the hypocrisy of big feelings
With gentle parenting, we get confused. Gentle parenting is not the same as robotic, ever peaceful, ever calm, parenting.
Right away, I notice a dissonance: why do we pride ourselves on letting our kids cry and get angry and we hold all the space for them and validate their feelings and stay calm and present with them?
But - when we have the experience of our adult body wanting to express in a similar way (they're called BIG feelings for a reason lol - they express BIG) we think we've failed at gentle parenting, we shame and judge ourselves so much.
Our children aren't just watching us hold space for them, they're also watching us hold space for ourselves.
The trick is not in suppressing our grief or rage. It's also not about trying to over-control circumstances or ourselves so we never feel this emotion. The trick is in making friends with it. When we don't fear ourselves, we won't have an issue with worrying about whether our kids fear us.
There are three things to working with our own adult big feelings:
1) Allowing BOTH access and expression - aka, not suppressing or denying either the feeling itself OR how it wants to move through us. We can begin to build skill on channelling - not suppressing - how it expresses, though.
For example, the unskilled expression, might be yelling, even screaming, at our kids. First of all, if this is you, please don’t cringe: we’ve all done it. However, here are some examples of how to continue to honor this emotion but in a more skillful way:
go into another room and cover your mouth with a pillow before you let loose. Get it all out, then rejoin your kids.
scream but do it in an exaggerated, silly, way. Channel a cartoon character. You may even get to say some of the things you are thinking (please exercise some discernment here) like: “omg you are driving me flipping crazy!!!” but say it playfully, really ham it up.
use your body - clench fists (or whole body), then release. If possible, put on angry music, dance/stomp it out. Invite your kids to join.
I work with parents on creating these alternate channels of expression - sometimes, you may even have to build the capacity to delay expression (aka, wait until your kick-boxing class later in the evening to get back in touch with your anger in order to fully metabolize it).
The important thing is to honor the expression, I can’t stress that enough. Every feeling has a natural, primal, biological way of expressing - if we get too far away from this natural format, then we risk the feeling not getting fully metabolized or expressed, and then we may find that we are getting triggered into this particular emotion more often or more easily. Expressing (I keep wanting to make sure that this is distinct from merely feeling/accessing the emotion) feelings fully that have been shunned or made socially unacceptable is hard, please know this.
2) Building curiosity around the emotion and a relationship with the emotion. This means doing the work of peeling away our own judgement, shame, guilt, fear, self-abandonment, and panic around when we feel and express this emotion. Letting yourself feel both safe in the throes of this emotion and giving yourself full honest permission to feel the emotion.
Just practice. Practice honoring the emotion. Practice being neutral and curious about the emotion. Practice and experiment with ways of expressing and channeling the emotion. Practice taking accountability for the emotion and its expression.
3) Translating, communicating and repairing with our children. Anger, sadness and rage - in raw expression - can be scary and unpleasant. Yet - there are some cultures where you can walk the streets in full blown weeping grief and be neither censored nor sanitized, so it’s important to note that while you build/model skill around expressing emotions, you are also helping your littles build understanding/neutrality/capacity to be the witnesses of other people’s hard feelings and be more comfortable, open, and willing to just witness without feeling the need to either flee or fix.
Understanding that *sometimes* we project our own discomfort with these emotions onto our kids. And yes, of course, sometimes we freak our kids out legitimately. It's ok. They will ride the wave *with you.* The more skilled you are at riding the wave, the safer they will feel.
When you’ve done big feelings, in a raw, big way in front of your kids, it’s ok. It really isn’t the end of the world. Here’s what to do to repair and stabilize the situation. Please do this after you are calm and regulated, but as immediately as possible.
Address both the emotions and thoughts your kids may be having. Tell them, “you were probably scared or uncomfortable. I was acting in a big scary way and I’m sorry I scared you!” Ask if they want to talk about any other feelings that came up for them. Just mirror and validate - this is not (yet) the time to explain yourself. Next, make sure they aren’t blaming/guilting themselves. Say, “this was not your fault. This wasn’t about you. This was about me and my feelings.”
Next go over what happened, but in a way that doesn’t blame your kids. Instead of saying “you made me mad” say something like, “I was starting to feel impatient, and before I could choose something else, I started yelling.” Name the emotion you were feeling (anger), the reaction you had (yelling). Name a plan moving forward (Next time, I am going to try to notice my impatience earlier, so I have more time to figure out what to do about it.)
Lastly, let your kids know that big feelings are absolutely ok to feel, they are a normal part of the human experience, and part of our life’s work is continuously working on honoring our feelings, expressing our feelings, and building skill and creativity around doing this in a way that doesn’t impact our surroundings and our people overly negatively or overly often. But - it’s an on-going process.
Reassure them that you are ok, make sure they are ok, reassure them you love them no matter what, no matter how mad you/they get.
Because when your kids are little, yes, it's relatively easy to regulate them and yourself in reaction to them. But, they are becoming adults. They are watching you and how you behave as an adult. And - it's becoming harder for you to hold space for them, they're becoming much better at pushing your buttons.
If you don't practice/learn/gain skill around your own inevitable "big feelings", then you leave them hanging without a model or guidance for when they eventually become parents themselves, and this dissonant cycle repeats.
I am a parenting and life coach. I am very happy to work with parents not just on practical things like how to play with and how to feed your kids but also these places - the places where parenting and fear/grief/rage/etc intersect and overwhelm us.
We like to pretend that these places/experiences are taboo and not part of the normal human experience but I know that is not true.
If you are interested in working with me, please schedule a consult below. I have spots available.
In further posts, we will explore building awareness, skill, and creativity for navigating our adult big emotions.
