Hey Lux, it came out a bit long so I put some headlines. hope any of this helps at least a little.
I’ll give my thought on this topic, it is something I've faced myself. My views might be different from others’ views on the topic potentially, but so be it (just intend to communicate my experience here).
I first off think that it is important to realize that this isn’t at all a black and white problem with a black and white solution.
There isn’t a good guy or bad guy or right or wrong.
It is something that you work on over time; building a better relationship essentially.
…
Most relationships we are in we get to pick and choose.
If friends are shitty and affecting you for worse, you can get rid of them and make new friends.Same goes for girls.
Our parents though, we come from them.
With them you have an option I suppose to cut off your relationship with them, but doing so almost necessarily I would feel would come with some subconscious hurt and pains that would be lingering and potentially stay with you indefinitely and be something outside of your control.
This would be my theory, and the reason behind this I think is that we come from our parents. They're our origin, our home, our womb, where we are born from.
In a way they are a part of us and we are an extension of them.
We are part ourselves in what could be the software that is us but part our parents in the hardware of theirs that composes us. So to deny that and cut away from that is to reject a whole part of yourself. And that hurts viscerally and unconsciously.
Any of the guys… and there likely will be guys who say “oh just hang out with them less, spend time with them a ton less or cut them off altogether or your parents don’t get to pick your life, you get to and if they don’t get that tough fuck them”. They have that mindset and paradigm with some lingering bitterness, resentment, and hurt somewhere within them.
We ALL within us have deep unconscious need of want of respect from our parents as well as love, understanding, and acceptance. We as humans want our parents to be proud of us, to think that we have done them well, and that we are good children of theirs.
This fulfills some deep subconscious need of ours that is pretty high up there on the hierarchy of needs pyramid.
So that’s one thing going in to keep in mind.
…
What Ideal End(s) Would You Want?
I’m in a similar situation to you I suppose and probably a lot of the other guys on here are somewhat in one way or another like this to some degree with their parents.
Anyway, with my own relationship with parents and balancing/reconciling that with my own overarching goals, ambitions, and desires I posed myself the question: what would be, in my heart, an ideal path forward, and the ideal end that I would want in all this?
My answer was that: I would prefer that I could do what I want, how I want to, and also can have my parents love me, respect me, be proud of me, happy for me, care for me and have an otherwise warm, fulfilling, and satisfactory relationship with them that surpasses what most people have with their parents.
This would be what I would want.
Getting Your Parents to Like You; How Is that Achieved?
Now how would you go about achieving this desired goal?
With achieving goals with tangible things: it can be easier to work to just follow steps, deliberately practice, build a skill, and work to achieve the ends you seek.
However
When your goals involve other people, the process and steps involved do not progress in quite the same linear fashion.
This is tough to grasp for rational guys and it was frustrating and tough for me understand (I’m getting better at understanding this and working on bettering the skill still).
You would think that “to get parents to be happy with me and get along more with me, I have to do the things that they want and they’ll be more pleased in me”.
But in fact that isn’t quite it.
What makes your parents like you is far more complex because they are people and they have their own emotions, motivations, considerations and worries/fears as well as dreams and hopes for you.
To better have a relationship with them is building a relationship with them specifically catering to that.
And that comes with building a better rapport with them.
Building a Better Rapport
Once again my goal was that I get to largely, almost entirely get to do most of what I want, and get to have my parents happy, fine with it perhaps, but more than that, just proud of me, happy with me and in an ideal relationship with me.
I learned that building rapport with people, is largely nonverbal, and is more about being like them when with them, and how what you say is maybe worth 7% … this tony robbins video taught me this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dENi7K2lX4U, it is invaluable and I've been using these tactics everywhere the past few weeks. You have to watch this and learn to do this with your parents and any other people you are trying to build a better relationship and rapport with.
This skill makes it so that when you are around your parents and talking to them/doing things with them, they can naturally work to like you more.
Other things that go alongside this well are related key soft skills here of taking time to talk to them more, being empathetic, listening to them more, deep diving, and hearing more of what they have to say.
Also with this comes being nonjudgmental, nonreactive emotionally, and not getting angry, upset, bitter or lashing out towards them.
