Masters of the Spirit World

QUESTION: Masters I’m feeling uneasy. I have a rocky relationship with my mother. She does not like my husband. He likes her, tries to be a good son in law. He IS a character, but not mean spirited, just likes to kid. As much as I ask him not to do it, he just keeps doing it. My mother on the other hand can be mean and vicious. At a family gathering recently, my husband and mother were talking, my husband was joking, but my mother was responding in an angry tone. My daughter and I both heard this. My daughter told me that it upset her that my mother responded so meanly to her dad. My mother is 79 years old and lives in a retirement home. We make a point to pick her up on the weekends. I feel she is hurting our family structure at times. Can this be so? ~Dee, United States

ANSWER:  You can be hurt by the actions and words of someone only if you allow those activities to influence you. Your mother is very angry about the way her life has turned out. She hates your husband because he will not allow her to bask in misery and negativity. His tool to prevent this is humor. She does not want to feel good so she erupts whenever he starts to get too close to her trigger points and the ability to point out to her that most of her unhappiness is of her own making.

Your mother wants her negativity and resents your husband’s attempts to replace it with lightness and positive love. He is unaffected by her outbursts because he doesn’t take her seriously. He understands that is just the way she feels comfortable reacting to her despair.

You and your daughter have to accept that your mother is just being who she chooses to be. She feels she has the right to be miserable if she so chooses and that no one should have the audacity to try to change her. She is not an intentionally evil person, just a very unhappy one. The influence that her behavior has upon your family is only what you allow it to be. If it becomes too difficult to work with you can always let her stay in the home a weekend or two to get the message you will not tolerate her striking out.

This is a perfect lesson to explain to your daughter the difference between people who are unaware of the reactions others are having to their behavior and the ones who intentionally set out to cause harmful negative feelings in others. You can discuss with her the spiritual need to love others regardless of their actions because they are all souls having a physical experience. Tell her it is her choice whether she lets her grandmother’s actions have an impact or if she just sits back and observes one possible consequence of losing independence as one ages.

QUESTION: Masters my father made a fortune in his lifetime. While he has gifted me and my siblings and helped many, most was lavished on his wife and himself. While grateful for the small amount of security it provided, my siblings and I all struggle financially. Our step-mother who created none of this wealth will be in control when my father is gone. It is unclear if she will carry on his wishes and continue financial support. I am ready to independently create and experience my own abundance and security. I know all things are possible…what am I missing or not getting to bring this to fruition? What is the big lesson for our family that we wanted to learn? ~S, USA

ANSWER: Souls have no obligation to intercede in anyone else’s life. Your father owes you nothing. What he has slaved to receive is the fulfillment of the labors of his own work. What he does with his rewards is no one’s business but his. Once you and your siblings reached adulthood, he didn’t even have a societal mandate to continue providing for you. The fact that he did is an indication of his giving nature.

He has observed that his children have not used their resources to provide adequately for themselves, but he also does not want any possible initiative to be replaced by his continuing to bail you out and hold you up instead of forcing you to seek ways to take care of your own needs. He did not have anyone supporting him, and he thinks all of you can reach the pinnacle to which he has ascended if you put in the effort.

When people get things too easily, they don’t search out means to procure on their own. As you have said, you are ready to create and experience your own abundance and security – what has taken you so long to determine the necessity? Did you think that if you had done this before, he would stop with the handouts? A handout always means less work.

What has made it slow going in your journey to security is your attitude about your father’s money and the relationship with his wife. You are jealous of the fact that he chooses to provide for his wife instead of his children. That is his choice. All souls have freedom of choice. She has been able to provide emotional and physical support of which only a spouse is capable.

Once your father returns Home, what happens to the money will first be determined by his wishes as substantiated in a written will. All states honor the position of the mate, if one exists, over that of the children.

The lesson for you is not to depend on handouts. Chart your own journey and create it as your needs dictate. Understanding that your father has no obligation to gift you with anything more, let your anger and anticipation go. If your stepmother receives what is left of his estate, that is your father’s wish or he would have made other arrangements. Accept his decision.

QUESTION: Masters two of my three sons are alcoholic, talented, wonderful people, whose personalities have changed drastically, and as a mother it is devastating to deal with. I am in my seventies, and suffer so much hurt from their behavior, especially since we used to be close and happy in their younger years. They are now in their forties and fifties. I also feel guilty about my sons because they had to experience constant criticism from their father, as I did also. He basically just did as he wished and was gone most of the time while the boys were growing up, causing terrible pain for all of us. I love all three sons, and want to know what I can do to bring healing for all of us. Especially for my oldest who can be very cold and cruel to me. ~Ann, USA

ANSWER: Your sons are finding their way through their chosen life lessons. It was no mistake that they came into a family with the nature of the father they had – just as it was no mistake that you married the man and continued to put up with his abuse for all the years that you did. All of you were dealing with issues of self-worth and self-love.

When you let another treat you in a disrespectful, mean-spirited way, you are saying that you feel they are more important than you are and that you do not value yourself. You stuck with the situation because you felt you had no other choice and never really gave any energy to finding a different path.

It is possible for you to heal yourself and the way you interpret your life, but it is impossible to do anything for the boys unless they are willing to look at the entire lifetime and release the anger, guilt, and hatred of themselves and their father. Each soul must come to grips with the lessons they chose and what they were able to learn from them.

Alcohol is a great way to hide. You can go into the bottle and blunt any feelings that are uncomfortable. This is the reason your sons are alcoholic – they don’t want to remember what happened to them. If they would allow themselves to go beyond the guilt for not saying or doing anything when they were younger, they could release the continuing pain and not need the bottle.

Your oldest son blames you for the way his father treated him because he thinks you should have done something to rescue them. He feels this way because, for him, it is better than assigning the blame to himself for not trying to help out. All you can do is send them unconditional love that they may resolve these negative feelings and find happiness again.