When Parents Control - 3 Keys to Breaking Free from Parental Control

A controlling parent can have as much a crippling effect on an adult child as on an intimate partner. And I’m sure you know why.

But help for that adult child is touch and go. There are no shelters for them, yet they have many of the same financial issues as battered women.

If they haven’t risen above their controlling parent’s domination, they can become entrapped victims for life. They remain dependent and often spend their lives seeking out ways to work out their unfinished business around being controlled.

How can you awaken to the toxicity of being controlled by one’s parent? The same way one awakens to the toxicity of being controlled by an intimate partner.

1) Be mindful of the subtle.
The subtle is as significant as the gross. The subtle manipulations are as revealing as the exaggerated obvious ones. And since they show up on an ongoing basis, one doesn’t compartmentalize their devastating effect. They are in your face 24/7 or as long as you expose yourself to the controlling parent.

2) Suspend judgment of yourself (and of them).
Recognize that the parental control is NOT about you. The parental control is about them. Find a way to hold and regard yourself beyond the parental control. And find a way to see and regard your controlling parent beyond their control and beyond their controlling behavior.

3) Find that inner voice that knows your highest good.
When you hear from the inner voice of your utmost longing, you will find your way. You will discover your highest good. Your will become the person you are meant to be, beyond your controlling parent’s domination.