Finding balance and healing in parenthood
A lot of people, especially moms, don’t feel the need to see a therapist. Rarely do moms even buy themselves new bras, let alone pay to spend an hour a week focusing on themselves.
I get it.
Moms are some of my favorite clients because their healing/growth impacts them personally and has lasting effects on how they parent their children. Our healing changes generations of people. When we work with a therapist to bring up the past, process the hurts, and heal them, we change the way we show up in the world, especially for our kids.
A mom’s body gets hijacked by her kids.
All. The. Time.
Physically, it starts from the moment the sperm and egg meet and then, pregnancy, our boobs, stretch marks, peeing ourselves, hormones, hair loss, skin changes, etc. For years and years after giving birth, we continue to navigate our ever-changing bodies.
Emotionally, being a parent can bring on a wide range of emotions from tears of happiness to jolts of rage. Our bodies become flooded with emotions of overwhelm, joy, anger, compassion, frustration, love, and fear. So many of us have felt out of control when consumed with emotion, and we completely lose it on our kids. It feels like we go from 0 to 60 and our body completely takes over.
Moms from various backgrounds and upbringings experience being taken over by their emotions which turns into yelling, screaming, throwing, leaving, punching a wall, or completely shutting down. Then comes the guilt, that heavy, heavy feeling of guilt. Am I screwing up my kids? What is wrong with me? I just lost total control!
Being flooded means our emotions are overwhelming and our body jumps into action to take over. The brain goes offline, and we react. When we are functioning in this state, we can’t think through a problem, rationalize the situation, or assess all of our options. Everything we learned from Dr. Becky goes out the window when our brain turns off.
We go into survival mode.
Fight – get big, loud, mean, or scary
Flight – leave the room, scroll on our phone, get busy doing something else
Freeze – shut down, not do anything
Fawn – please them or give in to what they want
These responses make sense but aren’t very helpful in motherhood, a bear encounter – yes, but not motherhood. When we can stay regulated, we can access our problem-solving, empathetic, creative brains to stay connected and present. Our kids have big emotions and they need us to be regulated to comfort them. So often, we are trapped by our own emotions, so we aren’t available for our kids.
Therapy for moms can help.
Therapy for mom provides a safe place to give attention to naming the triggers and getting curious about what they are communicating. The healing and growing that we do in therapy gives us the tools to stay regulated, connected, and present with our kids. Calming ourselves in the hardest moments allows us to be gentle and attentive parents.
This work is powerful, but not easy. It helps to have the support of a therapist to process the triggers and feel the emotions that often overwhelm our systems. With a therapist, we can learn calming techniques to utilize in motherhood.
