You must have heard it before (at least if you have kids of your own): that kids mirror what we try to avoid in ourselves.
It is super hard and sometimes very frustrating seeing this sides of them that actually more or less are our own images.
Sometimes we can ignore them, we can feel angry or helpless, frustrated and confused and sometimes all we want will be for them to disappear (those sides we don’t want to deal with).
But we also, if not consciously than deep inside ourselves, know that they will stay there showing up whenever we don’t expect it and even when we need them least.
We might ask the question: what to do about it or how to deal with it? We might try different strategies and hope that will help.
But as long as we reject to see in the “mirror” and acknowledge that what we see it is our own unprocessed feelings, patterns and protective mechanisms, it actually won’t be resolved.
It takes (a lot of) time to deal with our inner struggles and sometimes it can feel like there is no progress at all. But time and patience are crucial.
Don’t ever give up on your self.
One of my biggest traumas is not being able to show my vulnerable sides. I learned that world don’t like all of me so I hide and present only “presentable and pretty” - many of us do that.
And all those “ugly” and unwanted sides: emotions and reactions, we try to hide and suppress. But they don’t disappear with that.
Over time it becomes a heavy burden we carry on our shoulders or deep in our deepest depths.
For me it feels like a pressure cooker with the lid almost exploding from all the “ugly” cooking inside of me and my protective side is holding the lid, just letting off a little bit of the steam from time to another.
When I feel vournable I run away. I can’t deal with people wanting to hold me and be with me. I hate being witnessed in my weakness and I push and hide and run away while all I actually need and want is being hold and loved.
And when I run away, I run from that accurate need I have and my wounds get bigger.
But I take care of myself- this is what I have been doing all my life, most of us are - that is the beauty of protective mechanisms - that they take care of us on the long run.
I show up strong and unbreakable on the surface.
I am not.
My own daughter is accurate the same.
When big emotions are to big for her she shouts everyone out. She needs hugs and love and being hold in what feels so heavy and big for her but at the same time she doesn’t allow that.
It drives me nuts. It has been so intense and so often last couple of months and all I want it is to stop. I want her to let me hold her, to be with her. But she screams at me: "Stop" for what ever I say or offer. It is so provoking.
She doesn’t allow me to be there for her. And I can’t stand it.
I have been asking myself: what am I doing wrong? Where did I make a mistake when she doesn’t let me help her.
I want her to hear me.
And I really want to be witnessed too. The little one in me wants to be heard and when she doesn’t, it triggers all my emotions of not being met and heard and listened to for who I really am.
And here we are: seeing the exact image of our own past in the eyes of our outcome.
History that repeats itself for the benefit of healing our future.
When we are ready to see that and embrace it - all its heaviness and pain, when we are ready to be crack opened and intensely intimate with our own trauma, what emerges from it is pure power and beauty.
Repairing our own wounds repatterns themself making our weaknesses to our biggest gifts.
I don’t have answers on my own questions and I can’t remove my daughter’s feelings and patterns. I can stay, witness her, calm myself down when in all hers struggles I meet my own struggles. I can look inside my heart and find compassion for us both and then I can hold my self, my own little one and witness her until I patiently wait for my own child to be ready to be witnessed too, hold on and listen to what ever is there to be heard.
By her mirroring me, I can go to the places of my own that I have forgotten to give love and compassion to. And with time and patience (a lot of it) I can find peace within what is hard and painful.
When we resolve that, the rest will slowly transform into new and the old protective side will put the shield down.
I just opened that little crack that leads inside of me and I know that with the time what is small beginning will grew more and more. I have just shyly begin to look into my own reflection when seeing my daughter holding her mirror in front of me.