How to learn to accept parents as they are?
ALL WE HAVE GROWN THE MASS OF QUESTIONS TO THEMSELVES AND THE WORLDwith which there seems to be no time or need to go to a psychologist. But convincing answers are not born when you talk to yourself, or to your friends, or to your parents. We started a new regular section where professional psychotherapist Olga Miloradova will answer pressing questions. By the way, if you have them, send to [email protected].
How to learn to accept parents as they are?
Good relations with parents, alas, are increasingly becoming the exception to the rule. Even those who were close to them in their childhood are becoming increasingly alienated with age, both physically, separating geographically and psychologically, due to the complete disagreement in their views on life. However, everyone wants to experience tenderness when thinking about the "parental home." So how to improve relationships with parents and learn to accept them by anyone?
OLGA MILORADOVA psychotherapist
The love of a small child to parents is unconditional, because at first they are for him the whole world: it is from their words that we learn what is possible and what is not, we consider them endowed with the highest knowledge and skills. But childhood passes and its own views on life begin to take shape - someone may have been lucky, and his parents have remained just as wise and authoritative. There are those who are less fortunate, and each visit or call to parents leads to constant disputes, and then settles on the soul unpleasant sediment. And it is impossible to understand how they are - such wise and progressive at one time - those who cultivated you on Pink Floyd and The Beatles and called to protest against corruption at the institute, suddenly began to show dissatisfaction with your lifestyle - that it would be time to settle down and live like everyone else, and even (oh, horror!) screw into the conversation that Putin is, in general, well done. You start to fight, carry on endless disputes with them, swear, cry, take on your own again, and then you realize that it is becoming more and more difficult to maintain some kind of communication, and sometimes you try to keep contacts to a minimum. To top it all off, often there are thoughts that even when they were young they were not so perfect, they didn’t always treat us the way we would like to: someone constantly took care of and didn’t allow us to take an extra step, someone, on the contrary, fell in helplessness, and at a very tender age you had to shoulder the problems on yourself.
Do not start a conversation about mom's fur coats, if you're vegan
What if the parents seem to you more and more strangers? First, get rid of the illusion that you can re-educate them. Surely everything you could have done, you undoubtedly did, while you were growing up, you shared your views and ideas, and if many years later you did not succeed in introducing them to your ideals, then it’s obvious that now the express propaganda isn’t will help. In addition, the TV spends with them much more time than you. Therefore, once you can not influence them, you will have to take care of yourself. Try to analyze how your communication proceeds, are you yourself a constant initiator of slippery topics that lead to a crash? You shouldn’t start a conversation about mom’s fur coats, if you are vegan, and if mom allows herself to boast a novelty, don’t jump up and don’t run, slamming the door - try to accept the fact that your mom is from another era and she believes that the best Women's friends are coats and diamonds. Humble yourself. Then make a joke about it with friends on occasion, and next to the mother change the subject of the conversation.
Allow yourself to ask parents more often about their affairs, emotions, problems and fears. After all, they are probably not young anymore, perhaps they are tormented by the horror of loneliness, maybe it seems to them that they have become unnecessary and are preventing you, perhaps they are trying to regain their lost significance and give advice on how to live better, not at all with the goal of you. humiliate, and to feel that they are here, alive and you need. At the same time, understand when and where to say stop time. Clearly outline the boundaries. If you hate a dacha, offer to meet in neutral territory, if the parent suddenly decided to take up the upbringing of your chosen one or your child is not at all in the manner in which you would like, immediately say no.
To accept parents, you have to accept yourself and responsibility for your life.
Interrupt something you do not like, but for a long time what is happening is almost impossible and will cause a lot of resentment. It is important here not to get involved in a dispute - clearly state your point of view that this will be so simply because I want this and that point. Parents also have the full right to such restrictions on their part, the main thing is to discuss in time what exactly and in what format you want from these relations. After all, any relationship, including with parents, must be able to build, and for this, first of all, you and they must clearly understand the idea of each other’s relationships.
To accept parents, you have to accept yourself and the responsibility for your life. As long as you continue to use the design, that “this is a mom / dad ruined my life, because…”, you will mark time. You do not forgive them and cannot separate yourself from them. Even if it seems to you that you have been living your life for a long time, if this construction is in your head, this life is still not yours and you do not live it. Yes, any action of parents changes a lot in us. Yes, some actions are crippling. But if today you are 20, then at 30, or even at 40, to continue to blame someone that you did not succeed is useless. You had time, your life and the opportunity to change something. Do not put an end to your life out of revenge, to be a silent reproach for moms and dads. Even if one of them drank. Maybe beat. But this is not who you are now - you are not a victim. Look at them, at all these different parents: someone may be unhappy and miserable, someone wise, but cold, someone naive, stupid, but full of love. No demons have power over you anymore, now you are the one who makes decisions. Therefore, now your turn to be wiser, more restrained and more constructive.