Talking about teenagers and our resilience journey, I started to think whether there is any benefit in continually reprimanding them for their bad choices when they are already aware of the fact they have “screwed up”.

Shouldn’t we change how we react?

Things we learnt in our childhood are sitting deep in our subconscious, determining our instant reactions as parents.

I am talking about how our parents reacted to us – and most of the time we pull out the same patterns with our children.

How many times do we hear our mother/father talking to our children through our mouth?

Furthermore, how our parents treated each other has an impact on our instinctive reactions to our spouse. There is no magic in it: we use the learnt behavioural patterns, until we consciously re-write them.

Why is it worth putting time and effort into something like this? We have already started when choosing to love, and acting accordingly, haven’t we?

To get from A to B we need to start with recognition:

realizing and admitting we need to change.

Unfortunately, we cannot do much without looking in the mirror and acknowledging our issues.

I think one of the most heart-breaking revelations is seeing our older child treating the younger one in a way our parents used to treat us, the way we have said we would never ever act.

Well, how has the child learnt this, if not from us?

However the painful realisation comes, we need humility to deal with it in a positive way. When we analyse our behaviour and can spot the triggering factors, we can create a plan to establish a new reaction. Having true friends around who can provide honest feedback can be quite beneficial. Many times just sharing our discoveries with someone trustworthy helps to find the solution when we describe it (either verbally or written). The further we step back from it, the bigger picture we get:

The easiest way to get out of a maze is to fly above it.

Figuring the way out, making the map and using it to reach the end. Once we can see our problems from a higher perspective we can identify more contributing factors and can have a better established response to deal with the situation.

Why is it us (always us!) who needs to put effort into these connections and relationships?

Well, if we don’t act, who will? Who else can change the outcome if not us?

There are things in life we have absolutely no control over. Nothing we can do will change these things happening. But the determining factors of the outcome are our own reactions to these things.

And it is resilience!

As long as we give the same reaction to the same issue the outcome will remain the same: no change has happened in the equation.

If we want change in the outcome we need to intervene in the one and only part which we have control over: our reaction.

We need to re-wire how we act through re-writing how we think.

As our innate reactions are rooted in our subconscious, we have to really push the new “how to” to replace the existing patterns.

It starts with declaration – as we made our choice to love, we need to hang onto it, even in the midst of turmoil. If we keep repeating “but I have declared I love” it will make us pause before we act, realising in our subconscious there is some contradiction between how we are about to act vs what we declare.

Pausing enables us to use the new reaction we have found, or simply gives us space and time to come up with an alternative response.

Either way we successfully changed one factor in the equation, so we can expect a modified outcome.

I think there is a huge misconception in our heads about love.

This might be one of the root issues from the topics discussed earlier. Some of us might have been brought up having to earn the love of our parents.

We had to prove we are worthy of their love.

We had to act in a particular way to gain their affirmation. Often refraining from acting in a particular way produced no positive feedback because “not doing that” was the expected behaviour. Picking up all the errors and neglecting any improvement, saying that the level reached is “the norm” so there is nothing to praise – won’t have contributed to developing a positive self-image.

The pattern seems to be painfully familiar:

being loved for what we did, not for who we were, leading us to embrace what we are instead of who we are.

It ended up rooting our identity in the what, because we missed out on the experience to be unconditionally loved for who we are.

The beauty of being grown up is that now we have a choice: we can say it is not good enough for us, so we want to change.

We want to discover and rely on, who we are, but where to start?

We tend to think of love as a feeling: we love our spouse when they act in a nice way – bring us flowers, a book, makes dinner, picks up the kids –, but dislike them (or should we rather honestly say “hate”?) when they disagree with us, doesn’t do what they promised, had a bad day and their tone is not the nicest. 

When we act like this, we are falling into the same trap: we love them for what they do.

And isn’t it easier to love our kids when they act in a nice manner rather than having a tantrum?

However difficult it seems, even impossible, we need to learn how to love them when they are having their tantrums. Again,

love does not mean the lack of healthy boundaries nor the affirmation of their behaviour.

So what is love?

Love is a choice.

Our choice.

Simple as it is.

We make a decision to love – our children, spouse, colleagues, boss, janitor, parents – and we stick to our choice.

It won’t come easily, it will take time to redefine our reactions until the new ones become the norm. Also, redesigning one reaction does not mean the automatic reshaping of our reactions for other situations, but the more we reconfigure the easier it will be. And in the meantime, we need to learn how to address our disapproval of certain acts. Which is another big chunk of sweaty work. So why would we bother with all this?

Well, there are two main reasons: us and them.

For them it would mean

they start experiencing being loved for who they are.

Not what they have or what they do, but simply who they are. And whether it is a close relative or even a stranger, it might start reshaping how they think of themselves.

It might trigger questions in them:

• Is it really possible that someone loves me despite how I act? Despite how despicable I am?
• Maybe there is more about me than my position?
• What has someone spotted in me that makes them believe I am valuable?
• Am I really worthy of love? How can it be?

They might even start a journey of re-establishing their identity on the ‘who’ instead of the ‘what’.

We cannot deny, humans are subjects of self-centredness 😉 so what are our benefits in all this?

First of all we step on a life-long journey of personal development.

We learn that we are capable of more than we think,

we have control over our behaviour.

We will slowly change in other areas as well, as our decision to love sneaks into our subconscious and starts its work there. As our perceptions and attitudes are gently altered, we change.

Our actions, tones, words chosen, start softening and this

triggers change in others around us.

They may get an unusual response from us which would likely make them stop and think – whether they re-think their own actions or analyse the change in us, it pulls them out of the recurring pattern of interactions. Their reactions start to alter.

And one day, out of the blue,

we realise that we do feel love for our child in the midst of their tantrum.

We empathise with them as we remember feeling as confused and hopeless as they might feel now, and we just simply leave them alone.

It is their battle with themselves.

And when our teen emerges later, pretending like nothing has happened, we know that our message has come through. Their silence is a form of acceptance and affirmation – of the rules and boundaries we, as parents, set up for their benefit.

They would not be afraid of doing the same to defend themselves.