Post Estrangement: The Changing Nature of Hope.

I came across a question recently that made me stop and reflect.  An estranged parent asked: "are all estranged parents bitter?" and "is there no place for hope?"

These questions address some of my fears.  I often ponder whether I will always carry a trace of bitterness in my heart over what was done to me and whether it is possible to look to the future with hope. 

As I sat reflectively with the question, thinking how to answer this parent I found myself becoming more aware of how my journey toward healing has changed me. 

I am for the most part, beyond my being bitter days.  I strive each day to be better about my mind space and where my thoughts take me.  That is my place right now in my journey. I do not claim to be over the resentment I feel, but I control where I allow those feelings to take me.

I realize that living immersed in bitterness over what is being done to me, does nothing for the quality of my life.  I am alive under circumstances that I never envisioned.  And true there is a part of me that resents this!  

However, I remind myself that I am alive and that I have choices that I can control!  One of my choices is to see the gift of my life as precious. Once I choose to see my life as having value beyond what is being done to me I can determine where I allow my thoughts to focus.  

Therefore each day I choose to focus on this inner power.  I choose to not allow my estranging daughter to rob me of joy in life!  

• She has robbed me to time with her.  
• She has broken our family and the quality or family life I had envisioned.
• She has stolen from me the time I imagined with my grandson.  

Over these things I have no control.  I however determine to reclaim control over what is in my control.  I control my mind and my thoughts.  

• I do not have to live with negative self esteem, I can empower myself to reclaim that!   
• I do not have to live with guilt and shame, I can work through these and reclaim my rightful sense of value and self respect
• I can reclaim my right to joyful living and take actions toward that goal.

My journey forward in healing is always about what is my human birth right and reclaiming those emotions, values and feelings that I have the power to control.

Having said this, I realize that when I look back, I see in my recovery from the trauma of being estranged many days when the bitterness has tainted my peace of mind and I am not ashamed to admit that this was a part of my journey.  Yes I had many bitter, angry, hurt filled days.  

It was in accepting my feelings and giving myself permission to feel those feelings that I started down a healing path toward more positive emotions.  There is a process to recovery, and part of that process is owning the emotions and the feelings that sometimes threatened to overpower me. To deny those emotions is to deny my healing.  It was in facing them that I was able to accept the reality.  And in accepting reality I was able to chart a different course toward my future.  

As for hope, that too has evolved.

I believe we as humans can not live without hope. Hope is what gives us the strength to face each day with the optimism that things will work out.  Without hope there is no possibility for joy or anticipation or exuberance. Without hope we remain stuck in a "this is as good as it gets" rut.

I firmly believe that we need hope in our lives but we need to be aware of what it is we hope for.  If we hope for something that is unlikely to happen we set ourselves up for disappointment.  The path toward keeping hope alive is to learn to balance it with reality.

In the very beginning of the estrangement I used to hope that this awful thing had never happened, that was when I was still in severe denial. Over time I recognized that this was a self defeating place to be.  In hoping for the impossible I was denying myself the opportunity to move forward through the other emotions of grieving that I needed to deal with.

As time progressed I entered the second phase of hope.  I purchased a "hope" charm" that I wore on a necklace. During this time I clung to the belief that "one day this would end". That like the story of the prodigal son, my daughter would repentantly return and joyously and miraculously our family would be healed.   

unrealistic expectations 

It took a long time for me to realize that this hope too was not balanced enough to be either helpful or healing for me.  It was so filled with the fairy tale hopefulness for a "happy ever after" ending to ever truly be a possibility. 

And then slowly as the months lengthened into years and I gradually changed through my own efforts to heal, I realized my hopes had changed once again. 

I realize that now I hope for the strength to face whatever the future may bring. 

In accepting that something precious in our family dynamics has been broken and that there really is no going back to what was before, I have set myself free.  I realize that I can only hope to navigate whatever may come with dignity and grace. 

