The Roadmap to Cycle Breaking
There is a universal cure to most behavioral difficulties that we all have access to, and it’s free! Yet, so many of us are either afraid or resistant to use it. Why could that be? I mean…it’s free, why wouldn’t we just simply, use it? Well, it just so happens that this free tool comes with a lot of history for many, so it’s not as simple as it seems.
The answer is connection.
Humans have a need to be connected with others in order to thrive. Even the most introverted introverts need connection. Connection fills up our cups, meets our emotional, physical, and mental health needs. Connection allows us to access resources and live. So what makes it so difficult for some of us to do this innate act of connecting with others, especially with our children?
Well, we learn to be with others through our experiences of our caregivers being with us. Our caregivers provide us with a roadmap of how to navigate our emotions and be in relationships with others, whether that includes friendships, intimate relationships, or our relationships with our children. Some individuals receive a beautifully laid out roadmap that takes the scenic route, and gets us to our destination without encountering roadblocks; others are not so lucky. Some of us receive roadmaps littered with speed bumps, construction zones, detours, ripped-off missing pieces, coffee stains, and dead-ends. Unfortunately for the latter individuals, that just becomes what we know. And we don’t know what we don’t know. That is, until we become adults and learn that there are other ways of being with other humans, and our way may not be the most functional.
Children have a funny and beautiful way of reminding us of the roadmaps we have been handed, and damn, is it a tough reminder. This reminder may come with resentment (Why was my roadmap so freakin’ tattered?!), anxiety (My roadmap has road hazard signs every mile, I must be on alert at all times!), and uncertainty and fear (My roadmap was missing pieces and I literally have no idea where I am going!).
When we have children, we are faced with the option to hand down the same shitty (or wonderful) roadmap that our caregivers handed us, following the same routes that are definitely the most comfortable because they are familiar, or, we may choose to create a new map, find a new route, and ultimately lead our future family line in another direction. Obviously, we want better, but wanting is not as easy as doing. Again, we don’t know what we don’t know. We have to learn something new, something that is foreign, something that feels uncomfortable.
For instance, your caregivers may have handed you a map to dealing with anger that included shutting down, stuffing the feeling as far down as it would go, and only dealing with it when it exploded like a pack of mentos in a Coke bottle. As a child, when you were angry, you were immediately dismissed, or overridden by your caregivers’ anger (Oh you’re angry?! Well, I’m angry that you would dare to be angry, so watch me be MORE angry!). So as a child, you learn to stuff it; you stuff it because that is what keeps you the most safe. The more you stuff it, the less seen you are, and the less you have to deal with your caregivers’ anger. You stuff it for survival. Only, you didn’t need to just survive unseen. You needed that safe connection from your caregiver; you needed their connection so you could thrive.
Inevitably, you become an adult; an adult who learned to survive, but did not receive the roadmap to Destination: Thrive. You never learned to connect with and deal with your anger because you never witnessed it being dealt with in a health way; your map is missing that route. And now you have children of your own, and you find yourself holding the same tattered map that your caregivers held. When your child gets angry, you feel your own rage, anxiety, and/or fear building up. You weren't allowed to let your anger out, so how can you support your child in letting theirs out? Anger was viewed as a negative feeling in your family (although there are no negative feelings; feelings are just feelings). Negative feelings must be stuffed. Only, you realize that wasn’t healthy, and you realize as a child that did not feel good. You want something different for your child. You want to connect with your child in their experience of anger and support them in feeling safe. But how the heck do you do that when you don’t even feel safe or connected to yourself in that moment?!
Remember when I said wanting is not as easy as doing? Well, wanting is the first step, doing is the second step, and it’s really like a giant step that you may need a ladder to get to. Many of us think that we break generational cycles just by DOING something different. For instance, not spanking, not yelling, not using time-outs. But it’s not just about DOING something that is different; it’s about teaching your body to FEEL something different. Cycle breaking must happen at the nervous system level.
What the heck does that mean?! Is this map I speak of in a different language? Let me explain.
So before all of the behaviors linked to our feelings happen (the yelling, the urge to spank, to send our children away, etc) we FEEL something. The feeling is the actual pin on the map where we need to re-route. For instance, when your child begins to experience anger and you witness them screaming thrashing, hitting, etc, it’s likely that you feel something bubbling up in your body first. You may feel flushed and hot in the face, you may feel your jaw clench, your heart rate increase, your thinking may get foggy, etc. Then, to mitigate these feelings, you unleash. Unfortunately, this is usually directed towards your child because your child is the perceived threat in this scenario, but really, the threat is your nervous system response reminding you of that god-awful road trip you went on with your caregivers, using their tattered, shitty old road map. You really need to connect with your child, but everything in your body is telling you the opposite: push away, squash, get rid of these feelings! So you can see, the change does not happen with simply changing your behavior; the change happens when you teach your body to feel something different right before and as those moments happen.
You must work to teach your body to feel safe in the presence of those uncomfortable feelings.
Teaching your body a new way of being in the midst of discomfort is a process. It’s not a change that automatically happens just because you have pin-pointed the when, and maybe even the why. How people work to send messages of safety to their nervous system may look different for each individual; some use deep breathing, some use tapping, and some have to do a lot of discovery and learning in therapy. Even once we start learning, it’s easy to fall back into the familiar, even if the familiar is shitty.
