A Mother’s Greatest Fear

You, mama, are trying your best…

…with the tools that you have picked up along the way, with the wisdom that comes from experience, and with the emotional maturity that you’ve gained so far, in this relatively new, and ever-shifting role of parent.

But what if you found out that this ‘best’
wasn’t quite enough?

And what if you found out that one of the key tools you’d been applying on your parenting journey - ‘putting in the repair’ - hadn’t, in fact, fully removed the scars that you inflicted on your child, despite what you were told by the experts?

This is what happened to me last week.

As one of my kids told me that they still occasionally experience a fragmented flashback to my disembodied voice, accompanied by intense fear and anxiety.

And that despite my best efforts and my increasing ability to remain calm (which I manage nearly all of the time now), and that despite my putting in the repair when I don’t (I’m down to only one or two outbursts a year now), and despite our increased connection as a result, they still don’t feel entirely sure that I won’t fly off the handle in the way that I have done in the past.

Cue: shocked silence…

You can imagine how it felt to hear that my child doesn’t feel fully safe around me.

(Because that’s what this means).

Not just as a mama trying to do her best, but also as the daughter of two deeply emotionally scarred parents who endured her own fair share of trauma, and as a coach whose purpose it now is to support other mamas to be less reactive by healing the childhood pain that is the cause.

I WAS CONFRONTED BY a mother’s greatest fear:
that I had indeed passed on MY own trauma.

And there was (and is) absolutely nothing that I can do about it (which is what I later realised was the lesson).

So how did I react?

I didn’t start to spiral into self-loathing - what I would have done a decade ago - because this wouldn’t have helped me to show up any better and wouldn’t have changed a thing.

And I didn’t react defensively, try to justify the behaviour that had led to their feelings about me, nor did I underline how much I have changed - what I might have been drawn to do more recently - because that would have undermined what they’d had the bravery to communicate.

I did the following:

• I said how grateful I was to know this

• I acknowledged that it might have felt hard to express such vulnerable emotions

• I validated how they felt by empathising with how awful it sounded to feel this way about your own mother

• I asked if there was anything that I could do differently or better, to what I was already doing, in order to show up in a way that would support them to heal

• I emphasised how important it was, to me, for them to feel fully safe and secure

• I underlined my commitment to continuing to learn from them and grow as a mother and person

And I sat with the pain…

…without judging it, trying to numb it or attempting to distract myself away from it.

I held space for both my child’s feelings as well as for mine.

And the fact that I was ABLE to do this, is what made me see just how much I’ve grown in my compassion and acceptance for my inner child, and as a result, in my compassion and acceptance for others (including my children).

Because, in the end, we ALL make mistakes (some of which have far worse consequences than others).

And my role is to accept this painful truth, to empathise with the reasons behind my actions, to acknowledge that they can’t be undone, to forgive my younger, less healed self, to release whatever feelings need to be felt and to channel my energy into continuing to heal my past in order to grow into my future.

This is what makes me a good enough mother and a good enough coach for other mothers.

This is how I am NOT passing on the full extent of my own trauma.

And this is how we are all in this together, mama - healing one wound after another, learning from our children as we go along, simply practising - day after day, year after year - to be that tiny bit better than before, and turning that trauma dial down, one significant notch at a time.

That’s just about all you can ever really do…