Loving Difficult People

[Steppingfeet]

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?

Of all the great replies to your question, GW, I take fire most from Reeay's response.

What she describes is not the obvious road to many people facing challenging catalyst from another. Generally speaking, our first response to poor treatment and misunderstanding from another is to defend, or push back, or blame, or create friction -- leading ultimately to some form of separation (if the gears of honest-loving communication with an eye toward reconciliation are not put into motion).

It takes an act of will and creativity to even see this road as a possibility, and a lot of internal work to be able to walk it, much less. In my own life my first instinct has not always been to find this road, but to react in knee-jerk ways.

However I find that orienting yourself to the question, "How may I serve her?", and, as reeay said, responding with love (especially when it's unexpected) is one of the best ways to clarify the situation, and to find the high road, tough though it may be to walk. It is a humbling road.

And in seeking that path, I think it helpful to realize that the outer actions of your mom, and your own, are pointing to deeper dynamics between you two. Dynamics that are not being clearly communicated, but that are emerging in these disharmonies between you.

Just my two cents. I'm perpetually under the veil of confusion so please ignore if not helpful.

With love/light,
GLB

PS: Thank you reeay for formulating your thoughts that way. I needed to read that today.