A brief reminder about blame and shame

Reading the above, it’s easy, as a parent, to realize where we failed. Maybe we worked too much when our children were small. Or maybe we were short-tempered. Or depressed. Or maybe we judged our kids really harshly. Or didn’t show enough affection. Or perhaps something else.

As Gabor says, “If you’re worried about whether you screwed up your kids, don’t worry. You did.”

What he means by that is, no parent is ever perfect. We are at least partly byproduct of what we experienced growing up. Nearly all of us had experiences that were traumatizing, and most of us, at least some of the time, had parents who missed the mark. Maybe a little, maybe a whole lot.

So how we “show up” as parents is, to some extent, a result of what we experienced as kids. Even when we’ve had therapy, or “done our work” or tried our hardest. No one can ever do a perfect job. What we can do is to try our best to let go of any self-blame or judgment, and do our best going forward.

The same is true for those of us struggling with addiction. We are the product of the experiences we’ve had. That, in turn, affected how our brains developed. It isn’t helpful to blame anyone for where we are in life.  Nor should we blame ourselves, even if achieving recovery has been a challenge.  When we accept and love ourselves exactly as we are, we begin to ‘rewire’ our brains and are on the path to recovery.