Because we may not have a paradigm from which to operate real unconditional love we will withdraw love affection when our toddler or child fails to meet our expectations. Usually this only serves to model that love is conditional. And the pattern continues. And we know that this will seep into every relationship our child will have in the future. It creates a hole in the soul space; the child will
become slavish to that need for validation and real love.
Substitute any irritability anger stress and anxiety with the feeling of love. Easier said than done. How does is make you feel when your bubba cuddles you holds you and still pines for you even when you lost the handle? And does that little bubba deserve the backlash from your own crabby childhood? No. Not at all.
So, in our own time what might be a good idea is to sit with yourself. Find our source of anger. No matter what our mind may say, know that the anger is not actually because of the little bubba. Again it comes from a part of you that doesn’t feel loved. You are not only modelling what was shown to you, but you almost have come to believe that you are the defective one and that maybe your parents and others were right to withhold their love and affection. Even their siblings might side with them no matter how well educated and worldly they might be. Little can one, dare to see the mirror of shame.
I feel ashamed of the way I behave with my little bubba, you might say after you throw your own toddler tantrum. He won’t understand that the anger or how I deal with stuff is not about him but about my own lack of self love. So what’s really happening here, without you intending to, is that the little bubba’s brain is getting fried. He is now picking up from you that to deserve love and affection even a sense of safety comes from adjusting our behaviours even if that means risking a lost sense of self, to suit the parents needs. Hell No!!!! That’s a recipe for a toxic marriage later in life – I know this firsthand. We give and give till we burn out – our whole sense of self lost – because we believe we might get a morsel of love which will do for some time. We give at the expense of self. Yet all we are really giving is our need to be needed. And not love. Period.
I won’t put my kid through this sort of mind shattering soul stealing shit. Yes so I was abused as a child and never got real love.
Or maybe I wasn’t and developed some other fudged up way of dealing with triggers from some other life situations since there was no guide or support or emotional regulator. So we know that now, what next.
We now have to take charge of the old brain and give it a new map. We need to let the sheer love that kid has for you charge you on to become the most loving and lovable parent self you can be. Hold the light up for both you the adult parent, you the wounded child and most of all the now wounding little bubba because you messed up again. Stop the wounding. Stop the patterns.
Some of us might read this and think oh thank god I never get angry that must be awful. But then you might withhold affectionate embraces and touch as that might wind you up and you don’t know why. Your groan at how needy and clingy your toddler is. So you zone out. His neediness bothers you and sets you off inside so you turn cold. You freeze. Again you teach the child that his needs cannot be met. Once again we leave a hole in their soul because the hole is us is still a hole that needs filling.
Perhaps, learn the language of unconditional love from your little bubba who will keep returning and coming back no matter how you treat him. So, let the only treatment be one that is borne out of unconditional love and hey chill out, enjoy your second chance at being a child again. Live.