Outgrowing Your Parents

Transcript

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Hello and welcome back my friends. If you dunno who I am. I'm Dr. Sarah. Award-winning relationship psychologist helping amazing, incredible, high-achieving women have a secure relationship and that anxious attachment star and the negative, harmful toxic cycles. So let's begin. I want to have a conversation about the realization that you have. When you recognize that your parents don't actually know very much, and this is not me badmouthing any parent out there because actually parents have got a really hard job and my God, I will be honest, when I entered motherhood. It smacked me in the face hard. I thought I had my life together, and it was only after the birth of my daughter that I then realized, huh, there is a lot that I have to learn in life. And this little bundle of joy is also showing me that path. So. This is not a talk about bad mouthing parents, but it is a conversation that I think we all need to have because as children, when we grow up, we look to the big people around us anticipating that they know the answers, that they have it all put together. We look towards our parents assuming that they know exactly what we should be doing in life, how it is that we should be acting, what. It is that we should be doing in order to get what it is that we need out of life. We look at the big people to tell us how to behave, to tell us our worth, and it's through that interaction that we have with our parents that we really then start to learn how it is to love ourselves, but also how it is to love someone else. So this is absolutely necessary for us to understand when we are understanding relationship health, because if the messages that we have had from our parents either directly or indirectly have been, well, you have to work really, really hard because, you know, other people aren't gonna look at you if you are just lazying about. And you have to make sure that everybody else around you is really happy, otherwise something bad is going to happen or that you won't be safe if you don't keep the peace around you and that you make sure that everybody else is content. If these are the types of messages that you have had either directly or indirectly, then you are going to go through life operating in that way. And I just really want to illustrate what this looks like because I wanna clear up any confusion. So. We learn a lot through our parents. Directly or indirectly. So directly is when they explicitly tell us something. So for example, if we have had really high achieving parents and they tell us, well, you have to work really, really hard and make something of yourself because I didn't work so hard. For you to be a failure. Or if they say something like, well, you know what? When you work really hard, when you get straight A's, then we can go on holiday and then I will be super happy, whatever it might be. But when we have that direct messaging, when they explicitly tell us that we have to act a certain way and then things will be okay after we've act that way. Then what we are getting are direct messages saying, well, you won't be accepted just the way that you are, but you actually have to do something in order for things to be okay. So. The original point, you have to do stuff, and then the outcome is that you're okay. And the things that you have to do is either give, give, give, give, give, do, do, do, do, do or make yourself smaller. And so if you do all of these things, then the outcome is going to be great. So these are direct messages, but indirectly you still absorb some messages. So indirectly is when you observe your parents acting a particular way, either with themselves or towards other people. So for example, if you grew up in a household where, let's say mom. Always prioritized to everybody else, and only after she prioritized everybody else and everyone else was happy, then maybe she would look at herself. But actually she was so far down the to-do list then. You are still learning a message there indirectly, you are learning a message that we can't prioritize everybody. That actually it's really important that we prioritize other people above ourselves, and that is the way that we get love. That is the way that we build a relationship. That is the way that we have children. That is the way that we have a family unit. It's only through prioritizing everybody else and never ourselves. And so we learn a lot through the indirect messages. If, for example, we saw our parents working incredibly hard and they self criticize, or they have these really high expectations of themselves and they are constantly making sure that other people around them are okay, or they are working so hard to be good enough, well guess what? We absorb those messages as well. And as much as our parents might say, oh no, no, no, that's just me, and it doesn't apply to you. Well, guess what? There will be a part of you still that will emulate that because as children, we learn a heck of a lot more through observing our parents. Then what it is that they directly tell us. We learn what they directly tell us as well. But we also, I would argue more. Uh, learn a lot more from what it is that they show us and how it is that they act within themselves. If, for example, we saw our parents really struggling to uphold boundaries and actually they were very much a pushover, then guess what? You will also really struggle to uphold boundaries as well, because if your parent felt really guilty about having a boundary, then so will you. Alternatively, if you have one parent that really struggled to hold a boundary and the other parent was very aggressive and very forceful with a boundary, then guess what? You are going to be on either side of that coin as well. And so you might either really struggle to hold a boundary and believe the only way to maintain a relationship is for other people to be aggressive, and you just have to back down. And actually, even though it's challenging, it's painful. It's not comfortable. But you know, there's love involved and so it's okay, let's just get on with it and, you know, let's over justify and overexplain the aggression and, and you know, just compensate it with love. Then that's the way that you are going to operate, and that's really based on what it is that you observe. So why am I even talking about all this stuff? Well. It's really necessary that we understand this because as we grow older, we are constantly trying to do better than the previous generation. And unfortunately, I have been seeing a massive trend in people where they have either become so frustrated with their parents because they've learn the lessons themselves and they're saying, Hey, you know what? What happened back then was not okay, and I'm so angry at my parents