The baby inside is still crying. The image has transcended imagery and taken over my whole body. In my hunt for a new psychotherapist I interviewed a woman today who works in the way I want to work and she said something to me that felt normalizing as I was lamenting why I seem to be revisiting the SAME material over and over and she pointed out we cycle through the same material at deeper levels and she exuded some confidence at the depth at which I am now working - it is magically profound and at times otherworldly. The last two years have been all about my relationship to my mother. Frankly, I thought I was done with this piece about 5 years ago...but now I am at that unconscious infantile wish state rather than the rebellious teenager.
I have maxed out on my capacity to hold this baby so no words of wisdom on "how I have gotten through it". Best I can say is that today I made it through the day and that I am officially surrendering to the notion that this year long depression hasn't lifted and well, I am going to go get some meds. I toyed with the idea six months ago but wasn't sure. But I now think it isn't a decision of escape, it is a decision of being a responsible parent.
One note of gratitude: I labored for months over a chair to put in the corner nook in my bedroom. I wanted one just like we had as a little girl. It is a Queen Anne (not my typical style) but when I was little I would lay my head over each arm and lean into the back of the chair. It was puffed out and when I lay there I would close my eyes and pretend like I was laying in my great grandfather's lap. He was the one figure in my youngest childhood where I felt safe, calm and I could count on. He was the one person who would light up when I came in the room. I can still smell is Old Spice and silky polyester shirts on my skin. I remember how calm I would get when he was around because it meant no one was going to pounce on me, no tickle torture, no criticism, no teasing! Even in the midst of my very hard day I sat in my new "Papa Bob" chair and I felt held. From that chair, I can look across the room and see a large 8x10 of me hugging him at age 4. Ahhh, maybe I will imagine him when I go to sleep tonight.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Friday, April 22, 2011
The Baby Inside of Me
Yes. I wrestled with the title of this blog for a minute or two. How vulnerable do I really want to be? Oh and by the way, if you think vulnerable, deep, and primal are not your thing, don't read more. If you want to feel less alone in your own "stuff" then keep reading.
What is happening inside of me right now? I can feel a deep sorrow - like a 100lb weight on my chest, the need to cry from a guttural primal place and yet holding in the tears in my low back all the way up my spine, like everything is twisted in tight there in my back, holding my heart up so it doesn't have me fall forward, flat on my face. My back is counterbalancing my heavy heart perhaps.
Probably after I write this I will go sit and tend more to feelings. I have been tossed about on a wild sea today of obsessional thoughts that all boil down to "there is something so inherently bad about you that you will never be loved or loving." I have all the diagnosis lined up, all the proof points in the way of relational interactions, facial expressions, lack of responsiveness, past screw ups on my part and then my whole being shifts from feeling body sensation and holding down the fort inside to obsessional thinking. Of course, the obsessional thinking is so confusing the only thing left to feel is hopeless.
In my attempt to find a way out, I called a psychiatrist, my husband, and three of my closest friends. What triggered it all this time? Well, I don't think it really calmed down from a week ago, first of all. But, today I learned of some chaos in our larger playgroup that I have been a part of for 3.5 years now - a mother and father pair who were closet alcoholics and whose wounding has always been palpable to me have been outed because he has been arrested. On the outside, these two look like the average American couple. Of course, this stuff is taboo to talk about so no one is. I guess it happened nearly two months ago and I am just learning about it. I have been on the confidential receiving end of two miscarriages inside the playgroup. One mother has been quite public, another only told two of us and is holding her pain in silence. And then lastly, a mother is moving away and despite my challenge getting close to her because I was always feeling less than, inside I did always "KNOW" that she had my back when push came to shove. We shared a nanny together for a year and a half and she always had this magic way of reaching for me right when I needed her to. We teared up a bit as she broke the news to me today. A lot of emotion for her to show. All of these "other mother" things are triggers and each has its own massively symbolic meaning for me that I won't go into here because I don't want to shift so radically into my head now that I am in my body.
Of course, once I did initially get a whiff of this underlying stuff, I shot up into my head (hyperaroused) and started the mad hunt for "what other mother had left me" and started obsessing about recent relationships that are unsteady and blamed myself for their unsteadiness. Choosing a few, in particular to obsess about. This heady obsessing about being left, diagnosing myself with mental illness. One of my dear friends who was most able to hear me out is a friend, like me, who is woefully under mothered but who, like me, has done some deep and profound primal work on this wound. Rather than unpacking the whole story she just said, "I really want to know what you are experiencing inside. I don't see how diagnosing yourself helps you." and as she said that, just the invitation that someone would want to know about the pain that was going on underneath my heady interpretations and obcessing, well I burst into tears....of the primal nature.
What I felt and what is still inside my chest as I type is a baby. She is so tiny, still wrapped up and she is really quiet and really still. She is waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting. Not saying anything. This baby is with me all the time but she has been tucked way far away for a lot of years but she is out now. She sees all these moms and her wick has been lit. She is waiting for one of these moms to scoop her up and tell her "I see you are in pain. I see you can't speak, you are just frozen in there." and magically take her pain away. Long long outbreath. Long silence right here. Being around other mothers makes the baby in me come alive with longing.
I can't express how profound it is to FEEL this as opposed to think about this or diagnose this. There she is. This baby. And for whatever reason, the last few weeks, I have hated her with a vengeance. I don't want to pick her up and hold her. I don't feel she is entitled to feel these things. I also blame her for making relationships so hard for me. Why does she have to be so intense? Why can't she just make light banter? Why must everyone meet her in this intense place? They don't want to be intense. Was her childhood really that bad?
For years I have tried to minimize the pain underneath by explaining, by disallowing, by dismissing, diagnosing. None of which, do anything towards healing. Neither do telling her to stop it, knock it off or use some intellectual explanation without tending to her first. My friend reminded me of that on the phone just now. It is why I am a somatic therapist. EXPLAINING does very little in the larger scope. Relating to another person from our deepest felt experience heals the deep stuff - in its own time mind you. Now that said, I needed years of explaining before I would even consider the possibility of feeling my deepest longings in my body so I still do explaining therapy too at times.
I don't want to leave her right now though. She is still there while I get heady again. This baby. Oh this baby. This aching longing for a mother inside...a mother who knew to put her arms around me. God. I need to mourn with her and help grow this little baby up. She has been waiting all this time for someone to come get her. Can you believe that? I don't want to say more right now. I am noticing I want to tie this post up into a neat bow with some moral of the story type of comment. I will just say, as I sit with more people as a therapist and as I relate to my friends, I am aware that we all have babies with varying degrees of need and tending internal babies, I am happy to say, is my life's work. I feel grateful for my work with clients as we stretch each other in going deeper. My work has grown with them as I have gone deeper inside of me. I am proud of my courage as well. It is dark, murky, complicated and unusual to be in relationship to me in my regular life. Especially if you are a mother and well, here is where I am. Doing my best. I love me, even if you can't. I don't believe it all the time but will repeat it often.
What is happening inside of me right now? I can feel a deep sorrow - like a 100lb weight on my chest, the need to cry from a guttural primal place and yet holding in the tears in my low back all the way up my spine, like everything is twisted in tight there in my back, holding my heart up so it doesn't have me fall forward, flat on my face. My back is counterbalancing my heavy heart perhaps.
Probably after I write this I will go sit and tend more to feelings. I have been tossed about on a wild sea today of obsessional thoughts that all boil down to "there is something so inherently bad about you that you will never be loved or loving." I have all the diagnosis lined up, all the proof points in the way of relational interactions, facial expressions, lack of responsiveness, past screw ups on my part and then my whole being shifts from feeling body sensation and holding down the fort inside to obsessional thinking. Of course, the obsessional thinking is so confusing the only thing left to feel is hopeless.
