Anger with Our Children
Jul 18, 2022
I was in the water with Tommy this morning and I felt myself wanting to disconnect from him, ignore what he was saying and be angry and reactive.
I try my best to be a trauma-informed, gentle parent, but honestly sometimes I yell (and I hate it and beat myself up after because I really should know better). And you look into their sweet innocent face and their body flinches with fear, it's the freakin worst.
At that moment, I decided that I wasn't going to go down that path, so I stopped for a moment, looked at him and said "I can't talk right now sweety, mummy is angry so I just need to do some breathing, can you wait a few minutes?"
He looked understanding, so standing there in the water with him, I started to go right into the anger, breathed into it, turned it up, and followed the sensation around my body.
As that layer started to melt, I went down deeper into my body and mind, and a deep pain of frustration and constriction came through... I asked my body and mind... "what is this about?"
What came through was...
Images of being a child and everything is decided for me. A deep ongoing trauma of not being heard, the adults always deciding on what you are going to do when you are with them (and let me know if this is something that you experienced, I feel like it's a common thread).
Now, Ryan and I do child-led play with Tommy... so funny enough... the anger actually came from me wanting to get out of the water and sunbake for a bit, but Tommy wanted to go back into the water after 2 mins (he's 3).
I agreed, as I tried to say no, but didn't explain why.
I followed him but I was resentfully in the water.
Me not doing what I wanted to do, was triggered by my sweet 3 year old.
But then I looked at him as a little human with a big soul.
I realised that I was inflicting my pain on him, which he didn't deserve.
As soon as I finished shifting the energy (which took all of 5 minutes), I naturally came back into the now, connected with him again, and dropped into the water and splashed around with him.
He looked at me, ever so slightly upset, and said "mum, why were you angry?"
I explained to him that I didn't want to come back into the water and I wanted to stay longer on the beach. Then explained that sometimes we don't want to do the same things.
I explained that if he feels angry or frustrated, that he can stop and breathe through it too (although you have to show kids, speaking about it isn't as effective).
Our children mirror back and trigger our inner children. And the more that we stop and breathe, the more that we can break abusive cycles being passed down generations. This helps each heart, our family, and our community and reverberates into the collective consciousness.
In peace,
Melissa Hiemann (Creator of Root-Cause Therapy)
Want to work with us?
If you're a Coach, Therapist, Healer or Someone in the Industry CLICK HERE
Want to Deepen your own Healing Journey or become a Practitioner CLICK HERE