LETTING GO OF OUR ADULT CHILDREN
Chapter 7: The Heart Slowly Heals
Page 23
BY ARLENE HARDER, MA, MFT
Continuation of Chapter 7 of Letting Go of Our Adult Children, in which you learn how to gradually find peace even if your child doesn't change.
Guilt Monkeys Cling to Our Backs
If you were to make a list of what bothered you about your child, would you be like Patricia and discover that you, too, contributed to the family conflict more than you wish you had? If you are like most people, you probably would. We all carry on our backs monkeys of one size or another. These pesky creatures, who answer to the name of Guilt, whisper in our ears and tell us what we've done wrong, where we've missed, how things would have turned out differently if only we had done such-and-such. They remind us in a hundred ways that we were not the perfect parents we "should" have been. And listening to them we kick ourselves for making mistakes we believe contribute to our child's poor choices as an adult.
Here are a few examples of the guilt-monkeys that have pestered some of the parents I've known:
"Not protecting my daughter from the craziness of her mother even though I knew the children were at points frightened of her."
"Not being able to help my daughters work through the grief of their brother's death."
"Not noticing my son's drug use was a cry for help because I was 'liberal' and 'experimenting' was okay."
"Manipulating the situation so my stepson, who was only six and acting out his reaction to his parents' breakup, would want to go back with his mother rather than stay with me."
"Not recognizing my grandchildren were neglected and deprived because their parents had fancy cars and good jobs."
"Being unable to realize my daughter was molested for ten years by her stepfather."
"Not divorcing when I first knew love had gone, but waiting until after the fighting was well under way."
"Having an affair that broke up our marriage."
A Balanced Perspective is Needed
The next section contains an exercise on self-forgiveness that has brought comfort and peace to many people. However, before attempting to forgive ourselves, it is imperative we remember that our faults are only part of who we are. We were neither all "good" nor all "bad," but a combination of many skills and missteps. Yet sometimes we view our faults as though they are buckets filled with black coal. The good things we did are represented by a small pile of gold. When we place the coal and gold on a balance scale, the coal will obviously outweigh the gold.
If we wish to use a balance scale to determine how much forgiveness we will require in order to lessen the guilt we feel, we need to first make a list everything we did as parents, the positive qualities as well as those times we missed the boat. And then we need to weigh them against each other by using the same measuring scale!
The following are some of the ways in which parents (most of whom were disappointed in a child) have acknowledged their positive qualities, while at the same time not being blind to parenting decisions and attitudes that weren't as positive.
"I talked with my children; they could always come to me with their problems."
"We gave our children a lot of latitude to grow and didn't put them on a tight chain, even though problems with cocaine may have gone too far because of that."
"Our children knew they were loved."
"We challenged them intellectually."
"We took vacations together."
"We instilled high standards of respect for family, religious values, and tolerance."
"I didn't watch much TV because I wanted to be a good example to my children; instead I read or kept busy with other projects."
"I don't give 'advice.' I only offer my opinions, thoughts, and feelings and my children can do with it what they want."
"I spent a lot of time with my children despite a busy schedule and having children spread between three marriages."
An Exercise for Forgiveness of Oneself
There are only two requirements if people wish to forgive themselves. One is the courage to cut away the guilt that binds them to the past. The other is learning how.
Assuming that you have the willingness to learn, here is a proven method to let go of the heavy weight of guilt you have been carrying for many years. It is quite similar to the forgiveness approach given earlier.
Remember something you did (or failed to do) that now causes you to feel badly when you think of how your child has turned out. Imagine yourself at that time in your life when you made decisions you now regret. What was it that you did that you now wish you had not done (or that you failed to do)? What were your intentions in doing what you did (or failed to do)?
Did you wake up in the morning and deliberately decide to mess up your life or the life of your child? Did you know that other choices were better but you wanted to do something you knew would be dumb? Of course not. Just as today you try to do the best you know how, you attempted then to do the best you could. You did not plan to make poor choices. Unfortunately, when you think about who you were back then, you may berate yourself for not making better choices. So now is the time to make friends with that younger part of yourself, forgiving him or her for making mistakes you later regretted making.
Imagine that you, as the person you are today, are sitting in a chair looking at the person you were when you made the choices you wish you hadn't made. As you look objectively at that younger person, you can see how much you didn't know, how much you still had to learn. So now look at your younger self and say slowly and compassionately: "For a long time I have expected you to make choices you did not know how to make and do things you did not know how to do. For a long time I have wanted you to be different from who you were. Now I am willing to remove the conditions I placed on you to be someone you could not be at the time. I remove the conditions I placed on you to be someone you could not be at the time. I remove the demands and expectations that have kept me from accepting you. My love and affection go out to you just as you are."
Feel love flowing from you to the younger person you still carry inside, the one who was doing the best he or she could do at the time mistakes were made. Let that love flow through every part of your body. Feel the release of tension that comes from forgiveness.
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© Copyright 1994, Arlene Harder, MA, MFT, Reprinted with permission
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