license to love excerpt

7/30/2019 License to Love Excerpt

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Emma Mildon

+3465407520

[email protected]

www.licensetolove.co

License to Love

By Emma Mildon

Computer Word Count: 61,000

Thank you to Julie Clayton, Editor, Randy

Peyser, CEO, Author One Stop
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


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The book for anyone in life feeling unloved,

incapable of love, or unqualified to give it.

Everyone deserves the presence of love in their

life.

For my two mothers: Margaret and Shalagh.

Thank you both for being a loving, supportive

friend that only a mother could be. I am so grateful

to have you as my mothers.


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INTRODUCTION

If you have a gun, you need a license to shoot it.

If you have a car, you need a license to drive it. We all

have hearts, some more reckless than othersand yet there

is no license to love.

We can break as many hearts and shatter as many

lives as we want, without having to stand charge. With

some of my past love life blows, if you had put my ex-

lovers in front of me in a line-up and handed me a gun, I

dont know whether I would have pointed the gun at them,

at myself, or just shot frustrated holes into the wall.

The mother, father, lovers, and friendship

relationships in our life each contribute to and deplete

from our hearts supply of love. What we learn from what

is lost is the key to unfolding the truth within each of

us: the real person we were born into this world to be,

back when our heart battery was fully charged.

It is a scary moment when you find yourself tilting

your head sideways and looking at your parents in a

different light. That moment of realization when it dawns

on you that your parents may not have all the answers

about life you initially thought they did. When the

everything happens for a reason and the what did we

learn? parental pearls stop comforting your new

awareness of reality. Their quick-fix band-aid advice no

longer heals the deeper niggling queries you have about

the meaning of life and your purpose.

Its possible too that your parents have just bluffed


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their way through parenthood; after all, theres no

license for parenting either. This is when it really

dawns on you: you are on your own.

No one likes outgrowing their parents and finding

theyre alone on lifes path. And hows this for an

ironic twist: just when you become capable of guiding

yourself, understanding yourself, and trusting yourself,

you will discover youve come full circle.

This is the moment when you are tilting your head the

same way you tilted your head at your parents those years

earlier, but now you are looking down at your newborn.

You are no longer alonebut now you are the one guiding.

This is the moment when you are realizing that you will

probably repeat the very pieces of advice you received

from your parents, and that your children will inevitably

be smarter than you and will one day, in turn, tilt their

head at you. They will learn, know, and understand a

world you have barely touched.

Lifes journey is full of unique experiences, each

giving us the opportunity to teach others from what we

have learned. Sometimes it is not about telling the tale

of heartache, loss, success, or griefor merely repeating

what has been ingrained from our upbringingsometimes it

is the stories about coping, motivation, love, and

determination that make the best teaching lessons for

those we love. Such lessons can, ultimately, break the

loveless cycle plaguing generations of relationships and

help reteach how to love selflessly again.

This book outlines the ways we can harness our inner

intuition and use the events that have impacted, molded,

and affected us in life to help others in their owncircumstances, and to spread love and inspiration to


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those we care about.

My personal experiences have been stripped naked

within these pages, both for your reading pleasure and so

that you can understand how I used my mistakes and

lessons in love and life to become more in tune with my

intuition, spirituality, and beliefs surrounding love. In

other words, how I learned about my license to love

something we are each innately qualified to claim.

I often scratch my head wondering why my life seems

more like an American Hollywood blockbuster film than I

would have liked. From adoption to losing my adoptive

mother as a teenager, many heartbreaks, and family

dynamics of polar opposites, it was as though the

universe had put a monkey, a bottle of whiskey, and wax

strips into a room together and hoped things would go

smoothly.

So, think of me as someone you can relate to on somelevel, laugh with me at my misfortunes, relate to my

mascara-stained cries on the pillow, and most importantly

open yourself to believe that if even my hard-cased

stubborn little heart can learn to give, receive, and

experience love, then yours has a shot too.

Relate my stories to your love stories and interlink

your lessons with mineand use these combined

realizations to open your heart. If your heart is already

open, you may develop skills to help others open theirs

too. Youll find my license to love message enhanced with

quotes from other women who throughout time have also

been brave enough to speak from the heart.

There is no degree or certificate awarded for

learning how to open your heart and be more lovingbut I


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can guarantee you will feel as though you have a license

to love after reading this book.

I invite you to join me on this journey by adding a

new element of love into yourrelationships and life,

knowing that everyone can benefit from more love, and

that your open-heartedness will spill out into the world

and help move us all toward a more integral society of

heart, body, mind, and spirit.


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~ 1 ~

THE PAPERWORK

Paperwork! Few of us enjoy it. But we need to file,

organize, and archive our experiences in order to know

how they have affected us. I am not asking you to

document the time you got bullied when you were twelve,

or write a report on moments of enlightenment. I am

asking you to dust off your mental baggage, pull

everything out of your gunnysack, and investigate your

life. What warm experiences, hauntings, or sentimental

scars make up who you are today and how have you let them

define you?

As for myself, I dont need to rummage too deeply to

see why I have issues with abandonment. My hang-ups can

easily be traced back to the day of my conception!

