PARENTS!!! CUT YOURSELF SOME SLACK!!!!
Tears rolled down my face as I sat on the floor of my closet
listening to Marissa on the phone. I had finally put words to what I was
feeling inside and she was responding to what I had shared. I barely knew Marissa, but she and I were
both parents. We had both gone through
and were going through grief. She had
lost her son to death.
“For me it is kind of like a death in that, I grieve the
death of the hopes and dreams that I had for my sons and daughter.” I told
Marissa.
Recently my son who has high functioning autism, also
started having psychosis. He is 18 years old and now like his older
sister, who has had a diagnosis of autism, since childhood, was showing signs
of mental illness as well.
Marissa said that she hoped that I had reminders up around
my house that told me to go way out of my way to CUT MYSELF SOME SLACK!!!
I told her that I am typically very hard on myself. She said that she was
the same way! Recently however, she had been relieved of that. She
wished for me that same huge relief!
I was reminded how difficult it has been to hear others who
are really hard on themselves. It suddenly
occurred to me, how perhaps it has been “difficult” for God to listen to me go
on and on about how I am not doing this or that correctly, or how I don’t keep
my house as uncluttered as it should be and on and on…
I can CUT MYSELF SOME SLACK!!!! Good grief!
I can be gentle and loving to myself.
I can talk kindly and allow myself to move through the feelings of grief
and to be deeply affected by them. It is
OK. It is OK that I wanted to sleep all
the time. It is OK that my house is
cluttered or that I don’t make a beautiful meal of organic and extremely
delicious food that my family absolutely loves every night. It is OK that I find it difficult to be “present”
and very loving and cheerful all the time.
I can allow myself to be a human.
I feel so full of peace now.
“Thank you Marissa. You have
really helped me!” I can CUT MYSELF SOME
SLACK! J
Dawn
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