Negative parents: how to deal with them.
This is not good, that is not good, in fact, nothing is good if you suffer from negative parents. So how do you deal with this? In this blog we take a closer look at it.
Negative parents if you still live at home
If you live at home, it’s hard to avoid your parents. That’s why it’s wise to take steps on your own to mentally cope with their negativity. If you currently feel like your parents can’t find anything good in you, try doing something different for a change—instead of just defending yourself.
After all, what have you got to lose?
So if one of your parents says yet again that you’re a good-for-nothing—or something else negative—go along with it. Affirm what they say:“Yes, I’m a good-for-nothing.”
Chances are your father or mother will suddenly become aware of what he or she actually said and reflect on it. "I didn't mean it that way ...".
In any case, it's something to give a try, who knows, it might not be so bad after all.
Self-hypnosis
With self-hypnosis, you can also do a lot to make your parents’ comments affect you less. Speaking of “affecting” you, you can also imagine that their comments simply “miss” you.
By visualizing how their comments go past you, you make sure they affect you less. That you don't mentally carry them with you as much as when you feel it's being said to you.
You can pretend it's being said to the air next to or behind you, but at least not to you.
Negative parents if you already live on your own
Of course, if you already live on your own, or perhaps even have children of your own, it is much easier to ignore your parents. However, if you don't want to, because you wish your children a grandparent, for example, then there is work for you as well.
Again, you might want to see what happens once you admit to being something negative that your parents accuse you of. Maybe it won't be all that bad after all.
In addition, you can also apply self-hypnosis in this case if you are with your parents anyway and you want the comments they make to miss you rather than hit you. (You can also give this tip to your children should your parents also act negatively toward their grandchildren.)
The problem is that negative parents can cause you to suffer from low self-confidence and anxiety, even later in life[1]. It’s now up to you to set things right again.
Your view of your parents
It’s also important to realize that your beliefs determine how you view the world—and, by extension, your parents. Perhaps their negativity can be interpreted differently if you take another look at your beliefs about parents and how they “should” be.
Perhaps your parents' negativity is also very striking to you because you have made them very important to yourself.
In this case, you can make your parents' opinions more unimportant so that you are less bothered by them. You can do this by putting your parents in a different place mentally. This is something you can do even if you still live at home (but are already 18+).
For example, a hypnotherapist can help you with social panorama[2]. In fact, everyone has a mental map in their head of where people stand in relation to you. No one has this consciously, but you can make yourself aware of it.
That map includes not only your parents, but also your friends, siblings and colleagues. You can give everyone who plays a role in your life a place in the map. So initially, people have a place, and then you can use hypnosis to change the place.
This may seem simple, but experiences show that sometimes it takes some work to move someone into your mental map. That's what the hypnotherapist then helps you with.
Putting your parents in a different position can already change your entire dealings with them, and that can cause either the negativity to stop affecting you, or your parents to notice a change in you and the negativity simply disappears.
Either way, it's a win-win situation.
Gratitude for your parents
This may sound a little crazy if your parents are very negative, but it can drastically change your view of their negativity. For this exercise, it is important to realize that your parents are also first-time parents, and otherwise at least first-time parents to you.
Your parents are trying their best to be a parent. It may not be enough for you, but this is what they can give.
You can identify all the things you’re grateful for . After all, what has your parents’ negativity actually brought you?
What (maybe intended, maybe unintended) effects has it had on you that help you move forward in life now?
For example, you can list such as:
- I am grateful, because I can now handle criticism super well.
- I am grateful because I have become very independent.
- I am grateful, because now I know how I don't want to do it (parenting).
- Etc...
This alone can make you feel very different.
You can do this exercise even while living at home. The great thing about this type of gratitude exercise is that it helps you feel better overall, feel more satisfied with your life and have a better mood[3].
Boosting self-confidence
As mentioned earlier, having negative parents can hinder your self-confidence. Fortunately, you can work on your own self-confidence even without compliments from your parents. Chances are you are repeating words your parents once uttered to you in your mind, which is not helpful at all.
The first step, therefore, might be to improve your self-compassion. This means, above all, being kind to yourself. Working on self-compassion is actually even better than working on self-esteem[4].
For self-compassion, some mindfulness about your thoughts is helpful. That way, when you have a negative thought, you can at least be aware that you have that thought, and then you can reframe the thought to something positive.
By all means, be your own best friend, rather than a copy of negative parents. Then what your parents say to you won't matter so much anymore either.
Holding parents accountable for their behavior
Another way to build self-confidence is by eliminating limiting beliefs. For example, do you find it nerve-wracking to confront your parents about their behavior?
Then this may be due to beliefs you have about "respecting" parents. While chances are that if you indicate to your parents that you find them very negative and that this makes you unhappy they may modify their behavior.
If you don't say anything, nothing will change anyway.
You can often identify those limiting beliefs through regression. With regression, you go back to the first moment in your life when, for example, you felt you should have confronted your parents about their negativity but didn’t.
This was then due to a certain unconscious "rule" about how you are supposed to treat your parents.
A hypnotherapist can help you go back to that moment and fix the limiting belief[5]. This can be done in a variety of ways. Sometimes just empathizing with other people who were there at the time is enough. That can provide enough new insights to remove the obstacle to addressing your parents' behavior.
You can also practice connecting communication. This is a way of communicating to resolve conflicts peacefully. With visualizations, you can visualize this before you really get into it.
There is a formula for connecting communication, namely:
Step 1: You name the situation.
For example, you say that your parents just said something negative, "Dad, I can hear you now saying I'm a nothing."
Step 2: You identify the feeling this gives you and why this is a problem for you.
"This makes me feel like you don't love and support me. I regret that, because I would like to have a good relationship with you."
Step 3: You identify what you need from the other person, and why you care.
"I'd like you to focus more on my good sides, because I'm afraid our relationship will deteriorate otherwise, and I just want a good relationship."
This is just one example. A hypnotherapist can help you practice with a situation of interest to you.
There's even a chance that your parents will then also start explaining more about why they do as they do, creating more mutual understanding.
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Also pin this handy infographic as a memory aid:
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