My heart goes out to all of us for the suffering in the world.
We can make 2024 a much better year with more empathy and compassion.
We will find ways to mediate to a middle ground where we will all be safe.
Thich Nhat Hanh says:“To reconcile conflicting parties, we must have the ability to understand the suffering of both sides.If we take sides, it is impossible to do the work of reconciliation. And humans want to take sides. That is why the situation gets worse and worse.Are there people who are still available to both sides? They need not do much.They need only do one thing, go to one side and tell all about the suffering endured by the other side, and go to the other side and tell all about the suffering endured by this side.That is our chance for peace. That can change the situation.”
We are all suffering.We are all exhausted, depleted, and sometimes hopeless.
Ther are things we can do NOW to make things better today!
Practice compassion for yourself and others.
Feel empathy for someone with whom you have conflict.
Don’t seek to fix, desire to understand.
Don’t try to change another, aspire to accept.
Remember we all feel the sadness, fears, pain…
And we all have the same capacity for kindness and love.
Foster more of the latter (kindness and love)To douse the flames of those feelings we exile (sadness, fear, pain)
Stop trying to “manage” away from your life.
Go into your heart.
Breathe and let your SELF-awareness expand.
Share it with all your parts.
Share it with the world – starting now – with one breath…
How to Set Boundaries with Your Adult Child Living with You Now
At this challenging time, relationships are strained to their limits.
Living with others feels like a gift – or a curse – depending on who it is and the day and time of your interactions.
However living with some people can be more frustrating or depleting than living with others. But it doesn’t have to stay that way.
You have your rights to
feel respected in your own home.
live peacefully and happily.
ask for what you want and need.
leave or ask someone else to leave.
You do not have the right or power to change someone else – but you can change yourself, your expectations, your agenda, your judgments, and your reactions.
Step One – 12 steps of Al Anon
Whether your housemate is your spouse, your child, your parent, your significant other, your roommate, or your friend, there are specific ways to relate to each, and different challenges in the types of consequences or outcomes you choose.
This article is going to focus on your adult child living at home.
There are many reasons that you fall into habits of communication that may not always be coming from your best SELF.
You may feel frustrated by all the household duties that fall on you.
You might be watching your adult child revert back to teenage disrespect and behavior.
Your parent may be getting too difficult to care for by yourself.
Perhaps your spouse/roommate/significant other is being disrespectful in their tone, attitude, or even being emotionally, verbally or physically abusive.
Go back and read again all your rights.
Now read again out loud. “I do not have the power to change someone else.”
So now what?
First of all, decide what is truly important to you.
Write it down. Make a list. Add everything you want. You won’t get it all, but rate the preferences and the non-negotiables. You would like your ADD adult child to take out the garbage (which he/she may or may not remember to do), but you can’t stand to watch him/her sleep until 2, not shower, or leave the bathroom a mess.
You may not care if you’er are the only one emptying the dishwasher or even cleaning up after your adult child, if he/she is living as a competent adult and treating you with the respect you are due.
Next, write down what you think needs to happen if the other person is not willing to meet you on the needs that are vital.
Do you take away his ipod? Do you stop paying for food? Do you stop driving him/her to work? Do they have to move out?
If it’s your partner, you have many more options to explore, but the important thing to remember is that you don’t have to stay stuck – no matter how vulnerable, powerless or afraid you might feel.
(3) Look at your own motives, behaviors, expectations, judgments.
(4) Recognize your child’s real limitations. Is he/she
ADD or ADHD
bi-polar
an addict
oppositional defiant
depressed
Do your research on whatever is relevant, and learn some of the symptomology that goes with each situation. Your child might be doing the best they can do according to the limits of the condition or disease (and yes, addiction is a disease).
But that doesn’t mean you have to LIVE with it all.
Realize that compassion is not capitulation and codependency is not a substitute for appropriate SELF care.
(5) Talk with your spouse and get on the same page.
(6) Plan a time to talk with your child. PLAN:
what you will say and who will say it
what you want – what are your must-haves
what you are willing to negotiate
what is no longer acceptable
a time frame that works for you and is fair
to listen and discuss
another time to talk
how and when you will put your boundaries into place – for real!
How do you set boundaries?
