Therapy has a way of making you think about things you would sometimes rather leave alone.
I started therapy to work on myself in the present, but I’ve learned pretty quickly that healing rarely stays in the present. Somehow, you always end up going backward. Back to childhood. Back to things you remember and sometimes things you hadn’t thought about in years. Back to where you first learned what love looked like, what conflict felt like, how you handled emotions and, maybe most importantly, how you learned to feel about yourself.
Recently, I’ve been reading Facing Codependence by Pia Mellody, and if therapy wasn’t already making me dig deep enough, this book certainly is.
So much of it explores the ways our childhood experiences can shape the adults we eventually become. Things we experienced when we were young can influence our self-esteem, our boundaries, our relationships and the way we respond to the world around us long after we’ve technically “grown up.”
And reading it as a mother has hit me differently… because I’m not only somebody’s daughter. I’m somebody’s mother. (Three kids later and it’s still hard to believe!)
While I’m sitting in therapy trying to understand where certain pieces of me came from, I am simultaneously raising three little people who will one day sit somewhere as adults with their own memories of childhood.
Their childhood. The one I’m helping create right now. Talk about pressure.
It has made me think a lot about the voice inside my own head. The one that shows up when I make a mistake. The one that tells me whether I’m worthy, whether I’m enough, whether someone being upset with me means I’ve done something wrong. The voice that responds when I fail or feel rejected or think I’ve disappointed someone.
Where did that voice come from? How much of it was built before I was even old enough to realize it was being built and then came the question that has really stuck with me: What will my children’s voices sound like?
Because one day, the way I speak to my girls may become part of the way they speak to themselves and WHEW, that realization has changed something in me.
If my daughter spills something, forgets something, fails a test, strikes out, gets her feelings hurt or makes a terrible decision, I don’t want the first voice in her head to be harsh. I want it to say, “Okay. You messed up. What can we learn from this?”
When she looks in the mirror, I don’t want her inner voice picking apart every perceived flaw. I want her to see a whole person.
When somebody doesn’t choose her, I don’t want her first thought to be, “What is wrong with me?” I want something inside of her to know that rejection hurts without automatically becoming proof that she isn’t worthy.
When somebody is angry with her, I don’t want her to immediately abandon herself to keep the peace. When she needs to say no, I want her to know she can. When she succeeds, I want her to be proud of herself without feeling guilty about taking up space. When she fails, I want her to know failure is something that happened…not something she is.
And suddenly, all those ordinary conversations we have every day don’t feel quite so ordinary, but I’ve also realized this isn’t only about how I speak to my children.
It’s about how they hear me speak about myself and that’s been one of the harder realizations.
What am I teaching my daughters when I stand in front of the mirror and criticize my body? What am I teaching them when I apologize for things that don’t require an apology? What do they learn when they watch me run myself into the ground trying to make everybody else happy? What am I showing them if I tell them to have boundaries while having none of my own?
I can tell my daughters a thousand times that they are worthy, capable and enough, but they’re also watching me to see whether I believe those things about myself. That part stings a little.
Healing while raising children is strange because you’re trying to unlearn things at the same time you’re trying not to pass them down.
And I certainly don’t have it figured out. I still lose my patience. I still raise my voice sometimes. I still react in ways I wish I hadn’t. There are nights when everyone is finally asleep and I replay something I said earlier and think, I should have handled that differently.
Therapy hasn’t turned me into a perfect mother. If anything, it has made me more aware of how imperfect I am, but it has also taught me that repair matters.
My children don’t need a mother who never gets it wrong. They need a mother who can recognize when she does. They need to hear, “I’m sorry.” They need to see me take responsibility. They need to know that conflict doesn’t mean love disappears. They need to learn that mistakes can be repaired.
I used to think healing was something I was doing for myself. Now I’m realizing it may be one of the most important things I ever do for my children because I’m not only trying to change the voice inside my own head…
I’m helping create theirs.
Someday my girls will leave my house and walk into a world where I won’t be able to protect them from every cruel comment, broken heart, rejection, failure or person who makes them question their worth.
I won’t always be standing beside them saying, “Baby, that’s not true. You know who you are.”
So while they’re still here, while I still get the privilege of being one of the loudest voices in their lives, I want to use that voice carefully. I want to build them up enough that when the world tries to tear them down, something stronger is already living inside them.
And I hope somewhere in that voice, they hear their mama.
(Paige Gurgainers is a mom of three girls, digital journalist for Webster Parish Journal.)