Family comes in several flavours: our parents, our kids, siblings, and the wider world of cousins, uncles and aunts, grandparents and grandchildren. As it’s our parents, children and at times siblings that normally provide the best possibilities for an upsurge in our Happiness levels, I hope you will forgive me if I focus on these.
It is not shocking to come across people who build on immensely strong feelings regarding their parents that might be good or bad because most of us have spent our formative years with them. Not only that, but parents are usually more than glad to try to have some bearing on our lives, for good or worse, after we come out of the nest. At times we also continue to try to influence them, taking on the parent role in the course - a potential minefield!
The key to a joyful parent-child relationship is simple:
A keenness to fully accept a different person’s world,
and to achieve this with love.
Parents and children may share a home, but they do not always live on the same planet. The question is, are you ready?
I ask because you are probably willing to fly to a far-off nation where the people have a different language, different clothes, diverse food, possibly a different religion. You might be eager - enthusiastic even - to respectfully join in their customs and traditions. You might be enthusiastic to read up and do your research to get the most from your trip. You do this because, perhaps, you want - and expect - the best from the experience.
But are you keen to make the unsafe journey to the tribe that resides in a different world across the breakfast table? Or does that place seem like a ruthless desert, inhabited only by dangerous savages, a place so unwelcoming that you are sure that no guide book could have been written about it?
Because that can truly be the trip of a lifetime.
Now, even though it’s traditional to improve our relationships with others by listing the issues that have to be resolved, I’m a bit of a rebel, so I ask coaching clients to begin by listing the strengths of their relationships. And because we have built up an awareness of that solid foundation in advance, when the time comes to consider possible challenges we have a full ton of goodwill to build on - if we choose to.
There was a time some years ago when, as it occurred, mothering became my coaching “flavour of the month”. Certainly, I’m no mother, but I had a very significant role - ensuring those clients gave themselves sufficient credit for how well they were doing the #1 most significant job in the world.
Curiously, seeing the good parent in themselves made it a lot easier to realize what amazing kids they had, and looking at their amazing kids helped them admit that, somewhere along the line, they’d been amazing mothers.
Live the difference Life Coaching is based in Melbourne which offers transformational one-on-one coaching both face-to-face and on the phone. People come from all walks of life and live in and around Melbourne, interstate and overseas. Visit http://livethedifference.com.au for more information on Life Coach.
It is not shocking to come across people who build on immensely strong feelings regarding their parents that might be good or bad because most of us have spent our formative years with them. Not only that, but parents are usually more than glad to try to have some bearing on our lives, for good or worse, after we come out of the nest. At times we also continue to try to influence them, taking on the parent role in the course - a potential minefield!
The key to a joyful parent-child relationship is simple:
A keenness to fully accept a different person’s world,
and to achieve this with love.
Parents and children may share a home, but they do not always live on the same planet. The question is, are you ready?
I ask because you are probably willing to fly to a far-off nation where the people have a different language, different clothes, diverse food, possibly a different religion. You might be eager - enthusiastic even - to respectfully join in their customs and traditions. You might be enthusiastic to read up and do your research to get the most from your trip. You do this because, perhaps, you want - and expect - the best from the experience.
But are you keen to make the unsafe journey to the tribe that resides in a different world across the breakfast table? Or does that place seem like a ruthless desert, inhabited only by dangerous savages, a place so unwelcoming that you are sure that no guide book could have been written about it?
Because that can truly be the trip of a lifetime.
Now, even though it’s traditional to improve our relationships with others by listing the issues that have to be resolved, I’m a bit of a rebel, so I ask coaching clients to begin by listing the strengths of their relationships. And because we have built up an awareness of that solid foundation in advance, when the time comes to consider possible challenges we have a full ton of goodwill to build on - if we choose to.
There was a time some years ago when, as it occurred, mothering became my coaching “flavour of the month”. Certainly, I’m no mother, but I had a very significant role - ensuring those clients gave themselves sufficient credit for how well they were doing the #1 most significant job in the world.
Curiously, seeing the good parent in themselves made it a lot easier to realize what amazing kids they had, and looking at their amazing kids helped them admit that, somewhere along the line, they’d been amazing mothers.
Live the difference Life Coaching is based in Melbourne which offers transformational one-on-one coaching both face-to-face and on the phone. People come from all walks of life and live in and around Melbourne, interstate and overseas. Visit http://livethedifference.com.au for more information on Life Coach.