04 Feb You Don’t Have to Kill Your Parents
Philip Larkin, one of the great poets of the twentieth century, famously wrote:
Your mum and dad, they fuck you up,
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the fears they had,
And add some extra just for you.
Everyone could benefit from identifying where their parents “f*cked” them up and working through it. In fact, being clear of non-useful parental programming is an essential milestone on the psychological and spiritual path. If you’re stuck with pain, upset, or wishing anything were different about your childhood, you can’t progress to a space of having more interesting problems to solve.
In one of the Castaneda books, Don Juan instructed his apprentice, Carlos, “You have to kill your parents.” People are willing to move clear across the country, if not the world, to create distance between themselves and their parents and ‘kill’ their presence in their lives, but it’s really internal distance they are seeking: separation from expectations, a separate identity, and freedom from parental do’s and don’ts.
Helping people get unstuck from their parents is one of the things we do in psychotherapy. In some cases, it can be completed relatively quickly; in others, it takes lengthy excavation work, depending on the severity of the trauma suffered, and how deeply it is lodged in the cells and tissues of the body. It’s more complicated, of course, if there’s been abuse, but everyone must separate themselves from the parts of the parent’s message that is not them. When the work is successful, a new person emerges who is uniquely one’s self, taking the best that the parents gave them, and released from what doesn’t fit. It can be hard work, but freedom is worth every iota of effort and commitment.
It’s possible to come to a place where there’s no pain left, no more anger or resentment, no heat, no charge. Once you ‘kill’ your parents and your unhealthy attachment to them, you become free to love them for the first time, to meet them as one adult to another rather than as a child to parent. To progress along life’s path, you must come to a place where you’re not afraid of anything that’s inside any more. And that is possible for you.
Leonard Orr, the inventor of Rebirthing, said, “If you don’t hate your parents, you haven’t even started.” Is it time for you to complete this stage of your development once and for all?
© 2014 Catherine Auman This article is an excerpt from Catherine’s book Shortcuts to Mindfulness: 100 Ways to Personal and Spiritual Growth
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