for. Not knowing better for not showing me the way better because actually it's left me filled with anxiety, filled with self-doubt. I'm constantly self abandoning. Self-sacrificing. I don't know where I stand. Oh, life is so ugly. They should have done more for me. But the sad truth is, is that they didn't know and they couldn't have known because they just weren't in that generation. They just weren't in that era. They didn't have the opportunities themselves to know. And so as much as I'm seeing so many people getting really frustrated with their parents for not having done more, it's also really important that we consider, well, actually, they could have never done more because they just weren't in that space. So in that moment, we have to recognize we are wanting to do better. We see more than them, but it's not to say that we then stop blaming them, that actually we should be looking at them from a lens of compassion. And it's not to say that compassion means complacency. It's not to say because you are compassionate towards them. Then it means that you give them full permission to be more damaging. That's, that's not all the case, but compassion is to really empathize with their situation because actually, even though they might be causing a lot of tragedy, a lot of chaos, they come in with the intention of being safe. With the intention of being loved and with the intention of protecting themselves. They might just not know any different. They might not know better. They might not know how else to deal with it other than the programming that they've had in their lifeline. And by the way. Generational trauma is a real thing. So if we're looking at your parents and your grandparents and their parents, and their parents as parents, and you know, the, the entire upline generational trauma can stem down up to 14 generations. This is even just from a genetic standpoint, 14 generations. That is a heck of a lot of generations, right? And so. I think in this day and age, we have a lot more access to information, a lot more access to knowledge, and thanks to the internet we have that. And so people are becoming a lot more aware. You are becoming a lot more aware of your own wellbeing, of your own relational issues, of your own attachment styles, your core beliefs, and unfortunately, previous generations didn't even have access to this information and so. Hm. As much as you are learning and you are developing, it's also really important for us to recognize that actually we are coming at it from a completely new lens. That these prior generations never even had the opportunity of scratching the surface around this. And so when you grow up and you start seeing your parents and you realize that actually they don't know it all, they never did, and you thought they did, but actually it was all some big illusion. Then it is really important that you start recognizing, well, actually, I can't be resentful towards'em, that there can't be any hate. But the only thing that you can do now is really start developing yourself. And when you are developing yourself, you will be meeting resistance from your parents. And it's not to say that that resistance is coming from a malicious place. But it's just coming from their own discomfort. And I see this so much when people are doing the work themselves, when women and men as well. But you know, when we are growing our self-worth, when we are becoming more attached to what is important to us, when we are becoming more connected to our relationships and our partner and, and we're really doing all of this internal work. What often happens is that there will be some kind of narrative or some kind of talk, particularly from older generations. And parents alike that will say, oh, do you really need to do all of this? Or like, oh no, you're fine. And they'll kind of brush it over or they'll dismiss it or you know, they know that there's an, they know that there's a thing, but at the same time, they don't really value that thing enough to be able to do the work. And you know, I see this countless of times when there are certain people that just. Don't want to join the movement of actually doing the work and actually living that new life, the new persona that they are, their new being, that that they're really reluctant to do that and it's not because they are. Stupid. It's not because that they don't want things to improve. They do want things to improve, but at the same time, they are in massive resistance because they have grown up with decades of old programming. And so for them to step into a new era or for them to see you changing. That becomes very uncomfortable and they don't know what to do with that information. They are in resistance, and so they are desperately holding onto the old because they know that the old, even if it's not comfortable, it has kept them alive this long. It has helped the survive. They have been able to protect themselves somehow with this old programming, and so for them to change that feels like a big ask because as much as they know that they're not so happy with the old programming. They're also not too sure whether or not they can trust the new wave being, they're not sure if they can really be safe with the new wave being because they've never experienced it. But you know, it's kind of like me saying to you, well, have you ever tried chocolate? And let's say you've never tried it and you say, no, no, no, I've never tried it. And you know, I wouldn't like it anyway. Well, it's a little bit absurd, right?'cause you've not tried it. So how would you know whether or not you liked it? You might like it, you might not. I don't know. But you would only ever know if you tried it. And this is really what I would say to anyone who is on the fence as to whether or not they need to do the work. Because you don't know until you know, you don't know until you've tried it, right? That's the only way of knowing anything. And so if you are in this space. What I would really, really encourage you to consider is that life in general, regardless of where you're at, is a never ending self-development journey. And I know this is my bias, but I would heavily argue that if you are not growing. And you are stagnating. Well actually, you're not really living life. You are just meandering throughout life and you are allowing life to happen to you as opposed to you really taking ownership and really taking autonomy and responsibility over the life that you are wanting. So please take this as a sign to take action. And of course, if any of this resonates with you, please get in touch. Let's have a conversation, and if you have enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or a family member because if you liked it, I bet you that one of them will do too. Until next time, please take care of yourself.