Having to repress your feelings, thoughts and dreams about yourself, and the fragile parts of the person you really were, is an unconscious form of cruelty imposed by your well-meaning parents during your early childhood. Many of the messages and forms of discipline that taught you to deny your real self were given to you by parents and other authority figures who believe they were doing it “for our own good.” As a child it was probably hard to believe that you needed harsh punishment, criticism, humiliation, shame, ridicule and neglect. Because you regarded your parents and teachers as intelligent, all-knowing protectors, you accepted their judgment and believed them when they told you it was all good for you and that you must really deserve it. It is also important to remember that your parents did the best they could with what skills and awarenesses they had and that the vicious cycle of cruelty is a very unconscious process. This is illustrated by the oath that many people make as a child that they will never treat their children the way they were treated. Yet, in disciplining their own children, they are often shocked to find themselves using the same kinds of punishment and frequently even the same words that were used to punish them as a child. From “Breaking Free of the Codependency Trap” By Barry Weinhold, Ph.D. and Janae Weinhold, Ph.D
Your children are not your children.
They are sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you.
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
Kahlil Gibran
