Being Estranged From Loved Ones

For anyone who has been alienated from a loved one for any duration of time, the level of pain is beyond description.  The more I share my story, the more stories I hear.   It's appalling to hear how many families have been devastated by this horrific endemic.

This prayer below was written by a beautiful woman who also has been alienated from her son and 3 grandchildren.  It brought me a bit of comfort and I'm posting it here with hopes that it may do the same for you: 

IT IS FINISHED

I will no longer fight for another person's approval....

I will no longer fight to be a part of someone’s life who clearly doesn’t want me in it.

I will no longer fight about who did what, where, why, and how.

I will no longer fight.

PERIOD.

I will however let you go.

When someone refuses to work through disagreements, problems, face truths, apologize, talk about the past in order to fix what’s wrong in the present, why should we fight to just simply be in their life?

When there is no fight left and we are just beyond hearing BS excuses, we might go along with things and hope and believe they will be better and resolved, but no matter what we do or say things have a way of going back to not being okay again. We cannot fix the past if we don't talk about the problems in the past that prevent future mistakes. It does not work.

Sometimes people have lived their lives far too long fighting to be loved, accepted, understood, and trying to be what other people want them to be. But, we cannot be what others want or require. We can only be our authentic selves. When you have done all you can and it is still not good enough, perhaps it is time to stop striving and approach life a different way.

What is that different way? It is to walk out of the stress and depression of striving and into the sunshine of HOPE…hope for the future; hope for better days, either with our without loved ones alongside us; hope for healing within ourselves and healing within our loved ones; hope for a stronger will to go on. All we can do is hope for others to wake up and realize what damage they have done and that sometimes they won't get the chance to have us fight for them again.

May you be filled with these hopes today and may you be comforted in the knowledge that you do not walk this path alone. Others walk it with you and even shine their light upon the path to help you navigate it. If our loved one later comes to the place that they want to meet us halfway, we can always decide at that time whether (or not) we want to open the door to our lives to them again. By Carolyn Smith