My hope now lies in my rising above what was done to me even while accepting that what was done was wrong. 

My hope is that I will be able to handle the challenges I will face should my estranging daughter return to my life without the anger and hurt resurfacing to disturb a possible reconciliation. 

My hope is that I will have the strength to stand tall and firm and proud in who I have become in the process of healing so that my estranging daughter  knows that I am no longer the easy target I was before and that if she wants a forward path together it will be as equals and not with her telling me what she expects.

Yes, for the first time in my journey of dealing with estrangement, my hopes rest squarely in me!   

• I hope that I become a better, stronger more capable, person. 
• I hope that I have learned from the experience and that I am becoming a more complex and well rounded human being.  
• I am hopeful that because of what I have endured I am more compassionate, more understanding and more thoughtful.

I see the changes happening in me.  I learned that I deserve to be loved as much as I love and that I deserve to be respected as much as I respect. This testing by trial of estrangement is leading me to be a stronger more confident more self aware person.  I really like who I am becoming!

Yes I am proud of who I am becoming!  I own the bitterness that was part of that journey of self discovery!  For without crossing that river of bitterness I would never have arrived at the place where I am now.

Is a reunion is in my future? I do not know. 

My faith is that what is meant to be will be.  What lessons I have to learn and what lessons my daughter has to yet to learn are unknown to me.  

Will we learn those lessons in time for a reunion?  That too I do not know.  I find peace in accepting that it is not my role to understand the grand scheme of things. 

My role is to learn and grown.  I will do my bit to the best of my ability to prepare for whatever the future may hold. 

Renate Dundys Marrello 

2015 – 05 – 28

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Bringing a New Focus to My Mother's Day

There are certain days each year that are especially difficult to get through after estrangement. These days can be triggers for great sorrow, hurt, anxiety and sadness.

Often after being estranged I have found myself trying to ignore the event.  But of course that does not work for the thing you don't want to think about seems to become the very thing your mind wants to focus on.

For this reason I have been striving to see mothers day differently.  My goal is to face the day with new thoughts and new resolutions that allow me to see the day as a tribute to myself. I don't know how much success I will have, but there is no harm in trying. 

The first events that I stated to reclaim for myself were the "Birthdays".  I now see them as birthing days and celebrate that I gave birth! I no longer celebrate the child that was born that is now an Estranging Adult.  I celebrating the birthing process and how that allowed me to grow as a person, I honour who I became after giving birth, a mom.

So this year, it is my goal to celebrate "mothering day" in this new manner.  

• I will celebrate that I gave birth, that I was a mom, that I was the best mom that I knew how to be!  
• I will celebrate that I raised my family to the best of my ability with the knowledge and skills I had at that time. 
• I will celebrate that I gave them the opportunities that I could with the resources that I had.
• I will celebrate that I gave them wings and I gave them roots.  

My job is done. I validate myself for raising strong minded, independent, capable people.  People that are able to make choices and decisions.  People ready to make their own lives and chart their own path in life.  People who have a right to their own opinions and values.  People I did not smother with my expectations for them, nor limit their ability to follow their own dreams. 

Being estranged has forced me to face that in giving them the confidence and ability to make choices I also gave them the freedom of choice to erase me from their lives, their minds and their thoughts.  If they do not see the value of what I gave them; this is their shortcoming, not mine.  It is not my responsibility to coerce them into being respectful.  That is their choice. What they choose to do with that freedom to choose and the future consequences of those choices is also their responsibility not mine. 

So from this day forward I will not sit and wait for validation from my offspring.  I will not wait for them to bring me words of praise or flowers or recognize me in any significant way.  I will not raise my expectations or hopes to be included in their lives in any significant way.  By not having expectations, I can prevent myself from being disappointed.  

Personal character building for requires me to change my way of thinking.  Just because they don't value my job or my relationship to them does not mean that I value myself any less.

It is time for me to learn to love and honour myself.


