I have the pleasure of forwarding a very touching emotional article by Mrs. Chithra Vishwanathan a well-known Cooking expert, as to how you can transform your life by transforming your thinking:
“When my daughter, elder one of my two children, got married and left the house, I felt as if I could not let her leave me. Having a daughter and a son, I know what both mean, but differently.
Once my daughter reached her teens I had started feeling as if my daughter was a ‘physical extension” of me. So when she was leaving home to set up her own nest, it was as though, I was losing a limb.
The next time she came for a short stay with us, I was astonished at how her priorities had changed. (of course, we must have given the same shocks to our parents). When she said Amma, she meant her mother-in-law, not me!
I imagined that she was always in a hurry to go back to her house and not stay with me for a few more days which I wanted so badly. That was the first time; it dawned on me that I have to start practicing detachment in attachment.
Two years after my daughter’s marriage, my son left for higher studies in the US. Having experienced a child’s separation once, this time I was better equipped emotionally.
I plunged headlong into various classes held in the city starting from Vedanta to healing to Ikebana – I just wanted to be away from home. My husband, who was a workaholic, also could not understand my predicament.
My son used to write how he was missing my home-cooked food, how he was waiting to come back to live in Chennai with us etc. After a few years, he did come back and we got him married.
He started living separately with his wife & we were also happy that they wanted to be independent. But now, it was all changed!
When in the US, he missed my cooking. Now if I called him to come over with his wife for a meal, it was always some excuse like “oh, amma, we have other plans for the day, please don’t mistake us if we don’t drop in today “!
I could see that his priorities had also changed completely.
We talk in theory so many things and advise others etc. but when it comes to our children, acceptance comes very late and the next step is just leaving them undisturbed in every way, mainly without advice from our end.
It was at that time, I made the following lines as my “new profile”: