Podcast - Episode 0244 - Making Peace With Your Parents (Part 2)

46 comments

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  • Michelle Maverick Ahrens
  • September 29, 2018 at 6:11 pm

  Thank you Antonia for your openness and honesty and the gift you have so generously given to this community and to myself. Thank you too, Joel, for sharing about your unfortunate emotional blow up on New Years!
  I’ve been sitting all week with what to say because it was such a gift you gave in giving permission to share by asking for our feedback. My family didn’t share or give permission to talk about feelings. I’m struggling to find my voice and learning to be more open and vulnerable to let people really see my truth and share my personal story and experiences. You are both so brave in your willingness to be so open and authentic and I’m so grateful and appreciative of your generosity to bring us all into your personal lives. I’m learning so much about myself and my story by your sharing yours so completely and honestly. I admire you both so much for doing this and am so very grateful. You have touched my heart so deeply this week and words cannot express all I feel about both your stories and experiences and my own. We are all struggling to find the way and to be our best selves. Wise and loving, able to cope with whatever comes our way. But, our families and our desire to be deeply connected and accepted, understood and loved unconditionally by them can be such a difficult and complex experience that leaves us all so very vulnerable and searching for the best ways to navigate the challenges we each encounter. Thank you both for sharing and showing us the way and providing us this space and bringing us in and inviting us into the process with you and each other. I’m learning so much and my heart is so deeply touched and affected by you both. I wish you peace and joy as you continue to process this Antonia.
  Many parts of each of your stories is also part of my story and family history. My heart is so touched by everything you have experienced and your courage, love, bravery, honesty, generosity and so much more is inspiring.
  Thank you both for creating and providing this space and for the opportunity it provides for deeper awareness, growth and connection. Feeling so much gratitude.

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  • Elizabeth Murray
  • September 29, 2018 at 4:04 pm

  Antonia,

  I believe that this was a very powerful moment in your life to share publicly and I thank you for it. Your humility and carefulness in the situation is certainly something to be applauded. The great thing about public media is that when one shares their story the speaker and the many listeners can realize that they are not alone in these kinds of situations as we can see from the comments. That doesn’t comfort some people but it certainly does me as I sorrowfully listened to your story and meditated on it the past 2 days. The compassion and willingness to meet your parents where they were at was beautiful and I am so sorry that it did not turn out the way that you wanted to. I am inspired by your ability to take the situation as it is and not immerse yourself it what it could be.

  My mother and I have our differences as far as religion and the way I grew up goes. She would never disown me but our relationship can definitely be a struggle. My father however has abused and wrecked the people in my family to where I had door slammed him for 3 years before I opened it again about a year ago enough to have lunch and try to gain some personal closure. As you said in this podcast, you were able to handle the situation you were in with your current level of personal growth and I respect that you have the ability to discern that. I definitely have not had that knowledge the past year, as I have reflected on how badly I acted in my own experience. I was so angry with him I lashed out and accused him of all the terrible things he has done. I think I was looking for him to admit and take on the responsibility of all that he has done. But that is just not where he is at and I doubt that he ever will be in that place. And I was not in a place, as I still felt so raw, to take on that conversation. Nor was I, or am currently, at a level of development where I could gracefully handle a conversation in any way that would be healing. All I could do was get angry that the conversation wasn’t what I wanted and run home to sob on poor Kris.

  Your experience has made me aware of what I am able to accomplish with my own situation currently and given me hope that maybe someday I will be able to sit with him without anger and meet him where he is at in life. Because you’re right. My dad was molested, pushed through walls, neglected, exposed to drugs, and a ton of other terrible things. While I grew up with things being thrown into the yard, being shoved into walls, through screen doors, or just down on the floor; I was never molested and he always worked hard to make enough to support us. He wasn’t a good father, but he did do one better. He is a product of his own environment and did the best that he could as his level of development.

  I wish that I could have loved on my father as much as you in your level of growth were able to do. Maybe someday I will, and I sincerely hope that you will be able to love on your parents again. Thank you so much for sharing, touching, and inadvertently teaching us listeners through your own sorrow. I freaking love you Antonia.

  - “I think mothers and fathers made up the gods so that their children and sleep through the night” Davos Seaworth
  - “Chaos isn’t a pit, chaos is a ladder. Only the ladder is real. The climb is all there is.” Petyr Balish
  - “There is a lot that can happen between now and never.” – Petyr Balish

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  • Dave K
  • September 29, 2018 at 4:02 am

  Antonia, thank you so much for sharing your story in this way. I’ve listened to the PH podcast for several years now, and have learned all kids of wonderful things from you and Joal and your guests. However, this particular podcast (both parts) was an opportunity to see it all in action, even if it didn’t go the way we’d all maybe hoped.

  There are so many parallels to my own life that I can honestly say I understand much of your struggle. But the way you handled it was inspiring and beautiful. The memetic conditioning of many folks who are just like your parents can be difficult to even understand, especially having come out of such an environment myself. It can be difficult to navigate, but the way you and Joel reached into your tool box and applied the principles you’ve discussed and used them in real life.

