Expansion Perimeter

Can our kids do better than us? If they have the same unhealthy patterns as we do, can they shift, heal, and expand beyond them? No. It’s a hard truth. Gulp. Now, our children don’t always have the same struggles as us parents, but if there are parallels, and we aren’t working on our stuff; can they just move past us? I don’t really think it’s possible without support. Perhaps if they are in therapy and receiving support from a professional it’s a possibility. What I have noticed in my life over the course of the last few years, is that my son has a beautiful emotional growth spurt about a year after my own. I realized this was happening and it blew my mind. It was an intense electric, all-at-once understanding. I felt enormous pride that my own struggles/suffering/growth/expansion had a positive impact on his own interpersonal development and then immediate pale horror with the understanding that he probably wasn’t going to move through an unhealthy pattern before adulthood if I wasn’t working toward healing our shared struggle myself. This parenting stuff is no joke. If a child is dealing with shame but her parents aren’t able to openly discuss the issue; how can the child heal? Shame grows and thrives in secrecy. How do we heal it? Discuss it. Discover we are not alone. Suffering is not unique. If a child is dealing with addiction and her parents aren’t curious about their own addiction patterns, how can this child heal? This isn’t about parent shaming, it’s about creating understanding around the reality that how we exist inside of our own bodies, hearts and relationships lands on our children in a deeper way than we realize. If you have poor boundaries; will your son or daughter be a pushover filled with resentment? It’s likely. Is all of this black and white? Good and bad? Nope. Yet, it all matters. If we are curious about struggles, and we lean into discovery and growth, we model this for our kids. If we share little tidbits about our journey, we give them language for what their bodies already know. If you drink alcohol after your kids are in bed, this truth is not absent from their knowing. If you are fighting with your partner and your children don’t hear you; this event isn’t absent from their life. The Polyvagal Theory helps us understand how their nervous systems can sense it, and because of the intelligent, interwoven way our autonomic nervous system impacts our physiology, their bodies will respond to these events. These physiological responses may present as stomach aches, headaches, irritability, difficulty with sleep, trouble with relationships, friction at school, etc. We cannot hide our humanness from our children. Why not shine some light on our experience for them. Share little tidbits of struggle and how we are seeking help to grow and shift. A lifehack I learned in therapy is to simply tell your children if you're having a rough day. I about fell out of my chair when our family therapist suggested this to me. “You mean tell the truth!?” Flash forward a few years and I have begun to do this. I share bits about what is going on for me. I tell the truth. Because guess what? His body already knows the truth. I am simply taking responsibility for my own emotions and not leaving him to try and sort through it without any language. Personal growth is indeed very personal; however, the ripples go out; always and in all ways.