Dear ginn:

Please take your time reading the replies you are receiving, take your time considering and taking them in, one at a time, not all at once. No reason at all to rush. Here is my input today:

Your father made a couple of mistakes which he still repeats. He wanted to toughen up his child, to make her strong (so that she will be successful and earn enough money to help the family, and for him to retire early), but instead he made his daughter weak.

He thought that if he criticized you for “being so weak and useless“, you will think something like this: oh, I didn’t know that I shouldn’t be weak and useless, my father doesn’t like me weak, therefore, I should be strong, and now that I know, I will be strong! And then, because you had this thought, and because you don’t want more hurtful criticism, you would become strong and useful.

But neither a thought nor fear of hurtful criticism can make a child strong. After all, you had these kinds of thoughts many times during your life, as a child and as an adult, and you feared your father’s criticism since early on, and yet, these did not make you strong!

Here is what he should have done so to make you strong: when you “cried because I was stressed about small things“- in a gentle fatherly voice and with a kind look in his eyes, he should have told you something like this: I understand, my precious daughter. It is difficult to ____ (example: study 50 pages in a book for a test in two days). I will help you and we can do this together. You are upset right now, so I will make you hot chocolate and you can drink it while watching ____ (your favorite TV show) for half an hour. After that I will sit with you as you study the first page. I will then leave you alone to study the next 4 pages. When you are done, call me and tell me what you learned from the first 5 pages, and we’ll take it from there, together.

If he said something like the above, you would have felt supported, like you are not alone when something is difficult. If he carried on the plan in the example above, and you managed to study the first 25 pages that evening, and 25 pages the next day, and on the third, had the test and succeeded, you would have felt successful. You would have learned that when a task is difficult and stressful, you can do it anyway because you are not alone, there is someone to help you, someone to make you feel better and help you make a plan that works!

Alone and unsupported- we get weak, Together and supported- we get strong. This is the case because as humans, we are social animals. And just like other social animals, we need the help of others, we need to feel that together feeling.

So, you see, what you needed was more than the thought: I should be strong! What you needed was that together feeling and a workable plan.

Fast forward, you are not earning money to help the family because of his repeated mistakes. It is the consequence of his words and hurtful criticism. You can think of it this way: let’s say he picked up a lamp and threw it to the floor. The lamp breaks, no light. Who made it happen, who caused it?

Good thing that you are a person and not a lamp, because a broken lamp can’t fix itself, but for a human, it is possible.

You wrote: When I cried because I was stressed about small things, he would (say)… how could I achieve bigger things in life if I can’t even handle a little stress and small obstacles?

He didn’t understand that Rome wasn’t built in one day. To make a child successful, you have to start small and build up. When he said the above, he minimized the importance of the “small obstacles”. These were small obstacles in his adult mind, but not in a mind of a child. For you, these were big obstacles. He should have validated to you that the obstacles you faced were indeed big, but when faced together, with kindness and support, you can successfully face these obstacles. Together, they are not too big.

You needed kindness and togetherness, not hurtful criticism. Your teacher made a similar mistake when she did the following: “My teacher criticised  in front of the whole class and told me that she was so disappointed in me…  and half of the girls in the class boycotted me“- parents and teachers should be very careful when criticizing a child. Criticism should be gentle, aimed at correcting specific mistakes without shaming and humiliating the child! All children need support and that together feeling, not being isolated/ boycotted!

“I was too impulsive and wanted to be successful overnight…  always thinking of achieving bigger goals overnight“- because your father presented to you the belief that small things don’t matter and the “bigger things in life” (his words) are all that matter, you believe it yourself, avoiding the small things and wanting the “bigger goals overnight” (your words).

“I like being creative about design, but the design process- I don’t like. For example: I like to stir-fry food, but I hate chopping or cutting the meat“- chopping the food is the small task, the small obstacle, but stir frying the food is the big task (correct?), and in your mind, the small tasks are of no importance.

“I don’t know what’s my passion“- find worth in the small tasks, open your mind to the reality that small tasks and small obstacles do matter, they are important! Believing this will make it possible for you to feel interest and passion in doing small things, things that … really are not small at all. This, I think, will be the beginning of you no longer “feeling stuck, repeated pattern” (the title of your thread). Focusing and finding worth and renewed interest in the small tasks can be your new pattern, and the miracle that will spark and change your life (“Like waiting one day, miracle or a spark will change my life”). We can talk about how to achieve this spark later.

anita