It’s always easier to move backwards than it is to move forward.
Dunno why that is. Just think about dieting… it’s easier to revert back to your
old habits than it is to stick with the healthier alternatives. When you are
stressed, it’s easier to grab a pint of Haagen Daz and sit on the couch
watching movies than it is to exercise. And when you really get deep down into
it… that little voice in your head says, “Oh, but you deserve it. Just take
another day to figure things out.”
Growing up as a pastors’ kid, I’ve dealt with some memorable
situations of being disappointed in people.
Because that was the environment that I grew up in, I thought that was
just unique to our upbringing. I’ve
spent a lot of time being angry, frustrated and upset with people who took my
parents’ time, then discarded the relationship when it no longer suited them.
When we were younger, it sometimes meant that our good friends that we spent
hours playing with, would sometimes disappear. When we’d see them at school or
other places, they wanted nothing to do with us. I always wondered why my mom
and dad did it over and over again.
As I got older, I found relief in the fact that I could
choose my friends and to some extent, control my environment. Six days a week,
I could be a normal person. We, unlike most church going citizens, didn’t get
to choose our church; it was given to us as they walked in the door. Granted,
the social scene wasn’t really always easy, it was just easier to navigate in my
safety zone. I did find out, through work, relationships and life that there
are always difficult people to deal with. It’s just easier when they are
outside of your reality. Work was fine, but I was earning a paycheck and got to
reap the benefit of what I was doing all week when I went home. It was a
tangible investment that I could semi control on some levels. I didn’t always
do life right in my so called “controlled environment”. But it felt less
punishing because I had, essentially, chosen it.
What I didn’t realize as a child, and makes a lot of
difference knowing now, was that there were people out there who were
disappointed in their parents, in their circumstances and in their lives that
didn’t even have the stability of the life we grew up with who struggle to get
over those things every day. And when
they had the support of my parents, their lives looked like it could be full of
what they didn’t grow up with. I was used to my parents challenging us to live
up to our full potential. Reaching toward one’s full potential, is also a
choice; one that all of us have to make. Sometimes it is easier to do with the help of someone who cares.
There are times in life when I revisit some of the hurt in
those circumstances growing up, instead of recognizing how important the growth
was from that experience. When I revert back to the angry child in me, I pick
up all of the things that hurt me, all of the instances that I kept score,
instead of acting like the person who set those things aside to continue on and
have a fruitful life. When I am busy tallying up the wounds that others
inflicted, I forget the joy of the everyday things that I love and memories of
those things that I cherish.
This has been increasingly hard lately as I see my daughter
trying to navigate her way through second grade. I remember the little baby I
held, secure in the fact that I just knew
it was going to be different for her as I helped her through it. It’s not
different. It’s not even any easier. I forgot that mean crappy people start in
the form of children in school! As I try to guide her through it, I remember
instances in my childhood that were difficult lessons to learn, the hurt and
the growth that came with some of those circumstances. I have had to sit down
and tell her as much as I hate it, that school is a learning place. Her primary
job there is to learn. And sometimes it’s to learn how to deal with difficult situations
with difficult people. It hurts me to try to coach her through it from the sidelines,
but it is necessary not to start crippling habits that will affect her relationships
later in life by allowing her to opt out of it, or providing the way out of it
FOR HER.
The angry child inside doesn’t solve problems; it just sits
in them, like a messy diaper. You fret, you stew, you cry and wonder why the
unfairness. The desire to shrink back under the covers and stay there nice and
warm in your bed is overwhelming. Excuses start cropping up to prevent you from
engaging in social activities, the same way that children state that they are
ill or make excuses not to go to school. As adults, we sometimes coddle that
need and take a mental health day. We even sometimes enable our children to
stew by allowing them to skip, too. What is it teaching them? Indulging your
inner angry child benefits no one, even when it is your own inner child that
you are still trying to fix by nurturing your own children. We cut out
relationships that no longer feel fruitful or leave when things get tough
instead of working through to get resolution. Although it may feel right and
justified by the jury of one, it most definitely is not teaching them to learn
how to solve the problem and move on by our own actions.
Our children are not the only ones who suffer from the
indulgence of the angry child, its other people as well. Your friends and
family rely on your norm as a part of their norm as well. They need you. Together,
we all create a balance that is essential to a happy healthy life. That means
sharing the struggles as well as the good times, being available and making
yourself available. The angry child lessens your importance in maintaining a
balanced social structure by rationalizing withdrawing into yourself as a
coping technique. It’s selfish and it hurts not only yourself, but also
deprives the others around you. If you are retreating inward, you are not
reaching out toward your potential.
While I am busy throwing my temper tantrum about the
unfairness of life, I am forgetting all of the productive things I have done.
That, in spite of the issues my kids are having at school, I am a good parent.
They are good children. They have a beautiful home and loving parents. We do
good things. We have an excellent family. We have good friends. And while
sometimes, it feels like the deck may be stacked with the timing of things, the
ultimate outcome is good. Life IS good. It’s just about moving on. It’s about picking
up that attitude of thankfulness and continuing to have faith that it is going
to continue to get better. Sometimes silencing that angry inner child is just
as simple as repeating one basic good truth heard from us, our spouse, parents
or someone who cares: “You are loved, you are important and you matter,
regardless of how other people treat you.”
How you treat other people reflects how well you know that for yourself.
If you believe you are those things, you will treat others with that same
principle.
Learning how to deal with difficult circumstances and
communicate effectively through them is so important. I keep trying to remind
myself that as I go through them, I am teaching my kids inadvertently how to
deal with them as well. How do I teach
my kids to communicate when I retreat within myself? I don’t. I want to teach
them more than not to hate or be a victim of their circumstances, I want to
teach them how to move on from issues that cause them pain, that cause them
stress or relationships that just don’t work out. That is what my parents
showed me from an early age. Before school, work or church people, it was horses.
I had a pony that loved to dump me underneath a tree every time I got on him.
Every time, they put me back up on Buddy and off we went again. Guess what? I
made it. I learned a valuable lesson. Do I hate the horse? No. But I know to
ride.
It’s the same with people. If I give in and get mad at the
latest person to not value our relationship, the time, the investment that I
feel has been given; I let that angry little kid inside of me win. My parents
taught me better and that is why we have the productive, beautiful life that we
have now instead of being hurt angry kids with trust issues that we are
constantly trying to live without. It’s not unique to the church, nor is it
unique to the struggles we faced growing up: it is unique to people with
courage to keep moving on. They are the ones that not only constantly push
towards reaching their own full potential but also propel others around them to
reach theirs.
