There's a pattern that some parents exhibit with their children when they themselves have had an emotionally deprived childhood. That is the pattern of giving all that they can to their own children often at the expense of their own vital life energy. There are two main reasons why this pattern becomes ensconced in the parent's childrearing practice. The first is that the parent's own emotional deprivation is stored as a series of traumatic memories and emotions (i.e. often sadness, emptiness, feelings of low self worth, feelings of aloneness, etc.) within their mind/body. This "stored" trauma act as "emotional landmines" (please see my article with this title) which get "triggered" by any sign of deprivation that they perceive their children might be experiencing. When they are triggered, the parent begins to re-experience their own emotional deprivation with all the hurt feeling that goes with it. As these feelings are uncomfortable, the parent tries to extinguish the feelings within themselves. What better way to do this than to attend to the child's apparent deprivation thereby extinguishing the trigger itself. This leads to the second reason. That is, that by extinguishing the trigger, i.e. the child's apparent deprivation, the parent is able to gain some sense of internal emotional stability as well as help the child avoid experiencing the same fate as they themselves have i.e. protect the child from feeling emotionally deprived. The belief here is that by helping the child in this way the parent is helping build the child's self esteem and self worth. Unfortunately, the parent's behavior becomes so automatic that they often find themselves draining their own vital life energy in an obsessional way to try to protect the child and unknowingly themselves. So what transpires is that the parent behaves in a way that models a form of "self-less behavior" to the child. By this I mean a form of behavior which appears to come across as love but instead is actually driven by the parent's fear of feeling their own emotional hurt. In a crude sense the parent acts as a door mat. The parent here is therefore exhibiting "martyr-like" behavior and is therefore modeling this for the child. Martyr-like behavior reflects low self esteem, low self worth, and a total devaluing of one's self. Hence the parent is modeling to the child, without realizing it, behavior that is teaching the child to devalue themselves! Ironically this is exactly what the parent "thinks" they are trying to avoid instilling in the child by attending to their every need. Hence it becomes clear that a parent who "gives too much", in the sense that I have outlined above, cannot give the child self worth or self esteem through this process! If you are a parent who is caught in this dilemma you may now feel even more frustrated than ever before because you may now feel at a loss for what to do. I would like to suggest that there is a way out of this that can help both you and your children. It will however require some courage on your part. The answer is that the "automatic" behavior of giving too much in this way must end. The only way to end it, in my view, is to release once and for all the emotional hurt within you that is driving it. Only then will you be able to truly be a parent who parents from a place of pure love. This can be achieved in a quick and painless way with a new modality called the Mind Resonance Process(TM) (MRP). If you'd like to know more about this then kindly visit the web link below ad hear download a free sample of MRP and also hear a special message I have posted there. |