From this day forward 

• I will validate my accomplishments. 
• I will recognize the good that I did even as I accept my failings.
• I will honour my skills even as I accept my shortcomings.
• I will appreciate the sum of my experiences, with emphasis on the positive even while accepting my moments of failure. 
• I will honour that I do not need to be perfect as long as I always have acted with integrity, caring and compassion. 

These are my new Mother's Day rules for celebration.  I will celebrate myself and the way that I successfully completed a challenging task.  

Okay so this is new to me and I don't know how well I will do, but this is my intention!  

• Will I still feel sadness when I see mothers surrounded by offspring that include them in their lives? Of course!  
• Will I still wish that things could have been different? Naturally!
• Will I still feel an ache in my heart? Most assuredly!  
• Will I let that stop me from having a happy Mother's day? No, this I refuse to do!  It is my day, I am a mom!  

Renate Dundys Marrello 

2015 – 05 – 10

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Memories Distort our Perception

I had a thought about memories.   As I pondered this I realized that there is a huge gap between the memories I have of my children growing up and the memories they have of growing up.  What we remember creates our reality however distorted that may be. 

I remember my children best from the early golden years when they were gentle, loving and eager to learn and grow.  They were these delicious morsels of innocence and wonder.  I filled their days with learning opportunities and cherished their growing and changing into little persons.  I think back to my own childhood and realize I remember very little of those young years in my own life.  So how can my children remember their “golden years?”  

The adults my offspring  have become  have few memories of their own golden days, just as I do not remember mine.  Their history is distorted because all they remember are the turbulent teen age years when they caused trouble and we had to discipline them as part of our job to guide them toward a path of responsible adulthood.  They remember these battles as restrictive rather than instructive.  Now they base their opinion of me on those years, naturally not a time when I was at my shining best as I navigated uncharted waters trying to do right to mold responsible and good human beings.

As long as I see myself as the nurturer of the golden childhood years and they see me as the prison guard of their teen years, how can we ever possible see eye to eye.  After all a point of view is all about perspective! 

They must get to the point (if ever) where they realize that the golden years of childhood was where they were nurtured and cherished and that the teen years of rebellion are but a stepping stone to mature adult lives and not the sum total of their upbringing. 

If they never make that connection, they will always see me as the bad guy of their teen years and never see me as the simple human being, striving to do right, that I am.  

Maturity does not follow a chronological number. Rather, maturity comes when an adult is able to see the human in the parent and not just the mistakes of the parent.

When we arrive at that place, our own parents become people who did the best they could with the knowledge and skills that they had.  When our offspring take that step, we too become people in their eyes and not the evil characters they envision us to be. 

The problem is that in the absence of regular communication and relationship building, estranging adults deprive themselves of the opportunity to learn that in the end, we really are, only people.  It is so easy to ‘demonify’ us when they never have the opportunity to see us as humans with human virtues and human failings.   

They never get to hear the stories of their golden childhood years that leave a lingering glow even in the retelling.  They deprive themselves of opportunities to see themselves through our love filled eyes.  They miss out on these moments of storytelling recollections. They miss out on opportunities for hearing stories of validation and love.  They miss seeing that part of their lives which their memories have not preserved. 

At gentle nurturing moments like this, I realize that they lose as much as I do.  I miss the opportunity to give them these precious gifts and they miss out on the opportunity of receiving them.  The big difference is that I see it and feel the loss, whereas and they don’t see what they are missing because they don't see their lives as a collection of all memories, but rather as a holding on to the bad memories.  

The lesson to be learned is that relationships survive or crumble based on the memories we choose to hold on to and the actions we choose to take based on those memories. Now if only there was some way to teach estranging adults that life lesson.  Add that to my list of things I would teach my children if I had it to do over again. 

Renate Dundys Marrello 

2015 – 05 – 09

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The fight against becoming bitter.

