Both were equally important.  Without my changing we wouldn’t have moved forward very far, if at all.

I share this because I know that I’m not the only one with a relationship with a child/ren that is in mild to major need of help/repair.  I share because if you are there you need guidance and hope.  I also share for those that have been reading my blog in order to share the joy of the healing.

Before I go on I want to drop a quote in here from a blog I read, it’s so applicable to today.  Here’s the link to the post where I pulled this quote from Invisible Micky’s blog click here for the link: http://bit.ly/amYilX

“So what’s with all the encouragement we get to act SOLID?  (“Be my rock.”)  I think it’s a metaphor that holds people back.  We are animated water balloons, with some meat and chemicals.  EMULATE WATER!  Don’t be solid (which you aren’t), be liquid.  ADAPT to the shape of the containers you are placed in.  GO WITH the FLOW.  Try not to freeze too easily.  ABSORB the HEAT.  Be elastic.  BE what you are – MOSTLY WATER. Has trying to be too “solid” held you back?”

Isn’t that great?  Really makes you think doesn’t it?  It’s brilliant and goes beautifully with what I’ve been thinking lately.

As I said, in healing my relationships with my kids, change has been one of the vital ingredients needed to bring about restoration.  My kids either spelled out what needed to change about me or I disciphered it.

Change is really the name of this earthly game.  If you can’t change you could get depressed, overwhelmed, or unable to move forward.  Life won’t be all it can be.  You won’t be all you can be.  Life is always evolving forward and who better to demonstrate this to us then children? They’re constantly reaching for their next age, their next level of privilege, their next grade in school…  There’s no standing still with them.

As a parent I’ve had to learn to flex and change in so many areas there’s no way to count them all.  And then as my kids reached adulthood I’ve had to change again in new ways and I’ve come to see how I should have changed more as they were growing.  Since I hadn’t, now I’ve come to see how I must change and have changed now to have a healthy and happy repaired relationship with them.  And honestly I know there is more change that lies ahead as they advance further into their adult lives.  The change is not over.  Not by a long shot.  So if I hope not to get back into this again with them I’m going to have to change all the more.  And I’m ready… CHANGE is GOoD.

So, in this post I just want to say.  Look around.  Feel and see where you’re “like a rock”?  And please, oh please, if you have kids ask them to be honest with you.  Ask them to tell you how you’re: too “solid” and it’s causing hurt to your relationship.  And then CHANGE.  It just may be the best thing you ever did.

Night, Love ya,
Theresa Jane

that what I’ve shared in this series of posts, regarding taking my parental RESPON-sibility, drew out for months.  When I was having problems with my first born son it went on for years because I had no idea what on earth to do.  But last year when I got with it, by applying what I had come to learn from my healing and my couch, things have been turning around in a major way and this year the difference is astounding.  I took what I had learned already, married it with what I had to hurry and learn with the another of my adult children–that I have left nameless and often refer to as “this one”– that had wanted nothing to do with me that I have spoken of in prior posts and we accelerated.

So I’m thankful that with this “one” the time that we’ve experience a crumbling and then complete break down in our relationship, it’s only been around a year.   And the time from when it all crumbled…a little over 6 months.

But know this, for a long time there were NO changes.  No interest in talking with me.  Having any information shared as to the problem.  Just a brick wall… No communication.  LOTS of anger.  When changes did occur they were so mild I didn’t think that they amounted to anything.  “They” even took the time to let me know that the niceness hadn’t meant a thing, that “they” had just been polite and for me to not look for more from them.

The process of restoration that has included and mostly been attributed to them !BLAM!ming me, has been tough and painful.  However, it has all been worth it. It certainly has not been nearly as painful as it was  going through life being utterly despised by “them” and “them” seizing up every time I came around when they might happen to be there.

Had I not done what I shared in this series of posts, the bit by bit, and a little bit more, and a bit more that that has occurred– bringing us to the where I began this series: to “this adult child” wanting to share a movie with me– would NEVER have happened.  TRUST me on this one.  It never did with my first born.  That relationship was only healed after I made the changes AND REPSONded and listened.  And let them !BLAM! me.

I’m not going to say to you that things are magically and perfectly restored.  We didn’t get here overnight.  Things are delicate but not fragile.  So I’m cautious.  We still have much healing to do, BUT now, thankfully, we’re moving out of a broken relationship and into a healed one.

And another thing I’ve learned in all this is: I’ve given my kids over to “their” life in areas, that before, I would have struggled doing, and that’s whether I like it or not.  And really I’m getting to where I am moving outside of having any feeling of like or dislike or concern about what they do at all.  I’m in process of dropping the control and yielding them over to their life with no strings attached to me.  Just as I wanted mine when I was young and still do and am taking it back from my mother.  She won’t release, but I will my children for their sakes and mine.  It’s their life.  It’s them I love, not what they may or may not do.  So I’m loving them.  Unconditionally.  Fully and wholly.  Where they are.

I hope that this series has helped.  I’ve tried my best to give the full, honest picture.  Without overwhelming you with lengthy posts that dribble on and on but provide some meat.

So take heart, if you’re in a painful situation with your child/ren there is hope

Tomorrow I’m feeling the urge to write as the writer that I am.  Haven’t done that in a while.  Be all literary.  For sometime now my posts have been focused on all the healing going on from me to my mother and then from me to my kids and from them to me.  LOL.  I seem to be… stuck here in the middle…with you.  Sorry couldn’t resist…

Night, love ya,
Theresa Jane