This week I got myself really worked up about a choice that I’d made that didn’t go so hot. I’m being incredibly vulnerable in sharing this story with the hope that it helps you to extend yourself a bit of grace if you’ve ever done something similar or found yourself in the pit of self-loathing that you couldn’t seem to get yourself out of. Those of you who deeply immerse yourself in all things “light”, “spiritual”, “God-Centered”, etc. know how challenging it can be for you when you step into the “dark side.” I’ve made it my personal goal to become love… or as loving as I am divinely allowed to be (working on ridding myself of perfectionism) so this week when I consciously chose to act contrary to this, it has eaten away at me and the demons have come out in full force.
Here it goes… my daughter can be overwhelmingly challenging at times. As my grandmother used to say about me, “There was a little girl with a curl in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, she was very good, but when she was bad, she was awful.” My daughter is very much a spitting image of me when it comes to behavior. Since she was about 3, she sometimes goes on these rampages of pure insanity over what most would consider small things. These rampages last for 20 minutes or more at times. I’ve researched and it is not your average tantrum. It is as though she disappears, Cybil takes her place, and there isn’t much that anyone can do to rein her back in until she exhausts herself and snaps back into her “normal” self.
We’ve tried many different approaches with these tantrums. We’ve tried to diffuse her with love and kindness by asking her if she wants a hug or a snuggle and trying to move in close to her. We’ve tried ignoring the behavior, which turns into a fiasco of her following us around the house and escalating the behavior to hitting us to get our attention. We’ve tried yelling louder than her to rattle her and show her the craziness of her behavior. We’ve tried taking things away as a result of poor behavior and rewarding good behavior. When things are taken away, it escalates the behavior in the immediate and she doesn’t even care that it’s missing when things wind down. She doesn’t even ask for the thing we took away when she settles back into her (“normal”) self. My point is, we’ve tried many different approaches and none of them seem to be curbing the behavior.
I attend church weekly and during the most recent service, the pastor was preaching about how most people want results without the process and basically discussed how we have a society who refuses authority and correction because they are fragile. During the sermon, he indicated that as a Cape Verdean, he isn’t opposed to discipline and indicated that he got a few smacks in his day and it’s called tough love. He was making the point that sometimes tough love and correction is needed in order to mold us into who we need to be. My fiance’ comes from the same school of thought having come from a Cape Verdean background and experienced a few “beatings” in his day.
Now that you have context, let’s flash to the current situation that is causing me grief this week. On New Year’s Eve, my daughter and I were home enjoying a lazy day of lounging in our pajamas and playing. We had made some Spirographs and I’d asked her if she wanted to do some yoga. She was excited about it and so I asked her to clear her toys from the coffee table so that we could move it out of the way allowing us the space to practice. She refused, although there were only about 3 toys there. I stuck to my guns and said, “If you want to do yoga, I need you to put away your toys.” Again she refused. So at that point, I said, “Ok, well if you can’t put away your toys to make space for yoga, then we can’t do yoga right now.” That was the end of it… she went flying full force off of the deep end screaming “I want to do yoga!!!”
When I say deep end, I’m referring to her “Cybil” behaviors which include, but aren’t limited to, stomping her feet, screaming as loudly as she can, yelling at me aggressively with her angry face on, pulling on me forcefully to attempt to get me to do what she wants, hitting or threatening to hit, crying, rolling all over the floor, grabbing herself forcefully and trying to hurt herself, pulling her hair, etc. It’s quite the site to witness. Thank God for my practicing calmness within the storm this past year because it has helped a ton in handling this. I used to have to go in my room, lock the door and cry when she would have these outbursts because I would be overwhelmed and feared that I might lose it.
