Loving Difficult People

[reeay]

It's easy to have negative reactions to our parents when they are demanding and seemingly cruel or distant. In some ways your mother expects a certain pattern of behavior to occur when she demands you to do things. You might react by dragging your feet or getting annoyed. Maybe she takes that as a distorted show of love and affection. I dunno. We do things like be difficult bc we want to experience love from others, even when we know our actions may push people away. We are such bizarre creatures.

What if you surprise her by doing things that she asks of you in a loving way? I found that when working with difficult people, they tend to expect me to behave in a predictable way to their nagging or critiquing or drama-queenness. When I respond w/ love they become rather confused then surprised lol. Totally throws them off and they usually dunno how to react to it bc they never experienced people responding to their demandingness with love. Throw your mom a bit off guard... she might resist it at first but she might learn that using demands and emotional threats isn't working or isn't necessary anymore. Usually when people are 'stuck' in their habitual way of relating to people (like be demanding or constantly giving threats and guilt trips or whatnot), it's very difficult to break from it.

How may you serve your mother with love?