Balanced Back-to- School Pt. 2
You Scream, I Scream- & What Ice Cream Has to do with it
The very fancy term I coined for the very mom experience of having two totally conflicting emotions at the exact same time.
Ok, it’s not very fancy but you definitely get the point right?
The Swirl Cone
“I had an emergency c-section, but it’s fine, the baby is healthy”
-many mothers in many places
Almost from the moment of conception, if not before, during the fertility process, motherhood is FULL of moments like the above. Something terrible or very unpleasant is happening right along side something good- but we are only allowed to hold space for the good thing. Both society and our conditioning has taught us that only “good” feelings are acceptable and anything not “good” should be buried deep and not shared. ESPECIALLY if these feelings have anything to do with our children. Moms are NOT allowed to not like mothering. We must enjoy ALL of it at ALL times. We must be ALL things to ALL people at ALL times. I mean just reading that we can tell what a crock it is right?
Here is what is more likely true. Moms are people too. We have the full width and breadth of emotions that any other person has. And yes, we dislike mothering sometimes. And guess what- that is OK. Not only is it ok, it is imperative that we give name to the moments when we are not ok so as to do service to ourselves and the families and the communities we hold up.
Enter- The Swirl Cone. Instead of pretending we are only happy about any given thing. What if we allowed our selves and the mothers in our lives to present two opposing feelings and understand that they are perfectly capable of having two conflicting feelings at the same time without one negating the other. In the same way that a frozen yogurt machine can easily mix together two flavors of opposing flavors, so too, can my being swirl together two totally different feelings. In the above example the mother can both be not happy and in fact traumatized by her birth, and also, over the moon with joy that her baby is healthy.
Here is the thing: If I don’t give name to a big feeling I am having, it doesn’t make it any less present, it just keeps me feeling a little bit confused, alone and like I am hiding something. When we hide anything, we keep ourselves from intimacy with those around us. Unnamed feelings can also pop up in unexpected places like snapping at our family for seemingly small innocuous reasons. It also keeps us from processing our experiences and learning all of the valuable lessons from the challenges in our lives. Those lessons are the core of our spiritual advancement, We can'‘t be afraid of our shadow or we miss the joy that comes from transmuting that darkness into light. AND processing our harder feelings also shows us that we can! We build confidence knowing that we can handle hard things and that makes us more resilient for challenges in the future. We experience more peace and joy over time because we are less afraid of things not being perfect because we know we can handle it.
And yet another key benefit to owning all of our emotions is that it teaches our children how to own all of theirs. So many parents are attempting this new world of “respectful parenting” but guess what, if you are not holding space for your own tantrums, I can tell you for sure, holding space for your little ones will be near impossible. The same goes for your anger, your fear, your jealousy, your shame and on and on.
So here is my challenge to you….
Name your swirls.
Perhaps in the morning armed with your Solo Cup and your journal pages scan back over your birth experience, the early days of mothering or even just the previous day- can you see two feelings happening at the same time? For example, I dropped my daughter off at her first day of K this week. I was both happy for her to be starting a new school and a new adventure AND I was sad and nervous for my baby who was about to do a hard thing. Until I named both of those things, I just had a “weird” feeling in my stomach. Once I named them, and talked about them with my daughter (who said she was feeling the same!) I started to feel better, more calm and more able to feel the happy of the moment.
Can you find some of your own cones?
