"Keep a calm nervous system" seems to be the one unifying theme in parenting to strive for. Mindfulness, exercise, slowing down, self care... here I come!

Looking into Our Own Eyes

The leader of my weekly therapy consult group is a woman that swims in the ocean of metaphor, myth and the preverbal. She has a very simple way about her, authentic, deeply wise, but light and playful at the same time. I hear that Dr. Seuss book where the bird is looking for his mother piping up inside me when I hang with her just because I like her so much. The little bird goes around to different animals; dog, cat, fish and says "Are you my mother?" Oh sweet mother transference.

Anywho... She confirmed an experience me and my clients who are parents are experiencing in having a child. My oldest son has my eyes, hands down. At times, when I look in his eyes, I can literally feel the youngster in me. For some of us who haven't done the 16 years worth of therapy as I have, meeting the infant and toddler self can be joyous and also terrifying. For me, I am flooded with empathy for how different my experiences were at his age. I may, at times, project too much on to my kid and as a result, overly coddle or set poor boundaries. But here I am, face to face with my young self. It really has been breathtaking for me.

Revisiting our young self, we get the opportunity to confront pre verbal memories, in spite of all our best attempts at shoving them into the unconscious and we get to remember those first bumpy attempts at self hood and the victories and defeats we experienced at  the hands of our very human parents. We adapted accordingly and some of those adaptations drove us further away from our lived experience and authenticity and some of those helped us deepen into our authenticity. For me, parenting is helping me reclaim even more of my authentic lived moment to moment experience that got shoved into unconscious land. I love truth. I love me!

"Be who you are, and say what you feel, because those that mind don’t matter and those that matter don’t mind." - Dr. Seuss

Empathy

Check this out.  What do you think?  Will add my summary later.  Running late today.

Eating my lunch in a parking lot before heading into a training on attachment trauma. All I want to do is go home and be with my oldest whom I had to set some firm boundaries with this morning related to his choices. He sobbed in response: sad and angry. I hung out and empathized with his feelings. He
sought out lots of hugs and shared gazing. I realize, as I am sitting here, that I can empthaize but I neednt worry. I can communicate in body, mind and spirit that he is capable of navigating big feelings. I trust you little man.

Poetry to my Soul

So there are two things that turn me on.  Relating and thinking about relating. In my readings about psychotherapy, couples counseling and parenting, I am often sad that the books lack the lyricism and beauty that is involved in doing the jobs that light up my heart and life; loving my clients, kids and husband.  I have pulled off my "over stuffed" bookshelf a book I have had for almost ten years, A General Theory of Love over the last three months because it has put the lyrical and poetic back into teaching and relating and psychology.

The book covers  (cheesily I stole from an Amazon.com book reviewer) this;

There are 3 "axioms" for successful love: (1) Connect, (2) Be authentic, (3) The earlier the better. The more these 3 conditions are met, the more we experience love. Now that is a theory we can apply! As a member of the corporate world, I like the fact that the authors offer solutions not just scientific observations and results. "Connect" means listen, look at, etc. "Be authentic" means say what you are really feeling not what is convenient or politically correct. "The earlier the better" suggests that loving is most crucial early in life and early in relationships.

But listen to the WAY it covers;

So it is with the emotional mind.  If the fountain water were frozen as solid as the rock that cups it, we could predict its conformation over the next minute with certainty.  If all possible arrangements of water molecules were equally probable, we could throw up our hands in graceful defeat before infinity.  It is the liquidity of the water and the mind that befuddles, their ability to assume an array of forms with immense - but not limitless-variety.  Like a bead of sea spray, the future of an emotional mind hangs between the immobility of  stone and the freedom of the summer sky.  Identity can change, but only within the outlines its architecture commands. 

               -A General Theory of Love, Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, Richard Lannon, p. 166

This book is a right brain to right brain transmission.  A feat for words!  I am grateful.  There are some nits about the book but I am not one to throw all out because of nits. 

I Think You Are Crazy

Yep.  A mother in our longstanding playgroup has said on four separate occasions that "When I first met you I thought you were nuts." loudly in front of the whole group.  Once, funny - multiple times, one starts to wonder.   It sort of is the "worst case scenario" for me with other mothers.  It IS what my own mother has told me verbatim the whole of my life.  I have mentioned elsewhere in this blog that I went ahead and wore the "crazy" hat with my own mom because if I did, then my connection to her was not in jeopardy or it wasn't nearly as exhausting. 

Many years of therapy later what I have learned is there is nothing crazy about me.  As mentioned, I get hyper aroused in trigger situations that send me into fight, flight, freeze, submit or attach (cling) responses.  I made a best attempt at what is biologically wired in to all humans; to attach to my mother. What looks crazy is highly intelligent.  Learning about being in authentic connection, my triggers and how to calm my nervous system  have been my life's work.  I notice as I type this I am hyper aroused.  My sacrum is clenched as I hold back the fight/flight response.  So I will close my eyes and ; track very subtle body sensations and breath, then see myself quite literally pushing against that sentence "You are crazy" - push it out of my boundaried space and look squarely at the person saying it.  If needed,I will have the wise adult self in me hold the fighty and frighty kid that has gotten so aroused so she can be helped in calming down (or ask my husband to throw his arms around me as he is sitting here next to me.)  Will pick up writing in a second.  

Ok, did above and then husband held me, then we moved to a position where I just laid on my back while he had one hand holding my sacrum and the other holding my hand as I just released.  Lots of sadness came up there in releasing my sacrum.  I got an image of a little girl leaning forward, hands on her hips, enraged, screaming "you can't talk to me that way."  She was seven and while well defended yet she was alone.  As if this screaming were hapening in a sound proof box, no one really hearing seeing or getting her.  An angry and alone seven year old was what was all being held tightly and quietly inside my low back.  Yep, I know her all right.  Come sit in my lap.  I know how to hold you, sweetheart.  And by the way, thank you for holding on to this anger.  You made sure inside we didn't get squashed!

On to this playgroup mother.  I am writing about this because writing about it is another way to clarify to the world that I am no longer interested or willing to ingest "crazy" judgements from others.  I am also no longer interested in being in relationship with folks that need me to hold that for them.  This most recent run in happened on valentine's day and as I have been successfully pushing the comment out of my body/mind what I have reflected on is a lot of empathy and clear seeing about the other woman.  Prior to my own sequencing work with my nervous system I would have bounced around in an obcessional circle of I suck to she sucks until it got exhausting and I would then ride around in hopeless land.  Sensorimotor psychotherapy really has changed my life.

Reflecting back on my first meeting with clear seeing, I realized that this first meeting with this mother took place at a Shaman led sharing group three years ago.   This woman dropped in to this group that was intensely deep but loosely held and discovered it wasn't for her by judging it because she herself got hyper aroused.  Her drop in occurred precisely the day I announced to the rest of the group that I had "divorced my mother".  I remember what a landmark proclamation this was and I needed the support so I took a risk.  I felt good.  I felt embodied.  I wasn't even overwhelmed and shaky as I can get when vulnerable in groups.  She left early and I didn't see her around for a year and did not remember her when I met her in our sort of "vanilla" playgroup. 

Spending a life time trying to either make my mother or other people wrong, as I had, in response to their hurtfulness is such a long suffering road.  It is the stuff of hyper arousal though.   I am proud to say, I am not interested in making this mother wrong for her experience or even for what she keeps saying to me.   I can simply send the judgement back, say no thank you and calm myself.  In cases where I am committed to the relationship I get curious and see what I need relationally.  In this woman's case I haven't gotten too curious just because our social interactions haven't been inspiring enough for me to want to deepen connection. But for other relationships my curiosity and empathy lead to a clear "Oh they see the world differently than me and I need this in order to stay in connection."  I can work out any relational nits when I can calm my nervous system making room for empathy to lead the way. 

