When I found out that ‘The Emotional Life of Babies’ by Marion Rose, an Aware Parenting instructor, was coming out, I immediately ordered it into the local library. Whilst doing so I discovered to my great joy that it was already ordered, so I reserved it! What this book contains is a key distinction that is missing from the context of modern parenting: that babies have both “needs-feelings” (feelings); to communicate a basic need, such as hunger, toileting or wanting closeness, and “healing-feelings” (emotions); which are doorways to healing anything from birth to overstimulation. This needs to be shared. Everywhere.
When I heard that Callie Lamont, a local midwife, was preparing to hold prenatal classes, I jumped in and proposed a collaboration. This was a fantastic opportunity to share what I had learnt so far on my journey into Motherhood and parenting so that parents-to-be could also share in that value. Callie had a yes!
On my drive from Marahau to the Health Centre just outside of Tākaka, I was listening to one of Marion Rose’s podcasts about Sleep and an impulse dropped in about a practice to bring to my part of the class on the ‘newborn’. I was so glad about it because it seemed like a fun way to bring relevant information through experience!
I started by sharing some of my own journey so far related to missing the distinction of emotions and feelings in my own daughter, despite my own work within the context of Possibility Management. The fact that modern culture teaches us to help our children dissociate through the notion that crying is bad, has parents working harder than necessary to stop crying at all costs. Not only is this exhausting for the parents, it also has huge cultural implications and is why I am so passionate about this work. We are raising the next generation and therefore culture through our children. How we raise our kids matters.
I delivered the old and new map of feelings before facilitating a feelings check in, in partners; there were 4 couples in attendance. I backtracked when I noticed that the feelings were sometimes being talked about and not expressed and led a centering practice and started over. Some of these couples shared in this way for the first time, a doorway for deepening connection.
There were some challenging questions, one in particular related to feelings and behaviour which I didn’t manage to address in the session. Sometimes children’s big feelings are confused with behaving badly and the child gets punished, for example, a tantrum in a public place. If the child has a build up of unexpressed emotions, then sometimes they will simply need to express them when they reach the threshold at which the numbness bar has been set. If this is confused for being naughty, and punishment happens instead of holding space for the feeling to be expressed, then the child may learn to numb their feelings further. They learn that their feelings are not welcome here. This is where a lot of adults are at today and this work is about breaking the cycle of numbness, the idolisation of which has led to modern culture as it is today: a place where the destruction of life on earth can happen at an alarming rate because when you numb you can’t feel the pain of global collapse.
You learned that crying is bad.
You learned that when your baby cries, you must do something to make them stop.
To an extent, yes, this is true.
As a parent it is your job to ensure that your baby’s basic needs are met. If your baby cries because they are communicating (feelings) with you that they are hungry, cold or want to be held, then feed them, put a blanket over them or hold them.
And when all their basic needs are met and they are still crying, then what?
In addition to crying in order to communicate a basic need, your baby also cries to express emotions. Your baby knows intuitively what they need to heal.
And instead of trying to fix this, all that is required is for you to hold your baby in your loving arms, in stillness and with presence.
Listen to Rose O’Connor speaking more about holding space for her son Xavier to express emotions related to his birth experience here.
What a game changer. No longer would we see parents try for hours on end to jiggle and rock and bounce their baby to sleep, whether this be in arms, in a car or in a pram. This widespread notion that this is a requirement to aid sleep is actually helping our babies to learn already to dissociate and numb their feelings. By ensuring that all needs are met first, to rule them out, 'all' that is needed then is to listen to your baby communicating with you about something that happened to them. Not an easy task, when you also have unattended emotional backlog.
The couples got to then practise how they might go about this by an ingenious and fun activity which they found helpful before the baby comes!
If you want to get in on the experience, get in touch with Callie on 0272905220 for the next round of prenatal classes. Alternatively, book a coaching session with me.
I feel joy to have delivered this space and to plant these seeds of cultural transformation where they can grow alongside the children of the next generation.