In my attempt to find a way out, I called a psychiatrist, my husband, and three of my closest friends. What triggered it all this time? Well, I don't think it really calmed down from a week ago, first of all. But, today I learned of some chaos in our larger playgroup that I have been a part of for 3.5 years now - a mother and father pair who were closet alcoholics and whose wounding has always been palpable to me have been outed because he has been arrested. On the outside, these two look like the average American couple. Of course, this stuff is taboo to talk about so no one is. I guess it happened nearly two months ago and I am just learning about it. I have been on the confidential receiving end of two miscarriages inside the playgroup. One mother has been quite public, another only told two of us and is holding her pain in silence. And then lastly, a mother is moving away and despite my challenge getting close to her because I was always feeling less than, inside I did always "KNOW" that she had my back when push came to shove. We shared a nanny together for a year and a half and she always had this magic way of reaching for me right when I needed her to. We teared up a bit as she broke the news to me today. A lot of emotion for her to show. All of these "other mother" things are triggers and each has its own massively symbolic meaning for me that I won't go into here because I don't want to shift so radically into my head now that I am in my body.
Of course, once I did initially get a whiff of this underlying stuff, I shot up into my head (hyperaroused) and started the mad hunt for "what other mother had left me" and started obsessing about recent relationships that are unsteady and blamed myself for their unsteadiness. Choosing a few, in particular to obsess about. This heady obsessing about being left, diagnosing myself with mental illness. One of my dear friends who was most able to hear me out is a friend, like me, who is woefully under mothered but who, like me, has done some deep and profound primal work on this wound. Rather than unpacking the whole story she just said, "I really want to know what you are experiencing inside. I don't see how diagnosing yourself helps you." and as she said that, just the invitation that someone would want to know about the pain that was going on underneath my heady interpretations and obcessing, well I burst into tears....of the primal nature.
Here is what I discovered after going inside my body to my body sensations, breath, bones, muscles, movements while my friend listened on the other end of the phone; you see, being in the presence of mothers ignited my whole trauma system. This whole "becoming a mother" has taken me for a loop because frankly, while a bit perfectionist, I thought I was pretty well on my way to being "healed". Not too many blips on the psychological map in a while and then whamo. And no, it wasn't having the babies or parenting that has been the hardest part for me about becoming a mother it is doing this all in relationship to other mothers. It happened gradually.
I can't express how profound it is to FEEL this as opposed to think about this or diagnose this. There she is. This baby. And for whatever reason, the last few weeks, I have hated her with a vengeance. I don't want to pick her up and hold her. I don't feel she is entitled to feel these things. I also blame her for making relationships so hard for me. Why does she have to be so intense? Why can't she just make light banter? Why must everyone meet her in this intense place? They don't want to be intense. Was her childhood really that bad?
For years I have tried to minimize the pain underneath by explaining, by disallowing, by dismissing, diagnosing. None of which, do anything towards healing. Neither do telling her to stop it, knock it off or use some intellectual explanation without tending to her first. My friend reminded me of that on the phone just now. It is why I am a somatic therapist. EXPLAINING does very little in the larger scope. Relating to another person from our deepest felt experience heals the deep stuff - in its own time mind you. Now that said, I needed years of explaining before I would even consider the possibility of feeling my deepest longings in my body so I still do explaining therapy too at times.
I don't want to leave her right now though. She is still there while I get heady again. This baby. Oh this baby. This aching longing for a mother inside...a mother who knew to put her arms around me. God. I need to mourn with her and help grow this little baby up. She has been waiting all this time for someone to come get her. Can you believe that? I don't want to say more right now. I am noticing I want to tie this post up into a neat bow with some moral of the story type of comment. I will just say, as I sit with more people as a therapist and as I relate to my friends, I am aware that we all have babies with varying degrees of need and tending internal babies, I am happy to say, is my life's work. I feel grateful for my work with clients as we stretch each other in going deeper. My work has grown with them as I have gone deeper inside of me. I am proud of my courage as well. It is dark, murky, complicated and unusual to be in relationship to me in my regular life. Especially if you are a mother and well, here is where I am. Doing my best. I love me, even if you can't. I don't believe it all the time but will repeat it often.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
On My Mind
I don't have the time to make an prescriptions. As I have entered the blogosphere I am stunned by how many inspiring blogs there are out there and how many wonderful books there are on the subject of mothering. I was listening to NPR last night and a political science talk by Francis Fukuyama. I was a Political Science undergrad. Kind of funny considering I come from a family that never read the newspaper. But, the aspect I liked was not public policy it was how is it hat we organized ourselves the way we did in political systems. I was essentially pondering questions that my family thought I was a snob for pondering and frankly, my classmates blew me out of the water because of their understanding and retention of world history.
.ogv/seek=47-Moederdag_(1925).ogv.jpg)
My brain continues on this quest to always want to understand, how is it did we arrive her. How did this psychotherapy client arrive here and what influenced their world view, how did this couple arrive here, how did I arrive here, how did we as a culture arrive here. I would love to be smarter so my depth of pondering these questions was more sophisticated. But, nevertheless, I appreciate that I at least start these thoughts, even if they don't reach conclusion. I love looking at the history of psychotherapy. What is it that therapists do in the room, why, and what is the cultural history of psychotherapy? This etiology of what we do now in our culture is something I am also striving to understand because I loathe dogma. I was raised very dogmatically religious and found it to be mind numbing and now I resist with a vengeance - perhaps to my own peril at times - things that the culture has bought of on. If it is the new 'in' thing I question it.
What is on my mind often as I evolve as a mother is how did we, in America, arrive at mothering the way we do it now? All this pressure to parent in deeply attuned ways but doing so in a vacuum? The mother's I am around are dislocated from their extended families so they are doing it alone or in larger playgroups not sharing the real deal of what is happening behind close doors - their triumphs and defeats - a plea for help on a bad day? We look at tribal cultures that baby wear and co sleep and want to be like them but we are applying their style of parenting sans the tribe to share the load, why? Where is the tribe? Moreover, can parenting this way be done without a massive impact on the mental health and nervous system of the mother? I do think some have a natural mothering gene, just like I believe in my bones I have the natural psychotherapist gene. I am really good at my job. I am not natural at mothering.
Saturday night we hosted game night with two childless couples. One in their 60's, the other in their late 40's. Both intelligent, spiritual, connected people. When they walked into my house and they saw my two boys running amok with excitement at these new visitors, bouncing off the walls, "look at me", "come here", all of them had looks of shock on their face. They said, "wow, this is a lot of energy. I am not used to this." to which I replied, "Me neither. My nervous system gets blown out every day." It was surprise validation from an unsuspecting place. I always thought it was just me, that I suck but here are some health people and they were overwhelmed. What I felt, after they left, was longing, again for a tribal community of mothers that share care of kids. I also realized that while I love Alfie Kohn, Naomi Aldort and even Dr. Sears, good old behaviorism, if it keeps mom's nervous system calm, means the kids are alright.
I am just aware that the way parenting is set up right now is not good. I am also aware I have some choices about that that means relating to other mothers and sharing the load. I have talked about my angst in doing that. That I was criticized to a pulp by my own mother so I get really anxious around other mothers thinking they are doing the same character assassination of me. It isn't so much a lack of boundaires on my part as a primal fear remnant from my young life. I was reminded by my close friend yesterday that most of us are judging all the time but the judgements are fleeting and often not character assassinations. It is hard to remember that if we received the character assassination types of judgement.
The bottom line, though, for me is I need a tribe. I don't have the natural, "stay calm" gene when two kids are wresting over a toy. Where is the tribe? And what is the deal with all the discipline and parenting style fear mongering that is a totally joy killer in parenting? Why are mom's and me buying so many books about parenting and moving from fear rather than joy? Why are we constantly worried about screwing up our kids? I mean, when I am just present, in my body, not over thinking how I am parenting, but guided by good principles, a good plan and have dropped the expectations for my kids behavior to be perfect - parenting is a real gas. It is really fun. But all this crap about injuring our kids, doing it right, doing it alone, and playgroup moms not being frank about the challenges and sharing the load...bums me out. And I want to know evolutionarily how it is we got here. Lots of books to read on this subject. Don't have time until July. What are your favorite books on the history of mothering in the America or what are your thoughts? Maybe the stuff of my PhD dissertation?
