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How childhood trauma robs your power away and how to take it back
This summer I spent about a month at my father’s house with my son. It wasn’t our first time and, as I’d expected, it was tumultuous. A part of me knew it was time to stand up to some of the dysfunction in my family of origin and confront it. I could only hope that this experience was going to bring me some resolutions and it would prove empowering. And it did. For the first week or so the usual, generations-old, themes of guilt and shame, insecurity and inadequacy were saturating the air until it came to a boil. There were tears and screaming, anger and pain – suppressed emotions and…
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How trauma and codependency in childhood can cause toxic mommy guilt
I often question why I feel so much guilt as a mother towards my little boy. It’s not only crippling my own experience of being a mother but also sending inaccurate messages to my son which shape the way he views himself and the world. I feel stricken with guilt every time I feel the effects of my trauma. I blame myself for not being able to shake off the sadness or depression I feel, for the anger that sometimes I can’t hold or the negativity that my critical mind is keeping me a captive to. I feel shame every time I’m not at my best for letting my son down. When…
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The shame around being a “bad mother”
Sometimes I resent being a mother. That is not to say that I don’t love my child. Unlike my mother and some mothers who can’t love, I do love my son. With all my heart and soul, always and forever. I believe all mothers have moments when they resent motherhood. I believe that the contemporary expectation to be a non-stop happy and vibrant mother is not only unrealistic, it’s also severely shaming and stigmatising. It makes natural temporary feelings of dissatisfaction or unfulfillment fester into gnawing guilt. That makes me think how terribly unprepared and largely delusional so many mothers enter into motherhood, including me. I wanted my child with…
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Acceptance: the path to change
“If you want to see change in your life, accept it as it is.” Lately, I find myself wanting yet another change in my life. I live in a city. About an year ago my family and I moved to Sofia, Bulgaria. It happens to be one of the most polluted capitals in Europe. I’ve started feeling the dust and the dirt of the city polluting my own life and state of mind. I find myself wanting to move again. I want to go far from the smog, the noise, the cruelty, and the trickery. Our family has suffered a few blows on our property, we’ve been stolen from, and…
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Dear beautiful you
Dear, I love you! I cherish you! I thank you for being the vessel for my soul! You are beautiful, you are worthy, you are precious! You deserve to be happy, you deserve to follow your dreams, you deserve to honour your path. You don’t have to hold on to the past, you do not need to keep the painful memories, you do not need to suffer anymore. You don’t have to be unhappy because someone else is unhappy, you do not need to commiserate with their pain. That won’t help ease their pain, that won’t make them feel better. You have the right to put your needs first, you…
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A solo adventure and a glance into a past life
Over the weekend I went to an event. It was one of these “random” things you find knowing they have showed up to you for a reason. It consisted of a talk and a group meditation led by a professional regressionist. We discussed the subjects of regression, past lives, reincarnations, ego, soul evolution, and more. After that we did a 40 minute meditation bringing us back to a past life. First of all, I really was scared of going by myself. First I got a friend of mine to join but then she cancelled. I knew I had to do this, not giving up on the opportunity, by myself. These…
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A strange day… in a beautiful and vulnerable way
It’s a strange day today, in a beautiful, real, soulful, tender way. I’ll try and describe what I feel the best way I can. This morning I started reading a book – Untangled, A Story of Resilience, Courage, and Triumph. I found this author and her moving story “randomly” browsing in WordePress reader. When I opened Alexis’s blog and read a few blog posts, I knew I’ve found it for a reason. I was captivated. This is the story of a woman who has suffered extreme physical and sexual abuse as a young child and a teenager in the 60’s and 70’s in America. I only started reading this morning but the…
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Year 2015: what it brought to my family and what it taught me
I am going to talk to my son’s teacher tomorrow. My son, Sylvian, is nearly 3 years old and he is going to a Montessori preschool. I prefer to call it just “school” and the people taking care of him there – teachers.I want to talk to her, I will call her Jackie, and give her some background information. But let me give you some information about my son first. He started at this school in late September and he’s going 5 mornings a week for 3 hours. At the beginning he was thrilled to go there. It was a new place that’s not home and is full of toys…