The Trail of Tears - Fear of Making Mistakes

I have had so many fascinating clients recently that it's had to select who to write a post about. Probably the one that touched my heart the most was a Skype client from the mid-West who wanted to investigate her life-long fear of making a mistake or doing something wrong. Although she admitted her parents had high expectations, her upbringing didn't seem to warrant the pervasiveness of these feelings.  

When we entered the lifetime, it gradually became apparent that she was a young Native American boy, about 8 years old, in the American southeast, sometime in the 1800s.  His main responsibility was to look after his younger sister who was about 2.  He loved her dearly, even though there were times when he wished he weren't so tied down and could play more freely with the boys his age, rather than always looking after his sister.

Life changed dramatically when one day white soldiers arrived and demanded that the tribe pack up whatever they could carry, they had to leave where they were living.  Memories of everyone walking despondently along the trail, not even knowing where they are going, driven on for days and days by these cruel men, comes to the client.  Those who cannot keep up were left behind or killed straightaway.

The boy tried to look after his sister as best he could, but at 2 she was not able to keep up and whines and complains.  One of the soldiers became annoyed, and killed her in front of the boy. Understandably distraught, the boy feels an extreme level of guilt, responsible for her death.  "I am the reason I don't have a sister!" he exclaims.  He too dies along the trail soon thereafter, still carrying the sense that his mistake in keeping her quiet caused his sister's death.

In processing this information, we assured the prior personality that there truly was nothing he could have done to change the situation or to save his sister.  And indeed, the task he had been assigned was an impossible one.  His parents had let both himself and his sister down.   The client recognized this little sister as her current daughter now, and there was much comfort in knowing that the two of them were together again.

As I talked with the client, I referred to the Trail of Tears, the name that has been given to the inhumane forced march that many Native Americans in the US Northeast had suffered as the government relocated them west in the 1830s-1850s.  The client was somewhat taken aback.  "The Trail of Tears, is that a real thing?" she asked.  Clearly she was not making this memory up from her knowledge of this tragic era in our nation's history.  I suggested that she look it up online to see where her story fit in the picture.  I suggest the same to any of my readers who are not familiar with this unconscionable relocation of our indigenous peoples.