When we encounter circumstances with our partners (co-parents, wives, husbands) or our children that remind us of our childhood wounds, if you are anything like me, undoubtedly the first response is:
“oh no, not this!”
Like some familiar nightmare returning.
And yet, there it is — the profound opportunity to time travel, to go back in time and give yourself the exact thing that you didn’t get when you were young.
Here you are in an adult body, feeling waves of pain and discomfort, that as children were intolerable so they sequestered themselves deep in your bones and psyche. And even in an adult body might feel barely tolerable.
But if you can stop for one moment and breathe. Right there, in the midst of all that pain, an incredible opportunity awaits…
Ask the question: what would the child (YOU!) have wanted/needed in the face of this pain?
The chance of a lifetime appears to RETROACTIVELY REPAIR the wound that was stuck in time. Now you can:
STOP!
Give the pain memory a moment of your time, your kindness, your self-care
Allow it to soften and pass through
Parent the wound
Come back to this moment
Receive support from presence
I’ll never forget when I realized this on my parenting journey.
It’s 13 years ago. I feel the stress mounting to get my 3 year old out the door, to some “important” deadline. I feel the “gap of kindness” in me; the place where I have learned, and my parents have learned, and their parents have learned, to push, get sharp and harsh under pressure.
The pain stops me and the question comes:
“What would I have needed/wanted when I was his age?”
Suddenly I slow down, take a breath, let go of disappointing the world, make me and my child the priority. I gently and slowly help him tie his shoes. I am retroactively repairing the wound from my childhood. I re-parent myself by parenting my child in a new way.
The wonderful thing is that parenting and partnership will give you lots of opportunities to see the “kindness gap.” The places where harshness appears, where despair arises, where hopelessness takes hold. And with each new pain a new opportunity is given to repair retroactively and recover kindness for your children, yourself and the generations to come.
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