Parenting challenges are rarely about our kids. I'll write that again, in case you glossed over it. Parenting challenges are rarely about our kids. They are mostly, if not all, about our own insecurities and beliefs about the way things ought to be.
My recent challenges with Lucas reached a resolution last night over dinner with my mom. He wasn't even around for it. He was asleep. As I shared my frustrations, I found myself going deeper into the underlying reasons for my current reactivity. Things like my own stress about our finances, family life not looking the way I'd imagined it, and my lack of clarity about where I was heading professionally were all gathering in the shape of a giant, pointing finger telling me I'm not good enough.
The issue of my intermittent and debilitating lack of confidence came up, and my mother began to shake her head, as happens often among my friends. She said, "I just don't get it, Lex. You have so much going for you, so much to offer. Why on earth do you question that?" As I got myself all worked up into tears, I launched into the story of my nomadic childhood. Of course, my mom is well aware of our history, but I thought she might be missing the point of how it all affected me. I was constantly moving, changing schools, changing friends, sometimes two and three times a year, early on. Other than my mom, there were no consistent adults in my life who knew me, loved me, and understood me. Elementary school teachers were a blur. I remember three of them. There were at least eleven. There were no best friends (until Lina, which really made things worse and is a whole other story). I was not a member of any groups, teams, or clubs.
"How could I be expected to develop commitment and confidence under those circumstances? How could I possibly ever feel like I had a place I belonged?" I cried to my mom.
She's of the school of thought that you just let it go. You get off the merry go round. You unplug. I told her it was easier said than done. She disagreed.
I think she may have been right.
This story of moving so much has surfaced and resurfaced a lot lately, and frankly, it's becoming a drag. I'm just reminding myself of why I think I'm insecure. How does this help me be a better person? How does it help me be a better mom who doesn't constantly judge myself so harshly and then react to Lucas in negative ways? It doesn't.
So can I just drop the story, as my mom suggests? I mean, it happened. I can't just pretend it was different. It occurred to me that instead of trying to drop it, I could tweak it. I'd been focusing on the part of the story that says, "See? This was the problem!" That wasn't the whole story, though. Here's the tweaked, but also true, version:
I moved a lot as a kid. This taught me to be resilient and to adapt quickly to new situations. I became an expert at starting up fresh, and to this day, I have phenomenal starter energy. I learned how to adjust to change and make new friends easily. I'm now a great networker, and I love meeting new people and bringing them together in new ways.
This childhood also gave me the opportunity to develop my inner world. Without the distractions of clubs, teams, and a busy social life, I spent a lot of time alone with my own thoughts and creativity. I loved to read and imagine and create, and I had plenty of time for all of it. I loved my time to myself! I had the freedom to develop my intuitive gifts, though I didn't realize that's what I was doing at the time. These aspects of my childhood remind me that being apart and alone are vital to who I am. They nurture my creativity and help me gain a perspective that is different from the crowds. They help me find my own voice.
The next time I start to feel isolated, less than, left out, or stuck, and I feel like blaming my nomadic childhood, I can remember this version of the story instead. I can choose to feel empowered by the wonderful opportunity I've been given to become exactly who I am.
What stories are you telling yourself? Are they helping or getting in the way?
Is Your Story Becoming a Drag?
on
Thursday, April 8, 2010
7 comments:
Love this and oh so true. If we want confirmation that we react because of who we are and not because of the scenario at hand, all we need do is look at two parents viewing the same scene. One is triggered. One is not. Why is this triggering me is the question. And there is a tool called EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) that is really helpful moving through that.
Bernadette~ I keep hearing about EFT, and I think I may have even experienced it at some point. Is it the tapping thing? Thanks for the reminder about it. I'm going to check into it.
Cheers!
Alexis
That first sentence, so true. And I think you've really hit on something - it can be so easy to remember the bad, to see how things turned out that have left us with negative feelings, issues to be dealt with. But how healthy to turn it around, to see what strengths it gave us. To realise that those experiences, whatever they were, shaped us to be the person we are today, and without them, maybe our choices would be the same today, and we wouldn't be that person at all. Do we really want to change our entire lives, loosing all the people in them, for the sake of not having some of the experiences along the say - perhaps it's a matter of not considering them negative experiences, but learning opportunities. Although I'd be the first to say that at times that's just too "Pollyanna" for me - it's definitely something to strive for.
Hi Alexis: Yes, EFT is the tapping thing -- www.emofree.com! It actually does really work and it's fast and easy (the instructions seem convoluted at first, but like anything, after awhile, it's easy). This is probably a reminder for me to start using it again too.
I love all of the processing that you are doing and sharing with us. In one of my classes that I did a few years ago, we wrote out our "story" (very descriptively, not leaving anything out -- which is what you did already) and then we read it to someone again, and again, and again and again and again and again and again (until it felt complete). The first few times were very emotional. We just kept reading it until the charge in the story was gone. Then we put the story behind us. And burn it as well ceremoniously. I think it's important to acknowledge our stories (otherwise, these stories just play out in the background of our lives anyway) but I do also believe (as you mention above)... it's important to eventually let them go.
It's also a good exercise to do with another (others) because we realize that we all carry around stories. And, we realize that we're all the same in our humanness.
Great work!
Julie~ Your comment really hit home with me, "Do we really want to change our entire lives, losing all the people in them, for the sake of not having some of the experiences along the way?" Well-put!
Janice~ Thanks for the second on the EFT thing. I'm glad to hear it worked for you. I can see how the story retelling exercise could work. I remember a few stories I used to tell until, quite frankly, I just got tired of telling them. I'd worn them out! Thanks for the encouragement!
Cheers!
Alexis
Great retelling. I don't know if I mentioned it before but I also moved all the time growing up - Air Force brat. So I do get these stories, and I also choose the latter one. I think the same idea applies to our parenting too. We're only failing if we have some idea of what it's supposed to be, what we're supposed to be. So I am trying to drop that idea, that story. Which doesn't mean new input and ideas aren't welcome, but I think we can receive those without falling into the self-judgment trap. I hope so anyway.
So wise, Lisa! I love your comment about parenting: "We're only failing if we have some idea of what it's supposed to be." I fully support you and join you in the effort to drop that story and the self-judgment! Yes!
Cheers!
Alexis
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