21/02/2023
Relatable.
It’s taken me (and will continue to take me) a long time to learn how to feel my feelings instead of trying to ignore them.
How about for our children? What are we teaching them about feelings?
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Posted • A lot of us think what we learned, before becoming a parent, was self-regulation skills but what most of us learned was suppression.
We tend to realize this when our children bring up triggers for us that we had no idea about. We search for self-regulation skills and realize all we have is suppression, avoidance, projection and disassociation.
We think “I thought I did the work! I thought I was grown! I thought I was healed!” And then we return to another familiar pattern that we haven’t managed to figure out yet which is self-loathing. We begin beating ourselves up for not being “healed enough.” But in fact, our children just show us the areas that still need healing. Healing is a LIFE LONG JOURNEY. Triggers are not bad, they are messages. Messages that our mind and body don’t feel safe in this moment and we need to figure out why, not just tell yourself not to feel that way anymore.
Let me tell you something else, even when you do the work and learn these skills, triggers will still come up. New triggers will come up. Each stage of our child’s life may bring up new and unknown triggers. If we learn tools to process these triggers, we’re not so scared about them happening. We may feel nervous, but we know we have the tools to process the triggers now.
Learn more about this in my latest 📖
Finding Your Calm: A Responsive Parents Guide to Self-Regulation and Co-Regulation
Link in bio or on the Website: responsiveparentinginspirations.com
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Credit: Responsive Parenting Inspirations