Conceived by accident, growing in the womb of a very

worried teenage girl, and upon arrival in this world

being quickly adopted out, imprinted me with a fear of

being abandoned, which would lurk around the corner of

every key relationship and friendship I would have

throughout my life. It is amazing how adoption can define

you.

I remember my adoptive mother Margaret and I were in

a busy bookstore one afternoon when she giggled and told

me about my favourite childhood book.

Emma, she said, smirking and flicking through the


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childrens book The Hungry Caterpillar, while most

children would have picked this book up for a bedtime

story do you know what you picked every night?

I was suspicious of her expression and hoping she was

going to say Cinderella or some other classical

fairytale, but I knew from the way she was telling the

storylike a comediennes opening punch linethat it was

going to have a good twist, so I opted for safe silence

and a curious shrug, a typical Im a teen and I dont

care response.

Your book of choice was, Why Was I Adopted? she

said, biting the bottom of her lip with a big grin and

hoping my reaction would be laughter.

The silence held a brief awkwardness before we both

dissolved into a fit of laughter. My mother and I had a

very open, understanding, and humorous relationshipwe

would often laugh at the most inappropriate things.

She kept on flicking through other childrens story

books, all brightly decorated like sugary cupcakes.

You were so funny, she continued. It didnt matter

how hard I tried to suggest other books, every night

four-year-old Emma would always ask for the same book.

She chortled and patted my shoulder.

I often think back to this conversation and wonder

why I wanted to read that book over and over when I was

so young. My parents had always been open with me about

my adoption; I had a sister who was also adopted from

another family, and as a topic adoption was always

something that was accepted, discussed, and in the open,

never hushed or ignored as it is in some families.


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It wasnt until I zoomed out and took a birds eye

view on this memory while asking myself what four-year-

old Emma was seeking, that I began to unearth some truths

about why this particular book was so important to me.

I visualized myself in my pink, frilled, single bed,

pointing to my book of choice and wriggling into my

mothers embrace as she opened it and began reading

"You were adopted not because your parents didnt

love you but because they wanted the best for you"

It is amazing how this sentence has stuck with me,

and once I processed this memory, I realized why. It is

the first point of my trying to understand my place in

the family and understand the meaning of love.

To some degree it has haunted me. As a child I must

have thought, Hold on! Youre telling me that even if

someone loves me they may give me away and just walk off?

Boy life is tough! You can imagine how a four year old

might easily think this.

When taking care of your paperwork and excavating

any buried memories, it is important to not dig for the

life-changing, earth-shattering events in your life, but

for the things you clung to, that you remember for some

reasonthe moments that have stayed with you. This could

be a story, a song, a game, a friend, a conversation,

something you learned to do, or something you used to

love doing. Take that memory, walk yourself back through

it, and see if there is a hidden message in that memory.

There could well be a good reason why you have carried

that memory with you for all of these years, and

something meaningful that you can unearth about how you

manage your life and loves.


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Depending on the what works best for you, find a way

to discuss these memories, write them in a journal, talk

them over with a friend or life coach, make a scrapbook

of images or photos, or jot down the memory and then make

a list of the feelings associated with it and how the

memory impacts you. You may surprise yourself with what

you can uncover just by awakening your childhood

memories. Your inner child will be waiting for you.

You may remember something you used to like doing

when you were younger, something you were passionate

about that might have been your lifes purpose, but

instead you decided to follow the flock and do something

deemed to be more responsible or lucrative. Rather than

following your natural course and doing what felt right

in your heart, doing something that brought you joy and

made you feel good, you yielded to outside expectations.

In retrospect, I certainly can raise my hand and

admit, Oops, wrong degree, wrong career! When I was

younger I use to love writing short stories and keeping a

journal, a scribbled memory I can clearly see in my

childhood. Instead of following that passion I went on to

become a doctora Spin Doctor, that is, doing Public

Relations. Only now have I come 360 degrees back to my

roots.

Which makes me tap my pen and wonder why, out of all

the days of my childhood, out of all the moments spent

watching cartoons, picking my nose, or jumping on

trampolines are my writing memories so vivid? It could

well be that I was born to write: retracing my childhood

memories and love for writing has helped to open up my

heart and allowed me to be here with you today.


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One of the most defining aspects of childhood is the

role we played in our family and in relation to the

character of our parents: the way they taught us love,

affection, and communication in our earliest years gives

us the first glimpse of understanding our foundational

attitudes about love. And once you have that foundation

in sight, it becomes a lot easier to piece together the

rest of your upbringing, helping you to better understand

where and how your views on love have sprouted.

I remember once when I was waiting for a flight at

the airport. I was in a great mood, especially since my

day had been super! I grinned at the strangers sitting in

the neighbouring seats, trying to spread my good mood

like an affectionate virus and make someone elses day a

bit better.

I watched as a young mom and her three children

walked up to a nearby gate. This woman was a packhorse!

She had two big baby bags under each arm. She held a

disgruntled baby who was tightly tucked between her elbow

and her hip with all its limbs kicking and grabbing, a

wild-eyed grubby toddler who was running circles around

her ankles, and another little boy who might have been

six, standing still and silent with a big smile on his

face and a sign that said, Welcome home Dad.

