WITHOUT ME, GUILT, OR HOW TO BECOME YOURSELF A GOOD PARENT

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Author of the material: Alexandra Krimkova

Think of yourself as small. At that age, you had no idea how to evaluate your actions, who is right, who is wrong, and what conclusion follows from this. Where did you get all this information that allows you to analyze the world and yourself in it? Of course, parents are the first conductors of information. Due to the fact that the child has not yet developed the brain lobes responsible for the analysis, synthesis, assessment of events, he, in fact, uses the parental ones. And he takes what the parent says at face value. This is necessary for him to survive, because the parent certainly knows more about how this world works. Therefore, it is simply necessary to trust the child's parent. But, the parent is different, with his own, as they say, cockroaches

It happens that the parent often blames and criticizes the baby with or without reason. Sometimes an adult can be so dissatisfied with himself and life that all the dissatisfaction spills out on the child. Often, he does not even realize that the child absorbs this information like a sponge and unquestioningly believes in it. And, imagine what happens if you are told that you are to blame for everything, and you do not have a layer in the form of a personal assessment of this judgment and your own thoughts on this matter? You take it for the truth and on this basis your own self-esteem is formed. And on a foundation of toxic guilt and criticism, it's hard to build something sustainable. The house will be skewed. But, parents do not always openly criticize their children. There are many cases when no one in the family openly blamed anyone, and the child grows up with low self-esteem and a guilt complex. Why is that? It is not necessary to blame openly for this guilt complex to develop. You can blame with a look, tone, form double messages. Indeed, with the help of verbal communication, we transmit to each other only a small fraction of information. Most of it falls on non-verbal communication: body, gaze, tone, and others, seemingly imperceptible to consciousness …

Therefore, in order to accuse another and for him to feel it, it is not necessary to tell him about it openly. In the case of a child, the situation is even more complicated. He is very sensitive to the emotional state of the parent and perceives any changes in his mood. Often times, if the parent is angry or annoyed, the child may take it personally. To understand why this is happening, it is necessary to go down even deeper on the age scale - in the pre-verbal period - a period of up to a year. The human baby needs parental care for a very long time. Otherwise, he will not survive. The need to become attuned to his mother is genetically sewn into him. For him, during the first year of his life, his mother is the whole Universe. Through her, he seems to live this world. Then the process of growing up takes place, but the child continues to be dependent on his parents for a long time. For him, the love of his parents is a necessity, because if he is loved, they will be taken care of, and he will survive. Otherwise, a threat hangs over him. The child will do everything to adapt to any parent, but only so that he continues to love him and does not leave. He will even take on no fault of his own. For the kid, the parent is super significant, that is, the level of God. And God can never be guilty, therefore, in the event of some conflict, the baby can take all the blame on himself.

And it doesn't have to be a conflict.

Mom came home from work tired and yelled at me → I am guilty, I did something wrong.

Mom has a headache → I am to blame, I made a noise.

Slap on and mom is annoyed → I am guilty - a muddler.

Of course, if this kind of situation is also accompanied by mom's comments: "You are a muddler," "you have a headache," "you ruined my mood," the child is simply convinced that it is he who is to blame. But, as I said earlier, such messages can be non-verbal, but emotional in the form of aggression, anger, irritation. Then the child is also convinced that his mother is bad because of him. But in fact, the reason for her mother's condition may not be at all in him. She had a bad day, she is unhappy with herself, the boss criticized her work, had a fight with her husband. Anything can be. But if a mother pours her emotional state onto a child who cannot defend herself in any way, then at that moment a feeling of his guilt is formed. I repeat - the child voluntarily assumes the blame for himself because of his great love for his parents and their great importance in his life.

Toxic guilt is a feeling of guilt in a situation where there is objectively no guilt. See where the legs grow from?

Over time, the child may learn not to be himself - to hammer in all his brightness, features, wishes, because this is uncomfortable for mom. Moreover, he begins to feel guilty for who he is. In fact, toxic wines can transform into toxic shame, which is even more difficult. The shame of being yourself is even more poisonous. But it is not only parents who influence the formation of feelings of guilt. Over time, society is connected, and the situation becomes more multifaceted. Based on the fact that we live in a society in which, in principle, the feeling of guilt is cultivated, it is not difficult to imagine what happens to this feeling if a poisonous grain is planted and well fertilized.