Sometimes it is so hard to fight against the bitterness that tries to creep in.  I am aware that it is a choice I make and I make it every single day.  I do not want bitterness to destroy my inner peace. I deserve to move toward my future free of the burden of bitterness. 

What keeps me focused on not allowing this to overtake my life, is acknowledging that this is what estranging adult children do.  They become stuck in their anger and grudges and bitterness. Remaining stuck in that negativity serves no purpose but it is what prevents them from healing their inner wounds and hence their relationships with parents prepared to open their hearts to a repentant adult offspring.   

Bitterness is what stops them from resolving their personal issues and it prevents them from moving forward toward restoring relationship they have damaged in their anger.  They become entrenched in this rut of negativity and because they are stuck they continue to fuel their own anger towards their parents.  In essence, they have lost their way for harmonious family living because bitterness has frozen their hearts.

I acknowledge that I have been rejected, wounded and hurt.  It would be so easy to allow this to bear negative fruit and for me to remain embittered by the events in my life. 

And yet, even when hurting, I am clearly aware that I do not want to become like those who feel justified in hurting me through estrangement.  I do not want to get trapped with the feelings of negativity that is nurtured in a bitter cold and unforgiving heart. To become stuck in anger is my greatest fear.

Striving to be a better more forgiving more noble hearted person is what keeps me centered in my true self; the self that I know to be kind, loving, compassionate and giving. 

My fear is that my grief will bend and twist me into being the kind of person that my estranged daughter has become.  She is perpetually stuck with her anger towards me. She has become a person without pity or compassion or empathy towards any who do not agree with her stance.  She is stuck in waiting for / wanting me to solve her problems by absolving her of and protecting her from the consequences of choices she has made.

Every day I pray to find the grace not to walk that path that might lead me to become so entrenched in un-forgivingness that I become comfortable in hanging on to my anger to fuel in me a grudge, and filled with a need to inflict reciprocal pain. 

I will focus on letting go and setting my heart free to pursue the best future that I can, given the circumstances that I have been allotted to me .

Every day I will focus on staying true to the kind hearted caring person that I am.  

Every day I strive to:

• To constantly find a way to keep forgiveness alive. 
• To feel empathy for the sad place she has created for herself and her family, both those involved in her life and those cast out from her life. 
• To have enough compassion for her human condition, which is to make mistakes
• To leave room in my heart for possible atonement and reconciliation regardless of how small that possibility may be.

Every day as I process my grief and heal, I remind myself that I do not want to lose those very characteristics that are at the core of who I am regardless of what has been done to me.  The choice is mine and I will honour that choice by choosing to do whatever it takes to not become bitter. Instead I will focus on becoming better. 

Renate Dundys Marrello 

2015 – 04 – 28

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Where Might a Change in Thinking Habits Take You?

I received a question from a reader recently who was in desperation calling out for help.  They are in a very negative place and I recognized that place, for I dwelt there for a long time.  

As I read this cry of desperation I realized that I have changed over the course of my healing journey. Because it might help you my dear reader, I want to share with you what I do differently now than what I did before.

Every time I hear a negative thought in my mind that goes round and round and seems to get stuck in replay; I ask myself this one question.  Are you ready?  This is so vitally important!

"Is thinking about this helping me get better or is it keeping me stuck in the past?"

If a thought keeps me stuck in the past I owe it to myself to change my thoughts.  








If I continue to think about how horrible my life is in the aftermath of estrangement, if I focus on how sad or hurt or angry I am, then I am imprisoning myself and I remain in the hurting space.   The only way to get out to the hurting space is to change the mind space I live in.

This requires self-discipline.  This requires me to become aware that changing my thoughts is an action of self-love and self-compassion.  This kind of self-empathy is something that I deserve.  This kind of self-empathy is something that you too deserve. 