I was mesmerized by the commotion: the circus-like

antics of the children and the dishevelled mother trying

to keep tabs on them all. So too were the strangers I had

smiled at earlier, who were peering over their newspapers

at the chaos along with me.

When the father arrived to the bedlam the kids each

took turns having a peaceful time out moment to hug him


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and then in an instant the anarchy resumed. The father

went straight into disciplining the three energetic

souls, saying, Dont touch thatsshh, and even the

ever-so-powerful sound of a parents Unh-unh, which all

children know translates to touch it and die.

Watching them I was overwhelmed with loneliness, and

before I realized it, tears were streaming down my

cheeks. Then I was shocked by how upset I had become, and

so quickly, after just feeling on top of the world.

I spent my entire plane trip reflecting on my

reaction to that family. Was I upset because no one was

at the other end of my flight to welcome me? Or was it a

fertility clock in me ticking in self-destruction, my

ovaries warning me that if I did not sort out my

repetitive habit of derailing relationships then I would

never get a family like them? Since I was still in my

mid-twenties I had plenty of fertility time, so what was

it?

What it was, in fact, was me wishing my family had

been like that: the children all playing together,

hugging, tumbling, punching, and the parents kissing and

huggingI loved the chaos! I loved the closeness. And I

was sad that I didnt feel close enough to my family to

have been like that with them. It made me realize how

sterile and awkward my upbringing had been at times

especially with my father and sister. Yet, how amongst

that clumsy home my mother and I were so close, like the

family I had been watching.

This lack of closeness growing up, and more

importantly lack of loving chaos left me questioning my

ability to take part in chaos later in life. In the girly


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chats where we all lovingly groom each other talking

about boys, or the parties where we all drunkenly joke

and hug each other, I always found my thoughts ticking

awayquestioning myself about how to act.

Actually, before our family got its first dose of

chaos I had a very normal family in some respects. A

white collar father, who was quite traditional and

reserved; a sister who was the opposite of mebut that is

essentially why we got along, and a mother who was my

best friend. I guess, in hindsight, when you mixed all

our personalities together it was a pretty good balance

overall. But like anything that is balanced, when you

take something away, it tips.

THE LOVE ONLY A MOTHER CAN GIVE

I had a very open relationship with my adoptive

mother. We would chatter about stress, my birth mother,

sex, and lifeall topics high on the priority list of any

teenage girl. She was always honest and uplifting to talk

with and as a parent seemed very qualified. Her life

experiences had built her into someone with a great deal

of empathy, understanding, and patience, all qualities

that are vital in raising children. I was testing at

timesto be frank, I was a brat when I was a teenager!

Or, A royal cow! as my mother would call me.

Margaret was a strong, independent, bubbly character

and a great role model for me. She spent a lot of her

time bringing me down to earth, clutching at my ankles

and asking me to get real and be realistic about life,

making me recognize the reality of situations and

supporting me as I grew into a woman until she needed


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the support herself.

When I was fifteen and she was fifty she was told

about a monster she had inside of her: Cancer. The next

few years would see me grow up and hand back a lot of the

nurturing and mothering Margaret had so selflessly given

mea healing act in itself, and something that would bind

us together and change the direction of my life forever.

It was very quick to snap the brat out of me.

At the peak of reining my selfish kingdom, otherwise

known as teenagehood, my world had been turned upside

down. The one person I could always rely on was being

taken away from me. There was no fixing her, there was

only time to share each moment, and it was during this

period I was able to break down my egocentric traits and

learn to live with a sense of empathy for those suffering

around me.

I learned that the world no longer revolved aroundme! I learned to accept life as a journey, understanding

that people would come and go, life had its lessons,

beginnings, and endings, and most importantly that

everything has its place in the world.

I did not, however, accept the loss of love by the

people who abandoned me, and the love taken away from

me through adoption and death. This loss would disturb me

in my relationships for most of my early adulthood.

The key lesson I had to learn as a result of

Margarets illness was to understand how different people

show their love in different ways. And to accept their

ways of loving, rather than wish for something different

just because their love didnt match my expectations.

Which is something I later discovered that many other


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people struggle with: accepting that everyone loves

differently. This never became apparent to me until our

family dynamics had been kicked off balance by her death.

Illness is a funny thing; it brings out masked

personalities within a family, and we each react uniquely

when our hearts ache. In our family we had the doer, the

ignorer, the stonewaller, and the emotional wreck. As a

teenager these divergent reactions frustrated me. Here I

was, the baby of the family, looking up at these people

who were trying to tame their emotions, people who were

older, and supposedly wiser and more composed then me,

and yet I often felt like the only person in the room who

was collected and open. I felt like an old soul stuck in

a young, pimple-faced body. I could not relate to how

selfish some of the reactions of my family members seemed

and I struggled to understand why people reacted

differently, or in some cases not at all, to sadness and

pain.

It is only now that I can stand far enough back to

reflect on these memories and to fully understand why

different people have different reactions to love, such

as the hurt of losing the loved one, or the fear of

losing the type of love only a mother, a wife, or a

sister could givetheyre each just reactions and actions

of the heart.

