How to work through grievances against parents, how to stop thinking and remembering injustice or lack of love in childhood?
We will talk about all this today in this article. And if you want to take the question “How to work through grievances against parents” seriously, then I will meet your expectations and share super useful information so that you can forgive your parents and move on with your life.
Let me introduce myself a little so that you take the information seriously. My name is Natalia Gnezdilova, I am a psychologist. Almost 15 years of experience.
How to work through grievances against parents?
Why is working with grievances considered one of the most difficult?
Because when we talk about grievances, we affect a person’s worldview. Worldview, feeling, values are located deep in the inner world, which we often are not aware of.
And if you are already an adult, then the events that happened in childhood influenced your worldview, and resentment or a sense of injustice has become ingrained in your character and in your views on the world and others.
Working through grievances against your parents is complicated by the fact that they are relatives, they gave birth to you, and according to all the laws of society, they must care and love.
But unfortunately, it is not customary for us to take maternity and paternity exams, and therefore, sometimes people become parents who are completely unable to love and care for their children.
Resentment towards parents most often comes from childhood or adolescence. This is the most vulnerable part of any person's life. As a child, we do not have the opportunity to influence others in any way, and therefore we have to obey against our desires.
Resentment is a feeling that arises in response to someone's unfair treatment of us. But it is especially painful when the closest people do not treat the child well enough.
I don’t want to go into details of possible grievances, I’m sure that you can already list on your fingers why and what you’re offended by?
What working methods are there to work through resentment towards parents?
During my life, I have come across many different methods, meditations, practices for working with grievances, but there are practically no ones that really work.
On the one hand, you do the practices, forgive diligently, and at the time of implementation you feel liberated from resentment. But, as soon as it comes to meeting your parents, or they make some remark to you, a storm of emotions immediately flares up inside you, and it turns out that the resentment has not gone away.
Resentment, not some object that is inside you, resentment, cannot just be taken out and taken out.
The feeling of resentment consists of 2 layers:
Layer 1 - your feelings, emotions, thoughts and memories.
Layer 2 is a deeper one, which has a decisive influence on working through feelings of resentment; these are your beliefs about the world and about yourself, in other words, attitudes (programs) for certain behavior, feeling emotions in a given situation.
Any practice only works with the first layer – emotions. To get to the second layer, you need to work with beliefs, you need rethinking, awareness.
Therefore, visualization, speaking words of forgiveness, imagining parents as small children, or working with your inner child do not provide decisive and final forgiveness of parents.
It is difficult to work with beliefs on your own, therefore, you need to contact a specialist so that they can help you discover the attitudes that have a decisive influence on your behavior and feelings.
After all, by and large, when there is a resentment, it has a strong impact on a person’s life, this is both personal and professional life, even the attitude towards oneself, and then it suffers because strong resentments live inside.
Energy affirmation from Vilma - self-forgiveness
I forgive _____ (my fear, my guilt, etc.).
I forgive myself for letting this _____ in (my fear, guilt, etc.)
I ask you, my dear body, forgive me that I let _____ into you (this fear, guilt, etc.) and thereby caused you pain and evil.
Exercise 2 to work through resentment towards parents
Start working with resentment towards your parents by working through your emotions, you need to bring them out, feel them, live them and release them,
What is hidden behind the feeling of resentment?
Most often, this is anger and rage. These feelings are suppressed, they are under great pressure inside you because, once upon a time, you were still a child and did not have the right to express your anger. If there were a lot of grievances, then there was a lot of anger.
Society says that being angry with your parents is bad. And therefore, a child most often does not have the opportunity to feel and live these feelings.
Now that you are an adult, you can recognize and accept these feelings. Thus, you will let them go and you will feel better. You need to become aware of your anger.
What does it mean to be aware of anger?
It's simple, you dive a little into yourself and think about those situations in which grievances arose.
You feel your feeling of anger and say to yourself - yes, I feel all this anger, I feel it, which means it is in me. You need to feel it, it’s an unpleasant feeling, I want to tell you.
You can do an exercise to release anger and any other emotions.
A complete and detailed description of the exercise is in the article “Relieving Emotional Tension”
As I wrote above, by doing this exercise, you will work and release 1 layer - the emotional one. Perhaps, to completely free yourself from anger, you will need to perform the exercise not just once, but 2 or 3, maybe 5 times or more.
