I used them in the wrong way all my life. I would say yes to the lies I was told about myself, yes to the responsibilities for actions and consequences that were not my own. I would say no to the people who reached out their hands in love and friendship to me... even to my husband and my children. It was hardest with the kids because it was my responsibility to teach them right from wrong and I didn't quite know where to draw the line. There wasn't really a tailor-made manual with each kid, telling me what their areas of sensitivity would be.
Oh, I had read the parenting books. I had read the Bible too - and I thought I knew what that meant. But many of the ideas I had surrounding parenting were skewed by my own abusive upbringing and by my own denial of the fact that it was abusive!!
It talked about the loaded words we use with our kids like "bad" and "good" - and how the WAY we say something can make the difference between a child having a positive self-image or a negative one.
I did use some of those techniques with my kids - with good results - but the problem with me was that it wasn't consistent. I had too much anger in me, too much terror that they would take the wrong path and turn their backs on everything I held dear. That fear ended up being a self-fulfilling prophecy. When my oldest started embracing friends I didn't agree with her having, and espousing opinions which were diametrically opposed to mine - my terror translated to panic and to a emotional, tyrannical, angry outbursts designed to scare her or hurt her "back into line." She withdrew from me, and pushed my buttons from afar. She took the one stance that drove me absolutely mad: she took a condescending tone. OH how that infuriated me! I lost all rationality and then it became a matter of who could hurt whom first. I did much the same with her sister as she got to be an age where she was hanging out with people who were "a bad influence" on her. I didn't see that she was just looking to have an identity separate from mine. They both were.
By the time I got into recovery (and even that was not me saying yes to me - I was trying to help someone else and cope with HIS problem) I was playing all the cards: guilt, shame, anger, intimidation, manipulation, suspicion, accusation, you name it. It was all fear-based. I didn't see that the roots of my behavior were in the beliefs I had about myself based on my past experiences. All I knew was that the world, and my family in particular, would be so much better off if they just did what I said, thought like I did, and believed the way I believed.
Once I started dealing with those issues in my past, and forgave those people, I began to realize how my inner messages were affecting those around me, including my husband and children. And that's when one of the things I learned in that book came to my aid.
It's called "Looking for Yes" and it's based pretty much on the same principle as the movie "Yes Man" starring Jim Carrey. Only in addition to myself, I had to look for a way to say yes to my loved ones.... I was saying no ALL THE TIME.
No wonder they were all terrified of me!!
My first step in letting go was separating beliefs from opinions, and then learning to recognize when I needed to shut up and let someone have their own beliefs and opinions even if they differed from mine! Not easy for me; I'm very opinionated and I was of the erroneous opinion (there's that word again) that since I was the parent, my word was gospel and must be obeyed at all times without question. I refused to listen or to ask why.
So ... I started trying to understand some of the behaviors I was seeing in my kids - from their perspective. And I learned that their hearts were in the right place after all, that they weren't deliberately trying to drive me nuts and that they had the right to hold their own opinions. And their own beliefs, for that matter. After all, they were NOT clones of me; they were humans in their own right and it was unreasonable of me to expect them to look at life the same way I did. (Duh, I didn't end up believing the same things as my parents did!!) THIS WAS IMMENSE in my understanding of what parenting was about - and what being a human being was about. People had the right to make choices on their own without my help. This was such a new concept for me!
When I started stepping aside and letting that happen, and letting others bear the responsibility for their own actions (even refusing to make consequences happen - aka punishment - but also refusing to shield someone from the natural results of his or her choices) a transformation took place. It was like the more I did this, the more the weight of the world started rolling off my shoulders. My stress level went down. My tolerance level increased. I started to "lighten up" on my kids, on my husband, to not obsess about what they were up to, or what they "might do."
Eventually I was able to see how my own behavior toward them was causing them to act in some of the ways they were acting. I was empowered to be entirely ready to have God remove these character flaws from me, to accept forgiveness with Him - and apologize to them (sincerely) for being such a tyrant. I was able to let them know that I was becoming free. They already knew that by having seen some of the attitude changes in me. They started opening up to me more. And best of all, they forgave me. That blew me away - part of me still can't believe it.
Today I enjoy a much better relationship with them than I ever had. And I lay the credit for that squarely at the feet of God, who heard my cry for help, reached into my darkness and (see my last post) pulled me out of the muck.
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