Keys to Healing Relationships with Our Parents
Steps you can take to leave the past behind and move forward.
This year, many adult children will have the opportunity to visit their parents after spending the last Mother’s Day and Father’s Day apart due to pandemic restrictions. Yet some grown kids will continue to experience strained relationships with their parents as a result of troubled times in their shared past.
As grownups we may have a hard time letting go of painful emotions associated with our parents from the days when we were growing up. Our parents may say or do things that trigger strong emotions in us. This can make family gatherings awkward and uncomfortable, or even lead to estrangement. How can we heal the hurts of the past so that we can restore relationships and move forward without regrets?
The key may lie in learning to identify and discover Trapped Emotions: the lingering, painful feelings many of us harbor from events in our past. This is important not only our relationships, but also our overall health and well-being.
All of us experience strong negative emotions at times. Sometimes, for reasons that we do not yet understand, these feelings do not process completely. In these cases, instead of us simply experiencing the emotion and then moving on, the energy of the emotion becomes trapped within the energy field of spirit and body. So instead of moving beyond your angry moment, or a temporary bout with grief or sadness, the negative emotional energy remains within your body, potentially causing significant physical and emotional stress.
There are energy healing techniques available to help people identify and release emotional baggage. Methods such as the Emotion Code® with the Body Code™ can help free us from the past so we can experience better relationships with our parents, children, and other family members. Here are some additional tips to help:
- Discover what’s behind your triggers. We have all been there: a family member says or does something and we become upset, emotional, or defensive. When this happens, oftentimes there are underlying past traumas that are contributing to the emotions you are choosing. In family relationships, when something happens and you are feeling triggered, most likely you are not just feeling the current emotions — you’re feeling the old ones, too. Understanding this can help you unravel the two.
- Take into account your parents’ emotional baggage. Just about everyone carries emotional scars from the past in the form of Trapped Emotions and Heart-Walls™. Heart-Walls are energetic barriers made of accumulated trapped negative emotions that can prevent people from freely giving and receiving love. When you understand that your parents’ hearts may be blocked by fear, anger, or other negative emotions, it can help you to have compassion, forgive, and let go of your own emotional baggage.
- Speak your mind without creating drama. Do your part to make it a non-emotional situation. If you’re feeling stressed about family interaction, go outside for a few minutes to get some fresh air. Ask yourself if you’re overreacting. Recognize your own feelings and analyze what your mom or dad meant to say. Give them the benefit of the doubt — it’s likely no offense was meant. If you aren’t sure, ask for clarification, and then react appropriately, with kindness and love. Practice forgiveness. Some people really don’t have a handle on their behavior, but it doesn’t have to affect how you choose to feel or behave. It doesn’t have to be your problem.
- Learn from mistakes. Look at mistakes in a positive light. Mistakes teach us what not to do next time. With this in mind, you can approach your relationship with your parents with a sense of humility rather than blame. Allow yourself to make mistakes and allow your parents to make some mistakes, too. We are all human. Though we may work at getting better at things, we all need to be able to make mistakes to learn. Nobody is perfect.
Even as you practice these steps, it is important for you to recognize and remove your own Trapped Emotions before they cause more damage. Do it for yourself as well as those you love. It may change your whole life. There are resources available to help you release your emotional baggage once and for all. Go to emotioncodegift.com to learn how to find and release your trapped emotions. If you need assistance, you can contact a Certified Emotion Code Practitioner and schedule a session to release your trapped emotions by visiting discoverhealing.com/practitioner-map.
Getting rid of your trapped emotions can help you overcome the obstacles of your past and bring new life to your relationships with your parents and other loved ones.
By Dr. Bradley Nelson
