Just Trying Another Fix

Most every parent wants to protect their child. To keep them from making obvious mistakes or the mistakes they made in their lives. There really are no mistakes, only choices. Allowing another their souls journey can be the hardest thing to do, especially as we bear witness. One may believe someone else is making all the wrong choices yet in reality they are simply making their choices, and not the choices you would make.

To navigate this, it is important to remain calm yet detached. Allow her the freedom to find her own way and make her own choices. Every act at a universal level is both neutral and divine. It is only our perception that colors them good or bad.

No one likes a backseat driver no matter how well intentioned and potentially accurate they may be. Humanity is not one size fits all. What works for one doesn’t necessarily work for all, or another. By surrendering and accepting your daughter’s process you afford her the opportunity to learn through experience.

Wisdom is born out of necessity. A parent’s love, unconditional. Rightly or wrongly, life is a process, a journey. Allow her, her journey, so you each become closer with the other. As much stands in the way of your daughter achieving genuine peace and happiness. The less you render judgment and interfere, the greater the chance she will come to you of her own accord. Release your judgments and perceptions of her choices and a new day will dawn for both of you.

Her “perfectionistic attempts at happiness” are a means of coping and controlling her current environment and life experiences while simultaneously overcompensating for her past experiences and what she perceives to be a damaged or diminished self. Any attempts to point out this behavior, in the form of unsolicited judgment and/or opinion, only further distances her from you.

So, to the best of your ability, allow her to grow, mature, and evolve on her own terms. Be a steadfast source of unconditional love, acceptance, hope, and healing in her life. Be an option, an outlet, a beacon of light. In due course and time, she will see how much you have changed and adapted thus allowing her to respond accordingly.

Having met each other halfway, you will each finally find the common ground that allows the other to heal, prosper and thrive, forever relinquishing the past and the hold it held over you.