Nobody Is Upset for the Reason They Think

It is the day after Easter. During a cozy family gathering, a situation arises between my mother and one of my children that, looking back, leaves me feeling uncomfortable.

I decide to bring it up. Well, not exactly “bring it up” in person—I am not much of a phone person, so I text my mother and tell her that I wanted to share something about the day before. I explain that I noticed one of her comments had not landed very well with my son, and I try to explain why that happened and how it might be approached differently.

In raising my children, it is important to me that they feel understood. Whenever I think they may have been hurt by something, I try to resolve it. I try to talk through their feelings with them and make sure uncomfortable situations are worked through.

My mother does not respond the way I had hoped. I do not understand it. I had often talked with my mother about parenting, and she would frequently say that she had not understood much about parenting when she was younger, and that she had struggled to really listen to her children and had therefore, unintentionally, sometimes completely missed what they were feeling.

So I wanted to teach her how it could be done differently, and what a better response might look like. Why are we getting stuck here now? Our opinions are different. What am I not seeing? 🤔

The next day my mother tells me that what I had sent her had triggered her. But she also says that she can see something in me had been triggered too. Hmm… strange. I did not think this had anything to do with me, but rather with my mother and my son.

I decide to text my friend. I explain the situation and ask her, “What can’t I see in this conversation with my mother? Do I have a blind spot? I want to teach her how it can be better—surely that is something she wants to learn too?”

My friend replies, “Why do you feel the need to say this to your mother? Something is being touched in you, otherwise you could have left it alone and simply talked about it with your son.”

I begin to feel what is really going on inside me. I begin to feel sadness. I want to protect them! From everything. I want to catch them, explain things, solve all the sadness and discomfort.

The funny thing is that I often see other mothers who cannot say “no” to their children because they want to protect them from uncomfortable feelings, and so they say “yes” to everything. As a result, they end up with wildly spoiled children who think they can do whatever they want. And yes, I admit, I do judge that a little 😉.

But now I see that I do it too—just in a different way. I want my children to feel heard. As a child, I often did not feel heard, and that felt deeply sad. I have mostly made peace with that now, but I still remember how it felt back then, and it was not good. It hurt. I do not want that for my children.

And slowly I sink deeper into my sadness and begin to feel fear. A thought rises up:

“But if they do not feel heard… maybe they will die.”

Now the tears are streaming down my face 😢

My sadness takes me back to 2013. I have just given birth to my third son and I open my work email. Suddenly I see all these messages about the disappearance of the 17-year-old son of my dearest colleague.

A few days later he is found. On the very day I gave birth to my beautiful baby, my colleague lost her son. Without any warning, without any sign, he had suddenly ended his life.

A few days later, still aching in my pelvis from childbirth and still glowing with love for my newborn baby, I stand at a funeral in a room filled with grief and loss. Such a beautiful, young person, and yet he no longer wanted to live.

The fear and sadness lodged themselves in my body. And now, thirteen years later, at Easter, I have a conversation with my mother and discover that nothing is actually about what it seems to be about.

It was not about that conversation.

It was about my fear of losing my children because maybe I had not listened well enough. Because if I do not do it right, I will lose them. They might simply leave this life. Then I will not have done it right.

And once again the message of A Course in Miracles touches me deeply 💛

I had told myself a story, and I had come to believe it. I had used my relationship with my mother to tell myself that I am not good enough.

And I was mistaken.

My friend asks me, “Then what are you?”

“I am everything—love and light—and without me the universe cannot continue to turn.”

And I wipe the tears from my face and feel that I have come a little closer again to God and to myself ✨

— Inge Katuin