As she was going mad, I picked up my magazine informing her that as soon as she put her toys away I would be happy to do yoga with her and making the occasional comment asking her if she was ready to relax or if she wanted to do something else (attempting to divert her attention). After about 20 minutes of full out tantrum, I quietly prayed about how to handle this and for peace within her spirit. Then as I sat there calmly, I heard the sermon from Sunday in my head in response and I chose to give a quick smack on the side of the head as she was pulling on my pajamas while kneeling down on the floor as I sat on the couch. It stopped the aggressive behavior of her pulling on me and she was stunned momentarily and I thought, “Hmmm I guess he was right.” I picked her up and carried her into her room, sat her on her bed, and said something like, “I tell you all the time bad behavior gets you bad results. When are you going to learn? Take a minute, breathe, and let it soak in.” I closed her door and sat back down on the couch. About a minute after I sat down, I heard her crying from the living room and saying “Ow ow ow ow” so I went back into her room and noticed she had a sizable lump on her head and was puzzled. Then I realized, because she’d been kneeling down at the time of the smack, she’d hit her head on the coffee table, a combination of her attempt to avoid the smack combined with the small amount of force I used to inflict the smack.
Immediately, I realized that I’d consciously made the wrong choice. Not only because of the lump that was now appearing on her head, but because I was feeling my own proverbial smack from the universe in that moment. It was a combination of, “Why would you do that Jackie? You don’t even believe in hitting. What did you just teach her? You played on the wrong team and hurt one of God’s children.” I know this sounds ridiculous to some of you, but in my dedication and efforts to live my life in love, it deeply impacted me and I felt like a total hypocrite. Here I was with a large book collection that has the main message of becoming more authentic and loving and I totally negated everything I know in favor of choosing an action supported by others who I think highly of. This also brought me back to my “Half Moon” (link to blog) revelation of learning that I don’t trust myself enough. I chose to act in a way that was not congruent with my thought process and my feelings in favor of other people’s. When we aren’t behaving authentically, it hurts. When we aren’t remaining true to our beliefs and what is right, it hurts.
What makes this worse is that my daughter then went back to school and started telling her friends about the incident with a pretty good mark the side of her head, which prompted her teacher to ask her about it. My daughter then tells my fiance’ on the way home that she told everyone I hit her. After she’d gone to bed after that first day back at school, my fiance’ told me what had occurred. Of course, I broke down. Here I am deeply studying love and spirituality and now because of one uncharacteristic choice I’m being painted as a child abuser with her friends and teacher at school. Initially, I was like “Why would she do that?” I hadn’t considered that I didn’t prompt her to hide anything. I wouldn’t do that because I would never go counter to what I’d taught her previously about being honest. I’ve always taught her that if someone “hurts” her that she should tell no matter what. Now here I was, the person who hurt her (in that moment) upset that she was telling and painting a picture of me as, “a heartless bitch who beats her kid.”
LESSONS
In mid-conversation with my fiance, she got out of bed and saw me in a total cry fest and felt guilty for having said anything. I told her that I was upset because I made a wrong choice that I was embarrassed about. I asked her if she would like it if I told everyone about her bad behaviors and left out all of the good stuff. This whole situation really made me think deeply about humanity and our negativity bias. I’ve been a great mom and in one wrong choice, I’m cast as the “mom who hit her.” It also made me see my intense fear of being judged by other people. It spiraled me into a worst case scenario/catastrophizing train of thought where I envisioned DCYF coming to my house with the police to pull me out in handcuffs and send her off to foster care. It awoke my self-loathing where I became clouded and found it hard to see any of the good within myself as a result of the situation. I was under attack… my demons were fully awakened and took the opportunity to kick the shit out of me in this moment. It intensified my resolve that hitting is never the answer. Finally, it helped me to realize that we need help with parenting through this phase of her life and stripped me of denial around the fact that it might be helpful to get her working with a professional who can help us work through the challenging behavior she’s been exhibiting.
In addition to my own demons, it forced me to look at people with more compassion and fully realize that sometimes people’s circumstances are the result of one wrong choice. All it takes is one bad moment to spiral someone into hell. Had it not been for the skills and practice I’ve been acquiring this year, this situation would have thrown me into the pit of despair for a lot longer than it had. I’m learning to rebound much quicker than I ever have and am able to get back up and quickly return back to love in moments where I fail to be the love that I wish to see in the world. I’m actively witnessing “the crazy” that ensues in my own mind, forecasting how situations are going to go before they even happen, ruminating about what action was taken in the past. This situation made it really clear for me how important it is to be fully present in the moment and I am proud of myself for being able to center myself back into the present once again.
YOUR TURN
What choice have you consciously made that threatened to eat you alive? How did you overcome? If you haven’t yet overcome, what are you battling with? Maybe I can help.