Hugs .. why is letting go so very hard to do .. easy to say though .. ;) progress not perfection

Your doing the right thing. To get involved.....like I did...only gives you more worry and grief. Let them live the way they see fit.

Love your pic.....

(((( hugs ))))

It's so hard to step back and watch them fall. Remind yourself of steps 1-3. ODAT. We are really not fix-it machines. I'm just trying to fix myself, Lyne

Katy: I've been at this for many years. I'm going to be honest. I never, ever know if I'm doing the right thing in relationship to my grown kids. I just know that I love them, that I do my best to follow the program, and that God is in the details somehow. Maybe knowing that I don't know is the best knowledge I can have? Awareness that I don't know what's best for them. Acceptance that I don't know what's best to do in relationship to them. Then acting with guidance that I hope is HP's, is the best I can hope for in relationship to my kids?

We really don't have control with our grown kids. We really don't cause every choice they decide to make and follow through on. We really can't cure any of the consequences of their choices and don't really know if those consequences are to help them or hurt them. I don't know about you, but I'd love to have a book that tells me step by step in plain language what to do in relationship to my kids, but I don't. None of us do. All we can do is our best in relationship to them and leave the outcome in the hands of the great I AM. That's the best e/s/h I have to share with you.

I do believe that none of us set out to consciously hurt our kids and still do. Even when we think we aren't hurting them, they can perceive what we're doing as hurting them or not loving them or abandoning them or whatever it is they choose to see us as doing. Regardless of what we do or don't do, our kids will see life as they see it. They'll see the choices they think they have even if the whole world says "Wait a minute! Here's another choice you can make!" and they'll act on those choices without hearing the rest of the world or seeing billions pointing in a different direction than they are looking.

I guess this mothering business all boils down to one thing - what do we believe about life ourselves? Do we believe its a big, bad world out there and our kids must watch it, watch it, watch it? Or do we believe that everything is in place to support us and to support our children no matter what choices we make or they make? My kids might never make the Fortune 500's list of greats in our nation. But, one thing I know is true for me. My kids have made my life an adventure that maybe I wouldn't want to go on again, but I wouldn't have missed it either. They've made and will make choices I haven't made and won't make. They have issues I wish they didn't have, but they have them anyway. They've made my life richer because of those issues. They also don't belong to me although they are of me. They belong to life and they must do what they do until they don't do it anymore. I don't know if that is best for them or for me. I just know they do what they do just like I do what I do. And we're still all here to live our lives to the best of our understandings.