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What is your "true north"?
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<blockquote data-quote="Tanya M" data-source="post: 661175" data-attributes="member: 18516"><p>Great question.</p><p></p><p>When my son was born my identity took on a new meaning, I was now ********'s mom. I remember at little league games, I was not known by name but ********'s mom. When things were going good in the early years I loved that, being know as *******'s mom but when my son started getting into trouble the "tone" of being *******'s mom changed, it went from "oh, you're ******'s mom" to "ooohhhhhhh, So YOU'RE *******'s mom" It wasn't hard to figure out that behind that "tone" was "you're the mom of the trouble maker, the one who skips school all the time, the one who got arrested, etc....."</p><p>I felt so ashamed. What once used to fill me with joy now filled me with dread.</p><p>I had to fix him, I had to make this right, after all that's what a "mom" is supposed to do, make everything ok for her child.</p><p></p><p>I became so obsessed with trying to "fix" my son and his problems that I completely lost myself.</p><p>As Echo said:</p><p></p><p>For me, this took many years to come to the realization that everything I was doing to "help" was not.</p><p>My detachment was a slow process and there were a few times that I got sucked back into the chaos of trying to "fix" or "rescue" him.</p><p></p><p>As my detachment from him became easier I started to really think about MY life. I reflected back over all the years I spent focused on my son and started wondering how much of MY life had I missed. I thought about the things I used to do that brought me joy, things I stopped doing because I was so caught up in "helping" my son. Slowly, I started adding things back into my life and an amazing thing happened, I started to feel some joy returning. I started getting more involved in my church and doing volunteer work. My life started to make sense again, I finally had direction "my true north".</p><p></p><p>I have a very full life that I truly enjoy. That is my hope for my son, that someday he too will be able find joy in his life.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tanya M, post: 661175, member: 18516"] Great question. When my son was born my identity took on a new meaning, I was now ********'s mom. I remember at little league games, I was not known by name but ********'s mom. When things were going good in the early years I loved that, being know as *******'s mom but when my son started getting into trouble the "tone" of being *******'s mom changed, it went from "oh, you're ******'s mom" to "ooohhhhhhh, So YOU'RE *******'s mom" It wasn't hard to figure out that behind that "tone" was "you're the mom of the trouble maker, the one who skips school all the time, the one who got arrested, etc....." I felt so ashamed. What once used to fill me with joy now filled me with dread. I had to fix him, I had to make this right, after all that's what a "mom" is supposed to do, make everything ok for her child. I became so obsessed with trying to "fix" my son and his problems that I completely lost myself. As Echo said: For me, this took many years to come to the realization that everything I was doing to "help" was not. My detachment was a slow process and there were a few times that I got sucked back into the chaos of trying to "fix" or "rescue" him. As my detachment from him became easier I started to really think about MY life. I reflected back over all the years I spent focused on my son and started wondering how much of MY life had I missed. I thought about the things I used to do that brought me joy, things I stopped doing because I was so caught up in "helping" my son. Slowly, I started adding things back into my life and an amazing thing happened, I started to feel some joy returning. I started getting more involved in my church and doing volunteer work. My life started to make sense again, I finally had direction "my true north". I have a very full life that I truly enjoy. That is my hope for my son, that someday he too will be able find joy in his life. [/QUOTE]
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What is your "true north"?
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