I am constantly grieving for the way things used to be with my kids. I miss when they were little and I was able to pick them up and hug them. I miss their enthusiasm, creativity, and joy which has been replaced with anger, boredom, disgust, and loathing. We all seem so disconnected and unhappy now. I hate it.

I’ve been in scholars for about a year and I hear about creating connection with thoughts, but I don’t know how to do this. My thoughts are that I hate the way it is now and I miss the way it used to be and I hate this stage of their development. I realize that these thoughts don’t create connection, but I haven’t been able to come up with alternative thoughts that feel believable to me. Even trying to think that this is just a phase or it won’t last, doesn’t help because right now it feels like it will never end and this is the way it will be forever.

I think I’m truly in a grief pattern about this. I am grieving the loss of my kids as they were. Memories of the past don’t create feelings of connection for me. Those memories are tortuous and remind me of what I no longer have. I can’t seem to get myself out of it and it’s preventing me from moving on and appreciating the stage they are in now.

C – kids getting older
T – I wish I was able to have the same connection I had with them when they were little
F – grief
A – constantly ruminate in the past, wish they were different, wish we could do the things we could when they were little, stay stuck in pain,
R – I don’t have the same connection

I see this clearly, and I know logically that my thoughts are creating my feelings, but nothing else feels true.