It’s an inside job. Stop punishing your parents or anyone for that matter.
Lying next to her dying mother in the drab, white apartment complex, my loving, caring friend cried as she told me her story. “I am so grateful that my mom and I managed to have a close relationship. She left our family when I was five, didn’t raise us kids, drank heavily and could get real nasty. Unlike others in our family, I forgave her and accept her as she is and we’ve been able to have a beautiful relationship”.
As the two of them became close, Jane learned that many of the stories she held against her mom, actually weren’t true. She shared how her judgment towards her mother dissipated as she learned to see her mother as a person and with compassion.
Jane knew that holding a grudge would only cause further pain and suffering to herself and her family lineage. Jane recognized that if she didn’t heal her own broken thoughts, her children could carry on the dysfunction.
Jane cried as she remembered the grief of a childhood friend when her mother passed away. Jane muttered, “I thought my friend was lucky, because she felt sad. I just felt numb when I thought of my mom, because her physical body was her, but we had almost no contact”.
Over the years, Jane learned to feel compassion instead of anger. She knew her mother had lived with deep grief and loneliness. Jane realized that her mom had acted out of pain and not because she didn’t love her family. Unfortunately her mother became the black sheep of the family and everyone blamed her for their problems. Blaming her was easier than dealing with their own issues. The cycle continued.
Jane’s sister had chosen not to speak to their mother in over a decade. The mother didn’t understand why the daughter wouldn’t talk to her and she worried how her death would affect her daughter. She wished for her daughter to feel harmony and not regret.
Jeff Grabmeier of Ohio State News writes that a study of more than 1,000 mothers show that their adult children don’t generally agree on the reasons for their rift. In my opinion, trying to understanding often isn’t helpful. We barely understand ourselves. The key to healing is to recognize that healing is an inside job. We can’t change another person. Estrangement from a family member may seem like a good solution, but it can also lead to more familial dysfunction.
Below are five things to consider in your relations.
- Your parents did the best job they could. If they could have done better, they would have.
- You can’t change them, you can only change yourself.
- You can have boundaries even if you have contact with them.
- You can create healing instead of suffering.
- Your strength is not in your ability to close off and resist. Your strength is in your ability to love and accept.
It’s not the issue that’s the issue, but how you relate to it and react. We tend to blame others for our negative feelings. “I’m upset because she did so and so”. “If only that person were different, life would be better”. Blaming and projecting does not help. Instead, see upset as an opportunity to look inwards in a loving, supportive manner. Have a method to find inner peace.
Practice this process and experience the benefits.
- Do your best not to purge your negative emotions on someone else.
- Take time to gain clarity on the situation from a loving place.
- If someone tries to make you feel bad by expressing negative emotions, put up an imaginary protective shield around you. Allow their words to bounce off the shield.
- Know, if you have been triggered, healing is available.
Bring more harmony into your life by using the acronym HALT as your process. Find Harmony thru Acceptance, Love and Trust. Halt the critic, the judger, and the negative one. Jane has found this acronym very useful. Sometimes she simply sings and senses the word harmony. Other times she goes through the process of accepting, loving and trusting.
- Harmony – What does harmony feel like for you? Sit quietly and sense it. Experience harmony, so you can practice it when needed. Imagine you are in harmony with yourself and others. Take an upset moment and turn it into a moment of harmony.
- Acceptance – State the facts about the situation neutrally to yourself. Acknowledge what actually is occurring. Ask yourself, “Can I be in acceptance of what is?” It’s the judgment that causes suffering.
- Love – Sense the loving essence in yourself and others. It is always available. Go deeper than the fear, pain and resentment. Send loving thoughts to all.
- Trust – Trust that everything is unfolding exactly as it is supposed to. Although something may feel wrong, we don’t know the outcome. We often try to control, thinking we know best, but we don’t. How often has something felt wrong and it turned out well?
When we transition, the truth of the loving almost always shines through. When we live our lives from this loving place, we can live a more fulfilling path. Don’t wait until it is too late.
Tears ran down Jane’s cheeks, “I’m so glad that I learned to love my mother and dared to have a relationship with her. What if I hadn’t?” Jane smiled reflecting over how happy her mother was in her later years. Their conversations and loving relationship helped them both to let go of resentment, anger and pain. Although her mother would have valued talking to her other daughter again, she accepted that she couldn’t force anyone to have a relation with her. She had peace in loving and trusting that all was well. Perhaps most importantly, she felt loved and not alone by those of us who could see her sweetness.