Sara, there is so much here to digest and appreciate, even from my spot on the parenting timeline (parent of young adults, with more time/space in my life). I am going to sit with what you’ve written a while before I leave a substantive comment, but I wanted to pipe up straight away to say thank you.
Sara, as always, your thoughtful and thorough reflections spark a lot. And somehow, this topic in particular strikes a deep cord in me, even though - as my friends, siblings, and even clients at times are quick to point out, when I bring up my deep achings about parent-child concepts - "I don't have real world experience." Unfortunately, before I am allowed to comment in this space, I have to address the fact that "I am not a mother." Which is true...if what we are talking about is that I have not birthed a biological human child out of my body (yet). If you talk to other certain people - other clients, friends, and siblings than the ones saying, "You don't know what it is like to be a parent," those other ones will say, "Amy mothered me." I am also deeply grateful to the people (and animals and plants and moons and oceans) who were not my parents, but who have parented me. Is parenting a role? Or an identity? Or a behavior?
I have somehow had many, many conversations with people very close to me, who told me, "You just do not know what it is like to be a parent." I think what they meant was, "Does anyone know how isolated/tired/exhaused I feel as a parent?" But what comes out is a claim that I am not allowed to have a voice in this world. These moments have been so striking to me. First, because I experience a ton of pain when people feel alone in their pain (I really hate it), and two, because in the past year or so, I have heard this phrase most from mothers (and especially Millennial generation mothers, some of whom are my dearest friends). This sense of pressure, isolation, expending Herculean efforts, only to have a sense that no one understands the moment by moment exhaustion, and it all comes up short of what's needed, according to the standard that Millennial parents have set for themselves (a worthwhile, although complicated standard). All of this is also why Perdita Finn's phrase, "We have all been each others mothers at one point" resonated so deeply with me. So yes, I am a technical "non-parent" who dares to speak into this conversation.
There is so, so much here. But I think the main thing is, much like self-care, self-regulation is not the end goal. It really just stops the bleeding. This is also where religious/moral concepts of "self-control" have jacked up the system. Self-care, self-control and self-regulation, as you are pointing out, are all non-renewable energy sources. We have to transform beyond them.
The goal has to be HEALING from the inside out, with tons of curiosity and compassion. I also recommend Dr. Becky regularly to parents. She is re-voicing a variety of concepts in very helpful, digestible forms. She is honest about her own struggles, which is incredibly refreshing. I always give the caveat when I recommend her as a resource, that she is sharing from a place of being "in the trenches." Her demeanor and voice make it clear that as she shares this incredibly helpful information, she herself is most often in a Fight or Flight state. She knows about self-regulation because she must practice so regularly herself. This is powerful and important information, and she is so brave to share it. As you noted, her work hits powerfully.
We just cannot stop there. While self-care and self-regulation help us live to fight another day, deep healing and transmutation are still what is needed. In my opinion, Good Inside MUST be paired with other books - Emotional Inheritance (Galit Atlas) and It Didn't Start with You (Mark Wolynn) and Take Back the Magic (Perdita Finn, and probably her new one - Body of My Mother) are all essential companions.
I'm also reminded of a conversation I had with a GenZer. She overheard me talking to someone who knew Mike Pence personally, and we were talking about our various connections with him. She was shocked - We knew the evil Mike Pence? And I said, albeit maybe too callously, "Yeah, he's southern Indiana Hoosier boy who poops and puts on his pants on one leg at a time." The reality of "systems" is that we are part of them. They are made up of us. I just keep coming back to, if I want better systems, I have to acknowledge that a future Vice President could be my neighbor kid. I have to acknowledge who my relatives have been and what that means for my place. While I may be oppressed by parts of the system, I am not a total victim of the system. I am a member in the system. And the system is a member of me.
Is there pain in the system? Heck yes. Is every one of the conversations that I mentioned about people talking about parenting a painful conversation? Deeply painful.
