Diane’s Blog

Q:  Why is it so important to “separate” from my parents in order to establish my own path in life, and how do I do this?

A:  “You need to assert your own hard-won point of view because theirs is so limited and limiting in scope that you would truly never find out who you were meant to be.  This can be accomplished only by breaking away entirely from their rule, and that entails seeing your world separately — as separate from — theirs.  And accepting that only your way is valid for you. 

This means strongly but diplomatically rejecting your parents’ ideas about who you should be, where you should go, with whom you should or should not associate, and what money to spend — on a daily basis — whenever such matters arise.  Be firm in your stance, and your stance is this –

‘ I know I am doing things (seeing things, creating relationships with people) differently than you do or you think is right, but that is who I am, and I cannot force myself to be like you anymore.  I did that for many years, and I was unhappy.  It also made me unhappy — even angry and resentful — with you, because I blamed you for expecting me to be a certain way. 

I finally learned that you were not to blame — but that also meant taking responsibility for my own actions, and once I really started doing that, I began to see just how different my real needs and thoughts and beliefs were from yours.  And I began to feel okay about that, rather than beat myself up about being different, as I always had in the past.  Always. 

 I thought I was a bad person whenever I didn’t meet your expectations or assumptions of what I should be doing in work, in school, in my personal life.  Nothing seemed to ever really please you unless I somehow did exactly what you had in mind at that moment for me.  Then I was suddenly a good, intelligent person who “did the right thing.”  The only problem was, it wasn’t necessarily the right thing for me, and I wound up being unhappy again very shortly, because I knew I couldn’t keep up the pretense of being that person you had approved of. 

I can function very adequately in the world now even without your validation, because I have learned that the only real, lasting validation comes from my own heart.  I have learned to forgive myself now, whenever I feel I hurt someone or could have done better, or made a poor choice.  Because I know I am learning from my mistakes and these lessons are just what I need to help make me a more loving, wise, and worthwhile person.’ 

This is how you can communicate your separateness to your parents in whatever way seems appropriate.  You can only win with this approach, as you are taking a non-blaming, assertive, positive position that does not focus on any shortcomings of your parents, but on your own needs and growing ability to get them met.”

In my weekly talk with my dad last Sunday, a topic came up that I had hoped would not raise its ugly little head again.  First, let me remind you that my past relationship with my father was always rocky at best — there were times when we did not speak, and in some ways that was a great relief for me. 

 The verbal abuse I experienced from him growing up was something that I carried around with me for many years; it manifested as anger and the need to control others in order to experience what felt to me like safety.  Obviously, this created dysfunctional relationships, and until I hit 40, I blamed others for what I later realized I had created myself. 

 Over the last few years, and to the surprise and delight of both of us, my relationship with my father has healed to the extent that we can actually talk for extended periods of time without getting defensive and/or judging and even attacking the other person in some way.  However, my dad still seems to have the need to reminisce about how “nasty” I was to him in this or that conversation that occurred years ago — the implication being that I had been a very unlikable person until recently, when I somehow “changed my attitude” and turned into nice Diane. 

I have let this go over and over, as I know now that it simply does no good to rehash one’s perceived childhood pain with the aging parent who was involved.  Oh, I tried this a number of times years ago, and was shocked to discover that my father (and mother for that matter) had no memory of any transgression on their part. 

I guess I was in a sort of prickly mood this time, because I found myself resenting being placed in a position of apologizing for something not only dug up from the past, but in this case, a conversation I know did not go as my father describes it.  I suddenly heard myself say, “Well, you know, ours was the only relationship in the last 15 years that was problematic.  Yes, I know I was not particularly nice to you and at times even hung up the phone on you, but there were reasons for that.  You do remember that when I was growing up you did a lot of yelling. I was afraid of you and as I got older, I felt anger towards you for that.  You would call me “stupid” or tell me I needed to see a psychiatrist if I disagreed with you.” 

Needless to say, my father was shocked and horrified.  He has no recollection of any of this, apparently having always believed he was a wonderful father.  I could tell that he was grappling with it; that it could only cause him pain if he were to accept it.  We both fumbled around for a minute or two, until we agreed that the past truly no longer exists.  Since it doesn’t exist, why go there?  We both agreed that we are very very happy with the relationship that we have forged, that we each forgave the other some time ago, and that we don’t want to jeopardize it now. 

The ex-mental health professional as well as the hurt child within has always wanted to force my father to look at what he did and take responsibility for its role  in undermining not only our relationship, but all of mine until the time that I took things into my own hands.  Over a number of years, I successfully managed to exorcise all the old demons.  It took a great deal of time, effort and inner work, and required brutal honesty on my part. 

I know now that I can’t expect a parent to do the same — it’s just not reasonable.  And after all, if we can take it upon ourselves to meet each new moment with acceptance of someone, no matter what our history with them, won’t we be able to see them more clearly than we ever could through the lens of historical pain?  (End of post–please ignore below)

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Before I begin this week’s entry, I want to state that the classes I mentioned in last week’s entry are on hold for now.  For a number of reasons, I will probably not present anything until spring.  So — more on that in a few months.

Having been back from my trip to Cleveland for a couple of weeks now, I am really struck by the connection between travel and perspective.  It seems as though I can go along in the same groove daily — repeating my routines, as it were, almost indefinitely.  But yank me out of that groove, even for a week, and suddenly I am seeing many things more clearly.  I imagine that many of you have had this same experience. 

