00:00 

Hey there, welcome to Intentional Living with Tanya Hale. This is episode number 237, "You'll Never Be Enough For Your Children." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:21 

Alright, hello there, my friends. Welcome to the podcast today. So glad to have you with me. A couple of things. First of all, if you are interested in joining my next Masterminds and you have not gotten an email because you're not on my email list, you will need to go to tanyahale.com. There will be a tab at the top that will say "Masterminds" and it will have the information. As of the recording of this, which is the last week of December for me, I do not have the titles of those solidified yet. So next week you'll find out. I'll probably look at starting, since I'm a little bit later on this than planned, I'll probably look at starting those around the middle to end of January. We'll kind of look at that. So get on and take a look and see what those are. If you're not sure what a Mastermind is, it really is just a deep dive discussion group. So we will have six weeks that we meet every week for about an hour and we have a topic, and every week you'll have podcasts to listen to and questions that we can put up for discussion and then we come together and we talk and we discuss and we figure things out. And it's just a really, really great opportunity to deepen your understanding on concepts that could be very meaningful for you and that can help change the way that you see the world and how you want to interact with the world. And every Mastermind I've been a group of, or been a part of, has been just an incredible life-changing experience for me. I've always gotten thoughts that have changed the trajectory of my life. And it may be a small change, but those small changes make some big differences over time. And just would like to encourage you to take a look at it and see if the topics are something that resonate with you. And then we'll go from there. 

02:17 

Alright. And if you have not left me a review, go ahead and get on iTunes or on Spotify. Both of those allow you to leave reviews. And leave me a review. Let me know what you think. And it really is just a great way to help other people find this podcast and so that it pops up on their list a little bit higher so that they can find the information that will also be helpful. I will say that I'm just really proud of the podcast here. Really proud of the content that I put out. And I know that these concepts are making a huge, huge difference in my life and in how I show up and in my ability to be compassionate and offer grace to people around me more so than I used to .And from working with my clients and feedback that I get from people who send me notes, I know that it's doing the same for others. So if this is making a difference for you, I would like to encourage you to share it with somebody, and it's pretty easy. There's a little "share" button on the podcast that you can just copy the link and send it to someone and it's an easy way to share information that you feel other people would love. 

03:26 

So that being said, let's jump into the podcast today. We are talking about how you'll never be enough for your children. Okay, now I understand that the title of this podcast may be a little bit like, "what do you mean? Like, what do you mean I won't be enough for my children?" So let me give you a little bit of context for this topic. I'm really, really blessed to be part of a group of life coaches. There's six of us and every Sunday morning, we get together on a Zoom call and we talk about all the things. We talk about our businesses. We talk about concepts that we're working on, maybe situations we've had with clients that we've found were fascinating and we want some feedback or some information, and obviously nothing personally shared, but we talk about our own relationships with our spouses, with our boyfriends, with our children. We pretty much...everything gets covered there at one point or another and it's an amazing space that we get to explore our thoughts about things and get some coaching and also to coach each other. We cover a lot of great topics and several weeks ago, one Sunday, the topic of adult kids came up and another one of the coaches, Wendy Lee Johnson, who coaches parents on parenting the tough stuff, in fact, that's the name of her podcast, if you're interested, said, "we'll never be enough for our own children." And it caused a bit of a discussion to ensue. And that conversation has left me pondering for the last few weeks on this thought that will never be enough for our own children. 

05:14 

And so I've been paying attention to people around me and listening to how they speak about their parents. And I've heard that people both old and young and everything in between have something to say about how their parents could have done a better job, how their parents really fell short in some way. And even when we love and revere our parents dearly, we can see areas in which they could have done better. I have amazing parents. They've both passed away and I'm just so grateful for them. But as I look back, I'm like, "yeah, see this pattern of behavior that's held me back in my life? Picked that one up in my home," right? And I think we all have those. And this, I believe, is all by God's design. We talked a few weeks ago about the beautiful mess, about how we are imperfect people sent to imperfect parents. So being imperfect, of course our parents had room for improvement, as has every parent in the history of this earth. And with this imperfect parenting comes children who are subjected to that imperfect parenting. Sometimes the grievances are small and absolutely to be expected from any parent. And sometimes the grievances are large and overwhelming and shocking to many of us when we think about that happening in parenting. But here's the thing: most parents have not taken parenting classes. And as we've all heard before, our children do not come with instruction manuals. So we're all just bumbling along, making it up as we go, and making tons of mistakes along the way. 

