This week has been about further exploring themes that are emerging within my life.
Honoring parents while honoring and protecting myself.
Feeling healthier and even, healthy, mentally and physically.
Growing into this new spirituality and this new spiritual space.
Honoring parents:
I have wrestled with this almost my entire life of fifty plus years, being aware of wasn’t particularly aware for ten of those or so.
I am of the mind currently that for me and possibly others, the definition of honor means everything.
What exactly is honor? Is it the same as being nice? Being respectful? Being kind? Does it mean you have a good relationship with the one you honor? Does it involve feelings? Can you be frustrated and still honor someone?
Honoring our elders is at the core of most wisdom and spiritual traditions that I adhere to either faithfully or loosely. It seems obvious that you take care of and honor the ones who brought you into the world and took care of you.
The rub with honoring parents is that often we have fraught relationships with our parents, especially when we didn’t have others to lean on.
We needed them probably to be more than they could be. Our society is fragmented enough in the Western context to not allow as easy of access to other elders, relatives or even friends to fill roles that parents now have to somehow singley provide.
It’s also possible our parents weren’t healthy people, were abusive or neglegent. Alot of parents are unhealthy adults. Unfortunately becoming a parent doesn’t grant you automatic wisdom and parenting skills. Sometimes parents didn’t even try too hard to show up to be a parent. Many parents had barely begun to process their own childhoods when now they are having kids of their own and often passing trauma along to another generation.
So then where does honor come into the mix? What does honor even mean?
Hebrew word meant heavy, weighty. It’s significant to make sure you provide honor. It doesn’t mean the same as love.
I am feeling more at peace with the basics that I’m providing for my parents, especially my mom. I’m taking care of her finances and bills. I’m stopping by occasionally to check in and see how things are going. I’m calling. I don’t honestly have energy for more than that. Our relationship has been fraught and not easy. Her husband is not easy. This has not been a healthy situation for me.
A week ago, I took them on a long drive, out to dinner and ran some errands. That felt really good and appropriate. I hadn’t talked to them in about 10 days after that. That also felt okay. Overall, it’s been critical for me to get my mental health back online and reduce the PTSD that was triggered with the dynamics of the situation.
I’m honoring them while protecting myself.
I read a great series of quotes this week that listed how you are becoming more healthy… one of the lines was more boundaries, less resentments. The healthier I am, the less angry I am. How crazy is that?
Long talk w/ two friends yesterday. We are talking through the daily realities of leaving friend and family circles that have proven to be toxic. How do you even do that?
I shared about how as I step away from toxic relationships and situations, I feel myself expanding in new directions and endeavors. Pathways are opening up that resonate with my soul’s frequency. I’ve been living on a Jesus frequency for much of my adult life. I’ve tried to embody the values that I saw Christ actually lived, not what I was told Christ was about. I’ve always side-stepped much of theology and went to the source myself. It’s yielded a fruitful life and relationships that are deep and respectful.