Letting Go

Abstract

After you have worked on the past and done the best you could to create a better relationship with your adult children, you may need to let go of some expectations that are unlikely to materialize. Letting go can be extremely difficult and painful, because it forces you to go through a process of breaking through denial and giving up false hope. Here you will find some ways to go through the necessary stages of grief if you have experienced either a partial loss or the actual loss of your relationship.

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,

Which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet