Yelling at your child – again!

Your child makes you angry – again! The anger rushes up in you. It’s a wild force, too strong, too overwhelming to be controlled. It surges up in you and what can you do with it other than deliver it like a full punch to your child – to the offending person. In your rage and fury you want to kill it, not just stop it, but blast it off the face of the earth, wipe it out, get rid of it completely. It’s no longer your sweet little child whom you ‘love’ so much, it’s all your fear being slammed in your face and your anger rushes up trying to protect yourself from the evil monster that is threatening your life. So you bash into your child. It may only be verbally, it may also be physically, but you want to smash it down, crunch it, quickly bringing it back under your control.

For deeply buried reasons that you are not aware of your child has pushed all your warning buttons, you react ‘not being yourself’ as your power is being threatened. You don’t want to loose your power because to feel so powerless means you feel all those terrible bad feelings you dread, all those shocking feelings you felt when your parents did exactly what you are now doing to your child, all of which you have forced yourself to forget, bury and deny.

So your little child has become you and you are now back with your parent who is yelling and abusing you, repeating the same unloving pattern – yet again. And you are helplessly trapped in it. You have crossed the line, left yourself, denying your own bad feelings, all to stop the other person from making you feel bad. You want to stop them making you feel bad by crunching them because you don’t know what else to do – and how can you as there never was another way, your parents only ever treated you this way, just as they themselves were only ever treated by their parents.

But in crossing the line, not only are you hurting your own precious little child, you are also hurting your own precious self. You are blatantly disregarding your feelings – your bad feelings, all the fear that is giving rise to your anger. You are disregarding yourself just as you are disregarding your own child. In the blaze of anger no ones feelings can be regarded, all goes to shit, all needing to be destroyed.

There is no staying on your side of the fence and accepting and speaking about all the bad feelings your child is making your feel. Allowing yourself to be sympathetic to yourself, to all you are feeling, even including your anger. You are dismissing and denying yourself with the only result being to abuse your child. You are a child-abuser and in that very moment the worst kind because your child is going to develop those very same patterns of self- and feeling-denial that you have developed from your own parents. You are killing them, only not so much physically, but you are preventing them from freely expressing their emerging personality – so your anger is doing what you want with it, you are getting your way, yet in ways you are not readily aware of. And if your child actually stops what it’s doing and takes notice of you then that’s an added bonus, you can retain your power and control.

And in this state you still need an outlet, but one that is not your child. And that outlet is with your partner, with someone you can yell and express all your anger to and speak about how bad your feelings are making you feel – how bad your child is making you feel. Your rage needs to be vented but not on the innocent one, you need to stay on your side and vent to someone, another adult, who can cope with it – a friend, someone who will understand and be the kind, caring, sympathetic parent you didn’t have. Someone who will listen to you and take you seriously. Someone who won’t judge you or tell you what to do or make you stop. Someone with whom you can just go for it with allowing yourself to finally say all those horrible things you’ve wanted to say back to your own unloving, uncaring parents. And if you can’t do it in the moment with your partner, then when you can. Put yourself back in your bad feelings, allow your rage to be ignited again, and go for it.

There is always another way, but that way is hard, if not impossible, to see because we are rendered blind by our parenting and resulting patterns. But the way is still there, and it can be found were you to want to seek the truth of yourself, doing your feeling-healing and stop denying your bad feelings. And when it is revealed then surprisingly you may find that your relationship with your child changes, and so much so, that it won’t even do what was pushing your buttons because there is no need for it to do so anymore as you no longer have such buttons within you to be pushed.

As parents are the leaders, as you change, so too will your child. With your child being there to help you uncover and reveal the truth of yourself. The child whilst it’s forming is somewhat like nature, but even more so, there to reflect back to you exactly as you are. So if your child is making your angry, it’s not actually your child that is making you angry, it’s really yourself, you’re doing it all to yourself, with your child lovingly and selflessly showing – reflecting – back to you this aspect of yourself you are not paying attention to. And instead of being ever so grateful for it lovingly helping you, you erupt unconsciously with your anger, crunching down hard on it blaming it for being the evil one. When the sad truth is – you are the Evil One, not your innocent little blameless child.