Blogging creates another avenue to "send it back", have a voice, show empathy, set a boundary be vulnerable and try out safely relating... and maybe along the way I will feel less triggered around other mothers to do the same face to face - even if it means getting hurt.  After all, mother's are my favorite people to project this "I think you are crazy" story the fight part of me has held so dearly for my mom.  And many of them will willingly pick it up and mirror it right back to me.   No wonder I am on high alert around them.  I am deeply grateful to this woman.  The pain I experienced by her comments lit a fire under my ass in my own therapy.   It has given me lots to work with.  And it motivated me to start this blog several weeks ago.  Really, her comments were the beginning.  My own therapist deserves the credit for my blog name.  She said to me "Wow.  These mothers are your dojo."  I expanded that.  Mothering is my dojo.

Emotional Fitness and Appropriate Childhood Woe

I admit it.  I am a rescuing mom.  I have, at times, been a rescuing therapist.  Most freshly minted therapists are.  We don't want to people to hurt because they come in already with a world of hurt.  I also feared they would leave me and some do because the do wish to be rescued.  I am better at naming that as it unfolds in our relationship so they hang in there with me standing alongside them.  I guess I have my clients to thank for teaching me that this rescuing business isn't communicating to my kids that I trust them, nor does it help them develop emotional fitness.  Now I will say I am not the kind to say "you are ok."  You know how you are.  I simply don't exacerbate what is a tense situation with my own tenseness if I can at all help it.  What do you feel and what do you need are my standard MO questions when my kid is hurting. 

Today at the formerly bemoaned indoor playground (better today bc OMA came) a little girl, probably my son's age, threw a pretty good protesting tantrum at not wanting to leave.  I had seen this mother and her two young daughters and sized her up to be an attuned parent.  To me it is no surprise it is often these parents whose kids tend to be less convenient in the behavior department and the parents expressions - even if frazzled often are also consious.  I fantasize that they, like me, are interested in supporting whole kids and thus having convenient solidier-like kids isn't their goal.  What was amazing was in the midst of my own son's trying morning he noticed this girl and was really gripped by her predicament.  He noticed she didn't want her mom, she didn't want to leave but she was also feeling a lot of "big feelings".  He walked over to her and knelt down in front of her and gently put his hand on her ankle and said "Hi.  What is wrong?  Is there anything you need?".  I liked the way he asked it.  A kind of "I'm here if you need me but if you don't that is fine too bc I know you can get through these feelings."  I was a proud mama bear.

Reflecting on this little scene and then a note from a friend who wants to take a mother's workshop by Kathryn Black who has written one of my FAVORITE books on Mothering I of course had to snoop around to find info on Kathryn and may reach out to her to network about her mothers group which I also want to start up.  I would LOVE to author a book on arousal states in mothers and kids - another angle of attachment that is touched on in the Allan Schore video I posted.  I am moving to Germany in Summer of 2013.  Maybe that will be my project then.

Anyway, as I came across this lovely article by Kathryn.  I pulled out the story of her son's piano recital.  She is such a lovely writer and if you haven't read Mothering Without a Map I frankly thing it, Anne Lamott's Operating Instructions and Dan Siegel's Parenting from the Inside Out are THE three books to read prior to having a child.  So many that I love but these tree I think are MUSTS.  Kathryn's article served as another good reminder for why I needn't swoop in and feel mommy guilt every time my son has to endure something hard.  Maybe I didn't need to go into his bedroom and sleep on the floor afterall.

"There was the Sunday afternoon four years ago, for instance, when my then 6-year-old sat down at the piano in a recital hall. Midway through his piece, he got stuck on a musical phrase he could only repeat until, finally, he put his hands in his lap, his head down, and wept. I sat in the audience watching, nearly crying myself. His teacher got up and gave his thin shoulders a hug as she helped him up from the piano bench. He came tremulously to sit in my lap, burying his face in my neck. The “rescuing mom” inside me - the one who hasn’t the emotional stamina to bear her child’s distress - wanted desperately to console him with promises that he’d never to have to play the piano again.

 

The rescuer in me hovers, eager to lift the dumbbells and rob my children of opportunities to tone their coping muscles. My older son broke his foot the first weekend of summer, sentencing him to hobble through camp on crutches. When we learned a cast was forthcoming, I wanted to distract us both from the pain by saying, “Forget camp. Let’s go to Disneyland, Paris!” But I didn’t, any more than I canceled the piano lessons. I know these trials are theirs to endure.

 

My older son watched the other children canoe, ride horses, and frolic in a wild food fight with counselors. My young one walked to the piano, terrified, at his next recital, played his piece imperfectly, and bowed. And, like his brother, he came away stronger.

 

Each of these episodes helps me quiet that rescuing mom. I can see this is how children are meant to earn their emotional fitness - with parents standing nearby, not taking over but loving and encouraging."

By Kathryn Black, What I Wish Every Parent Knew: A Space of Their Own, CHILD/2004

Had a swirl of ideas today after my consult group on the unconscious.  I got curious about sibling relationships, friend relationships, parent child relationships and lover relationships.  Themes around needing to possess the other, be special to the other or control the other - essentially negotiating proximity (how close or far do I want to be with you in this moment) and how safe to I feel in my body as I do?   It is the mainstay of what I look at in my therapeutic work; the ways we are in and not in connection with ourselves and other people.  I got a whiff of some stuff today as I got titillated by my connections and stuff I am reading I also felt a kind of "look at me mom".  Started getting heady about it.  Realized, no need.  I can be with and hold her the same way I honor my sons when they are here rather than analyze her.  I am so grateful for my kids- they are the best teachers for hugging.  Off to hug myself. 

Oh and for whatever reason, in my intellectual masturbation today, a friend sent an article on the import of fairy tales in kids lives.  Of course I had to go google some excerpt from Joseph Cambell and came across this groovy hippy dude's website.  Fun. http://www.whidbey.com/parrott/moyers.htm

Joseph Campbell in the Power of Myth
"Shakespeare said that art is a mirror held up to nature. And that’s what it is. The nature is your nature, and all of these wonderful poetic images of mythology are referring to something in you. When your mind is simply trapped by the image out there so that you never make the reference to yourself, you have misread the image.

The inner world is the world of your requirements and your energies and your structure and your possibilities that meets the outer world. And the outer world is the field of your incarnation. That’s where you are. You’ve got to keep both going. As Novalis said, "The seat of the soul is there where the inner and outer worlds meet."

Emotions and Regulation

Well, my ode to Allan in a previous post is expanded on.  I am still working on his books.  I think mostly because as he talks about arousal regulation - doing it by yourself or in connection is what
a) my 3 year old son is working out and that I am bumbling through feebily
b) has been the "stuff" of my own healing journey as arousal regulation has been what has transformed my life
c) now is what I specialize in and hope to continue to specialize in

Just leaving work. I am aware that desperate need to prove one's competence to others is a joy killer. Yes, that includes mothering. Night.

3.5 Year Old Yowza

Seriously, for someone with a Masters in Psychology, I really don't know jack. That is being way too hard on myself but sheesh, 3.5 has been so challenging and all the stuff I said in my last post about spiritual path and stuff. 3.5 takes the cake. My son actively pushes me away, with a scowl and then I spin out in self analysis wondering what is the best way to handle. I want to honor his autonomy but man in my "real life" I thought, I don't let people talk to me like that. Well, I am revisiting the notion of discipline as teaching and what I have to teach him is better ways to let me know he is angry so that his anger is effective at getting him the space from me he needs while learning some basic skills of communication and respect. This parenting job is mind boggling. I thought this woman's blog did an outstanding job of laying out some info on 3.5 year old behavior. Yay to thoughtful mama's that help us out. A little more pragmatic than the Allan Schore stuff for me right now. Enjoy!

