Have You Made Peace With Your Parents and Your Family?
"When we heal our relationship with our parents, we are healing a deep part of ourselves, and this will enhance all our relationships."
— The Shared Heart, Joyce and Barry Vissell, p. 121, [reprinted in their April 2004 newsletter under heading of "Our Parents' Blessings"]
PLEASE NOTE (from Arlene Harder): This article and the sidebar of the article of Do You Insist on Respect from Every Member of Your Family? address one of the most corrosive problems families can have, that of not forgiving or accepting other members of the family. I am not suggesting there are no parents who have done such a horrendous job of parenting that their children would not be wise to keep their distance. There are relatives whose behavior causes such extreme distress at family gatherings that it is better not to include them.
What I do emphasize, however, is that we are all flawed human beings. And I haven't met anyone who has not gained peace of mind from forgiving his or her parents for not knowing how to be better parents. That doesn't mean that you have to have contact with them, but a grudge held tightly to the heart teaches children that some people aren't worthy of being forgiven — and we can all use more forgiveness in the world today. [See the forgiveness section on Learning Place Online.]
The following article is written by Barry Vissell who, with his wife Joyce, specializes in helping families and individuals heal one another. This is from the "Accepting Our Parents" article on their website. Could this be your story? Visit The Shared Heart Foundation for more of their clear and compassionate advice.
If you are struggling with a family who constantly puts you down or will have nothing more to do with you, I highly recommend Healing From Family Rifts: Ten Steps to Finding Peace After Being Cut Off From a Family Member by Mark Sichel, CSW. He writes clearly and compassionately on ways you can make peace with your family even in the absence of reciprocity. In other words, he shows you how to keep resentment from destroying your life simply because your parents are unable to give you what you need (and perhaps they never were able to parent you as you deserved to be parented).
My dear father died ten days ago quite suddenly of a heart attack. He was in the little apartment he shared with my mother above our garage. As Barry and I were out of town, Rami and Mira, our daughters, rushed right over. Mira, age seventeen, administered CPR while Rami directed the 911 call and encouraged my mother to say good-bye to him. He died smiling peacefully in the arms of his beautiful granddaughters, with the loving words of his wife.
Nothing could have prepared me for the grief I felt upon returning home several hours later from a five week work and vacation trip. The grief is still very deep ten days later and yet I am comforted by the relationship I had with my dad.
As all parents, my father was not a perfect parent. I am not a perfect parent. No one is. In my twenties I wanted to change my father, to make him the person I thought I wanted as a father. At some point I stopped trying to change him, and just accepted him as he was. The more I grew to accept him, the more I realized just how perfect a dad he was for me.
I had lived three thousand miles apart from my parents since I was eighteen. Seven years ago, my parents moved right next door. My dad was eighty-one years old then and still quite energetic. Several years later he lost his hearing altogether. Because my father was deaf and communication was minimal, I vowed to show him my love every time I saw him. Because he couldn't hear, he would unknowingly interrupt some very personal conversations. I might be deeply in conversation with one of my daughters and we'd hear his loud steps enter our home. We'd stop whatever we were doing and give him our total love. We'd hug him and fuss over him and he'd leave around ten minutes later, quite satisfied. It was not unusual for him to burst into a counseling session in the living room or a meeting in the office. On those occasions we'd quickly escort him out, but always with love. Our counseling clients grew to expect these friendly interruptions.
And now in my grief it is those moments of giving him my total love and acceptance that bring me the most peace. I can truly say that, as much as my heart is capable of loving, that is how much I loved my father. Our children followed that example and treated their grandpa with the greatest respect and love. And my father in turn delighted in every gesture of love offered him and returned it a thousand fold.
For those of you whose parents are still alive, reach out to them with your love. Realize that there is no such thing as a perfect parent and try to accept your parent the way they are. The reaching out, the gestures of love, will bring you so much comfort when they no longer walk this earth. And those of you whose parents have passed on, reach out to them in their new home. The bond between parent and child is everlasting. As you reach out to them with your love, you will feel it returned over and over again.
SIDEBAR TO ABOVE ARTICLE:
Recognizing the Blessings of Our Parents
BY JOYCE AND BARRY VISSELL, REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION
There is an ancient saying in the Hindu tradition that unless we receive the blessing of our parents, we cannot progress on our spiritual path. This saying may conjure images of an elderly parent dressed in long flowing robes laying their hand upon their child and blessing their journey. Few of us will ever receive this type of blessing, yet there is much wisdom in that saying that applies to us today.
Rather than waiting for something to come from our parents, we receive their blessing when we come to an inner peace about why we were born to them and the lessons and gifts that come from that experience. To truly progress on our spiritual journey we must attain this inner peace about our mother and father. This peace will give us more motivation in our lives, allow our relationships with others to deepen, strengthen us as parents, enhance our career and bring more energy and health to our personal lives. Coming to this inner peace is not often easy, but is so worth the inner effort.
Some people have had difficult childhoods with parents that have behaved inappropriately. In our thirty years of counseling and workshops we have heard unbelievable stories of inappropriate behavior. There are parents who have sexually, physically and emotionally abused their children. There are parents who have abandoned them, never to be heard from again. One man told us about his father who once held a gun to his head when he was a child and threatened to kill him if he tried again to interfere while he was beating up his mother. These can be very traumatic experiences. How does one ever come to peace with a parent who could do such a thing to their child. The peace doesn't come from condoning or accepting the behavior, nor does it come from hating the parent. The peace comes from understanding the spiritual lessons and gifts and that come from having a parent that behaved in such a way. Sometimes a person has to fully experience or even express their hate, anger and resentment in order to find this understanding. The ultimate goal, however, is to find the lesson and gift rather than to remain in the angry unforgiving place.
Some parents died at an early age, leaving the child with an extreme sense of loss. Paramahansa Yogananda, who brought yoga teachings to this country in the mid 1900's, experienced a very big loss when his beloved mother died suddenly when he was eight years old. He describes the loss as overwhelming to the point where he didn't want to go on living. This single experience propelled him on his spiritual path to find the heavenly mother - the source of all mothering. He was then able to go on and successfully open thousands of hearts to the divine mother. My own mother experienced a devastating loss when her mother died when she was six years old. Now at the age of 87, she can still feel her mother close to her and credits her strong spiritual belief to her mother. Both my mother and Yogananda learned the lesson and received the spiritual gift.
Most of us have grown up learning the Ten Commandments. I'm sure we have all heard, "Honor Thy Father and Mother." Does this mean to honor everything our father or mother does and listen to all their advice. I don't think so. I feel that the deeper meaning is that we are to honor the soul essence of our father and mother, and the spiritual gift and lesson that is ours to learn by being their child. This is deep and worthwhile work on oneself. It is much easier to simply say my life is no good because my parents did such and such to me. Therefore I have an excuse to fail in relationship, career and life in general. Rather than this powerless victim approach, a more mature way of living is to learn the lesson from having been with our parents and then make that gift part of our strength and motivation as a person. In this way we are truly set free to become the person we want to be.
So this Mother's Day or Father's Day when you are sending off that card, or any other time, try to understand the lessons and resulting spiritual gifts from having this person as your parent. Feel the ways your relationship with your father and mother have strengthened you and caused you to grow spiritually. In this way you will be receiving the blessing of your parent.
Please join Joyce and me in holding a vision of a world where women, men and children of all nations, races and religions can see and feel the divine in themselves and one another.