77: worrying as a defense mechanism, and also parenting

Mornings are becoming cool, and I’ve been taking out warm-ish clothes for my son as I drop him off at school. Except it’s not that simple. I worry that he might catch a cold if I don’t dress him warmly. I worry that he won’t build up his natural immunity from cold if I dress him too warmly. I worry that he will look ridiculous all cozied up while everyone else is running around in t-shirts and shorts. My biggest worry: somehow, I am screwing up this parenting thing by not having figured out the exact RIGHT clothes to clothe him in. Basically, I can’t win this game.

Yes. It’s ridiculous. Putting it down in words like this makes it very apparent to me that I am being ridiculous.

That doesn’t really shift anything within me though. 

What shifts is this realization: I’m a worrier.

Worrying is about anticipating the various permutations and combinations which in turn is about control. Worrying I think will help me control the situation. That’s my defense mechanism. That’s my defense mechanism. Oh.

Worrying is my defense mechanism.

And since it’s my son there’s a lot of stuff mixed in: a fierce love, a fierce desire to do right by him.

I started reading The Undefended Self as a part of my coursework for the brennan school of healing (Yeah, after years of looking at it from a distance, this year I decided to finally do it! I am loving it so far. It is WORK. Like actual work. I end up spending 1-2 hrs everyday reading up and writing down the assignments, and end of October we have a resident training program too! But I am enjoying it). So back to Susan Thesenga’s book. In it, in the very first chapter, she makes a statement which made me go whoa! She says, I am a good parent AND a bad parent.

Let me say that again: I am a good parent, AND I am a bad parent. Not either or, but both-and.

That just spoke to me. As someone who has long thought in terms of both-and (not just beautiful, but beautiful and ugly. We contain multitudes after all), it was surprising to me how I’d never applied this dictum to parenting. Because it makes sense. I AM good and bad. As a person. There are things I’d label as positive, and there are things I’d label as negative within myself. So how is it not possible for this to be carried over to my parenting too?

I find immense relief in that statement: good and bad. 

Which isn’t to say that I don’t recognize that there are issues which are about ME and not my son in my parenting. (Yes, one could argue it is ALL about my issues pretty much, and I’d have to say I agree). My son because of the fierceness of my love for him and because I feel a sense of responsibility for him, can push my buttons like nobody else on earth. This is especially true as he becomes this bold, confident young kid with his very own ideas and preferences. It’s kind of like having the responsibility with a lessening of power as far as he is concerned. So, my work here is to be aware of when my button is being pushed by him in the heat of the moment. I’ve only recently articulated it in this particular way and I am looking forward to seeing if this awareness helps (or not). 

But going back to what I was saying, irrespective of this above desire to bring in an awareness in the heat of the moment that my button is being pushed, I find this way of thinking about parenting relief-giving: I am a good parent and I am a bad parent. I am a thoughtful mother upset at a thoughtless exchange with my son (the latter from Thesenga too).

Yes.  

I am both-and.

Paradoxically, like with ALL of this work, making peace with this dichotomy, actually inches me closer to more thoughtfulness.

 And as for trying to control through worrying. . . I want to let go more. To trust more. To feel more rather than will more. . . . I think that’s a good first step.

Day 43: thinking about motherhood

I’ve come to think of parenting as the hardest thing anyone can do. It’s hard in a variety of ways for various people but the way it is hardest for me is how, as a mom, there is no place to hide: being a mom has, and continues to, strip me down to my ugliest parts.

I am talking of all the ways I come face to face with my shortest of shortcomings. Very often that is patience. Especially when herding my son—yes, that’s what it feels like, herding—to school, and all that comes before it. Yelling is only the start. I have bullied him, smacked him, and just . . . taken the happy, alive being he is, and reduced him to fear and confusion. I’ve done that. All on my own.

Then there’s the inevitable guilt—is this how I want to interact with him? Is this what I want to teach him? Do I want him to develop an unhealthy relationship with time? What is he learning here? There is this constant need to do the best, and be the best. . . and yes, that is completely and totally about me, and has absolutely nothing to do with N.

Reading Unwinding Anxiety is helping some. The story that perhaps my brain is slightly inclined to be anxious is helpful. Reading a little of No Drama Discipline is helpful too. In a very funny twist, the latter continues to remind me of what I think of as the first principles of spiritual truth: connection.

All the things that cause me frustration are also qualities that N has always possessed, and that are his own unique gifts. His inherent, intense curiousity about anything and everything. The way he can become intensely absorbed in whatever he is focusing on. His ability to find joy and fun in pretty much whatever he does.

It feels like it was easier to go with the flow before. Now, I keep bumping up against my perception of a shortage of time. 

As I was thinking about this topic and this post sometime last week, N asked me to put on some songs he knows, and as I did so, he started moving along to the music. As I sat watching him, doing nothing, but just . . . being, and watching him . . . I remembered. I remembered that I’ve always felt the most connected with him when I simply be with him.

I was startled to realize that most of my time with him these days is built around things that need to be done: brush teeth, eat breakfast, catch the bus, pick up from school, shower, nap, dinner . . . I don’t just . . . be with him. 

No Drama Discipline talks about connecting with your child before attempting to redirect them or address the issue at hand. I’ve come to realize again, and again, that before I connect with N, I need to feel that connection with myself first. That first principle I was talking about.

Connect. With myself.

Connect. With N.

I crave that sense of connection with myself. And I am coming to realize that I crave that sense of active, alive connection with my husband and my son as well. I am more prone to snapping at them, more prone to being short with them, and definitely more likely to not want to understand their constraints if I don’t feel connected with them.

With my husband, connecting is as simple as a few minutes of genuine conversation about our day, and our inner lives. With my son, oh my son is glorious: I could dance with him, read with him, play number games with him, word games with him, or simply watch him thoroughly enjoying himself doing whatever he is doing in the moment.

I want to remember this. I intend to remember this. Especially when I get swept up in our routines and schedules.

I wish to always come back into this active and alive awareness of who we really are. To connect with my loves, and to connect with myself as I am connecting with them. To experience that full circle of connection with me as the center, and spiraling out into the core of my son, and my husband. Yes, please.