5 Strategies For Peace And Patience During Parental Estrangement
Living in peace and working toward reconciliation with your estranged child are not mutually exclusive.
As an estranged mother who is missing your child, one of your top priorities is reconciliation with your estranged child. That’s understandable. And at the same time, every day that you have breath in your lungs, you are given a gift of life from Jesus. It is God's will for you to make the absolute most of that gift of life, and to not throw it away because you are experiencing parental estrangement.
In this podcast episode (and blog post), I’ll walk you through…
How to live a life infused with peace and patience when you’re estranged
The role of patience in creating a peaceful lifestyle
5 strategies for peace and patience during parental estrangement
Click below to listen to the podcast episode, or skip down for the blog post.
Read the blog below…
Hello, and thanks for stopping by the blog. Today, I want to teach you 5 strategies for living with peace and patience when you’re experiencing parental estrangement. We all want peace, but patience is a key to living with peace when you’re estranged. You need both.
In our microwave society, we’re conditioned to want things “yesterday”. We have access to instant food, instant entertainment and instant ways to communicate with people.
We want our desires on demand, and that’s just not the way God works sometimes. He may be growing something in you that requires time to fully develop. His ways are higher than ours, and we have to come under obedience and learn to embrace peace in the waiting seasons.
You get there through cultivating patience. Peace and patience go hand in hand. Here are 5 strategies to step into more patience and peace, during the estrangement from your adult child…
#1 - Identify what is in your control.
One of the things that causes that anxious sense of urgency is focusing on things that are out of your control. When you do that, you're actually being unkind to yourself. Because you’re holding yourself responsible for an outcome you can't control.
Instead, look for what is within your control and focus your energy there. This is a much healthier way of showing up during the estrangement, and it gives you something to work towards where you can affect change.
One of the things I teach my estrangement coaching clients is how to identify what is within their control, and then creating a strategy for making the most impactful changes in those areas. This eliminates wasted time and ensures that you’re spending your energy on the things that actually move the needle towards reconciliation with your child.
#2 - Develop a healthy tolerance for discomfort.
You have been conditioned to think of discomfort as something you want to get rid of as quickly as possible. That’s not always a bad thing, but it can prevent you from growing in the way God intends.
When you go to the gym and you get sore muscles, that is a type of discomfort that you actually enjoy. You might not like the feeling of having sore muscles but you like knowing that it's working. The discomfort is a sign to you that the workouts are working and you are changing for the better.
I invite you to think of the discomfort that comes from doing the work for reconciliation in much the same way. You don't have to run from discomfort, and in fact, you can develop a healthy tolerance for it. When you do that, you find more peace.
#3 - Tap into empathy.
Stepping into empathy reduces your frustration level and helps you feel more connected and loving toward your estranged child.
For example, maybe you are feeling frustrated because your child ignored your text… Think of a time when you have done something similar.
Maybe you ignored somebody's message, even though you care about them. Maybe you didn’t return a phone call for months because you were going through something.
Whatever it is, think about having compassion for yourself when you did that. Consider how you weren't trying to be a bad person, but you had reasons. Really let yourself feel compassion for who you were in that moment when you made that decision to ignore the person's message, email or so forth. Now transfer that compassion and empathy to your child.
#4 - Manage your emotions.
This is such a big one for developing patience and peace. When you manage your emotions, you also manage what you think and what you do.
It starts with what you think and that gives way to an emotion, and then that emotion influences what you either do or avoid doing. Ultimately all of this works together to produce an outcome, or a result. Managing your emotions starts with managing your thoughts.
Take inventory of the thoughts that you are practicing over and over, whether on purpose or by accident. Anytime you’re feeling short on patience, or you are feeling not at peace, I guarantee some of your thinking is getting in the way.
I give my clients a five step process to recognize those low quality thought cycles, and to correct them so that they manage their emotions. This skill is vital to reconciliation because your estranged son or daughter will say some things that trigger you.
When you have the ability to manage your emotions, you don't get into the pool with them. You stay in control of your emotions. You are more regulated, more of the time.
But even if you never work with me, I want you to find some ways to manage your thoughts and thereby manage and your emotions. That might be journaling, walking in nature or talking with a friend.
Whatever it is for you, come up with a strategy to start managing your emotions; it will give you greater patience and deeper peace when you're waiting for the breakthrough to come.
#5 - Put yourself in emotionally safe spaces, on a regular basis.
Part of what causes you to lose a sense of peace, and to come up short on patience, is the fact that estrangement is a trauma. If you are still within the estrangement, you are still in a major trauma.
It throws your central nervous system into a tailspin. When you have a de-regulated central nervous system, it is very difficult to practice patience, and it might feel difficult to tap into the peace that is available to you.
One of the best ways that you can begin to regulate your nervous system, and feel better, is to put yourself into emotionally safe spaces where you feel loved and accepted. This could be your church community. This could be certain family members or close friends.
It could even be an online support group for estranged mothers… but caveat here: be very cautious of what support community that you align yourself with because many of them are really just cesspools for commiserating and negativity.
If you’re looking for a positive, emotionally safe Christian support community for estranged mothers, I invite you to join us at estrangedmoms.community. But however you choose to go about it, put yourself into emotionally safe spaces on a regular basis. And make sure that these are Christian spaces, as much as possible.
It is very possible to work toward repairing the broken relationship with your child while also living in peace and practicing calm patience. Putting these 5 tips into action is a good place to start.
Okay, friend. That’s what I have for you this time, and I hope it blesses you.
Love, Jenny
If you’re going through family estrangement from your adult son or daughter, I can help you. Click here to learn how I can help you with your estrangement situation. Or go here to schedule your free consultation to explore working together.
Jenny Good is a Podcaster, Certified Cognitive Behavioral Coach and Certified Family Estrangement Coach. She is a Thought Leader in reconnecting mothers and adult children, and she specializes in family estrangement, reconciliation and emotional healing support for Christian estranged mothers.