When we drove up to Cleveland, Jim and I were planning to build a house here in Asheville.  Two weeks later we are planning to move to Massachusetts at that time instead.  What happened?  Change is a funny thing — you have to be ripe for it or it doesn’t happen.  No one can MAKE you change your mind about anything.  That’s nonsense.  But if you already have a million little questions swimming around in your noggin, then all it may take is one whack on the side of that noggin and presto — those questions suddenly coalesce and new awareness pops up. 

 Apparently the questions in my own head had been multiplying over the last few years — questions regarding what I really need in terms of where I live.  Seven days in Cleveland and I know I belong in New England! Realizations happen in just that way, I have found.  The simple act of spending time with a few of my good friends in another city was enough to push me out of denial and face my true needs.  Let’s face it — we are all in denial about various things in our lives.  It’s the American way. 

 We have fears, mostly about change, it can seem much easier to not rock the boat.  The problem is, the nagging questions in the head don’t go away — they get louder over time, and more difficult to suppress.  Sometimes we project them on to something else, so fearful are we of looking at what we really need to thrive.  I thought I had invested so much in my choice to leave Cleveland and be here in Asheville — but the truth is, a couple of very important needs were not being met. 

On our drive home from Ohio, I decided to blurt out to Jim some of my feelings of unhappiness, and I wasn’t too surprised to hear him agree with me.  A few days later, I asked for guidance about how to know where to live among the numerous options we seem to have.  Among other things, I was guided to spend some time thinking about what my needs really are — particularly those which determine where I live. 

This turned out to be extremely helpful; out of six major needs, I have two that are not being met.  At this time in my life, it’s clear to me that I will not be happy allowing one third of my major needs to go unmet.  Sure, there’s plenty of natural beauty, space, and a benign climate here; what there isn’t is: people of my kind (bright, Northern, liberal, irreverent, literate, humorous, compassionate) and a close proximity to culture: museums, plays, etc..  Oh, there are some folks that fit the description I just gave, but not many. 

Mostly this is a Southern culture, and I have never acclimated.  Let me put it this way — hearing country music on the loudspeaker in every single store I walk into here is a form of water torture, and I need to be released.  I realize not all of you will agree with me about that, and that’s as it should be.  It seems to me that at this particular moment on the planet, when we are speeding towards an uncertain but undeniable destiny, one of the most important things we can each do to assure our individual groundedness is to find the geographical spot on which we feel most at home. 

 Look around you — what works for you and what doesn’t work so well?  Is there something you can do about it right now, or within a year or two?  More and more I find that I’m not willing to settle, especially when that means compromising my ability to feel joy on a daily basis.  How about you?

Well, it’s good to be home.  Especially since I just learned that the Great Lakes area, which I visited last week, received a very early snowfall — just four days after I left!

Before I go on to talk about the reunion I attended, an announcement: I will be presenting a class or two in Asheville next month.  I have yet to decide on the main focus, but the top contender at this time is Relationships.  Check back here next week for more information. 

Okay, now for the disappointing news — my 40th class reunion was a bust!  Out of 600 classmates, only 70 attended.  70!  And I didn’t even know the majority of them.  Only two female friends were there, which was something; not one male.  In thinking this over since then, I’ve decided that the best explanation is that a lot of folks attended either the 25th or 35th reunion, found it dull, and vowed to never return — as I did last Saturday night.  The question remains — why did I want to go to this thing anyway? 

After the fact, the answer was different than what I had thought.  Well, sort of different.  It’s still true that I was curious to see where life had led so many of the people I had known, and I wanted to apologize to a few of them, whether or not they knew what the heck I was talking about.  But I also had to admit that I wanted to be seen.  And admired, perhaps. 

I noticed that in general the women looked much better — healthier, younger, more well-preserved — than the men in attendance.  There is still a part of me that can’t seem to get past that superficial need for the kind of attention that being attractive brings with it.  I guess it was unrealistic of me to think I had left that behind entirely, when so much of my earlier life seemed to depend on it for defining who I was. 

This seems to be tied in to the false spiritual understanding that as you evolve spiritually in your life, you get to a point where appearances mean nothing.  Perhaps that will happen some day — I’m not there yet.  And that’s OK.  I’m learning that it’s just as easy to beat yourself up over spiritual success (or lack of it) as any other kind.  I see this all the time in healers around me, and I’m no exception. 

Another revelation was that my desire to see and talk to my high school friends was for the most part sentimental.  And therefore it may have been for the best that I didn’t see them.  The truth about these friends is that they fell away long ago, largely because I let them do so.  Not having a clue as to who I really was back then, I tried to fit in, and found a group of simpatico girls –my “group.”  Around the time of our junior year in college, things started to feel uncomfortable to me — largely due to the fact that I was going in a different direction both socially and politically than these people. 

They were on one side of the Vietnam war debate; I was on the other.  They were on career tracks; I was on the hippie track.  Although we stayed in touch for the next few years and I even roomed with one of them, it became more and more painfully clear that we had very little in common.  We drifted apart and I never looked back.  Well maybe a little.  Again, for sentimental reasons. 

You really can’t go home again, and that’s the truth. Too often we let what we think “ought to be” guide us.  That never works in the long run.  Childhood and adolescence are a time of seismic change, and we will never feel again the way we did then.  Some wish they could go back — there is no back — it no longer exists.  I don’t want to go back — perhaps I had hoped to glean a little more understanding of those tumultuous years, when Diane was such an unknown element.  Fortunately I don’t have a “need” to do that.  Right now feels better and better to me.