Forgiving yourself
Feel your own precious body and life, say: there are many ways in which I have betrayed myself or harmed myself, abandoned myself in thought, word or action, knowing it or not knowing it. Allow yourself to see the ways in which you have offended or harmed yourself. Outline them, remember them, visualize them. Feel the sadness that you carried as a result of all these actions, feel that you can free yourself from these burdens, extend forgiveness to them, one by one.
Then tell yourself:
“For every way in which I have harmed myself through action or inaction due to fear, pain and delusion, I now extend full and sincere forgiveness. I forgive myself.
Methods of forgiveness and acceptance of parents and any other difficult situations in life
The next step in working through resentment towards your parents is working with your beliefs. Your task is to rethink, realize - why did you need this situation? What did you have to learn?
You see, considering yourself a generous, good person, but at the same time, the other person who offended you is bad, this is a position that never gives sincere and complete forgiveness.
If you want to radically work through your grievances against your parents, then I suggest that you definitely work with the article “3 steps: accept, let go of a grudge against a person and forgive” , for the article, I recorded a video on the same topic, which you should definitely watch.
Why is it so important to let go of grudges?
Nowadays a lot of attention is paid to the issue of forgiveness of grievances. It has been proven that this negative feeling manifests itself in psychosomatics and if you do not get rid of it in time, it destroys the physical healthy state of a person.
It is important to learn not to be offended, not to encapsulate in your soul anger, rage, resentment and aggression towards the one who offended you. This is difficult to do, but if you look at a situation where everyone has the right to choose, then the attitude towards it will change.
The offender may be psychologically ill or have many other problems that definitely shouldn’t worry you. He chose the path of aggression and negativity for himself, this is his and let him stay with him. There is no need to take on this anger and negative energy.
When it comes to parents, sometimes there is no need to delve into the search for excuses as to why they acted this way, what made them do it. No, this will not give positive results, but will only drive you deeper into unnecessary thoughts. You just need to forgive them and let them go with gratitude that this world has you, that you live, and have freedom of choice.
What do you expect from working through resentment towards your parents?
If you do the exercises that I gave you above, you will feel that there is less negativity inside. But there is still a long way to go until complete recovery.
Now I invite you to think about what will happen to you after you are freed from grievances and can forgive your parents with all your heart?
Answer these questions, or better yet, write them down on paper:
- What will happen to you when you forgive your parents?
- Will your life change in any way after forgiveness?
- How will you feel? What feelings will settle inside you?
- Will your relationship with your parents change?
- Will you treat them differently? How exactly?
- What feelings will arise instead of resentment and anger towards your parents?
These questions definitely need to be answered, is it important for you to imagine what forgiveness itself will give you?
If your grievances against your parents create in you a chronic feeling of a lack of unconditional love, then it is not a fact that forgiveness will give you these feelings.
If my mother doesn't love me, in this article, you will find ways to find unconditional love.
Forgiveness Meditation – 2
For forgiveness meditation, sit comfortably, allow your eyes to close, and allow your body and breathing to become natural and light. Give your body and mind a chance to relax. Breathe slowly from the area of your heart, allow yourself to feel all the obstacles and accumulations that you carried with you because you did not forgive - you did not forgive yourself, you did not forgive others. Feel the pain of your ever-closed heart. Then, after breathing gently through your heart for some time, begin to ask for forgiveness and spread it by repeating the words below and allowing them to open your forgiving heart. Let the words, images and feelings deepen as you repeat them.
How to work through grievances against parents on your own?
I want to talk to you from the position of an adult, and as an adult. My words may seem harsh to you, but they are very true.
If your parents did not love you as a child and offended you, then most likely they could not love, they do not know how to love, which means that no amount of forgiveness will help you.
Your task is to accept the past with all the difficulties, hardships, problems and everything else that happened to you in childhood. Do you understand what I'm talking about?
Accept and leave in the past. The feeling of injustice that you have when thinking about your parents or when comparing with other people must be accepted.
Tell yourself:
- yes, this is my past,
- yes, it was hard for me,
- yes, they didn’t love me and didn’t treat me the way I deserved it, but I survived it all.