What is on my mind often as I evolve as a mother is how did we, in America, arrive at mothering the way we do it now? All this pressure to parent in deeply attuned ways but doing so in a vacuum? The mother's I am around are dislocated from their extended families so they are doing it alone or in larger playgroups not sharing the real deal of what is happening behind close doors - their triumphs and defeats - a plea for help on a bad day? We look at tribal cultures that baby wear and co sleep and want to be like them but we are applying their style of parenting sans the tribe to share the load, why? Where is the tribe? Moreover, can parenting this way be done without a massive impact on the mental health and nervous system of the mother? I do think some have a natural mothering gene, just like I believe in my bones I have the natural psychotherapist gene. I am really good at my job. I am not natural at mothering. Saturday night we hosted game night with two childless couples. One in their 60's, the other in their late 40's. Both intelligent, spiritual, connected people. When they walked into my house and they saw my two boys running amok with excitement at these new visitors, bouncing off the walls, "look at me", "come here", all of them had looks of shock on their face. They said, "wow, this is a lot of energy. I am not used to this." to which I replied, "Me neither. My nervous system gets blown out every day." It was surprise validation from an unsuspecting place. I always thought it was just me, that I suck but here are some health people and they were overwhelmed. What I felt, after they left, was longing, again for a tribal community of mothers that share care of kids. I also realized that while I love Alfie Kohn, Naomi Aldort and even Dr. Sears, good old behaviorism, if it keeps mom's nervous system calm, means the kids are alright.
I am just aware that the way parenting is set up right now is not good. I am also aware I have some choices about that that means relating to other mothers and sharing the load. I have talked about my angst in doing that. That I was criticized to a pulp by my own mother so I get really anxious around other mothers thinking they are doing the same character assassination of me. It isn't so much a lack of boundaires on my part as a primal fear remnant from my young life. I was reminded by my close friend yesterday that most of us are judging all the time but the judgements are fleeting and often not character assassinations. It is hard to remember that if we received the character assassination types of judgement.
The bottom line, though, for me is I need a tribe. I don't have the natural, "stay calm" gene when two kids are wresting over a toy. Where is the tribe? And what is the deal with all the discipline and parenting style fear mongering that is a totally joy killer in parenting? Why are mom's and me buying so many books about parenting and moving from fear rather than joy? Why are we constantly worried about screwing up our kids? I mean, when I am just present, in my body, not over thinking how I am parenting, but guided by good principles, a good plan and have dropped the expectations for my kids behavior to be perfect - parenting is a real gas. It is really fun. But all this crap about injuring our kids, doing it right, doing it alone, and playgroup moms not being frank about the challenges and sharing the load...bums me out. And I want to know evolutionarily how it is we got here. Lots of books to read on this subject. Don't have time until July. What are your favorite books on the history of mothering in the America or what are your thoughts? Maybe the stuff of my PhD dissertation?
Monday, April 18, 2011
What I Appreciate About Me As A Mother
Yeah...ok so I am still recovering from last Thursday. In fact, I sent the pit-of-despair email to a few friends today. But, I had a few friends kick my ass and reminded me I needed to change my thinking and get with the program. Thank GOD for a dear old old friend whom I called during my mommy meltdown last week and she brought me and the family dinner and brought me a book called extreme self care. She said, "Go read this tonight." So I did. I decided that I will try to write something positive, however short, about me, my kids, my husband or my my intentions several mornings a week. I am doing tomorrow mornings tonight. My husband is sitting here so I will ask his help. Seems maybe this could combat the louder narrator who operates most days in my mind who says something like this "You suck at mothering and you are fucking up your kids. And all the other moms you know think so too."
Here is what I appreciate about my mothering;
1. I make honest connection with my kids
2. I am a really really good teacher. I teach them stuff in the moment when they are interested and foster fascination. I enjoy watching their faces light up with fascination over the sound of a letter. Today we went on a long hike and we talked about the magic redwood trees being 100's of years old, counted banana slugs, read about tics on the warning sign and talked about how they like to suck your blood, talked about staying on the trail as a way to take care of and honor nature but my favorite was touching the "carpet on the trees" - moss.
3. I am good at talking about feelings, teaching about feelings, listening to feelings and empathizing with feelings most of the time.
4. I am good at saying I am sorry. I am well practiced.
5. I am not a "scheduling junkie".
6. I consult with other mothers about parenting often and consider it often.
7. I make pancakes for my family every Friday.
8. I gladly take help from my in laws.
9. I am growing to appreciate that running a house efficiently is a job and I am getting better at it.
10. I can pick up both my sons at one time - 75lbs.
11. I manage to hold a firm boundary about potty talk even though I find potty humor funny.
12. I play with my kids.
13. I am getting better at saying 'no' without shame.
14. I write this blog.
15. I mange to take a shower every other day.
So THERE dark voice of criticism.
1. I make honest connection with my kids
2. I am a really really good teacher. I teach them stuff in the moment when they are interested and foster fascination. I enjoy watching their faces light up with fascination over the sound of a letter. Today we went on a long hike and we talked about the magic redwood trees being 100's of years old, counted banana slugs, read about tics on the warning sign and talked about how they like to suck your blood, talked about staying on the trail as a way to take care of and honor nature but my favorite was touching the "carpet on the trees" - moss.
3. I am good at talking about feelings, teaching about feelings, listening to feelings and empathizing with feelings most of the time.
4. I am good at saying I am sorry. I am well practiced.
5. I am not a "scheduling junkie".
6. I consult with other mothers about parenting often and consider it often.
7. I make pancakes for my family every Friday.
8. I gladly take help from my in laws.
9. I am growing to appreciate that running a house efficiently is a job and I am getting better at it.
10. I can pick up both my sons at one time - 75lbs.
11. I manage to hold a firm boundary about potty talk even though I find potty humor funny.
12. I play with my kids.
13. I am getting better at saying 'no' without shame.
14. I write this blog.
15. I mange to take a shower every other day.
So THERE dark voice of criticism.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Someone posted this quote on Mark Brady's blog and I loved it. It reminds me of not only mothering but also my work as therapist. I love my job.
“to listen another’s soul into a condition of disclosure and discovery may be almost the greatest service that any human being ever performed for another”
Quote from Douglas Steere, 20th Century Quaker writer…
“to listen another’s soul into a condition of disclosure and discovery may be almost the greatest service that any human being ever performed for another”
Quote from Douglas Steere, 20th Century Quaker writer…
"You Are My Nest..."
So this week remained challenging...uh to say the least. I was in the mama underworld yesterday again which will inspire my "mama rescue plan" and "mama prevention plan" blog posts. I am aware, for the umpteempth time, that I am doing too much and the way my little family is organizing life is not in alignment with what maintains health and well being. Stay tuned.
What I am astonishingly aware of is how painful goodbyes, however brief, are for little kids. My husband is a huge part of the love, grace and compassion in our house. If I am type A he is the opposite. He is warm, cuddly, mellow but also not complacent or neglectful. (And woefully good looking. Just had to. He reads my blogs sometimes and its true). The "we" of our family is the best part of my life. Sure there are times he gets sucked into cultural norms of "man" vs. "woman" and we are heated fighters but our relationship is deeply authentic and I trust my husband vastly - with my deepest vulnerabilities. We don't let things fester. I am probably the driver of truth telling - my best attribute. (see I said something nice about myself). Needless to say, when he is not in the house, everyone misses him. He is part of our whole. I have some friends whose husbands could leave for weeks on end and there would be minimal impact on the family's nervous system just because their dynamic is different and a great compliment to my husband's attunement to us.
Saturday my very wonderful in laws left after three weeks and Sunday my husband left. My oldest was really really in pain about this. His behavior became very very trying for me. And I failed him. Some moments I could hold the space, other moments, I just couldn't. I have also had some massive losses the same week - my husband, my in laws, I had to say goodbye to my therapist of 6 years (can you say massive), my cleaning ladies of 6 years and my Jungian consultation group. Money is so tight, I can save $1000/ month cutting those things. So I was not a good nervous system to hold my son and off to dysregulation land we went. Our emotions were like a roller coaster and yesterday I went off the rails into "I suck land" which is why the rescue plan will be forth coming.
