There are days when we feel depraved of any real connection with our little ones. And maybe even ourself. But why? We fell asleep on time, played a few games, slept through the night woke up feeling delighted so what then went wrong or rather brought along that feeling of disconnect?
For me, it comes when I get into a circle of guilt and shame. Try as I may I simply cannot shake it off. This is usually preceded by behaviour that I find unacceptable and my inner critic that I work on shrinking steps in to really shout out how shameful it was for me to raise my voice or even walk off when my little bubba might have asked me the same question about 6 times or when I found myself immersed in my morning cuppa so much so that I paid very little heed to my little bubba’s obvious pleas for attention that resulted in him trying to yank a plant, pinch me and throw things off the table. A hug and cuddle at this stage is one hug too late and then I think after trying the hug “now what let me just finish my pages”, and this adds to that circle of guilt and shame which just keep spiralling into more disconnect, and as this is happening, little bubba has picked up a “no signal” and “no reception” mode which sends him into a frenzy and a feeling of “she doesn’t love me” she doesn’t want me” “she rejects me” “I am scared she might leave me”.
And it all culminates in a missed or delayed nap.
“Ooooof!” says tired and disconnected mama who is very aware of the circle but perhaps a little out of her own depth at this stage in doing anything reparable without getting some space to herself. Little bubba gets cranky. We manage to get some lunch down him and a chat to grandma. He is tired and needs to go down. But most of all he needs to feel connected to mama. Without that his sleep will be fraught with unease which will lodge itself in his psyche which might be discovered some 40 years later.
Ouch! I don’t want to be that mama! When we are spiritually aware and operate at a level of being fully connected to our self we know when we are experiencing a disconnect. What does it take for us then to connect in this state when the guilt shame bind has really got our knickers all twisted and in a very “not now” stage of wanting to deal with anything?
Not so simple but the act itself is simple. Try to get little bubba on your laps and maybe even get a puzzle out. Or do some washing up together. Whatever you decide, shelf the nap time for now, although he will need it for him first to avoid overtired bubba, and so that you can unwind that spiral instead of deferring it to after bedtime, because there’s no guarantee you won’t be bubbling for some downtime by then and if there’s any bedtime pokers you might lose a grip. And we don’t want that because the bind gets trickier to come out of later.
When you manage to reconnect with bubba you might find that you also feel a sense of reprieve and bubba will knock off in minutes feeling safe and attached securely. It’s not so much about being physically around but about being totally connected and present to bubba.
I thought I will move my morning chai to before he wakes up so that we are together and he feels wanted loved and really secure knowing mama will never leave him.
Feeling that disconnect is not always about a situation happening right now. If you stop and trace it you might find that it’s not even the situation but rather something you have bound yourself to yourself.
Sometimes I might see the bubba is trying to finish his meal not because he is still hungry but because he wants to appease me. Ouch that really gets me as I start to wonder what has gone wrong. Then it comes to me that just the other day at supper time when he simply spat the food out I broke down in tears which might just have left him feeling so responsible for that. But he wasn’t. He doesn’t know that and can’t know that given his brain capacity. That probably made me feel rejected but I wasn’t rejected in current time. The current me can cognise that but perhaps the little me who might have felt this didn’t get it and maybe still doesn’t. It’s a general feeling of rejection or a lack of self acceptance or self love as opposed to someone else making me feel that way. But we need to recognise that.
Most of the issues we have are all self designed manufactured engineered and distributed. We are our own masters if we can only see that.
Take some time to get to know you without your screen. Know yourself without a response from others. And then we can really get on being parents to our children and to the child within that’s always there,