Mirroring the positive in them well and they will reflect that back very pleasantly and cheerfully back upon you.
When Your Views Diverge Significantly
I think that handling a relationship with your parents is a lot like doing so with girls.
You keep some distance and have some things you disagree on perhaps, but then it all comes back to you largely being able to relate to them, listen to them, and get them emotionally aligned with you.
The thing with that is that a lot of the time your view will, of course, not align completely. But that is ok.
And what you do there is you talk to them more emotionally, deep dive more, relate and mirror more and (here’s the key): work to learn the emotional motivations behind their positions and views. And get them talking about those more.
Your parents don’t want you to travel because they are worried you may get hurt or perhaps worried you won’t ever have children.
You can talk to them more, get the emotions going, and get them talking about their emotional motivations… and then can console those emotions in a mirrored empathetic way.
You kind of relate to what they say and reassure them and smile, and maybe come up with some things to say or do so that side of their emotions is better taken care of. Sometimes that involves you changing something (if you think you want to and can do so) but a lot of the time it ends up you just going and doing the same thing and them feeling emotionally better and fulfilled about it all and about you too.
In doing this, you show them that you do care and that what they think does matter to you.
And that makes your relationship better while largely letting you get to do what you want to do.
Once again, you’ll tend to get to either do exactly what you want to do or you get to negotiate and find an even better solution or path forward that favors the both of you, catering to the motivations behind your positions.
Setting Boundaries
There will be certain things where it is very hard pressed that you have to hold a certain stance. And where you have to set firm boundaries.
“I won’t get married till I’m at least 30” or “I won’t work a job I hate” or whatever.
And in these, it is important that you have the soft skills, have the mirroring, and have the being empathetic and listen to them while dually taking the time to explain yourself.
But here it critically matters too that you have conviction, are very solid and purposeful with what you are doing and what you are saying and know why you feel and believe and must do what you want to.
You must have this and must then stand by the position and communicate it openly and firmly.
Not in a rude way or a confrontational/belligerent way, but in a way kind of like the nice car salesman saying that “I’m sorry but this is my last price and I can’t lower it any more than this”.
Like the salesman, you want to be warm and relating and friendly/“one of them” in that way, and looking at the problems you guys disagree on as something outside of yourselves and almost out of your own control.
But with sad eyes, you are still firm and unshakeable and grounded by what you must say and do and firm and rigid with that.
You set boundaries about the most important things/the things that matter most to you and can’t be broken, shook, changed, or altered (he things that you have to have in your life and feel the most strongly about and can’t reconcile)
This was a good recent video I watched on this topic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PR7eZK2hEI
Even here, it pays massive dividends to listen to your parents, give them that time, that empathy, that understanding; but then after that go and be firm about where you stand and abide by that. Then go and do what you have to.
In Conclusion
In conclusion man I think that solving the parent problem is really a matter of building a relationship, nurturing it, and having it grow and change for the better.
Getting along with your parents and having a more fruitful relationship with them is essential to your own happiness and well-being.
Any resentment or bitterness or anger you hold in your heart only holds you back.
Tony Robbins is a great example of this and who I’m trying to model and learn from in all this.
His mother was super abusive to him: she would hit him, beat him, choke him with soap and pour it down his throat, and she chased him out of his house with a knife kicking him out at age 17.
But Robbins forgave her and used his tactics to go and rebuild and maintain a healthy relationship with her, as well as with a ton of other people who he might not have immediately liked, who might not have liked him, and who were essentially so different from him.
Despite it all, through his mastery and adept use of his soft skills, he could build a good relationship with anyone and get anyone to like him essentially (and he went on to do so with his family and others).
On your own end it takes being very ground into your own virtues, and you have to work on that yourself through doing tough things and building the virtues.
You need to be unbelievably patient, extremely considerate, learn to feel empathy, care, compassion, and love, learn to be courageous and firm and purpose driven in what you have to do.
And you have to be able to believe so firmly in your missions and convictions that you have to do to them and work on them no matter what you face; have that with the other virtues and then in amalgam you get to become a man of really strong character.
Then using that strong character and getting people to like you using the people skills and catering to their emotions and motivations helps you build a dream relationship with your parents or anyone else you might want to build that relationship with.
Cheers
Rage