Today I am reaching out to the mother's I trust and taking my focus away from folks, for whatever reason, who can't connect. Isolation is the friend of self doubt and shame. Connection is the antidote to self doubt and shame. If I could type those two sentences 100 more times I would. My challenge is to get better at knowing how, who and when to share with people who aren't therapist types. I am learning, getting better.
So Fridays, I have mentioned, are pancake Friday's. I try on the role of housewife, put on my apron, both sons belly up to he counter, as we make pancakes together. Papa was home from his trip and my oldest was back in alignment with his heart again. He was so connected to us all. After hugging Papa this morning he initiated our usual morning family "group hug". His growing independence has him thwarting this tradition more often but this morning, he was so embracing of us all as a whole. My whole body just sunk into that group hug, the four of us. We each got a kitty cat kiss (he licks our face) and squeezed tightly.
Later on, after pancakes were eaten, he crawled up into Papa's lap and nestled inside his embrace and said "Ah, Papa you are my nest." And then he smiled over at me and said "And Mama's your nest.". Most of the time I carry around too much self doubt to feel like I am a nest to anyone but it isn't true. I am. Even when I am doing it poorly I am still being looked to as a nest. And I think what he was speaking to was just how much our whole family is a nest for us all and when that nest is not intact, we feel shaky. We are all happy to have our nest back together. I needed the nest too. Honey, we missed you this week!
What I am astonishingly aware of is how painful goodbyes, however brief, are for little kids. My husband is a huge part of the love, grace and compassion in our house. If I am type A he is the opposite. He is warm, cuddly, mellow but also not complacent or neglectful. (And woefully good looking. Just had to. He reads my blogs sometimes and its true). The "we" of our family is the best part of my life. Sure there are times he gets sucked into cultural norms of "man" vs. "woman" and we are heated fighters but our relationship is deeply authentic and I trust my husband vastly - with my deepest vulnerabilities. We don't let things fester. I am probably the driver of truth telling - my best attribute. (see I said something nice about myself). Needless to say, when he is not in the house, everyone misses him. He is part of our whole. I have some friends whose husbands could leave for weeks on end and there would be minimal impact on the family's nervous system just because their dynamic is different and a great compliment to my husband's attunement to us.
Saturday my very wonderful in laws left after three weeks and Sunday my husband left. My oldest was really really in pain about this. His behavior became very very trying for me. And I failed him. Some moments I could hold the space, other moments, I just couldn't. I have also had some massive losses the same week - my husband, my in laws, I had to say goodbye to my therapist of 6 years (can you say massive), my cleaning ladies of 6 years and my Jungian consultation group. Money is so tight, I can save $1000/ month cutting those things. So I was not a good nervous system to hold my son and off to dysregulation land we went. Our emotions were like a roller coaster and yesterday I went off the rails into "I suck land" which is why the rescue plan will be forth coming.
Today I am reaching out to the mother's I trust and taking my focus away from folks, for whatever reason, who can't connect. Isolation is the friend of self doubt and shame. Connection is the antidote to self doubt and shame. If I could type those two sentences 100 more times I would. My challenge is to get better at knowing how, who and when to share with people who aren't therapist types. I am learning, getting better.
So Fridays, I have mentioned, are pancake Friday's. I try on the role of housewife, put on my apron, both sons belly up to he counter, as we make pancakes together. Papa was home from his trip and my oldest was back in alignment with his heart again. He was so connected to us all. After hugging Papa this morning he initiated our usual morning family "group hug". His growing independence has him thwarting this tradition more often but this morning, he was so embracing of us all as a whole. My whole body just sunk into that group hug, the four of us. We each got a kitty cat kiss (he licks our face) and squeezed tightly.
Later on, after pancakes were eaten, he crawled up into Papa's lap and nestled inside his embrace and said "Ah, Papa you are my nest." And then he smiled over at me and said "And Mama's your nest.". Most of the time I carry around too much self doubt to feel like I am a nest to anyone but it isn't true. I am. Even when I am doing it poorly I am still being looked to as a nest. And I think what he was speaking to was just how much our whole family is a nest for us all and when that nest is not intact, we feel shaky. We are all happy to have our nest back together. I needed the nest too. Honey, we missed you this week!
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
On Healing
"In Re-Visioning Psychology Hillman suggests that "The soul sees by means of affliction"(1975/ 1992, p. 107), and "The wound and the eye are one in the same"(ibid.); and indeed Conrad's wound [from the move Ordinary People] drew his attention inward, allowing him to focus on what he could not see before- so the wound healed. I mean this transitively: The wound healed Conrad. If we get caught in the medical model, we will attempt to get Conrad's functioning back up to the level which he imagines as ideal, to heal the wound, rather than letting the wound heal."
One piece that is woefully left out here is that of connection and relating. Healing happens in relationship. I believe this in my bones. It is not an inside job - it is a relational job that permeates the inside. I find it curious the word "job". As Novalis said, "The seat of the soul is there where the inner and outer worlds meet."
Have a great day! Off to study for exams!
Have a great day! Off to study for exams!
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
The Group
With that said, what weighs heavy on my heart is just such a relationship with a group of women I initiated two three years ago to meet weekly to share parenting experiences. That group was perhaps more important to most of us than we realized until after it ended. We were diverse in beliefs, personal growth interests but similar socio economic status and similar parenting goals. I think we all, for the most part, believed in connective parenting rather than behaviorism. We had an RN, an environmental activist, a therapist, a teacher, an admin assistant and a psychotherapist. We all add vastly different faiths. I was the first to have two children.
Early on in the group I had an expectation of what I wanted the group to be and blindly thought that is what the group would be because I started it. It did not occur to me, at the time, that I actually did not get to decide, rather the group did. So when the group drifted from a place of deep personal processing on what this right of passage is into motherhood to parenting best-practices to let's have wine and laugh I felt not only deeply rejected and hurt but deeply longing for a place to take my heavy heart and be heard without being told to get over it (yep the same message from my own mom). For a place to have some empathy and holding without the "get over it" kind of impact advice can have on me.
This hurt lurked beneath the surface since our eighth meeting or so - pretty early on. Still pushing forward that my expectations would come to pass, that they could magically read my mind and that what I wanted to for the group was somehow better for everyone anyway I overly risked sharing more deeply than maybe all members wanted. I am learning unequivocally the last year that non everyone wants to do this deep looking that I do or that my clients do but too late. I had shared in the group leaving me feeling utterly exposed and setting the group up to completely drop me - which they did unknowingly by all the advice giving and light hearted banter. In the meantime, inside I went completely mute. I couldn't actually ask the group for what I needed because even I believed what I needed was "crazy". Yeah that theme again. I still, to this day, have no idea if the group would have been able to do deep processing because I never fully and specifically said exactly what I needed because I was terrified.
Of course, in all of this, there were other wounds that were getting played out in the group - other peoples wounds - not my own. My pain blinded me - it swallowed me up in a way that I could not constructively hold space for and even produce the same level of empathy I was so deeply craving. I am a very insightful and deep therapist who is masterful at making order out of chaos or seeing deeper meanings in the subtly but all of this ability completely went off line in this group. I was IN THE TORNADO at this point and had no way to grab hold of the lines they kept tossing in to me. We were all in the tornado. In spite of its imperfection, the group was magical. We could have built an underground bunker together if we only risked being specific about what we each needed, how to do it, and who was going to do what. I did feel a genuine love and I think others did too but we couldn't quite name the under toe that began sucking us into the sea of unconscious enactments - playing out different stuff with different members. I began to witness some of this in myself and others when it began to heat up. We were in the tornado and instead of building shelter we lit a match.
But I was still so hurt by this story I told myself inside which said something like "you need too much. you are too intense. you are crazy. and the fact that these women don't want to be in connection in these deep places proves it." So, you know what I did? I stopped going. Yep, this group of women who threw me a surprise baby shower, who extended themselves to me in the ways that really are so gracious and loving...I gave them my middle finger or threw gasoline on that fire. Some of it was my own struggle with post partem depression and most kept tossing me lines and I would burn them p. Or to say, the youngster in me gave me the middle finger. For many months I have mourned my behavior and self flagellated over it.
