Tess Brigham: Hello, everybody, welcome back. Today I'm going to
be talking about how to stop resenting your parents so that
you can find peace. And I'm going to be walking you through
a five step sort of system or way for you to start this
process on your own. For all the best advice, guidance and
support, check out my YouTube channel, I'm here every
Thursday. If you don't know me, I'm Tess Brigham licensed
psychotherapist and board certified coach. And I've been
working with people for over 15 years. And I've dedicated the
last decade to working with young adults just like yourself.
So let's dive in. I first want to start off by saying that, you
know, today I'm going to be talking in real generalities,
right. And so I want to acknowledge that if you are
someone who has had, you know, very serious abuse by your
parents, anything that is sexual abuse, mental abuse, verbal
abuse, physical abuse, anything like that, and you've you have
not worked out this issue, YouTube is not the place is not
always the best place or should be the only place I am saying
this as a mental health professional, go seek help. And
that is absolutely positively The first thing that you should
be doing. So please, I just want to make that real quick thing
right now, because of this is a very serious topic, which is,
for some people, they have real resentment towards their parents
for things for very serious things that have happened, and
that you should not be walking through alone, you need to walk
through with a professional. Alright. So
today, I'm really talking about, you know, your parents, there
were good parts about them, there was not so great parts
about them. But there are certain things about your
relationship with your parents that are kind of sticking with
you, you feel like I can't get over my issues with men because
of my issues with my dad, or, you know, my mom was so tough.
And while she's not a blown out narcissist, she's got a lot of
narcissistic traits. And I got to figure out how to get through
that with her. And so before we get started, I really want to
acknowledge that I'm a parent myself. And I will tell you that
being a parent is hard, it is rough. And it wasn't until I
became a parent myself that I really kind of understood my own
parents, because it made me really realize like, Oh, well,
you really have no idea what you're doing. So I'm not saying
this as a way of, of whatever mistakes your parents made, any
hurts, or things that have happened in the past, I'm not
excusing that behavior. Absolutely not. But what I'm
saying is, is that it's really, really important for you to be
able to recognize that your parents, they're human, and they
make mistakes, they make foibles, they make really big
giant mistakes, that they have no idea the impact on a kid's
life. And so, in order to walk through, or be able to stop
presenting your parents, as you do have to see them as human,
and that they are, they are just like you human beings going
through life still growing, still changing, and still trying
to figure out who they are, which is what we're all trying
to do. So if you feel like you're in a place right now,
where you're like, you know what, I gotta move past this, I
want to stop presenting my parents, then step one is, is
really about acknowledging how you feel, it's really easy to be
like, Well, my parents were nice, they put me through
college, you know, they never did anything wrong. So, you
know, I shouldn't resent them, or I shouldn't be mean or mad,
or I shouldn't have feelings about them doing this or that.
And I understand that one well, which is, it's real easy to
compare yourself to someone else who had a really hard childhood
and say, I don't, I don't have a right to complain. But the thing
is, is that you're watching this video, you're here for a reason.
