My First Career Day
Last month, I attended my first Career Day at my daughter’s school. I came home so excited and so inspired that I sit down to write a little bit of my experience. Then life got super busy and did not have the chance to sit down to finish it and post it. But here I am. I hope you enjoy the reading.
Dear Parents,
You are doing an amazing job. I know it has been hard, difficult, challenging and sometimes even scary to raise a little one, trying so hard everyday to do the best you can in one of the hardest still most joyous jobs in life.
I just came back from the Career Day at my daughter's school and I was so impressed by the kids' participation, engagement and understanding of what emotions and feelings are. Some of them already knew what a therapist does on a daily basis. Some of them shared that they have been in therapy before. The most common experience for them was that they felt safe with a therapist and felt heard, seen and understood. How beautiful is that? I explained to them I am not a child therapist, but I shared with them that I help mom and dad with their little child within, and guess what, they all understood what I meant. It was priceless.
I started by randomly handing out cards with different emotions on them. Then I asked them, when the last time they felt that particular emotion they had in their hands was. It was beautiful to hear them talk about the most recent time they felt happy, sad, shy, confident or angry. Surprisedly, we spent a lot of time talking about anger, which is one of my favorite emotions to talk about. We talked about the importance of expressing anger instead of invalidating or denying that emotion which it tends to be negatively labeled. They were so in tune with what their bodies tend to experience when they get angry: feeling hot, heart beat goes up, sweating, even paralyzed! Many shared about how they respond to anger: yelling, throwing things, crying, etc. And because everyone related to the feelings and the experiences, I led them through an exercise in how to release anger in a healthy way. We talked about the importance of breathing and talking about the emotion with someone they feel safe with.
At the end, all of them were so excited to talk about their emotions openly. I gave them some tools to practice and wanted to list them here for you too:
- Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth using the visualization cue of "smell the flowers and blow the fan."
- Place one hand in your heart and one in your belly, then breathe as you imagine your belly being a balloon inhaling and exhaling.
- Identify the emotions you are experiencing versus identify yourself with the emotion. What I mean by that is that it is important to be aware of the words they use. One thing is to "I feel angry" versus "I am angry" the "I am" phrase has a big identification with the word after it the phrase "I feel" helps the child (and us too) to understand that we are not our emotions, we just feel them.
When you were a child, you learned about yourself and about the world from the people, their interactions and reactions from the adults around you. Once you become a parent, a lot of the unresolved issues from childhood start surfacing; you start feeling emotions in a different level and sometimes you may feel like you do not want to react the way your parents did with you growing up. Many people are experiencing a big desire to stop recreating the emotional wounds from childhood with their own children. I am sure your parents did the best they could with what they knew and they had back then. If you have become more aware of the cycle you want to change, then you are doing good.
When you are assisting your little one to process big emotions, it is important that you stay connected and grounded. Learning how to manage your own stress and emotions before responding to your chid takes practice and patience with yourself. Taking care of your well-being through practices like mindfulness and self-compassion is important. I want you to remember that you have what you need to heal and to repair with yourself and your child. I always share with my clients that when you heal, everyone else heals around you. It is like the healing expands your surroundings touching everyone close to you. It is a beautiful experience. When you are more aware of the value and the need of each emotion, specially anger, then you can be more present and more connected with your own emotions and can be more grounded and more present for your little one.
I know what it is like to take care of a little human feeling so many emotions at the same time, and getting triggered by their overreacting expressions and overwhelming words. Sometimes you may find yourself thinking or reacting the way you promised yourself you were not going to be like, your own parents. Perhaps you find yourself screaming, yelling, feeling guilty and perhaps ashamed of what you said or did. It takes more than self-awareness to stop the cycle of reacting from the childhood wounds, however, awareness is the first step. It takes patience, compassion and practice to be conscious of what it is really happening for you when you feel triggered. If you need help navigating the emotions that surface from within you, I invite you to do some inner child work. By doing this work, you can learn how to identify what is really happening within you when all of this is happening outside of you. You can learn how to find ways to stay in tune with yourself and your emotions, so you can show up and be emotionally regulated for the little one you are raising.
Often, what people realize is that it is the unresolved wounds from early in life that shape the behaviors and relationships that are difficult to understand in adulthood. Remember that your childhood experiences can have a profound impact on your current relationships, affecting the way we connect and communicate. Therapy can help you get to the source of these problematic behaviors that keep negatively impacting your relationships. It takes courage to explore these issues and work thought them, but it is worth it. Healing your past can lead to healthier and happier relationships with the people closest to you.
It was an honor to witness the work that many of you are doing. Parenting is a journey and it is normal to face challenges on the way. Remember it takes a Village not only for your child, but for you too. I hope you seek support from other parents, the community or professionals. You are not alone!
Happy Healing,