Alicia V Jamie: A Lesson In Positive Thinking

If you’ve been feeling a bit down, spare a thought for Alicia who I met some years ago. Alicia had two teenage boys. The three of them had to survive without dad around for 10 years now since a car accident landed him in a nursing home; all Dave could do was nod, shake, smile, or cry out his pain.

Can you imagine what that was like for each of them! And what a life for Alicia dealing with two testosterony boys all on her own and then support Dave. She couldn’t even start a new life.

Her older son, Jamie, was a particularly difficult and defiant kid who claimed his quieter brother, Peter, was the favourite.

Alicia found it all hard work but three things that got her through – great friends, a change in how she managed Jamie and positive affirmations she reads every day like -

* We do not have to know how to forgive. All we have to do is to be willing to forgive. The universe will take care of the how.

* Every day cannot be good but there can be good in every day..

* This is a new day. Begin anew to claim and create all that is good.

* If you want love and acceptance from your family then you must have love and acceptance for them.

And Alicia changed her management style; instead of forcing Jamie’s help, she just doesn’t give any help or privileges unless he has pulled his weight.

But Alicia also found that by leaving Jamie written messages on his bed, stated as “I would like” and couched in a few words of love, rather than as an attacking “you” message, took the sting out of the arguments. And Jamie had to write I messages back like "I feel left out" or "I hate not being able to have any fun around the house" and mum can handle that as it’s a less personal insult than a direct attack.

I remember one of his “I” messages very well – it read "I bet I'm hated so much I won't even get an X Box like Peter's for Christmas".

I mentioned that this period in Alicia’s life was some years ago, and as is the case for many of our families, you’re there for their hard times and then they drift away when they grow beyond needing your help. That’s the way it has to be.

But I do know that Dave passed away some five years ago and Alicia went back to Brisbane to be closer to her sister. And Jamie, the tear-away… he has a job in IT and has a pad in the inner city. He and his mum, I believe, now get on very well…. from a distance.

Kids are hard work, people are hard work, crises come… but crises go - so just go easy on yourself. It’s only when things are black, that we notice the stars shining through.