Recently, however, it has been brought to my attention that I will often act things out for groups. In classical group dynamics thinking, if the group is feeling something, often it will choose a scapegoated member to act it out for the whole group so something can be made conscious that has been largely unconscious. This was, of course, music to my ears - to not have to hold the crazy bag. I am a responsibility-taking junkie but taking on so much responsibility leaves others at a disadvantage. They don't have to feel their part.
What was I acting out for everyone? I can't know for sure without talking this through with all of them. Perhaps a desire to go deeper but fear about doing that? Fear that if we started truly stating what it is we felt and wanted we would be left? Fear that if individuals that were in conflict stated their truth, their differences would destroy rather than strengthen the group? But week after week I went; having all these feelings, on occasion naming a desire for something but then pulling back because I felt so childish, so vulnerable so ridiculous! I told myself "you just want these women to be your mama. get over it !" Really what was happening was so much more complex than my longing for a mother figure and involved way more of their stuff too.
Finally, after sorting through some of this, I did get to a place where I could put out there what I wanted. I guess the group didn't change fast enough because I felt compelled to leave, I was exhausted at having finally felt the underlying group process but aware we just weren't going to talk about it and that scared the shit out the girl in me. I felt sure about this departure but sure came coupled with doing it in a way that was deeply honoring and slow. See, I am a firm believer in saying goodbye and especially with such a profound group. So I gave the group a month's notice but the announcement came a week sooner than I had wanted because coincidentally, another mother announced her resignation from the group and it made sense I piggy back on her announcement. I stated clearly I wanted to stay til the end of the month, goodbyes being important and all...
But...two members of the group - the two who I had connected most deeply with because of the poor mothering they received, talked over kicking me out of the group earlier. Some miscommunication, some clear communication and the end result was I was left feeling hurt and totally rejected to a degree, frankly, I haven't felt since my very first break-up. You know, like your heart has been yanked out your throat on a meat hook? Yeah that kind. I, of course, didn't let any of my hurt show. Instead, I erupted into a rage I have NEVER unleashed on anyone except my mother one time when I was 17. It was pretty raw, pretty yucky and pretty eye opening for me after I hung up the phone with the woman who initiated the "kick her out" idea. "Wow" I thought, "these people must matter to me more than I was giving credit to.". I was so so hurt at my openness to continue but me experience of not being wanted I just couldn't go back.
Where are we now? It is six months later. I for one, am aware of so much more with the space. I wish, I wish that there could be a shared responsibility taking. I am aware, more than ever, how my expectations blinded me to really seeing who everyone was. There were wounded souls in this group - as wounded as myself with a lot less runway on that healing lift off than I have put in. I wish we could have a skillful repair. Why? Sure, partly because I don't want to hold the blame but I am not holding that any more anyway. Maybe some saving face. But honestly, I miss these dear women. Their connection, regardless of it being inperfect was my lifeline in the midst of the tornado of mothering and if I had it to do over again I would have done a better job holding the little girl inside of me so the group didn't have to and more importantly so I could bear witness to the little girls in each of them that were showing up week after week scared shittless, just like me. (or feeling something of a deeper nature I wasn't aware of).
To them, I say, I honor you, I am sorry for my own and our mis attunements and I forgive you as I hope you will forgive me. But most of all, I want to forgive myself.
God Bless You Fellow Travellers of Inanna's Path.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Parenting Ourselves While Parenting Our Kids
I am melancholy today. It is that sweet kind, the kind that has your chest aching and your stomach in a tug of war with your throat...tears come and go at the corners of my eyes. I am sad because I have tasted what it is like to be held by a family. I am sad because I am more powerfully aware that my experiences of family have left me profoundly longing and only now, this many years later, am I able to sit with myself and these feelings. I spent years distracted, running around, keeping busy - you know the usual American thing - anesthetizing myself to whatever didn't feel GREAT inside.
I really love my in laws. They annoy me sometimes and I certainly don't think they are perfect but you know what, our relationship is so honest and direct and I have to say, after this third time having them in my house I feel a) really sure that they love me and b) really sure that even if they are judging me that they are aware that judgment is a product of the mind and they don't let their own judgements grab hold of them in a way that would interrupt our connection and c) we can fight and repair and there is always shared responsibility. I am never left holding the I am wrong bag. In fact, my mother in law has taken responsibility for some pretty amazing things.
I am also sad because I reached out to another friend of mine on Friday, when I was having that really bad day. She too visits the underworld and she too was woefully under nurtured and continues to be in her family and she is also a very powerful spiritual force and psychotherapist. Turns out she was going through another dark patch herself. I wanted to know what she was doing to get through it. I asked her for some advice and here is what she said; (oh and it isn't lost on me that I have great friends!)
I really love my in laws. They annoy me sometimes and I certainly don't think they are perfect but you know what, our relationship is so honest and direct and I have to say, after this third time having them in my house I feel a) really sure that they love me and b) really sure that even if they are judging me that they are aware that judgment is a product of the mind and they don't let their own judgements grab hold of them in a way that would interrupt our connection and c) we can fight and repair and there is always shared responsibility. I am never left holding the I am wrong bag. In fact, my mother in law has taken responsibility for some pretty amazing things.
I am also sad because I reached out to another friend of mine on Friday, when I was having that really bad day. She too visits the underworld and she too was woefully under nurtured and continues to be in her family and she is also a very powerful spiritual force and psychotherapist. Turns out she was going through another dark patch herself. I wanted to know what she was doing to get through it. I asked her for some advice and here is what she said; (oh and it isn't lost on me that I have great friends!)
“…call up a picture of the mom you want. (…use the imagination.) can be anyone, real or in a book or on tv or a movie, or parts of various people. create what you need. get a full picture -- her image, her smell, her touch, her sound, her words. when you get a really good picture that you can see, hear, feel in your heart, sense in your body, tap 6-8 times (right [and then] left is 1) on your legs or arms (you can cross your arms across your chest so you have that extra holding, hug thing). you can go longer as long as the image stays in the positive.”-From a therapist friend, EMDR, Installing Resources
Her words are so powerful. These are techniques I learned several years ago and yet, there are days where I do find my old habit of turning away form the hurt one inside and leaving her to fend for herself has become so wired in that turning towards her is excrutiating. The piece that she didn't mention was what we were doing over the wire. We each needed eachother. I felt held by her and I hope she felt held by me for I responded right away. I realize I should call her again right now to check in. She and I have often been support forces for one another when we need another to connect with in these spaces. I speak to her less often than my two closest friends but I must say, I feel more understood by her. There is a way we know what it feels like to not have a "home inside" like most people do that allows them to not have to think about or feel these hard longings and all the ways we organize around them.
I continue to carry a lot of fear around that I fundamentally have this lack inside of me that will ultimately hurt my kids. I feel sad that this "lack" is what gets all my attention. I think the whole Attachment Parenting movement freaks me out bc I just can't be an "attachment parent" and stay regulated in my nervous system - another fueller of my "lack". My brother in law told my mother in law he felt we had damaged our children by sleep training them. We may have and we considered it long and hard before sleep training them but I also realized, one of the things I needed to be a regulated and attuned care giver was sleep and waking up ever 90 minutes wasn't working for me and working so at roughly 8 months with both my sons they cried their eyes out as we stayed awake with them and taught them how to put themselves to sleep. I am confident I will post on this in another post. Just found research from an attachment parenting site on how I have screwed up my kids forever. ahhh....well...out breath....
I continue to carry a lot of fear around that I fundamentally have this lack inside of me that will ultimately hurt my kids. I feel sad that this "lack" is what gets all my attention. I think the whole Attachment Parenting movement freaks me out bc I just can't be an "attachment parent" and stay regulated in my nervous system - another fueller of my "lack". My brother in law told my mother in law he felt we had damaged our children by sleep training them. We may have and we considered it long and hard before sleep training them but I also realized, one of the things I needed to be a regulated and attuned care giver was sleep and waking up ever 90 minutes wasn't working for me and working so at roughly 8 months with both my sons they cried their eyes out as we stayed awake with them and taught them how to put themselves to sleep. I am confident I will post on this in another post. Just found research from an attachment parenting site on how I have screwed up my kids forever. ahhh....well...out breath....