  I am inspired, and applying my tools as I go, I am walking into a similar situation. I can only hope to carry myself with the grace, love, and compassion you have modeled here.

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  • Laura
  • September 25, 2018 at 3:55 pm

  Antonia, Thank you for sharing and being authentic. You mentioned that prior to taking this trip, you prepared for it, and so you were able to react and stay calm for the most part. What did you do to prepare?

  Preparation to me means thinking about possible outcomes and working through many possible solutions given each outcome, but that only works for logical/non-emotional scenarios. I’m not understanding how to prepare for a situation while simultaneously not being attached to the outcome. I’m asking this because there is a potentially awkward and upsetting situation I’m about to get into that I cannot avoid so I would like to emotionally prepare for that, but I have no idea how to do so. My usual going through possible outcomes will only agitate me as I picture possible scenarios that could occur. So I’m very curious as to what you did specifically.

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  • Marina
  • September 26, 2018 at 2:32 am

  I just wanted to preface this by saying how brave it is for you to tell your story in a public format, Antonia. It takes a lot of bravery to do so, especially in such a calm and coherent manner. I feel like I would just start sobbing and end up refusing to share such a recording if I were in a situation akin to yours (the members of my family I have yet to make peace with are nearly everyone but my parents, but in particular my maternal grandmother).

  Listening to these episodes has really brought up a lot of emotions and reflections on my own personal experiences. I really felt that I needed to share my story from a comment that Joel made along the lines of “How are we going to tell our daughter?” I have no experience with kids, so I cannot speak to what you should say; however, I can speak to having a similar experience as a granddaughter, and a possible way your daughter could view the situation as a young woman around my age (in her 20s). Obviously, the situation is not the same, but I do not think experiences along this line are common. For the sake of someone who will have to grapple with something similar eventually, I feel like I should share what I have experienced with you so you might be able to better help her as she gets older. She will eventually need to process events that were out of her control, but still carry some degree of emotional pain for the family in general. And I feel that grappling with this when it is a grandparent is a separate category unto itself since we have a picture in society of grandparents that makes it harder to see this becoming a reality for people.

  This is a hard topic to discuss, and I feel like I should say that I see none of my grandparents as fundamentally bad people. I believe they were products of their environment. They were certainly flawed and did not provide good support to my parents, but they were not abusive or cruel to their children. I was fairly young when my parents’ relationships strained with their parents. And, I think this actually worked in my favor over the years because I had not developed too strong of an emotional attachment. My parents were also always very honest with me. Given my penchant for overhearing things and young Ne-dom self, I might have figured it out even if they were not as open as they were. I won’t veer too far into my parents’ story as it is not mine to tell.

  For me, I have always had a very distant relationship with my entire family except for my parents. I honestly do not remember coming to terms with that very much. Most of the work I had to do revolving this sort of resolved itself as I matured and abandoned the rather intense jealousy I often felt of my peers and their grandparents as a child. I have gotten to the point in my life where I realize that I have protective walls around myself in regards to my family for a reason. I think this has to do with my self-preservation instinct in the Enneagram. I am also a 6, so I wonder how much the rejection I will speak of contributed to my own fear of being left without support. The walls are not necessarily made out of hostility as I am very rarely openly hostile towards others since I just hate the way it feels. But it is one of never speaking my mind or saying anything of substance. My extended family does not know the person I really am, and the most interested of them focus more on who I was as a kid. This is frustrating albeit given the fact that I am a fully grown woman, but honestly, I have learned to have a weird appreciation for that. I suppose it’s better than blatant disinterest.

  Another thing is that I have seen how terribly my parents have been treated by their different relatives at various times. So, my walls in a way have come up as a protection measure to defend myself. I am very close to both of my parents, and I honestly see negative behavior directed to them as if it were directed at myself personally. That is one of the few things that I find generally angers me.

  My maternal grandmother and I have, quite frankly, always had a poor relationship. Through her actions, she has made it clear to me that she does not care to have me be a part of her life. Her lack of acknowledgement hurt. I could not figure out why I was clearly her least favorite of her 3 granddaughters. I still have no idea, but I have reached the point where I do not really want to know because I know it cannot have been anything I did and there probably is not a clear cut answer. I thought I had done a lot of healing work around it, but I sort of realized that the old feelings were emerging again due to circumstances beyond my control. And this has always been beyond my control, which is hard to accept. In my senior year of high school, I wrote a creative writing project that the topic was to write a monologue of something you always wished you could say to someone. Mine was to her. I read it earlier today, and I literally cried. Honestly, these podcasts struck a core with what I am currently feeling and experiencing with her and with other members of my family whose actions I believe are exacerbating the problem.

