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158. How to Set Boundaries With a Toxic Parent Without Feeling Guilty · LIVING WITHOUT FEAR

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  What if the person who hurt you the most is also the one
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  teaching you the most powerful lesson of your life?
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  Hello, beautiful soul. Welcome back.
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  I'm Esther, coming to you from Switzerland.
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  Today's episode is personal, raw and still a little tender.
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  But the lessons that are still arriving, those are the ones
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  most worth sharing. So let's go. 2 days ago, I
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  called my father. He's 91 years old, a
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  mathematician, A deeply intellectual man.
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  He lives in an elderly home now, since my mom passed away because
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  he couldn't live alone in their big house anymore.
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  I haven't called him in weeks, and he knew it.
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  The moment he picked up, the blaming started.
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  He blamed me for not calling. He blamed me for the way I left
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  at my last visit, and I sat there on the other end of the
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  phone with my heart quietly shrinking back to a place I know
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  far too well. I was the one asking questions.
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  How are you settling in? Who do you sit with at meals?
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  Do you like the food? I was showing up even on that
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  phone call with care and curiosity, and he gave none of
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  it back. Not one question about me, not
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  about my health, not about my son's.
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  His only questions were accusations. 30 minutes.
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  I gave warmth. I received blame.
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  The one question he did ask, the only one was whether I had
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  spoken to my brother. After 30 minutes, I told him
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  quietly I want to stop this conversation now, and I hung up.
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  I sat in the silence after that call for some time, because this
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  wasn't new. This has been the pattern my
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  whole life, since I was 14 years old, fighting with my father,
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  since he appointed himself my therapist and told me to bring
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  him my problems and then used those problems against me.
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  And earlier this year he told me something that broke me in a way
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  I hadn't expected. At 63 years old.
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  He told me he thought I was mentally ill and that he had
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  believed this for a long time. The wound a parent can open, no
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  other person on earth can open quite the same way.
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  I stopped visiting. I stopped calling.
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  Not out of cruelty, out of survival, because when my mother
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  was in the hospital, I called him every single day.
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  I made that drive more than two hours every week to sit with
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  him, to be at his side for his final years.
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  I wanted to be there for him with a full open heart.
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  And yet, here we are. And if you want to know more of
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  this story, the full, deep, layered story of growing up in
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  this family, it is all in my book.
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  It's called Living Without Fear. You can find it on Amazon in
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  English and in German because that story deserves more space
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  than one episode can hold. So here's something I want you
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  to know about my about my father.
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  In 91 years of life, he has never apologized.
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  Not once. Not to me, not that I can
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  remember. And yet I forgave him every
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  single time. I always went back.
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  I always opened a new chapter. I always tried again.
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  Not because I was weak, but because I understood somewhere
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  deep in my heart, that it wasn't really his fault.
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  He never did the inner work. He never healed from his own
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  family, his own upbringing, the generations of pain that were
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  handed to him without anyone ever naming them.
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  He didn't know what he was carrying and so he carried it
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  and sometimes he put it down on me.
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  You can understand someone completely and still not be
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  willing to be there punching bag.
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  These two things can be true at the same time.
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  I want you to really hear that empathy and boundaries are not
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  opposites. They are not in conflict.
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  You can hold the person in your heart with compassion,
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  understanding where they come from, seeing their bones and at
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  the same time say this is not OK, I will not accept this.
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  I deserve better than this. That is not cruelty, that is
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  self respect. And I am learning at 63 years
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  old with a 91 year old father that is never ever too late to
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  learn this. So let me tell you what I'm
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  going to do differently. The next time I call my father,
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  I will tell him clearly we can have a respectful relationship.
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  I will call you, I will visit you.
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  I want to be in your life. And when you say hurtful things,
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  when you speak to me with cruelty or blame, I will end the
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  conversation every single time, without anger, without drama,
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  without guilt. I will simply say this is not OK
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  and I'm going to go now. A boundary is not a wall, it is
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  a door with a lock that only you control.
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  For so much of my life, I believed that love meant saying
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  that loyalty meant enduring, that being a good daughter meant
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  absorbing whatever came at me and not flinching.
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  But I have learned, slowly, painfully, beautifully, that
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  love without self respect is not love.
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  It is disappearance. It is the slow erasure of
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  yourself in service of someone else's comfort, and I don't owe
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  that to anyone, not even my father.
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  I do not owe Peace of Mind to someone who is not respecting
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  me, full stop. And neither do you.
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  Now here's where I want to shift something because I don't want
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  this episode to be about pain alone.
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  I want to talk about what my father is teaching me because,
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  and this took me a long time to see, he's teaching me something
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  profound. Through every fight, through
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  every hurtful word, through every phone call that left me
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  feeling small, He is making me stronger.
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  He's showing me exactly where my edges are, where I still shrink,
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  where I still go quiet when I should speak up, where I still
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  carry that old story, the one that says maybe they're right
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  about me. Maybe I am the problem.
