A friend highly recommended the book by Dr. Judith Orloff, Emotional Freedom with the subtitle Liberate Yourself From Negative Emotions and Transform Your Life.  I agree…fascinating reading. 

I just finished reading the section on parental influence.  I read it two ways, first from the perspective of my parents’ effect on me, when suddenly it occurred to me that there was another way to look at it…from the perspective of the effects I had on my own children.   Gulp, that’s a lot of responsibility.  I found myself wishing I knew in my youth what I know now. 

Just a few days ago my son told a story on my other son.  His girlfriend was in the kitchen placing dishes in the dishwasher.  My son walked into the kitchen and immediately started re-arranging the dishes.  She ran him out of the kitchen, and they all three had a good laugh.  Guess who he was modeling?  The thing we have to remember is to be gentle with ourselves.  We all simply did and continue to do the best we know how at any given moment.  While we are busy forgiving others, we must remember to also forgive ourselves.

Orloff says, “Beloved or dreaded, these two people (your parents) emotionally molded you.  To achieve emotional freedom, you want to disentangle yourself from their worst traits and embody the best.”   Orloff recommends an exercise to help you rewire your psychological programming.  She suggests you list five positive traits for your mother and five for your father.  Then list five negative traits for your mother and five for your father.  She advises you to do your best to see your parents as human, rather than idealizing or demonizing them.  

I highly recommend that you give yourself a gift and complete this exercise.  Just going through the process will be amazingly revealing.  Orloff advises, “When reviewing the inventory, consider ways your parents’ assets or liabilities impacted you.”  The good news is “you have the choice to evolve past your parents’ limitations.”  Simply by becoming aware, you can remove yourself from an unconscious rut and decide to behave differently.

To take all of this parental influence one step further, today in our weekly “Sage-ing” group meeting we watched a video on EFT, Emotional Freedom Technique.  EFT is a technique of tapping with your fingers on certain acupuncture points.  You can Google “EFT” and find countless information on the subject.  There is some sort of connection between your body’s subtle energies, your emotions, and your health. EFT has been successful in thousands of cases involving emotional, health, and performance issues. It often works where nothing else will.

The part on the video that was so striking for me was the statement that children up to about age 6 take in everything they receive, unfiltered.  Of course, after that age negative emotions continue to be stored in the body.  Eventually those negative emotions, stored in the body cells, result in health issues.  Pain is a common indication of stored negative energy.  Massage therapists tell us it is not uncommon to be massaging a part of the body when the client bursts into tears, vividly recalling an incident from their youth – incidents they had not thought about since the original occurrence.

Just one negative statement by a parental figure can make a huge impact.  I recall an incident that occurred in a class I conducted a few years ago.  I divided the class into two teams…the “best teacher” and the “worst teacher.”   I sent both teams to the whiteboard with markers in hand.  I gave them just a few minutes to see which team could come up with the most characteristics.  Both teams filled the board with comments written every which way.  The teams sat down, and we slowly reviewed each characteristic, first starting with the “worst teacher” side.  One very seniored employee had written with a red marker, “5^th grade teacher: worst handwriting in her entire teaching career.”  I asked the class to time me as I read the following statement: “You have the worst handwriting I’ve seen in my entire teaching career!”  “How long did it take to say that?” I asked.  My next question: “How long did she remember it?”  You’re right – till she dies.  What power we have!  In 5 seconds or less we can place pain in someone’s heart for a lifetime. 

It may be impossible to take away something once we’ve put it out there.  Reading Emotional Freedom and watching the EFT video tell me it is so critical to watch what we project onto others, particularly our children.  Grandma was right… best to count to 10 before we speak.  There is such wisdom in the statement I once heard, “Let the words I say today be soft and tender, for tomorrow I may need to eat them.”  Hmm, not to mention what the recipient gets to do with them.