How Do You Accept That Your Mother Will Never Show Basic Interest?

Reddit Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/enlightenment/comments/1rcsp71/comment/o70kjz6/?context=3

My mother was this way, unless it had to do with business. And then she died. And then I realized I just didn't give that to myself, and I could have all that time. She was just a reflection of my own being.

Two things. One is that it is a lifelong practice of realizing that what she is showing you, is partially what she shows herself. For she also suffers the same slight and pain of not receiving, perhaps not knowingly, perhaps quietly. She cannot give what she does not have, so one can consider the depth of compassion that it takes to see your own mother's heartache of not knowing that experience.

Second. You will face this in its entirety when she passes. The entire heartache and longing that you wished for. That will be the opening, the opportunity, the practice to see through what it is that you are craving, that you desire, the warmth. And if you have the will, the strength, the stamina to do so in those quiet moments where you may face despair, to finally give that to yourself, or if you need a stand-in, for the Buddhas or God or Jesus, or whatever you feel is present for you that you can manifest in your heart and your mind, to give that to you, that is the moment. That is the practice. To cut through and know that what others give to you, is actually an illusion.

That in every instance, it's you giving it to yourself.

That when someone loves you, it is actually you allowing love to come through. That when someone pains you, it is you allowing yourself to be pained. That the energy of those moments, are empty of meaning, that we give it the meaning, imputed. I don't say this as if it is easy, or that it's trivial. That this may be the hardest thing that you can do, the great challenge of your life, to give yourself the love and compassion that you starve yourself for in which your mother serves as a stand-in for that allowance to come through.

But it may take the crushing blow of death, your's or her's, for beings to dissolve and pass away, for you to realize that. And that is okay. That can be true too.