Hello, Welcome to fifty plus. I'm James Lotte Junior. I was talking
to someone who's in their fifties, a friend of mine, and we were
talking about pain and how some things stay with you your whole life. There's
some things that are painful, and we're talking about pain. We're talking about
pre age eighteen or pre age twenty before you become an adult. So we're
talking about childhood pain, teenage pain, whatever, that's whatever traumas you went
through. And you're in your fifties, so now you're about thirty years plus
removed from those things, in some cases forty years, forty five years if
I this dependence. But you're over, let's say, over thirty years,
removed, moved physically and just by chronologically by these traumas and and off.
There are things that stick with you. Sometimes you don't even realize you or
you may realize later, where's something you're where, a behavior you're doing today,
where it comes from? And you go, oh, I can leak
it back to my childhood. It's very interesting because my brain tells me,
the smart of my brain tells me, well, you're fifty four years old,
why are you holding onto something that's happened to you when you're five or
ten or fifteen or even twenty or twenty, like, why are you holding
on to that? Why still? Why is it affecting you in such a
strong way still now? Of course, depending on the size of the traumas
the positive, there's all that. Also, did you get help in relation
to that trauma or that experience? That plays apart also of how you feel
about today? Did you reconcile any that stuff? It's like, as ye,
Trauba's could be anything from you know, a rejection of some sort to
an abandonment thing to an actual physical you know, accident or your abused or
you know, like you know, physical abuse like that stuff. Something emotional,
someone says something to you over and over again. You believe it like
anything, right, But the concept in my brain goes, well, you're
an adult now, so you're an adult. They can't hurt you ain or
you don't want them to continue to hurt you because you're still thinking about this,
I mean in my fifties or my sixties. This is about you know,
this is about fifty plus. You're like, I shouldn't it should be
fine, right, I should be okay? You know, life went on,
I should be fine, But it's more complex than that, right.
I feel like a lot of the stuff that is embedded in your brain in
those developmental years becomes becomes part of the fabric of who you are rest your
life, and that you have to work on this stuff to get over it.
And I remember, for me, my father was a major contributor to
my trauma. So my father and I just had so much go on over
the years. It was in my forties when the age thing came in and
I was like, I am the hl for this ship, You're told for
this I'm still letting him control my emotions when I hear his name or when
I run into him, or when he calls me, or well he doesn't
call me like it's like it was like it was getting it was getting on
my nerves and get out of my skin. And I'm like, but I'm
but I was really going by the age that going But I'm in my forties,
like my inter side was saying, grow up, Jays. But of
course I had to get help, and I did at that time. It's
not as easy as to get over and walk it off. You have to
work through it, and you have to walk through it, and so I
did. I walked through a lot of the trauma that I had with James
Senior, and slowly I was able to understand. So I was able to
forgive, and actually I have. I have told him I forgive him,
I forgive me, I forgive those situations like I let him know that I'm
letting it go and that the judgment is leaving now that because with my forgiveness
comes now non judgment you were. I'm accepting you are who you were at
those times it wasn't good for me. And then when you weren't the greatest
father and all that got it. I can't change that fact. You can't
change that fact. You can't make up for it. We have to reconcide
and say you did the best you could at that time. You did what
you going to do at the time, and now life goes on. And
that was the thing. I was like, okay, got it, and
I myself, I'm also an adult, I'm also a parent, so it's
kind of I have. I can almost cycle that through that and go,
Okay, there's some great things that came out of his behavior towards me.
There are some sore things that can me but again, I can't change that
either. I can change it now in terms of how I go forward,
either with him or with my kids or whatever. But I can't change it
up in the past. And you have to and you start to see your
parents as human especially they are human beings or not just my parents. They're
fallible, just like everybody else. So it's just whatever. So I in
my forties, it helped me understand that I don't want to carry this into
my fifties and fifty plus. I didn't want to do that. I was
like, I don't want to carry this with me. That's the last thing
I want to do is carry this burden with me and feeling and heaviness and
no. So I lifted it off me, and literally it's lifted off me.
So I'm in my fifties and my father I don't have a relationship at
all. It's number A though he's somewhere in la somewhere with his family.
But if I ran into him or saw him, I've been adjacent to him,
like recently, we have people in common. I'm fine. I don't
get a pit in my stomach anymore. I don't have this rage of anger.
It's like I could have my own conversation with him and and be okay,
angle see you later, good luck with your life, and want a
business, because I truly have forgiven him and forgiven my everything that's just going
on, and forgiving my mother, forgive myself. Give it a situation,
I'm letting it. I let it go because one of the things that I
realized and even my self go into my fifties, is that he could never
live up to what I think I needed. Let me say that one more
time. My father could not live up to anything that I think or thought
I needed at any given time. He couldn't. I mean, I was
I had high standards, which of course all kids have went high stands here.
I wanted my father to love me and be a good follow to me
and really give me attention, and and I just I wasn't getting it.
But then the expectations I the judgment I had all these years, and the
judgment was mixed in with my anger. There was no way he I mean,
he could say I'm sorry, right and he go okay, he says
he said, I'm sorry, got it, But there's not much you can't
change the past. You just can't. And I always said this the phrase
that Benne Brown said on Over Winfrey Show, forgiveness. The definition of forgiveness
is giving up the hope the past could be any different. And that clicked
with you for me so heavily that I believe with all my heart and soul
she was correct, and that's what I was trying to do. He could
say I'm sorry, he could bathe in hell, water and fire, but
in the end of the day, how he was as a parent is how
I was the parent that I had to live with the rest of my life,
and I didn't want to carry it into my relationships or anything else.
I am shaped by it just naturally. I can do about that. I'm
shaped by it. However, I'll have to let it run my life and
run my stuff. So that's when I got done before my fifties. So
going into my fifties a few years ago, I was like, oh,
that part's lifted off of me. And the same thing I had to do
with my mother is I'm still what I'm working those us out with her,
but I had to kind of forgive her to try to forgive her too,
and I'm still going through. Well, here's the thing I forgive my mother
of the childhood stuff. I actually all that, giver or fine, I
have newer issues here and there that I've had with her over the years that
are something a little different. I'm still working through those. But all this
stuff when I was a kid, and he tid like, that's yeah,
I'm done, Dunsville. Great forgiven whatever it's they were what they could be.
And so in your fifties hopefully, and it's never late too late if
you haven't worked through those childhood pre eighteen years of age stuff, you work
on now because it doesn't go away. It affects you in ways that you
don't know that you do know, and you reactionly get triggered reactions to things.
And I'm just like, just again the age saying, I know age.
I think my number. Everybody says that blah blah. However, Comma,
I like some things are age appropriate or not. Just like, yeah,
got worked that out, got worked it out. Those are my thoughts.
Tell me yours, of course, I always want to hear them.
Fifty plus these are these next few weeks will be just audio only episodes.
I'm gonna try to build the podcast a little harder, a little stronger.
I don't need to me have some on video, but I'm more like,
I like like sharing my thoughts and this was this podcast is turning into just
sharing my thoughts and I'm gonna go from there, So subscribe to the podcast
where you find it. I'm James au Junior.