My father was the ignorer. He sometimes would not

even want to ask how my mothers day was because he could

predict the negative answer. Like any loved one in such a

situation, it frustrated him that he couldnt find a

solution and make her well again. My mother would often

use me as a sounding board to share how alone she felt

because my father seemed to bury his head in the sand to


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cope with her dying. You could often find him keeping

busy in his garden.

My mother would talk to me about how my fathers

behavior affected her, until she came full circle to

justification, reassuring herself that he acted the way

he did because he cared and because he was hurt about

losing her. From this I learned to accept that sometimes

we just cant face hurt and our fears get on top of us. I

would often be mad with my father for treating her like

this, so listening to Mums reasoning held lessons for me

too, which would prove vital to my ability to understand

and relate to my father once she was gone.

The fact that my father often retreated to the garden

is symbolic in itself. The garden is a place of growth

and nurturing. The idea of being able to pull weeds out

of an overgrown plot represented his desire to pull out

the cancerous weeds growing throughout his wife. Mother

Nature is also a healer; we feel better after sitting on

grass, walking amongst the trees, or planting in the

soil. So, while he might have appeared to be the ignorer,

with more understanding you could see his love through

the hurt and in his garden.

My sister was the stonewaller. A quiet observer, she

would often shrug off emotion: nothing seemed to stick to

her. It was easier for her to cope by washing off the

hurt. In her own way, this was her acceptance I think.

She had accepted the inevitable and so opted for a what

can you do, laid-back reaction to our mothers illness.

Sometimes it was easy to imagine that she just didnt

care. She never seemed overwhelmed by anything or to be

aching about the approaching loss; she always seemed

together, but covering up her feelings was just her way


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of coping.

I, on the other hand, was an emotional riot. Partly

because I was simply a hormonal teenager, and also

because I really live connected to my emotions.

Sometimes, I almost thought I could feel my mothers

pain, I felt so connected with her. I felt emotionally

safe enough around my mother to share how unfair I

thought it all was, starting with not knowing my birth

mother and then being adopted to another mother who now I

would lose. Plus, she was a young woman who had so much

left to give to us all, and to her grandchildren who she

wouldnt meet. I felt ripped-off and I was mad. Watching

her go through sickness made me feel helplessand

helpless to losing love.

My reactions, combined with the other characteristics

of the familys emotions, proved to be an interesting

combination. A recipe for a psychologists field day some

might say! But for me there were founding lessons on love

in how we all heart-throbbed for the same women.

Each of these childhood experiences surrounding

adoption and losing a mother in two ways, separation and

death, were events that helped me to learn, understand,

and finally accept lifes journey. Once I learned to heal

the pain and accept my circumstances, I was capable of

helping others in life experiencing a loss. In the end,

the greatest lesson for me was realizing that when

unconditional love is shared with the people in our lives

it is eternalregardless of how long they stay.


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ROMANTIC LOVE

Not only was my upbringing the foundation of how I

understood and learned to love my family, but it also

shaped my romantic relationships. My friends used to love

hearing about my ridiculous soap opera run-ins with men.

My hairdresser thought I was hilarious. Every six weeks

she would be entertained by a different tale of

destruction with yet another potential soul mate waiting

to fall victim. I would tell her of my latest heartbreak

as though I had watched it all in a movie the night

before, re-enacting the funny scenes and mocking the sad

ones.

In this episode Emma gets cheated on, by a man who

gets a girl pregnant from a one-night stand, which took

place in the glamorous setting of the toilets of a club

where she had originally meet him (true story), I would

recite to the audience of ladies lined up like nesting

hens in their salon seats, rollers in hair and hanging on

to my every word.

At the time I didnt realize why all these heart-

breaking dramas would magnet to me, why I would always

try to reform the guy who had a skull on fire tattooed on

the inside of his arm. But now I realize the lessons I

learned from meeting these charming characters (please

note the sarcasm) are all scars of love that help me

teach others from my experiences: to tune into your

heart, to really appreciate love when you find it, and

how to know when you have found love and how to nurture

ithow to get a license to love.

I wouldnt take back the bad boy, the selfish boy,

the cheater, or any of the men who crossed my path andchiselled off a part of my heart and my sanity, and stole


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away with that piece of my heart to keep in a jar with

them as a memento. Without them I wouldnt be the person

I am today, molded into maturity by these experiences,

however testing and aching they were.

You might be surprised how many gurus, wise guides,

and world healers started their life as an orphan or

adopted into a new life. Children who are just setting

out on lifes path and instantly have to step over a

speed bump.Some of these spiritual advisors will be

familiar to you, all of whom were either orphaned,

fostered, or adopted at a young age: Dr. Wayne Dyer, Bill

Clinton, John Lennon, and Marilyn Monroe for example, are

all people who smoothed over their speed bumps and ended

up bringing people together, teaching the power and

transformational beauty of love.

I am just lucky I have healed enough to now laugh at

each of the chapters of separation Ive experienced: from

being an adopted baby, to losing a mother, to the painful

romantic relationships I have had in my life. Looking

back now on my painful chapters, I often ask myself,

What was I thinking?

So, to all the men who treated my heart like a

piata, I thank you for the lessons in love. And to all

those who loved and left me for whatever reason, I thank

you too.

