When I was younger, I had flashbacks a LOT of things that happened to me when I was a child. Horrible images, re-experiencing feelings and thoughts I thought I had buried far beneath. I was determined not to ever let ANYone get the better part of me. Ever. Again.
I still have them ... just not quite as often.
But I'm starting to have flash-forwards. Based on some more recent things that have happened. Only this time I wasn't the victim (even though at the time I felt like I was ... a perpetual state not that long ago). I was victimizing my kids by trying to control their behavior - through intimidation or manipulation.
Because I'm a Christian, and because I wanted them to be as well, I would try to control their decisions by 'hinting' at the idea that they might be sinning and hurting themselves (and me, obviously) as a result. Or I'd send them a poem that made them feel guilty for the way they were treating me (or each other.) Or I'd quote Scripture to them. Or ... well, you get the picture.
The problem with that picture was that it had the opposite effect of the one I wanted. Every time. In fact, my kids coined a word for my behavior.
Christianazi.
Ouch. That hurt.
Still, I didn't get it. Even when they told me point blank!! I took it as my children "persecuting" me because I was "standing up for what was right." Or trying to "raise them right." Or "protecting" them.
Nothing could have been further from the truth. What I was really doing was causing them to reject me and turn their backs on everything I stood for (including Christianity, if it made me into a religious control freak) and shut me out of their lives. I was doing it because I couldn't stand not being in control of something... ANYthing.
They hated being treated that way - as if their wishes and feelings didn't matter, just mine. They withdrew from me and didn't confide in me (for fear of being judged/jumped all over). And they were right. I could dress it up and I did for years: I was trying to spare them the heartache I had known by being "out there" and getting some pretty hard knocks. But I'd been unaware that whole time of something important. In trying to protect them, I also shielded them from experiencing the consequences of their own actions. I was hurting them, not helping them.
As part of my recovery from this addiction to controlling others, I realized one day not only what I was doing to them, but to myself for putting me through the pressure of taking responsibility for their actions, and yes, even to God for keeping my kids away from the opportunity to find Him for themselves (something He wants, very much!) ... exactly by having this "you gotta do it my [or the Bible's] way" attitude.
I took another look at the teachings of Jesus - and discovered something rather alarming - - actually, earth-shattering to someone who had built her whole life on trying to "make it happen" in other people's lives. Jesus only told people who were following Him to act a certain way. He told His followers to NOT expect other people to toe the line ... because only God can change a heart and give the motivation and the power to live life His way.
It wasn't my job to change them, protect them, rescue them, make them choose the right thing. I was robbing that away from God! And the result? They ran in the opposite direction!
Can you blame them? Nobody wants to be made to feel lower than a snake's underbelly just for having a different opinion or take on things than someone else.
Huh. So all of my wrangling, tears, temper tantrums, and guilt-trips were for nothing. I was pushing my loved ones away from the very thing I most wanted them to embrace!!
In one of the hardest life-changes I've ever had to make, I decided to let go and let God have my kids (and my husband, for that matter!) and to TRUST HIM to do in them what I could never do. To stop being Jimminy Cricket and stop fearing what might happen to them if they didn't follow my advice ... and LET IT HAPPEN. LET them walk away if they needed to. LET them make a choice I wouldn't make. LET them experience the consequences of said choice. No guilt trips. NO trying to manipulate the outcome.
Yes, be a safe place to land. YES, forgive. But LET them be who they were, even if it wasn't what I wanted. LET them have their own opinions on things even if those opinions were diametrically opposed to mine. They were nearly adults at the time ... I was treating them like they were still six years old. Letting go and learning to let it happen was one of the hardest, the most frightening, and the most rewarding things I ever did.
Today, my kids still make choices I don't necessarily like all the time. I'm learning to let them know what I think without telling them what THEY should think. I'm learning to enjoy them and accept them for the way they are, and not try to change them. They have slowly started to open up to me, like flower-buds in their proper season. I've been surprised at the amazing variety of colours I see in them, colours that I never would have dreamed were there.
And there is something else now in our house which was so rare before, and which is happening more and more often as I learn to let go and allow life to unfold for them without trying to force it. It's like music to me.
