I'm Natalie Lou and you're listening to the baggage reclaim sessions.

Hello hello how are you doing? I'm back after my three week break where unfortunately within one day of going on break I finally got COVID. Also I say I finally got COVID, or so did I say I finally tested positive for COVID,

which meant that I missed the first half of the kids holidays I missed my first in-person work event I was

supposed to be speaking at the London Book Fair and I also missed my friend 60th birthday so it was quite a week but thankfully I am over it now and I wasn't hit hard by it

probably because as well to be fair I'd had a head cold for a couple of weeks that I was just

starting to get over when I went on break from the podcast so basically it meant I'd been sick for about three or so weeks but I'm done

and hopefully COVID is gonna leave me alone for a while so anyway I'm back and

raring to go and today what I want to talk about is dealing with our

parents unrealistic expectations.

If, like me and like a lot of people, you sometimes find that you are...

I was dreading speaking to your parents on the phone or you may be nervous of their

text coming through or you are sort of bracing yourself for comments whenever you spend time around them,

you are not alone. I think that part of the transition from childhood to adulthood is establishing your own identity,

figuring out what's true and right for you, figuring out what your values are and of course when we are being

raised by our parents and caregivers they share their ideas I I guess, of who we are and they share their ideas of our values and how we should live our lives.

And of course, what they're saying is relative to the time

that we're growing up and things change, things evolve.

And what happens is we come into adulthood with all of these ideas about who we are,

and then we have to unlearn, and healthy and unhelpful patterns of thinking and behavior so that we can become more of who we are and

live our lives happily and authentically. And living our lives happily and

authentically might not look the way that our parents envisioned for us.

And some parents, they come to terms with that, and some parents it seems they make comments.

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