damaged her health; it shows on her face, on her skin and most of all in her eyes. It also had serious consequences for her life and that of our family’s. Yet she called them her ‘pleasures’, as do many other people. It is a huge trick we play on ourselves, renaming poisons to pleasures. For therein lies the problem, showing how very easily we deceive and fool ourselves so that we do not have to take responsibility for ‘our choices’ and the damage we do to our own bodies.
Smoking and drinking alcohol and the ugly emotions and drama that go with alcohol took my mother away from her true home, her inner heart, where her preciousness, her delicateness and her love resides, always.
On the plane that day, this was the home I was pondering on and felt I too had left this love a long time ago. But as I shared that very precious time with my mother I saw that she too had simply made choices as I had done. This powerful reflection showed to me that:
Love never leaves us, it is we who choose to leave home; the home that rests deep within us all.
I wrote this article about my mother, but the truth is, it could be anyone’s mother, sister, daughter or best friend. When we can see past the outer veils that we as women choose to wear, what is revealed is the beauty and preciousness of what is truly there in another, and with the seeing comes the reflection and the knowing that you are that too – and in truth, we are all that.
Deeply Inspired by the Presentations of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.
By Jacqueline McFadden – Scotland (Published with permission of Roseleen)
Related Reading:
Drinking Alcohol – The True Picture, The True Damage
607 Comments
To really see through another’s behaviour and choices we need to first be able to let go of our own hurts and in this it gives us the space to bring understanding and love to others.
Seeing the inner beauty of another takes away any judgements, comparison and expectations that we have about them.
We see and seek and seek until we give up over the seeming futility of it all and turn to alcohol, drugs or both to soothe, placate and numb ourselves away from the pain which might ever only temporarily subside somewhat. All the while we, each one of us, all of us, carry the answer to all questions, conundrums, difficulties and adversities within us, always and forever and without fail, no breaks, holidays, long service leave or sickies. ever needed or taken.
No matter how much we try to pretend and lie, the consequences of every movement as in this case smoking and drinking show in the body.
Seeing through the veils we have allows an understanding and insight that cannot help but connect us.
Very true Heather. We see what we want to see. For so long I could only find fault in another. I would focus on another’s faults but this is beginning to change. As I choose to see from the connection to myself another in their light I cannot but see and receive the reflection of love in another and this is being brought to the fore from building a loving relationship with self.
We have constant reflections all around us showing the love that we are and where we are not. The science of reflection has been one of and is the greatest opportunity I have experienced to be absolutely honest what will support the next steps in my evolution.
A very precious look at who we truly are and that we always know and can see the true person underneath all the layers of behaviour, that we have adapted to cope with life. It stresses the importance of allowing each other to express and make known what we see in each other, thus freeing us from the superficial way of engaging, and always connect to the truth we feel and see in another.
This is really beautiful to read again. We can see people we know through a lens of hurts and unmet expectations. Once we let these go we see people as they truly are. I love the way you identified that others have been aware of your mothers true nature all along, it shows me how important it is to observe things with fresh eyes no matter how familiar they may seem.
Jacqueline, I notice this happens a lot; “It is a huge trick we play on ourselves, renaming poisons to pleasures. For therein lies the problem, showing how very easily we deceive and fool ourselves so that we do not have to take responsibility for ‘our choices’ and the damage we do to our own bodies.” At home and sometimes at school sweets are called ‘treats’, even though the sugar is harmful to the children’s sensitive bodies and can cause them to be racy and can be damaging to their teeth. Pleasures, treats and rewards feel like a cover up for why we are really consuming and drinking these things that are harmful for our bodies.
I love your last line- that ‘love never leaves us’. When we become so cemented into certain patterns and a certain way of being we can think that it is no longer there, no longer in us, yet it is always there whenever we choose to come back and connect with this.
To understand and accept that no matter where people are and what choices they’ve made there is always that place in them which is untarnished and which they and we can come back to .. we can be at home with us at any time.
There are times when life and the pressures of this world are over bearing and forms of self medication are required , in the case of your mother its alcohol and smoking sadly sometimes this is necessary . For others its can be tv , computers or what ever. But its interesting to understand that the true essence of your mother has now been seen by you and has many times been seen by her friends as shown in the gifts of Angels .
Love never does leave us and this is proven when all of a sudden you connect to a small child, or a stranger in the street and there is this instant opening of the heart and the smile back is very beautiful and confirming of our true nature.
One of the many benefits of being willing to work on our own veils is the ability to see past those of others and hold them in the love that they are whatever the outward behaviours that they may currently be displaying.
Jacqueline, your mother worked full time, ran and took full responsibility for the entire household including 6 kids and a husband – talk about over load! I have no doubt she would have been exhausted, overwhelmed and in complete over-drive trying to keep it together. When you look at it like this you can really understand why people reach for quick fixes – as the alcohol would have given her a sugar hit and numbed the overwhelm at least for a while, and the cigarettes would have given her a time out.