Who’s selfish?

‘James, don’t be selfish, allow your brother to have some.’

‘No, I don’t want him to have some, it’s mine and I want it all.’

‘Don’t be selfish, that’s mean of you, it’s nasty to not allow your brother to have some, so give him some, and you don’t want to be mean and nasty do you?’

‘No.’

Who does? Does anyone want to be mean and nasty, or even accused of being it? So what chance did I have of being able to live how I wanted to – none. I was controlled and conditioned to live their way. They always got what they wanted, they always had it their way. I had to always do what I was told – so who was mean and nasty, who really was selfish?

And this ‘loving’ parenting has crippled me in so many aspects of my adult life. I am instantly filled with guilt and dread of being punished and called such horrible names as ‘mean’ and ‘nasty’ if anything I do the other person objects to. And this makes is very difficult to do anything as someone is always going to object to something.

Our little cat gets up during the night a number of times. She wants me to pay attention to her, she wants to look outside, she wants something to eat. It’s cold, and after looking outside from front to backdoor, eating something, having lots of pats, she’s happy and I’m cold and want to go back to bed. So I do. And then she starts calling, on and on and on. I try to ignore her, but she jumps on the bed. I try to be firm saying to myself, no, this time I’m not giving in. I want to have it my way. I don’t want to always be told what to do by the cat. I don’t want to be waiting up in the cold for her to look outside. I don’t want to be wandering around in the dark patting and rubbing and rolling her around on her ‘rolly-mat’. I want to be warm and asleep. And doing it once a night is okay – fair’s fair, but three and four times! It gets too much, I don’t want to do it. But then the terrible guilt comes.

Up comes my guilt and dread. I hear my mothers imaginary words in my mind: ‘Oh go on, she won’t be long, at least she doesn’t go off for hours into the night, she only wants to look outside for a little while. Go on, it won’t hurt you. You won’t die from lack of sleep. She can’t let herself out, she needs you, she’s dependant on you and she doesn’t have much of a life. Go on…’ and here it comes… ‘don’t be mean, don’t be nasty, DON’T BE SELFISH. Go on, it’s not much she’s asking of you… go on…’

And it’s those dreaded words that do it to me every time. I give in. Up I get – yet again, go out into the cold, open the door, and wait in the dark. I chastise myself, punish myself for being so mean and nasty, a horrible person who won’t graciously, lovingly, do such a small thing for my cat, for my dear little cat who loves and gives me so much. I dump the shit on myself: it’s true, I am mean and nasty, and I hate myself for being this way. I am selfish. I wish I was a better person, more loving and all-accepting. And it’s true, it’s not going to hurt me, it doesn’t matter that I can’t go back to sleep for half the night, that it takes me ages to get warmed up again, that I have disturbing dreams, and by the time morning comes I feel like I need another nights sleep to recover from all I’ve been through.

And it doesn’t matter that it’s all one way. That I never get a say in it. She always gets what she wants, it’s not fifty-fifty, it’s never equal, it’s always me having to put myself aside, me having to give in and allow the other person to do whatever they want with me. And if I don’t I am accused and punished as being the worst person on Earth. They can all get – and SHOULD get – their way all the time, but not me. I’m praised for being so giving, so selfless, and I’m even told I should be more forceful in getting what I want, in standing up for myself, in being firm and assertive. And yet as soon as I try, guess what happens? ‘Don’t be so mean James, don’t expect everyone to do what you want in life. Life isn’t like that. If that’s how you’re going to behave then no one will like you, you’ll have no friends, no one wants to be with a nasty selfish person, no one wants to do what other people tell them to do all the time.’ And don’t I know it!

