Day 10 Parents

Dear friends,
I keep on being astonish how much the behaviour of our parents influence us. It seems like their patterns of behaving has imprented into me and I carry it all the life with me. If I now see situations that hurt me in my adulthood I see the roots of my behaviour in my childhood, in the education my parents gave me. It seems like I have not been able (allowed?) to grow up. I still follow the same orders of what was or was not allowed to do, to say.

For a few couple of days/weeks I knew there was something I very deeply blamed my father. I just did not know what it was. I was crying so many times and so much, screeming how much he hurt me, asking why he did it and yet I did not know what subject I am talking about.
Lately few things have come to my mind as regards to what it may be. And the result is that I feel less of back pain, I dont need to cry so much and so often.
But still I reproach my parents for many things. It is kind of a conflict inside of me. I love them very much and yet I feel this blame towards them for their behaviour. They did not give me enough of love, of hug, of attention as I needed to have from them. Instead they gave many restricctions, many must do, must not do, and be careful what other thinks, even more be careful what we think as you must obay!

I want to solve it within myslef as I dont see the benefit of confronting them now. I know I would hurt them and that is something I dont want to do. I dont think it would help if my father gets a dressing-down for stuff he did 25-30 years ago. Yet it is hard to forgive.

Have anybody tried to have a talk with parents when finding out the injustice from your childgood? Or is the better way to go through it by my own? How to forgive?

Thank you for your reply
Zuzana

 

Hi, Zuzana. Our grievances against our parents from long ago need to be put to rest, and I do not recommend confronting them with anything.
Journaling helped me to discover that my parents had their own pains, from TMS emotions, mainly over economic problems. Understanding them better helped me to forgive them. Forgiving ended my back pain. I suggest you give your parents love and tolerance.

Maybe write them a letter about your grievances, but do not mail it. It helps get it all out of your system.

 

Hi Zuzana,

I really like what Walt has said.

Here's a great article article I had book marked from Oprahs site, which I hope you can gain some insight from.

Forgiving our parents is a core task of adulthood, and one of the most crucial kinds of forgiveness. We see our parents in our mates, in our friends, in our bosses, even in our children. When we've felt rejected by a parent and have remained in that state, we will inevitably feel rejected by these important others as well.

But letting our parents off the hook, psychologist Robert Karen says, is the first step toward happiness, self-acceptance and maturity. Here are some thoughts to help the healing begin:

Resolve resentment.
Nursing resentments toward a parent does more than keep that parent in the doghouse. We get stuck there, too, forever the child, the victim, the have-not in the realm of love. Strange as it may seem, a grudge is a kind of clinging, a way of not separating, and when we hold a grudge against a parent, we are clinging not just to the parent, but more specifically to the bad part of the parent. It's as if we don't want to live our lives until we have this resolved and feel the security of their unconditional love. We do so for good reasons psychologically. But the result is just the opposite: We stay locked into the badness and we don't grow up.

Develop realistic expectations.
The sins of parents are among the most difficult to forgive. We expect the world of them, and we do not wish to lower our expectations. Decade after decade, we hold out the hope, often unconsciously, that they will finally do right by us. We want them to own up to all their misdeeds, to apologize, to make heartfelt pleas for our forgiveness. We want our parents to embrace us, to tell us they know we were good children, to undo the favoritism they've shown to a brother or sister, to take back their hurtful criticisms, to give us their praise.

Hold on to the good.
Most parents love their children, with surprisingly few exceptions. But no parent is perfect—which means that everyone has childhood wounds. If we're lucky, our parents were good enough for us to be able to hold on to the knowledge of their love for us and our love for them, even in the face of the things they did that hurt us.

Foster true separation.
To forgive is not to condone the bad things our parents have done. It's not to deny their selfishness, their rejections, their meanness, their brutality, or any of the other misdeeds, character flaws, or limitations that may attach to them. It is important to separate from our parents—which is to stop seeing ourselves as children who depend on them for our emotional well-being, to stop being their victims, to recognize that we are adults with some capacity to shape our own lives and the responsibility to do so.

Let your parents back into your heart.
When we do that, we can begin to understand the circumstances and limitations they labored under, recognize the goodness in them that our pain has pushed aside, feel some compassion perhaps, not only for the hard journey they had but also for the pain we have caused them.

Commit to the journey.
Getting to a forgiving place, finding the forgiving self inside us, is a long and complicated journey. We have to be ready to forgive. We have to want to forgive. The deeper the wound, the more difficult the process—which makes forgiving parents especially hard. Along the way, we may have to express our protest, we may have to be angry and resentful, we may even have to punish our parents by holding a grudge. But when we get there, the forgiveness we achieve will be a forgiveness worth having.

 

I wish I understood my parents when I was younger but at least at age 85 I do now. I realize they had TMS pain... Mom had migraines and Dad had back aches. I might have made things easier for them. But I was a good son and never did anything to add to their pain, so at least I am not guilty about that.

 

Hi Zuzana,

I appreciate the replies.

This particular piece is something that you are investigating and I think very important.

The more you investigate, observe your own conditioning as you describe, the more you want to naturally be yourself, separate yourself, and make your life the way you want it for you. In essence you are separating from internal parents, that we keep with us.

As you follow this, making changes in your life, and in your relationships with others and parents, you will feel happier. Your happiness will allow more relaxation in your relationship with your parents. You can be yourself, and they can be themselves. There will be more space for everyone.

As far as saying anything to them or other action, this is not needed, I agree. The correct action with regards to your parents will arise naturally as you become more and more clear, become more yourself. Good luck in this. It is a life-time process for most of us!! And for many, this process is a central part of working with TMS.

Andy B.

 

The Unsent Letter is a very powerful tool, one which I used to write to my mother a couple of years after I did the SEP - in other words, it's a technique you can use at any time, for the rest of your life. After I wrote the letter, I did not feel any need to send it, although I can imagine that in some cases, the letter writer might decide to go ahead and talk the parent (or whoever) - but it's not required!

TMS symptoms occur because your brain thinks it needs to prevent you from knowing that you want to say these negative things to your parent(s). Once the negative things are completely out in the open by being put down on a piece of paper, the symptom is no longer needed, because the repression has ended, and you have survived the process.

What is so interesting is that writing down your negative thoughts and emotions is much more powerful than just thinking about them. It's too easy for your brain to repress them again if you're just thinking about them. But putting them down on paper makes them real, and inescapable, and your brain is forced to see that you can survive this process of acknowledging the emotion. It's fascinating!

 

Thank you so much for your replies.
zu