My guest today, Rosemary, brings a unique perspective on emotions with skills you may not be familiar with. SO much value, I am honored to share a platform for her to spread her message and help parents through her knowledge.
Take it allllllll in…
Motherhood is totally a wild ride of ups and downs and our emotions are a HUGE factor in that. In this post, we’re going to dive into the intense emotions of motherhood we rarely talk about. We will discuss why they are of the utmost importance and what to do when they show up.
Let’s start off by just naming these emotions. There are 5 main emotions of motherhood we typically don’t like and they are: ANGER, FEAR, DEEP SADNESS, ISOLATION, and SHAME. All of these emotions have the likelihood of cycling together and/or being layered on top of one another. Many of us have even experienced all of them AT THE SAME TIME. These emotions are incredibly common, but the tools for how to deal with them… not so common. I am here to help with that!!
THE TRUTH ABOUT EMOTIONS:
When we experience emotions we don’t like, it’s uncomfortable, and it feels like they are a problem we need to solve. Truthfully, our emotions only become a problem when we believe they make up WHO WE ARE. Really, our emotions are just messages. Messages that reveal to us our WANTS and our NEEDS. Some of those wants and needs are so deep and so powerful that the message can feel like it IS us.
If we believe our emotions define us, that means WE are the problem – yikes! Since PEOPLE can’t be problems we’re left trying to solve a problem THAT DOESN’T EXIST. When that happens, the real problem sits there unsolved and festering. It’s an unfortunate cycle that keeps us from moving forward.
I want you to know, mama, that you never were and never are the problem. As stated above people cannot BE problems they can only HAVE problems, and yes, there is a big difference.
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EMOTIONS ARE JUST MESSAGES??
Yes! Emotions are just messages – fantastic, powerful, intelligent messages about what we NEED and WANT. Reading these messages is the key to a satisfying life. A life where you function connected to your INNER GUIDANCE.
What we generally do with an emotion we DON’T LIKE is we try and stuff it down, avoid it, do whatever we can to get it to GO AWAY! But emotions are the most important messages you ever get because they are from your deepest self (your INNER GREATNESS)! And it is SO important for you to ACCEPT and DECODE your messages so you can get your deepest needs met, hold boundaries with ease, and enjoy a deeply satisfying life!
THE TOOLS:
Now we get to the really juicy part – the tools to help you accomplish this accepting and decoding of the emotions in YOUR life!
LANGUAGE OF LISTENING® is the life and parent coaching model I follow and teach. It is amazing for one, because of how SIMPLE its tools are and how EFFECTIVE the results are! Today I’ll teach you a little about the foundational LANGUAGE OF LISTENING® tool called: SAY WHAT YOU SEE® to help you achieve that first and VERY important step of acceptance. Acceptance doesn’t mean staying in an emotion you don’t like, or being OK with it. It’s about acknowledging reality and getting grounded so you don’t get stuck.
To use this tool, whenever you have an emotion you don’t like, speak to yourself in the second person (“you”) and reflect back to yourself how you are feeling without any additions or any judgment. You note 1) How you feel and 2) What you want.
Like this: “Oooooo! You are just SO MAD right now! It drives you crazy when he does that! You just want to scream!”
Last year after tests for not 1 but 2 types of cancer I was super-fearful! I would wake up in the middle of the night gasping for air, panicking, with a pounding heart. After seeing a therapist 3 times with no respite I took things into my own hands and used LANGUAGE OF LISTENING®. I just said to myself: “You’re really scared right now. You don’t want to die!” A weight lifted off me once I acknowledged how I felt. That opened me up to see the positive side – “You don’t want to die – that’s so perfect! It would feel terrible if you wanted to die! Of course, you want to keep on being here for your girls!” A little more of that and my heart rate went down and I fell peacefully back to sleep!
The second tool, DECODING is important too!
To work on decoding your emotion, sit with that feeling and ask: What need are you trying to help me meet–experience, connection, or power? What exactly are you trying to gain for me?
Once you’ve uncovered the need it’s trying to meet, decide whether or not you like the way you are trying to meet it. (We often have needs from our childhood our heart is still trying to get met for us. Some of our thought and behavior patterns are no longer helpful so letting them go is an important point for growth). Once you recognize the need and the pattern you don’t like, you can start to look for ways to lovingly meet that need in ways you LIKE, ways that won’t keep sending these emotions you aren’t happy about.
Another personal example:
I always felt a certain amount of shame when my house was messy and this yucky feeling would bubble up to force me into cleaning. Finally, I asked myself what those feelings were trying to gain for me. It all came tumbling out – my heart was trying to protect me from my mother’s unkind judgments about my tidiness (or lack-there-of, in her mind) and gain her approval to meet my need for connection. It meant I was never cleaning for me, but only for her, and I did not like that pressure! Once I let my heart know that I no longer needed to be protected from my mother’s judgment and could meet my need for connection in other ways, I was able to fully embrace my love of a tidy space! Now when I clean it’s all for me! Cleaning is so much more enjoyable, and I can show up in my life on my terms, the way I want to.
There you have it, mamas!
Your intense emotions are normal and highly valuable!! They are messages aimed at helping you connect with your deepest needs and wants. No more pushing them away, you can now decode those messages and live connected to your INNER GREATNESS, showing up for your family in ways you LOVE!
Rose Clark is an authorized LANGUAGE OF LISTENING® Life and Parenting Coach who teaches parents skills to find healing through parenting their children and/or reparenting themselves. She specializes in connecting people with the messages of their emotions so they can hold boundaries with ease and show up for their families in ways they LOVE! You can follow her on Instagram @after_aces and join her Empowered Parents Facebook group here: https://facebook.com/groups/1732344856909528
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