Mother’s & Father’s Days – Revisiting Our Parents

With Mother’s Day recently past and Father’s Day upon us, these days often evoke comfortable and uncomfortable feelings. Fond remembrances and pleasant current happenings can be shadowed by past and present regrets, guilt, resentments, disappointments and even anger. 
 
Take a moment to get grounded, take a couple of deep breaths, and think of each of your parents.  What comes up?  Do a body scan and see what your body tells you?  What lingers deep inside or perhaps, right on the surface about how you feel and think about your parents?
 
We often already dread the time with parents and other family members, feeling obligation, duty and ‘having to’ call or do something when our heart is not fully into it.  Even if our parents are no longer alive, the body remembers and our psyches can be stirred as these dates come and pass.  Why not approach these days as consciously as possible.
 
Whether a parent or adult child, some good reflections to consider include …
 
What are your expectations (there will be some!) from others?
What are these expectations based upon?   (past, societal, etc.)
Are the expectations rational?  Do they make sense based upon history, the people and circumstances?
Look at any past/current disappointments – as disappointments are based upon unmet expectations.
 
Consider these resentments; either from the past or currently (e.g., resent giving up your Sunday).
Resentments are usually due to blaming others for something we did that we did not really want to do (not set a boundary) or that asks us to do something (set a boundary) that we really do not want to do.
The result is us brooding and projecting anger onto others. Clear these up!   Look at underlying reasons and beliefs that drive the resentments (e.g., If I don’t then what will people think?).
 
If we hold any anger towards our parents or adult children write down the reasons and specifics. If it happened as an adult, take ownership of your part in it.
 
If we are angry about what happened to us as a child, process the anger and no doubt, pain and sadness, around the incidents.  Name and mourn the losses.  This stored pain (and often the corresponding negative belief about ourselves) is our “pain body” (E. Tolle) or trauma body.  Call it what you want, the emotions needs to come OUT of the body.  This stored pain is toxic, and as discussed previously, leads to a myriad of physical and psychologically dis-ease.
 
Know that most children, despite ‘good enough’ parenting, will emerge from childhood with pain, losses and negative adaptations (or learned conditioning or wounds or baggage).  Get a clear picture, once and for all, of your parents.  Make the lists: ‘thank you’ for and ‘could have done better’.   Feel the feelings which emerge as you do this and go over and over until the feelings are no longer uncomfortable (neutral).  
 
Going beyond the emotions arising from the ‘could have done better’ items, identify what you learned about yourself (e.g., I am bad, I am unlovable, I am not creative, etc.).  The work now is to re-parent yourself (e.g., make new and stronger positive neuropathways!) by stating the truth (e.g., I am good enough/OK, I am lovable, I am creative, etc.) over and over and over again.
 
As long as we (including our inner child!) know and believe the truth about ourselves, and are cleared of past resentments, anger and guilt, the unpleasant memories and current dealings with parents will not haunt and trigger us.  We will not dread these calendar (or any other) events; rather, we will simple be present.