Relationship with parents.

[Romer02]

     I'm having trouble with my relationship with my parents. From my perspective, I've become more conscious and aware of myself and from that, I could see their insecurities. We usually go out on Sundays to eat and this is the time I spend the most with them. As I'm hanging out with them I notice that they criticize everything around us " wow that lady is so fat" or when we're eating dinner "Why is this waiter so shitty" "why does the water taste so bad" my mother being disrespectful to the waiter even though sometimes it may not be his fault, and many other negative things about the experience. When they say things like this I simply tell them to not judge that lady because it's mean and it only harms themselves. But they simply don't get it. Sometimes they also make fun of me, usually, I don't say anything I simply try my best to remain calm and breath and just hope one day I could help them, I feel like deep down they're not very happy with their lives even though we really do have everything but I feel the main issue is their low level of consciousness which is the best way I could put it. At the same time I know I still have a plethora of amounts to learn, I simply hope to help them because in the end, I do love them. Anyways if you stuck around this long I really appreciate it and some help would be awesome. 

[rNOW]

I used to feel the same when I started becoming more aware of my own judgments. But after a while I realized that my thinking about other people's judgments IS ALSO A JUDGEMENT. The only difference was that they were verbalizing theirs and I wasn't. And in that they were more authentic than I was. It comes down to realizing that you cannot talk your way into helping others. You only have to 'live your way into helping others'. Save all your time and energy to let go your judgments of them and let them deal with theirs on their own, if they will. 

[Elisabeth]

rNOW is right, it's also a judgement. But its still ok to have it and even say so. My approach is to strictly talk about me, so when my mum judges our relatives, I'd say "For myself, I prefere not to judge them" or even "I'm consciously trying to unlearn the habit of being critical to everyone in my life, it makes me happier to appreciate the good then to point out what didn't work". If I'm really bothered by their behavior and want to tell them, I could even say "I don't like you judging everyone, because I think it's too harsh to them, and also, it distracts me from my appreciation of the event we just went to". All this can be still perceived as aggression or criticism, but way less so than "you are being mean", if you get what I mean

Edited December 16, 2019 by Elisabeth