Insight and Self-Awareness Only Take You Part of the Way

It breaks my heart when I meet parents who have gone to workshops and, despite some great insights, didn’t experience any real changes afterwards in their day-to-day life. They still got triggered in the same kinds of situations with their teenager, they still had the same voices running in their heads and they still fell into their old reactions.

Because insight and self-awareness only take you part of the way toward becoming a grounded parent. And today I want to talk about what takes you the rest of the way from old ways of thinking to new ways of being with our young adults.

All of us have habitual perspectives and assumptions that are holding us back. A conditional belief is a way of seeing a situation based on specific conditions. It’s the belief that if you do X, then Y will happen. “As long as I am ultra-organized, then I won’t suffer the embarrassment of being late.” 

Remember, beliefs aren’t something you choose. You don’t walk by a store and think, "Ohhh, I want to believe that."

And they’re tricky because, well, beliefs don’t even occur as beliefs. They occur as truths — truths that have developed through your lived experiences. You came to see them as truths because of what you did, how you felt and the conclusions you reached somewhere in your past. 

 Most of my clients have conditional beliefs about being a good parent. They won’t say it at first. For example, a lovely client first said that, if she gave her son every opportunity, then he would be successful. And as we delved deeper, she amended this: “If I give my son lots of opportunities, then he will be successful and I will feel like a good parent.” This stopped her in her tracks, and she began to cry. And, uncomfortable as it was, it was also something she needed to see clearly if she was going to have it become less in control of her parenting.

How to Uproot a Conditional Belief

First, you have to recognize you have a conditional belief.

Don’t skip this one; it’s not as obvious as you might think.

Conditional beliefs are really hard to see in ourselves. Our minds are pretty clever at hiding things from our awareness. So you have to take a close look at the thing you hold as true: either the broken record in your head or what’s demonstrated by your reactions and habits.

Here are few I’ve encountered:

As long as I look ahead and anticipate what he’ll need, then I’ll prevent big family dramas.

If I save her from hassles and heartaches, then she will be happy and then I will be happy.

As long as I take care of everyone else’s needs first, then I’ll have done my job and be able to relax.

Take a moment to think about one of those distance-causing situations that keep recurring with your young adult child.

Got one?

If a friend was watching your behaviour from across the street, what belief might they think is driving how you behave? “She looks like someone who believes that as long as she ____, then ___ will happen.”

Or if you review the kinds of thoughts that run through your mind in those situations, what belief do they suggest? What are you trying to make happen and how are you trying to do that? “If I do _____, then ____ will happen.”

Let’s get these thoughts out in front of ourselves. Let’s write them down and say them out loud so we can begin to wonder…  Is this really true? What experiences have substantiated this? Could it more accurately be called ‘something I’ve come to believe as true’? 

This is the first step: seeing it as a belief, not an absolute truth. Without this, you will never change your way of interacting and relating with your teenager.

 And beware, your ego will try to maintain the status quo. It will hold on firmly and do everything it can to convince you that this is actually how things have to work. It’ll try to divert you with fear, self-doubt, panic, or a deep thick fog… Take a breath, steady yourself and keep going.

Let this investigation simmer this week, lifting the lid every day to check in with what you’re realizing, maybe writing in your journal.

When you land on a conditional belief, I invite you, as much as you might loathe it or fear it, to regard it with curiosity and gratitude. “Aha, this is what’s been driving me in those situations. It's good to see it clearly.”

NEXT WEEK: Step 2 of uprooting a persistent conditional belief that's driving your parenting.

Photo by Ali Maah on Unsplash

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