forgiving your parents

we formulate our identity based off of what our parents thought about us like the things that we saw and heard reflected back are the building blocks that we formulated our own view of ourselves so maybe that was good maybe you got encouragement and positivity maybe it was uh that you fundamentally learned that you were irritating in an interruption you know um this also has implications on how we saw our parents you know interact with the world some of us had parents who saw the world as fundamentally kind of an arbitrary place full of betrayal and suffering they're really cynical and so that affected us deeply that affected maybe our own sense of how we interact with the world and we're going in expecting betrayal and suffering and failure and and we feel like there's nothing really that we can do to mitigate any of that it's just futile some of us had parents who rose to the occasion and it's not even necessarily maybe that they uh they got better results out of it but they just kind of when confrontation presented itself to them they rose to the occasion and they met it with nobility with their values they they had conviction and uh they believed that if you contended with the world if you dealt with it nobody then there can be flourishing there can be something good that comes from that and that dramatically shifts how we interact with the world and so all these things have deep implications in to who we are and how we interact with our own pain and suffering and that's why parental wounds can be the deepest wounds that we hold they matter they're they're sewn into the fabric of our deepest foundations and that's why forgiveness feels so far off it feels almost impossible sometimes because it's like um sometimes forgiveness is pitched as just trying to like let go or pretend that those wounds didn't matter when in reality it's those wounds that matter the most because your suffering mattered the ways that you felt abandoned matter and your healing matters and so forgiveness when i talk about forgiving parents i'm not talking about dismissing any of that or minimizing it i'm just not i actually want to create freedom and healing in that space so that's what we're going to be talking about so maybe let's start with this let's start with what should a parent be what's the role of a parent there's lots of ways to organize this here's kind of the way i break it down is a parent has four responsibilities to create a sense of safety to nurture to equip and then to encourage meaning um you know in equipping has a lot to do with making sure that the child feels that they have the tools that they need to interact with the world and get out of the world what they're seeking or at least if they fail to learn how they feel and then to adjust course to not feel like they're defeated by that or that's that there's something insufficient in them that's irreparable but to be able to maybe assess what's wrong and then to move forward right and that's done in the context of having their needs met having nurture and then also feeling safe like they um they're not in threat constantly and and that encouragement is like this indwelled sense of autonomy this this like if i try maybe you'll win you know that's that's kind of the idea that that's the responsibility of a parent and sometimes those are divided between a mother and father right so like the nurture safety goes to mother the equipping uh encouragement goes to the father but i mean i mean honestly those rules can be switched like you know some parents every parent does a version of all four of those and so and different cultures organize that differently so that's good and fine so let's let's maybe move to this is um our parents fundamentally fail at at least one of those maybe all of those and that creates damage and that has repercussions and how we experience the world in unique ways like if you didn't experience a lot of nurture as a child when you don't experience nurture it's really hard to have an awareness of your own needs it's really difficult to um to recognize a healthy and an unhealthy environment and so maybe you're in a dating relationship and you think everything's going fine and then it ends in betrayal you're just blindsided and and you just don't even know what freaking happened and and maybe then it happens to you again and again and you're like on your fifth relationship where things just like crumbled in front of you and you're like is something just wrong with me like what's going on and that's like usually a telltale sign that that you don't have a good awareness of the pieces that were leading up to that event that were maybe the red flags and the signs telling you that that person wasn't trustworthy and that is an error in equipping and nurture because like you think about like if a toddler's playing with a dog right if a toddler's playing with a dog you need to supervise you need to make sure that the toddler doesn't like pull the dog's tail because if you know he or she does then the dog will kind of nip at him and bite him and so if a toddler was just playing and had no awareness of any of that no coaching there's me playing with the dog and then out of nowhere the dog just bites them and they're like oh i guess dogs aren't safe i just need to avoid dogs or dogs don't like me right those are the conclusions they rush to these giant generalizations that aren't true but if they add the coaching they're like hey just don't pull the tail the dog will be very friendly just don't pull the tail then the child can have a great friendship with that dog and that's kind of the case in all of life is like sometimes we run into these just catastrophes and people absolutely just run into strokes of bad luck where people are malicious and betray and there was no signs of it all just happened that absolutely is true but but most of the time there's these signs there's these signals along the way that if you pay attention if you know to look for them we'll let you know if you're in a situation that's safe and trustworthy or not and that's the job of a parent it's a job of a parent to not just show them those things in isolated cases but then to train them how to raise their awareness and assess situations to look for trustworthiness reliability aspects like that you know and the truth of the matter is that parents fail in these categories and um and sometimes they fail because they just uh they can't read their child's mind right like maybe the child looks like they're doing great they're just kind of quiet everything is kind of happening happening internally and so they they're like they must