06:58 

So we've established that all parents are figuring out as we go along, that we're all imperfect, and that our children are the recipients of that mess. Now we're just gonna change trajectory for just a second, because I think most of us can get on board with that, but I want to take a quick look at some of the tendencies of our human brains. So our brains are wired to look for the negative. It's a way that our brains seek to protect us from things that are potentially dangerous or life threatening. And that's a great thing. Many a life has been saved by a vigilant brain that is aware of things around them that can hurt them. The downside of this is that we are seeing a lot of negative when really there is just...humanity, humans being humans, doing human things, which is messing up a lot. And if we're not careful, we can become quite cynical about this negativity. And applied in this context that we're talking about today, we can become quite cynical about how our parents raised us. We can become cynical about relationships in our lives and about life in general. But another part of our brain that adds to this dilemma is that our brains really like to blame other people because come on, responsibility can be hard. And our brains are geared to seek for pleasure, to avoid pain, and to conserve energy. Taking responsibility often feels painful, and it definitely does not conserve energy. So our brains move away from responsibility naturally. So, as our children become adults and the dysfunctional patterns of behavior begin to surface in their own adult relationships, who better to blame than their own parents who taught them the dysfunctional behaviors in the first place? And it makes sense, doesn't it? We see the natural inclination toward negativity and blaming, and then we recognize and see more clearly than ever the flaws and dysfunctions of our parents. We don't often see them when we're young, but as we get older we start to see them more. 

09:09 

So when it comes to our adult children, we are never quite enough for them. Most likely they will always have some angst toward us for the parenting we did when we thought we were doing a pretty darn good job, not perfect of course, but the best we knew how with the tools that we had. Because the truth of the matter is...we all messed it up as parents. It's almost guaranteed our children will need some counseling because of our parenting. And most likely they will have grievances toward us at some level, at some time in their lives. And this concept can also be applied to other people in our lives as well, because let's face it, we never meet the expectations fully of everyone around us. People always have an opportunity to see how we're falling short of what was expected. If we're married, we will fall short there and in some ways not be enough for our spouse, even when we're putting forth great effort. If we have siblings, we will fall short there and at times they will be frustrated with how we show up, even when we're doing our best. If your parents are still alive, they will be disappointed in how you show up. People around us will be disappointed in how we do our church calling, in how we fulfill our responsibilities at work, in how we show up for friendships and in our neighborhood. 

10:29 

And part of this as well is that everyone has their own list of things that are important to them based on their life experiences and their strengths and their weaknesses so everyone's looking for something different. Everyone has different expectations. You may have some children who are really forgiving of your flaws and though they are aware of them and see some of your dysfunctional patterns and don't get too much into the blame. That's great, right? But you may have another child who really struggles to forgive you for the damage that you've done in their life. It's just really kind of unpredictable as to who will hold a grudge and who won't. So have you ever heard the anecdote about twins who grew up with an alcoholic father? One became a never-drinking, successful lawyer and the other became an alcoholic who struggled to be successful in a career. When asked why they became the way they did, both of them credited their father. Both of them said, because of the way my father was. Right? So for many reasons, we all see and experience the same situation very differently. So when your children don't forgive your past parental flaws or even your current parental flaws, when they can't see and accept the person you're growing into, when they continue to hold it against you, take heart, my friend. So it has been with almost every parent and you're in good company. You may never be enough for your child, but I'd like to suggest to you that that isn't the problem. The problem is thinking that it's a problem that your child thinks that you weren't enough for them. When our children let us know, in whatever way they do, that we were not or are not enough for them, maybe that isn't the problem. It seems like it would be, but what if rather than being a liability in our children's life, what if that's just all part of the plan of God? What if it's actually a benefit to His plan? What if it is actually the only way that God can provide us with the learning opportunities to learn how to take responsibility and be challenged and grow into the person that he needs us to be? What if we just accepted that we will never be enough for our children or for anyone else for that matter? 

13:02 

So as my coach friends, and I continued to chat about this, one of them, Beth Hillman, who coaches parents of wilderness teens...in fact, she has a podcast called Parenting Post-Wilderness that if you or someone you know is in that situation, that would be a great podcast to listen to as well. But she presented some questions and thoughts that I would like us to consider here today on the podcast. So here's the first question: How is you just being you enough for your child? Interesting question, right? What if even with all of your flaws and weaknesses, with all of your unconscious manipulation and passive aggressive behaviors, with all of your inconsistencies, what if that is enough for your child? Now your child doesn't have to believe that it's enough, but what if you do? What if you really see that you are enough exactly as you are? How could that even be true? I believe it can be true because it's the plan God created to send imperfect people to imperfect parents. He knew that we would mess it up. He knew we wouldn't have all the tools at the beginning or even ever, right? And yet, He still sent these children to our homes. I can believe it's true because God loves all of these imperfect people and wants all of us to have happy, challenging, successful, loving lives. And so He provided a savior who would atone for our sins and for everyone else's sins, including all the parents, so that we can change and progress and become different people than we were before. 

14:55 

In a television show I was watching this last week the grandpa, who has children who are completely struggling with life and the way that they were raised, they're completely emotionally dysfunctional, right. But he was hanging out with his grandchild and somebody said, "you're not the same person that you were when we were children." And he said "that's the thing about being a grandfather. I get to do all the things I wish I had done with my children and the things I regret I get to do different." Isn't that a great quote. We do get to grow and change. And by the time we're having grandchildren, we're often more patient, more loving. We see life from a completely different perspective. In some ways, it's a little like getting a do-over. Except we do still have to grapple with how we showed up as a parent and most of us will at some point. And for some of us that will be bigger and deeper and harder than others because of where we come from and what we did. 

