by Jessie Cooper | Feb 9, 2023
Over the course of the past month, I’ve been writing to you about, well, the not-so-popular emotions. We’ve taken a journey through toddlerhood, parenting, and the danger of disconnecting from our emotional world. I’ve encouraged you to lean in, stay with your discomfort, and allow yourself to feel your divinely human emotions. Have you tried it? Chosen a moment that would usually prompt your running shoes and instead slid down next to yourself? If you have, I’m curious. How are you feeling? What was it like? What is in your wound?
I ask these questions because it is against our nature to stay in discomfort. Choosing to stay with your “negative” (ok, not jazzy) emotions is not something that is, well, comfortable. Believe me, I know. Actively choosing to both witness and stay with dysregulated emotions is nothing short of brave, because it can be painful. Yet in doing this work and approaching the pain is the only true way to know what the wound consists of that is causing this pain. It is the knowledge of what is causing us pain that allows us to first offer ourselves compassion. Through this compassion, we are able to bravely continue our journey and heal.
Diving Into the Wound
So what is in the wound? When we’ve noticed that we’re experiencing a negative emotion and choose to stay in our discomfort what will we find? I know I’ve told you to follow her before but Tara Brach’s U-Turn is the best practice I’ve found to do this investigative work. When you’ve chosen to stay in discomfort and look at your pain (wound) you’ve already done the hard work, I promise. The urge to flee from negative emotions is powerful (thanks reptilian brain) and staying with them takes active work. As you push aside all of the past coping mechanisms that allowed you to ignore the wound you are building a new neural pathway that tells your mind it is safe to explore this pain. Not just safe, necessary. Imagine yourself on Ms. Frizzle’s school bus, armored enough to go in, but curious enough to learn.
As you approach your wound what will you find? What is it that is causing the dysregulation? What needs love, care, and compassion from, well, you? I’m not going to lie to you, what you find might range from, “huh that’s annoying,” to full-blown trauma that has metastasized in your subconscious and therefore body. The wound is your wound and whatever is there are life experiences that you couldn’t, for whatever reason, provide yourself the love and care you needed at that time. That reason could be simple and you merely didn’t have the tools to emotionally take care of yourself say when you were rejected on the playground growing up. It could be complex like my own Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Each wound has a different size, origin, and healing need and yet each wound is equal.
Equal you say? How could feeling left out be equal to let’s say an Aversive Childhood Event? Well, my theory on this is that wounds should not be measured against their importance and instead evaluated to provide the treatment each wound needs. A papercut on your thumb is still going to cause you pain when you squeeze a lemon and so is a car accident. All wounds need treatment, the amount and type are simply different. Our soul needs us to look at each wound for that exact reason; to know what type of care our beautiful souls need.
Delving Into The Roots
In coming to the wound as an observer we are able to disconnect from the thoughts, “I am the sum of my wounds,” and instead shift into the mindset, “my wounds are real and need care.” As we approach our wounds the tricky thing, among other reasons, is that some of our wounds require brave witnessing of how we hurt others. This is the part of the wound that creates shame that when it goes unchecked creates harm to our brothers and sisters. The original wound (as you go deeper in this work) will almost certainly be a wound you experienced yourself that bred suffering. However, when acknowledged that wound will grow into behaviors that either hurt you or others and that shit is difficult to look at. I don’t know if there are other T-Swift fans reading but her song Anti-Hero is my current theme song for this brave work. “It’s me, hi, I’m the monster, it’s me.” We all have monsters, and we all treat ourselves and others in ways that we shouldn’t.
I do however believe that this type of wounded behavior can lessen in our lifetime from an overwhelming existence of disconnection to small hiccups easily repaired with a glass of water; a self-love glass that is. We do not have to stay in a world where we are spiraling and constantly wounding and re-wounding ourselves and others. Trust me, I know firsthand that sometimes this can feel very real as a woman who proudly wears the title of survivor. I have seen and experienced some messed up shit from other people and struggled to care for myself during that time. But what I know to be true is that when I lash out because I’m upset about how other people are treating me, I feel worse, not better.