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  The people who push us to our edges are often our greatest
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  teachers, even when they never meant to be.
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  I spent most of my life with a quiet, exhausting background
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  noise in my mind whenever I thought of my parents, a feeling
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  that I was somehow bad, that I was the difficult one.
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  The problem? Do you know how much energy that
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  takes? Carrying that story for decades.
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  And now, at 63, I'm putting it down.
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  Not because the hurt is gone, it isn't, but because I can finally
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  see it clearly. My father's words about me are
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  not the truth about me. They are the truth about his
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  pain, his limitations, his unhealed heart.
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  I'm not mentally ill. I'm a woman who feels deeply,
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  loves fiercely, and this finally, finally learning to
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  protect that. And this is where it gets bigger
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  than just me and my father, because I have two sons and they
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  are watching. They are watching how their
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  mother handles being hurt by someone she loves.
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  They are watching whether she stays silent or speaks up,
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  whether she disappears or holds her ground, whether she teaches
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  them through her own life that you can love someone and still
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  protect yourself from them. The patterns we break in
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  ourselves we do not pass on to our children.
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  My parents couldn't learn this. Their parents before them
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  couldn't either. Generation after generation, the
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  same wounds passed forward, like a gift no one wanted but
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  everyone received. But that chain can be broken.
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  It can be broken by one person in one generation, and it
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  doesn't require perfection. It doesn't require that
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  everything be healed and resolved and tidy.
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  It just requires 1 moment of choosing differently.
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  One conversation where you speak up instead of going quiet.
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  One phone call where you ended with dignity instead of
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  absorbing the hurt. One day where you choose your
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  peace over someone else's comfort.
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  I'm that person in my family I'm choosing to be.
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  And maybe, if you're listening to this, you are too.
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  Maybe you are the one in your family who breaks the pattern,
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  who finally says this stops with me.
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  Not in anger, not in bitterness, but in quiet, fierce, loving
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  determination. I want to close with this.
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  I would never have imagined that at 63 years old I would still be
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  learning this lesson. That a 91 year old man could
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  still have the power to make me feel small.
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  But here is what I also know. He still has the power to make
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  me grow. It is never too late to change a
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  pattern. Never too late to speak up.
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  Never too late to decide that you deserve respect from a
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  partner, from a friend, from a colleague, from your own parent.
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  It is never too late to choose yourself.
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  Not in a selfish way, not in a way that closes your heart to
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  others, but in the way that says I matter too.
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  My peace matters, my well-being matters, and the people in my
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  life, whoever they are, whatever they mean to me, they are not
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  allowed to take that from me. Every step you take out of those
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  old patterns, every moment you choose differently, even if it's
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  messy, even if it's imperfect, serves you.
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  And it serves every person who comes after you.
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  Your children, their children, the whole line of people who
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  will never have to carry what you choose to put down.
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  Healing is not just for you. It echoes forward through time.
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  So wherever you are in your own story with a difficult parent, a
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  difficult relationship, a pattern you're trying to break,
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  I see you. I'm right there with you.
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  Still learning, still growing, still choosing, one conversation
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  at the time. Thank you for being here today.
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  Thank you for trusting me with your time and for letting me
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  trust you with this part of my story.
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  I'm Esther, your host, coming to you from Switzerland, where the
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  mountains teach you every single day that standing firm and
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  staying rooted is not stubbornness, it is strengths.
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  If today's episode touch something in you, please share
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  it. Send it to someone who is in the
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  middle of their own difficult relationship and needs to hear
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  that they are not alone, that they are not bad, that they have
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  the right to peace. And if you want to go deeper
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  into this story, into the roots of growing up in a family where
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  love and hurt lived so close together, my book Living Without
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  Fear is waiting for you. And Amazon, in English and in
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  German. It is the full story, the honest
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  one. And before I let you go, I want
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  to offer you something that comes straight from my heart.
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  If this episode steered something in you.
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  If there is a relationship in your life that is costing you
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  your peace. If there is a boundary you've
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  been meaning to draw but don't quite know how.
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  If there is a version of yourself you keep glimpsing
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  freer, calmer, more at home in yourself, and you don't know how
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  to get there, I want to invite you to a free coaching session
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  with me, just the two of us. No pressure, no script.
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  Just a real, honest conversation about where you are, what you're
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  caring, and what your very next step might look like.
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  This is the work I love most. Sitting with someone across from
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  a screen, across from life, and helping them see what they
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  cannot yet see about themselves. Helping them feel, maybe for the
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  first time, that their peace is not a luxury, it is their
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  birthright. You were not born to be walked
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  on. You were born to be free.
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  All you have to do is reach out. The link is in the show notes.
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  I will be so honored to work this next step with you.
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  Until next Thursday, protect your peace.
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  Speak your truth. And know that it is never, never
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  too late to choose yourself. With all my love, Esther from
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  Switzerland for the world. Yeah.