Archive for the ‘Relationships’ Category

Dealing with Aging Parents

Friday, October 2nd, 2009 by Angela

We recently put my Mom who is 82 into a nursing home. Her diagnosis is vascular dementia. From the research, they say she would have up to 5 years and would probably die from a heart related condition like a stroke or a heart attack. It has been difficult knowing she ready to die. Right now, she is still capable of understanding and making decisions. Thus, we got her funeral arrangements in line and other wishes she has so we can’t fight about it as a family later and only honor her requests. 

I visit her more now that she lives closer. We had a challenging relationship over the years. Over the past several years, we have expressed all our feelings to each other. Today, we are closer than ever and have a greater appreciation for each other as well. The fighting over the years, the truth telling on both our parts, I believe created a more intimate relationship. 

During our visits, I have told her I want her to die in peace. It has been a wonderful process for me with my mom to be reviewing her life. I have enjoyed knowing her more and sharing with her about my feelings about my experience of her. It has been healing for both of us. I have been supporting her with coming to terms with her life and how she lived. She is expressing more feelings. I am experiencing her in transforming her life. She is ready to die and that saddens me. I am challenging her to have a purpose in these final years rather than just waiting.

I know when my mom dies, I will be sad, yet I will also be happy for knowing we will feel nothing but love for each other and hopefully my mom will feel less shame and regret about her life. I can say this has been only possible because of the personal growth work I have done over the years at the Wright Leadership Institute. It has been by my decision to be honest with her and her with me and talking about all the “unconventional” feelings and judgments that most families would say you shouldn’t say to each other. This has created more closeness than I ever thought I would have.

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Night Fright Resolved in the Family System

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 by Gertrude

Who knew that by my husband and I talking about our current fears our daughter would no longer be afraid to go to bed! It all started one night when our daughter was six years old and she got up during the night and could not find us in the house. We were in the very back of our basement on the computer, but when she called down there we didn’t hear her. She was really scared and eventually made her way back there to find us. But it started a pattern where every night when we put her to bed she was afraid and she wanted to know where we were going to be in the house or tell us we couldn’t leave the second floor.

We tried reasoning with her and telling her we wouldn’t leave her alone and that we would be somewhere in the house. She would cry and beg us not to leave. We set up a system where we put a stuffed animal on the top of the stairs to let her know we left the floor. None of it made a difference

We brought the issue into our parenting coaching session with Dr. Bob Wright and we were surprised that rather than try and figure out what was wrong with her, he asked how the two of us were doing and what we were afraid of but not talking about. What did this have to do with our daughter’s night fright? Knowing a bit about family systems I understood that sometimes if feelings are being withheld in the system someone else will play those feelings out. It turns out that once we started talking my husband and had a lot we were afraid of. He had just started his own company and I had recently gone back to work after having been a stay at home mom for four years. These were exciting changes but we were ignoring the fear we were experiencing. Once we started openly expressing this fear with each other and talking as a family acknowledging the changes that were going on my daughter’s fears literally stopped! She had unconsciously been playing out the fear in the family system. So now, whenever one of our daughters starts acting out in some way we look at what is going on with each other as the first step in dealing with it.

www.wrightparenting.com

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“Sacred Travel” to a Park

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 by Angela

It was a average day and it looked like rain. I had several errands to run before work and didn’t have much time. My son who is 2 really wanted to go to the park. I scheduled out the morning and worked it out to have about an hour to get to and from the park and have maybe 45 mins to play there and then I would go straight to work.

As the morning progressed, things were moving along and of course you don’t plan for the little detours that happen. The time was getting tighter. I looked at the clock and I have 35 minutes to go to the park. My mind went back and forth- go, not go. I had all the reasons in the world to not go- not enough time, it probably will rain, etc. 

Suddenly, I remember what I had learned from Judith Wright over the years on the sacred travel trips and pilgrimages she leads each year. We would be in a different city and we would have a small window of time. She would have us go into a museum and see one specific painting she read about or go into a temple and pray and meditate or wherever she would have us go. We would take in the awe and wonderment of that place in a short period of time realizing you don’t really need that much time to have a great experience yet I know I tell myself all the time that I need more time to do it. 

With that memory, I said we are going to the park. I cruised there with my son in the baby jogger, me in my work attire and computer bag. We got to the park and I set my timer for 22 minutes. I told my son we only have a small time to play and let’s go. He had a blast in those 22 minutes. He went up and down the slide several times, hung from the monkey bars. He even met a little friend who lives close to where I work and I met her mom. We all connected in a short period of time. I felt I had a pilgrimage moment at a park.

I am grateful for the lessons I have learned on the trips Judith Wright has lead. I have learned how to experience life more fully and it has transformed how I travel and how I take “mini” trips every day.

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Raising a Billionaire – Parent Advice from Bill Gates, Sr.

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 by Gertrude

Guess who gave this response when asked what the best advice he ever got was?

“Well, my dad and my mom were great at encouraging me as a kid to do things that I wasn’t good at, to go out for a lot of different sports like swimming, football, soccer, and I didn’t know why. At the time I thought it was kind of pointless, but it ended up really exposing me to leadership opportunities and showing me that I wasn’t good at a lot of things, instead of sticking to things that I was comfortable with. It was fantastic, and now some of those activities I cherish. They had to stick to it because I pushed back a lot, but it was fantastic advice.” (Fortune, July 2008)

Unless you saw the article in Fortune magazine I doubt you would guess it was Microsoft billionaire, Bill Gates. I know I would not have because I would think someone so successful would say the best advice he got was more directly business focused. But as a mom I am really struck by both the simplicity of it and the power of it. To me the point isn’t so much that his parents just put him in a bunch of activities. I see it as guiding my children to develop as many aspects of themselves as they can and to stick with the ones that are challenging and not give up.  I like remembering that I can be strategic and set standards for my family around participating in diverse activities.  We have said things like you will play so many different types of sports and you will master one of them. We also expect challenges and failures and strategize how we are going to deal with them ahead of time. As I am writing this I am bubbling with just how rich the “advice” from Mr. Gates is. Let me know what you are thinking and I will add more in my next blog. Gertrude

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