i am curious about my lesson. my mom is elderly and i manage her care. she was horribly abusive to me as a child and is capable of still being very nasty. i choose to try to interact with her on a higher level and mostly succeed. but sometimes i don't and get caught up in her negatively and games.

i cannot share my true self with her because she mocks and ridicules me. she has never seen me for who i am. just a quick example - i told her that me and my children would be making gifts for christmas this year and she said, "you can't do anything." my response was "is that what you think?" it is incredulous to me because i am very creative, but she has no clue. normally i would have been wounded by such a comment but i was able to not take it personally this time. but i have to be careful around her - i have learned to just be in the moment with no expectations and to ignore most of the digs and hateful comments. but as for what i am learning from her - the only thing i can think of is how to protect myself from evil people. how not to trust everyone or let down my guard with everyone. that kind of seems counterintuitive. seems like it would make more sense if i was learning TO trust instead of NOT TO trust, but everyone is not safe and good. some people are toxic. it is very sad when there are toxic people in one's family.

the other thing i have learned from my mother is to be independent. she did no nurturing, so i have had to take care of myself from a young age, and i have learned i was fully capable of doing so. so maybe i learned i have inner stength and resourcefulness. maybe i have learned that just because someone can't see good qualities in you doesn't mean you don't have them - so maybe it has been to trust myself and my thinking instead of trusting what other people say is true. it's an interesting exercise to see what the troubling parent might be teaching us. thank you.