be doing okay they must be doing fine and but but in reality there's a whole internal world of stuff that they're not attending to and needs and nurture that that child needs that they just didn't have an awareness of um other times maybe it's because the parent is really focused on a goal like get them into college make sure you get good grades you know be a great baseball player whatever it's it's there's there's this goal that kind of distracts them from the internal needs that the child has maybe it's just that the parent is in a hurry or they're irritable or they're tired or they feel distracted or they're going through some sort of suffering themselves maybe their parent is dying maybe they have a health crisis maybe they um maybe there's another child in the family a sibling of yours that's going through crisis and so all the attention goes to them and then you felt like you were kind of in the shadow you know there's other situations where the parent um knowingly doesn't nurture their child or or attend to their needs because maybe they're preferring their own comfort or their own pleasure or they're avoiding their own pain and they take avoiding their own pain more seriously than attending to their child's needs like maybe he had a parent that was um dependent on a substance that was consistently dating person after person and bringing people into the home because they had unmet needs in their own heart because hey you know and maybe their parent didn't teach them how to nurture themselves and so they don't know how to nurture you but but they sure don't seem to be trying to figure it out and then there's other people who have parents that actually take delight in tormenting their children and then abusing their children and find pleasure in it i've seen those parents i've reported those parents some people think that doesn't exist but it absolutely exists so when i talk about forgiveness um i don't want to do so in some cheap way where we're not acknowledging that real pain exists or that we should just let it go because it matters and uh the consequences are severe maybe the most severe out of any relationship we have in our life and so here's what forgiveness is not forgiveness is not um letting people back in and trusting people again and just choosing to ignore the pain here's what forgiveness is um i'll use an analogy i i brought my friend's truck to move a couple years ago and i accidentally ran into a boulder and it was a silly mistake because like the boulder was in the middle of a parking lot with nothing else around it like i don't even know how i managed to to ram it into the boulder it was almost like you'd have to almost do it on purpose like but i didn't it was just i was just wasn't thinking and i just rammed into it and so that sucked so i created like 700 worth of damage and um i decided to pay that damage and so what i did was like hey i damaged your truck i'm really sorry let me go fix it and she said okay yeah go ahead take it to any shop you want so i went around it took me a couple weeks to kind of get quotes and go to different people and and then i fixed you know the truck and and i brought it back to him now um forgiveness is the question of what do we do about that 700 and so in this instance she said you go ahead and fix the damage that was done and then you were going to accrue that debt that was owed that 700 now if she chose to say you know what i'm gonna fix it myself that would be an expression of forgiveness right and she would say okay yep i'm gonna take care of it you don't worry about it just drop the truck back off at home i'm gonna fix it that would be forgiveness now forgiveness would not then be uh hey can i borrow your truck again next week and then she would say yes she could very well say hey you know what actually last time i let you borrow my truck you rammed it into a boulder for no good reason and uh so i'm not gonna loan you my truck again because i don't trust you and that that's a separate issue that's a totally different conversation than what do we do about the 700 so in in this case i you know i paid the 700 and i got it repaired but um parental debt is a lot more complex than just like a truck right because um you can't just take you to a body shop and then pay 700 bucks often the damage left by parents is uh it cascades into a lots of different personal choices and in ways that you're trying to interact with the world that create suffering because you weren't equipped right so you're not equipped and then you go out into the world and then you experience all this suffering because you didn't have the tools that you needed to contend with everything and so it's like the damage compounds the damage done by the lack of proper parenting then creates damage for years to come and so it's it's it's not obvious that a parent can actually pay any of that back even if you demand it from them and often when they try to it gets real weird real quick because like you've probably been around parents like that maybe your parents like that maybe you've seen a friend's parent where like maybe they're adults but the parent is hyper critical and is always trying to give them advice and is treating them like a kid even though they're not a kid and that's usually evidence of a parent trying to equip trying to train trying to encourage but but it's inappropriate because well they're an adult now they're not a child and so when you when you create this weird indebted relationship with the parent it usually just turns into them trying to take over your choices and trying to control you trying to guilt-trip you and control like that that's where in-law drama really happens is because a parent is trying to step into a role that is inappropriate for them and and sometimes that's motivated out of a guilt of wanting to pay back a debt that they feel like they owe to their kid because they feel that they parent it insufficiently and that's that's a mess because what you'll realize is that they're not the ones who are best suited to heal the damage done you are and that's um that's not fair and you don't deserve it it's not your fault but you're the one best suited to go about your own healing because when a parent tries to do that retroactively it turns into weird control and codependency and criticism and you feel that like you feel the awkwardness of it don't you like when you're in that situation it just doesn't feel appropriate because it's not and so when you're holding on to resentment when you're holding on to this debt with the internal emotional demand that they make it better that they make you feel better or undo the pain and