Why Is This So True?
Darling Girl,
I was chatting with a friend recently about parent-child relationships, once we are all adults. How does an adult child heal and stay in relationship with parents if you grew up in a dysfunctional or even downright destructive home environment? What happens when you have different values than your family of origin? We live in a throw-away society and it's easy to have a knee jerk reaction that screams “cut them off”! But cutting people off creates yet another deep wound needing intense treatment and lifelong rehab; so what measures can be taken to heal and bring together, rather than creating more unnecessary trauma? It's a difficult and frustrating process, that often times feels like 2 steps forward and 3 steps back but it can also be rewarding, modeling health, wellness, problem solving, patience, mercy, and grace for the next generation. I don't really have any answers. But I can tell you that our family has walked through this with more than one parent. One parent has not been spoken to in well over a decade because there was no movement towards healing on their part. They gave nothing but more pain. One parent is working through the difficult reintegration process and although it's incredibly tender and triggering at times, it's also quite healing.
Shine brightly,
April