Are We A Fit?
Can I ask you a personal question?
Which one of these did you find yourself thinking today?
“Am I a terrible parent?
Did I make too many mistakes?
Should I apologize again?!”
Or…
“I devoted my life to my kids and they don’t appreciate me. They’re so ungrateful!”
As your adult children start to pull away, it’s common to feel sad and lonely, like a part of you is leaving. But if there’s also a rising sense of panic, a cycle of grief that leads to reaching out and feeling rejected, a cycle so painful you’ll do anything, try anything to pull them back in…
That’s when even the most resilient parents need some support.
You’ve probably had well-meaning friends tell you something like:
“You’ll only feel sad for a little while. Now it’s time to focus on YOU! Enjoy your freedom!”
They don’t get it. They don’t understand that your kids have been your life, and you wouldn’t have it any other way (you didn’t feel that important growing up, and you suffered for it. You’re not repeating that mistake!)
You gave your kids the best of yourself. You used to be SO close with them!
But now you’re feeling
- Lonely and lost, not sure how to parent them when they don’t want you around
- Frustrated that you can’t keep them from making mistakes and getting hurt
- Resentful that you’ve put SO much into your child, but you don’t feel valued
- Outraged and anxious — they’re setting “boundaries” all of a sudden, and you’re walking on eggshells trying not to offend them
- Abandoned. At a very core level, you feel left behind, unwanted, and unloved
No wonder the loads of grief you are going through!
Maybe some people think “you’re too much”, but I want you to know those intense emotions are perfectly okay. We embrace the full range of emotions here.
Here’s what I think:
We need grief. It is a vital emotion that heals your heart and adds depth to your soul. Unjudged, uninterrupted and compassionate experience of grief is like kintsugi, the Japanese art of fixing broken pottery with gold.
There’s a reason this feels like it’s *so* much harder for you than some of your friends.
The resentment, disappointment, questioning who you are, feeling empty, depressed,
desperate, abandoned – and feeling so much love for your kid at the same time – this is a tangled knot of pain that has been passed down through generations of your family.
If you think about your own childhood, you’ll likely find that this is not the first time you’ve felt this sense of abandonment.
And when your child pulled away, it triggered that existing trauma on a deep subconscious level.
Now, these emotions are coming into your relationship with your kids, unintentionally pushing them away when all you want to do is pull them closer.
You might be thinking, “Oh, but I keep it IN. I don’t show them how much it hurts when they leave. I don’t tell them I cry every time one of their all-too-short visits end.”
Believe me: They know. And it pains them too. The grief cycle is intergenerational.
But this can also be a gift. It’s your chance to finally end that cycle. To heal yourself. To heal your relationship with your children. For your children to heal. So you both can grow and grow closer together as autonomous, whole adults.
What we do together:
Our wounds are buried deep, across layers in our minds, in our bodies, in our cells, in our dreams, in our energy.
To heal our grief and anxiety loops, we have to work with each of these layers.
Releasing stuck trauma through body-based psychology work (somatic therapy),
releasing attachment trauma (aka. C-PTSD) by understanding our earliest survival styles,
and processing deeper multi-generational karmic knots through energy healing.
Essentially: Through talking, moving, feeling, and awakening your energetic and emotional body, you heal – body, mind and spirit – through a modality I call NeuroShiatsu™
It’s bottom up, and top down, and maybe a bit sideways. We cover every angle. Because humans aren’t just thinking creatures who feel, we’re also feeling creatures who think.
I think you’ll love this deep work if:
- You identify as a highly sensitive person or empath
- You’re ‘other person-oriented’ - you try to make sure everyone has what they need (often at the expense of yourself)
- You’re spiritual and open
- You’re no stranger to inner work (therapy, meditation, yoga)
- You’re activated by these High Anxiety Times
And you’re ready to try working through your pain from a new angle.