But I can’t do anything about it. I’m trapped in my plight, my patterns are set, so I need to have a cute little demanding cat that makes me feel guilty and makes me beat up on myself calling myself bad names, making myself feel bad, all because I dare to think for one moment that I might like to get things my way for a change.

And I can’t tell her to fuck off. I can’t reject her. I can’t just say too bad, go rot in hell, I am not getting up three times during the night to do what you want. You’ll just have to learn that your life is not going to be like that. You’ll just have to learn that you can’t have it ALL YOUR OWN WAY. You’ll just have to learn there are other people in the world other than you, so tough shit, you can whinge and complain all you like but it won’t get you anywhere, I AM NOT GOING TO DO WHAT YOU WANT – EVER!

I can’t do that. They did that with me, but I can’t be like them. I believe I should be, that that is how one is supposed to be and get on in the world, and in small ways I do try and assert my will, be the dominating controller and get what I want, but it’s all pathetic and really only still conditional on the other person allowing me to. As soon as they say no, then up comes the guilt and I feel bad for not respecting or considering them. And instantly I have to put myself aside and be there ready to do what they want – at their service. And I don’t want to be dominating and controlling.

And when the pressure is on, when I’m lying in bed having rejected her saying no, not this time, no way am I going to get up again, I feel so boxed in, I have nowhere to go and I just want to scream. I want to rage with the fury of feeling that it’s all so unjust. I want to have things my way, but I feel so sorry for her as she too wants things her way and she’s smaller than I and she’s dependant on me for so many things. Why can’t I be just all-loving, completely self-sacrificing, just alive to serve her? Why can’t I be the good boy, the boy who is praised for being so kind and considerate, and why can’t I feel good about being this way? Why can’t I live never wanting anything for myself, always there for the other person, always so willing and wanting to give and help? Why can’t I? And why do I believe that I should be this way?

But I can’t be like that. It doesn’t make me feel good. I don’t feel like I ever get a go. If I felt like I did have a go, had all I wanted and wanted nothing more, then perhaps I might be more like this, but it was always, ‘now James, that’s not how to be with your brother. He’s younger than you and so you must be nice to him. You must share your toys with him. You must not hit him. You must be good to him, and if you aren’t, then I will hit you – GOT IT!’

So little James who is now Big James must always be like this. Always putting his brother first. Never just being allowed to get on with his own life. Always having to worry about and be considerate of everyone else. Always having to wait, never being allowed to just go off and explore life as he wants to. Always having to curtail his own natural inspiration. Always having to put the breaks on, always having to stop what he wants to do forcing himself to change accommodating and including the other person. Never being allowed to just be himself. Never being allowed to feel and experience what it might actually be like to be the real and true James. That James doesn’t exist, was stopped from existing, was forced to take the back seat, to be ‘in there’, somewhere, buried and waiting… always waiting… always waiting for the day when they said: ‘Okay now James, because you’ve been such a good unselfish boy, it’s now your turn. Now you can be free to be however you want to be. Now you can go out there and do what you like. You don’t have to worry about or be concerned with anyone else, they can take care of themselves. Now you can start to live your life’. And James waits, and waits. And I wait for something that will never come. I sit at the bus stop waiting for the bus that will take away to my life, but I know it will never come. It never came when I was little. It came close at times, I could see it in the distance, but it always turned the wrong way, it always turned away from me.

And she meows again and it’s quick up James see what she wants, and instantly I have to stop my life, put myself aside and attend to her. I have too because I don’t want to suffer the pain and hurt of being called those horrible names. I don’t want to be mean, nasty and selfish because then no one will like me. No one will want to be with me. No one will want to be my friend. No one will love me. She won’t even like me or love me anymore. And then I will be all alone. All alone and with nothing to do. Then I won’t have anyone telling me how to be and what I should do. But I won’t be happy with that because having no friends, no one who likes or even loves you, is even worse that being called selfish.

