Your Parents Sins Can Be Your Greatest Gift

In the healing world we tend to focus on all of the bad stuff that we inherited from our parents; the limiting beliefs, subconscious behaviors, and repeating patterns.

Yes, all of that does come from there, but we’ve also modeled a lot of really great stuff from our parents.

Even if you think that your parents were the worst parents in the whole wide world, you still modeled some good things.

Kids will either completely replicate their parental issues and repeat the same behavior and beliefs, or they’ll see that aspect of their parents that they don’t like, and they’ll consciously or subconsciously decide not to make the same mistakes as them.

I’m grateful that my mother was an alcoholic because I am not.

I remember being 25 years old and we bought a five gallon bottle of wine — clearly not educated in good wine back then!

I noticed how fast in one week the bottle was emptying. I knew my roommate didn’t really drink much, and it suddenly dawned on me that I had consumed all of that wine!

It absolutely terrified me, because I realized I had that real possibility of becoming an alcoholic too.

My whole family is filled with alcoholics, generationally too.

I had dealt with all of that stuff with my mother, and it sobered me quickly so I poured my glass back in the bottle and put the cork back in.

It’s something I’ve always paid attention to, because alcohol is not good, and I’m not a great drinker. I drink one glass and then I’m drunk before I know it, and then I don’t have that off switch.

So that’s something that I learned from one of the most traumatic things that I ever dealt with, with my mother.

Alcoholism, an addiction, and addiction as a theme and pattern is something that I pay attention to all the time.

In fact, all of the things that are addictive, sugar, caffeine, shopping, overdoing anything. I keep track of all of that because of those addictive qualities.

When I feel I’ve been too excessive with something, I stop. I stop for however long I need to, to detox, to clean out, to simply come back into balance.

That is a direct result of having an addictive parent.

Alcoholics who’ve recovered say, “I’m a grateful alcoholic,” because of everything that they’ve learned.

Also during that time when she was in AA and going through recovery, I went through the 12 step process with her. Not to do with drinking, but just about my life in general at the time. I made amends with people, all of that kind of AA healing stuff.

I grew along with her in that so even though it was the biggest trauma, it was also one of my greatest gifts.

If your parent was abusive, maybe they hit you, or screamed at you, you remember how that felt as a kid! It wasn’t fun, it wasn’t good, and perhaps you picked up some negativity around that, some imprinting patterns.

Maybe you get triggered by anger, or by other people screaming, maybe you attract people who are abusive, I don’t know, it could manifest in a multitude of ways.

But maybe you thought, consciously or subconsciously, that you weren’t going to do that. So it made you become a calm person, more loving, more accepting.

Maybe one of your parents was never there. You felt their absence. You felt the lack of your parent being there when you were little. So you as a parent are fully there and present for your child.

There could be a variety of other beliefs associated with that absent parent like not feeling wanted, cherished, adored, valued, seen, heard etc. and those limiting beliefs may show up in other ways in your life too.

So you see how taking on the negative aspect of things can perhaps help you be a much better person, a more balanced person?

Whatever your parents did that was so upsetting, you’ll either repeat the pattern in one way, shape or form, or you’ll completely change it.

What do you do if you’ve already taken on some of the negativity of your parents?

A lot of people are not aware of mirroring. When people are mirroring to you, you often tend to think, “I’m not like that,” because you can’t see it, it’s your shadow and it often manifests in a different way.

But the energy is the same.

There’s a fabulous book called, The Dark Side Of The Light Chasers by Debbie Ford. She’s got some wonderful exercises in there to find out how people are mirroring back to you.

If you notice that you’re being triggered by, especially, one of your parents, something that one of your parents does, a repeating behavior or something that they often say that really annoys you, look at that!

Feel what you’re feeling, but stop for a moment and pay attention because that annoyance is your information.

It’s triggering you because it’s mirroring back some of the same behavior in you, that might manifest in a completely different way for you in your lifetime, but the underlying energy is the same.

If you know about that energy circulating through you, that’s the first stage to changing it.

You can ask yourself, “How does that behavior show up in my life? How do I exhibit the same kind of things? How do I feel and think the same way that that behavior would manifest?”

We also model all of the good stuff. If your parents were loving, sweet, kind, generous and giving, you’re going to pick up all of that good stuff too. But of course, we don’t need to change that, because that’s all good stuff.

But that’s where it can sometimes feel confusing because we feel both; the good and the bad. It’s called Dual Beliefs, which often feels like we’re on an emotional rollercoaster of life.

I know we’re always focusing on the negative, however, sometimes that negative can be really positive.

You can easily reframe your life. Look at your parents in the lightest way possible, because they were only doing the best they could with the limited knowledge they had at the time.

We’ve come a long way from Dr Spock telling us how to be parents, right? The beliefs about how we raise our kids have changed dramatically over the years, and of course, the best advice is to use your intuition.

If you have any doubt about anything, pay attention to that. Your intuition is your guidance system. Your anger is your guidance system. When you’re triggered, it’s your guidance system.

Don’t just be in that negative emotion. Look at it and see what’s really going on underneath.

Then you’ll see all of the wonderful gifts from your parents, and how you can turn it around and create your life to be one of the most beautiful experiences, free from carrying all of that suppressed heaviness about your past, present and parents.

If you think you need help with that, I’d really love to have a conversation with you.

Book a free 20 minute mind shift call. You could have a major ‘aha’ moment in your life.