Characteristics of Three (and a half) Year Old Behavior

by PlanningQueen on November 17, 2009

in 10 Things,Child Development

Some time ago I wrote a post on the Characteristics of Two (and a half) Year Old Behavior. In recent weeks, my fourth child’s behaviour has become rather challenging. I was trying to work out what was going on with him and me, that could be contributing to the situation. Going over in my mind, the behaviors he had been exhibiting it came to be straight away, that he has entered another period of disequilibrium – he is the lovely age of three and a half!
Disequilibrium is the half year period before a child’s birthday, (in this instance from 3 1/2 until 4 years old) where children are confused, emotional, temperamental and may have difficulty completing tasks that they previously have easily accomplished. They then move into phases of equilibrium where they seem to have “got it all together”.

Your Three Year Old: Friend or Enemy by Louise Bates Ames.  
So I did some research on this stage of child development and came across these couple of paragraphs, which instantly gave me some heart. They are taken from Your Three Year Old: Friend or Enemy by Louise Bates Ames.

In fact, Three is a highly “we” age. The child likes to say “let’s,” as “let’s go for a walk, shall we?” The sense of togetherness or “we-ness” seems to make him depend on the adult and makes him lean on him or her, though he also enjoys the sense of sharing. The very child who has been so independent earlier may now ask his mother: “Help me,” “show me.”

Three is a conforming age. Three and a half is just the opposite. Refusing to obey is perhaps the key aspect of this turbulent, troubled period in the life of the young child. It sometimes seems to his mother that his main concern is to strengthen his will, and he strengthens this will by going against whatever is demanded of him by that still most important person in his life, his mother.

Many a mother discovers that even the simplest event or occasion can elicit total rebellion. Dressing, eating, going to the bathroom, getting up, going to bed – what ever the routine, it can be the scene and setting for an all-out, no-holds-barred fight. Techniques and tricks formerly useful can no longer be guaranteed to work. The mother’s equally resistant response may be tempered by knowing that soon, when he is Four, her child will have developed a self concept strong enough so that he can sometimes conform, and also that he will sometimes enjoy going out of bounds and saying and doing things he knows full well will not be permitted. But even when out of bounds at Four, he will usually be much less difficult to manage then now, at Three and a half.

How many months is it until April (he will be four then!)????? Seriously though, reminding myself of how turbulent this age can be and understanding that it is part of his developmental growth, has already given me some feeling of relief and started me thinking of better ways to manage his behaviour. I have listed below some of the characteristics and some “possible” solutions. The solutions are only “possible” because as noted above, they may work one day, but not the next, on these beautiful 3.5 year olds!
And of course three and a half is not only just challenging behaviours! There are plenty of gorgeous and fun moments in there too, so I have ended the list with some of the more endearing characteristics of this age.

1. Indecisive

Me: “What game would you like to play?”
Master 3.5: “I don’t know.”
Possible Solution: At this stage of development, going back to offering limited choices, has begun working much better. So by asking him something like “Do you want to play lego or do a puzzle?” it limits his options, but still gives him control in choosing his activity.

2. Whining

We have hit some peak levels with whining recently. But at least I know that it is completely normal for this age:

Tensional outlets increase. There may not be only eye blinking and stuttering, but rubbing of genitals, chewing on clothes, excessive salivation, spitting, tics and whining. In fact, whining is a hallmark of Three-and-a-half, and can be extremely irritating…..Emotional insecurity, which so many seem to feel at this age, may be due to a large extent on the temporary inadequacy of the motor system. 

                                                       Your Three Year Old: Friend or Enemy by Louise Bates Ames.

Possible Solution: No solutions to eliminate this one unfortunately, but am just trying to work with him on it. I calmly state that when he asks for something, he needs to use a clear and calm voice so that I can understand him and respond only once he has done this.

3. Mum Do!

Many mornings master 3.5 is not interested in dressing himself and I am told “You dress me.”
Possible Solution: Firstly he needs to repeat the request using a happy voice and with manners. I then aim for a compromise, something along the lines of “I will do your t-shirt and you can do your shorts.” Knowing that he will move out of this stage and start wanting to dress himself again, and that there are many battle grounds at the moment, I am choosing carefully which ones that I take on!

4. Volatile Emotions

Some days it takes only the smallest thing to set of a very loud and long outburst of tears. I may have said that he can only have one yoghurt or he may break his banana while opening it and its like his whole world has just fallen apart.
Possible Solution: I find trying to reason with him at this point is completely futile. I have had the best results by implementing the hug strategy. Bringing him into me and given him a hug and holding him has helped him regain his composure more quickly.

5. Falling Over

There have been many mornings recently on the walk to school where master 3.5 seems to trip over his own feet and ended up flat out on the ground. This usually then sees an episode of point 4 above, which is generally well out of proportion for the actual injury sustained.

Thus, there is at this age much stumbling and falling. Lack of smooth interplay between flexor and extensor muscles results not only in the gross motor coordination evidenced by stumbling and falling, but also by lack of coordination in the fine motor field as shown by a marked hand tremor in many children.

Your Three Year Old: Friend or Enemy by Louise Bates Ames.  Possible Solution: Encouraging him to slow down. He wants to get to places first (see the next point below). I also ask his siblings not to race him on the way to school and keep that activity for at home.

6. Winning

Master 3.5 now understands the concept of winning and likes to win. Conversely he can often become very unhappy when he loses.
Possible Solution: We have had numerous conversations about games being fun and winning not being the most important thing, but it hasn’t really done anything to change the situation. As I said at the beginning, the behaviour of 3.5 year old does vary day to day, if it looks like he is having a day where he is finding things particularly hard, then I will avoid playing competitive games. Also I make sure I choose times when he is less likely to be tired – early morning as opposed to evening, to play these types of games.

6. Attachment To Every Day Items

Particular items have taken on much more significance at the moment. He likes to eat his breakfast with a “shiny” spoon and he has a favourite colour cup he likes to drink out of. Volatile emotions can be freely flowing if substitute items are given.
Possible Solution: This is another one where it is a matter of choosing the right battles with him. It is not really a big deal for me to have the right spoon or cup available and I can then take up bigger issues, like not hitting his siblings when frustrated!

7. Enforcement Of Rules

Although he may not want to always follow the rules of the house, he certainly knows them and likes to keep an eye on every one else and see if they are following them. He will quite happily tell his eldest brother “stop swinging on your chair” or his sister “you need to pack up your mess”.
Possible Solution: It is great that he knows the rules, but I am having a number of chats with him about leaving the commenting on the other children’s behaviour to mum and dad.

8. Sense Of Humour

Master 3.5 has really started to display a sense of humour. He laughs at the jokes of his siblings and has started trying to make up his own jokes as well. Naturally the tag line involves either poo or wee, but he thinks they are hilarious and it is very cute to see him join in with the older kids.

9. Friends

Recently he has started talking about his “friends” and requesting to have them to play or go and visit them to play. He also on the whole has been managing to keep it together when he has his friends over and is so proud to tell his siblings he had his friend come to play. It is quite heart warming to see him interact with others his own age and have conversations with them.