Back to you now dear readerplease, for your own

sanity, reflect on any reckless lover you have met, think

of the most ridiculous thing they said or did to you, and

smile. Rewind through the relationships in your life, the

people who have helped to define you, and watch as their

faces flash past you. All the people who have graced yourlife and helped you on your path: the good teachers and


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the bad ones! I have a sweet tooth and think it would be

great if when our hearts broke they spilled out with

lollies like a piata. Although, as we know, in the

moment it happens there is nothing sweet about having a

broken heart.

There are no failures, only lessons to be

learned.

Oprah Winfrey


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~2 ~

RULE BOOK

Some of the rules I live my life by:

Treat people how you want to be treated.

Everything happens for a reason.

If you don't have something nice to say, don't say

anything at all.

Judgment is a waste of your time and everyone elses too.

There are always two sides to the story.

Every family and relationship has a set of rules they

live by. Spoken or unspoken, the code is there: the

things that are acceptable among you, the limits to which

you can each be pushed, the humor, and the familial

behavior. Your family may have an obvious secret that no

one ever addresses, like an unspoken no-elephant-in-

this-room family rule, which sidesteps any type of

conflict and masks any issue. You may have an alcoholic,

a control freak, a manipulator, an abuser, a user, a

parent who feels hard done byall of which will impact

your life rule book, and combined with your personality

will help shape your code for life.

The rules are simply what you want them to be. You

need to first decide what rules are important to you

before you can drive your life anywhere, let alone love

your life or others. In other words, cement your ethics

to your life. Make them a part of your relationships and


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day-to-day living, recite them to your loved ones, and

remind yourself of your code whenever you feel you are in

the presence of derailing behavior.

Close your eyes for a second and take yourself back

into your family home. Pick any age that comes to mind,

sit with your family, and meditate on your familys

energy. Imagine yourself being there with them. Sit in

that moment.

Which family member makes you happiest? Who makes you

feel frustrated? Why? What qualities about these symbolic

life characters do you love? What traits have you added

to your life skills satchel and what traits have you

thrown back into your familys shadow? What rules have

you taken from being around these people? What mottos

dont you agree with and why?

When I was younger I used to love visiting my

girlfriends homes. Each friend was so different; we eachcame from a fusion of personalities and upbringings, but

once I could see that person within the element of their

family something about them made more sense.

Among the cross-section of my friends families was

the successful family, who produced a very driven and

focused young woman. There was the down-to-earth farm

family, who raised a settled, peaceful woman. There was

the traditional husband and wife team who raised a woman

inspired to be a domesticated adventure-seeking teacher.

It became quite obvious to see how family plays a major

role in molding who we are and who we do or dont want to

become.

My mothers ethics have become the backbone of my

life. She was just as inquisitive about looking at the


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grey areas of life with me as I was, and we both

understood that life wasnt always black and white. She

was very accepting of the life she lived and the cards

she had been dealt.

She had grown up in a country town with two sisters

and a brother. She was always the plumper girl, which she

was okay with: she still considered herself beautiful and

sexy, and she had accepted that she was never going to be

stick thin. She had overcome adoption herself from the

other side of the fence, having to adopt a son out when

she was younger, and now she was accepting of her fate

with Ovarian Cancer.

Everything happens for a reason Emma, she reassured

me, even if it is for a shit reason! She would say this

lifting her wig up like an Englishman would tip his top

hat.

Even with a scarf on her head and her skin turningMarge Simpson yellow she still had the most radiant,

inspiring smile and uplifting laugh. That is one thing

the cancer never gother sense of humor.

Do you think I am being punished for giving my son

up? she asked me one day, looking toward the floor at

her swollen ankles that only just managed to squeeze into

her once well-worn loose winter slippers. The cancer was

making her swell and bloat like a sponge with water.

I pulled her chin up and looked in her eyes. How can

you think like that when you gave people like me and my

sister a Mother we didnt have? It balances out, Mom.

She smiled at me lovingly. But I could see in her

eyes she wasnt so sure. That was the only time I ever

saw her doubt what the universe had served her.


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Throughout my mums cancer journey I had one rule

with her: cry when we needed to cry and laugh when we

needed to laugh. It was my way of adopting my mothers

ethic of acceptance and the emotions that accompanied it.

We would often begin crying together and then end up

in fits of laughter about the horrible reality. We would

talk about other loved ones who had passed, her mother,

her life, what she was afraid of, what else she wanted to

do in life. As she got heavier into her medication the

discussions became even more humorous.

It became routine for me to jump onto her creased bed

after school, listen to old classic songs from the 60s

and 70s, and talk about her life. The music was like the

background soundtrack for her adventurous tales. I often

would fall asleep snuggled next to her, listening to her

talk to the ceiling as the Moody Blues Knights in White

Satin song lullabied me to sleep and away from the

painful reality.

We would frequently have visitors calling in to see

her. She could normally only handle a cup of coffee and

an hour of chatter before she tired. It took a lot out of

her pretending to be normal, happy, and healthyyou could

see she had to consciously try to stay awake just to

listen, let alone respond. There were signs she was

tired, some obvious, some subtle, and I was very familiar

with them. I became very good at ushering people out.

