Today we ask that you consider what it means to “honor your mother and father.”

Many of you have extremely complex and conflicted relationships with your parents — even if your parents are no longer in physical bodies.  This deep conflict is a part of the human experience.  It is natural.

Some parents are healthy, and supportive.  Others are destructive, and unsupportive.  How does one relate to these beings who are so very close to you — the Mother, and the Father — in a way that is both loving and compassionate, yet protective of one’s boundaries as an individual?

While these relationships are highly complex, the answer is simple:

To thine own self be true.

When dealing with one’s parents, it is essential to honor you.  By honoring you, you honor your mother and father.

When dealing with one’s parents, it is essential to act in integrity.  This means being authentic.  Do not violate your integrity when dealing with your parents.

Being in integrity simply means not being conflicted about your actions.  It means acting with a whole heart, and owning what you do.  Everyone has their own subjective experience of what it means to be in integrity.  Everyone has their own “code of honor,” and this can vary quite significantly from person to person.

The main thing to pay attention to is how integrity feels.  

When you act in integrity, you feel whole and strong in the action.

When you are in integrity, even if a parent says “You are doing the wrong thing!”, you know that this is not true.  You are whole, and strong.  You are honoring yourself, even if you are going against what a parent tells you to do.  Only good will come of this.

When you dishonor yourself to go along with a parent, there is a kind of breakage that occurs.  While it may placate the parent in the short term, it will not work in the long term.  Sometimes people make themselves very sick in their souls, doing what their parents want.

Please know that you do not honor your parents simply by doing what they tell you to do.

Your honor your parents by growing into a whole, strong, beautiful, independent being.

That is how you honor your parents.