Dear Shental,
As a mom, it was healing for me to read your article. In response to your question about why we care less about words said to parents than to peers, I might suggest a couple more reasons:.
One is that teens are individuating themselves and bursting into their own persons which sometimes means strong feelings in rejecting aspects of their parents' beliefs. This is hard: I think also the emotional stakes are high. Teens and young adults can carry within them the many hurts, righteous indignation, anger, pain, sense of lacks of justice in certain events, that they have experienced with parents, until they release whatever they can of this in some sort of therapeutic journaling or therapy.
So they are triggered emotionally more easily by parents. You may not have felt any of those things but I know I found that I did when I was a young adult, and even an an older adult I think I am more easily trigerred by history and expectations (ugh) of my mother, I wish I didnt need to say, to be honest. And there is a long history there of the good bad and in between that there isn't with friends. That said, I love your conclusions and intentions to be kind so as not to hurt your parents. My want to be forgiving and kind to my mom has been a life-long journey. Congrats on this story.
By the way, one therapeutic release tool taught by the author SARK which she calls "feelings care" involves journaling all one's feelings for five minutes, getting it all out (on paper that you destroy later) and then listing a few good qualities about the person.
I use this and one or more of the tools I will mention to survive emotionally, prevent melt-downs and dissipate whispers of anger. I make mistakes, do it imperfectly, and sometimes it takes time to feel my heart seeing the beauty of another again. But as a person with big feelings, one or more of these practices save me.
One Positive Trait: A spiritual teacher I love Abdu’l Baha counsels, “To look always at the good and not at the bad. If a man has ten good qualities and one bad one, to look at the ten and forget the one; and if a man has ten bad qualities and one good one, to look at the one and forget the ten.”
“Love-Letter” Barbara DeAngelis and John Gray taught about the “Love Letter” technique, a system of release journaling or screaming your various feelings starting with hate/anger, hurt, sadness, what you miss about them, and then love.
Virtues Acknowledgment: Serendipity at work. The VirtuesProject.com site has a feature where you click on “Do a Virtues Pick” and you are randomly assigned a “Virtues Reflection Card”. You can apply it to your challenging situation, either as an acknowledgment for a positive quality you have been using or an invitation to use that virtue more.
Empathy Technique from Judaism: At a course on mystical Judaism the rabbi taught that when thinking of something someone else did that bothers you, remember when you did something similar in the past.
Mind-Body Anger Release: A psychiatrist taught this to me and I’ve taught. it to mental health groups. Stand with you feet apart a foot and a half and. knees gently bent. Pretend that you are jumping rope, inhaling as you reach back before bringing the rope in front on you. Bring your arms forward and down shouting from your belly, letting go of any anger, stress, or inner burden as if you are a fire engine horn.“
Emerge” Expressive Arts Exercise: I’ve adapted the “Polarities” exercise by Natalie Rogers’ from her book The Creative Connection. Please write me at penofgold.com ifyou want the steps of this one that involves scribbling, very short journaling with the non-dominant hand and all kinds of creative things that tap inner wisdom and integration.
Mirror Work: Louise Hay said this was the most powerful technique for self-acceptance and wrote a book about it. Look at your eyes in the mirror and give yourself compassion saying gentle words like, “I’ll always be there for you,” “I am so sorry you feel that pain”. Louise Hay recommended saying, “I really, really love you” — two “really’s” so that you know you really mean it.
Moral Code: From the work of Hans Selye, pioneer author in stress management, determine to hold to a moral code so that in any situation you know you can rely on yourself to act by that standard. I think you have established your moral code re: kindness in words!! By having this you don’t have to, when each stressful challenge arises, question yourself as to how to respond. Selye said this was one of the most powerful stress reduction techniques. My intention to stop when I find myself thinking negatively about my anyone is the bud of a moral code for myself.
Thank you for sharing your beautiful perspective that relates to us of all ages, Shental.