I don’t want to feel worse; I want to feel free. That freedom only comes from brave witnessing, healing, and offering ourselves a life where wounds do not select our futures for us, we choose them for ourselves.
It’s okay sweetheart, everyone hurts, lean in and offer your beautiful soul compassion. If you’re feeling lost, gently kiss your own shoulder, stroke your own cheek, and breathe baby, breathe.
Xoxo,
Jessie
by Jessie Cooper | Feb 2, 2023
A few weeks ago I wrote to you about the danger of disconnecting. In it, I guided you to look at how disconnecting from our own emotional world can bring harm to ourselves and our world. Over the last several weeks, I’ve been walking through a challenging situation where disconnection was bringing true harm to the people that I love. And, Ok, me. I can’t tell you who or what the situation is to protect the safety of those involved. I can tell you that while this past month has brought incredible pain, it has also allowed me to witness love in its highest form. As I witnessed the pain, my own and others, I felt as though my previous blog barely scratched the surface of the danger I alluded to. I’d like to say more in an effort to walk each other home to peace.
Disconnection, An Existential Threat
I don’t know if I wrote this clearly enough last time, but I truly believe that disconnection is the number one threat to humanity and our planet today. I also believe that connection offers healing that can serve as the solution to this threat. To me, very simply disconnection is the act of removing yourself from the pain that you cause or experience. I believe that this form of disconnection begins subconsciously and builds throughout our lifetime for the purpose of survival. As we age and bury this disconnection shame is birthed and we begin to split from ourselves and our world.
Have you ever felt that there is something just, “not right,” with you? Battled or spoke to yourself in ways that you would never speak to a friend? I have. It’s always shame. Under that shame is a need not met because I have disconnected myself from the time the root shame, and problem, presented itself. I became distant from myself and in this distance, I could not offer myself compassion or provide accountability where accountability was needed. I believe that we all do this.
Let me give an example to see if I can help you see what I see. Let’s start with childhood, you’re a little girl and desperately want a toy your sister is playing with. In reaction to this, you scream at her, hit her, and inevitably get pulled aside for a time out (or spanking, that shouldn’t happen in my opinion). Following this event, you are in pain, both at your bottom and emotionally. To repair this you disconnect yourself from how you behaved, place the blame on wanting the toy, and snuggle into the idea that if your sister had let you have a turn none of this would have happened. It’s her fault for not sharing right? That version is certainly easier to digest than, “I hurt my sister’s body and I love her.” You begin to build a narrative that bypasses the harm that you are causing others, and the pain you feel yourself. Make sense?
Burying Pain Has Its Roots In Our Reptilian Brain
We can build this up into a million different scenarios that all have the same plot line. The plot goes like this; you either experience pain from another person or hurt another person (or living creature, or planet) and in response to that pain you bury it and provide yourself a comforting narrative to get through that pain. In this act of burying the pain you caused (or feel), you start a ripple effect in your subconscious of disconnecting from yourself, what is present, and what is real. You tell yourself that what is real is too painful to witness and that escaping that pain is what you need to do to survive. Of course, it is at that moment, you are human, yes? Our instinct for survival dates back thousands of years. When we bury the pain, we are in our reptilian brain, the part of our brain that is in control of our innate and automatic self-preserving behavior patterns, which ensure our survival and that of our species.
The problem here is that we aren’t reptiles, we are emotional beings that need language and action when we experience pain. This part of our brain doesn’t recognize that need, it’s done its job by preserving you. Yet our souls, lives, and earth need that language to process the pain and to prevent new pain from forming as a result of this unhealed wound. Without acknowledging the reality of the pain, we simply cannot repair it, and so it becomes buried. Buried pain disrupts our lives and, when unchecked, creates devastation both to ourselves and the world. We have this tiny mad idea that looking at the pain will make us monsters. That acknowledgment of our wrongdoings will lament the reality that we are in fact a bad person. And if we are a bad person, who hurts ourselves and others, how can we get up the next morning?
Pain Is Not Irreparable, But It Must Be Witnessed
What if I told you that you’re not a bad person, you’re a human being, and all human beings hurt others? That unintentionally (most of the time…) harm is done every single day? And that it isn’t the harm that is causing the real pain, but your failure to repair the harm you caused? Harm happens, it just does. The only way to heal is to witness the harm we are causing ourselves, others, and the world. Without this brave witnessing pain breeds more pain. With this witnessing, we are able to acknowledge how/who we hurt and start anew; including ourselves. We are able to offer apologies, repair our behaviors, and offer compassion to ourselves so that we can heal the wound that caused that pain. In healing the original wound, pain leaves, and peace settles in.
In this repair, it’s important to know that if you hurt another person, forgiveness is theirs to give and not owed to you. Forgiveness can only be offered when the wounded have healed and it is not the responsibility of the wounded to abdicate the person who caused the harm. It is your job to acknowledge the hurt and provide the emotional support your own heart needs in the aftermath of pain.
It is not what you do, who you hurt, or how you fall that matters. What matters is taking accountability for your actions, offering yourself grace, and aligning yourself with the intentional work of “do no harm.” Start today anew, offer yourself the gift of brave witnessing, and help us all as we shift to a more kind and peaceful planet.
Xoxo,
Jessie
by Jessie Cooper | Jan 12, 2023
Last week I wrote to you about the importance of taking care of your emotional well-being during the rocky road of parenting. In the blog I noted how we all experience big, negative emotions and how that doesn’t make us bad people, it makes us human. I ended the blog with Tara Brach’s gentle U-Turn in hopes of sharing a strategy that has held my own bruised heart so many times. I shared this with you with the intention of letting you know that when you experience negative emotions, you are not alone. In our society happiness is so often featured as a gleaming trophy to be won. Happiness, at least from where I’m sitting, isn’t a trophy it’s just part of the human experience the same as each and every one of our emotions; all eighty-seven according to Dr. Brene Brown’s, Atlas of the Heart.
Eight-seven you might say? That’s incredibly overwhelming! I can definitely understand that initial reaction and Dr. Brene Brown is attempting to provide language for our internal world because without language our experience as humans is limited. I knew from my own work as a BCBA the importance of language in decreasing challenging behaviors with my clients. As a young graduate, I didn’t understand the importance of knowing, naming, and accepting the emotions behind our language. It was through her work that I came to understand that we are in fact emotional beings that developed language and then behaved.
Acknowledging Emotions is For Warriors
I also used to believe as a young woman, as so many of us have, that emotions were a sign of weakness. That if I acknowledged my own emotions it meant I wasn’t strong or competent enough to navigate the world. I’m an empathetic person and I feel emotions so deeply that sometimes I feel on fire and frozen all at the same time. I used to believe that if I could control my emotions I would be strong enough to navigate this hellfire. My intention was one of survival and this type of mentality did not make me safer, stronger, or provide the trophy of happiness. Instead, a chapter in my life disconnected me from myself. That disconnection placed me in real danger and through the painful process of witnessing my reality and emotions I am now free.
In coming out on the other side of danger I thought that I would have a wave of peace. That the hard work of feeling my difficult emotions and accepting reality would once again bring me back to happiness; it didn’t. It brought me instead to the foothills of integrity which is far better, I promise (just read Martha Becks’ great work). I’m going to be honest with you. When I started this incredible work and way of living I still thought of happiness as a goal. At the time it was a beacon of light I could hold onto. What I didn’t realize at the time was the dichotomy of both beauty and devastation that life brings to all of us.
Life isn’t made to be happy all of the time because if it was we would all be only accepting one out of eight seven emotional states our minds take us through. We would be shoving down and ignoring our own vast internal landscape and ignoring what makes us gloriously and frighteningly human. It would bar us from celebrating, no basking, in our own joyful landscape of emotions, wrapping our arms around our deep sorrow, and bringing accountability to our own emotions that cause harm either to ourselves or others. Feeling only happy would make us feel empty. Attempting to only feel happy not only disconnects us from ourselves but it disconnects us from our world.
Daring to “Feel Everything?”
I have not educated myself enough on the origin of this tiny mad idea, the idea of only accepting happiness. However, through my own lived experiences as well as beginning to witness what is truly in front of me and our world I know this much; it is dangerous. Pretending like everything is fine to pay the toll for happiness actually does the opposite of what we think we are paying for. Subscribing to only a positive narrative while ignoring reality is where pain and suffering breed.
Somewhere along the way, we were all told we were weak if we allowed ourselves to feel everything. What if I told you that feeling everything allows you to be stronger than you ever thought possible? That feeling everything allows you to not only live a divinely human experience but gives you the strength to challenge and subsequently change the atrocities of the world. That you must tend to your own heart and wounds to find the strength for the battle we must all join. The battle for a more just and loving planet.
This past weekend I watched “Live to Lead,” on Netflix and sat in awe of the young Greta Thunberg who chose to connect to our earth at such a young age. She’s an inspiration for who we can all become when we pay attention to the truth of our own voices and world. I’ll leave you with this quote, “I don’t want you to hope, I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic..and act as if the house is on fire because it is.” Greta Thunberg.
Xoxo,
Jessie Cooper
by Jessie Cooper | Jan 5, 2023
Last week I wrote to you about seeing your children’s tantrums and difficult emotions through their eyes. In it, we walked through the perspective of toddlers and young children. I offered some strategies, not all my own, to help teach our children they are safe with themselves and us as they navigate the hard emotions in life. I deeply hope it gave you some insight because emotions and behavior require language above all else. In that light, I’d like to spend some time writing to you about, well, you the parent. I know anything can look good in writing, but the reality is that parenting is not an easy job; far from it.
Let’s Get Real For a Minute
When children have big emotions, tantrums, sleepless nights, and tears with the title “mama” or “papa” we all stay completely calm right? Sailing effortlessly up at 3 am to shoo the monsters away, waking with a smile to flip pancakes, remaining calm as our dear toddler exclaims her disdain for the eleventh choice you’ve offered? We are their parents, we should and can be in control. We can model resolve for our children, discipline, and that all grown-ups are happy. I grew up in the ’90s, everyone’s parents were working through some version of this. By the time I had Henry in 2017 the new tune was “child-led everything” which required you to shadow your baby’s every move and somehow notice when they were ready for something new.
I’m really, really hopeful in writing this that you read it with the ridiculousness I intended, but also with some vulnerability to acknowledge any narrative you have that the title “parent” is having it all together. Little humans are hard. When you enter the world of parenthood in any capacity no one prepares you for the avalanche of emotions that will come with your new little (or big) human. In our minds, there is such a dream, as in any role, about what we want in our new relationship. I can admit to you I had a Pinterest board of “Henry’s Style” before he was born. By the time I was in labor with Declan I knew all I needed was my own breastmilk and baby pajamas. I also had a tribe lined up to help me with my new baby and then toddler Henry. Not knowing the level of support I needed, along with the personal trauma I was experiencing, led to my postpartum depression with Henry. With Declan’s journey in the world, I knew I had to honor my own emotions and needs.
Caring for Self and Communicating
That right there is what all parents need when it comes to the tantrums and big emotions of our little lions, um, loves. If we as parents can acknowledge that we also have big and real emotions when our children are struggling with our language we can offer ourselves support. If we don’t acknowledge how hard the emotions are for us we will find ourselves flipping pancakes with a gritted smile, losing pieces of ourselves along the way, and modeling to our children that big emotions are so scary even mommy has to push them down.
So what can we do when our emotions run high after that sleepless night, the eleventh tantrum, or (pick your own poison)? Remaining calm when our children are struggling is important. This teaches our children that when they are experiencing a big emotion we can keep them safe. The reality is that getting to this place of calm requires a lot of work on the parent’s part well before their child’s big emotions. The other reality is that inevitably all parents will not be calm at a certain point in parenting, everyone loses control of their emotions. It’s okay. Really. It’s not the loss of control that is the problem (I repeat to myself daily). It is how we respond to that loss of control that teaches our children what to do when they lose control too.
In the first reality, taking care of ourselves to remain calm can look like a variety of tools, skills, and needs for the parent. The root of this work is to acknowledge that we ourselves are emotional beings with language and behavior. In acknowledging we are emotional beings we are acknowledging that our emotional self needs love, care, time, tools, and words. It requires us to be our own biggest advocate and begin to lean into areas of our lives that either we personally struggle with or emotions that we don’t understand. In leaning into what we personally struggle with or seek to find clarity on we are providing both emotional care and accountability for ourselves. In some cases, this can be done alone in self-reflection and in other cases, this needs to be done with professional counselors. Personally speaking, I live with Complex-PTSD and the tools I’m now able to lean on in times of emotional dysregulation came through the hard work of trauma-informed care. I needed help navigating my big emotions and that is okay, it’s okay for you too.
In the second reality, I want to be very clear that if you are losing your temper and either physically or emotionally hurting your child this behavior is not okay. I can understand the loss of control, you are not a bad person if you have done this, you’re a person who has lost control and in that loss of control caused harm. The important thing here is to name that you’ve done it, offer yourself grace, and then get help as soon as possible to prevent this kind of harm from happening again. In less extreme cases that are so common among parents where we are simply at our wit’s ends, yelling happens, punishment to control our child is dished out, and wine is poured to deal with that moment a similar strategy can be used. Tara Brach used a metaphor of a U-Turn and the strategy of R.A.I.N.
When in Doubt, Let it R.A.I.N.
In this strategy, Tara teaches us to recognize, acknowledge, investigate, and nurture. We can recognize that we lost control of behavior and that our own limbic system is activated. Then, we can acknowledge the emotion behind the emotion as well that we are out of control. From there we can investigate the “why” and nurture our hearts. In this healing moment maybe we recognize that we’ve worked a sixty-hour week and have no reserves or maybe you’ve been home all day but your child’s big emotions have also been home all day. No matter the reason, naming it will guide us to the type of nurturing our bodies and hearts need.
This final strategy is the key to reclaiming your own peace as well as teaching your children the important truth that mama (or papa) is a human too. That no one is perfect and everyone has emotions and a hard time. In our home it looks a lot like this, “Wow, mommy had a tricky time and felt so overwhelmed, I’m really sorry I yelled about the coats. Can I do that differently?” Henry chimed in recently with, “Yea mama, try it kinder.” I did, we hugged, and moved on with our day.
Xoxo,
Jessie Cooper
by Jessie Cooper | Dec 22, 2022
With Christmas just around the corner for those of us who celebrate (my anxiety reminds me daily), I bet you are thinking I am writing a darling tribute to their innocence. I would love to, there is so much about children that is breathtakingly beautiful. I’ve dedicated my life to researching and working with them. I can share a feel-good blog for you one day on the delight of early childhood. I’ll dig up some great quotes like, “I wish I could love anything as much as she loves bubbles,” from the movie Knocked Up. We’ll both feel very warm on the inside because writing about the positive qualities of childhood warms our souls like hot chocolate after playing in the cold snow (see, I can write it.)
However, today I want to talk about their inner emotional world, neurological development, and the frustrations that lead to big emotions. In writing, Honoring Your Peace, I wrote to you about how Dr. Becky’s book, “Good Inside,” led me to some radical shifts in my own parenting methods that I hope will guide you to find alignment in your own parenting. I did not however write to you in depth about the child’s perspective when big emotions come. I’d like the chance to share what I know both as a clinician, a mama, and a member of a brave mom tribe.
Consider Where They Are Coming From
Now that I’ve laid the foundation I will not be writing a blog about the parallels of the magic at Christmas and children and will be writing about big emotions we can begin. For today’s sake let’s start at the scene of the crime (or one of the crimes). You have a toddler, she has woken up from her sleepy slumber, opened her darling eyes, and declared she is not putting on clothing for school. As the bleary morning drags on alongside your coffee IV, she also declares she wanted oatmeal not pancakes, she only wears black mittens, and the granola bar you’ve offered so she has something in her belly on the ride to school is the wrong one. As she declares everything that is wrong she has also hit, charged you, screamed, and cried as if each “that is not a choice right now, let’s make a plan for oatmeal tomorrow,” was a declaration against her very soul. Tear-streaked (her, you… does it matter at this point?) you drive to school thinking, “goddamn that was hard” and she’s soothing herself from the injustice of the morning.
What just happened?
Well, on a very micro level a lot of different things could have happened. There could be a past pattern of you giving in to demands and now you’re setting limits so she’s rebelling against them. She could have an upset tummy. She could not have slept well last night. She could be working through a transition between co-parenting homes. All of the environmental scenarios could be very true and applied behavior analysis can tell us what is leading up to the outbursts of your darling toddler. However, regardless of what is happening environmentally the internal (covert) experience of your toddler is much broader (think macro) and common amongst the toddler tribe. She (he, they) are having big emotions that they cannot regulate and do not have words to explain their emotional world.
It Is Really A Matter of Neuroscience
You see toddlers (2-3 ½) function predominantly from their limbic system which is the part of our brain that says “fight, flight, freeze.” The part of our brain that allows us to reason is the prefrontal cortex and that doesn’t begin to develop until around age 4 and doesn’t finish developing until our early 20s (women finish their development before men, yes I just answered every question you had about your college boyfriend).
Around age 3 children also start to understand the concept of self versus others. Is this me? Do I like this? The combination of the development of self and the primary response of the limbic system creates the perfect storm inside of our toddlers. They want to assert themselves, define themselves, and know themselves. They also do not have the language yet to say what their big emotions are causing them to feel and without being taught do not have the emotional regulation to calm themselves down. This combination, as is true with most toddlers, creates a very loud couple of years for both parents and their children.
I used to be guilty as charged alongside many mamas of just wanting the tears to stop. An actual registered torture technique is to lock a mother away from her baby and play the baby’s cry. No, I do not want to know how they researched this. But anyways, when our children cry our genetics tell us, “no, awful, fix it” and we as mamas want to swoop in and fix it. Yet the swooping, beyond infancy, starts to tell our children that they cannot navigate their big emotions, and neither can we. It tells them their big emotions are wrong and have to be corrected. If there is one thing you take away from this blog, take this: big emotions live in all of us and there is nothing wrong with them. We are a feeling species, who developed language and then behaved.
Helping Toddlers and Up Navigate Emotion
So what do we do with our big feeling language-lost little humans? Starting in toddlerhood we can teach them to stay in their big emotion, ride it until it calms, keep them safe for that ride, and give them words for the experience and tools for the emotion they just felt. That their feelings are messages that something isn’t right for them and that is okay. They don’t have to agree with everything a grownup or parent says, even when a boundary is held. I spend a lot of time reframing Henry and Declan’s language of “worst day ever, I don’t like you mom!” to “Mom, I don’t agree with you.” Then I validate it’s okay to not agree with me and it’s also true that in sub-30 weather coats, hats, and mittens are a rule that has to be followed to go outside. Yes, I know, ninjas do not wear shirts little men.
Validating our children’s experiences and opinions teaches them their emotions aren’t scary. That their emotions are signals to their inner world that they need help navigating. Sometimes the world does not agree with our opinion, coats have to be worn, but it’s okay to have feelings about what we disagree with. This path is not an easy one, but it is a brave one for parents and children alike. Turning in to face our emotions instead of shaming their existence teaches children (and us) how to navigate our inner world to create an outer world that makes sense to us.
Next time your little one is having a big feeling first keep their body safe, stay the course of your boundary, and give them the words (and tools) for their experience.
Xoxo,
Jessie
