Hope is born in the Darkness, like a lighthouse calling out to a lost ship at sea, it will safely bring you through your personal storm. It will encourage and guide you safely
I Thought We’d Never Speak Again: The Road from Estrangement to Reconciliation – Book by Laura Davis
Family estrangement is not a new thing. Families have been estranging members for years, and this can be a dark secret in some households.
“Why does dad not talk to his sister?“ or “I didn’t know dad had a sister.”
Sometimes in these estranged settings, siblings divorce each other or children decide their parents did not do a ‘good enough‘ job of raising them, and so now they are determined they are going to be far better parents than their parents ever-were.
With little or no regard for the people that raised them, some children cut their parents out of their lives.
So what is it like to be estranged from family?
Well, if it’s not you in control, then it probably feels like rejection or abandonment. This type of pain can cut to the core of mothers and fathers who have given their time, effort and money to raise their children. Maybe they were not perfect, but who is? And why should they be judged by today’s parenting standards when all they had were the tools of their yester-year.
Often, motherhood is the core purpose for some of these parents.
When children decide to dispose of them, they are ending a lifetime of work, with no acknowledgement of their sacrifice and no reward for their best efforts.
Some of these estranged parents recover and forge new single lives for themselves, but this is often not without suffering the feelings of grief, like that of someone who has lost a relative. In some ways grieving the loss of someone who is still alive can be worse than if they had passed because it becomes painfully evident that they do not want to know you. This is referred to as “complicated grief”.
Some parents just give up and their world shrinks down to a null existence. They never forget their children; their memories keep playing like CDs on repeat. They rarely give up hope that maybe one day things will be different, maybe one day they will reconnect and reconcile with their loved ones.
So, what do you do if this is you? How do you right the wrongs or at least the wrongs you feel you liable for?
How do you reconcile an estrangement? Can you reconcile an estrangement if the other part is not talking and simply want their space?
Such a parent may become angry, frustrated and swear to cut their child out of their will!
The answers are many and few, but first there is a need to acknowledge the pain and grief of the estrangement. Airing the wrongs that you feel have been done to you may also be needed. This can be confusing as you try to understand their perspective and how they arrived at cutting the ties that can bind families together for years.
From here, you may start to see the small glimmers of hope that appear with the understanding that’s come from the attempt of walking in their shoes and seeing it from their view as it were. Other times, there may not be any such understanding, however if there is a desire to either learn to live alongside though without them, or try to find a way to reconnect, then there is still hope.
Having a desired outcome of reconnection is the goal for some people and with this this as the focus, small steps of rebuilding trust and new happier memories can be forged.
Cheating, infidelity can be with a total stranger, a friend of the family, a prostitute, financially, etc… it affects you, your family and friends in so many ways, the attention that your partner should have been giving and spending on you is given elsewhere.
The partners lack of attention, consideration and foresight to see that if this behaviour is found out would cause the ones closest to them so much damage and pain.
Their behaviour is of a selfish nature. It’s about them and they think is fulfilling their needs and the expense of others.
They hope their secrets won’t be found out, but what if it is? And what happens to the family when they discover a parent is cheating?
The devastation and trauma effects each and every one connected, It’s like a mobile hanging over a babies cot , in peace all is well, but when cheating occurs the mobile is hit with a great force that throws all the family members around like the individual pieces on the mobile .
The pieces become arranged and separated in ways that will never come back to the way it was before. Why? because the beautiful innocent trust that was the partner and family and that was taken for granted is now gone , possibly forever.
Why, did this happen? You might ask yourself, why? Was it something you did? Or didn’t do? It’s easy to think it’s about you, and maybe feel some guilt, for a time when perhaps you weren’t the most attentive wife or husband. Or perhaps anger has taken over and this is all you can feel for now?
These intense feelings can interfere with day-to-day life, anger can pop out at any time or unstoppable crying might overwhelm you in inappropriate times of the day! A feeling of loss and then on top of this loss of control , your world is turning upside down and you feel like all the loose change is being shaken out of your pockets. Each step you take is either on firm ground or what feels like quicksand. How do you navigate this new territory?
How do you know if your relationship is worth saving or not? Was it a one-night stand or an emotional affair? It can seem like the more people who know what is happening to you and your family, the more advice you are given. Who do you listen too?
How do you trust the person who has done this, who now may appear to be truly sorry for their actions and is telling you they made a mistake?
The trauma of being cheated can feel like an open wound that never gets enough time to seal and heal. Memories can trigger anger and next rage enters the room once more and all sense of peace is taken from you.
On the other side, your partner may seem to have turned into the most attentive partner you could ever of dreamed of having, is now asking you would you like another “ cup of tea? “ In hope to calm you down and re-set the table as it were.
It’s clear that your partner’s behaviour needs investigation, especially if they don’t know why they did what they did?
Either you decide to separate or stay, you are going to need some time to work this all out.
Counselling can be a safe place to talk, to dump emotions that are not helping you at Home. To discuss options, after all if you are married, your marriage vows are now broken and you are free to leave and stay again if you want to. Maybe there are children and Financial considerations to be negotiated with way there’s a lot at stake her and more than one stakeholder to consider.
The evasiveness of self-esteem, sometimes you know you have it and other times only too well you don’t. So what is self-esteem?
These are just a few of the answers some people gave me when I asked them. Here is the Wikipedia definition:
Self-esteem is an individual’s subjective evaluation of their own worth. Self-esteem encompasses beliefs about oneself (for example, “I am unloved”, “I am worthy”) as well as emotional states, such as triumph, despair, pride, and shame.[1] Smith and Mackie (2007) defined it by saying “The self-concept is what we think about the self; self-esteem, is the positive or negative evaluations of the self, as in how we feel about it.