15:58 

So for me, even though I know I did a really great job being a mom and I know very well that I did the best I knew how. I really did. I was really really diligent. I still look back at some circumstances when my kids were little and I cringe and my kids still bring up things that I did some of which I have no recollection of. And it shocks me that I could have behaved the way that I did. And even though we've talked about these things, even though I've changed and I've asked their forgiveness, they still keep bringing stuff up, like, they can't let go. And they're great children. They're really great kids and there's no part of them that's trying to be hurtful. They're just trying to process and it can feel sometimes, though, like they're blaming me for many of their struggles. 

16:50 

So how do we handle not being enough for them? I think we have to come to understand that we are never enough for our children. Because that's not our job. Our job is not to be enough for our children. Our job is to be enough for us. I am enough for me. And they get to learn to be enough for them. When we truly come to the place that we accept our flaws, as well as our strengths, when we can see that we are not defined by our past regrets and behaviors, when we can truly accept that we are enough, even with all of that, then we can become empowered. We can become empowered to not let those things hold us back from continuing to grow and keeping us stuck. We can become empowered to not let our children's blame turn on us in our own heads and start to blame ourselves with all of this negative self-talk. Like, "oh, I'm stupid. Oh, I'm always doing it wrong." Right? That kind of stuff. We can quit that. We feel the power of God's plan of recognizing that we weren't supposed to be perfect, that our children were supposed to be raised by someone who made mistakes.

18:19 

I used to jokingly say that part of my responsibility as a parent was to make so many mistakes that my children would never run out of things to work through and to work on when they were adults. And I used to say that kind of tongue in cheek, but more and more, I really am believing that us being horrible parents some of the time is part of ours and our children's experience here on this earth. Necessary experience. Not that we should intentionally try to do a horrible job of parenting, because guess what? It's going to happen even when we're trying to be great. So what if it's not my job to be enough for them? What if it's only my job to be enough for me? To really just be engaged in working on my awareness of how I'm showing up and making adjustments as I figure it out? What if I really am enough for me? What would that mean? I think it would mean that I'm at peace with my path and my trajectory, that even though I know I'm not and never have been perfect, that I'm at peace with how I showed up in the past and with how I'm showing up now. Not "at peace" in the sense that I think that what I did was great all the time, but peace in knowing that I was doing the best that I knew how. I think it would mean that when my children somehow let me know that I wasn't enough for them, that I respond with a lot of grace for me and a lot of grace for them. Grace for me in knowing that I did my best and grace for them in knowing that they are working through some hard but necessary life things. Grace for them in knowing that their brain is a 20 or 30 year old brain that still is working out how to take responsibility for these things and not continually blame someone else. Being enough for me would mean that I love me for who I was and I love me for who I am, as imperfect as both of those people may be. 

20:31 

And allowing my children the space to learn to be enough for them means that I recognize that these things take time to learn. That my turning around and blaming them for blaming me isn't moving the situation forward, but more likely keeping it stuck and also disconnecting our relationship. Because hey, listen, I'm just learning this stuff and I'm 54. Why would I expect them to know it all when they are just beginning their journey? It's me acknowledging that when they let me know that I'm not enough for them, that I can see the truth in what they say. I mean, obviously there's probably some truth there, that I can create space for them to see the world from their point of view and I can give them room to work through life with me loving and accepting them where they are. That gives them space to be enough for them and it gives me space to be enough for me. And ultimately when I choose to be enough for me, it's okay when I'm not enough for them and it's okay for them to be them and to create whatever reality they want to create. 

21:57 

This is where we get to learn to have our own backs. That's what being enough for ourselves is. I've got my own back. Was I perfect? No. Absolutely I was not a perfect parent. But I know darn well in my heart that I was doing the best I knew how with the tools that I had. I just didn't have all the tools. And nobody does when they're young. It takes us time. So guess what? The more that we can accept that we can be enough for them to see the world from their point of view, you accept the fact that we will never be enough for our children, that they may accuse us and blame us until the day that we die. Okay, let's make some peace with that. Maybe that's just what it is. Maybe that's just how it's always gonna be. But if I have got my back through all of that, if I'm enough for me, then it's okay when I'm not enough for others. 

22:56 

Alright, my friends, good stuff, right? This growing up gig, pretty darn awesome. I love growing up and I'm glad that you're joining me on this journey. Thank you so much. Pay attention to your thoughts this week. Pay attention to what goes on when those thoughts of not being enough come from other people. And learn to have your own back here. Learn to be enough for you because, guess what? You are. You 100% are enough for you. All right, I will see you next week. Bye. 

23:32 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya.