I’ve been trying to process through a lot of feelings and emotions lately. I partly blame my youngest daughter. She’s been having “big emotions” recently and is struggling to understand how to manage them, both in her head and in her body. It results in a lot of tears most of the time.

And I struggle to help her in the heat of the moment. Especially when her big emotion is “anger”.

In the midst of all of that, I’m also trying to understand what it means to “re-parent oneself”, because there are a lot of things I wish would have been different when I was growing up.

My immediate reaction when Mothra has her big emotions is to walk away. I think for the longest time, I’ve been telling myself that it’s better to walk away than to also get angry. But I think that’s an excuse. I think what’s really happening is that I don’t know how to help her because I was never really allowed to have big emotions.

I think that’s a common theme for us Xennials and Millennials.

Recently, I’ve noticed that when I walk away from Mothra’s big emotions, I end up finding her hiding in her closet, telling herself to “stop crying!” and “knock it off!” which is fucking heartbreaking.

I’ve ALWAYS wanted my kids to feel safe having big emotions at, near, or around me. Even because of me. And it turns out: one of my kids doesn’t feel safe doing that right now.

TIME FOR A COURSE CORRECTION!

I need to start reminding myself that the reason I’m so apt to walk away from her big emotions is because I didn’t have a safe space to experience my own big emotions. Maybe watching her go through them will help remind me that, yes, big emotions are real and necessary and common and ALLOWED. And of all the things they are, they are allowed to happen with me, in my presence, in my understanding, in my comfort. I need to remind myself to say to Mothra the things I wish would have been said to me.