Friday, September 2, 2016

Self Love September: Day 2 - Self Parenting


Today's topic is self parenting and acknowledging our inner child.

So I will start by discussing my relationship with my parents. As briefly touched on before in the last blog, I was very lucky to have great parents. Were they perfect? Nah, but they were as ideal as I could have expected parents of mine to be. Both hippies who raised me and my sister be free spirits with in reason and safety. Never kept realistic views from us even if they were negative. Such as discussing sex at the dinner table! Ha! My dad before I was born, was a partier and drinker and certainly continued to smoke pot until he died but he was a functional pothead where you really couldn't tell he was stoned. They used my dad's experiences to give us warnings on why doing certain things are a bad idea. Such as drinking and rolling a car. Yeah, not so good. My mom though experimented before we were born was very straight edge, not even drinking after we came around.
Both parents came from households that had father's who were alcoholics and with my dad, an abusive father. So they both as adults went quite the opposite. They were both raised Roman Catholic so I feel they both kind of felt tthe need to not have me and my sister have a super strict up bringing with the guilt associated with many religions. They let us choose our own path. Hell, dad went pagan and my mom associates with Native American beliefs.
They were very affectionate, would listen to our problems and treat us both like people rather then just kids, and though we were low income they always found a way to make holidays special.
Overall, they gave my sister and I a lot of freedom to grow but enough limitations that we weren't wild children. Even in our teens and certainly when I was gothed out and emo they didn't restrict much there either.

Were they perfect parents? God no. My mom certainly gave me my neuroticness when it comes fears such as heights. We actually experienced this last weekend when we went to dump my dad's ashes in the mountains and her and I (not my sister) were wigging out over the heights. She conditioned a few long time fears of mine. For sure. Also, she had a bad habit of not showing softer emotions like tears so I have often felt the need to hold mine back since my teens. We definitely had strife in my teens but we are very close now particularly since my dad's death.
My dad was always great, but when he had cancer the first time 15 years ago, his moods certainly were affected. The chemotherapy messed with his health almost worse then the cancer did and it was for the rest of his life. He was in chronic pain and obviously that caused moods to be unpleasant at times. This was during my teens as well, so during my teens was difficult for various reasons even at home. My sister was out of the house in college at that time but I was kind of left to my own devices and got into some things and some relationships that if things were more healthy in our household, probably wouldn't have. Also, though this is a positive as well, my father was always someone who gave people many chances and was the parent that wasn't afraid to show emotions like crying. This though a good thing, also can cause some issues and is certainly thing I struggled with for a long time.

I still struggle with some of those issues I had with them today but it is in my mind very minor. My biggest focus is that I don't push my fears onto my own child who is 10 now. I think I have done a good job. Also, I have shown him physical affection and feeling the feels is okay. Especially since he is autistic. Most don't like physical touch. He isn't bothered by that so that is a huge deal.
Through my 20's, I locked my emotions down because I do tend to feel a lot and allow those emotions to steer my behaviors. I was successful at keeping a lock down on this until my dad's death. Also, a new friend of mine has also pushed me to break through those barriers I put up and to just feel and respect what I feel. I had thought I had dealt with many issues, but realized through this friend that I had just put them in a box under my bed. It was out of sight and mind but was still present.
I need to be able to acknowledge my feelings about a lot of things and accept them, because they are legitimate feelings. Having a support system, even one person to hold my hand through this journey makes a huge difference. Though this path is my own, company always helps with the harder terrain.
I appreciate all the many positive things my parents have given me and implemented in my personality and experience. Those few things that I struggle with though, they are big issues. I probably need to take some serious time to myself and really feel all those feels I hid during my teens in particular, take them in, process them, then let them go.

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