Why do adults who no longer depend on their parents continue to feel guilty? After all, it often happens that no one blames them, but the feeling is there. A grain of guilt is laid in childhood to regulate relationships and life and in society. If there is a bias, a toxic feeling of guilt is formed. The family is a small model of the world and relationships there are formed according to a certain template. It is on him that a person will be worth a relationship with the adult world. (if nothing changes, of course) So, if for a child the whole world begins with family members, and only then grows, then the child will see projections of mom and dad in all people, to a greater or lesser extent. That is, if he constantly felt guilty next to his mother, then in adulthood, he will most likely unconsciously find a suitable person and recreate a similar situation that he had in childhood. Namely - he will find someone who will blame. And, therefore, he will feel like a victim next to this person.

Why does a person need to play painful scenarios? Why is he unconsciously looking for such situations? It is from this question that changes become possible. When a person asks himself the question: "Why am I doing what I am doing?", "Why am I stepping on the same rake?", "Why am I unlucky in a relationship?" This is where the exploration of your life begins. And why a person is unconsciously looking for someone who will play the role of a parent, let's talk further. If a person lives automatically, that is, unconsciously, this means that he lives according to a set scenario, according to a program. According to the scenario, children live up to a certain age. Animals, for example, live like this all their lives. We are mammals too, so many programs in humans and animals are similar. But there are also significant differences. Let's talk about common programs - the unconscious.

Look at the animal kingdom. Our smaller brothers, for some reason, migrate to other continents, cross swamps and deserts to get to a certain river, go to their death, do many other completely incomprehensible actions. Are they doing it deliberately? No. They carry out a program of survival and reproduction. It's instinct. It is genetically inherent. We also have instincts, but our brain is more complex than that of animals, and therefore it uses more complex programs related not only to survival, but also to development, achievement, goal-setting, self-awareness, self-esteem, and so on. And these programs are partially downloaded by parents and significant adults - they are the first to teach us how to live in this world and show how to cope with how everything works. Sometimes it turns out that the program is very good and we do not hesitate to use it and get good results. For example, they uploaded a program to us: "Successful person". Here we live with her, absolutely not thinking about how to live without her. She has become a part of us and we have no doubt that we are successful. And a person who has a program "I will not succeed" simply does not understand how it is possible to do everything so easily, as a person does with the program "Successful person". Therefore, there are programs that help, and there are also viral programs. Who put them? We have already talked about this - parents, close circle, school, institute, society…. Of course, you need to take into account that not all programs are installed the same way. Therefore, we are very different from each other, even if the conditions of upbringing in childhood were the same. Further in the course of life, programs are also installed, or rather, updated. The process of changing and adapting to the environment never ends. But! You can not update the program, right? You can even delete it …

If we begin to notice that we are living unconsciously, according to certain scenarios, then we may find that we do not like some of them. For example, constantly being a victim of circumstances. If we suddenly decide that we do not like this script / program and we do not want that anymore, then from that moment we have the opportunity to change / remove / not update / find a replacement for this program. It seems that everything is clear, but why is it not enough to desire one desire: “I don’t want that anymore”? The whole truth is that the program has already become ours, we have appropriated it. Therefore, we need to change it. She herself will not change. This is not easy. You need to perform certain actions, and more than once, in order to change something. It is difficult and the person often returns to the familiar and familiar life.

Why does he prefer to live according to the program, if the program is viral? Can't you see what's bad there? At first it is not visible, because it is not clear how you can live differently. Then - it is visible, but there is not enough strength and confidence to change something. Then, in principle, it's a shame for myself, they say - why me? In general, it is not easy to change the program. Because each change is a large expenditure of energy, and life on the machine requires much less energy expenditure. And, of course, successful people are often successful because they have such a program and they take appropriate actions. Here is the result. And for others, who seem to be ready to act, some actions are not enough, since they need more resources to form a new program and abandon the old one. And this really takes a lot of energy.

