It makes me smile now to think how much I took my mum's love and efforts for granted as I was growing up. It is such a raw experience being a mum. It is so easy to get hurt. It hurts, when my children are ill, it hurts when they feel sad, it hurts when they reject me, it hurts when they make poor choices. It hurts when others harm them. It can sound so depressing.
Love is like that isn't it. It hurts. Many a poet has attempted to convey the relationship between love and pain. We love deeply and so we hurt deeply. But in the depth of relationship, built on real, sincere love, the experience of life is the richest. So in the challenges of parenting I am persuading myself to remain soft, to love deeply. Not to build up walls to protect myself but to build a strong connection with my children that will last a lifetime. This applies to my other relationships too; my marriage, my friendships.
When I consider my relationship with God, my heavenly Father, my guide and source of strength, my friend and saviour, I wonder at the pain that God must experience because of His choice to love. There is the obvious pain experienced by Jesus as he suffered beatings and cruelty and then was nailed to a cross and left to die. There is the history of rebellion against God by whole nations and billions of individuals and then there is the pain and sorrow that we inflict on one another.
Recently I learned how important it was for my daughter to realise that I could cope with her emotions.
I told my daughter about a big change that was going to take place for her and although she was at first calm, her anxiety began to build until she erupted into a torrent of anger towards me. She shouted and screamed at me and then eventually came the tears. When she had talked and got all her fears in the open she became calm and brave. I have been learning about Filial Play, which is training me how to have a special play time with my child (initially with my son), where he directs the play and I follow, attend, get involved. I don't educate, direct, ask questions or react emotionally to him. I remain calm and create boundaries allowing him to know he has safe, special time with me where he can express what he is feeling. One of the techniques that I have learned on the course is how to reflect emotions. And it is this technique that I used with Florence. I responded to her anger and abuse by saying "You seem to feel very angry with me about this" "You look like you want to shout and scream" "you are telling me that you are scared and that is ok" and so on. It was amazing the way it unfolded as it allowed her to know that I was listening and that I was aware of how she was feeling and that I could cope with it, which seemed to help her draw strength to deal with our decision.
Since then she has remained calm and positive and it is amazing to think that the emotional explosion ever happened. I am so grateful to be learning new techniques to help me build strong and loving relationships with my kids. I just need to be mindful of what I say!
