I give up

“To heal a wound you must stop scratching it.”

-Paulo Coelho

My father has badly hurt my feelings, time and again. I hold terrible grudges against him since childhood. He has let me down throughout childhood and has never admitted to his mistakes. He is extremely selfish even when he is supposed to be a “caregiver” according to the universal rule of our society. Needless to say, I end up having expectations from him (really basic ones, I swear!) which always remain unfulfilled. He only cares about himself and his convenience at all times.

Yesterday, I felt extremely helpless. Even though he hasn’t fulfilled his moral obligations towards me, I am expected and obligated to do so. Whenever I am asked to do this, all the memories of being terribly hurt in the past, disappointments, unfulfilled wishes, unmet expectations come rushing back to me and I feel helpless. He has absolutely “NO RIGHT” to expect anything from me, yet he does so, with pride. I end up screaming, yelling, trying to bring some sense into him without respite. Nothing works, nothing has ever worked when it comes to this man.

I have no choice left but to give up.

I give up having expectations from him, of any kind or nature whatsoever

I absolutely do not give him power to make me feel helpless and hopeless in life

I take back his ability to act as a hindrance in my journey of personal growth

I do not wish to enter into conflicts of any kind or nature with him

I take total responsibility of building my life from scratch and do not expect any help or support, whether emotional or financial from him

I will fulfill all my obligations towards him without fighting it (whenever I have tried to fight my way out of this, they end up mounting and become multi fold. The Universe is never in sync with my escape attempts and wants me to go through this pain. All I can do is change my attitude towards it so that it stops hurting me or have any impact on me.)

This is not a one time process and will require daily dedicated practice till the time I am immune to this pain and don’t allow such situations to have an adverse impact on my mental health. I wish to never feel hopeless and helpless in my life anymore due to such situations.

I’ll try to use the following techniques to deal with such situations whenever I need to encounter them :-

• Take deep breaths when the mind starts churning out negative thoughts at the speed of light
• Calm yourself down, go for a walk or a stroll, listen to music, write in your journal, do anything that works to divert your mind from the current situation
• Be quiet, try to avoid conversation with the person who is the source of your pain (in my case I end up using harsh words to prove my point which ends up making me feel guilty without having any impact on the person)
• Know that you are NOT at fault here, you are NOT being punished, nothing is being taken away from you, you are NOT destined to be unhappy or in pain, this is NOT your reality. The Universe always has a way of balancing things out, GIVE with an open heart and positive mindset
• You are HELPING someone out of their misery, you ARE doing a good deed, try to avoid taking such situations to heart, have NO expectations in return

I somehow feel that this the thing that has been holding me back all this while. If I make a tiny change in my mindset, I can look forward to a fulfilled and abundant life.