Manifesting a Better Relationship with my Mother in Law. Magical!

This story is something remarkable. It shows the power of our thoughts and how they not only change ourselves, but how they can effect our relationships. Angela was in a very tough spot and lacking other options, she began to manifest a good and loving future. From desparate to magical!
Ken

Angela writes:
I am truly blessed to have married a wonderful man who is my best friend, soul mate, and all around amazing guy. We have been happily married for 14 years and the only, the ONLY problem we have ever had in our marriage has been the relationship between me and his mother – my Mother-in-Law (M.I.L). It wasn’t always a terrible relationship. In the beginning we got along great. She was very friendly and gracious to me, and told me often how happy she was that her son and I married. I felt very blessed to have her in my life, but as soon as we had kids my Mother-in-Law turned into Monster-in-Law!

When it came to our two children there was nothing I could do right in her eyes. She would pick on every single thing I did. She had no filter, no patience, and made absolutely no effort to consider my feelings. She would just shout out exactly what she thought I was doing wrong at exactly the moment she wanted to. She was driving me crazy, and it didn’t matter where we were, or who was present. Once during a holiday dinner with invited guests she angrily announced in front of everyone that she was going to call child protective services because I wasn’t cutting up the dinner in small enough pieces and the children would choke and die! I was so embarrassed and fed up with her behavior, that I told her to get out. Needless to say both children ended up crying at the dinner table.

Her constant berating and haranguing words were hurtful, disrespectful and never failed to provoke me to anger. My husband and I felt bullied and it was also upsetting our children. They loved their Grandma, but she never failed to include them in every one of her crazy outbursts so it soon became apparent that they felt like they were in the middle and needed to choose sides – Mom or Grandma. This was not a healthy environment for any of us. My husband always and without fail readily rallied to my defense and either talked her down until she apologized, or he drove her immediately home. He even tried setting up a series of therapy sessions for all of us together. She was having none of it. Nothing we tried worked. It got so bad that I didn’t even want her over the house anymore, which of course wasn’t fair to either my husband or our children since the problem for her was obviously me, and not them.

So over a period of several years I just about turned myself inside out to please her and keep the peace for the sake of my family, but it rarely worked for long. I had read Ken’s book a year or so earlier, and one day after another big M.I.L. explosion, it just hit me. Maybe I could make a movie to manifest a better Mother-in-Law!  That night when all was quiet and right before falling asleep I worked on creating a movie where she was a kind and friendly person who said only nice things to me. Well, that sure as hell didn’t work. About 15 seconds into our “nice” imaginary conversation I began re-living all of the fights we had, and then my movie would turn into me telling her to take a hike, and then I was happily imagining tossing her out a window! Not good.

So I stopped trying to be specific and instead just focused on imagining future with her being happy and engaged and joyful. There were the three things I thought she was lacking in her life. I basically took myself out of this future movie entirely. It was the only way I could let go of the negative emotion I had towards her.

Amazingly, after about two weeks of doing this every night, not only did I actually start to feel better about her, but she also began to reciprocate the same feeling! It was very subtle at first, but I could absolutely feel that she was becoming warmer and kinder and friendlier to me. We would invite her over and she would not make any comments, or if she did they were more like friendly suggestions on parenting, instead of outright angry indictments.

My husband noticed the change and so did the kids. I kept on every night with my movie about “Happy Grandma” and after a couple of months, she began to say things to me that I had never heard from her before like “I am so glad you put up with me,” and “I am so happy you are willing to listen to me.” Then one night as she was leaving the house, she hugged me hard and said “I am so grateful for you.”  It was a huge turning point as she was showing me not just kindness, but also humility, grace and compassion. I was so happy and I knew that finally, she was happy too.

It has been well over a year now since we were in full out combat with each other, and while we have had some small “disagreements” over that time, they were nothing more than that. Much to the surprise of everyone close to me that knew of my M.I.L predicament, she and I have truly become close; I would even say best friends! I talk to her several times during the work week – she either calls me or I call her to share thoughts, ideas, and tell her about what the kids are up to. We both enjoy our conversations and we usually end up laughing about something, and right before we hang up she always tells me she loves me and that I am her favorite daughter in law! Of course since my husband is an only child, I am her only daughter in law, but the sentiment never fails to amuse us both.

I really don’t know how or why this all worked. Maybe in the process of doing a movie that pictured her happy and joyful, I began to reflect back to her that she was in fact happy and joyful. Perhaps that made her feel appreciated, giving her the opportunity to stop her defiance and accept me because she too felt accepted. A friend said we were able to work it out because I was being the “bigger” person. I don’t think so. To me when someone is the “bigger person” they are usually just resigning themselves to being tolerant of an unpleasant situation, which usually leads to being patronizing and/or bitter.

I think it might be that my “Happy Grandma” movie allowed me to manifest compassion, both for myself and her. Compassion became what both of us needed. Thank you Ken for teaching me something really and truly powerful – how to manifest joy. Not just for me but for the people I care about too.
Angela

 

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