I always thought I would be a great mum. An amazing mum.
I wouldn’t cause pain to my child, the way my mother had caused me. I would give my child everything I had craved but never received:
freedom
independence
loads of art supplies
lots of cake
self confidence
My child would be the happiest child ever. And so grateful to have me as their mum.
It was a bit of shock to find when my baby was born that it was impossible to make him be happy all the time. I suffered a lot, whenever he was unhappy. And the more I suffered, the unhappier he became.
It took me a long time to learn what a heavy burden it is, to not be allowed to feel what you feel, to be required to be happy all the time in order to make things okay for your parent.
Children don’t need to be happy. They just need to be accepted.
They need to feel whatever they feel, and they need to know that it’s okay to feel what they feel.
I now have two children, two beautiful boys. And I have learned that when I feel any heightened difficult emotion with them, whether it’s anger, or frustration, or sadness, or pain, those emotions do not belong to the present. They belong to my past, and my boys are just the triggers for those feelings.
I have learned that when I am particularly upset with my boys, it’s not because of them or anything they have done. It’s because I carry judgement within myself which is hard to bear.
When I get angry at my son for not being considerate of others (especially me), it’s because I do not feel it’s acceptable to not be considerate of others. I am hard on myself, when I am inconsiderate of others. And when I was my son’s age, I was expected to be incredibly super-humanly considerate of others, especially my parents.
When I get angry with my son for breaking a new toy, or breaking something at home, it’s because I don’t find it acceptable to make mistakes. It was not acceptable for me to make mistakes when I was my son’s age.
And so through my journey as a mother, there is incredible opportunity for discovering my own wounds. Anytime I am angry with my children, it is my own wound that needs tending and healing.
This is why I started a Facebook group at the end of last year called “Inner Child Healing With LeeSun”. A place where we can explore our own wounds and finally start to heal so that we don’t blindly inflict our anger and pain on those we love the most.