That said, I am always looking for clues that I might still be a good parent despite my childhood. Because there days when I feel like "hey man my kids kick ass, they are incredibly emotionally astute" and I catch myself doing something great! I found my answer in Mark Brady's three parenting practices based on his training as a therapist and neuroscientist. I should ask him about the sleep training piece;
3 Parenting Practices
1. Provide kids regular access to the working of our minds: or allow them to know us and our humanity, how we feel inside, where our yes's and no's are etc.
2. Collaboratively Communicate: meaning we are present with our kids in mind, body and spirit and receive their communication both the verbal and non verbal and fully take that communication in and respond to them quickly. He said that lack of timely response is the great neurological despair.
3. Heal ourselves: unpack our unconscious motivations that have us unwittingly moving out of connection to ourselves and our kids
So, I must say, after I read this I thought well I need some work @ number two but crap I kick ass on #1 and #3. In fact, as I was hanging out with my kids today and well we were just all in attunement - drifting in and out of connection together and then with ourselves- we just all had fun but it wasn't work and no one was neglected. In fact, my fear of not being a good parent is the biggest piece of #3 I need to work on because the amount of time I dwell in my own fear actively has me disconnecting from my kids. Isn't that ironic, my fear of parenting badly actually leads me to parent badly. Sorry, loaded with judgement but another way to say it is that I could just have a good time and be in connection rather than working so hard at doing it well. And that my friend is more #3 stuff that I wish I had a "turn off" button for. I believed I had to "do it well" rather than "trust my lived experience" from a very early age. Sadly, doing "IT" well has nothing to do with connection and relating and definately not parenting.
Hmmm....going to go sit for a bit before time to wake the kiddos up. I need to hold the part of me that must " do it" rather than "be it".
Saturday, April 9, 2011
History of Hyperarousal and Holding the Crazy Bag
I am picking pieces of an old blog post and hoping I can thread them together well bc the contents of this remnant remain on my mind after my last few days of arousal. Here is the beginning...
The subject is hyperarousal (over stimulation of the nervous system). Why am I writing about this today? Well, ever been to one of those kiddie indoor play gyms? They are my WORST nightmare but I went this morning fully knowing I hate those things but never fully getting that that is bc it is a trigger for my nervous system to shoot off into no mans hyper arousal land and the only outcome is that I am a total ass to my kids. Knowing this now, I will let my husband take the kiddos!
You see, my window of tolerance for avoiding hyperarousal is very narrow. By the way, at the opposite end of hyperarousal (fast energy - like fight/flight/freeze) is hypoarousal (slow/inert - shame/depression/stuck). We all feel anger and sadness but once outside that tolerance window our brains do funky things. For years I have called myself CRAZY and after nearly 16 years of therapy, I realize that a) I get easily hyper aroused because my early childhood was fraught with abuse and radical misattunements not to mention my very traumatic prenatal/birth experiencec that blew my nervous system out of the water b) labeling myself CRAZY and making myself all bad allowed the part of me so desperate to remain in connection with my mother to be able to bc if I made her crazy that jeopardized my need to believe in her. Let's just say, it was a bad situation. When I am not minimizing it, I call it abusive. When I am embarrassed or ashamed or am holding the crazy bag, I just say it was bad. I am finally able to stitch a and b together and better understand the feedback loop.
First, what overstimulates me or when do I get in a hyper aroused state?
- inauthenticity - I can feel when people are holding back and it feels to me a like a wind up for a back hand when people are polite instead of real. I can't fully explain why but I do. So in groups when there is too much of that fake nice thing, I don't feel safe and I run the other way. My mother's charm and kindness was almost always followed by an unexpected criticism. It was a jolt to my system because I was so open.
-being a learner - I have organized myself around being very self sufficient and part of that self sufficiency was wrapped up in being extremely good at everything. So new stuff I am not instantly good at hyper arouses me.
-many people, behaving erratically in an indoor space (outdoors is no problem). I imagine it is the escape route thing. "many people" includes children.
- romantic intimacy - you know, not sex but deep connective romance. I get scared. Maybe still waiting for that criticism or injury to follow the kindness.
-having needs in connection to others - if I need someone and I express it, OMG I quite literally tremble in my body. This was usually the point that I was literally told "there is something wrong with you for needing that."
What happens when I am hyper aroused;
- on good days I use all the skills I have learned in psychotherapy and I turn all my energies toward this shaky self and throw my arms around her with so much love, unconditional acceptance, stillness and patience. What that looks like is I put a pillow in my lap, I say sweet things from a calm part of me to the shaky part, sometimes I push against a wall if feeling strong will help me out, other times I call a close friend and have them help calm me and voila, 20 minutes, back to my old self.
- on bad days when I seem to want to buy into the notion that this shaky self is crazy, I spend an inordinate amount of time obsessing - obsessing about how CRAZY I am or obsessing about what other people think of me, both which actually keep my wound up and "on the ready" to fight as that is the purpose of this state - to fend of the intruder by fighting, running(flight), or freezing (think opossum). Then I am super crabby to everyone around me because inside this obsessing is happening. When I just can't take the internal dialogue then I get "hypo aroused" or depressed something like a week later. At least I am no longer shaking inside but crap, I have to get depressed to get out of my hyper aroused state? Um...that sucks so I think I will choose the good day way rather than the bad day way!
What I have learned in therapy;
It is complex but the basics premise is this; our bodies took shape around early attachment experiences - yeah like infant experiences and for some of us that left us with not only thinking patterns but actual musculature, posture and movement tendencies that make it hard to shift out of over stimulated or under stimulated states. We creatively responded to over stimulation and under stimulation and are kind of stuck repeating the patterned responses to what happened back then but in the here and now. Examples would be that I have a very stiff back, strong legs and strong arms but a very very weak core(stomach/spine etc). I am also a runner. To way over simplify the things that happened to me as a young young girl were a combo of overstimulating and at the same time when I reached out for help calming down I would be rejected in that moment of reaching. I have developed limited capacity for soothing myself internally, supported by my body's weak core but I never lost my ability to socially engage when in distress - not always effectively but nevertheless, I did. Arms and legs, head and neck are all part of social engagement - I can reach out to you, move toward you and turn to look at you.
Ok so what does all this have to do with parenting? These same hyper and hypo aroused states occur when I am with my children and utterly dislocate me from being able to attune to them. Tracking this nervous system process by writing about it in this blog allows me to keep this top of mind so I can remain calm even when the going gets tough AND so other moms who might have dysregulated nervous systems feel supported. I told a client today the things we need to be a good parent are;
1. A calm boundaried nervous system
2. Response flexibility with our kids
3. A good understanding of child development
4. Support
****
The subject is hyperarousal (over stimulation of the nervous system). Why am I writing about this today? Well, ever been to one of those kiddie indoor play gyms? They are my WORST nightmare but I went this morning fully knowing I hate those things but never fully getting that that is bc it is a trigger for my nervous system to shoot off into no mans hyper arousal land and the only outcome is that I am a total ass to my kids. Knowing this now, I will let my husband take the kiddos!
You see, my window of tolerance for avoiding hyperarousal is very narrow. By the way, at the opposite end of hyperarousal (fast energy - like fight/flight/freeze) is hypoarousal (slow/inert - shame/depression/stuck). We all feel anger and sadness but once outside that tolerance window our brains do funky things. For years I have called myself CRAZY and after nearly 16 years of therapy, I realize that a) I get easily hyper aroused because my early childhood was fraught with abuse and radical misattunements not to mention my very traumatic prenatal/birth experiencec that blew my nervous system out of the water b) labeling myself CRAZY and making myself all bad allowed the part of me so desperate to remain in connection with my mother to be able to bc if I made her crazy that jeopardized my need to believe in her. Let's just say, it was a bad situation. When I am not minimizing it, I call it abusive. When I am embarrassed or ashamed or am holding the crazy bag, I just say it was bad. I am finally able to stitch a and b together and better understand the feedback loop.
First, what overstimulates me or when do I get in a hyper aroused state?