Would you like a piece of cake? she would

occasionally offer her guests. The guest would

momentarily freeze in bewilderment, their teacup in mid-

air, as my mother held out an empty palm like she was

having tea with the Mad Hatter.


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Oh, I am sorry! shed realize, pulling in her palm

and shaking her head in embarrassment.

She always looked so disappointed in herself after

these Wonderland moments. Morphine really did take her to

some beautiful places, and when she went there I held her

hand and always kept her company. She had spent so many

years trying to bring me down to earth and teaching me to

ground myself, I felt as though I could repay her by

teaching her my talents for chasing dreams.

One evening I walked into her room and placed a bowl

of jello and a tall glass of water with a long straw on

her bedside table. I sat on the edge of her bed, which

stirred her sleep. I stared at the assembly of things she

had started collecting next to her bedframed photos of

the family, tissues, books about cancer, nutrition,

healing, heaven: there was barely room for the cup and

the bowl.

Pass me the microphone please, she said, shocking

me from my curious gaze at her bedside collection.

I stood up to help her readjust her pillows and sit

her up, and I couldn't help letting out a chuckle. I

dont know where you are but it sounds as though it is

much more fun than here.

She giggled to herself, still in a sleepy state, with

no clue about what she had just said or whether she was

dreaming, in a nightmare, or in normal reality.

The irony about sitting with her in this dream state

is that it deepened my reflections about our daily state

of mind. Some of us are awake to reality; others live in

a constant dream world, almost too afraid to wake up to

their spirituality and to their life and the choices


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awaiting them.

There were so many times watching her I just wanted

to cry, but I learned it was better to laugh. Because I

knew if I laughed it would bring a smile to her

disoriented face.

Even after she passed I use to wake up from

nightmares thinking I could hear her calling out for me.

Lying in the dark, my mind would scroll through memories,

the sickness, her deterioration, her final goodbye, and

finally after all the painful thoughts I would rest on a

moment of us laughing together. I am sure my mind tried

to hold onto these few pleasant memories with her because

we had agreed to make it a rule to laugh in acceptance.

DIFFERENT FAMILIES LOVE IN DIFFERENT WAYS

My birth mother Shalagh and I became best friends in

the years following Margarets death. Both of my mothers

had kept in communication my whole life, both women had

experienced the loss of a child through adoption, so they

could relate and connect to each otherresulting in my

being lucky enough to experience two mothers, two very

different relationships, and both very special.

Not only did the two women have adoption in common,

but they ironically also based their life around the same

rule: treat people how you want to be treated.

This rule was essentially teaching me the laws of

karma, the goodness of treating people with love whether

they deserve it or not. By giving to others who need it

more, by doing good things for others, good things will

naturally come to youas long as you dont expect them to


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as your right. That defeats the intention of simply

doing good things because it is the right thing to do and

the best thing to do.

I will always remember Margaret smiling at me and

saying, "When you give beauty, beauty comes back to you."

So naturally, this philosophy is the first line in my

rulebook. In the Western world we live in a frenzy of

hot-headed corporate road rage and online clicks of a

button that allow us to share positive and negative

communication instantly, making it a struggle to always

stay disciplined with our ethicsbut I am sure you can

cut me some slack. We are all guilty of beeping a horn or

winding down our windows and cursing a truck driver or

twowhich doesn't exactly stack up in the treat people

how you want to be treated category, but sometimes life

deserves a sneaky flip of the bird.

This ties in with another rule of mine: there are twosides to every story. Yes, even Bin Laden or George Bush

should be allowed to tell their side of the story without

the mediator standing puffy-chested and arms crossed in

judgment. Everyone is entitled to have their perspective

and say their piece.

Now, I do need to qualify what I just said about non-

judgment. As you will soon find out, judgment is

something that makes me wild, and there was a lot of

judgment in my family, so it needs to be said that I love

my father and sister very much. And while we may have

different ideas on life, different opinions, and see the

world from different angles, it doesn't mean I would

change families for the world and doesn't mean I don't

appreciate their perspective. The lessons, experiences,and love I have received from them is the reason I am the


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person I am todayand I like to think I have turned out

to be a warm, loving, open person so they must have done

an OK job. I believe I was put into this family for a

reason. And although I am a definite blonde-haired black

sheep of the herd, I am grateful for being part of our

clumsy family.

Getting back to the rule of judgment, so many people

let past experiences dictate how they respond to

conflict: this seriously makes me sick. Just the thought

of judgment while writing this rubs me the wrong way. It

is the quickest button you can push to get me red hot and

standing up for the underdog, the person not getting to

have their say because of prejudice. I know that the

reason for this is again rooted in my upbringing

While I was a sneaky, dramatic teenager (like a lot

of us were) after my mothers illness and passing I was a

much more centered, grounded, and sensitive person.

However, any element of emotion from me as seen by my

father or sister (the ignorer and the stonewaller) was

depicted as an overreaction. They kept seeing me as

adolescent Emma, not the corporate career-minded,

complex, and concrete Emma I had grown to be. This

prejudice and judgment made it at times nearly impossible

for me to want to be around either of them, especially

when I was the youngest in the family and was in some

ways more mature than they were in making sense of how

they handled grief. Their narrow-minded projection meant

they never were interested in hearing anyone elses side

of a story, which became rather frustrating for me

personally.

