Carol has been married for over seven years; she is the mother of two little girls. But each time she used to see her own mother, she instantly felt like a little child again.
By that, she didn’t mean she had a wonderful fuzzy feeling of safety, security and love. On the contrary! She felt like her own two year old who wanted to stamp her foot and yell at her mother “I hate you!”
Carol was triggered by her mother in different ways. For example, Carol and her husband made the choice to be vegetarians, yet, the mother kept pushing meat onto her daughter and her grandchildren. She was telling everybody how unhealthy it is to be vegetarian and how irresponsible it is to raise your children this way.
Carol’s husband is French-Canadian and they had decided to send their older daughter to a French school. Carol’s mother was doing everything to find fault with this choice as well.
Carol felt herself triggered into angry comments directed at her mother, which then resulted in her mother being hurt and insulted, calling her daughter cruel and heartless. Carol tried to ignore her mother, tried to explain and rationalize with her. Nothing helped. “She just will not stop!” Carol told me in exasperation.
Carol felt disrespected, criticized and angry. Her own children had been asking to see their grandparents more, but Carol always had excuses to call other babysitters and felt more comfortable avoiding family get-togethers. One day, when Carol had a fight with her husband, he exclaimed in frustration “You are just like your mother!” Carol was offended and shocked. She came to see me.
As Carol and I started working together, Carol discovered—to her surprise—her mother’s desperation for attention and love. She realized that her mother felt scared and out of control through the different life choices Carol and her husband had made for themselves and their children.
Carol has found a way to set clear respectful boundaries with her mother while giving her the love and assurance the mother was looking for. In order to do that, Carol had to work with the mirrors which showed up for her and integrate her own shadows inside herself. She had to embrace the energy of being loud and pushy, and the part in her which is controlling. Her mother mirrored neediness to Carol as well. All three were traits Carol had learned to dislike and had disowned in herself. She judged herself harshly for her own controlling energy and when she herself felt needy and fearful. Carol also chose to do a relationship alignment with somebody standing in for her mother. That’s a process which balances the chakras in relationship to each other, and can greatly shift the energy from judgments to acceptance.
When Carol healed her own wounds and cleared out her triggers, she became really able to step into her mother’s shoes and feel her mother’s experience with compassion.
When we walk a mile in somebody else’s moccasins, we realize that nothing is what it seems. Our shoe might pinch in one spot, somebody else’s shoe in another.
Ever since Carol has removed her own triggers and has been able to feel and radiate true unconditional love towards her mother, her mother has also slowly started to put herself into Carol’s place. The mother has realized that her daughter’s choices in life are not right or wrong, they are not a threat to her own beliefs or a criticism of how she raised Carol; they are just different from hers.
“The other day, I heard her defend our French school to somebody! Can you believe that?” laughs Carol. Yes, I can! Carol has done the work and is seeing the results.
Is it time to move beyond right and wrong for you as well? Do you want to have more peaceful and harmonic experiences with others? Are you ready to create better relationships? By finding the parts of your personality that you have pushed away, recognizing their value and then embracing them, you are opening up to unconditionally loving yourself and enhancing your relationships. You gain the freedom to truly walk in another person’s moccasins.
Contact
Angelika
Relationship Coaching
905-286-9466
greendoorrelaxation@yahoo.ca
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I believe that a personality begins within the womb while the baby is developing, if we look beyond the darkness while in the womb there is also light once born. It is a way of saying walk a mile in my moccasins by the developing child. So learning can begin during pregnancy.