{"id":7290,"date":"2012-06-29T13:54:59","date_gmt":"2012-06-29T20:54:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/?p=7290"},"modified":"2026-01-21T16:31:58","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T00:31:58","slug":"a-question-asked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/2012\/06\/29\/a-question-asked\/","title":{"rendered":"A Question Asked"},"content":{"rendered":"

I happened across a post on Deepak Chopra’s website where someone asked why we are given the parents we have<\/a>. Putting aside the knowledge that the question “why” is a sticky, tangly, distracting web, (it doesn’t really free a person, it simply looks for a place to park blame — on oneself or another — disguised as understanding), I was curious to read the answer. His answer was concise and helpful, particularly because he avoided attempting to answer “why.”<\/p>\n

It’s true our life circumstances are organized by intelligence of our higher self for our awakening using the material of our past actions. But rather than trying to figure out a particular spiritual rationale for your parents’ behavior, suffice it to say that it has contributed you to the level of strength and self-reliance you have attained so far in your life. Your upbringing also highlights that an important part of your spiritual growth will require you to learn how to be your own nurturer and protector.<\/p>\n

–Deepak Chopra<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

However, I found the first comment below also useful. She doesn’t attempt to assign reasons why either; she also points out the futility in attempting to heal relationships with people who are toxic and chained by delusion:<\/p>\n

The influence of our parents on us is so great that when we’re given destructive parents, it’s our special challenge in life to overcome their influence. This, I feel, is the awakening and growth that you can find in your family situation. The dysfunctional behavior of others isn’t our responsibility. We must accept that there are those who will never awaken to their destructive behaviors. In my experience, few abusers (including alcoholic abusers, like your mother) recognize their abuse within their hearts. In other words, they don’t FEEL they’ve done anything wrong because they can always justify to themselves why they did what they did. If they don’t feel they’ve done something wrong, they don’t see that there’s anything to change, and so they won’t change. As the wise Mr. Chopra says, those of us from dysfunctional families must honor the strength we showed in making it through our past. We must face the fact that we can’t heal a destructive relationship with those who don’t see their own destruction.<\/p>\n

-Rainbow <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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I happened across a post on Deepak Chopra’s website where someone asked why we are given the parents we have. Putting aside the knowledge that the question “why” is a sticky, tangly, distracting web, (it doesn’t really free a person, it simply looks for a place to park blame — on oneself or another — […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[111,217,34,30,219],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buddhism","category-meditation","category-motherhood","category-quotes","category-spirit"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7290"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7301,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7290\/revisions\/7301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}