- inauthenticity - I can feel when people are holding back and it feels to me a like a wind up for a back hand when people are polite instead of real. I can't fully explain why but I do. So in groups when there is too much of that fake nice thing, I don't feel safe and I run the other way. My mother's charm and kindness was almost always followed by an unexpected criticism. It was a jolt to my system because I was so open.
-being a learner - I have organized myself around being very self sufficient and part of that self sufficiency was wrapped up in being extremely good at everything. So new stuff I am not instantly good at hyper arouses me.
-many people, behaving erratically in an indoor space (outdoors is no problem). I imagine it is the escape route thing. "many people" includes children.
- romantic intimacy - you know, not sex but deep connective romance. I get scared. Maybe still waiting for that criticism or injury to follow the kindness.
-having needs in connection to others - if I need someone and I express it, OMG I quite literally tremble in my body. This was usually the point that I was literally told "there is something wrong with you for needing that."
What happens when I am hyper aroused;
- on good days I use all the skills I have learned in psychotherapy and I turn all my energies toward this shaky self and throw my arms around her with so much love, unconditional acceptance, stillness and patience. What that looks like is I put a pillow in my lap, I say sweet things from a calm part of me to the shaky part, sometimes I push against a wall if feeling strong will help me out, other times I call a close friend and have them help calm me and voila, 20 minutes, back to my old self.
- on bad days when I seem to want to buy into the notion that this shaky self is crazy, I spend an inordinate amount of time obsessing - obsessing about how CRAZY I am or obsessing about what other people think of me, both which actually keep my wound up and "on the ready" to fight as that is the purpose of this state - to fend of the intruder by fighting, running(flight), or freezing (think opossum). Then I am super crabby to everyone around me because inside this obsessing is happening. When I just can't take the internal dialogue then I get "hypo aroused" or depressed something like a week later. At least I am no longer shaking inside but crap, I have to get depressed to get out of my hyper aroused state? Um...that sucks so I think I will choose the good day way rather than the bad day way!
What I have learned in therapy;
 |
| From Vand der Hart, Nijenhuis and Steele, 2006 Copyright Janina Fisher, PhD |
That my young life, even my inutureo experience, was fraught with fear. Lots of grabby unpredictable teenage type people raised me. My perfectionism is part of my hyperarousal...it sustained a high level of energy toward over achievement so I could stay in this "on the ready" stance that allowed me to feel safe and together. This whole thing wreaked havoc on my physical well being and really made relationships feel like a mine field. Now add to this whole nervous system piece that my own mother is, herself, a wounded bird. And in order to stay in connection with her, I had to hold the "crazy bag" meaning I would kind of say 'it is my fault' or 'i am not good enough' bc then I didn't have to push against her and say "hey this sucks" and have her reject me outright. I did push against her in adolescence and now no longer speak to her. I am not a big proponent of this but after awhile if you have to abdicate your self hood to be in relationship, what IS the point?
Ok so what does all this have to do with parenting? These same hyper and hypo aroused states occur when I am with my children and utterly dislocate me from being able to attune to them. Tracking this nervous system process by writing about it in this blog allows me to keep this top of mind so I can remain calm even when the going gets tough AND so other moms who might have dysregulated nervous systems feel supported. I told a client today the things we need to be a good parent are;
1. A calm boundaried nervous system
2. Response flexibility with our kids
3. A good understanding of child development
4. Support
I am so glad to be writing this down. I am trying to strip my writing of too much therapy wonky terminology but this stuff is so important.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Loved Imperfectly
I am grateful to be back on the rails. Back from the land of something is wrong wtih me and now traversing the land of "oh yeah, my nervous system needs help sometimes and I still fall off the rails. But nothing is wrong with me. " A few serendipities today that came together to soothe my fear about relating in my last post - about relating to people who cannot meet me in the ways that feel good to me...
"I am human. I can't hold you all of the time but that doesn't mean I don't love you. I am just limited in the energy I have to offer." Me to someone else
"Son I know you want me to hold you right now but I can't. I can see you are really sad about that." Me to my Son
"If I know what I need/want is a response, I shouldn't reach to people who don't respond. Reaching to them is not accepting what they have to offer." Me to my husband
"I am entitled to my experience and it really doesn't matter what others think of me, I felt it but it took some work." To me from Someone Else
"I discovered something this week. What I realized is just because someone can't meet me in the exact way that I want does not mean that they do not care about me." To me from Someone Else
I am at peace inside and I am so grateful for the work I do and the life I live. I realize that I get the great privilege of sitting across from people while they tell their truth. I was talking to my Dad today about my ouchies I was experiencing and about how grateful I am, although hard, that I have and do travel at the edges of wild darkness and frontier lands not travelled by the majority from time to time because myself and the other travellers who are my closest companions are bringing back information from that land useful for this one. But, I am also grateful that as I have worked on myself longer and as I age, I needn't suffer to grow.
"I am human. I can't hold you all of the time but that doesn't mean I don't love you. I am just limited in the energy I have to offer." Me to someone else
"Son I know you want me to hold you right now but I can't. I can see you are really sad about that." Me to my Son
"If I know what I need/want is a response, I shouldn't reach to people who don't respond. Reaching to them is not accepting what they have to offer." Me to my husband
"I am entitled to my experience and it really doesn't matter what others think of me, I felt it but it took some work." To me from Someone Else
"I discovered something this week. What I realized is just because someone can't meet me in the exact way that I want does not mean that they do not care about me." To me from Someone Else
I am at peace inside and I am so grateful for the work I do and the life I live. I realize that I get the great privilege of sitting across from people while they tell their truth. I was talking to my Dad today about my ouchies I was experiencing and about how grateful I am, although hard, that I have and do travel at the edges of wild darkness and frontier lands not travelled by the majority from time to time because myself and the other travellers who are my closest companions are bringing back information from that land useful for this one. But, I am also grateful that as I have worked on myself longer and as I age, I needn't suffer to grow.
On the Outside Looking Out
Yep. I am in a rocky spot. It was odd, what triggered it was a combo of fear and fear. Fear about money, fear about screwing up my kid. And in both instances my brain made an appraisal that my partner not only couldn't hold me in my fear but actively was against me. Small gestural, tone of voice, expression thing he did. When my nervous system gets a double whammy, one two punch like this, I find it hard to get on my own side and calm down. So I have been hyper aroused and tense all day.
So where am I now? I want my mommy! Really. And so I start rapid cycling through faces and images of people I know who can help me calm down and find my way back to believing I don't totally suck. You see how this hyperarousal works. I feel a little calmed writing out what is happening as it is happening as it gives me some observing distance. I am aware that where I am going is I am looking for confirmation of the internal story that says "I SUCK" and much meaner versions of that by sifting through all the faces and images in my recent past that prove it.
I have been pained by one or two friends who really drop me when I reach for them. I am actually ok with "you sound upset. I am busy, can't be there." but lack of response is the "third punch" in that "you suck" punching game. So I am of course self flagellating right now by looking for the fourth, fifth and sixth punches. Who else can prove that I am not worth being held when I am hurting!? Yep. That is what I am doing. You know what, I just can't be friends with people who drop me. I don't do that to others. I have to accept that not everyone wants to just say it. I actually did call one gal today and just said "hey i am noticing this happens when I share and wanted to just check it out with you what comes up for you. I am good with hearing no.". No response.
I guess the message is, I can radically and whole heartedly accept my need for some continuity of contact as ok, whole and good and I can accept that some friendships can't provide that. I also can refocus on the 7 - yes SEVEN friends who I do have that level of intimacy with and stop turning toward people who confirm the three four and five punch - you suck mentality. What I am stumped by is I still really dig this woman, inspite of the fact she can't meet me.
ooops. Catcing myself. See, I am outside me. All my focus is outside me obcessing - back and forth on this person or that person and why, how come, why not, what if, souldn't they...this is the voice of activation...my attachment system is lit up and I am proximity seeking with no one in sight. What is happening to those parts of me hurting when I do this? Not only are they not getting held, they aren't even getting held by me. I am iinadvertently telling them they suck BC I am unable to slow down, turn towards myself and hold myself. I do this all the time. And I am blaming it on other people when in fact, I need to hold me!