Working independently with grievances against parents is very difficult; a small offended child constantly breaks through and switches you to the position of a victim. And you don’t even notice it, and you easily leave the position of an adult. Therefore, it is much faster and easier to work with a psychologist who can bring you back to the here and now.
Transfiguration Prayer
I accept you with love in my heart! You, me and the whole world around us are the essence of one whole. You came into my life with your pain and suffering for a reason. You show me, as in a mirror, that pain and suffering exist deep in my soul, in my subconscious.
And I am fully aware that I am involved in your problems, because I know that everything that happens in my life is the result of my thoughts and actions in the past. I repent of what I did. And with my free Will I cancel all my destructive programs towards you, your ancestors and your entire Family.
I forgive you and your ancestors for all their wrong thoughts and actions, committed intentionally or unintentionally towards my ancestors from the Creation of the world to this day. Forgive me and my entire Family, for we did not know what we were doing.
I thank you for coming into my life and helping me clear my mind and free myself from everything old and unnecessary, become truly free, transform and be happy, living according to Truth and Conscience.
I love you and bless your entire Family with love. I wish you, your loved ones and your descendants happiness and goodness.
And may all my wrong thoughts, words and actions, which led to your pain and suffering, be transformed by the power of Divine Love into righteous thoughts and actions, and may they bring happiness to our families and the entire world around us. Let Love, Peace and General Prosperity reign on Earth.
Let it be so!
I accept you with love in my heart! Forgive me and my entire Family! I thank you! I forgive you and your entire Family and bless you with love! I wish you happiness and goodness!
Common myths about working through grievances against parents
Many people experience disappointment after they have been able to let go of all the grievances they had towards their parents. Let me tell you what changes and what remains the same in the life of a person freed from childhood grievances?
1 myth - I will feel the love of my parents, because I did not feel it because I was offended and my negative emotions did not let the emotions of love through.
This can happen (you will feel the love of your parents) if only you focus on the positive aspects of your relationship with your parents. When you are offended, you collect all the small misunderstandings in order to build a negative picture of the world in which you are undeservedly offended.
Myth 2 – I will treat my parents much better than now. Because now I am hampered by resentment and constant memories of how I was offended. And if there is no resentment, then my attitude will change dramatically.
There is a feeling that after forgiveness you will simply erase from your memory all the times when your parents treated you unfairly. Many people believe that forgiveness is oblivion, when you forget and never remember.
This is wrong. Even after forgiveness, you remember those events, only they are not colored by pain, hatred and anger. By and large, forgiveness is accepting a situation without trying to influence or change it in any way.
By the way, this is impossible. Returning to those events every time in your memory, it’s as if you want to change the past, to make sure there was a different outcome.
Therefore, when you meet and communicate with your parents, you will also remember everything that happened, but your behavior will change, and will happen because you made a conscious choice to forgive, not remember and not blame.
Myth 3 : After forgiving my parents, I will begin to love them.
The truth is that you have every right not to love your parents. Just like parents may not love their children. I can say from experience that if you had a difficult childhood and you were truly treated cruelly, then after forgiveness, love may not appear. And this is natural.
The fact that these people are your parents forces you to think that after hatred, love will automatically appear.
And for some reason, there is a common misconception that forgiveness switches from resentment to love. This is especially noticeable when a person works with grievances against someone outsider, not so dear. I was asked the question, what if I forgive him, will I love him?
You see, you cannot force or force a person to love someone, just like you cannot force yourself to love someone. If there is love, then it is there.
Therefore, do not expect great and pure love from yourself for your parents, especially if it was very difficult for you.
Myth 4 – all insults can be forgiven, you just have to try.
Answer the question, how can you forgive a maniac or a murderer, or a mother who was silent and did nothing when her partner raped her daughter?
What goes around comes around. Couldn't have said it better.
In my opinion, not everything can be forgiven, and, probably, it should not be forgiven.
This does not mean that you have to curse that person all the time, remember and plunge into the nightmare and horror of that time. No, you need to accept and let go of the situation and not return to it again.
And also, you need to draw conclusions about what you learned and what experience you gained because of those events?
