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Q: I have a question about attachment. I watched a film recently that had a profound effect on me. The film itself is very moving so I was roaring anyway! However, the mother character made me feel uncomfortable. She had given up her life to care for her daughter, who now didn’t want that any more. The mother won’t let go and her sister asks her “who would you be if you weren’t this woman who had given up your whole life to save your daughter?”

As a parent I didn’t want to identify with how she wouldn’t let go, and whilst my situation is different, I could see the pain and the drive we have as parents. I have spent the past 2 years working on letting go and control, and my relationship with my daughter has transformed. However, my daughter has recently started school full time and it is bringing up a lot of emotion. I stayed at home with her in the main and so we have been largely together since she was born. There is no doubt that I want to let go, but I am wondering why it is so painful? I mainly don’t ‘parent’ her as she doesn’t need that, she wants me to just be there as a person. I think in some ways I feel redundant. Am I still attached to the parent role and is this why I feel this way?

A: Pain means you are making a mistake and that you still haven’t learned the lesson.  It is a place where you have removed yourself from the situation because it seemed too difficult.  By deciding not to recognise the relationship, you cut yourself off and you are suffering as a result.

I would suggest that you question a few aspects from your story:

1. What exactly you are uncomfortable about?
2. Why you are highlighting your situation is different?
3. Why you don’t parent your child and how you know she wants you there as a person?

Love is the opposite of pain. To let go is not to deny but to accept.  You would not be in pain if you had truly let go. Wisdom comes from learning the lesson and starts to heal the pain. The reason you feel redundant is because you are the one who has made yourself that.