And you know, the part I’ve never understood is that they accuse me of being selfish if I don’t do what they want me to do, if they don’t get their way, but when I accuse them of being selfish, they tell me to stop saying mean and nasty things about them. They say it’s bad to say bad things about other people. So I don’t get it. I always loose out. I always end up feeling bad.

IT’S MY TURN NOW!

I had to obey my parents – NOW YOU HAVE TO OBEY ME! And you just have to, because I say. I don’t need a reason, I don’t need to justify it, I don’t need to tell you why – YOU JUST DO! You do because I say so – AND THAT IS ENOUGH! I am the parent now, you are not, you are the child – I HAVE THE POWER. You do not.

When I was a child they had power over me. They made me feel powerless. I was powerless. I had no say – no say in my own life. They had all the say and I had to obey. The were BIG, I was small, and that was enough. What could I do? Nothing. And I hated it. I hated them. I hated how they treated me – their own child.

And I wanted to smash them. I wanted to scream and yell and make them stop. I tried but it did me no good. But I still wanted to and still do want to even though I had to bury and repress such bad feelings. I want to rage. I want to tell them how much they have hurt me. I want to tell them how much I feel unloved by them – my own parents.

I want to smash my anger and rage all over them, but I can’t. So what can I do with it all? I look around to dump it on someone else. Someone lesser than I. And I find that person – my own child. And I breathe a sigh of relief as finally, FINALLY, there is someone I have power over. Finally I can make someone do what I want. Finally I can make them be how I want them to be. Finally I am BIG and they are small. And they don’t get a say. They can protest and try to resist all they want but it won’t get them anywhere. Because I am the strong one and they are weak. They loose; I win. And I feel good. I can even say to them: I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU MORE THAN ANYTHING IN THE WORLD. And they can’t say anything other than they love me too more than anything in the world, because if they don’t say it, I’ll smash them. And they know it. I’ve done it plenty of times before.

My parents made me feel bad, so I want to make someone or something else feel bad, even if I do it in my imagination. I can’t make them feel bad, I am too powerless with them to do that – they had all the power. But I can make someone or something else that is not them feel bad. And that is how it is meant to be – isn’t it? Isn’t it what they taught me? Isn’t it how we are meant to live our lives? When it’s our turn, when we’ve grown up, then we can be the boss, then we can do all we want, then no one can tell us NO! STOP THAT! and stop us. Then we are free. And we all want to be free – RIGHT!

Free to finally make another person or creature feel bad. And it’s so easy to do. Just have a child, it couldn’t be easier…

Why are we anti-children?

We live in a world that is anti-children. However we believe otherwise. Were we to accept such truth about ourselves we’d have to question our ‘civilisation’ – we’d face a crisis. And yet it’s undeniable.

It’s a simple equation and we only need to look at how we treat ourselves and our children to see how we hate both. And how can we not when we’ve all been parented in an unloving way. And yet mostly we pretend otherwise.

You only have to feel how bad it feels to feel rejected as a child, to know that such abuse causes irreparable damage to the psyche and self-esteem of the growing child. And look at how many times a day in the average family when the young child is pushed away, criticised, reprimanded, corrected,punished, yelled at, forced to do what it doesn’t want to do, rejected – made to feel unloved and unwanted by its parents.

We hate children, we hate the child within ourselves as we were hated by our parents.

We pretend we love our children, that they are the most important things in the world to us, and yet look at how unlovingly we treat them. We must be mentally deficient.

To feel rejected by the very people who you need and long to love you is crippling. There is simply nothing worse and we feel like we don’t exist and want to dying. And yet we don’t, we live on having to bury and deny such bad feelings pretending we are loved and feel good.  And we do this because the truth is simply too devastating for us to face as a little child.  We want to feel loved by our parents not hated, and will do all we can to keep this bad feeling reality away as if it is the nasty evil monster trying to take us away from those who love us.  Those who are the true monsters.

Yet look at the quality of life we live. Look how we fall apart as we get older unable to keep up the pretence on a physical level. Look at how dependant we become on an artificial love system – the medical system and all other systems. Look at how impersonal, removed and uncaring of ourselves and each other we are. We can all see it. We just don’t want to admit that it’s the same with our relationship with our own children. After all, it’s adults that cause our unloving relationship with nature and our self-denying world, not children, and yet adults were once children – so what happened to us adults during our forming years to make us become so uncaring?

We live in a world that sets out to ‘break’ the child’s will, to control, dominate and overpower it, all so the child ‘falls’ into line. Then as ‘broken’ people we live our adult lives trying to gain the superficial false power we believe we need to keep us propped up and functional. The more ’successful’ people being able to do it better than the ‘failures’.

But it’s all a game of make-believe, nothing more than fantasy and of little real value and no truth.

How can we honestly love our children when we don’t even honestly love ourselves? We can’t, it doesn’t happen, and no one wants to face it. Because if they do it will bring their whole meaningless, truthless, loveless life into focus, and then what are they going to do?

Yet there does exist another way: the way of truth, the way of coming clean and admitting what your feelings are trying to tell you. Something that happens as you do your Feeling-Healing.

Don’t blame the children.

Don’t blame the children; blame the parents. It’s the way children are treated by their parents that make them be as they are.

The little girl came with her parents and her younger sister to visit our neighbours house. Together with our neighbours two young children they all took to goading Marion and I into looking at them from where common ground joins the two properties. When we ignored them they came closer onto our property yelling out at us, calling us names, wanting us to pay them attention.

The more we ignored them the more frustrated they became and the closer to the house they came. And finally the little girl pick up a small rock and threw it at our window.

I went around to tell her parents what she’d just done, only to find the four parents sitting red-eyed in the living room oblivious of what their children were up to, drinking their bottles of red wine. Their front door was open and half the neighbourhood could have heard the goading yells of the children – but not these parents, or if they did, they didn’t care about it.

I wasn’t angry with the little girl, only with her parents and our neighbours. And all I wished was that the little girl had lived the truth she was feeling deeper inside herself, that being, that she threw the rock at her parents and called them all the names she’d been calling us. Because really it wasn’t us that she was frustrated with and needing the attention from, it was her own mother and father.

And I wished I could have joined her and thrown my own rocks at both her parents. But also really at my own parents, something that I could never do. I never realised that it wasn’t the world and other people I was angry with, it was my own parents.

Did you grow up on good feelings?

We are supposed to grow up feeling good. Filled up with good feelings. Year and years of our formation built upon feeling good.

And yet look at how we form: subjected to endless bad feelings.

How many bad feelings where you subjected to in the womb? How many did you feel yourself? How many bad feelings where you made to feel as a baby? How many bad feelings were you made to suffer the agony of as a young infant? How many bad feelings traumatised you as a little person? How many times did you feel, unwanted, unloved, rejected? How many times did you feel shame, guilt, humiliation, ridicule, angry done to you by your ‘loving’ parents? How many times were you made to feel you have no rights, you are powerless, you are weak, you are nobody, nothing? How many times did you feel like no one wanted you, you were just a waste of space?

And all of these times sapped you of your vital life force, making you call upon extra energy you couldn’t afford to use.

All of these times have made you loose your true self, making your mind take over from your natural feeling-inspiration fabricating a false untrue you – the front you put on for the world. The front that says: I’m okay.

As adults we coach our sporting teams on positive affirmation. We pump up the players on ‘feel-good’ mind rubbish, so we can delude ourselves even more that we are GOOD. That we are THE BEST. That we are THE GREATEST. That we FEEL GREAT! And out we go to perform, to compete, to win. Out we go soaring to great heights in our all-powerful fantasises.

And yet, do we at least do the same for our children, even though it is all false?

No. Instead we beat them up, break them down, all in the name of ‘toughening them up for the real world’, making them feel useless, powerless, pathetic. Not warriors for life, but creatures of self-denial and delusion. Some of whom might one day even manage to become out great sporting heroes.