Triggered by Your Adult Children's Decisions?

 

(Repost from 2019) (53)

Midlife, nest-emptying time, having adult children living at home or returning to the nest--are all situations parents walk through. It's part of the letting go process.

Over the past few years and going forward, I've been learning about letting go, living in the moment, training my thoughts, and rebuilding life. But it hasn't all been peaceful. At times, I've faced situations and felt great stress. And I've had to figure out how to deal with the challenges. 

When things come to a head, we sometimes need support. It's okay to ask for a friend's input. It's also okay to sign on for life coaching or mental health therapy. 


WATCH FOR TRIGGERS

My therapist helped me walk through past situations--things I'd stuffed down and not shared with another person. They were triggered as I saw my daughter making her own decisions. 

(Many of us women had turbulent times whether in teen years, early 20s, or onward. We had relationship issues, made choices we regret, and so on. The negative effects of those issues can affect us when our own children reach a similar stage.) 

As we see our children making life-altering decisions, we want them to not make the mistakes we have. We want our former pain and difficulty to have a purpose. Often, we think that the purpose of our past trauma is to help us warn our kids. But chances are, our adult kids don't want to hear our warnings. They'll take steps we don't agree with anyhow.

When I became stressed and anxiety-laden (accompanied by horrific tinnitus and panic attacks), I connected it to some issues I needed to deal with MYSELF. They had to do with my own past. They were affecting my perception of the present and the resultant stress was affecting my health. 

So I dealt with them one by one with weekly appointments with a therapist. 

The therapist gave me tools and permission to let my adult children go. My health and personal peace was important to preserve. 

The Bible tells us to forget the former things so that God can do a new thing. Once we've dealt with former things, we can dismiss the remembrance of them as soon as they try to take place in our present again. 

I've been dismissing thoughts left and right. I've been claiming each day as new. I've been tossing out the temptation to become frustrated by what my adult children do. It's their turn to make their own decisions and mistakes.

• Do these tips help you? 
• Is there stuff in your past you need to deal with? If so, how will you go about it? 
• Can you imagine how freeing it will be to let your children make their own decisions?