Healing Parents Healing Children: Our Wounds Are Our Guides

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My five-year-old son seems to have come into the world with the classic “middle child” wound of feeling unheard. I sit on a bench pretending to be engaged in my book as my gaze drifts to see him, clusters of twigs magnetized to his sticky curls, dirt adorning his sweat-beaded brow. He lifts his arms above his head and showers himself in two large handfuls of wood chips. It is clear to me that he is attempting to gain the attentive laughter of the boy he’s been playing with.

I notice the expression of my son’s wound in so many ways; how he demands that I watch his “trick” each time he jumps from the door of our van to the curb. How he cries when his older sister’s excitement or frustration bubbles up and she covers his words with her own. How his little body wriggles and drops with distress if ever he tries to tell me a story that I need to ask for clarification on. My brave, beautiful, compassionate, spirited boy is wounded.

If you’re like me, you’ve spent countless moments worrying that your own unhealed aspects will be passed down to your children before you are able to bring about your own healing. I have ended many days feeling the defeat of another situation I “could have handled better”. We all have trauma. Whether macro or micro, whether last year or generations in the making, whether therapy worthy or something that just makes us tick a little different.

I consider my bandmate, Phillip Saint John, who often writes music detailing his process in healing from the trespasses he experienced in childhood. He sings, as I often do, about belonging. Relatable indeed as many of us, myself included, who find a path in the arts, healing ministry, spirituality or psychology, find themselves fitting into spaces in adulthood that were not yet present in younger years. Phillip’s wound guided him into a position of desiring to express himself and having a message to share that provides a great healing gift to his many listeners. I watch as his wound as well as my own and those of my partner encourage and direct our development as artists, often magnetizing the support, connections and resources we need to both heal and share the gifts of our music.

As parents, we strive, often out of fear, to protect our children from carrying the wounds that we set down at their feet. We rush to heal, we criticize ourselves for not getting it done fast enough, we stretch to find the cure. Perhaps we long for them not to experience the poverty we grew up with as we struggle to repair our relationship with money. Or maybe it’s our anger that leaps forth like a spear in moments where we feel we’ve lost control of a challenging situation. It could be depression that comes from a too-small vision of the possibilities for our magnificent lives. Or, maybe it’s the healing that happens as we begin to peel away the layers of attachment to egoic elements that stand in the way of fully experiencing our own self-worth. No matter what the wound is and regardless of how it expresses within our relationships, the point is simple; What we intend in the heart, will be.

The mind gets clouded, but the vision of the heart stays clear. Sure, there are times that our hearts’ energies are dampened, congested, heated or slowed but beneath these temporary states we find something pure, a seed. Here lies the love that we want to see leading our lives, our manifestations and our way of being with our children. This is not something that our wounds can touch and yet it is something that can touch and heal our wounds.

It is through our children’s wounds that we find the opportunity to access the deep seeds of love and heartfelt desire that breathe within us.

Each child comes to us a complete gift and trains us in seeing the gratitude present in every moment of their upbringing. Just as we would do yoga on the mat regularly to practice bringing the principles of balanced movement and stillness into our more stressful day-to-day lives, the container of experiences that our children give us are meant to teach our souls to tune to the highest principles. We can choose gratitude for the joy, the sorrow, the overwhelm, the learning, the sunshine and the long winters. The choice to surrender into trusting the process of growing is what shifts us from feeling like unhealed, underprepared parents, to capable, courageous life-long learners. It is gratitude that transforms a wound from a burden to a gift and we as parents have the opportunity to teach gratitude through our own modeling.

These days, when I worry that my son will grow up to hold himself in too tightly, to self-criticize, to abuse substances or to self-harm, I choose to remember that my intention to work and grow with him is what brings us both into the healing path. I choose to remember that his wounds are guides too and that he will find himself through his own healing. Most importantly, I choose love as often as I possibly can so that I am here to meet not only him but myself in every moment in the process of becoming. I show him what gratitude looks like in my own life, threading it into my speech for him to build his inner voice with compassion and reverence. There is an intention seeded within each of us that calls us to discover the full breadth of what it means to be alive. What a gift it is to have each other as we journey.

To work with me in a 1:1 session please reach out via email at [email protected] or visit me online at mamarose.blog

Mama Rose is multi-disciplinary artist, musician, psychic healer and mother of three based in Minneapolis, MN.

 

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Mama Rose is an Artist, Psychic & Mother of three exploring the intersection of motherhood, sexuality, spirituality and nature through sonic creation. Her vocal focused, self-produced music and fingerpicking style guitar and ukulele combine as tangible proof that sound is medicine. Known for her vulnerable storytelling, rich lows and tender highs, poetic lyricism and emotionally evocative performance, Mama Rose is a reminder of what it feels like to live in the flowstate and return to personal power. Her words bring the mystical and magical back into focus and restore resonance between mind & body, individual & community, you & the spirit of Mother Earth. In addition to her music Mama Rose is a published author of Holistic and Healing literature, speaks publicly on her healing journey and mysticism, offers one-to-one healing sessions and creates video content to support her listeners in their own journey of coming home to Self and Spirit. Her first project, ‘drink More water’, released in February of 2021 housed the single ‘Sweet Waters’ which quickly became a favorite of 89.3 The Current and was featured as the Song of The Day. In the same year she released her debut Folk-Jazz album, ‘Set the Clock Down’ as well as a series of singles and collaborations sharing a rich landscape of heart-channeled words and vocal freedom. Listen, BOOK and learn more at www.mamarose.blog

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