What if there is a manual for parenting?

"Your children didn't come with a manual" - however, what if there is a manual for parenting?

Let's entertain this idea...

Imagine the same conflict and challenges are coming up over and over again... 

When you first become a parent, it's the challenge of sleep, the challenge of feeling lonely, the challenge of navigating the transition of being a couple to parents and a family... the challenge of grieving your past sense of self...

As the years go on - the initial challenges become normalised.. and new challenges arise. The yelling, the screaming, the experience of a lack of control with your toddler...

Then soon - that all becomes normalised.

The teenage years come along. The rebellion, the disconnect, the frustration, the feeling of failure as a parent, the worry and the angst... 

Guess what happens? That all becomes normalised. 

Before you know it, your 35 year old child, and you don't have a relationship. You have civil interactions, and your child and you both know the relationship is superficial and the lack of connection is "normalised".

The irony - you thought it would be different. You weren't going to repeat what happened with your parents and you. You were sure of it.

...and you think, "Well, my child didn't come with a manual. If only I had one."

The challenges we have normalised in parenting, such as guilt, self-sacrifice, surviving, and people-pleasing, feed the trajectory of fractured relationships.

What if we grew up in "loving" households?

What if our parents were always tentative, always around - why is it that we, now as adults, continuously get triggered, emotionally react, and don't know how to "reconnect" and have healthy relationships with our children and our partner?

Why is it that we don't know how to ask for what we need without a pang in our being for feeling guilty? - and it has become "normalised".

There is a manual for parenting. In this manual, the first "teaching" would be this.

"Heal your relationship with Self-betrayal".

We have a culture where we celebrate how much parents sacrifice for the family. Just the other day, I saw a post on FB with this:

"Happy Birthday, my love. You are the most amazing wife and mother - Thank-you for always putting everyone else before you and always putting us first!.. We love you!"

Following that, comments praising this beautiful being of how "selfless" she was.

Self-betrayal is when we consistently "normalise" running on empty.

Self-betrayal is when we consistently "normalise" being depleted - and giving from a place of depletion.

Self-betrayal is when we consistently "normalise" compromising our boundaries, suppressing emotions because we feel guilty, and ignoring our needs for fear of being selfish. 

Self-betrayal lacks the understanding of what it is to "receive". Living from a place of honouring self-betrayal - one doesn't understand or can know what it feels like to receive. 

Self-betrayal is sourced in scarcity, lack, and there's not enough. Not enough time, not enough love, not enough abundance. 

Self-betrayal is when we are obsessed with validation and approval, play out people-pleasing - all because someone else's opinion about us is more important than our relationship with ourselves. 

Self-betrayal is the manifestation of a particular core belief.

I'm unworthy. 

Heal your relationship with Self-betrayal - and you will no longer be obsessing about controlling your child or trying to fix your child. 

Because it's not a manual for your child that you need. 

What you need is to unlearn "unworthiness" - and therefore, unconsciously honouring self-betrayal. 

Healthy relationships, whether between a parent and child or two people in a romantic relationship, requires a profound understanding of giving and receiving. 

To give is to receive, and to receive is to give.

When one doesn't know how to receive - the Love is limited. 

When one doesn't know how to receive - it's the wound of self-betrayal playing out.

This is a generational pattern. This is generational trauma being passed on.

If you've read this far and might be thinking I'm condoning being extremely selfish and narcissistic - that's more of the wound playing out. 

We have such a "warped" relationship to worthiness - that to even entertain the idea of being worthy or feel that our needs matter - puts us in such a spin that we unconsciously go down a path of thinking the extreme. 

Extreme selfishness, a disregard for another's wellbeing and narcissism in adults are symptoms of children witnessing parents where self-betrayal was at play.

So if there was a manual for parenting - it would be one that is centred around us parents, healing our relationship with our heart.