And although frustrating at times, Ive learned that

I can love them just the way they are, and that the


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behavior I perceived as judgmental has taught me so much

about myself, so much about my rule book, and whats

important for me to live my life. And, that in myfamily

everyones voice will be heard and listened to fairly.

There will be no ready-made expectations put on my family

not like the family of a solider I once dated, which you

will be shaking your head at shortly.

My partner, Nick, on the other hand, was brought up

with the family motto, If you dont have something nice

to say then dont say it at all. Which itself is a

lesson in love: if it isnt a nice thing to say it isnt

from the heart, so its in everyones best interest that

you dont say it. His parents were very down-to-earth,

nurturing, and supportive, which has resulted in a very

grounded, sensible, loving man. (No bias here, of

course.)

Your rules can sprout from anywhere you like: the

pieces of advice you took from your parents, a nice

message from a movie, another familys rule you

admire...you can add to the rulebook throughout your

life, and no doubt your partner in life will have their

own set of rules that they carry with them.

My favourite rule I have at the moment is simple:

everything happens for a reason. This a common enough

saying, one which nearly all of us have chirped at some

point of our life, but when you actually use it in a

situation that calls for tolerance, acceptance, or

understanding it is a catalyst for calm. It is also the

perfect way for me to justify my awkward family at times!


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THE MERGER

So how do you merge your familys rulebook and thefoundations you have been brought up with into your

partners rulebook?

Simple. With a lot of compromise and understanding.

Nick and I have a similar morality, which makes our

relationship a lot more free-flowing since most of the

time we expect the same ethical treatment from each

other. But not all of my relationships have had an

ethical backbone. One man in particular pushed me to

define my rulebook very early on in my romantic life.

THE ARMY GUY

The Army guy had a bit of a beer gut, a skull-on-

fire tattooed on his arm, and an overindulgent pride in

his West city heritage; youd think I should have been

wise enough to see the warning signs before he even

opened his mouth to lure me in, but instead I opted for

learning the hard way.

I remember looking around his bedroom walls and

putting my face right up to his army medals to read the

rusty engraving. There was a beautiful picture of him in

a remote village in East Timor, holding a local child

with other children playing and smiling around him. I

proudly grinned.

It must feel good to do this sort of work in the

army, I beamed.


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Nah. My mate handed me the kid and said, Heres a

photo for your grandmother, George, he replied. Then he

tossed his head back and roared with laughter. I looked

out of the corner of my eye at him thinking to myself,

What a public relations nightmarethis guy is a clown.

But at least he was honest about the photo.

Georges family were all intertwined with the army,

it was drilled into them in their upbringing when they

were dressed in camouflage and given GI-Joe toys. The

women of the family stayed at home to raise the children

while the men went to war. I have no problem with

people choosing an Army life; in fact, I admire people

who can love someone enough to let them go and whose love

can withstand that level of stress. It wasnt the army

lifestyle I had the problem with, it was the rulebook

that some soldiers assumed came with their dog tags.

Its the what goes on tour stays on tour mentality

that I struggled to get my head around. The surprising

thing was that George was a noble and honest man who

eventually opened up and was candid with me when he ended

our relationship. Still, this man who was brave enough to

run through bullet-raining deserts came to me with his

tail between his legs, which may have only been to

cleanse his conscience, feeling like he was caught

between a rock and a hard place.

His weapon of choice was email: what a cop out! And

because of his ingrained code of secrecy from childhood,

what goes on tour stays on tour, he only came clean

because he had to, not because it was morally right.

And this was his moment of truth: Emma, I dont know

how to say this, I am sorry it is in an email, I justwant to be able to speak to you so you can hear me


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without getting mad. Before we got together there was a

girl, and I have just heard from her that she is

pregnant. I am so sorry this has happened, I am going to

do everything I can to fix this, but nothing needs to

change between us.

Suckered in by his candor my first thought was, Why

am I not mad at him? Then I started doing the math,

ticking the months off on my fingers. We had been

together for ten months. So it was physically impossible

for someone to have only have just become pregnant if he

was with her more than ten months ago. Plus, now, he

would have a child.

A call would have been great, I emailed back. Can

I put this to youHow can this girl you were with before

you met me be pregnant if we have been together 10

months? Basic math, George. Maybe it will help you to

count your losses. Goodbye.

Turns out one of his bar missions had resulted in a

one-night stand and a pregnancy. He eventually came clean

with me about the details, maybe thinking that a

revolutionary streak of honesty would make me see what a

good man he was. All it did was shine a comic light on

the heart-breaking act of stupidity.

And there it was. A baby to another woman, his family

wanting him to step up and take on the responsibilities

for the child, and all this to digest while hes fighting

a war in the Middle East. Poor George didnt know what to

do.

I knew straight away that I was opting out of the

relationship. Not only because of the cheating and the

inventive lie, but also because I wanted an untangled


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family.