Self-esteem can appear to come from outside of ourselves when out boss or company we work for recognizes our achievements, we feel elevated , lifted up to greater heights.
Getting praise from outside of ourselves seems to be the easiest way for it to come to us, as culturally we are conditioned not to think to highly of ourselves, a fear of getting a big head and appearing arrogant or egotistical.
So what is healthy self-esteem?
Is this only earned by working hard and achieving things or aspiring to wanting our parents, friends and siblings attention?
Real self-esteem comes from within ourselves and like any form of muscle building, it takes repetition and time to pump up our esteem of ourselves.
Most of us were mentally programmed by parents, siblings and teachers to think pretty negatively about ourselves , that’s programming is wired into us.
Our brain pathways are like super-highways when it comes to thinking poorly about a mistake we might have made.
So how do we change this programming?
One thought at a time. We have to learn to listen to yourselves, our thoughts and one by one, challenge them and change them, into a more positive regard for one’s self.
An example of this from my own experience, recently, I was early for an appointment , I had not paid attention to the appointment time, the client had booked online for a 12pm appointment and I arrived early at 11am as this is an appointment time I often make .
Upon my early arrival, my client was surprised and was keen to see me however she had an online meeting at 11am but was happy to change it to see me. I watched her calling her meeting at 11am off for me, I felt ashamed and embarrassed that I was wrong and my thinking was’ how could I be so stupid as to not read the time correctly?’
I decided there at this moment to catch these thoughts and feelings and stop them from taking over, I challenged and changed my thinking, “it’s ok, my client is ok with this, if she wasn’t I could have waited in my car for her to finish her meeting” I told myself, all is well and I am fine.
I then presented my best self and our meeting was a great success. Now if this had been before I knew about positive reinforcement, I would have been my worst self, a shameful mess with little to offer in the way of inspiration.
A common issue for many parents, “Why am I yelling at my children?” There must be a better way, the good news, there is.
I am trained in PET Parent Effectiveness Training with the Cooperative Family Centre in Melbourne teaching the skills developed by Dr. Thomas Gordon, Nobel Peace Prize nominee, as well as family reconciliation. The basis of my work involves active listening skills and cognitive behavioural therapy.
Sometimes, families break down and can cause estrangement of family members. This can cause and emotionally crippling situation, where family members ask themselves, “what went wrong?” “What did I do wrong?” “it must be my fault?”
In family situations, we are frequently dealing with difficult personalities.
Feelings of guilt, fear and shame may have crept into your space, perhaps a deep feeling of failure as a parent. These thoughts and feelings are not uncommon and can lead to a sense of loss of purpose and depression.
The good news is there is help and often these thoughts are just that thoughts and far from the truth.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is part of a range of strategies, for depression, grief, loneliness, and loss as examples.
It is a therapy I like to teach my clients to access, as it teaches them to be their own Counsellors , it is a great problem-solving tool, it is empowering and can relive stress and help with finding happiness.
I encourage my clients to read,
Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy
Book by David D. Burns
CBT is a formula, to use when faced with a problem, there are basic steps, to put the problem through the formula. The second step is to gauge the emotions, you are feeling, at this time of stress, identifying your feelings is not taught at schools, so it can take some assistance in identifying what the feeling is, and just how strongly you are experiencing it. Measuring the intensity can be insightful, and the last step in the formula is to measure the feelings again 1 out of 100. Usually the intensity of the emotion, has dropped significantly at the end of the CBT formula session.
Stress Management is also, about lifestyle. Exercising and eating well, taking the best care of yourself . All the above help and hopefully the stress is not long term, however, sometimes financial worries, relationship break ups, work situations when dealing with difficult people can prolong the stress .
Having a STOIC approach to problematic, ongoing situations can become a way of life. The dictionary defines Stoic as meaning:
a person who can endure pain or hardship without showing their feelings or complaining.
“The Stoic Challenge”
A Philosopher’s Guild to becoming tougher, calmer and more resilient
William B. Irvine
The above is another book, that uses the stoic tool.
I like the way, William Irvine frames it when he writes:
“many people, I should add, have an incorrect perception of Stoics. They think of them as emotionless, beings who primary goal was to stand there and bare it, to grimly take whatever life threw at them, but this is not the case. Their goal was not to banish emotions but to minimise the number of negative emotions – such as feeling of frustration, anger, grief, and envy that they experienced. They had nothing against the experience of positive emotions, including delight and even joy. “ … “ their goal was not to remain calm whiles suffering a setback, but rather to experience a setback without there by suffering. An important difference. “
Stress management is reframing the approach to the problem, I like to help my clients find out just how to do this.
Are you unsure of your own judgment when it comes to meeting the opposite sex. Perhaps you are preparing to go out on a date and have had a negative experience in the past?
Maybe it has been a long time since you have taken the step, looking for a partner to share your life with?
There is quite a bit to navigate in these situations, does this person like kids? how available are they? are they kind and express their thoughts feelings freely, are they willing to travel?
I often hear, mostly from women, saying there “no good ones left, they are all married and taken.”
Or they are on- line with someone who is 3000 kilometres away!
You do not need to look that far, to find the right person, you do however, need to open your eyes, to the possibility that there are many suitable partners within a 20-minute radius of your house. Many who are possibly spending most Saturday nights alone in front of the TV…just like you are.
Finding the right person for you can be a process, discernment is necessary.
Does this person say and do what they say they are going to do? Like are they on time? How do they behave around family and friends ? These are just some of the hurdles newly formed relationships need to go through.
If you are interested in learning more about the dating game, let me know there are ways of sorting the chaff from the grains of gold just waiting to be found.
