Welcome And A Quick Update

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Welcome to Navigating the Abyss. We are Terry and Catherine, two necessarily trauma-informed moms who through our own journeys were inspired to become conscious parenting coaches. We are here to share our ongoing learning and insights in the hope of bringing some new perspectives and clarity for parents who might be on similar paths. We hope you'll join us.

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Terry's had a number of things on her plate this summer, and so we'll be back towards the end of the summer, early fall, but lots happening here. So I just wanted to share some thoughts that hopefully are helpful.

Why Our No Feels Weak

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One of the things that that's come up a lot, both with my own situation, with friends, with clients, is this idea or the sense really of our no and how our no always seems to be never strong enough. And when we say it, it never feels certain or definitive. And with our often with our kids from our know. And I think at this point, most of us, these concepts of codependent and ammeshment, we could all probably give dictionary definitions of them. And intellectually, we understand those concepts and how problematic they are for our ability to guide our children and maintain the necessary detachment to be able to provide and lay down boundaries that we need to.

Codependency And The Fixer Identity

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So I just wanted to look a little bit at what it means to really stay on your side of the road, and what it looks like to be able to say no or to accompany your young person through all the ups and downs that they face, and at the same time to really maintain your autonomy, your sovereignty, which is crucial. And I think too, of course, the biggest trigger for this is with our young people. And who knows, this is maybe what we're here to learn. But I think a lot of mothers and women I work with or other friends who have similar situations with their with their kids, this comes up in other relationships too. And if I can't fix others' discontent or their unhappiness or whatever issue that they're facing, that something really terrible will happen and I'm responsible for their lives. And even more so that I won't be safe. And somehow we learned that fixing problems and being the competent one was our superpower. And it became part of our identities, which really have given us value. We've been the ones that were able to, even we were young, soothe family members, help them find a way out, come up with solutions. And that it gave us a role that made us feel important in that context. And this often later continued with friends and our friendships, and then when our relationships the same way we often attracted partners who saw this in us, and it was maybe convenient, and we saw that maybe there was something in them that we could save, and this made us feel needed and so on. And one thing I noticed too is that when we have this role with our kids, and we've been doing this for so many years, or with partners or with friends, people don't like it when we shift this. When we're not taking responsibility for their lives anymore. Even if we don't say that this is my responsibility, our actions speak otherwise. So often we'll overvalidate or make ourselves overly available. And so we're just communicating to everyone that this is something that we feel responsibility for, that we need to help with.

Holding A Hard No With Your Child

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There was a situation just recently where she said that she wants a living situation, which her father and I are not in favor of, and we know it's not what she needs to be supported. But of course, that part of her this the self that's still in the old patterns and wants to be back in a situation. And so we are saying that no. And she's yeah, her face dropped, and she just started crying, and she didn't know where to turn. And there's a lot of words about how we're, of course, just destroying her life, and how we're not allowing her to live the way she wants to, and we think we can manipulate her and orchestrate situations to create a life that we want for her, not that she wants. So all the things that that they'll say in order to get what they want, and often it's the part of them that hasn't healed yet, the part of them that's struggling with addiction or their mental health, and that part wants what it knows, which is often not what the part of them that's healing knows it needs.

Staying Quiet And Regulating Yourself

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So in this case, what I noticed myself doing and what I've found has been helpful, is just being very quiet. Because I think the first thing that we do when this happens is we're so uncomfortable. We want to say something to stop that. And we cross out of our lane and get into their lane and try and somehow do something to change their emotional state. But it's not our responsibility to do that. And so I found that if I'm just quiet, no words, and then I do the practices that we've, you know, I've talked about before, the breathing in slow exhales or just feeling, you know, moving back into my body, noticing where I'm sitting, noticing the sounds around me, just observing and just allowing and being okay to leave and things not to be resolved. Because I think this is part of it too. So we're always looking for this resolution that we think is somehow things are better so that we can go on and we can feel okay because we're so comfortable with their discomfort. But I'm learning and practicing that now, that their discomfort is okay and it is theirs. And I'm also noticing this with other relationships too. If I just allow that discomfort to be, don't take responsibility for it, stay in my lane, stay regulated, then somehow they often find their way into a better place to where they're regulated or they're able to have a different perspective. But I have to allow that space and that time. And I know it's, of course, my daughter's not living with me right now, and so it's easier to take space. And I know some of my clients, their kids are living with them, even young adults. And it's more challenging when they are living with you. But I think it's still possible, and there's still ways that you can take space because sometimes it's physical, but also it's emotional. Is that really coming back to disbelief they'll be able to find their way through these difficult emotions and come out on the other side? But we have to allow them that without trying to jump in. And so that's just something that I've been thinking about a lot and trying to practice.

Allowing Discomfort Without Rescuing

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And it came up a lot in our last group is this just breaking of this pattern of years of somehow I've got to save my child. But when we look at it, it's also somehow if I save my child, I can save myself. And we have to take our self out of the equation. And that our well-being and our ability to thrive and to find joy and to find meaning in our lives, and to really reflect on everything that these experiences have taught us and to see what that means requires us to have this autonomy.

Autonomy, Guilt And Handing Back Responsibility

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And it's what our kids need. They need to know that they're not responsible for our emotions. They need to know that we've handed the ball back to them in their lives and in every way possible, and that they have this responsibility. But they can't, if we're there, showing up with these vestiges of the guilt and blame and shame that we struggled with for so long. Most of us often we work through, okay, I did the best I could with the tools I had at the time. We can say that over and over. But when we show up with this energy with just this sense of my young person's in this situation because of something I did or didn't do, they sense that. And then it's very easy when they're struggling to go into victim mentality and then to think that, yeah, I can just blame my parents because I don't have to take this on. It makes it a lot easier. It's not going to help my healing or help me move forward, but in the moment, it's easier than having to really look at myself and my decisions. So those are just some things I'm thinking about right now. And I hope it's helpful. And I think the main thing is really just coming back to that awareness of your need for your autonomy and your need to allow them time and space and just yourself back to yourself. Bring your energy back, bring your words back, and remind yourself too that you're safe and that your child's safe at the moment. Even in those times when you feel like things are at risk. What is really helpful is just calming yourself and just trying to bring yourself back to this place where you can access your wisdom. And again, a lot of that is just is space and time and breath. So I hope that's

Bringing Your Energy Back And What’s Next

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helpful. And Terry and I will be back soon. We recorded an episode about her wonderful protocol called Safe, which is extremely useful when your kids are in a dark place and Emily struggling. And there isn't a lot of guidance about what to do in those situations. We look forward to sharing that with you. Okay? Thank you.

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See you next time.