It's the strangest and most beautiful sound.
Laughter.
I still have them ... just not quite as often.
But I'm starting to have flash-forwards. Based on some more recent things that have happened. Only this time I wasn't the victim (even though at the time I felt like I was ... a perpetual state not that long ago). I was victimizing my kids by trying to control their behavior - through intimidation or manipulation.
Because I'm a Christian, and because I wanted them to be as well, I would try to control their decisions by 'hinting' at the idea that they might be sinning and hurting themselves (and me, obviously) as a result. Or I'd send them a poem that made them feel guilty for the way they were treating me (or each other.) Or I'd quote Scripture to them. Or ... well, you get the picture.
The problem with that picture was that it had the opposite effect of the one I wanted. Every time. In fact, my kids coined a word for my behavior.
Christianazi.
Ouch. That hurt.
Still, I didn't get it. Even when they told me point blank!! I took it as my children "persecuting" me because I was "standing up for what was right." Or trying to "raise them right." Or "protecting" them.
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| Found this photo at THIS SITE |
Nothing could have been further from the truth. What I was really doing was causing them to reject me and turn their backs on everything I stood for (including Christianity, if it made me into a religious control freak) and shut me out of their lives. I was doing it because I couldn't stand not being in control of something... ANYthing.
They hated being treated that way - as if their wishes and feelings didn't matter, just mine. They withdrew from me and didn't confide in me (for fear of being judged/jumped all over). And they were right. I could dress it up and I did for years: I was trying to spare them the heartache I had known by being "out there" and getting some pretty hard knocks. But I'd been unaware that whole time of something important. In trying to protect them, I also shielded them from experiencing the consequences of their own actions. I was hurting them, not helping them.
As part of my recovery from this addiction to controlling others, I realized one day not only what I was doing to them, but to myself for putting me through the pressure of taking responsibility for their actions, and yes, even to God for keeping my kids away from the opportunity to find Him for themselves (something He wants, very much!) ... exactly by having this "you gotta do it my [or the Bible's] way" attitude.
I took another look at the teachings of Jesus - and discovered something rather alarming - - actually, earth-shattering to someone who had built her whole life on trying to "make it happen" in other people's lives. Jesus only told people who were following Him to act a certain way. He told His followers to NOT expect other people to toe the line ... because only God can change a heart and give the motivation and the power to live life His way.
It wasn't my job to change them, protect them, rescue them, make them choose the right thing. I was robbing that away from God! And the result? They ran in the opposite direction!
Can you blame them? Nobody wants to be made to feel lower than a snake's underbelly just for having a different opinion or take on things than someone else.
Huh. So all of my wrangling, tears, temper tantrums, and guilt-trips were for nothing. I was pushing my loved ones away from the very thing I most wanted them to embrace!!
In one of the hardest life-changes I've ever had to make, I decided to let go and let God have my kids (and my husband, for that matter!) and to TRUST HIM to do in them what I could never do. To stop being Jimminy Cricket and stop fearing what might happen to them if they didn't follow my advice ... and LET IT HAPPEN. LET them walk away if they needed to. LET them make a choice I wouldn't make. LET them experience the consequences of said choice. No guilt trips. NO trying to manipulate the outcome.
Yes, be a safe place to land. YES, forgive. But LET them be who they were, even if it wasn't what I wanted. LET them have their own opinions on things even if those opinions were diametrically opposed to mine. They were nearly adults at the time ... I was treating them like they were still six years old. Letting go and learning to let it happen was one of the hardest, the most frightening, and the most rewarding things I ever did.
Today, my kids still make choices I don't necessarily like all the time. I'm learning to let them know what I think without telling them what THEY should think. I'm learning to enjoy them and accept them for the way they are, and not try to change them. They have slowly started to open up to me, like flower-buds in their proper season. I've been surprised at the amazing variety of colours I see in them, colours that I never would have dreamed were there.
And there is something else now in our house which was so rare before, and which is happening more and more often as I learn to let go and allow life to unfold for them without trying to force it. It's like music to me.
It's the strangest and most beautiful sound.
Laughter.
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