10. Love

As he looks for more security at this stage of his life, I am having a lot more “huggles” as he likes to call them and time with him sitting on my knee. I especially love it when he has just woken up and is all warm and toasty from bed. So also on the plus side to this period of development is that I receiving a lot more physical affection.
This stage in a child’s life is definitely a challenging one and like all stages, I need to remind myself that this will too pass! In the mean time, I need to focus on choosing the right battles, removing points of conflict and helping him feel secure in his environment.
Can you recognise some of these characteristics in your three and a half year old?

Lonely On the Quest

A dear friend who also has a challenging teacher for this role of mother (her mother) sent me this sticker today which I promptly put on my car.  It reminds me of something another friend who is electing not to have children said to me once, "I don't know what all the hub bub is about children.  It seems to me that there are other ways to achieve the same level of meaning or spiritual depth."  She may be right.  I haven't found it yet.  Perhaps this bumper sticker sums it up.  It isn't that there aren't other ways but motherhood, no matter your level of interest in growing, puts you on a fast and steep climb - confronting you with intensely deep opportunities to look at yourself if you choose to open the invite and consciously look.  I am craving a community of moms who would put this bumper sticker on their car.  I attempted to start this group but the goal wasn't quite what his bumper sticker espouses.  For me, I feel like a lone wolf sometimes looking at motherhood this way.  It is downright lonely and it sums up why I write this blog.  I am lonely.  There, I said it. 

I am deeply immersed in this daily spiritual practice called motherhood exploring;
-what is the self
-how are boundaries defined
-what is power and how is it used and abused
-what is mortality
-what is passion
-what is connection and attunement
-how does my nervous system respond to connection and solitude
-what is "mommy guilt"
-how does our shame impact connection
-what is the legacy of patriarchy
-how do we reconcile the legacy of the mothering we received with the kind of mother we want to be

The list goes on.

Just a few thoughts...that swirl around.  I do get off on this kind of thinking. 

Allan Schore's Sweet Face

Short silly post but studying for MFT exam and studying affect dysregulation and attachment. Looked up Allan Schore's website.  His book is so dense I needed to see him to get some motivation to carry on.  His face is so sweet.  He is one of the "sparkly eyed" people....I hope to be one.  Stan Tatkin is another and Janina Fischer is another. But I had to retype his dedication from the front of his book.  It says, "To Judith, Wing to wing, oar to oar".  Six words packed full of right brain expression.  I feel moved.
His Site: http://www.allanschore.com/index.php

Cling-Free Mother to Mother Interaction

So yesterday I got together with another mom and her kid I used to spend a lot of time with.  We had a good but messy dynamic.  Mixed up in our relationship was my anxious and clingy need for approval and her heady, intellectual way of relating designed to keep people at arms length. But I like her.  I think, erroneously, in the past the part of me who has a lot of wounding around attachment would get triggered by her cool-hand-luke intellectualism and distancing - I would both idealize it and cling to her - needing her approval.  I don't think I was totally unaware of this dynamic but I would get sucked in even in attempting to stop.  I often made myself  "the fuck up" which meant she didn't have to look at her own avoidant kind of detachment that is her intellectualism.  Neither of us really had to be in authentic connection.

We had to take a break.  There was an unconscious enactment that we co created to shift the dynamic and I became quite literally dizzyingly aware of it one day as I stepped out of it being all about me.   I realized "oh hey - we co created this funky thing."   Said differently, " I am not nuts.".  Thanks be to the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy work my therapist and I have been doing the last three years, after 15+ years of therapy I have more profoundly understood the healthy workings of my nervous system and that the fear and clinginess is not pathological but was necessary component of survival from my young life that is hard wired into my body/mind. 

What was the end result?  I pushed back on this friend and instead of naming for her all the ways I "fucked things up" I actually named the things she was doing that didn't feel ok to me.  I rarely speak up this way.  I was kind but firm.  I didn't like we seemed to bond around our shared misery, I am not always miserable but why is it that that is all we talk about?  I named my desire to connect in a more heartfelt way rather than just an intellectual way.  And finally I named what I experienced as ambivalence from her around wanting to step out of the one down dynamic. After I said this I felt like an energetic exorcism had taken place.  I felt fantastic.

The end result is a great deal of space opened up and I was able to more fully see her when I stopped holding the crazy bag.   I could also feel and honor my own needs more clearly and I was able to act on them.  In seeing her I was able to notice her wounding  - she has her fair share - and deeply empathize and from that place of empathy I could not only change my expectations of her but also seeing her more fully I no longer idealized her.   This one-upmanship is a bullshit way we were doing relationship and we both created it - not me alone and I was done putting my chips on that bet.

Celebration dance!

I am moved to write bc after a three month break I was able to hang with her yesterday and I felt ZERO anxiety and only very controllable moments of "cling".  I was shocked.  I felt very inside my skin.  I didn't idealize.  There were some desperate moments when I could feel some clinginess around parenting and a touch of the idealizing come back (I imagine she is a better parent but she isn't - we are both bumbling along) and I just took a deep breath and said to myself inside "Hey no one gets this parenting thing just right.  Ask her for some ideas but then remember that those ideas don't mean she knows any better than you."  And then I was calm again, I re oriented to what I felt in my stomach, my feet on the ground, I could feel my breath going in and out even while I was standing talking to her.   And you know what I was able to feel when I did that - I looked over and I saw her face at one moment and I felt how much I love her.  I felt my love for her from a place of adult connection and a calm nervous system.  My love does not mean I need to do anything differently with her right now.  I can just feel it inside of me and stay inside of me looking at her. 

I feel really really proud of myself.  I have been working my ass off retraining my sensorimotor system to orient in relationship so I can feel safe inside my body so my nervous system doesn't go on clingy high alert and it is happening.  This was such a feat.  I just had to mark it with celebration!!!!!!!!! 

The BLOB Mother: Smothering Independance

So, I had an opportunity today, in my own therapy to sort out some confusion I was having about how to help my oldest son. I was pained by the way he was strongly pushing away from in moments when he was in crisis. One parenting forum said I shouldn't let him do that. That is him disconnecting and having pent up feelings he needed to cathart.  My own therapist pointed out that his desire to hide, run away, get mad, or seek out another parent were ways he was trying out self regulating without my help.  The best responde when he does this is "Yes go do that and I am right here if you need me."   Instead I was freaking out that my kid didn't need me or frankly wanted another.   What I got curious about was what was happening inside of me that I get "up in my kid's business"?

Part of it was I am feeling his 3.5 year old rapprochement, push away and then reach for me, push away, reach for me.  Sometimes I feel abandoned there, sometimes I feel like I need to fix his discomfort.  Even prior to therapy I said to my husband, "You know, I think our kid is getting pissed at me because I am just too much up in his business."  So I played a little game.  I sat and looked at him with awareness of my body and then I sat and looked at my younger son.  It was fascinating.  With my oldest,  I am like THE BLOB.  Remember that movie?  Goopy, sticky, smothering YUK.  And with my youngest, just clean, clear crisp "there he is and here I am."  Why?  Doesn't really matter does it?  I just need to stop.  I am pretty sure it is a young part of me clinging to my oldest.  To stop I can just hold her and cuddle her and give her what she needs so her tentacles aren't creeping outside my boundary like THE BLOB. 

I found this article from eHow on Enmeshment.  I am posting it so I can keep track of it and in because it is so important for others to have many ways to find because I see grown ups who had parents like this in my therapy practice and they are truly stunted and in pain so...good motivation for me.

How to Identify Enmeshment in Your Relationships with Teens and What To Do

KRLawrence

Pediatric RN and mother of three. I enjoy raising my family and now that they are practically grown, I am ready to return to work.
I enjoy education and my favorite part of nursing is teaching patients and parent. I have a rather dry wit but love to laugh so I am sure you will see humor articles from time to time.
I value your recommendations, comments and ratings very much.