My family already consisted of an adoptive nucleus,

birth parents, half-brothers and sistersit was a mess. I

owed myself a good shot at having a whole, natural,

normal family, and there was no chance I was going to

get it from polygamy.

George hid away in the Middle East for another four

years. I guess he found it easier to live life in a

desert away from modern reality and with little pressure

to face lifes intimate complications. I have heard that

he has since met his daughter and is playing a small but

present part in her life.

How true Daddys words were when he said:

children must look after their own upbringing.

Parents can only give good advice or put them on the

right path, but the final forming of a person's

character lies in their own hands.

Anne Frank


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~ 3 ~

PUTTING THE RULES INTO PRACTISE

My nana once said to me, "Love and magic are very

similar Emma, they both can bring a smile to someones

face but both take a lot of practice." She couldn't be

more right.

Think of how many times you have rolled your eyes,

sighed, or given an exhausted nod to shut a loved one up.

When really, we should practice our rules. Would I like

it if someone did this to me? Is this treating someone

fairly?

Love is an action word, a verb. It doesnt just

happen, and it does take effort. We have to actively

choose to love someone, to offer our love, to express a

loving comment. What a difference it would make if we

each took the time to tell our friends how much we

appreciate them: Hey, I like you, you are warm and

confident and I love spending time with you, we could

say.

How infrequently we do this, even though most of us

would like to give and receive such kindness. The truth

is, we do not have to physically say the words, we can

think it while rubbing our friends arm, we can think it

while smiling at a colleague, we just need to mentally

send love to someone for the message to be received. We

can smile with our eyes and hold someone with our smile:

it just takes practise.

After my mother passed away I looked to my father for


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additional love. I longed for him to be like Margaret,

something he was never going to be, and something I

struggled to accept.

You see, I always had something to say. There was

always something that could be discussed, talked through,

pondered over, but Dad was a man of few words. We were

complete opposites.

His common response to my initial attempts at

conversation was, Okee-dokee.

THE FIRST MAN IN MY LIFE TO LOVE ME

The best teacher for me in practising the rules of

patient engagement is my relationship with my father. It

is only recently that we have found some sort of middle

ground, since my over-opinionated stance on life does not

fit well with his stubborn traditional outlook. In fact,

sparks have flown in the past and it is amazing that we

have any relationship today, since at one time our

relationship almost resembled a magic trickas in, when

the cute bunny vanishes from the magicians hatour

relationship almost went poof!

I am proud to say we managed to crawl our way through

the trenches of opinions and step over our stubborn

views, and it is solely due to that golden rule:

acceptance, with a dash of tolerance. Yes, we all clench

our teeth or roll our eyes at our parents at some time,

and this is normal. This is simply how we grin and bare

it.

Buddhism has wise practises to emulate. When you

allow yourself to calm down and look at someones view


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knuckled grip on the handrest, and the occasional

outburst of Jesus! that he was uncomfortable,

especially when the car made a sharp jolt, bunny hop, or

stall as I fumbled with mastering the clutch and gas

pedal balance.

Alright Emma, I think we have had enough for one

day. My neck has taken all the jolts it can handle and

youre just going to get more frustrated, he said on one

of our driving sessions, and stiffly stepped out of the

car rubbing his neck. We will come back next weekend, he

stated decisively. I looked at the road ahead, still

determined, still gripping the steering wheel. I wanted

to learn how to drive so thats what I was going to do!

Click. My fathers head snapped around just in time

to see the automatic door locks go down. I will never

forget the ghostly look on his face in that moment. I

raised my eyebrows and gave him a mocking look of shock

through the car window and then smugly tried to take off

down the road.

Needless to say, I gave up after a few lurches and

stalls as I struggled unsuccessfully to shift into second

gear. I could see my fathers face in the rear view

mirror and it was red with anger. Giving up, I got out of

the car giggling, but quickly put my head down when I saw

my dad glare down his nose through his glasses at me, his

signature dont push me girl, look.

We got back into the car, both slamming our doors and

with me in the passenger seat this time, and clicked our

seat belts. As he smoothly put the car into gear and

eased us onto the road he said calmly, Another stroke of

genius Emma; you cant rush these things, they takepractise. Very restrained.


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Everything we learn in life is hard to begin with:

walking, talking, driving, love. My relationship with my

father has never been particularly easy. My mother was

always the mediator and so after she passed on we really

did enter a cold warpatiently but barely being tolerant

with each other.

My father and I managed to walk the tightrope of

common ground. There was a bit of tongue-biting, moments

of teeth grinding, and amidst the balancing act came

smiles, laughter, and understanding. I have accepted that

my father and I are two different people, but he is the

man who has loved and raised me, and from his opposite

ideals about love I would learn a lot about myself and

essentially grow into the woman I am today. And even

though we havent always seen eye-to-eye he has been the

best father I could have ever dreamed of; he has taught

me tolerance, acceptance, forgiveness and a new way to

understand and appreciate that love comes in many forms.


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Our egos tell us were the only ones that have any

kind of feelings. Were the only ones with a

relationship. Were the only ones with family. You

know, I think that if you kill a spider, there is a

relationship that youre ruining.

Ellen Degeneres

license to love excerpt

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