In conclusion, I would like to advise you not only to read information about forgiveness, but to actually engage in this process.
This is not a quick process, but you can reduce the time, and significantly reduce it, by seeking help from a psychologist. Using this link, you can sign up for a consultation with me , and I will definitely help you finally work through your grievances against your parents.
Below, you will find useful articles on the topic of forgiving grievances against parents; each article contains techniques and exercises:
I hate my mother, what should I do?
3 steps: accept, let go of the offense against the person and forgive.
My mother doesn't love me, what should I do?
Expressive writing techniques will heal your injuries.
Exercise to relieve emotional stress. Remove anger and any other negative emotions.
How to accept a situation you can't change
How to let go of the situation and not worry
I will be glad to see your comments))
Be loved and happy!
Sincerely, family psychologist Natalia Gnezdilova.
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The author of the article is Natalia Gnezdilova , family psychologist with 15 years of experience. I help women 35+ regain love, respect and trust in relationships with men. I consult online in any of the messengers - Skype, WhatsApp, Viber. Subscribe: my Instagram YouTube channel VK page
Training session “Learning to forgive grievances”
Training session“We learn to forgive insults.”
Target:
create conditions for developing skills of forgiveness of grievances;
reveal the concepts of “resentment” and “anger”, their negative impact on the human body; introduce students to “healthy” ways to forgive offenses; teach self-regulation skills. To resolve a conflict. Form of work:
lesson with training elements.
Materials and equipment:
music for relaxation, sheets of paper, vase, matches.
Progress of the lesson:
- Today we have gathered with you to find a way out of the current conflict situation in your class. We will have to not only resolve the conflict situation, but also learn to control our feelings and emotions.
— Let's try to resolve the conflict with the help of fairy tale therapy.
Fairy tale "I'm sorry."
Once, where it was necessary to pronounce the Word, Silence met Silence. One step before the impending disaster, two bitter grievances recognized each other. Their looks expressed loneliness and emptiness, there was something sad in them.
Suddenly an abyss opened up between them, and impassable rocks stood behind them. Silence and Silence were horrified. They saw the end of their road and realized that they were not destined to live together, but were destined to die together.
Silent lips compressed, tongues painfully searched for the Word. Their strength was running out...
And hands reached out, and the Word was born: “Forgive me!”
In the “Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language” by S. Ozhegov, the word “forgive” is deciphered as “to excuse, not to blame, to release from any obligation.” And in V. Dahl’s dictionary “to forgive is to make simple from sin, guilt, debt; to release from an obligation, to have mercy.”
In Rus', for a long time, there has been a holiday called Forgiveness Sunday. This is the last day of Maslenitsa. On this day in ancient times, people went to church and asked God for forgiveness for their sins, bad deeds and mistakes that prevented people from living in peace and harmony with people and themselves. In recent years, this tradition of celebrating Forgiveness Sunday has entered our lives. On this day you can hear a phone call and the words from the receiver: “Forgive me!” You can see a person on the threshold of a house whom you did not expect to see at all: “Forgive me!”
Exercise “Touching the Resentment.”
Goal: stimulation of the ability to forgive insults, forget bad things, get rid of the burden of unwanted emotions.
(Against the background of relaxing music, the girls listen to the words of a psychologist). — Often in life we carry deeply hidden resentment towards the people closest to us: parents, loved one, teacher, friend... Close your eyes and imagine a person who once, willingly or unwillingly, offended you... Remember those words, actions or silence, inaction, which hurt you painfully, touched the thinnest strings of your soul... - How did you feel then? — What sensations did you have in your body? How did your body respond to the insult? — What thoughts came to mind? Mini-lecture “Grievances.”
