a very co dependent mother who has a problem of taking a small issue and ramping it up to the end of the world.
My mother is like this too, Eco. She is an adult-child, and I almost felt repulsed by her when I was a kid because she was so ineffective in the role of emotional caregiver. Instead of dealing with problems like an adult, she would create these storms of anxiety that made me feel so jacked up on worry and dread. What I've noticed is that when I'm around her, I can be calm in the face of her anxious reactions, but there are times when I'm on my own feeling anxious, and I see how my own responses are like hers. We've come a long way working on this, but I've also accepted that she is not my problem to fix, she is her own person, and her anxiety is her own suffering, it doesn't have to be mine. I've learned about validation to help my son and find it helps with my mom, too. With her, I try to ask validating questions so that she carries the responsibility for solving her own problems. Sometimes, in order to minimize her anxiety, I would impatiently solve her problem to get the anxiety to wind down. Now, I try to use validating questions and it works for the most part. It makes me realize how draining and invasive it is to be around someone who is constantly anxious -- something I'm trying to work on in myself.
I'm now at week 5 of this mindfulness class and the home practices are starting to feel like a habit. Eco, I can see how learning to respond to your own mind's anxiety-producing thoughts would help. There was physical abuse in my childhood and as a result, I seemed to have shut down the connection between physical sensations and emotional feelings, although in the past 4 years or so this is improving. I've been learning to pay attention to my breath, and from there, to how my body feels when I'm experiencing both pleasant and unpleasant thoughts. It's a work in progress!
