Parents as a cause for healing

Christy asked me:
>I was amazed to read of your parents' attitude towards your work. Your are able to help >others and provide for yourself in one of the most magically beautiful--and expensive--places >on earth while doing what you love. THAT is the perfect definition of success.

Yes, it is. To you or me. But not to my parents. They live in a small town and being a masseuse is a sex thing there, so my parents are ashamed to talk about my work to other people. My father openly asked me if I could switch professions. My mother pretends to be supportive but she snared.

In short, what I do is not prestigious to them. So, they do not care if I love it, am talented, successful, etc. They care for their own image and "what the Jones' think."

That's kinda painful, when you realize that your parents trully cannot care for you, but only for themselves and their image.

It is even more interesting to see how they begun to approve of it when they saw that I make money and can buy them nice things. Then they become more approving ...

The healing school instructor long time ago told me I was living for their approval, not love. Some other healers told me that I was raised by self centered people and that was a chance to see what that is like and overcome it. Back then, I wasn't strong enough to actually digest this information fully. I remember when the healing teacher said that, I felt stabbed.
It is extremely cruel to realize what I was raised in and how it scarred my whole life, so far. Luckily, I am different now, after some years of intense work on myself. I did live in "their world" for many years and I was like them too. And I was trying to please them all those years; I also was doing things for the Joneses, for my parents. Once we see that about ourself, it is very painful. And again, it is how it is, that's what I learned, and that's how I was. Now is a chance to do something different. Today, I am much stronger and ready to face that. I cannot change my parents. I cannot change the past. I can change me, now. And I forgive my parents, for truly they do not know what they do. It is amazing how asleep they are. ***Without intentional work on oneself, nothing happens. People do not grow.***

So, that's what it is. I remember last week when I saw all this and was petrified to realize that I come from selfishness and was trained in that and WAS like that. I can see, based on what my parents do, why I do certain things. What amazed me is that I could not tell what was genuine me. Everything I did was their immitation. Then I thought to myself: ok, that's how it was before, I didn't know any better. Now I do. And the question came: WHO AM I? Who am I really, without all this learned stuff? This question led to some powerful, transformational, life changing, self discovery experiences.

The meditation leader said that asking such questions, BEING IN QUESTION, is the way to go.
The question "leads the way" and shows us the Truth.

He said we are meant to be an improvement on our parents. Also, we are meant to repair the legacy of our parents, to repair it inside ourselves, and in that, we rewrite and heal the past.

I knew this intellectually before. Now I am experiencing it.