This is an amazingly priceless concepts. Personally I grew up feeling inhibited and a little bit angry. Not sure why or what it was. I was perplexed for most of my life and the confusion as to why I felt social anxiety, wanting to always be perfect, pretty much wearing a mask and always second guessing my response to people, afraid of judgement and shame.

No one has ever perfected parenting and that includes my Loving and wonderful & supportive Mother & Father. I grew up in a strict religious environment from all areas except for school. This entails stripping a child of his/her abilities to emote because we were taught Anger is wrong, self expression of crying and whining is wrong. Certain interest and desires are wrong even tho your mind and heart is showing great interest, it's wrong and/or a sin, you will begin to think something is wrong with you.

To make a long story short, The Most FREEING and emotionally validating experience that catapulted me into healing and understanding is writing my Dad a letter expressing my feelings and him being RECEPTIVE to it, not DISMISSING me but validating my feelings. There was a weight lifted from my soul. I can't even explain the feeling.

Just when I thought that was it. My Mom actually came to me and apologized for making us live up to such high, sometimes unobtainable, standards that we both were taught in church. I'm all for structure and some levels of religion, however debilitating a person of their True Self is a recipe for Low self esteem/self worth, rebellion, feeling unloved, undeserving, etc. a host of traumatic emotions. You can't figure out,for the life of you, what's wrong with me.

Neither one of them justified their parenting with excuses. They understood that this was MY perspective and I was entitled to that. They supported my FEELINGS, took me by the hand showed me that they UNDERSTOOD. Emotions are how we survive. Emotions determine our happiness.

When we are emotionally invalidated, the hurt, the pain, the betrayal, the anger comes, all which is inevitable.