Here’s a question from a coaching session… (as usual, it’s been edited, summarised and certain details have been changed, to protect identities)…
QUESTION:
“After getting coaching from you, I built up the courage to start calling my mum, who lives in another country. And for a while it was going good, but now, every time I call, my mum gives me guilt trips and she just gives me bad energy.
She starts comparing me to other siblings. As you know, I was wronged by my siblings, but my mum claims the opposite. And the worst thing is she then gives me guilt trips for not being around. What’s going on? How come it was in flow before, when I started calling her, but now it feels a lot more heavy and negative?”
MY ANSWER:
There is a huge difference between the energy you had when you first started calling your mum and the energy that you have around it now.
When you first started calling her, you were completely filled up internally. You were connected with Allah, and you weren’t calling her with any kind of agenda, other than to simply give her some positive energy and love. Your only purpose for calling her was because Allah tells us to maintain ties with our family, especially those we’re related to through our mother.
But it appears things have changed.
It sounds like now, because you’re talking with her more, you’re starting to forget what your original intention was and you’re getting caught up in the ‘content’ of what she’s saying. Now you’re talking with her in the hopes that she won’t guilt trip you, in the hopes that she won’t compare you to your siblings, and maybe even in the hope that eventually she’ll see reason and realise that you were wronged by them, not the other way around.
And that, my friend, is your old foe: your ego.
As a quick reminder, here’s the perspective that got you reconnected and talking with her in the first place.
- You don’t need anything from anyone, especially not your mother. You’re a fully grown woman. There’s nothing she can do for you now.
- You fill yourself up with Allah’s pure loving energy, directly from the source. And you get so filled up with this loving, beautiful energy that you have the ability to spread it out and share it with others.
- You call her because you want to. It’s completely on your terms. You’re commanded by the Quran and Sunnah to always maintain ties with your mother, so you call her. But it’s an act of pure giving. You’re not hoping that she’ll give you anything in return. You’re just going to her to give, not to take.
- It’s like you’re giving her charity. You’ve already got all the resources and the wellbeing and the love you’ll ever need. And Allah asks you (inconveniently enough!) to maintain ties. So you go to her to give the charity of your presence, of your smile, of your non-judgmental listening, and above all, of your gratitude.
- The ultimate skill for a child who has a difficult parent to learn, is this: ignore them. People always tell you to listen to your parents. But what about when they shout at you, or swear, or verbally abuse you? Then, my dear friend, the secret is to not listen to them at all. Instead, ignore and overlook them verbally sinning at you – the same way you might clean up their physical vomit if they were physically sick.
- You don’t need to change her. (And you can’t.) Not one bit. Anything in you that wants her to change her opinion or personality or perspective, is your ego. Remember the Ultimate Nafs Trap is: “I’ll be happy when…” – in this case you’ve been believing that you’ll be happy when she starts being good to you. The moment you wake up from this illusion, you’ll be free and happy again.
You might be wondering – how am I supposed to do all of this without me being negatively affected by her at all?
The only way to do this, is by taking on this shift in perspective: be fully conscious of the fact that your experience of life, your feeling, your wellbeing, comes to you directly from Allah and not from any external source.
You fill yourself up from the Source of Love, then give that love and good energy freely to others – and in this case to your mother.
This is the secret of The Psychological Switch.
If you want a deeper training so you can embody this and learn how it applies to all types of relationships, especially (but not limited to) marriage, then check out the free web class at:
