I got my mother the audible version of #Spare by Prince Harry for Christmas, & she finally had an opportunity to listen to it most of today. I asked for her impression tonight. Following are her insights. (For those who don’t know, my mother is a psychologist.)
1st, she believes Prince Harry is an empath. Empaths feel a lot;bottling things up for empaths can have disastrous consequences for their emotional, psychological, & even change brain chemistry. She applauds Harry for speaking up & encourages him to do so. Silence kills empaths.
She believes Charles could have also been an empath but his cold upbringing emotionally stunted his development at a very young age, making him very cynical. Though he feels probably as deeply as Harry, he doesn’t know how to express it as well, or in the healthiest way.
I asked how Harry became so diff from Charles. She believes Princess Diana’s love & affection for Harry for the 1st 12 yrs his life made a huge difference. Unlike Charles, Diana dotted on Harry, giving him lots of hugs, smiles, affection, & letting him know he was deeply loved.
Early years of love can have a lifetime of positive affect on a child, almost like a guiding light that the child can turn to in times of turmoil. Harry misbehaved in his teens & 20s trying to forget & suppress that light his mother gave him bec. he wanted to suppress his pain.
He wanted to suppress his grief. But, pain from grief & grief itself should never be suppressed. Like a volcano, it builds up where it is either channeled for good or for hate, or to cause pain to others. My mother believes Prince Harry truly didn’t confront his grief
Until he has something greater to lose than himself…Meghan. In some ways, the despicable way🇬🇧 press behaved early on to Meghan forced Harry to fully confront his past. What was it he was running from & how would that affect his relationship w/someone he really liked/loved?
My mother believes Grief is loss of love that made you once whole. Harry recounts an incident where Meghan basically gave him an ultimatum for him to get help for his anger bec. she would not bring a child in an environment of anger.
Once Harry realized that he could lose the woman he saw himself spending the rest of his life with, he knew he had to confront his childhood self. Many of us have childhood selves we left behind because of pain, burden, grief, anger, trauma, or sadness. But, like a showdow,
our traumatized childhood selves haunt us until we learn to admit why we tried to run away from it. Harry was traumatized by his mother’s death. The coldness of the firm exacerbated the pain. They failed to comfort him & kept others at arms length from providing him comfort.
In a matter of days, Harry went from having the mother who kept him whole, to having his soul hollowed & kept cold. Meeting someone like Meghan who showed him a lot of affection & made him feel like he was her world probably brought back a lot of memories of his mother.
Suddenly, Harry couldn’t run away from his 12 year old self anymore. He had to confront his grief. But, my mother said, grief is not all sadness & pain. Grief can also remind one of happiness, a time of love…& that has been Harry’s building light. He’s had it all the time,
But he only viewed it in the negative. Remembering his mother also made him remember what true love should be…true love is not cold. True love is letting those you love know you love & care about them. It’s giving them hugs, kisses, pats on the head & back, encouragement,
Compassion, attn, understanding, & lastly, forgiveness. My mother believes the coldness of the monarchy i.e. firm during Charles’ childhood prevented him from fully maturing into a sympathetic & empathetic person. She believes it’s why Charles & others are obsessed w/teddy bears
and carry them even in their adulthood. The bears are like a ghost of their childhood selves & a way for them to express love for themselves. But, teddy bears are inanimate objects which disallows true growth. My mom believes Charles would have made a great person & perhaps
Even a good king if his emotional growth wasn’t stunted with lack of affection by his parents. What Prince Philip mistakenly saw as softness from Charles as a child was actually a boy who probably felt more than others. By failing to nurture that development, they prevented
Charles from maturing into an empathetic person, a trait which is needed for one to be a good king of a multicultural & diverse commonwealth. In attempting to make Charles into their image, they may have doomed the crown due to his coldness.
As for William, my mother thinks he is also stunted, but not like Charles. William was to believe he was better than everyone else. He’s having difficulty reconciling the fact that he is very much not better than others. The only he can be seen as better than everyone, esp.
His more charismatic brother & the brother’s intelligent wife is to keep the crown at all cost. And, that makes William dangerous.
I highly recommend #Spare, especially the audible book. #PrinceHarry
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