(From the book by P. Artemyev “The Psychology of Self-Knowledge, or How to Find the Formula of Life”). “What we don’t need to be taught is the art of being offended!” And I assure you, it’s not a matter of reason. There will always be a reason if there is an internal need for grievances and mutual reproaches, envy and inability to forgive. While not as obviously destructive as anger, resentment is more dangerous because of its duration. Water wears away a stone, and, affecting the psyche over weeks and months, even the most absurd offense can lead to extremely serious consequences. After suffering an insult, you must definitely have a “conversation with yourself” according to something like this: Why did this happen to me? Do I really deserve this? Can I somehow fix the situation? What lessons should be learned from this? Do I agree to forgive offenders? Do I want to remember my resentment all my life? Is she worth it? The last question, for all its apparent rhetoric, is quite important, because not a single insult is worth remembering about it all your life. But if I do not agree to poison the years of my existence with resentment, why should I poison my coming days and weeks? Each time you bring yourself to this conclusion, you prepare the ground for parting with the offense forever. Next, the entire recorded “plot” is destroyed, and only the lines with the final conclusion remain before your eyes. This is your lesson, which should be remembered and which is essentially positive, replacing mental negativity. Try to bring yourself to the opportunity to forgive and forget. Don’t doubt it - it’s easier and more profitable than cherishing a harmful Resentment in your soul and, even more so, nurturing a monster - Revenge.
Example: “I wasn’t offended, I was sorry.”
The story of one aspiring journalist. One day she was called for a fee to the editorial office of a famous children's magazine. That day everything went wrong for her. So they called her late that day, and it was a long drive, and by the time she got there, the working day was already ending. There were literally ten minutes left. In addition, it turned out that they forgot to issue her a pass, and she did not know the editorial office’s phone number by heart. True, there was a telephone at the pass office with a list of editorial offices hanging next to it, but there was a long line to get to it. Sighing, the girl stood at the back of the line, realizing that she most likely would not have time to get the money. And this was very sad, because at that time she was going through a difficult period of her life financially... She would not have had enough money in her pocket even for the return trip. Finally she approached the phone and began looking through the list to find the number she needed. At this moment, the man standing behind suddenly said sharply: “You’re not going to call, there’s no point in detaining others!” With these words, he literally pushed her away from the phone and began to call himself. The journalist’s first reaction was, of course, resentment and despair. She looked angrily at the offender, intending to express everything she thought about his action. But, seeing in front of her an elderly man with a pale face and yellowish whites of his eyes, she suddenly felt... compassion for him. Completely forgetting about her own troubles, she looked at him and thought that the poor guy was probably sick, that’s why he was so irritated... And then miracles began to happen to the girl. The man looked up at her, smiled awkwardly and guiltily, and hung up. The queue has disappeared somewhere. The editorial office's phone number was found immediately. They apologized to the young author and immediately issued a pass. She received an astronomical fee and listened to many kind and flattering words about her work. And on the way home, I suddenly saw and bought exactly the shoes I had long dreamed of... The rest of the day was joyful and happy. (From the book by P. Artemyev “Psychology of Self-Knowledge”).
And all thanks to the fact that she was able to transform a negative feeling of resentment into a positive feeling of compassion. Life immediately gave her a well-deserved reward, in turn changing the negative situation into a positive one. Because there is no person on earth who does not deserve compassion.
Game "Gossip".
Goal: stimulation of the spread of rumors and their modification, team unity, emotional release. Students sit in a circle. The psychologist shows one of them a one-sentence text printed on a piece of paper. For example: “May 12 at 14.00. at 15 Pushkin Street, a certain Alla Evgenievna will read out the topics of exam essays.” The student, having read and memorized the text, tells it in the ear of his neighbor, etc. The last participant tells what he heard, a version modified during the game.
— Tell me, can gossip become a reason for conflict? Is it worth listening to gossip then?
Exercise “Backpack with grievances.”
Imagine that you are high in the mountains and standing on a narrow, shaky bridge over a gorge. You have a backpack on your back filled with your grievances, disappointments, anger, and negative emotions. One more emotion, resentment, and the backpack will outweigh you. You will fall into the abyss. Try not to load your backpack any more, don’t put another grievance in it, but suddenly throw it off your shoulders - let all your grievances fall into the abyss. Stay a little longer on the bridge, say goodbye to the negativity and return home.
Exercise “Cup of Liberation”.
“I’ll ask you to write down your grievances and complaints against each other on pieces of paper; we won’t read them.” The “Cup of Liberation” will help us free ourselves from them. (the girls write their grievances and complaints on pieces of paper, then fold the pieces of paper and put them in a vase. The psychologist sets them on fire and waits until they burn completely).
- What are you experiencing now? Does your soul feel better?
