A friend told me a story about how she gave herself “mom points” for how she responded to her 6 year old. This is my friend who is also a high impact strategist for entrepreneurs and business founders, doing big time thinking, changing the world. Ironically these are the types (this is me confessing my own tendency as a mom) who can keep driving themselves and miss the subtle cues of a little one in the back seat. And here is where the points come in.
My friend’s six year old daughter had her feelings hurt in school, and she was telling her mom all about it as they drove home that day. The other girls were making fun of her and she was upset. So here is what goes through mom’s head. “This is so silly”, and she wants to keep driving… and tell her daughter to let it go, just get over it… it’s silly. But my friend does something very different. She pulls over the car and gets in the backseat with her daughter. She stops driving.
She listens deeper. She comforts and co-regulates. She is present.
My response to her story was to answer a question she asked me earlier in the conversation.
"Is everyone basically traumatized?” I was able to say to her after she shared her “mom points”. No, not everyone ends up traumatized. But it requires what you just did for your daughter.
So let’s take this to another level. Who is in your backseat? Who are you calling silly? Who do you want to ignore so you can keep driving? Maybe you have an actual 6 year old, and maybe you are that 6 year old.
Most of us treat our own inner world in the same way our caregivers treated our inner world when we were 6 years old in the back seat. So when our feelings are hurt, we are still there, waiting for some co-regulation and validation of our feelings from a caregiver. we might call ourselves silly, deny our own needs, keep driving forward.
We actually need to pause, stop driving ourselves so hard, and get in the metaphorical back seat with our little selves.
To listen deeper, to comfort and regulate. To be present, with our feelings. To meet the felt need. Without feeling silly, or ashamed, or a bother, or not enough, or or or…
What did you hear from others when you had big emotions as a child? What did that actually feel like? What did you need to hear? How did you need it said? In what way? Soft, slow, present, patient? Because right now you are the key to open up the love and healing to yourself that you have. No one knows you better than yourself. No one needs you more than little you, inside.
Spoiler alert: I’m not ignoring the power of other people to bring comfort to us, but it starts with ourselves. It is true, how your inner world was treated is how you learned to treat yourself. It is also true, as you heal, that how you learn to treat yourself now, becomes the way others learn to treat you.
Do you need to make some “mom points” with yourself?
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