By KRLawrence, eHow Member

Read more: How to Identify Enmeshment in Your Relationships with Teens and What To Do | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_4718239_enmeshment-relationships-teens-what-do.html#ixzz1GpSvKfeo

What is Enmeshment? To be enmeshed in any relationship is to have unclear boundaries that chronically fail to keep parties in the relationship separate. In a world where we work hard to get closer, it sounds odd to worry about having boundaries but this is an essential element of a healthy relationship. This is especially true in a parent/child relationship. On the other hand, the opposite of Enmeshment is Detachment and being too detached is similarly a problem. Therefore, as parents, we find ourselves walking a fine line.

Difficulty:

Moderately Challenging

Instructions

things you'll need:

• The ability to take an honest look at yourself
• Strength and determination
• The desire to have your child become a strong adult

1. Enmeshment: An enmeshed mother may quickly take on any issues their children find difficult to manage. This leaves the child feeling inadequate or invaded. The child feels that they must not be capable or trusted enough to deal with such issues and as a result, turns to that parent time and time again to have problems resolved. If the child's feeling is that they have been invaded, they close off to that parent, share nothing and perhaps face issues alone that they might have really needed some guidance on. The first demonstrates a child that comes out needy and typically a victim in life and the latter produces a child who is bitter, angry and secretive. Clearly something needs to change to help the child build confidence in their own decision making and yet know when and feel comfortable seeking out the help needed when they are over their heads.
2. If you are starting from a place like the one I did... you probably know you have enmeshment issues and damage has already been done. Not to worry.... Like most other parenting issues, it is never too late to learn something new and it can only humanize us in the eyes of our children to admit we are handling something wrong and try again. Enmeshment becomes an issue that has a central focus around trust and control. Do you trust your child to handle issues? Do you need to have control over them or are you trying to help them become trustworthy adults who can take care of themselves? If you are not sure if your relationship with your child suffers from Enmeshment issues... take a good look at how problems are managed. Is there a clear problem solver? Is your child able to come to you after a problem is solved and share what happened? If your child handles something poorly, do you step in or encourage them to try again with some advice and direction? Enmeshed relationships typically have a very rigid structure. Everyone has a role and they stick to it. Parents feel that they are responsible for all of their child's issues and needs and children feel that they have no control over what happens to and around them.
3. Many parents who are Enmeshed... are completely blind to it. Their control issues arise from the lack of trust and maybe even respect for their children but the result is that they do not allow the child to deal with consequences for his or her own behaviors. While protecting our children is a natural tendency for most, this enmeshment causes us to protect our children to a degree that leads to true psycho-social pathology. When your child goes through a painful or difficult time or when the world just does not seem to be treating your child "fair", you need to move away from sympathy being the only acceptable response. Sympathy is an inclination to support or be loyal to or to agree with an opinion... a sharing of feelings the other has.
   Sympathy is a trap when you are trying to develop a young adult. Feelings are personal and you don't need to share their feelings to validate them. Learning to step back from the situation and be objective will help your child far more than sympathizing with them. Let's try to replace Sympathy with Empathy... a capacity to recognize or understand another's state of mind or emotion. This allows the parent to understand but not own the child's interpretation of events and be better able to be objective. Removing all discomfort and strife from your child's life is not realistic and not going to prepare them to become adults and deal with the issues that face all of us on a daily basis. You may feel like a super hero but you are actually the villain.
4. Change is hard... and ugly. Your child will likely respond to you defining boundaries with insecurity and anxiety or distrust and bitterness. You don't care anymore! You are actually showing more care to let them deal with their own problems than doing it for them. You might start by being open with your child... declare that you think there needs to be new boundaries and that you trust that they are capable of dealing with most of their own issues on their own. While you will be there to discuss how they handle issues, you need to step away from doing the work for them. This might start with your child coming to you with issues and you asking "and what do you think you can do about that?" After a few attempts, this will take root and the child will likely share their thoughts. Don't tell them they are right or wrong... you can offer guidance but not direction. Let them fall if they make a mistake and know that it is safer to do this when they are still a child than when they are an adult. When they do fall on their face, don't pick them up but rather offer support and encouragement to try again.
   The stakes are high and the time is now. We can all probably point out others in our lives that suffer from enmeshment issues.... on either end. However, we all find it harder to look within ourselves and see these behaviors for the destruction that they are.

Read more: How to Identify Enmeshment in Your Relationships with Teens and What To Do | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_4718239_enmeshment-relationships-teens-what-do.html#ixzz1GpQx5jBE

Being With Big Feelings

Better Title: "Honoring your child's
separation anxiety by
listening to their legit feelings!"

Last night I came home from work, kids were already in bed, I was able to sneak in and say goodnight as they weren't quite asleep because of the time change.  I felt all ooey gooey inside.  Noting these feelings and how up until I had had kids, I had never felt ooey gooey love, I grinned and said to my husband, "Man I love our kids."

As I went to bed that night I drifted off to sleep suddenly woken by a burning sensation in my chest that turned to a dense and very heavy weight there.  I missed them.  My Tuesdays I literally don't see them all day.  My days used to be set up so I was with them 2.5 days a week.  Now it is 1.5 and on two of those gone days, I don't arrive home in time to put them to bed.  I have had these "missing" bouts before and often I wonder how it is a mutual experience I am having.  I am missing them AND I am picking up on their missing of me.  So I took it as a sign that I was needed and asked my husband if he wanted to join me on their floor.  I was sure I wasn't just doing it for myself but surely there was that there too.  My husband said no thanks but was ok if I did so off I went.  Sure enough, an hour later I hear my oldest crying out in sleep, "Mama" and was so glad I was there for his cries.  I pulled him down on the floor with me and asked him what he needed.  He said, "I just want you to hold me."

This morning was fun waking to their sweet faces beaming at me.  My oldest came and rubbed my head the way I do sometimes and I hear my 20 month old say "Hey You!" when he saw me there.  So sweet.  I know they are missing our connection and had recently gotten some parenting advice from Patty Wipfler about lingering just a bit at our goodbyes to "hear" some of their feelings rather than jetting off.  Sure enough, my youngest son, more than usual, had real heartache this morning when I left him at the daycare with a very loving attuned provider.  I had given her advance notice that I wanted to show up and hear more of his sad feelings, that he didn't need to be calm and quiet for me.  I wanted to hear him out.  It ignited tears in some of the other kids but I think those tears weren't just tears of empathy but perhaps those kids also felt like they could release to.
I am home now.  The look on my youngest son's face is burned in my brain.  The ache and desire for me to go back running and scoop him up ever present in my body, the low gutteral cry that I listened to piercing my ears.  I feel like someone just slugged me in the stomach and my heart feels too big for my chest. It hurst.  And I feel alive and in the most honest connection with my kid.  I didn't have to fix his feelings, I didn't have to overwhelm him with mine, I just listened. I am tearing as I write.  I am so glad to have the opportunity to feel these kinds of feelings.  Sons, I love you!

Connection Rather than Behavior

No better time for connecting rather than telling him to please stop screaming!

Just picked up a quote that has been deeply meaningful to me in terms of my children and also mind bogglingly not in alignment with what our culture promotes.  I can't take credit.  Another mom posted it on a connection parenting list serv.  She said that when in doubt about what she is doing with her kid she focuses on Connection not Behavior...meaning she is constantly tending to the quality of her authentic connection with her kid.  Authentic connection meaning: clear, boundaried, eye to eye, attuned (sometimes rough, sometimes soft) etc etc.  Artful discipline is connective rather than dis connective.  We have very few models for this in our culture and in addition we grown ups usually have our own wounding around connection that leave us being clingy, avoidant, both or kind of ambivalent. 

