How I use time travel to heal

Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

I, like everyone else, have stories I can share in my sleep about the parts of my past that inform who I am today. Mine begins with the story of abandonment that I carried throughout my life, brought on by my dad leaving me in South Korea to come to the States to get his masters degree; my Mom joining him to celebrate his graduation 2 years later, their plans were to travel the States for 6 months before heading back to resume their lives with me. 

Except they stayed, had my sister, and then sent for me 3 years later when I was 5. 

My original narrative was just that they abandoned me. I immigrated to the States to a family I didn’t know; I was told they were mine. Albeit with good intentions (I didn’t know that back then), on Day 1 they swapped out my name for an American one. They also told me that instead of speaking my native language, I was now to speak English at home. To them, I still held the higher expectations of the oldest child, and having gotten no hugs and warm welcome from said parents, they instantly became zeros to my 5-year old self. I rejected them. My dad being as mature as I was back then rejected me back and it just kept going on into adulthood.  

Then one day I realized that mine was an immigrant story, that I’m not alone. I understood the risks and courage to leave friends, family, and career to move to a different country, take jobs as a bus or cab driver with plans to send for their kids, after they’ve settled, to make a better life for their family. My parents were becoming heroes to me. 

Then I saw that my story was different in that all throughout my childhood and young adult life, I was still estranged from my parents, my dad especially. I kept feeling a sense of recurring abandonment by him. I pieced together my parents’ stories and saw that he didn’t come here to make a better life for him and his family; it was just a way to hide: a man in politics, struggling with the corruption he was constantly facing around him, he had to get away. Was he a zero or a hero? 

As I experienced more personal growth I saw that they were doing the best that they could at every moment given the tools they had accessible to them given the times, cultural upbringing, and political experiences. They were following their values, taking risks, and dealing with their own insecurities in a foreign country. They weren’t zeros or heroes. They were simply human. 

I’ve made plenty of mistakes in my past, the consequences of which I have had to live and work through. For sure, I’m not done. We do what we need to in order to “survive,” to protect ourselves from falling apart. They typically work, at least for a window of time, and then that protection  - the wall we’ve built to manage our hurt, anger, and need for safety - ultimately gets in the way of deeper experiences, intimacy, good health, and joy. Because that wall worked once upon a time, we stay attached to it, and we keep justifying its existence. 

It’s when I stopped defending the choices I made that I was able to go back in time openly to see the source of pain from a different perspective afforded to me by now having lived through the age my parents once were. Essentially, this is as good as being able to go back in time, change my story, and therefore my experience of it. I come back to the present moment feeling a little bit more whole.  

So now, instead of saying, this is what happened to me, I’ve learned to say, this is how I experienced it (as a 5 year old). This doesn’t diminish the reality or pain of my past, nor does it give those who hurt me a pass. It gives me a pass to get over it. It allows me to see other truths happening at once, in this case: adult humans working through their stuff, taking risks, making mistakes, working through regret and shame, and trying to raise children at the same time. This puts power in my hands to heal. I’m allowed to get angry about my past; it just no longer sabotages my life. I keep it at a conscious level by reflecting and discussing it with others to take back the power it once held on me. This allows me to upgrade my sense of self. Now, it’s less about my father being malicious or dumb and more so about him being a human who, along with my mom, and despite all of my criticisms about them, raised three AMAZING children. Yes, that’s right. :)  

These corrections I made through time travel moved me from anger and disappointment to compassion and personal power.    

Love, Savitree