Reframing Expectations
- Donald Gerard
- Aug 4
- 2 min read
by Shelley Durga Karpaty
Dear Parents,
Please know that the healing and growth you do for yourself is a great gift to your children. Integrating that growth into your bloodline allows your children to discover who they are as individuals and to create their own path.
There is no greater act of selfless love than this, I believe it, I’m here for it.
Self compassion is only one facet of this path.
Be love,
Shelley
Perhaps your life isn’t the way you had hoped it would be. Maybe your job, bank account, primary relationship, or even parenting skills have seen better days. Maybe it’s been difficult to get anything done, and the ball keeps getting dropped because you’re busy managing tasks like doctor’s appointments and medication for your loved one. Or maybe you are worried because your young adult is overmedicating on substances and living on the street. Maybe there’s a child who is neuro-divergent, recently diagnosed on the spectrum, and you’re learning new words and ways to communicate. Or it’s an ongoing battle with your child in their development in general.
As a parent of a young adult living with mental health challenges, some days it’s joyful and some days it’s filled with sadness. Some days I even feel like I’m the child and he’s the parent, as I so desperately want his attention, acknowledgement for more than 3 seconds, and words that express his feelings over the meal I have prepared.
Attending a few different parent groups has helped me tremendously over the last 9 years. It’s not easy finding the right combination of facilitators and parents to meet the unique needs of individuals.
For the last month, I have been hosting a Friday Zoom for my subscribers at 4 pm PT, where we meet for about 40-60 minutes. It’s a check-in of sorts with the framework of grounding, a metta practice, followed by a reading to prompt a discussion about the current state of parenting...
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