I am trying out the mantra: Focus on CONNECTION rather than behavior.  Will report back.

I Vow to Honor Your Experience, I Vow to Honor My Experience

So I am in a less sunny place this morning.  It is so hard to have training in psychotherapy because I can play out those cliche notions of therapist parents - analyzing every broken eye contact or pulling away to mean "poor attachment status" and what that means about me.  "I must suck as a parent or be too wounded to do it well." My oldest son continues to wrestle inside with his own feelings which I am getting are complicated and hard.  His little brother is very cute with curly q hair and everyone fawns over him, including me.  At the same time, my oldest is wanting to do stuff on his own, has started preschool with more time away from us and then who knows what else that I have no clue about.  The bottom line is that his behavior feels at times just plain mean, aggressive and defiant.  Last night I had two friends over for dinner.  One brought her son and she was so patient with him.  He is an only child and is the opposite of mine in terms of how he moves through his hard feelings - he is more internal as he processes and wants to stay close to home and mom expressing through his hard time feeling comfortable taking off and exploring.  He is a very sweet kid.  And so I caught myself comparing.

Bottom line, I felt like I wasn't on my kid's side.  I really hate when I do this.  I judge my own emotional exasperation and I seem to find, once I spin to this place lacking any warmth or empathy for my kid - all I can think of is wanting his behavior to stop, wanting he and I to be magically connected because surely we are disconnected and wanting  to look good in front of my friends.  Yowza.  After the kids went to bed last night I noticed I wanted to "check out" in front of the TV and not process any of this but inside I was carrying a lot of uncomfortable feelings and instead of making space for them I just wanted to avoid them.  Finally at 11pm I felt a bubble in my chest - like I need to burp this emotional energy out - not soothe it perse but express it and I knew if I got too heady, wordy it wouldn't be the same.

I got out my grease pencils and sat quietly, feeling my feet on the ground, my butt on the chair, breathing deeply through my body.  Then I breathed in compassion for myself and my son and just waited to see what would come.  What came and what continues to come this morning as this exercise is still alive in me, is that inside I really don't make a lot of space for my own experience...I shut down uncomfortable feelings saying things like "you're crazy to feel that way" "get over it" "what's wrong with you, chill out".  Hmmm, I wondered about how I was doing the exact same thing to my kid unconsciously.  I use a tone that communicates more than just overwhelm but one that says 'what is wrong with you'.  I tried to stay with compassion rather than shame.  This morning I am still vacillating from shame to compassion and back so thought writing would help me out of it. 

There are a whole slew of negative beliefs beneath this disregard for my experience and feelings: I am not love able, I am not good enough, I am crazy, I am too much and my child's bad behavior proves them all.  Fuck what a burden for my kids to carry around; having to make up for their mom's insecurities.  I did that for my mom - had to to stay in connection.  I have spent a lifetime trying to reclaim my experience and much is shifting but it still bites me in the ass especially with my kids. I don't want them to have to do this healing for me.  They can't anyway, I have to and  the price they pay for trying is losing connection to their experience and who they are so that they can stay in connection with me.  YUK for them and me.  So last night, I decide to draw my intention.  So much more right brained and body stuff shifts when I process through art or movement and then after I have an artifact that I can look at that actually helps bring those feelings and intentions to the fore whenever I need a reminder. 

I started off with just colors, black first, pressing hard.  These were strong emotions we all have, dark emotion and I pressed hard on the page to reclaim that "Yes you are entitled to these feelings.  Have them.  Own them!".  I wanted to hold and water and nurture the whole person who has all these experiences and then ground them into the earth; supported by the earth and as the earth.  I pressed hard with the pencils making a deep vow rooting deeply into the earth that I wanted to be in a place of deep deep spiritual vigil with my experience and with my kids'.  There was chaos around with the black streaks of jagged experience happening outside the tree that emerged but inside was the fruiting experience of self hood.  My guess is that I will need to meditate with a great deal of intention on this image - this image which is a vow to myself and my family to honor my experience and their experience rather than dishonor them in tone and broken connection.  Again, those negative beliefs I carry around are young parts of me that need so much of my own attention.  I have to honor them and hold them if I am to honor my family. So rather than swim in shame, I am vowing to deeply honor my experience and deeply honor my kids' and husband's experience in a daily practice, starting now.

Your Child is Good, You are Good

Psychotherapists call it splittling - a young defense of making the world black and white, good or bad.  I still split even after working on myself for years and years.  The last three days my older son has been actively aggressive with his younger brother and last night the switch flipped and inside what I wondered is "Holy Crap, is my kid on the way to Conduct Disorder or a life in prison for serial killing and crap do I suck as a parent?" In my judgement I sent him away to his time out room - completely abandonning him.  No empathy for what it must be like to feel tension and jealousy at such a young age - I was too wrapped up in judgement of myself and him ( a nervous system arousal response mind you that a good amount of deep breathing could have helped).  Here is a quote from a Hand In Hand parenting article which helped remind me again that ALL KIDS ARE GOOD rather it is our judgement that they are bad that begins to turn them bad.  I am aware, inside, of a deep sadness as I know this IS what happened to me and continues in my relationship with my own mother.  She splits me into good and bad and has ZERO capacity to empathize.  I am greatful I can empathize most of the time with my kids but I am a work in progress. 

I think what I am most aware of in the excerpt below is how little we listen to eachother in the way Patty Wipfler is describing.  That is why people have to go to therapists.  We have lost the fine art of empathy in our cutlure and have either replaced ith with sympathy or fix it  - both which have a "get over it" kind of soothe as opposed to a "I hear you and you can continue to express until you are done".  It is growing rarer and even some forms of therapy are very "fix it" oriented which implies something needs to be fixed.  I don't believe that.  Just like kids are good, I fundamentally believe people are good - they just lose their way because they lost connection along the way.  I am way oversimplifying but even with my most difficult clients, I trust there is wholeness and goodness beneath!

From Hand in Hand Parenting Article on Sibling Rivalry by Patty Wipfler.  Check these guys out.  I think they are doing something poweful.  When I make some more money,  I hope I can contribute more to thsi non profit!
Original Link Here:  http://www.handinhandparenting.org/news/4/64/Sibling-Solutions

When one sibling is harsh toward another
Children who touch too roughly, or hug too tightly, or hit or poke or hurt their siblings are sending clear signals that they have some upsets that need to be listened to. Even very young children can be gentle with younger ones, as long as they are feeling "filled up" with attention, and relaxed. So any sign of harshness from one sibling to another can be taken as a sign that the child is not feeling connected or relaxed enough to function thoughtfully. When you notice that a child has been rough, scolding him or ordering him to do things correctly won't help. This only frightens your child more, and makes it less likely that he'll be able to act thoughtfully.

What does help is to move in quickly and gently. Very gently but firmly stop the tense child from touching the younger child, but don't remove him. Say, “I'll help you be next to Sammy,” and guide his hands or his kisses so that they land softly, Move so that you can make eye contact with the older child, and invite him kindly to take a look at you. Usually, because the child is tense with upset, he can't look at you for long, and when he tries, the upset begins to make him want to go away. Gently stay with him and keep him close, continuing to let him feel your attention and your support. Usually, the child will move rather quickly into a tantrum or a big cry about wanting you or not wanting you, or about wanting to touch the baby, or not wanting the baby. All those feelings are important facets of the nugget of upset he's trying to offload. If you stay with him, without criticism, he'll be able to cry or tantrum it through.

