That has not always gone down well. It took me many years to discover there are a shocking number of people out there whose greatest fear imaginable is looking themselves squarely in the eye to identify their best self. And there was this twerpy, massively intrusive person telling them, "Go ahead - you're safe with me," totally missing they were NOT safe with themselves.
It's certainly a struggle right now, with so many older friends fully invested in believing their greatest here & now life purpose is to be as little bother to others as possible. That's a really rough mind-set to shake, especially when their families reinforce it.
Small wonder that I didn't lavish a lot of attention in my teaching days on students who were already doing well. In most cases, they were pretty well versed with being connected to & living from a sense of their inner best. Although not always. There were straight A students who needed a lot of TLC, the ones who felt they were ONLY okay if they were 4.0. They needed the reassurance that an occasional B or less was not the end of the world, as long as they'd given it their best shot.
Giving our best shot. That's what I want to help others do, from the wee small kitty to the high school student who expects the worst from everyone (especially herself) to the older friend who doesn't know what to do with the day in front of her, let alone the coming week month year.
Or the family who can't find time to squeeze in 2 or 3 extra hours with Dad once a month. My job isn't to flip out & rant over "Why can't they see it's in his best interests -and- theirs?" It's to help connect them to an image of their best self. In the case of a family, that's pretty easy. I've got God as my back up on this one.
The 5th Commandment says, "Honor thy father & thy mother." Pretty simple words. We can - and do - slice 'em & dice 'em to mean deeper, more spiritual things, but the words themselves are as straight forward as can be. And there is no caveat. There is no disclaimer, "unless they've been gosh awful to you or are a bother or inconvenience or intrusion into your life." We are called by GOD to be there for our parents. It is one of many reasons I believe we are meant to live in tribes, where intergenerational interaction is natural, where olders are treated as elders, where we youngers are the beneficiaries of their wisdom & they benefit from our different perspectives.
Spock says it all. In the 10 Commandments (!), we are commanded to honor our parents & then God sweetens the pot - and the result of doing that is that we, the children, will live long & prosper. Think about it - the commandment could very easily have said "that THEIR days may be long..." That would have made sense. In fact, that might make more sense than what's actually written. In honoring our parents - without any caveat - WE will live long upon the land with the Lord our God give US.
Here's how I've interpreted that over the years - we are meant to be support for our parents, to be there for them with a heart open to compassion & caring. It never says that they aren't going to drive us around the bend. It doesn't say that we have to always be nice & pleasant about having to completely upend our plans (when we can). It doesn't always mean having to put them absolutely positively first. It means, to me, that we accept life as a balancing act. We learn how to identify what really really matters. To them, to us, to others in our lives. It means treating them with respect, but not having amnesia.
My delightful reality is that all of our clients have families devoted to helping them enjoy life to the fullest. There is one client who is prone to occasional bouts of self pity. "Yes, I am doing breakfast with you, then lunch with her & dinner with him - but what do I do in between?" Said, I must add, in a tone of being an abandoned puppy. And that is more than I can handle. When she gripes & grouses about filling the fleeting hours between her fun gigs, I don't mess around - "Your children have taken care to arrange this & that for your fun. Whether you go back to your apartment & read or take a nap, whether you stop by to visit friends, or listen to the radio, the space in between is up to YOU to fill."
We are meant to be support for our parents. We are called to be that with a full & loving heart. And honesty. There were times I couldn't do what Mom wanted or even needed. But she knew that I would have if I could have. She knew that as a human being, she frequently drove me up the wall. Somewhere deep in her heart of hearts, she knew that I frequently did the same to her. It was not, ever, easy for us to get along. It took hard work on both our parts to make it work. But we didn't have any options. Well, she did, but none that she felt she could take. And although that hurt me at the time - that she didn't take an option that could have benefited both of us - I learned at the very end of her life why she never took it & it all made sense.
One of the things that makes it so hard for so many of us to be there for our parents is all the baggage that comes with them. And they are lugging baggage from their parents who dragged it after them from theirs... Most of it is mere phantom, a misspoken word, a look, a tone we took one way when maybe they meant it another. Or not. Working with elderly parents gives us the opportunity to set those miserable moments in stone or realize their actual transitory reality. And to fully accept that - like not realizing the why behind Mom not taking the option that made so much sense to me - we don't know so much of what's actually happening or happened.
Here's what I learned from all those years working with Mom - get over it. Whatever IT is. Don't cling to hurts. Don't dismiss what really matters, but don't make it into an anchor, tie it around your feet & throw it into the ocean. Create balance. Create balance that works for you, for them, for others. Be open to realizing you might not be right. Be open to experiencing parents in the here & now, without all the chains of the past. Being there for Mom all those years helped connect me to what I love doing above all else - helping others connect with & celebrate their best self. Toddler to teen, middle aged to ancient, individuals to clans.
God created us to be our BEST self & spells out that one way to do that is to honor our mother & our father. Honoring them helps us be our best self. About as bottom line as it gets.
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