How can we change these programs and how to find the resources in ourselves to change all this? Where to begin. If you find that your attitudes prevent you from moving on, you feel like a victim of circumstances and suffer from toxic guilt and shame, then the first thing to do is to separate from your parents, because, most likely, this is where the laying of destructive attitudes took place.

What does it mean to be separated? This means separating geographically, financially and psychologically. At least take a course towards the formation of autonomy. Next, you need to change the environment, if in your current environment there are people who criticize you, do not appreciate, accuse and in every possible way neutralize your importance. It is clear that this is not so easy, but I am sure that you can definitely change the intensity of interaction with people who badly influence you, but you cannot refuse contact with. And I am also sure that there are people in your environment with whom you can definitely refuse painlessly. Why is it so important. For children, parents are an authority. As children grow up, they must overthrow parental authorities in order to form their own for themselves. Overthrowing authority does not mean ceasing to respect parents and to love. Not at all. Overthrowing authority means taking responsibility for your life. In essence - to become a parent to yourself. That is, from a certain moment, a person should begin to focus on himself and his opinion. It is this that should become more important than the opinions of others, be they parents or some other significant people. But, the problem along the way may be as follows. You can form an "inner parent", but it happens in the image and likeness of the parent that you had.

And what to do when you yourself become the one who blames and criticizes? And this critic is firmly settled in your head and the accusations now sound inside you. I think if you pay attention to whose voice your inner critic speaks, you will be surprised. In other words, the parenting program forms the foundation of your attitude towards yourself. And changing it means changing yourself and changing your attitude! That is, to become a good parent to yourself! Unfortunately, changing the other, wanting the real parent to change is useless. Moreover, in adulthood, he no longer has such an influence on us as we used to think. He only picks at past wounds and clings to painful places. But that influence is gone. And only what stuck in our head affects. Therefore - changing our attitude towards ourselves, wiping the lens of self-perception - that is, becoming a good parent, we gradually begin to get out of the feeling of worthlessness, unworthiness and guilt if we have been in these feelings for a long time.

How to Become a Good Parent?

• Accept that you are not your parents, you are different from them. Try to define who you are without looking at other people's opinions and approval.
• Realize that your parents are the result of their own growing up and life experiences. And often what they did in relation to you - they did unconsciously, performing the scenarios that their parents gave them.
• Accept that your parents are not perfect. Like you. Adult life implies a rejection of ideals. In fact, the authorities should be overthrown from the pedestal. And it turns out that everyone can be wrong and be imperfect - that's okay.
• Take responsibility for who you are today and for the fact that right now you can go your own way, without looking back at someone else's opinion. To do this, you will have to realize your childhood experiences and grievances, remember and accept them, and only after that move on. It is good to do this in the office of a professional psychologist.
• Take responsibility for who you are today and for the fact that right now you can go your own way, without looking back at someone else's opinion. To do this, you will have to realize your childhood experiences and grievances, remember and accept them, and only after that move on. It is good to do this in the office of a professional psychologist.
• Understand the fact that as an adult you are entitled to your own choices and opinions. Even if they turn out to be wrong. Otherwise, it is simply impossible to gain life experience. And yet - adulthood does not mean infallibility and ideality. Adulthood is the ability to take responsibility even when you are mistaken, and in case of a mistake - to have the courage to admit it.
• Understand that you can now influence your relationship with your parents. After all, even if you are still their child, you are no longer small. The adult-adult relationship is very different from the child-parent relationship.
• Now you have the right to vote, and if the parent does not want to recognize you as an adult, then this does not negate what you really have. After all, you no longer need a parent's confirmation of what reality is? You can see it yourself. And you can even see that the parent, for example, does not want to see the facts. And that will also be your reality.
• Praise yourself more often and form an environment around you that also praises and supports you. This is very important, because our development never stops, we change and transform every moment. Therefore, you cannot give up, as there is always a chance to make a breakthrough and start creating the life that you have always dreamed of.

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