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"I have a problem of impatience with my children"
Hello Ayal My name is Sharon and I am writing to ask you about the problem of my impatience with my children. I feel I know the answer myself and think about it and choose to change it every day of my life, only to slip back, which makes me mad at myself. I try to be and long to be the best mother I can to my kids and when I growl at them I go into the guilts, as I feel that I should be in control of my emotions at all times. They seem to get sick often and I get angry at them and now I'm thinking about it, I wonder if I'm feeling too needed and controlled. I had a very controlling mother, who I feared and the last thing I want in the world is for my kids to fear me and that is why my husband says I am too soft when in fact I think I am too hard. I don't know if this makes sense to you. I feel this is the only place in my life I am lacking. I am a reiki practitioner, I have visions, channel poetry and know my purpose in this life is to help others to heal themselves while healing myself also. But it comes back to how can I help others with their problems when I still have my own? Sorry this is so long. My greatest wish is to be a perfect mother, live my purpose and be who I truly am.
What is going on here for you is that you are being way too hard on yourself. Often, when we have experienced a quality or aspect of our parents' that we intensely dislike, hate, or felt threatened by, we vow to do better. We vow to do it differently. We actually create an energetic vow, or pattern, in ourselves that runs our life and can end up being detrimental. It is unbalanced because we have swerved to the opposite extreme. You vowed at some point to be a perfect mother, one that would not control your children or victimize them in the way you felt victimized. However, no one can be a perfect anything. Once we set up that standard of perfection, we have set ourselves up for constant failure. This relates to your feelings of guilt - you think that you are not living up to your vow - but you can't live up to it - you will never live up to it - because the task you have set for yourself is impossible. It's a vicious spiral. This cycle of failure and possibly self disgust you are caught in makes you angry at your children because if they weren't around and you didn't have to be a mother, you wouldn't feel guilty all the time, or feel that you were always coming up short of what you think you are supposed to be. So, your anger toward them is misplaced anger. But you see them as constant reminders of your failure. Every time they need you for anything, you become anxious because it will be another repetition of not doing it well enough, no matter what you do. They aren't judging you, but this merciless standard of perfection you have set up inside yourself is. So, you are always in conflict within yourself. This can be very debilitating. I'm sure that it wears you out emotionally, and then there isn't much left over to take care of others from a balanced place. Whether as a mother, or a healer. As a healer, you may be caught in the same thing - if you're not the most loving, save the world person, you have failed. It's quite a trap, and ends up hurting you. Your children feel anxious around you, as they feel, and take on, your anger and anxiety, and so they respond by getting sick. Perhaps they are trying to be less threatening to you, but they may also be trying to finally win your sympathy. Perhaps if they are sick and helpless, you won't be angry at them. They need to get grounded to stay well and balanced, and they will only be able to do so if YOU get grounded in reality instead of in idealizm. NO one can be perfect. As much as we may want, out of our deepest love, to never hurt another, especially our children, it just isn't possible. All of us will grow up with issues to deal with of not feeling loved well enough as children, because those loving us were not perfect. That's just the nature of reality down here. We may want it to be otherwise - and we can certainly work on ourselves to clear away and heal our issues, but, as I see it, the only perfection there is comes from accepting life as it is - and loving the journey, and ourselves, both the shadow and the light, with all its twists and turns and ups and downs and screw ups and victories. In other words, perfection comes when we can love the imperfection - for that is where our growth comes from. I think perhaps you have remained, in this area, in the place of the child, wanting desperately for it all to be perfect. It is very difficult if you are a child, emotionally in some way, to be a mother. Overwhelming, in fact. And if you are trying to take care of your children from the place of being a child yourself in this regard, it is no wonder you feel angry. Exhausted too, I am sure. It's too much for a child to do, especially if that child thinks she must be perfect. When you are in the flow of seeing life from a realistic place of maturity, however, and not from the child place of hoping it will all be perfect, things do work out more harmoniously. The child can only wish for this, but not create it, but the mature adult understands how life works and knows how to cope with things in a realistic way...thus the adult CAN bring about positive changes and create a more balanced life. My invitation to you would be to let go of your vow to be perfect, perhaps do a ritual or ceremony to release it, forgive your mother for not being perfect, forgive yourself, and work toward seeing life more as a mature adult would see it. That means being responsible, but not trashing yourself or others for not doing it perfectly. It means giving yourself room to learn and grow gently... it means knowing that life is a process of understanding, and many other wonderful things as well that you will discover as you go. Blessings, Ayal
 28. "Fluid retention - an emotional cause?"
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