I feel that you nailed the huge lie that we live in this blog Jacqueline with realising the irony about us renaming the ways we poison ourselves as our pleasures. When we are controlled by our spirits which we all are until we learn not to be, we are controlled by a part of us that cares not for the human body and whether it trashes it or not. Our spirits are hugely arrogant because they know that they are immortal.
The absolute beauty of truly seeing another is a great moment in space, even if they are no longer with us physically, that connection and felt confirmation, deepens us and allows us to feel that that depth of love is forever, and absolutely divine.
To come back to ourselves is a touching moment, to open our arms to hold ourselves no matter what. When we do that unconditionally with ourselves, naturally we understand why others do what they do to themselves, we can also accept and see beyond what they have used to protect themselves with. The beauty we see in others, is the beauty we have chosen to live.
We show the world many faces, behaviors and beliefs that hide and we deem protect our tenderness and grace. But protect it does not as we harden and pull away from our tenderness. When we live this way everyone suffers. It is beautiful your Mum found her self and choose to live with what she found to be able to create such a feeling of warmth in her home.
You express so beautifully Jacqueline the power of love, and how no matter what has happened before, love pulls us through ever more stronger and wiser, and more love filled.
We are so innately and deeply precious, our choices may make us externally appear otherwise however no matter what we choose that preciousness of life, that warmth and love is always within us.
It is amazing, crazy actually, that we place so much value of what we do to define who we are, to measure our worth, to be recognised or feel a sense of belonging, yet all the while missing the true value, richness, confirmation, and realness that unfolds from being who we already are and bringing this to life.
The way we abuse our body with substances like alcohol, drugs and nicotine does show on our faces. It is there in the lines, the darkness and the sagging as the body cannot hide how it has been treated.
This blog has bought some deep understanding about my relationship with my mother. This statement bought it home for me ‘But as I shared that very precious time with my mother I saw that she too had simply made choices as I had done’.
I had tears rolling down my face as I read this – I know I had been critical of the choices she had made and yet I was no different to her.
As I visit. her from overseas, I’ve been given this precious opportunity to see her for who she truly is under the thick layer of cultural beliefs she grew up around. I appreciate what you have shared – the timing of reading this blog couldn’t have come at a better time.
Beautiful what you shared Shushila thankyou, for who can put their hand up and say they have not been critical of the choices their parents have made and then to drop that judgement through understanding and grace is very humbling and creates the space for more love to flow.
Jacqueline re-reading this blog has brought me back to memories of someone very dear to me, who never drank or smoked, or swore. A very delicate and tender being who wasn’t strong enough to hold her grace within the world, but never spoke a bad or harsh word about anyone and never did she gossip or talk negatively about others. If someone did, she would listen but never contributed to that conversation. I feel that she too was an Angel who found the world too harsh and could not stay within it.
“Love never leaves us, it is we who choose to leave home; the home that rests deep within us all.” Finding our way home to love and we find the way to meet the equal love in another.
Thank you Jacqueline, beautiful to read this again, as you say the study you made of your mother and the insights you received apply to all human beings. A very powerful gem of wisdom here “Love never leaves us, it is we who choose to leave home; the home that rests deep within us all.” Very true and that door back into the love is always open.
A very beautiful blog to read, one that brought me to tears, thank you Jacqueline, I have a son who drinks very often and this has caused so much pain to himself and his family over the years. Like you with your mother I can now look past the devastating effects of alcohol and see a deeply sensitive beautiful caring man who chooses to dull his pain with alcohol.
Beautiful to come back to this blog again. We see the choices we have all made on our faces, but they are choices and yet underneath that lies our true selves – something we can try to cover over but can never be tarnished.
Jacqueline it touched me how you were able to see your mother as an angel, past all the veils. I too have been able to see my parents and get past many of the hurts I used to carry in relation to them. The understanding I have brought to myself and my choices has rippled out to an understanding of them being equally precious and fragile as me. Its never to late to return ‘home.’
I so appreciate that I was able to meet my own mother, in her latter years, in a sweet tenderness. As we allow our own tenderness to be expressed and we drop the hardness and protection it is easier for others to express this too.
This is such a beautiful blog Jacqueline which clearly shows that it is never too late for us to return home to who we truly are, no matter what our past life’s choices or circumstances were.
I can really relate to how you feel and what you say about your mother Jacqueline
“I didn’t see a halo around my mother or some golden light or golden wings. What I did see after removing the outer veils of alcohol, emotions, drama and smoking that she herself had chosen, was a beautiful, tender, sweet, humble and very precious woman with a heart that was pure.”
I can honestly say this is how I now see my mother, that underneath everything was a very beautiful sensitive person who was not met and resorted to alcohol to dull the pain and misery she was in because she couldn’t cope with the life she had chosen.
When we come to a stage in life when we understand ourselves and our past unloving choices, we have so much more awareness to understand others and is how we can drop the judgement of another, be it family, a friend or a colleague.