SETTLED NEUROSIS
The relationship we have with our parents is just amazing. Parenthood work seems to never end. Fathers and mothers go on following their children footsteps as long as they manage. But when we look at nature, we see that all animals treat their pets as pets only until the moment they can move by themselves and are able to fight for their own food. The moment comes when this link is naturally broken. After stopping breastfeeding, a mare, a cow, a goat, a chicken or a rabbit, for instance, don´t recognize the animal as a pet anymore. They see them as another being, an independent one. Thus, this pet can go for its own life, experience being alone and grow strong.
The difference between human beings and animals is the capacity to love. A mare or a cow feed their pets with instinctive love. A human being has a deeper and greater love, linked to a certain consciousness. But there´s something that goes beyond it. I´ve worked with many fathers who never really saw their children, never really hung out with them and yet the child still reproduces their father´s characteristics on him or herself. It´s an energy phenomenon. We acquire many things by being with our parents and much of it is passed on to us in a subtle way, instinctively. Most of our characteristics are passed to us due to living together. We all start imitating our parents attitudes and ideas, so that we can get their love. And this is something very strong.
In fact, having the love of our parents is a matter of surviving. For children, it´s a life or death matter and that´s why we end up repeating learned patterns. Even if intellectually we disagree with them, when it comes a moment of tension or conflict, we end up taking their position. They did the same with their parents and so on… The link is never broken, only the outfit gets different, more modern. For centuries, the feeling of possession in our relations is still de same and so is the appreciation of money and material things over love.
And it´s so easy to see: we all believe that love is the most important thing, right? However, the time we dedicate to love is minimal. We give it what´s left, the remainder of our time. Love is our best energy and still, the greater part of our available time is given to work. It´s just bullshit to say we give love some priority. The same happens to sexuality. We end up giving almost no time to this source of joy and pleasure.
Back to the parents issue, have a look: you´re 30, they still treat you like a child and you go on acting as one! They never leave motherhood and fatherhood roles and do not relate to you as friends. Instead, they impose that their children do the same shit they did. I know a person who got so blind and dependent on his parents that it´s shocking to see… he loved and discovered a lot about himself but ended up doing everything to destroy it all, just because his parents disagreed with it. It´s an absurd that this person could only make decisions according to his family approval. And you know what? This person is almost on his forties!
My mother never got to know who I really was. Neither my father. I played a character for them and they never pictured who I was indeed. I was one of those great rebels but even my rebellion was trapped to their web. I fought a lot in my life and worked deep on myself trough these primal processes and even being on my sixties, if I'm not aware, I end up repeating their patterns.
Nowadays I have a different relationship with my children and I must say: it´s not easy! Let´s say I´m about 60% their friend and 40% father. I believe it´s a great advance! I know who they are, I can enjoy the connection we have. I don´t expect them to be this or that way but I confess it´s not easy. Most people will die keeping a childish relation with their parents, no matter if it´s a positive or negative dependency.
I live in a community, so I can give some examples. There´s a girl who´s been living there for a long time. She tells her parents she loves her life and that´s what she wants. Her parents hate it, can´t accept it. They don´t care if she is happy or not, they want her to do what they want. They are so selfish and loveless that they turn her life into hell and, as a consequence, she doesn´t manage to go deeper in what she wants. This has been going on for 10 years already and they will win
… They are winning. For 10 years these parents have been trying to destroy her happiness and they will manage to do so! You have to have the strength of a lion and the fury of a volcano to win, otherwise you end up giving in.
Parents have a great weapon called FAMILY. Since you belong to it, you have inheritance, rights, money rights… You grow up hearing they are building your future, they are working for you and that clings to our minds. Actually, it´s almost a kind of prostitution. They buy your consciousness. “If you do what we want and leave your own stupid stuff, we´ll give you all”. The worst of all is that they believe that this is love! Even a hooker is more honest! This has a really strong emotional effect. I know people whose parents have a few or no possessions and nevertheless their children fear losing the inheritance! I know it´s weird, but it happens. The inheritance would be a reward for the love we didn´t get in childhood, but it still isn´t love anyway. Even when there is a lot of money in the situation – and rich people are usually the most needy emotionally – it´s a bottomless pit. They try to buy everything and everyone to disguise their emotional misery. And then, cocaine!
I´ve dedicated my life to this work called Pai e Mãe so that they don´t win! So that we are not the same and can live different from our parents. In this matter, I want to oppose you with all my strength, my dear Elis Regina. I know your song is an alert for those who still have ears to hear and weren’t distorted by their parents actions.
Today I can feel more love for my parents than I have before because I have confronted and undone these concepts within me. Now my love is free, I don´t need anything from them, neither a compliment nor an acknowledgement. I´m just grateful to them for who I am. A long time ago I couldn´t say this since I had a lot of anger, anger of being exactly what I learned with them. But I have already dropped many of these feelings. I can say I´m free from such pressure of being a child before my parents.
Prem Milan,
Creator of Pai e Mãe/ Primal Process