How To Forgive Your Parents

How To Forgive Your Parents

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What’s up y’all!?

Wow- so clearly I have some deep shit going on in regards to the above screenshot from my Mom.  Just from glancing at this, I got a little teary eyed again.  As you’ve probably gathered from the title of this post, I’m going to give you a short and sweet rant on ‘how to forgive your parents’.  Or, in a lot of people’s cases, parent.

For those of you who’ve been following me for years, you’d have some background on my upbringing.  My mom and I have had an interesting relationship over the years, to say the least.  Growing up, she was sick AF in her illness/dis-ease of alcoholism.  No breach of confidentiality here people.  My mom and I come from the same page; We’re both open books when it comes to the topic.  After all, they say that alcoholism is potentially part genetic, and part learned behaviour.

Without going into my life herstory, understand a lot of us have a significant amount of mommy or daddy issues.  It’s rare that you meet someone who claims their “childhood was perfect”, and “Mom and Dad are my heroes”.

The interesting thing about our relationships with our parents, is one that most people aren’t even aware of.  From the ages of 0-8 , we’re the most vulnerable when it comes to creating beliefs about ourselves, as well as when we create most of our beliefs about the world around us.  Society, teachers and other influentials, play a decent role during those ages, but a significant amount of our beliefs (how we view the world), comes directly from our parents.  Again, most of us have a lot of issues on a subconscious level that we aren’t aware of.

Growing up with an alcoholic parent in my case, meant a lot of cray-cray times.  By  9, my parents split up.  I lived with my mom for a few years, until she moved out to whoop whoop with her pot growing boyfriend (bless his soul- RIP Marty).  I then moved in with dad, and his new remarried family.  By time I got to high school, my mom ended up living part time down the street from us.  She was the ‘cool mom’ and bought my friends and I alcohol in high school.  It wasn’t an every day event, but occasionally we’d party with mom.  This continued on through college after my mom ended up living in the same town.  Every time I’d drink with my mom, I’d lose my shit and start yelling at her for being such a horrible parent.  In between drunken sobs I’d shout out, “Do you remember that one time when I was 9 and you passed out on thanksgiving and I had to finish cooking fucking dinner?!”.

You catch my drift….

When I was deep in MY addiction/alcoholism around the age of 20, my mom went to rehab.   Soon after, right after I turned the legal drinking age of 21, I followed in her footsteps.  Years later, she and I THEN developed a pill addiction together.  #codependent……
Like I said, we’ve had an interesting relationship.  Although it was often turbulent, deep down I’ve always loved my mom.  I’ve always felt a strong connection with her.  It wasn’t until I turned 30, that I realised the best way I could forgive and love my mom, was to accept her as she is.  Instead of try and change her, I would love/accept her for all her crazy quirks and focus on the great things she instilled in me when growing up.  The forgiveness part came when I realised that she’s still trying to deal with her own childhood-

Anyway, my point is this: Our parents are doing the best that they possibly can, given the tools that they currently have.  It’s not like we come blasting out of the vagina with a “how-to” manual.  Often, our parents are STILL trying to deal with their own shit from ages 0-8, let alone trying to set a good example for us.  And the craziest part about it all, is that most have no clue what shit they’re even trying to process and cope with!

With that being said, it is up to us to break the cycle of hurt.  Or, at least that’s what I used to tell the teenage girls from our program Kamp Konfidence.  So many of them show up with issues, directly stemming from childhood.  And of course, their parents have not a conscious clue that they’ve had any kind of impact on how/why their daughter has turned out the way she has.

However, as soon as these girls realised that their parents are doing the best that they possibly can, given the tools they were handed down, they were able to move past the anger, and focus on how to be the best person they could be.  In turn, pave the way for the future generations after them.

Parenting is no joke.  It’s a full-time, underpaid, hard AF job.  It’s in our best interest to recognise that our parents are doing the best they can, given the tools they have.  Even the parent who beats his or her child, most often has some level of love.  They’re just lacking the tools to express their anger and feelings aside from violence.

Hmmmmmmmmmm- I hope this made sense on some level.  My jet lag is kicking my father f**king ass y’all!  (ps- you ever wonder why it has to be the mother who’s getting fu*ked?!) But remember, our number one core need as human beings, is to be loved and receive love.

The post How To Forgive Your Parents appeared first on Kortney Olson >> Konfidence By Kortney.


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