The Movement
I love the conscious parenting movement. Amazing teachers like Janet Lansbury and L.R. Knost changed my perspective with their focus on respecting the child. I have to admit, the concepts came easy to me. I knew deep down inside they were right even though I did not experience that type of parenting as a child. I innately knew this was my parenting method as my conscious thoughts lined up with everything I was reading. I knew I was going to be that kind of parent, a respectful parent.
I had already been in recovery for a few years from my childhood of abuse and trafficking so I knew I would be different from my family. I had removed the abusers from our lives for my children’s safety. I had already embraced yoga, meditation and some daily awareness practices. I was sure I was equipped to handle it.
So I was surprised that, in practice, I wasn’t handling it. My kids were triggering me with their behavior. But their behavior wasn’t bad. It was normal for children. They were just being kids. They were pushing boundaries. They were expressing their individuality. And I was coming unglued. I was exploding at them for the smallest reasons. And I was so sad, guilty and anxious about it which made everything worse. I wanted to be the parent I was reading about. And I wasn’t.
Bridging the Gap
I decided that conscious parenting was not enough. I knew that my kids deserved respect. And I was aware of what I needed to do. But that wasn’t going to change my trauma responses. My trauma responses weren’t coming from my logical brain. They weren’t based on reason. As I say often, trauma isn’t logical. It comes from a deeper place. It comes from an instinctual place.
It comes from the inner child who separated during the trauma. And that inner child is terrified. That inner child sees boundary invasions as life or death situations. That inner child looks at my children and sees my abusive parents. That inner child is repeating her past behavior in a desperate attempt to create a different result. But that will never happen. The only way to break the pattern is to start the conversation between my adult self and the inner child. The only way to stop the trauma response is to help that inner child understand things in a different way.
Several years later, I have learned how to embrace my inner child, love her, parent her, while teaching her to let go of the past and the behavior that perpetuated it. But it has not been easy. She didn’t trust me, the children or anyone else. She was sure her behavior would keep her safe. And she wasn’t so sure about allowing me to see the memories and beliefs behind that behavior.
Passing It On
But my persistence has paid off. The results have been life changing for everyone in my family. I no longer respond from fear (most of the time) when my children push my boundaries or disrespect me. I can stay calm and respond from my adult self because overstimulation is not a matter of life and death. When I do make mistakes (all the time), I can apologize for those mistakes. I can allow myself the freedom to be human because my perfection is not a matter of life and death. And as my inner child calms down, I calm down. And as I calm down, my children calm down.
So I wanted to share what I learned. I developed a parenting workshop to help parents with trauma learn the same process that officially broke the cycle in my little family. I hope to help others with the same understanding I have gained. I want to help others break the real cycle, not the cycle of abuse, but the cycle of habits and beliefs perpetuating the potential for abuse. Even more importantly, I want to help others find their own inner peace, so they can pass that inner peace to their children. And those children can grow up to make a world without child abuse of any kind, a world where conscious parenting is not a movement, but a way of life for everyone.
Even before I really understood what was going on, I was aware that my kids were triggering me. I spent a good while beating myself up for that…given where my ex was in the picture, I felt I had to overcompensate and be everything to them.
Now, over a year later, I feel so differently. As my memories become more and more clear (another strange and wondrous journey in itself), I can take actions to help my inner child. And somehow that action and acceptance frees me from repeating things with my kids. I feel more confident in being a parent…I feel *like* a parent for the first time, able to step outside of situations and guide when appropriate but also to be inside and be emotionally with my children.
I’m not all the way there. I still have so much fear that lives inside me. And it’s not the same as a fear of failure or loss or not being good enough. It’s more like a terror that just lingers. It freezes my developing parent skills and makes it hard to focus. But I can work on it knowing that there is much more on the other side.
Your comments are always so full of brilliance and insight. I know your journey is changing your family. And I know you are making a positive impact on the world as a whole with your tremendous growth. I know the terror you speak of. It seems to be existential in nature. Keep moving. You are doing amazing things.
I just recently reached out in a support group for a conscious parenting community asking for advice regarding how triggered I get while trying to execute some of their philosophical practices. You wrote this piece the same week: a thousand times Thank You.
This community’s practices include a great deal of physical interaction between parent and child, both in play and during the offloading of big feelings (tantrums). I believe these things are healthy, but I am not (yet). I am not able to be the parent while trying to prevent one of my kids from hitting me. I am not even a parent when play among the kids gets rowdy (I have started retreating to my room and putting on headphones to escape the stimulation), and they are all well versed in the mantra “Moms are not for wrestling”.
So much fear.
The other day- my most recent retreat from loud, happy kids, I started my first real successful dialogue with my inner child. I wrote to her for quite a while, and then I just held her and we cried. When we were done, it felt like something was totally different. Some big issue within just evaporated.
Anyway, I just re-read because I came back to this article to comment, and I’m wondering if I’m pushing myself too far. It seems that the more I dive into my self-work, the more my hyper-vigilance manifests in my parenting. I can’t ALLOW myself to falter or run out of energy or not learn something in time- because then I will have failed them, right?
But maybe it’s time for me to think of myself.
There are many different styles of gentle parenting- can’t I find one that is gentle for me too? I want so badly to some day be the fun parent- to roll around on the floor and allow myself to experience the joy and release of unfettered play… But now I’m thinking it may be a more important parenting job to honor my inner child’s desire to remain feeling safe and secure. For now anyway…
Hi Kara, Thank you so much for your amazing insight. You are so right. Your inner child needs just as much (if not more) care as your external children. You will not be able to check all those boxes on the gentle parenting list and care for your inner child. The most important thing you can do is care for your inner child, so that you can stay calm. Most survivors see this as selfish, but it isn’t. Your children will have a much better childhood if you can reduce your triggers.
And it is also true that anxiety/depression can increase when we first make contact with the inner child. The inner child will want to share her emotions and your defenses will want to do what they usually do. So yes, it does ramp up a bit. I hope this helps. Feel free to email me any time. And congratulations on reaching your inner child. That is so life-changing.
Wow Elizabeth! What a powerful message and so on target in my life. Weekly I discuss with my husband (who had wonderful parents/childhood) regarding respectful parenting; to my son about verbal respect to us as his parents. Sometimes when I listen to my 55 & 16-year olds consistently talking to each other disrespectfully, I get very emotional because it triggers PTSD from the abuse. May I have your permission to pass your message to them to help them understand that their behavior is seriously stressing me? How else can I help my husband understand this concept? Any suggestions you may have are welcome. Thank you.
Hi Denise, You are welcome to pass along any of my messages to any others who are willing to read them. I appreciate that. I will say that I have found people must be willing and motivated to change if they are to stop a dysfunctional behavior like disrespect toward others. They both need to see each other differently. They are definitely triggering each other. Have you considered some family therapy sessions? I also do guidance sessions, but with individual adult clients.