We matter, no matter what
Regardless of how much you have unpacked your stories or not; of how aligned or not your parenting feels with your intentions and values; of how clear or not you are on what you want…
Regardless of how difficult a decision may seem, how confusing the next step may appear, how overwhelmed you may feel, how uncertain you are about what to say, how to make a request or set a boundary...
Your feelings matter. Your opinion matters. Your concerns matter. Your voice matters (no matter if you feel able to speak up or not). Your wellbeing, safety and care matter.
This seems so simple, and yet, it can be so easy to forget, because parenting – and let’s face it, life – is rife with experiences that take us back to those times where we felt like we didn’t matter.
Healing while parenting is not about uncovering our hurts, fixing them, and voila – showing up for parenting struggles with fresh presence and happiness.
It’s more like starting to notice how complex and interwoven our lived experiences are with our day to day attempts to show up whole, present, loving – or at the very least decently, for our children.
It can look like noticing the way your partner’s rejection feels for you, and then being flooded with guilt as you reflect on the many times you have seen a look of pain on your child’s face recently, when you have rejected them.
It can look like that moment where your tears of sadness that have been held back for too long finally flow, and you are suddenly able to show up for your child with an appreciation and presence you hadn’t felt in a while.
It can look like feeling confused, judged and unheard by your co parent about a concern that you have around your child’s wellbeing, and then choosing to remember that your feelings, opinions and concerns do matter. Then you might choose to communicate with them from as much of a place of fierce loyalty to your own truth, and holding of their humanity and yours, as possible.
It can look like loving your new baby while watching the old version of your relationship with your first child come to a close, and sitting with the immense, long-familiar and deep sadness of beautiful relationships coming to painful ends.
It can look like allowing your anger to be so alive in you that it melts into grief and tears, and then you see your child, yourself, your loved ones, through the beautiful and liberating gaze of compassion and undeniable interconnectedness.
It can look like stopping in your tracks and realizing that the reason you curate a happy life on social media is not that you are vain or superficial, but that you learned that you are not loveable if you feel pain. You learned that love is earned by being pleasant, happy and successful. And we all want to be loved.
It can look like so many things. What has it looked like for you?
Healing allows us to live these moments more bravely, more presently, and with a growing capacity for compassion and caring for ourselves when we do. It lets us be honest and accepting of what is. It tells us that it is good to need loving listeners to help us move through the hurt.
It reminds us that it makes perfect sense that life can still feel very painful at times.
Healing teaches us that it is choosing to truly live in the present that will open us up to visits from the parts of our past that still hurt. That we can bring our current consciousness and wisdom to help make sense, acceptance and transformation if it all.
Healing teaches us that our stories, our truth and our processes, matter.
Stepping into our leadership allows us to own our worth, and release our children from the burden of having to make us feel it.
Healing parents, you are doing some hard core, badass, sacred work of a lifetime.
Keep going.
Take it slow.
Keep it honest.
You got this. And I've got you.