CHRISTIAN PARENTS of ESTRANGED ADULT CHILDREN Community Group
Estrangement makes it difficult to talk about with family, friends, neighbors and church members. Christians are NOT immune to broken families. Talk about your experiences with those who know how you feel and get positive support through your Christian faith...."In these last days difficult times will come, for men will be lovers of self...disobedient to parents,...
I started to think about what the perfect relationship with my EC would look like. What would the perfect relationship with me look like for my EC?
I read this meditation on Letting Go of Perfection that brought a different perspective on perfection:
"Stop expecting perfection from yourself and those around you. We do ourselves and others an injustice when we expect perfection from ourselves and from others. We set up a situation where others, including oursleves, do not feel comfortable. Sometimes, expecting perfection makes people so uptight that they and we make more mistakes than normal because we are nervous and focused on mistakes.
That doesn't mean we allow inappropriate behaviors with the exucse that nobody's pefect. That doesn't mean we don't have boundaries and reasonable expectations of people and ourselves. But our expectations need to be reasonble. Expecting perfection is not reasonable. People make mistakes.
Striving for excellence, purity in creativity, harmony and the best we have to offer doesn't happen in stymied, negative, fear-producting atmospheres of expecting perfection.
Have and set boundaries and have rasonable expectations. Strive to do your best. Encourage others to do the same. But know that we all will make mistakes. Know that we all have learning experiences."
I am glad that we have a perfect Saviour who accepts us with our imperfections. I pray I can accept my EC child the same way.
I read this meditation on Letting Go of Perfection that brought a different perspective on perfection:
"Stop expecting perfection from yourself and those around you. We do ourselves and others an injustice when we expect perfection from ourselves and from others. We set up a situation where others, including oursleves, do not feel comfortable. Sometimes, expecting perfection makes people so uptight that they and we make more mistakes than normal because we are nervous and focused on mistakes.
That doesn't mean we allow inappropriate behaviors with the exucse that nobody's pefect. That doesn't mean we don't have boundaries and reasonable expectations of people and ourselves. But our expectations need to be reasonble. Expecting perfection is not reasonable. People make mistakes.
Striving for excellence, purity in creativity, harmony and the best we have to offer doesn't happen in stymied, negative, fear-producting atmospheres of expecting perfection.
Have and set boundaries and have rasonable expectations. Strive to do your best. Encourage others to do the same. But know that we all will make mistakes. Know that we all have learning experiences."
I am glad that we have a perfect Saviour who accepts us with our imperfections. I pray I can accept my EC child the same way.
Nobody is perfect. I would never want to be married to a perfectionist......Um, let me restate that. I think it would be awesome to have a husband that was a perfectionist when it came to painting, carpentry, plumbing and laundry - BUT, very forgiving of my lack of perfectionism in housekeeping!!! Thank God that was not the eleventh commandment!!
Perfectionism can lead to other areas in our lives but most importantly the individual is the hardest on themselves. Sometimes perfectionism is a behavior to make us feel safe. "If we just have everything in order then we can go on to the next thing." Problem is, it can go wrong in an instant! Making the perfectionist feeling unsafe, and extremely critical of themselves.
And living with a perfectionist can drive others away. There's no room for mistakes or patience from the perfectionist. Its difficult to sit and talk because everything is "black and white." They don't see the grey areas that can produce harmony, and healthy relationships. If someone colors past the lines in a coloring book, the perfectionist has to try their best to correct it with much frustration, or they will throw it away and start over again. Absolutely no room for mistakes! I use to tell my kids that if they colored past the lines that its ok. I thought I taught them that they will make mistakes. Guess that's a road they would have to travel.
I don't like being perfect, but I was in my lifetime. I thought it kept me safe, and I had everything in place and in control. As long as I was able to control my enviornment the safer I would feel. What distorted thinking is that. However, children from an abusive home learn to make things safe around them. It is their only control. But the enviornment includes people! And when they can't control them, relationships are usually thrown out and they move on to those they can control. Now I am able to see many different aspects of a problem and strive to come up with a solution without forcing my opinion and that it has to be done my way or the highway!!! Now there's a trainwreck!!! God showed me the difference!
Good thought provoking post! I do believe that my ED has the perfectionism trait in her. So many times she demanded things from me and even if I responded with a soft "no", that was a word that was not in her vocabulary. I had to do it her way or the highway!!! Everything I did was wrong. She never allowed me to really help her, except financially. This happened as she became a young pre-teen and on. hmmmmmmm....wonder where she got that from? hehe
Thank God we grow, and make mistakes, and God helps us correct them and we are loved. Took me a while to get that, but I did, and that makes me really happy to be me!!!
:)