Positive Psychology
Let Go And Grow
By Telka Arend-Ritter
Mar 9, 2008

Stage 3 of EMotional Healing: Let Go and Grow
You will know you have worked through an issue when your actions change. Worry, fear and stagnation will fade as positive changes take root. Working through emotions often results in what is commonly referred to as a “light bulb moment”. Sudden insight replaces confusion, worry and fear. The deepest most painful worry is that which is reserved for parents. Whether one’s “child” is 21, 35 or even 50 years of age, parents may worry about their children to the point of heartache, despair or even physical illness. “Shirley’s Story” illustrates exactly how parents may let go of worry by choosing to detach from problems they do not own. Remember, you choose your response to every situation. Here is how Shirley made a better choice.
Shirley’s Story

Shirley originally read my “Change Your Thoughts, Heal Your Life” workbook to learn how to cope with her adult daughter’s chaotic lifestyle. Her underlying motivation however was to fix her daughter’s life. After practicing the strategies in week #7, Healing Worry and Fear, Shirley understood she needed to change her own response.

“I finally figured out that I need to let go of my daughter’s problems instead of trying to fix them for her,” she shared. “Yesterday my daughter walked across our adjoining backyards, like she does every morning. She sat down at my kitchen table. I poured the coffee. She poured the troubles. She told me what an ass her husband was. The rent money was spent on cigarettes and beer again. Her car died. He lost another job. I noticed in that moment that I had a verbal mountain full of chaos and bad decisions growing right there on my kitchen table. With every word my daughter spoke, the mountain grew higher.” Shirley used her hands to gesture a growing pile of burdens on the kitchen table as she dramatized the events of the past morning. “I realized every morning is the same. My heart thumps when I hear the kitchen door swing open. I feel sick and helpless. I always do the only thing I know how to do. I grab my checkbook, offer up my car or volunteer to baby sit. But yesterday I realized I have been putting all of my energy into figuring out some way that I could chip away at her mountain of problems. No more.”

“I made a different choice. My daughter is 38 years old. When she built “Problem Mountain”, I just listened. I never once interrupted her with advice. I did not ‘should’ on her at all. Her mountain is not mine to climb. Instead of fixing her life, I just remembered to breathe. I sat peacefully. For the very first time, I felt no anxiety at all. I pushed my chair away from the table. I said to her, ‘Thank you honey. You just reminded me that I need to do my meditations and affirmations this morning.”

There comes a day when parents no longer put Band-aids on their children’s boo-boos. Shirley transformed her worry into wisdom by realizing parents teach their children to heal their own wounds by allowing them the time and space to seek their own life solutions.

*People learn and grow by making mistakes and overcoming obstacles.

*Parents who “help” adult children by solving problems for them, rob them of the opportunity to learn, grow and problem solve. These adult children never become the heroes in their own lives.

*Worrying about adult children undermines their confidence. Worrying sends a message of perceived incompetence or mistrust.

*Replace feelings of worry and fear with confidence, faith and trust.

*Letting go involves role modeling rather than rescuing.

*Letting go occurs when parents realize and accept they are not responsible for their adult children’s choices.

*Letting go is the natural result of working through worry and fear.

You will know that you have “let go” when you have replaced worry and fear with FACT:

F aith in your ability to choose your response.
A cceptance of what you cannot control.
C onfidence in your ability to cope with whatever happens.
T rust in the process and flow of life.

Excerpt from Chapter 7, Healing Worry and Fear from the book:
Change Your Thoughts, Heal Your Life- An Eleven Week Self-Help Workbook. Transform wounds into wisdom, pain into purpose and inspire others to do the same.
Author Telka Arend-Ritter