Can we acknowledge wounds?
Seeing pain doesn’t mean we have to turn to blame
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Self reflection is hard. It is work. It can be intimidating for any of us to hold a mirror to ourselves, to our past, to our behavior. But hard work isn’t new to parents like us.
In my new book, The Five Principles of Parenting: Your Essential Guide to Raising Good Humans, two of the central principles - Reflection and Repair - came up quite a bit in the recent episode. Repair allows for growth. Repair acknowledges our humanity, our fragility, our strength. Repair is what makes the work on self-reflection possible because it involves healing ourselves, using insights to heal with others, learning from that which we’ve experienced. Repair is hopeful, generous and powerful.
“It's its own wound and its own burden to be raised by someone who is perceived as perfect.” Aliza Pressman, PhD
In this week’s episode of the Raising Good Humans Podcast, I talked with licensed marriage and family therapist, Vienna Pharaon, about the wounds we carry in childhood, and the wounds we may inadvertently give our children. What I really enjoyed about this conversation was the focus on not using our wounds, and the wounds of our children, as an excuse but instead as an acknowledgement. Recognizing our pain is the first step in dealing with it (Reflection), not a way to increase our anger, blame, or guilt. We learn about ourselves, work to understand our behavior, and bring our attention to relearning patterns in order to repair, not to cause more pain.
“When we're having outsized responses to things and it doesn't feel like it makes sense, these are inquiry moments. They are not invitations for you to be in shame. They're invitations for you to explore what is there for you.” Vienna Pharaon, LMFT
The five (hey, I love a 5!)) wounds that Vienna identifies in her book are: worthiness, belonging, prioritization, safety, and trust. As it relates to our experience being parented, examples of these wounds may include not feeling worthy of love or attention, feeling like you were “othered” in your family unit, not being prioritized in terms of love and attention, experiencing abuse or other threats to safety, and a lack of trust. In moments, many of us can see the areas where we may have origin wounds, and where our pain may linger or continue today. As this conversation suggests, the work is to find existing pain and go deeper. To gain insight, awareness, and understanding that allows the pain to lessen. To reset patterns we carry.
“Our unwanted patterns are pains’ way of grabbing our attention … Pain would like for us to turn back to it, and honor it, and see it, and name it, and be with it, and process it, and witness it, and grieve it, so that it can loosen its grip on us.” Vienna Pharaon, LMFT
In reflecting on our childhood pain, we also begin to understand the context surrounding it. As we discuss, many of our wounds were not the “fault” of our parents, or inflicted intentionally. That means that understanding our children’s wounds (or potential wounds) is not about blame. Wounds can happen in scenarios that are out of our control, could be what is perceived as a lack of prioritization because we need to work long hours, or because we have a child with complex medical needs to care for as well. Knowing and understanding that is sometimes enough for us to be able to create repair. We can acknowledge this wound for our child, and their wish (or ours) that it was a different way, and yet, we may not be able to change our course. The naming of it can mean so much.
“Sometimes things hurt and we just need to be able to say that without the caveats, or explanations, or judgment.” Aliza Pressman, PhD
As parents who want to grow, we also need to be able to receive feedback and really hear it. Not from a defensive, self-protective place, but from a place that protects our relationships with our children. We need to make space to hear their wounds and not turn to excuses, explanations, or shame. We want to hear them, acknowledge them, and create repair. Doing this may break the cycle of pain in their adult lives, and may help them to find forgiveness and understanding in their present.
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