When I think about all the things I've learned about Systems work - from a variety of disciplines - the key is rewiring the Energy that flows through the system. And right now, the energy asking for attention is the Feminine. The Mother. Regulated or dysregulated. I mean, that article https://www.bayoakomolafe.net/post/i-coronavirus-mother-monster-activist says it too, right? That the Mother cannot take any more toxicity, without imploding or exploding. That whether individual physical Mothers or Earth Mother, as She has risen to the challenge of transmuting more toxicity, eradicating or preventing more generational pain, She has reached limits of self-regulation, and we must go beyond that.
So I deeply applaud any conversation and exploration about parenting and Emotion Processing that the Millennial generation has taken on, sometimes with anger, grief, exhaustion, and cognitive damage, and sometimes with grace and courage. Somehow while not "being a real mother" I have learned the hard way that parenting in our system does break us, and that my Earth Mother embraces me anyway. What really tipped the scales for me was this poem about what listening is...https://www.instagram.com/p/C14T1R8JbPR/?img_index=1. It made me realize that our expectations of holding space for each other are unfair. That I could stop hating myself for how much I couldn't regulate myself enough to show up perfectly for other people, and that I could stop using other people as my Emotional Processing Priests, and go straight to the source. That while I have been happy to sign up to hold space for people, "so wide that I could hold all the ways they came apart", that at some point, I could tell them no, get your own relationship with the Mother. As one of my healing mentors told me, "The Earth longs to accept the negative energy you carry." And I think maybe that is what Millennial Parents and particularly Mothers are trying to do. But we are coming at it from a place of generating Aliveness, or controlling Aliveness, instead of being Alive. And no System will ever fully support that if we keep trying to do it how we have been doing it. So, now I am late for something and need to run and shower and cool my brain off and get myself in the right head space to socialize or whatever. So here's hoping this makes any sense and CHEERS TO THE WORK! 🎉🎉❤️🩹
Beautiful and resonant, even for the non-parents among us. Reminds me of Dr. King's words on "creative maladjustment."
Sara, there is so much here to digest and appreciate, even from my spot on the parenting timeline (parent of young adults, with more time/space in my life). I am going to sit with what you’ve written a while before I leave a substantive comment, but I wanted to pipe up straight away to say thank you.
Sara, as always, your thoughtful and thorough reflections spark a lot. And somehow, this topic in particular strikes a deep cord in me, even though - as my friends, siblings, and even clients at times are quick to point out, when I bring up my deep achings about parent-child concepts - "I don't have real world experience." Unfortunately, before I am allowed to comment in this space, I have to address the fact that "I am not a mother." Which is true...if what we are talking about is that I have not birthed a biological human child out of my body (yet). If you talk to other certain people - other clients, friends, and siblings than the ones saying, "You don't know what it is like to be a parent," those other ones will say, "Amy mothered me." I am also deeply grateful to the people (and animals and plants and moons and oceans) who were not my parents, but who have parented me. Is parenting a role? Or an identity? Or a behavior?
I have somehow had many, many conversations with people very close to me, who told me, "You just do not know what it is like to be a parent." I think what they meant was, "Does anyone know how isolated/tired/exhaused I feel as a parent?" But what comes out is a claim that I am not allowed to have a voice in this world. These moments have been so striking to me. First, because I experience a ton of pain when people feel alone in their pain (I really hate it), and two, because in the past year or so, I have heard this phrase most from mothers (and especially Millennial generation mothers, some of whom are my dearest friends). This sense of pressure, isolation, expending Herculean efforts, only to have a sense that no one understands the moment by moment exhaustion, and it all comes up short of what's needed, according to the standard that Millennial parents have set for themselves (a worthwhile, although complicated standard). All of this is also why Perdita Finn's phrase, "We have all been each others mothers at one point" resonated so deeply with me. So yes, I am a technical "non-parent" who dares to speak into this conversation.