When our children hurt each other, we need help ourselves
Seeing one sibling hurt another is one of the most trying times in our lives as parents. It makes us feel like we aren’t succeeding at the really important part of parenting. And often, it sets us up to be harsh toward the child who did the hurting, even though we love that child deeply. Sometimes, when the hurting has become frequent, almost habitual, sibling troubles infect the way all the members of the family feel all of the time. As hard as these times are for us, we need to keep the perspective that they happen in just about every family. Perhaps we’ll come to a time in human history when life is so gentle that sibling aggression is rarer, but we’re not there yet.

One difficulty we have in finding good ways out of sibling tangles, little or big, is that we parents generally haven’t seen parents handle sibling difficulties without harshness. It feels like harshness is necessary, even justified, to get the aggression to stop. But if we reason things through, it’s hard to see how harshness from a grownup could beget love and tenderness between children. There must be a better answer.
And there is, but it’s not easy. I think the most effective answer lies off the beaten path of a parent’s life. Since it works so well, here goes.

When our children begin to fight and it creates upset in the family, it’s time for the parent looking for a solution to find a listener. Parents with fighting siblings get upset. Upset people don’t solve people problems well. We have to be able to win the hearts of our children back to us, before they can love each other well again. And to win a child’s heart, a grownup needs to shed his doubts about the goodness of the child. When our children fight, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that they are good children. When they fight, at least one of them is experiencing a blackout in his thinking. He hasn’t stopped being a good person, he’s just stopped thinking. It happens to us every day too. For example, when our children fight, we often stop thinking.
So a good first move is to find someone who can, without interruption, judgment, or advice, listen to you talk about the child who gets lost in upset. Some of the things to talk about are: What was it like for you and that child when he was born? When he was an infant? What was the last time you really felt close to him? Enjoyed him? What do you feel like doing when he hurts his sibling? What do you do? What would have happened to you if you had acted like he does when you were a child? What do you worry about? What hurts you or angers you when you see your children fighting?

Telling someone about each of these threads of experience and feeling will help. If you can show some of the feelings that arise, all the better. The feelings are sitting there, waiting for release.
Sometimes, it helps to talk about the situation several times. Don’ make your children listen to the stories you have. They are best saved for other adults.

Your child is good
Sooner or later, every child with siblings gets upset with his brother or sister. But try to keep a good perspective: even when consumed with big feelings, your child is good. He's signaling you for help as clearly and as vigorously as he knows how. You may need some listening time from another adult to remember his goodness. Once your own upset isn't throbbing, you'll again be able to spend one-on-one time with him, a good first step toward healing his aching heart.

Being in Authentic Connection

Just left my consult group, unpacking unconscious interactions between clients and therapists.  It is easy to get caught up, per my post earlier, that everything is about "my" wounding but what I am getting is that we miss out if that is all we focus on.  I learned early on that I had to look deeply at myself and take on all the blame for any mishaps that were happening in relationship -if I was the screw up the other person didn't have to be anxious or feel uncomfortable.  Even my nervous system work sometimes too readily has me oriented towards my nervous system vulnerabilities around attachment rather than fully inhabiting my experience with the other - as curious about their experience as my own.  In other words, this old pattern has me miss out on my experience of being in connection to other people - I am too focused on being a wounded fuck up rather than notice "hey you over there!".

 What it takes to be in authentic connection is a willingness to reveal your experience, to stand for your experience, without labeling it as good or bad, wounded or not and without burdening the other person to fix it and part of what is IN that experience is fully relating and experiencing the connection with others.    I now finally understand Fritz Perls' "Contact is Curative".  Sharing the moment to moment experience of who we are rather than once removed interpretations or defenses is real contact.  I feel so grateful for so many people in my life I do connect with in this way.  I seem to orient towards all the people I can't and that somehow that must mean what I am experiencing or who I am is fucked up.  I am still struggling with how to relate to people in my personal life who aren't attempting to live out their authentic experience.  I feel a bit unsafe around those people.   For now I am grateful to be in this rare club of souls who are deeply interested in authentic connection.  Being freed up, this afternoon from the usual "you're fucked up" song and dance leaves me so softened in my body and so eager for more connection with my friends and family.  Thank you friends and sweet husband and kids!

It is not all about me and it is...

I love to brood, think deeply and tinker around psychologically.  It is a hobby. I especially love it when the tenor of my brooding is one of curiousity and acceptance rather than maniacal self criticism or judgement of others.  I know the latter is just that "fighty" part of my nervous system - she got scared so she puts her dukes up.  No dukes up today.  In fact, I feel expansive.  My heart feels very full, I have a natural spring in my step, a smile and a deep calm and quiet. 

I was having coffee outside - decided to take a 15 minute break after dropping my kids off at daycare before starting work.  A million ruminations ran through my mind.  As I sat down I was aware of the shitty thing I said to my husband...I mean I was really snotty and critical.  So I sat and I felt what was underneath.  Quickly I realized that I interpreted his request as signaling that I am not doing a good job.  It all happened so fast and then I shot back with a really snarky low blow to which he replied "Hey that really hurt my feelings.  I don't appreciate you talking to me like that."  As I sat with what was going on for me,  I tried to imagine, for a change, well what was going on for him?  I don't know.  What led him to get on me about finding Wednesday night childcare....he had a worried kind of urgency about it and wasn't very in tune with the fact that I already had been putting feelers out there.   I just feel profoundly how much I love my husband and how grateful I am that we deeply consider eachother, look, fight well and tell the truth even though there are lots of ways we get scared of being vulnerable we do it anyway. I felt in communion with all the plants around me as I took my next sip of coffee feeling that gratitude and feeling grateful for a moment of silent non brooding and just feeling my feet on the dirt, smelling the wet dampness and the way the morning sunlight played with the color of the plants.

Then I was reminded of my conversation wtih our extremely well attuned day care provider.  I internally had been feeling a little hurt at her not responding to a scan of a book she wanted which I managed to do for her despite the busyness of kids etc.  But as I was talking with her this morning and she remembered and thanked me she shared small pieces of what was going on in her life and there were some interesting unconcious communications.  One comment she made was "I wish I had someone to call when I am stressed".  I picked up on some energy and what it felt like to me was a longing and receiving but not fully taking in.  Here I was ready to listen and even listening but she wasn't quite taking me in that I was actually already listening to her.  Likely the same with the book pages.  I didn't come closer and foist myself upon her after this unconcious transmission I picked up from her but rather my heart just opened and  I thought, "Yeah I know those places in me sometimes."  Without judgement I just honored where she was today in my heart and was grateful that part of me that originally felt hurt managed to redirect my attention to curiousity and empathy for her and for all beings who suffer.  It has left me feeling deeply connected to myself, my heart and my day today.  In this place of compassion we are whole.   I am surrounded by sego lillies aren't I?  More on that later.

Connection Soothes Us

I have been steeped in reading for my job today.  Reading Trauma and the Body by Pat Ogden.  I have a post in the works that will detail more about Sensorimotor Psychotherapy but just wanted to say how over stimulating relating to little kids can be to our nervous systems - certainly to mine.  Calming our nervous systems is a process we do both on our own and in relationship.  In my case, I am getting better at both forms of calming down and supporting my often over aroused nervous system.  I also have to be accutely aware of how I am caring for myself since I am a fragile bee and ironically when I get too frazzled I compensate by defending myself by pushing people away at the exact same time I reach for them - very very confusing for them - they think I am nuts when I do this.  I used to think I was nuts but now know it is just a trigger that has my nervous system so hyper aroused my only option for being in connection is to connect and push away at the same time.  It is what was involved in connection when I was young so it is how I do it now.  I have spent over 15 years in therapy and am now a soon to be licensed therapist who practices every day how to feel calm and less trembly or less "fighty" in relationship.