  I will try to be as vague about this as possible. I highly doubt anyone I currently have problems with would ever access this, but for my own privacy and peace of mind, it is best that I make it private (and also not post this under my actual name). I also feel it is best to conceal things as I have very negative feelings right now towards several family members, particularly one who made both my mom and my aunt feel physically unsafe because of their actions (I even feel the need to conceal this person’s gender). I do not want to even risk making the situation worse for them, and I also am trying to ensure the personal safety of myself and others involved. While there is no imminent threat to anyone, I know the very little I have to say would set one individual off, and we are not sure exactly what said individual is capable of. I personally see no reason to be afraid, as I do not really care what this person says or thanks, and I do not wish to speak with them again after how they treated my mother. But I feel that I owe it to the others to be as safe as possible, and I want to share this with more of a community in case there are more people who have experienced something vaguely similar (and my heart goes out to anyone who has).

  Joel, Antonia, if you would like me to clarify anything or if I am not making sense, you can send me an email.

  That being said, my grandmother has been taken advantage of. I do not want to call it elder abuse, but how I see it is that members of the family who knew that she is sick and her mind is deteriorating rapidly due to dementia continuously accepted ridiculous sums of money from her and spent it. I do not care that I received nothing from her, and I do not expect anything from her. What bothers me is that, if I had the chance, I would have never used her in this manner. The irony that the family member she did not want a relationship with would have been the one who treated her the best was the one she did not want in her life (and this statement also extends to my mom and aunt as well). And, things have escalated to the point where I seriously doubt the individual mentioned above even cares about my grandma at all. Her behavior, which is making the process of moving her to a facilitated living center much more difficult, is constantly causing trouble and it is endangering the health of my grandmother who should not be living alone anymore. I actually care about her despite the estranged nature of our relationship, and I suppose that is what has brought a whole slew of feelings back. I said something a few weeks ago to the effect of, “Life is easier when you can ignore your extended family.” I automatically regretted it after I said it because of how crass it sounded. The people who heard it are very close friends of mine who know my backstory.

  It is also frustrating because I thought I had moved past this and come to terms with it, and I have to restrict myself from blaming other people for really bringing out the fact that I need to do more healing work. And I have started to really see this through the conversations I have had with my parents, but especially my mom as well as these podcasts. It has taken awhile since I do not currently live with my parents, and there is only so much they have the energy to reveal in hindsight about what has happened during our regular phone calls. I am sort of disappointed because I did not really want to be focused on healing work right now since I believe I have finally found the area of my chosen field that I wish to pursue, and I am really excited about this. As an ENFP, I have always struggled with having too many interests, but my Fi is really just completely screaming “YES!” But healing work is not supposed to be convenient, and it is hard for the reason. And I cannot accomplish what I want to in my field and in society as a whole if I do not resolve internal issues such as these.

  I also sort of have felt like I am gaining the ability to better control my idea generation and not fly off topic. In a group discussion planning for a future event, I actually was able to demonstrate why adding in unnecessary detail would be a problem and interfere with the message we wanted to send and how we could avoid it. Several people thanked me for that feedback, and I was extremely pleased and sort of thought “I am starting to get this, finally!” While this is good, I feel that I am still working towards it, and it might have to be sidelined for awhile, which is a bummer since this has been something I have really been working on.

  I suppose reconciliation is important, but I find that the best thing I can do for myself at times is to let go of toxic people. That is more of the theme in my life and one reason why I consider my story to be different than Antonia’s (there also is the lack of religious tension though a version of that exists somewhat on my dad’s side). I explained the concept of making peace with my mom who interpreted it as repairing the relationships with those people. And I said, “No, it’s finding your inner peace that you had no control over any of this and you did all that you could.”

  I was talking this summer to an old friend of mine who is an ISFJ. She mentioned her inspiration for following the path she has in life. I do not remember exactly what she said, but it was something along the lines of, “I want my life to be an example so I can use my experiences to help others through similar situations and show them a better way.” And I feel that sums up my motivation for posting this although I am not an Fe user and I feel that quote was an extremely Fe-like thing to say. But, I also want to make a positive impact, and I feel that I need to try to do that in whatever way I can constantly. So, I hope this helps give a picture of what might go through your daughter’s head in the coming years. It is impossible to know for sure. She might actually really want to pursue a relationship with her grandparents if one or both are still living. It is hard to tell, and it doesn’t sound like the situation will evolve into the exact same mess. But hopefully this helps you be able to help her through it. All you really can do is be there for her and try your best to provide a good family structure for her even without certain members that are seen as key. That’s what my parents did for me, and I would say I turned out as well as I have because of their support (in numerous areas).

  And thank you again for these podcasts. I suppose now I need to grapple with what I could say or will say when the time comes and my paths will cross with the others’ again because I know it will inevitably happen in the case of a family emergency. But I will cross that bridge when it is more imminent. I suppose that is because I have found that my own peace is the freedom to walk my own path surrounded by the family I have chosen. I think it would probably be different though if that path conflicted with that of my parents, which is why my heart really goes out to you, Antonia.

  It is also sometimes the small things that hurt the most. I was helping an older gentleman out one day, and he said something to the fact of “You’re so polite and considerate, I’ll bet you were raised by your grandparents.” Even though I knew it was meant as a compliment, it still hurt inside because of the relationships I have never had that other people have experienced. But I knew it was not meant in a harmful way so I smiled and said, “My grandparents live pretty far away. I guess just lucked out on who my parents happen to be.”