Parent Hatred Melter

© Beverly Hubble Tauke, Author
Healing Your Family Tree
www.beverlytauke.com
June 9, 2007

BRAIN TEASER #1 From the last round:
See answer below

THE NEUROLOGY OF EMPATHY
Daniel Goleman notes in Emotional Intelligence that early abuse or neglect wires victims to scan for treachery, shifting the neural alarm system into overdrive in an emotional hijacking. Solomon put it more simply: “As a man thinks, so is he.” The good news is that change in thought patterns can produce truly astonishing shifts in internal emotions that drive responses and relationships.
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A renowned Virginia pastor once told me that even after a profound spiritual awakening as a Christian he “hated” his mother for her cruelty throughout his childhood. Then one day he observed his mother’s parents with her.

So vicious were they that he “got it,” instantly. His hatred melted. He saw why she was so clueless about love and about parent-child relations. This revised image of his mother produced an emotional seismic shift, and he was filled with sympathy for his tormentor—herself a victim of emotional brutality. As compassion softened his behavior towards her, she was drawn to his faith and her life was transformed.

Daniel Goleman (Emotional Intelligence) notes that early neglect or abuse sabotages empathy—thus the abused son had a cold heart for his mother. But empathy--a foundation of emotional stability and morality—surged dramatically when jolted by revised mental images of the players on his family stage. Thought change hotwired new emotions which in turn rippled spiritual vitality and relationship healing throughout the family.

Liberation did not come by the minister ignoring or denying ugly skeletons in the family closet. Inner freedom came by confronting his grandparents’ emotional violence, with truth revising his mental image of his mother. Thus the son’s heart became a nurturing and transforming refuge for the parent. Inevitably, such emotional detoxing offers new emotional vitality to multiple relationships – including spouse and children. Trickle up and trickle down “blessing” for the family by “confessing” ancestral error—just as Moses’ promised (Leviticus 26:40-45).

BRAIN TEASER #1: The U.S. President in the #1 brain teaser wasn’t so fortunate:

What U.S. President’s estrangement from his verbally and physically abusive father resulted in refusal to visit his dying father; refusal to attend his father’s funeral; and refusal ever to place a headstone on his father’s grave?

ANSWER: Abraham Lincoln

This answer, of course, raises intriguing questions:

How could a man whose “heart became a fortress for millions of oppressed slaves” (Healing Your Family Tree) reject his dying father’s request to see him?
How did childhood abuse mold Lincoln as a father?
How did abusive Thomas Lincoln infuse a liberator’s mind in son Abe?

Answers reveal both risk and opportunity for the rest of us: Next blog.