Debbie Gail Zane

Have you ever noticed that you feel more peaceful and less stressed when you don’t take personally what your teen or young adult child does?

When you take things personally, you begin to focus on what you did wrong or what you did to cause what your child is doing or saying.

It is important for your emotionally well being to remember that you didn’t cause it and you don’t have control over it.

What your child does has to do with where they are emotionally and what they are experiencing.  It is not about you.  It is about them.

When you blame yourself, you may begin to question your parenting and even your own self worth.

So next time you start to take things personally and make them about you, pause… and remind yourself that you child is his or her own person.

Are you experiencing painful emotions such as sadness, fear, anger?

Painful emotions are clues we may need to make a change.

If you ignore your emotion, it won’t get better, it will likely persist.

If you can’t change the situation that is happening, you can change your interpretation of the experience.

For example, when my oldest son had been first hospitalized and diagnosed with a serious mental illness, and was in the hospital for almost a month, I was fearful.  My story was that I was thinking the very worst and fearing the unknown.  Changing my story to that it was very good he came to me with his symptoms, that he is in the best place for him to get help, and that he had a great doctor and therapist to work with him, helped me to refocus my energy on how I was, and could continue, helping him.

You can control your feelings by controlling what your circumstances mean to you.

If you change your perception, you can improve your experiences.

Notice when negative emotions such as fear, anxiety, sadness, come up… and then journal on –

What is your story around it?

and

What else could this mean?

If you would like to, share in the comments.

Sending love and light,

Debbie

What if?

Are these words defining how you are living your life as the parent of a teen or young adult child?

What if he hangs out with friends who are using drugs? What if she starts drinking again?  What if he overdoses?

Are you imagining the worst and always anticipating what may go wrong next?

When you allow past experiences to cause you to be fearful about the future, you are already living in the grief now.  You are already living as if your worst fear has happened.

In order to start being present and have some peace, stop projecting.  The future you are projecting may never come but you will live in it now if you continue on the path of what ifs.

Sending love and light,

Debbie