Reframing. Hope.

Me and my boys. 

Good morning. It is so good to see you. The last time I saw you, things were pretty heavy. Shame is a heavy topic. Shame can be a little uncomfortable. That’s okay. Big emotions can be uncomfortable, and unless we acknowledge them and deal with them, they will continue to be uncomfortable.

Today, however, I would like to talk about hope. Today I want to tell you the next step in my desire to no longer feel shame.

After I wrote the last blog post, I decided to take my thoughts and feelings to my therapist. She asked me to come up with a situation in which I felt like I didn’t like motherhood. As it happened, it was just a few weeks ago. We were on a walk, and one of the kids did something, and immediately my thought was “I hate being a mom”. It seemed to come out of nowhere. It was frustrating, and sad, but I couldn’t get over it. The entire walk, I just kept thinking, I don’t like being a mom. My therapist took me back to the moment this feeling started. I described that we were on a walk, and one of my kids was walking close to the railing that is over the freeway. It was in that moment that I felt it. As I was describing the moment to my therapist, she asked me if I felt scared for the safety of my child, and I said that I did- I have this weird fear of falling over railings-even if it is not very logical. We worked through this, and discovered that in the moment that I thought about how I didn’t like being a mom, I was actually scared for my child, and that it manifested itself in not like being a mom. I was afraid. I was afraid for my child, and I didn’t know what to do. I don’t like not knowing what to do, so I just jumped to “I don’t like being a mom.” You guys!!! Do you know what this means? I can reframe this specific situation and instead of telling myself that I don’t like being a mom- I can tell myself that I am afraid that my child is going to get hurt. And work through that. 
The next time we went for a walk, and my child started walking close to the railing, I just told him that when he walks so close to the railing- it makes me afraid, and if he could walk on the other side of me. Which he did, and I felt better.
Do you know what else that means? I can go back into the moments I remember thinking “I don’t like being a mom” and reframe it. Because you know what? Most of the time it was because I was afraid of something- judgement, safety, failing... you get the idea. Instead of working through the fear, I just jumped to “I don’t like being a mom”. I can change the narrative. Do you know how empowering this is? Do you know how this changes my entire life?

I’m not saying that everything has changed, but it has changed enough that I feel hopeful that I can show up in motherhood in a new way. I am taking my power back.

A good therapist is worth their weight in gold.