How Can You Heal Your Heart With A Toxic Family Member?
This year I spent a lot of time with some women who shared some really tough situations with family members. While their stories were somehow different; the pain was the same.
As I reflect back to my time with my own dysfunctional mother, I feel a sense of relief that I don't have to deal with the anxieties that came along with her day to day antics that were always stressful. When you deal with a parent who doesn't react to life in the same way as most parents do, you have to find ways to work around them, through them, and sometimes without them. Common sense and reasoning go out the window, but I found that my strong faith always girded me up to handle whatever came my way with my mother. That and setting strong boundaries!
Hi, I’m Phylis Mantelli
I’m an author, speaker, and life coach to unmothered women based in the Bay Area of California. On this blog, you will read about encouragement, family life, coaching, and my podcast. Learn more about me.
She was a difficult person for sure, with some mental instabilities, but my heart wanted to love her anyway. God showed me a way to keep myself safe from her insults, threats, and fearful reactions that as a child I was so scared of, to one of staying calm in the storm and sometimes walking away for a bit to protect my heart.
God is a protector of all families no matter what and He will guide any one of you through the storms of life especially when you are dealing with difficult decisions within a family member. Too many times we react in a negative way when a parent comes at us or wants to "put us in our place" as my own mother did so many times because even though she wanted me to take care of her she didn't want to lose her power over me as I became an adult. But instead of raging at her, God showed me how to distress the situation by remaining calm and steady. These were things that were never present in my Mom's life, and they took her by surprise! By doing a NEW thing, I was able to defuse the very things she wanted to fight me on.
As she came to her final days on this earth, there were times she would say something so sweet to me it almost knocked me over! By showing her trust, love and kindness, she knew I had her best interest at heart even if it was hard for her to believe.
Ezekiel 36:26 says: "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh"
Sometimes there are moms (or dads) that are too dangerous for us to even contemplate helping like this, so in that case I say to write out a new format for your life and tell that "inner child" that you must say goodbye to that parent and protect you and your future.
But if there is a place for healing the hearts in a family; please do it! We are seeing too many families being torn apart in this modern age we are in; people giving up and throwing family out the door, but we must honor that family(even from afar sometimes) so we can continue to grow and create a new generation that is spirit filled and one that God smiles on and says "Well done my child!: