16: Why Our Parents Trigger Us (no matter what our age)

This episode is about getting over what you didn’t get from a parent (or parents).

There is no manual for living. Sometimes we just need to ask for help from our spiritual guide and then direct all of our energy towards the life we truly desire. There will be times when we get frustrated and angry with ourselves and other people. It’s OK, it happens. We are all human, right?

Well, even our parents are human. Many of us have trouble accepting our parents as individuals outside of the role they play in our lives. We put our own expectations on them to try to fill the safety and security voids we perceived when we were separated from God during birth.

We often long for a love our parents are unable to give us. We need to recognize that just because they are older, it doesn’t mean their ability to love has changed. They love us in the best way they know how.

Today’s caller, Samantha uses self-criticism to protect herself from her pain. She is accustomed to holding herself to higher standards because she coaches others through their life journeys.  She is still holding on to her childhood anger over not feeling loved and acknowledged by her father. 

We work through her responsibility to re-parent herself, free herself through a spiritual practice and look at her father with compassionate eyes. 

If you are a woman who is having difficulty processing your anger, read the Emotional section of my book, Expectation Hangover. Try the temper tantrum technique, it may sound silly, but it really works.

Time slots have opened up for coaching sessions in January. If you are interested in a one-on-one session with me, sign up here Coaching with Christine.

 

Consider/Ask Yourself:

• Do you feel you are aware of your past and relationship with your parents, but that nothing is changing in your present?
• Are you a self-help coach and hold yourself to a higher standard, believing you should know better?
• Are you still longing for something you didn’t get from your parents? Do you experience an Expectation Hangover because your parents haven’t changed like you had hoped?
• Are you irritable and short tempered with others, but know that isn’t who you are in your heart? 

 

Samantha’s Question:

Samantha wants to know how to stop being hard on other people. She finds herself feeling and doing things she doesn’t feel comfortable with, but she doesn’t understand why.

 

Samantha’s Key Insights and Aha’s:

• She feels she needs to protect herself
• She is angry and may be bypassing her spirit
• She’s projecting expectations on her Father that he cannot live up to
• The same pattern keeps showing up in her life
• She is worthy of her father’s love

 

How to get over it and on with it:

• Sam should give herself permission to be who she is
• She can realize coaching people isn’t about saving them
• She shouldn’t be lazy when it comes to her spiritual practice
• She should put her energy into the direction she wants to head towards

 

Tools and Takeaways:

• What are you still hoping for from your parent?
• How can you see your parents through compassionate eyes? What is their human story?
• Write a letter to your parents letting them off the hook. Don’t send it, but use it as a way to let the issue go. 
• What are ways you can parent yourself to give yourself what you need?
• Start your spiritual practice now. Ask for help and it will come.

 

Resources:

Christine Hassler

Expectation Hangover 

Liberate yourself at my Winter Retreat January 8-10th

@christinhassler