K. Going to go hold myself.
So where am I now? I want my mommy! Really. And so I start rapid cycling through faces and images of people I know who can help me calm down and find my way back to believing I don't totally suck. You see how this hyperarousal works. I feel a little calmed writing out what is happening as it is happening as it gives me some observing distance. I am aware that where I am going is I am looking for confirmation of the internal story that says "I SUCK" and much meaner versions of that by sifting through all the faces and images in my recent past that prove it.
I have been pained by one or two friends who really drop me when I reach for them. I am actually ok with "you sound upset. I am busy, can't be there." but lack of response is the "third punch" in that "you suck" punching game. So I am of course self flagellating right now by looking for the fourth, fifth and sixth punches. Who else can prove that I am not worth being held when I am hurting!? Yep. That is what I am doing. You know what, I just can't be friends with people who drop me. I don't do that to others. I have to accept that not everyone wants to just say it. I actually did call one gal today and just said "hey i am noticing this happens when I share and wanted to just check it out with you what comes up for you. I am good with hearing no.". No response.
ooops. Catcing myself. See, I am outside me. All my focus is outside me obcessing - back and forth on this person or that person and why, how come, why not, what if, souldn't they...this is the voice of activation...my attachment system is lit up and I am proximity seeking with no one in sight. What is happening to those parts of me hurting when I do this? Not only are they not getting held, they aren't even getting held by me. I am iinadvertently telling them they suck BC I am unable to slow down, turn towards myself and hold myself. I do this all the time. And I am blaming it on other people when in fact, I need to hold me!
K. Going to go hold myself.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
You Matter and I Matter
I was sitting around the kitchen table this morning aware that I had sweep of fear and anger wash over me in response to my 3.5 year old son. Then shame that I had acted out my anger and fear. What I love about me is my interest in seeking and depth but there comes a point where the seeking itself is a way to leave connection with myself, with my child, with the present.
My old perfectionist self criticism has on new clothes. It used to be that I was just plain mean to myself inside. Now that meanness comes packaged in a very pretty "personal growth" - "I am studying myself so I can heal" agenda. I have found a new way to be hard on myself. There must be some good reasons this critic is up again. I know I have been around other mothers recently - my dojo, you know -getting hyperaroused bc onto them I transfer all my feelings about my own mother. So out comes this critic. She has served as protector from a harsher punishment and she has decided to take out her sword ready for action. Over the years I have developed a great deal of compassion for this sword bearer. She simply needs my attention the same way an angry child does. She comes out a lot now that I am a mother confounded by how to relate to other mothers while pulling back the transference of my mother.
My old perfectionist self criticism has on new clothes. It used to be that I was just plain mean to myself inside. Now that meanness comes packaged in a very pretty "personal growth" - "I am studying myself so I can heal" agenda. I have found a new way to be hard on myself. There must be some good reasons this critic is up again. I know I have been around other mothers recently - my dojo, you know -getting hyperaroused bc onto them I transfer all my feelings about my own mother. So out comes this critic. She has served as protector from a harsher punishment and she has decided to take out her sword ready for action. Over the years I have developed a great deal of compassion for this sword bearer. She simply needs my attention the same way an angry child does. She comes out a lot now that I am a mother confounded by how to relate to other mothers while pulling back the transference of my mother.
This warrior spirit means well but she dislocates me from myself for she stands outside of me focused outward and on guard. When she takes over I am not loving to my kids and I am not in attuned connection, and my boundaries are confusing. But turning towards me was never part of the equation in my young life bc I concluded that I didn't matter.
But I do matter. I deserve kindness, attunement and compassion and the best place to achieve that is in the raw sensations of my body, my breath, tingling, tightness, attuned to each sensation as it rises and falls - nothing to do but be with each experience. From here, I fall back into my bones, back into mattering, back into connection with myself and back into connective parenting with my kids. Off to go sit in compassion, to matter to me.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Response Flexibility
Integration integration integration. A lot going on last week. I am trying to integrate a lot at the moment; studying for my Marriage and Family Therapist licensing exam has me steeped in heady ideas about mental health and the new format of the exam has me studying the hundreds of differing ideas on this question instead of specializing in one as the old exam required. In the midst of that, I am revisiting material from my young life in deeply profound ways. I am finally deeply feeling the painful abuse that I suffered in my childhood - I am not angry and I am not running, I am just breathlessly mourning what happened. I found it hard to hold myself in the midst of triggers that ignited painful memories and some intense nervous system stuff. Found it hard, for the first time in a long time, to get on my own side and get inside of my body. Leaving myself is old habit.
Of course all of this was happening while my husband was away on business and my children's strong reaction to his lack of contact with them left me deeply needed whilst I was deeply unavailable. What is more, my own work with my psychotherapy clients is demanding that I be INSIDE myself too and to trust my experience and be authentic and flexible in how I respond. So I needed me, my kids needed me and my clients needed me. I am grateful for good friends who helped me regulate my nervous system so I could get back inside of my body and hold myself in the midst of these painful feelings. It is ok that I/we need help doing this. The challenge is reaching to the right people, doing so directly and cleanly and being connective in the moment rather than thinking about solutions. I am aware that thinking, as Gabrielle Roth says, does not lead to clarity. Being alive in our experience and trusting that experience does. Last bit are my words. This is why I am a somatic therapist. I believe in the body is where we have our lived experience and where we know how to respond to ourselves and the world.
I put two and two together and found, when I am anxious about how I am experiencing myself, I will look outside myself for answers instead of inside of myself. That includes looking for parenting advice outside myself. Getting some solid training in child development and some very good awareness how and when we are disconnecting relationally, what triggers make it hard to connect with our children and ourselves are great ways to develop response flexibility. Reading "how to do it the right way" kind of books, however, leave us/me in my head thinking about parenting rather than connective parenting. I love what Mark Brady wrote in his email to me last week in response to a question I had about a particular parenting group. He said;
Of course all of this was happening while my husband was away on business and my children's strong reaction to his lack of contact with them left me deeply needed whilst I was deeply unavailable. What is more, my own work with my psychotherapy clients is demanding that I be INSIDE myself too and to trust my experience and be authentic and flexible in how I respond. So I needed me, my kids needed me and my clients needed me. I am grateful for good friends who helped me regulate my nervous system so I could get back inside of my body and hold myself in the midst of these painful feelings. It is ok that I/we need help doing this. The challenge is reaching to the right people, doing so directly and cleanly and being connective in the moment rather than thinking about solutions. I am aware that thinking, as Gabrielle Roth says, does not lead to clarity. Being alive in our experience and trusting that experience does. Last bit are my words. This is why I am a somatic therapist. I believe in the body is where we have our lived experience and where we know how to respond to ourselves and the world.
I put two and two together and found, when I am anxious about how I am experiencing myself, I will look outside myself for answers instead of inside of myself. That includes looking for parenting advice outside myself. Getting some solid training in child development and some very good awareness how and when we are disconnecting relationally, what triggers make it hard to connect with our children and ourselves are great ways to develop response flexibility. Reading "how to do it the right way" kind of books, however, leave us/me in my head thinking about parenting rather than connective parenting. I love what Mark Brady wrote in his email to me last week in response to a question I had about a particular parenting group. He said;
"...anything advocated as "one sizefits all" is going to have problems. Kids' brains grow and changeway beyond anything most parents and few schools are really aware enough to keep up with. The result is that the majority of us end up to some degree "developmentally delayed" compared to what's possible. Kids need in-the-moment, creative "response flexibility" from teachers and caretakers. Without that, they are unnecessarily slowed down in development.What's your experience? Ever wake up and discover your child has leapfrogged from where they were just yesterday?"
Mark Brady, http://committedparent.wordpress.com/
I feel like response flexibility is embodied compassion...compassion for self and other. From a place of compassion our boundaries don't fall apart, we aren't riddled with fear and anxiety and we don't leave our bodies. Embodied compassion allows us to stay in connection with ourselves while being in connection with our kids. So I am on a mission to find my way back to embodied compassion. Going to do some 5 rhythms movement on Thursday night. More about it here. Love that Gabrielle says fuck in this interview!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)