If you are codependent, it’s very difficult.
Are you a Codependent?
A Few Symptoms
need to fix, save or rescue
avoidance of conflict
difficulty saying no and setting boundaries
people pleasing
sacrificing your own needs to care for others….
Having an “external locus of control” instead of an “internal one”
Perfectionism
Difficulty with anger
Melanie Beattie books
unburden pain from your past
don’t make your child’s behavior a referendum on your parenting
* you didn’t cause it, can’t control it, can’t cure it * But you can stop enabling it!
What about your expectations?
they are unrealized resentments – premeditated resentments
they come from your ego and your needs
you don’t know God’s plan and their soul’s plan – so let go and let God.
What are your consequences
If you don’t want to live this way, it is not your business where your adult child chooses to live.
If you don’t want to give more money, they may have to suffer more and hit their own bottom before they are willing or ready to become an adult.
If you don’t want to “live this way anymore,” they have a right to live where and how they want.
– and how do you deal with your own guilt/worry/fear/sadness.
go to Al Anon
get counseling/therapy
talk with supportive friends
meditate
exercise
focus on your own life
pray
It’s not about someone else respecting my boundaries, it’s about ME respecting my boundaries. The respect and empowerment are on ME.
Five Steps to Receive What You Want and Need
REMEMBER – lose sight of what we want to please other people
DESERVE – know you DESERVE to have your needs met
ASK – When you KNOW and DESERVE, you request, not whine, nag, or give an ultimatum)
RECEIVE – Be willing to RECEIVE.
GRATEFUL – STAY GRATEFUL.
One day at a time…. doing the best you all can do.
I think those of us who are in healing professions owe it to the individuals and couples and families that we help to step up and do what we can do to foster better communication.
I’m inviting you to join me for my Compassionate Mediation training group, where I’m going to share my 35 years of experience as an IFS therapist, a mediator, and attorney and Chopra-certified teacher of meditation, yoga, and Ayurveda.
I want to give you the benefit of all I’ve learned so that you can help your clients communicate with more empathy, more compassion, and more love.
Join me, and we can create a community of like-minded, like-hearted individuals, professionals sharing our expertise in order to make a better world.
You can find me and my resources at lindakroll.com, where I’d love to offer you the benefit of all that I’ve studied, all that I’ve learned, and all that I want to share.
With all that is going on in the world right now, relationships are stressed to their limits.
If you are a therapist, coach, mediator, attorney, counselor or clergy, please join my upcoming LIVE IFS-based course to learn the tools of Compassionate Mediation® to share with your individual and couples clients.
The IFS Institute send out an email in April, and I’m doing the course again.
Be CLEAR about your intentions, which include the highest good for all concerned.
Be COMPASSIONATE to the other’s feelings, needs and desires, as well as compassionate to your own feelings, needs and desires.
Be CONFIDENT that you will know what to do if you meditate on the outcome you desire that is fair to both parties.
Be CURIOUS about the other person’s point of view, and give them a chance to feel heard and understood.
Be CREATIVE in coming to a resolution that is more than a compromise and allows for a joyful solution.
Stay CONNECTED to your heart, your feelings, and also to the heart of the other. Don’t let the fear in your head override the love that you can find for your shared humanity.
Be COURAGEOUS in asking for what you want and need, setting appropriate boundaries, and being willing to leave if the relationship is one that can’t sustain the fullness of who you truly are.
Stay GRATEFUL for this opportunity to heal, grow and transform.
I just had a wonderful three session course for Compassionate Mediation® Tools for Your Practice.
I’m going to be offering the course again soon, and I’d love to have you join me.
I’m going to have a certification process later on, but this is the basics.
This is three sessions live, where you’ll learn the skills that I’ve used as a therapist, mediator, and attorney, to help you help your clients add passion to their marriage or compassion to their divorce.
Let me share with you the myriad of things that I’ve learned from Internal Family Systems, from the Chopra Center about higher consciousness, and all my other professional training.
We combine self-leadership, higher consciousness, legal and financial information, and help individuals and couples truly heal and transform their relationships.
Right now, after all this has been going on, we can give them quite a bit of help and I’d like to offer you all that I can. Please join me.
I look forward to sharing with you. We’ll also have a lot of fun.