There is so, so much here. But I think the main thing is, much like self-care, self-regulation is not the end goal. It really just stops the bleeding. This is also where religious/moral concepts of "self-control" have jacked up the system. Self-care, self-control and self-regulation, as you are pointing out, are all non-renewable energy sources. We have to transform beyond them.
The goal has to be HEALING from the inside out, with tons of curiosity and compassion. I also recommend Dr. Becky regularly to parents. She is re-voicing a variety of concepts in very helpful, digestible forms. She is honest about her own struggles, which is incredibly refreshing. I always give the caveat when I recommend her as a resource, that she is sharing from a place of being "in the trenches." Her demeanor and voice make it clear that as she shares this incredibly helpful information, she herself is most often in a Fight or Flight state. She knows about self-regulation because she must practice so regularly herself. This is powerful and important information, and she is so brave to share it. As you noted, her work hits powerfully.
We just cannot stop there. While self-care and self-regulation help us live to fight another day, deep healing and transmutation are still what is needed. In my opinion, Good Inside MUST be paired with other books - Emotional Inheritance (Galit Atlas) and It Didn't Start with You (Mark Wolynn) and Take Back the Magic (Perdita Finn, and probably her new one - Body of My Mother) are all essential companions.
I'm also reminded of a conversation I had with a GenZer. She overheard me talking to someone who knew Mike Pence personally, and we were talking about our various connections with him. She was shocked - We knew the evil Mike Pence? And I said, albeit maybe too callously, "Yeah, he's southern Indiana Hoosier boy who poops and puts on his pants on one leg at a time." The reality of "systems" is that we are part of them. They are made up of us. I just keep coming back to, if I want better systems, I have to acknowledge that a future Vice President could be my neighbor kid. I have to acknowledge who my relatives have been and what that means for my place. While I may be oppressed by parts of the system, I am not a total victim of the system. I am a member in the system. And the system is a member of me.
Is there pain in the system? Heck yes. Is every one of the conversations that I mentioned about people talking about parenting a painful conversation? Deeply painful.
When I think about all the things I've learned about Systems work - from a variety of disciplines - the key is rewiring the Energy that flows through the system. And right now, the energy asking for attention is the Feminine. The Mother. Regulated or dysregulated. I mean, that article https://www.bayoakomolafe.net/post/i-coronavirus-mother-monster-activist says it too, right? That the Mother cannot take any more toxicity, without imploding or exploding. That whether individual physical Mothers or Earth Mother, as She has risen to the challenge of transmuting more toxicity, eradicating or preventing more generational pain, She has reached limits of self-regulation, and we must go beyond that.
So I deeply applaud any conversation and exploration about parenting and Emotion Processing that the Millennial generation has taken on, sometimes with anger, grief, exhaustion, and cognitive damage, and sometimes with grace and courage. Somehow while not "being a real mother" I have learned the hard way that parenting in our system does break us, and that my Earth Mother embraces me anyway. What really tipped the scales for me was this poem about what listening is...https://www.instagram.com/p/C14T1R8JbPR/?img_index=1. It made me realize that our expectations of holding space for each other are unfair. That I could stop hating myself for how much I couldn't regulate myself enough to show up perfectly for other people, and that I could stop using other people as my Emotional Processing Priests, and go straight to the source. That while I have been happy to sign up to hold space for people, "so wide that I could hold all the ways they came apart", that at some point, I could tell them no, get your own relationship with the Mother. As one of my healing mentors told me, "The Earth longs to accept the negative energy you carry." And I think maybe that is what Millennial Parents and particularly Mothers are trying to do. But we are coming at it from a place of generating Aliveness, or controlling Aliveness, instead of being Alive. And no System will ever fully support that if we keep trying to do it how we have been doing it. So, now I am late for something and need to run and shower and cool my brain off and get myself in the right head space to socialize or whatever. So here's hoping this makes any sense and CHEERS TO THE WORK! 🎉🎉❤️🩹