When you are in a negative space and when you reinforce that negative space by thinking or speaking or writing about it you remain in that negative space

Here is my challenge to myself and I encourage you to take up this challenge for yourself also: 

• Every day instead of thinking, talking, writing about all the ways your situation has made your life a misery, start writing a list of things you once loved to do and would like to do again.  
• Every day write at least one thing that you appreciate about yourself
• Every day write at least three things that you are grateful for

If you do this every day over and over again you will start to see changes.  Changes started for me when I started doing something different for myself.  These changes can do the same for you when you become committed to doing something different for you.  

When I am in need of a self pep talk this is what I say:

• Wallowing in sorrow and self-pity has gotten me to where I am now.  
• Continuing to do the same will keep me stuck in this negative emotional place.  
• It is by trying something different that I have the opportunity to see where I might go that is different from where I am now.

I am trying hard each and every day to start the next chapter in my life. 

Are you ready to join me exploring the possibility of healing?

Are you willing to try it?

Where might a change in thinking habits take you?

Renate Dundys Marrello

2015 – 04 – 28

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Evaluating the nature of happiness

I have just finished a 100 day happiness challenge.  The goal was to document each day things that I experienced as “creating happiness in my life”.

This is the second year that I have given myself this challenge opportunity, so I knew at the start that it would not always easy to come up with something every day that “makes me happy”

I have had people say to me, “I could not do that kind of a challenge because I have nothing to be happy about."   Of course those kinds of comments make me even more determined to explore what exactly is the nature of happiness and how do I, as an individual, invite happiness into my life?

If you have been following my blog you know that I am on a journey of finding healing in the aftermath of the trauma of being estranged by my daughter.  So there is a certain “brokenness” in my life, a feeling of being out of control in a sea of emotions.

So how does a happiness challenge fit into this healing journey?

For me taking back control over my happiness is a symbol of recovery in that I am making a conscious choice to not let the traumatic event remain in control of my well-being.   I want to create a place where the estrangement is something that happened to me but does not control me.  A place where estrangement is an event in my life but does not define who I am.

So what did I learn in this 100 day challenge?

First thing that I learnt was that it takes effort to become aware of elements in my life that create a feeling of happiness.  I was required to notice things that I might otherwise just live through without appreciating the gift of happiness that they had to share with me.  This is related to being mindful of the present, what is here and how in this moment and how does it make me feel.

I was very aware that it was a daily choice to, "make it happen".

In recovery, or healing, I am too often immersed in the negative emotions of the trauma of being estranged.  Emotions like sadness and hurt and anger, disbelief, fear that this is all I will ever feel, helplessness, loss of trust, joy and enthusiasm are all negative emotions but even more than this they are all tied to an event I have no control over.  

I can’t do anything about the event to change the emotions associated with the event.  This leaves me feeling helpless, victimized, out of control. 

To change this I have to find way to switch gears.  Find a way to regain control over which emotions I choose to favour.  Since I can’t change my emotions about the event I am only left with the option of changing which moment I will give more energy to.

Will I feed the negative emotions by dwelling on the trauma, or will I feed the positive emotions by focusing on the present and the good things that are happening or that I can participate in if I choose?

Which emotions could I focus on instead if I choose to live life in the present? 

• Each day I choose to start with thankfulness, thankful for another day, another opportunity to heal, to build my life into something bigger than, stronger than before.

• Each day I make myself list things from the day before that I am grateful for so that I become more mindful of the good things in my life.

And now each day I will become more aware of the choices I can make to be happy.  The important lesson that I have leaned is that there are two general categories of happiness. 

Category one – things that happen to me that make me happy

Category two – things that I choose to make happen that make me happy.

The former are things not in my control, they include my responses to actions by others and events in my life that are not initiated by me.   In my 100 days challenge, there were 16 events that fell into this category.  Less than a quarter of the things that brought me happiness came from the outside. 

If I had allowed myself to only feel happiness when something good happened to me, I would not have had very many happy moments.

