Question: When I think of my parents, especially my mother, I feel compassion and a sense of debt. I feel like I was born as her child to take care of her when she gets older, however, there are times when I feel sorry, or even hateful towards my 94-year-old mother when she does not do what I say and then I feel a pang of conscience that I should not have these uncomfortable feelings. My mind as a son and my mind as a caregiver are in conflict. As an ascended master student, how should I deal with these feelings?
Answer from the Ascended Master Mother Mary through Kim Michaels. This answer was given during the 2023 Korean Conference.
This is, of course, a very difficult topic to give a general advice on because the cultures are so different in terms of relationship between parents and children. There are many cultures where children are brought up with this sense of obligation, having to take care of their parents. And there are, of course, also parents who project this upon their children. Yet, you will also see that there are other cultures where things have shifted so that there is not that same obligation towards the parents. And generally, what we can say is, in the world, there is this tendency that as countries become more affluent, more modern, get better social services, then there is a tendency that the sense of obligation towards parents diminishes, so that people feel less obligated because there is a better social safety net to take care of retired people.
How should you deal with this on an individual basis? Well, as an ascended master student, you can use our tools to get to see what kind of selves you have, from past lives or from this life, relating to your relationship with parents, your attitude towards parents, the way you look at parents. This must be an individual evaluation because what is your, we might say, karmic relationship with your parents coming from past lives? Is there some karma that you wanted to pay back by taking care of your parents in this lifetime? Or do you feel you do not have any karmic tie to your parents anymore, and therefore you are more free to move on?
What I recommend is that you use our tools for exposing the separate selves, even going back to past lives, overcoming any self you have in your relationship to parents. Or even your view of yourself as child, as a son, or daughter, and how you relate to parents, even your own children. And then, when you have resolved some of these selves, you can come to a point where you are now free, free to actually decide what will you do about your individual situation. It does not necessarily mean that you abandon taking care of your parents, but it may mean that now you can overcome the sense of obligation and the sense of frustration so that you can be more direct with your parents and say: “I will take care of you if you do your part, and this is what I want from you.”
I understand that this can be difficult if they have some kind of disease such as dementia where they have a decreased mental capacity, but still, in many cases, it will be very helpful if you can have an open and direct communication. This, of course, is often blocked because even in childhood you start building a relationship with your parents where you cannot communicate with them. But as I said, when you work on the selves, you can come to a point where you are free of this, and now at least you can be more free and more direct with your parents.
There is a certain dynamic that is often created that the parents are the authority figures as long as you are a child, and the parents often want to maintain that sense of being the ones who are in charge and that you are the child and you are obligated. But when you overcome your separate selves, you can switch and realize that when your parents get old and cannot take care of themselves, then you need to reverse the roles so that you actually become the authority figure and you define for your parents: “I will take care of you if you fulfill these conditions. And if you will not change and will not fulfill these conditions, I will not take care of you. Because I will not do it based on the dynamic we have had in our relationship so far.”
This is a right you have, at a certain point, to define this. You, for that matter, have the right to define this with your children as well, especially when they become teenagers. You have a right to define: “This is what I can accept when you are living in my house.”
What often blocks this kind of communication is that you have built this dynamic based on the separate selves that you have. So you need to look at the situation and say: “How likely is it that my parents are going to change? That they are going to start working on their psychology and overcome their separate selves? If I am an ascended master student, who is the one who is capable of changing the dynamic? Who can look at their psychology and change their selves? Well, obviously, I am the only one who can do this. I must do the work on myself first, and then I can see how the dynamic of the relationship can change.”
Copyright © 2023 Kim Michaels