Don't blame your parents for your failures

There is a saying about how you can't blame your parents for your life being bad once you're the one in the driving seat.

We're pretty much in the driving seat once we move out of home. Sure, we still have our parents voices in our head, and if it was negative it's hard to get those voices to stop. Sometimes it's even hard to like ourselves depending on the type of damage your parents have done.

Still it's up to us to take over the wheel and be the drivers of our own life and stop blaming our parents and using them as our excuse for failure.

Are you guilty of this? Have you struggled to let go of the hurt your parents inflicted on you? Have you struggled to be a better parent than they were because you don't know any other way?

They key to letting go of the past and who your parents told you you are is finding yourself. Finding those things that make you happy and going for it.
Let me explain by using a scenario for you.

There is a woman who was abused and neglected by her parents, told awful things about herself, and further bullied at school. Growing up she was surrounded by people telling her she was a freak, abnormal, weird. This left her feeling like an outsider her entire life and it followed her into adulthood. She has little self-esteem and is often walked all over by others and doesn't' stand up for herself. She buys friendships by being overtly giving, allowing others to use her generosity (and get herself into debt) because she wants people to like her.

Her personal truth is that there is something wrong with her, that no-one likes and she should just die and do the world and herself a favour. All because she hasn't found her true self yet. She hasn't been able to discard those voices in her head telling her she's worthless and nobody likes her.

Yet the reality is nothing like what her parents and peers have led her to believe. Those who meet her for the first time and have no preconceived ideas about her find her warm, caring, intelligent and talented. Yet... she ends up, after a while, being sad and wishy washy with people (a major dreamer who never achieves her goals because deep down she doesn't believe she can and therefore never really tries) because she's letting her past drive her future. And it's hard not to. It really is. It's hard to let go of those voices of your parents who supposedly know you well, telling you there's something wrong with you. I get it. I know.

How do you go about finding yourself? It is certainly easier said that done and something many of us struggle with. There are a couple of key steps that you may find hard but strength is built slowly over time, just the way your strength and self-esteem were chiseled away over time.

1. Stand up for yourself. By that I don't mean be combative. However you should not tolerate unfair treatment from people. If your friends treat you badly, tell them this is not ok, that you expect better from them, and if they still don't change, move on and get new friends or have none because no friends are better than a room full of fakers. Remember also that these people don't actually have the power to make you feel bad about yourself, only you can allow that to be the way you feel. Often we feel frustrated in situations not because the person was an idiot, but because we allowed them to be.

2. Know that others do not have the power to define you. You define you. And if you're feeling like a failure because you're not achieving your dreams and letting that define you, then either move towards your dreams or let them go, knowing that it's ok because you mustn't have really wanted those dreams enough to go for them.

3. Don't drink and drug your life into an oblivion thinking this will cure you. Burying woes under addictions means you never face your woes, never tackle them head on, never get over them. If you do drugs to make yourself feel like a better person you'll only come down with sobriety and realise you're still the same person you hated yesterday.

4. Find something to do that makes you like who you are and how you feel doing it. Something real that makes you feel alive and do it regularly to keep those good feelings coming. This could be painting, bush walking, dance classes, sewing that dress you've always wanted to make, yoga, gym classes, going back to school, save money for a long term goal...

5. Be charitable. One of the best ways to feel good about yourself is to help others. Feed the homeless, teach English to migrants, volunteer for Life Line, help out a mate. Giving back to others has an amazing effect on the soul. I'm not talking generosity here, giving away your last dollar because you want to buy that friendship. Being charitable doesn't need to cost money and you're not doing to buy friends, you're doing it to feel good about your selfworth.

6. Spend time by yourself getting to know you, who you really are, what you like, what makes you feel happy and good about yourself. Often people who don't like themselves spend very little time alone learning to like themselves. They dislike heir own company so much and fear that being alone will only have them wallowing in self-pity or self loathing. You have to be constructive, not destructive, with your alone time.

7. Like yourself. If you don't like yourself how do you expect anyone else to? And remember what your parents or peers told you about who you are IS NOT who you really are. They may have ruined your childhood but don't allow them to ruin your adulthood as well.

Be gentle and kind on yourself because YOU matter.