It's because you kind of feel like there's something blocking
me in my life. And a lot of times, it's unresolved
resentment that we feel towards our parents, and from the past
that keeps us stuck. So I talk about this all the time, which
is it always starts with you being aware of your own thoughts
and feelings. And acknowledging them, you know, and if you just
start there and just do that, that is a great first step. It's
just about learning to acknowledge the feelings, not
bottling it up, not holding it in and any of those things. It's
about being able to say, you know what, this is what happened
to me, this was my experience of this, and this is how I feel,
because the other piece of this is, is that sometimes parents
have different versions of events. And what's really
important is while your parent might have one version, you have
yours. So it's really important that you respect your version of
events. That is your story, your truth, right. So number two is I
highly recommend when clients come to me for this to go talk
to them. Parents now every parent's different. I always
asked, Do you feel like your parents could receive you, you
know, do you feel like if you went to your parents and have
the conversation that they would be open to it and wanting to
hear. And I think that for a lot of people, I think you'll be
surprised depending on the age of your parents, people get met
people mellow as they get older, and people start to take more
stock of their lives. And I know that a lot of times maybe
something that you when your parent was in their 30s, or 40s,
they wouldn't be able to hear or understand, they could probably
hear maybe in their 60s or 70s. So talk to your parent about it
and and be able to go to them with the I statements of this is
how I felt this was my experience. And this is it, and
see if you can have a conversation with them. If you
feel like you cannot have a conversation with your parents,
or you feel like you know, I don't know, if I could handle my
parents not wanting to have this conversation with me. Then the
second option is to write it all out in a letter, say everything
that you want to say to mom or to dad or to both of them
together. And if you feel like they can't take it, then put it
in a bottle and throw it out into the ocean and say, okay,
universe, there you go, I've said my piece. Because it is
really important that not only that step one, you acknowledge
your feelings. But then step two, you're able to express your
feelings. And sometimes you, you don't have to tell the other
person who hurt you that they hurt you. Sometimes it's good
enough to be able to acknowledge it on paper, write it out, and
cast it out into the world. So number three is now depending on
your parents, so some parents, they can really receive the, you
know, they can receive you they're there. And and it's an
amazing experience if it deepens the relationship. But number
three is for those of you who are like, Oh, I don't know if
it's gonna really deepen the relationship. And my mom is
still like a raging narcissist no matter what I say. So number
three is boundaries. Having boundaries with your parents,
one of the most awesome parts about being an adult is this,
you don't have to put up with a lot of stuff that you have to
put up with. When we're kids, we do whatever we need to do to
survive in life. And that's really important. But when you
become an adult, you get to decide how am I going to live my
life? What am I going to do? And part of that is being able to
set boundaries with your parents and say, you know, hey, I have a
better relationship with my mom, when you know, I only call her
once a week, or dad and I get along really well. When I limit
our vacation time, you know, days together to to you, it's
all about setting boundaries for you to be able to have a better
relationship. And what will happen is, is that as you're
sort of setting these boundaries, you feel more in
control of what you're doing. And setting these boundaries,
you'll find that the resentment that you feel for the
relationship will start the lesson because you're like, Oh,
this isn't, you know, this isn't as hard I don't feel so angry.
Number four is forgiveness. Forgiveness is huge. There's a
man by the name of Fred Luskin, he has written several books,
one of them is called forgive for good. If you're someone who
struggles with forgiveness, I highly recommend that book, he
is an expert in this topic. The thing about forgiveness is this,
a lot of times we feel like we, you know, need to stay angry and
need to stay mad and resentful towards somebody who has hurt
us. And we think and we, we have this assumption that if I stay
really mad at you, then mall my anger will through osmosis, you
know, go on and hurt you, you know, you way across the
country, you know, if I don't talk to you, if I, if I freeze
you out, if I do all these things, it'll really, really
hurt you. And the problem is, is that you can't control how
someone else feels. So you can feel all this anger and
resentment, and that other person could be just fine. So
which actually makes the anger and resentment worse. So this is
why we forgive for ourselves. We forgive other people, not to let
them off the hook, not to say their behavior was okay. But to
allow ourselves to have some level of peace. We forgive for
ourselves, and it's really important. And number five is
really refocus on yourself. You know, you've gone through this
process of, you know, being able to release the resentment that
you have for your parents. And now it's time for you to refocus
on you. What do you need to do to heal. Our parents give us as
much as they can. When we're kids. And now as an adult, it's
really about us like filling in the little crevices and the
squares and the parts of who we are and figuring that out. So
refocus back on you. Alright, so those My five tools. Um, so if
you are someone who struggles with boundaries, I did do
another video called How to set boundaries and stop people
pleasing. So check it out. I'll have a link below. If you
enjoyed this video, please like it and comment below and even
better share it with someone who you think would really
appreciate this information. And if you like me and like what
I've had to say, subscribe to my YouTube channel. I'm here every
single Thursday. All right, I'll see you later. Bye