by Linda Michie, Executive Director and Founder at Wishing Well Adoption & Family Services
If at all possible, before you have children, heal yourself. If you already have children, start today. Deal with your old hurts and resentments. Put to rest your old pain, family grudges, and childhood disappointments. Pack up your past and throw it in a garbage can….or you will unintentionally deliver it, first class, to your kids.
Our children, who are born with open hearts, are sponges to our stuff.
They take in everything. They watch us, hear us, feel us, even when we don’t know they are paying attention. We don’t have to tell them that we have prejudices or biases, they can feel them and they know. They will adopt our stuff if we’re not careful to heal ourselves.
When I was very young my father left us and my mother tried to raise us alone. A very troubled man was aware of our situation and broke into our house in the middle of the night. He tried to harm my mother. She was terrified of the dark after that. It took us a half an hour to lock up the house every night and then we would sit with the lights on. Afraid.
I grew up terrified of the dark.
When I had children of my own, my husband worked at night. And I was alone, with my children, in the dark, every night, afraid.
I woke up one day and realized that I had only taken on my mother’s fear. It wasn’t my own fear. I literally had nothing to be afraid of.
So the first night I sat on the top stair to the cellar with the door shut and the lights off until I was calm. My kids were in bed. We were safe. We lived in a wonderful little town in Vermont, about as crime-free as you could get in the 80s. So I sat there until I was calm.
The second night I sat on the second stair, the third night on the third stair, and so on, until I was walking around the basement in the pitch black in the night alone….and I was OK. I was fine. I was safe.
Oh boy I want to tell you this wasn’t easy. It felt wrong in every way you could imagine. But…
I got rid of that awful fear that wasn’t even mine. It took a long time and a whole lotta guts. But to this day I walk around my house in the dark at night alone feeling safe, grateful for my wisdom to heal myself.
I did not pass my fear to my children. I did not teach them to be afraid of my mother’s assailant from long long ago. They are not afraid of the dark. They will even be surprised to hear this story.
Reach down deep in your heart and find what needs to be healed in you….for your children. And heal it.
End the cycle. Start anew. Bring a new legacy to your children. One of peace and love and skill.
And if you need help call (757) 739-2118, and we’ll get you a coach and walk through it together.
Linda Michie
Linda has worked in the child welfare field since 1999 and is a Licensed Child Placing Agent.
Wishing Well assists in domestic adoptions in the state of Virginia, and provides parenting coaching, and supervised visitation in Virginia Beach, VA.
Latest posts by Linda Michie (see all)
- …More on Home Assessments, Custody Investigations, and Home Studies - February 1, 2019
- Supervised Visitation Details - December 10, 2018
- The Problem of Overpraising - September 6, 2018