The second category is; those things that I have control over because they start with me taking action or changing my thought process.  That means that on 84 days of the challenge I was able to choose to be happy because of something that I did to bring happiness into my life.

I found this to be powerfully liberating. 

Renate Dundys Marrello

2015 – 04 – 27

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Post Estrangement: changing the face of abandonment

One of the first issues I worked on during my healing journey was facing my abandonment issues.

I realized almost immediately that the reason I was so devastated by being shunned by my estranging daughter and her cohort of followers, was because I felt abandoned.  And I knew that unless I addressed my fears about abandonment, (where they came from and why they survived), I would not be able to heal.

Abandonment is a deep seated fear in humans.  To be abandoned as a child means you most likely will not survive.  So it is about survival of the species, a core human fear, an instinct  to do whatever it takes to not be abandoned.

As a species we will do almost anything to not be abandoned.  We strive to fit in, to make others like us, or to be needed, and we do this to prevent us from being abandoned!   We will tolerate painful situations, we will debase ourselves, we will try to make friends with the bully, we will try to become invisible so that we don’t pose a threat.  In other words we will do things that are negative for our personal well-being to avoid being ostracized, rejected, shunned or abandoned. 

At some point in time we have to recognize these fears for what they are, they are the shackles of our own imprisonment in relationships that are not healthy for our soul.

When I was feeling particularly abandoned, rejected and alone in the aftermath of being estranged, I was so devastated I was ready to do things that meant sacrificing my self esteem and my self respect to win them back!  I was even prepared to debase myself to earn my way back into the lives of the very people who were so clearly out to hurt me.  After all they were using shunning, and the pain they knew that would cause me, to manipulate and control me!

I was prepared to apologize for wrongs I did not commit!!   

I was ready to humiliate myself to get them back!   

I would have played the meek and mild doormat for one phone call or message.

I was prepared to walk around on egg shells to pacify their egos!
I was willing to play second fiddle to give them the glory of their center stage spotlight!

In other words, to escape the agony of abandonment I was willing to neglect my own needs for validation and respect! I was almost willing to live a lie so they could think they were right!  And then I realized that to do this would mean I had to sacrifice what little self esteem I had left! 

This was when I realized I had to confront these deep seated fears.  I realized that I had to come to understand and master and control the survival instinct for belonging.   I came to realize that I would remain in that place of suffering because of being abandoned by my children if I did not tackle my abandonment fears. 

My survival as a person, as a free individual, intact with self respect and self worth, now depended on me figuring out when that instinctive need to be accepted was in my best interests and when it was not! 

Learning self-acceptance was part of the journey.  That journey took me into areas like self-esteem and confidence and similar concepts.  Learning new ways to look at myself through my own vision rather than as a reflection of other people's vision of what they thought I ought to be. This was all good and beneficial but that is a whole other topic. 

For me the big breakthrough was learning that belonging and acceptance choices needed to be my choices not those imposed on me by an instinctive fear reaction. This was the big lifesaving lesson for me.

In facing this revelation I was able to take back my power, the power of being in the position to make choices.  I was able to decide whether or not to let a primitive survival fear be in charge or to use my mind to create choices that empowered me.  

• learning that there are times to strive for being accepted and there are times to walk away recognizing that too many sacrifices are required to be accepted. 
• learning that belonging does not mean sacrificing "self"
• learning that belonging is not enough, there has to be reciprocal wanting you to belong. 
• learning that belonging as a source of seeking outside validation is not the purpose of belonging, validation must come from inside myself. 
• learning that belonging should bring joy and a feeling of being accepted for who I am
• learning that belonging is not a replacement for feeling loved and cherished. 

Gaining control over this primal instinct to belong, was an important step on my healing journey.  It taught me to seek to "belong" where it is healthy for me to belong.  It allowed me to start the process of letting go of the struggle to belong where I was not wanted unless I made the ultimate sacrifice, changing who I am. 

Renate Dundys Marrello

2015 – 04 – 23

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