Things that I try to avoid doing with my immigrant parents
I trying to avoid gluten, dairy and eggs these days because my allergy test came back telling me that my body doesn’t like these ingredients. I get bloated, gassy and extreme fatigue after eating these things.
my 2025 goals are to avoid these ingredients at all costs. I’ve already felt better after slowly eliminating these things in 2024.
These are the other things that I am avoiding at all costs in this new year:
1) trying to persuade, encourage, enlighten, explain, teach, influence my parents to recognize my boundaries, pursue self development or to understand my perspective. This has come after many many years of trying to change my parents through a lot of pleading and persuasion. If your parents haven’t pursued healing on their own, they’re probably not going to do it just because you suggested it. It has nothing to do with how much or little they love you. Emotionally immature people are strongly committed to maintaining the status quo at all costs.
2) trying to get my parents to recognize how they hurt me. Emotionally immature people are rigid and don’t have the humility to step outside of their perspective and empathize with a different perspective. Sometimes they can believe that if they empathize it means that they agree with your perspective (which is false). They are committed to believing that they gave you everything you needed and that you weren’t hurt, but you are ultra sensitive
3) getting my parents to apologize. Apologizing requires for someone to step outside their perspective, understand how their good intentions might not have good impacts. Understand the negative impact of their actions, articulate it and grow from that understanding. Apologies and repair also require someone to be committed to their personal development so that they can try not to harm others in the same way again. Emotionally immature people don’t understand and can’t actually do those things without a lot of self initiative. If you force your parents to apologize, it may not be genuine and also, it may not result in true repair because of the aforementioned conditions for repair.
4) trying to encourage my parents to show me empathy or to dissuade them from being so dismissive or judgmental. Emotionally immature people can’t show empathy consistently. They might be able to show it from time to time, but they may have a lot of judgmental, critical and dismissive parts that might get in the way of their ability to show empathy.
please learn from my mistakes. Don’t try to do the above… instead do these things:
1) recognize that your parents are in process and are growing at their own pace and in their own way
2) acknowledge the ways that your parents limits rub up against your own and see that you can’t fill in the gap on your own.
3) know that your parents are a product of their environment and their best efforts are very appreciated but might not have been enough.
4) you can be the loving parent you never had. You can work to heal your inner parts so that you can be the loving parent you never had
5) leave your parents be. Accept them for who they are. Don’t try to change them.
6) be realistic for how you want to interact with them. If you know they won’t respect your boundaries, then think about how you would want to respond to their actions. Don’t expect them to change their behavior so you can be more comfortable. Change your own behavior and responses to make your own life more comfortable.