Language of Letting Go - August 22 - Responsibility For Family Members
Nature Girl
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: By The Lake
Posts: 60,328
Language of Letting Go - August 22 - Responsibility For Family Members
You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go
Responsibility for Family Members
I can still remember my mother clutching her heart, threatening to have a heart attack and die, and blaming it on me.
—Anonymous
For some of us, the idea that we were responsible for other people's feelings had its roots in childhood and was established by members of our nuclear family. We may have been told that we made our mother or father miserable, leading directly to the idea that we were also responsible for making them happy. The idea that we are responsible for our parents' happiness or misery can instill exaggerated feelings of power and guilt in us.
We do not have this kind of power over our parents - over their feelings, or over the course of their lives. We do not have to allow them to have this kind of power over us.
Our parents did the best they could. But we still do not have to accept one belief from them that is not a healthy belief. They may be our parents, but they are not always right. They may be our parents, but their beliefs and behaviors are not always healthy and in our best interest.
We are free to examine and choose our beliefs.
Let go of guilt. Let go of excessive and inappropriate feelings of responsibility toward parents and other family members. We do not have to allow their destructive beliefs to control our feelings, our behaviors, our life, or us.
Today, I will begin the process of setting myself free from any self-defeating beliefs my parents passed on to me. I will strive for appropriate ideas and boundaries concerning how much power and how much responsibility I can actually have in my relationship with my parents.
From The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie ©1990, Hazelden Foundation.
Responsibility for Family Members
I can still remember my mother clutching her heart, threatening to have a heart attack and die, and blaming it on me.
—Anonymous
For some of us, the idea that we were responsible for other people's feelings had its roots in childhood and was established by members of our nuclear family. We may have been told that we made our mother or father miserable, leading directly to the idea that we were also responsible for making them happy. The idea that we are responsible for our parents' happiness or misery can instill exaggerated feelings of power and guilt in us.
We do not have this kind of power over our parents - over their feelings, or over the course of their lives. We do not have to allow them to have this kind of power over us.
Our parents did the best they could. But we still do not have to accept one belief from them that is not a healthy belief. They may be our parents, but they are not always right. They may be our parents, but their beliefs and behaviors are not always healthy and in our best interest.
We are free to examine and choose our beliefs.
Let go of guilt. Let go of excessive and inappropriate feelings of responsibility toward parents and other family members. We do not have to allow their destructive beliefs to control our feelings, our behaviors, our life, or us.
Today, I will begin the process of setting myself free from any self-defeating beliefs my parents passed on to me. I will strive for appropriate ideas and boundaries concerning how much power and how much responsibility I can actually have in my relationship with my parents.
From The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie ©1990, Hazelden Foundation.
Nature Girl
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: By The Lake
Posts: 60,328
Back from vacation at Mooselips, so I'm just catching up here and this caught my eye this morning.
I am reading something right now that discusses how we not only need to learn new and healthy behaviour and thinking processes, but how we need to UNLEARN that which we were taught and grew up with.
It's not easy unless you really work on it and tie the two together. For example, when I start to react in guilt (old behaviour), I can put the brakes on and grab my new recovery behaviour by telling myself that what is happening was not caused by me, can't be controlled by me and can't be cured by me (the 3 C's). This is true even for non-addiction issues. If a friend is playing on my guilt nerve to do something I really don't want to do, instead of doing it anyway I can say "Sorry, this isn't a good time for me today." and leave it at that.
One of my favourite recovery tools is the set of brakes that lets me stop in my tracks and change over to a better path instantly.
Hugs
I am reading something right now that discusses how we not only need to learn new and healthy behaviour and thinking processes, but how we need to UNLEARN that which we were taught and grew up with.
It's not easy unless you really work on it and tie the two together. For example, when I start to react in guilt (old behaviour), I can put the brakes on and grab my new recovery behaviour by telling myself that what is happening was not caused by me, can't be controlled by me and can't be cured by me (the 3 C's). This is true even for non-addiction issues. If a friend is playing on my guilt nerve to do something I really don't want to do, instead of doing it anyway I can say "Sorry, this isn't a good time for me today." and leave it at that.
One of my favourite recovery tools is the set of brakes that lets me stop in my tracks and change over to a better path instantly.
Hugs
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