You can drive the devil out of your garden but you will find him again in the garden of your son – Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi
When I first read this quote many years ago, I thought it meant that your parents were to blame for everything that’s wrong with you. Later on I came to understand it to mean, if you don’t do the work on healing yourself, you’ll pass on all of your emotional baggage onto your kids.
I tried everything to stop yelling, breathing, counting to ten, walking away, but what actually worked was when I could start noticing why I was getting so triggered in the first place (and it really had nothing to do with my son not getting dressed in the morning).
Going under the surface of my anger involved some deep personal work that seemed to never end, I’d think “oh now I see why that’s so triggering” and then something else would come up, layers, upon layers of stuff! It hasn’t ended, but it’s definitely gotten easier and much clearer to see what’s really going on, when I feel that familiar irritation and frustration. Now I can respond in a very different way than I did before.
I wish I could say it was a one and done, but sadly no, parenting for me is my chance to let go of the old stories that no longer serve me and live the life that I want, which is not one filled with coulds, shoulds and resentments.
If you’re feeling like breathing is getting you nowhere, start doing the personal work instead, journal, do a course, listen to a thought provoking podcast, or read a insightful book.
It can be hard at the start and it does get easier, then harder again and then easier, just like life!
Parenting makes it impossible to not see ourselves and if we choose not to, we just end up passing on our emotional baggage onto our kids anyway. I’d like to stop it here, with me and let my sons do their own emotional work, not mine.
If you want to go deeper into changing your unhelpful responses, learn how to stay calm in the moments you feel like losing it and learn how to use loving, effective speech your kids will actually listen to, click here to join an 8 week course I’m running that covers everything you need to know about Mindful Parenting, and how to put it into practical action with your kids.