All this being said, I made an attempt at starting a mother's group a few years ago where I wasn't the leader but participant.  The intention was to create a place to talk about real issues related to parenting and a place to off steam emotional upsets so we could be supported and held by one another and not carry them forward into how we were relating to our kids.  Two things happened though;
1. The group turned quickly into the "let's be nice and not too vulnerable" and without a group leader no one challenged us sliding into this "nice girl" morose and it lost its vitality for half of us so the group ended
2. I discovered that being vulnerable with a bunch of mothers was a trigger for shakey fighty - push pull hyper arousal stuff.  Being around mothers whom I had let down my guard with left me both longing for connection and defending against it at the same time. 
It was a painful experience to be so exposed, shaky and socially awkward at the exact time I was over taxed by two toddler boys trying to ransack eachother at any moment but I couldn't stop the fight flight and attach responses.  It is only now that I don't obcess over what these women think of me and instead turn all my attentions to that young girl inside of me with deep emapthy and holding.  The reading in Pat Ogden's book just expanded my own empathy and I integrated more about how biological this reaction around other mothers is for me.  It is a bummer.  And it is why I named this blog as I did.

Perhaps more than parenting my kids, motherhood has become my dojo because this mothering group has become a face to face confrontation with how shaky I get in when I am in vulnerable connection and working through that skillfully with my own therapist opens up new connection possibilities for me with other mothers that I haven't yet been able to safely experience in all my relationships. I have had to table the mother's groups for awhile because the level of triggering I feel, doesn't seem kind to put myself there without some good somatic resourcing in my body and a strong Mama self holding the shaking and fighty parts of my nervous system.  I am working on it and making huge progress.

We Pick Up Info from our Kids' Unconcious

I have another post in the works but need to sleep.  Am in a process group with other therapists on the unconcious. How my unconcious is in commuincae with yours and the other way around.  What I didn't elaborate on in my last post that I am deeply getting from this group is that in moments when  I am off with my kids not all of my "offness" is some fucked up thing about me from my past.  My stuff is for sure getting triggered but perhaps the triggering of my stuff is a communcation from my kids about what they are experiencing inside, or need from me.  In my previous post I said I get overpowering and then feel ashamed.  If I spend too much time making it all about me, I miss out on what the communication is from my kid in what I am feeling.  Empathy is the only sure way to figure it out.

 I am getting a first hand experience of my own son's experience of disempowerment and shamebased on what I am experiencing and the errosive effect it has on our connection.  Tapping into these unconcious pieces gives me a direct pathway upon which to be in connection with my kid: help find playful ways for him to feel empowered in connection to me.  Even with some bumpy parts of the day, I am getting so much better at playing with my sons and having so much fun doing it I never want to leave the house anymore.  Today I went to the dentist and doctor (my son being the doctor and dentist) and totally got swept up in it.  He loved feeling powerful, helpful and in connection as I lay there on the kitchen floor as he stuck stuff in my mouth and stuck bandaids all over my body.  Seemed just the antidote to the power/shame soup we had been in.

Night.

Overpowering my kids

I am noticing, this morning, a quiet dull throbbing in the middle of my abdomen and heavy sinking feeling in my chest combined with what feels like a warmth there as well.  In classic me style, I have been brooding and analyzing some parenting behavior of mine that I feel ashamed about.  While on the one hand I feel ashamed and worried  "It is too late, my kids are screwed up forever and it is all my fault!" I am also feeling a deep sense of love and gratitude toward myself and other honest moms, in the moment, as I just read a mother's post on a list serve that helped me feel a little less alone.

In the case of the other mother she was noticing that in general she isn't very cuddly and that she leaves her kids wanting for a hug but that, in general, she has a more distant style of bonding and her worry about that.  To this mother, thank you for putting this out there because my heart opened to myself around this new issue for the first time in two days.  This mother also got such astute advice about studying what comes up for her in moments when her kids reach for her and to notice what needs of hers are present in that instant and to study her own relationship to receiving affection both in the present and in the past. 

Again, I felt grateful to be a part of such wise women.  Inside, right now, what I am aware of is a deep curiousity of this part of me that speeks to my kids in such disempowering ways -like I am a drill seargant barking out orders.  My oldest son has started withdrawing when I speak to him like this saying something like "I don't want to play with you anymore."  His response breaks my heart which I imagine might be one of the ways he feels when I communicate in such a disconnective, disempowering way.  The other thing I get curious about is how this "theme" of powersharing is what my son needs me to be studying and understanding so as I grapple with this  for myself, I get to empathize in a deep way with what is happening inside of him.  

My knee jerk reaction is to always beat up on myself here and make it all about me, right in this moment of honesty, but what I am going to do is go sit quiety with this part of myself that communicates this way and put my arms around her, comfort her, sit with my experiences in my body as I deeply feel how old she is, if any memories come up that relate to this demanding and overpowering behavior, empathize with her, understand what she is REALLY needing for herself in those moments that she is so crabby so that we can get those needs met in a different way rather than acting them out with my kids.  In doing this, however, I also can get in touch with my son. 

I will let you know what I find out in my next post.  Wondering if any of you have sat with yourself in this deeply empathic way as opposed to a shaming way and what you discovered for yourself?

Mothering Ourselves

I have been steeped in readings from Hand in Hand Parenting in Palo Alto, CA.  It supports a style of parenting that isn't about "no boundaries" but just that whilst parenting your child - saying yes, no and teaching basic socialization - that it is all done in a context of connection first, behavior second.  What that means is that we deeply connect with our kids, honoring their emotional world in deeply empathic caring and connective ways.  Check them out here; Hand In Hand Parenting.  They have some great free articles and paid parenting training if you feel their style is something you can make use of.  I am not affiliated with them but hope to take their training at some point.

What happens when I read their stuff is a resonance and agreement followed quickly by guilt and shame.  Guilt and shame at my own difficulty staying connected to my two sons when I tell them no or set limits in a harsh way.  But after I have recovered from the guilt what I become aware of in the quiet recesses of my body is a dull ache in my chest and hollow feeling in my belly that feels like a reaching for something or someone - like a kid wanting a hug...what I am feeling is longing.  The longing comes from very young parts of me longing to feel protected and connected.   My mother was 18 and carried a lot of her own wounding into how she was with me.  I don't think I am special in this notion of having parents who are struggling.  She and her brother and my grandparents were often very unpredictable and aggressive with teasing and deeply critical and shaming in discipline style.

 For 39 years, I have gotten by with a kind of scrapy tough exterior...a kind of off the cuff bawdiness defending what was underneath.  But now I experience more often the parts of me that are clingy, anxious, worried, ashamed and with other "playgroup mothers" feeling unsafe that they might attack me the way my mother did.  So much in mothering has this very scrappily tough girl in me exposed as the truly vulnerable girl that she is.  Alas, motherhood has finally unearthed the true vulnerabilities of this frightened child and I  finally feel in connection enough with that part of me to write about it.

I am no longer trying to "get over her".   Instead I am committing myself to a daily holding and dialoguing ritual - like a daily meditation of mothering myself.  It has some similarities to Cheri Huber's "mentor" notion.   Hard to do some days but the ripple effect it is having on the rest of my life is profound.  I feel more in conection with my kids, my husband, my friends and I also feel more able to decide what does and does not feel good to me in relationship to other parents without being critical of them.  This blog will be about this process of connecting wtih what unconcious stuff comes up and what wounding can be overcome as a result of mothering ourself.  Come along with me.  Maybe some young parts of you will find some nurturance too.  I hope that you will comment about your experiences!