suffering that's been a consequence of their insufficient parenting you're you're setting up a game that's meant for them to fail and you're inviting weird codependency and criticism so what do you do you let go of the debt you take it upon yourself to heal to repair the damage done it's not fair but you're best suited for it um and that doesn't necessarily then equate to welcoming welcoming them in with trust and there's boundaries that need to be put in place there and that's a whole nother video uh and i'll and i'll speak to that next time but but here's um maybe a couple side notes that i think are important before we close this up is if you're a child like if you're underage right now and you're living at home with your parents um if you're if you want to have conversations with your parents about maybe ways that they've been parenting you or are parenting you that you feel like they're not equipping you they're not nurturing you like things aren't going well do so with the help of a counselor either ask them to maybe help you find a counselor or you can even go to your school counselor at school and they can help you oftentimes having that third party is really good because because you have no leverage when you live at home and if things go poorly it's not like you can kind of go to your house and then see them next month or next week at dinner it's like you're just down the hall from them and and they also have the ability to discipline you if if they feel like the conversation's not going well and it's if there's a power differential that that doesn't make for a good setting to try to pursue forgiveness and reconciliation all right so oftentimes having a third party they're like a counselor to help negotiate that with you and help give you strategies and and work through that is so helpful it's incredible and so go to a school counselor and talk to them about that if you feel like you live in a home right now and um things are not okay and you feel like it's not even just like your emotional needs aren't being met but you feel like your physical needs aren't being met you feel like you're not safe like you're in a home that's dangerous you need to talk to somebody it's okay it's okay to talk to and here's here's maybe my advice talk to three different adults that you respect and that you trust maybe that's a teacher maybe that's a youth pastor maybe that's a neighbor maybe that's a friend's parent tell three different people because sometimes adults don't really know what to do and they don't know if they should report or they should talk to someone or how to make that right so if you talk to three then then you have a higher likelihood that one of those is going to respond in a way that actually helps and i know that's incredibly vulnerable and really scary to do but your safety matters so reach out to somebody there's so much more to be said on the topic of um what to do after forgiveness but maybe the core piece to take away from all this right here to just today would be this is that when you hold on to resentment when you hold on to this feeling of i need this debt to be paid it creates codependent relationships that invite criticism and parents to just control your behavior and it feels weird and just builds into contention and and i didn't mention this before it can also actually build this desire for vengeance and revenge and so you might even find that you're contemptuous and you're actually trying to make digs in and you're provoking them because because you feel the distance the debt that still isn't repaired and you're angry at them for it and so that anger then creates even more complications in that relationship it's a bad strategy and forgiveness is deciding okay i'm gonna take my healing upon myself i don't need you to heal me and that could lead to freedom because you're best suited for it so um we'll leave it there for this week i'll talk more on this there's there's more to this topic obviously so we'll keep going i hope you have a great week i'll talk to you soon there's an objection that comes up here that i want to address um i talk to a lot of people about this and then the number one thing that i always hear back is well i just want them to acknowledge it i just want my parents to acknowledge the abuse to acknowledge the ways that they let me down to just i just want to hear them say it but that's still an extension of trust that's still asking them to pay some of the debt and and i get it like that's not a bad thing it's just it's just good to notice that it's good to notice that that's still an exchange of asking them to participate in your healing and maybe maybe that's an okay thing to request of them and i've seen that happen i've seen people like approach their parents have you know really confrontational conversations with respect and honor but just being like hey this happened this was my experience and then the parents you know admit to that and acknowledge that and that's really healing but i've also seen for every case that that that's been the case i've seen maybe like five that went terrible and the parent didn't acknowledge it and it really like wrecked them and so only you know your parents and your situation so um you know take that as you will but but here's here's the piece and here's why this gets complicated and why it doesn't go well often is because what you're asking your parent to do is to provide safety and encouragement in domains where they personally fail that offering safety and encouragement does that make sense it's like you're asking them you're asking them to heal damage that they did in the past and and so that that creates kind of this chasm where they they typically will respond in defensiveness or respond like in a lot of shame and and some people who are really self-aware and some people who are really humble will take that and rise to that occasion and actually be like yep i messed up i'm sorry how can i encourage you how can i offer you a sense of safety right now here in the present which is which is great but but it's it's complicated and so um the reason that goes arise because you're asking someone to extend a lot of self-awareness and to nurture someone in the place potentially of their deepest shame they have to concede that they failed at parenting in order to offer you the safety that you need to heal from their failure at parenting and not everyone's up for that

Channel: Matthias J Barker

Views: 7,406

Rating: 4.9967346 out of 5

Keywords: Matthias Barker, matthiasjbarker, forgiveness

Id: KeVep5HZbsk

Length: 19min 11sec (1151 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 12 2020