Hello again,

One of our little bunnies died yesterday.

And each one of us in the family – my daughter and son, and my mum and I, we were all with the process in different ways.

My son said that he was sad, but he wasn’t particularly attached to the bunnies, so there were no tears.

My daughter had been the one who had wanted the bunnies and had chosen them, and although she doesn’t spend much time with them nowadays, she loves them dearly. She sobbed and sobbed for hours.

My mum looks after the bunnies. It’s usually her who feeds them, and every day she lets them out into a big enclosure and often spends several hours with them. She was very sad and cried on and off.

And I look after them a bit, and I cried on and off – and was also doing practical things like phoning the vet, and also being there with my daughter, being there with my Mum, checking in with my son, and so on.

When the vet was there I also found myself at times chatting and laughing, at other times sobbing.
 

What I see in myself now is an unconditional love for all the different parts.

The grief, and the fear, and the wanting to contribute to my daughter and my mum, and the parts of me that want to distract myself, and the parts of me that are curious, and the parts that release fear through laughter.

You know I’m so passionate about the power of tears and laughter to create healing.

And this was so clear. My daughter was the one who cried the most intensely and for longest, and she slept soundly and woke up this morning a bit subdued, but clear. She had really let those tears flow through her.

Whereas I hadn’t cried much and I woke up in the middle of the night and clearly feelings were bubbling. I’m glad my Inner Loving Mother just kept loving me unconditionally. It took me ages to get back to sleep again.

And the chatting with the vet was helpful too. And laughing a bit with her.
 

I remember feeling SO relieved when I first found out that laughter actually releases fear.

When I was a child, I was in a very scary situation and at the time I laughed. 

For so many years, I had big judgments of myself about laughing at that moment.

I thought that there was something ‘wrong’ with me.

So when I discovered that laughing releases fear, amongst other feelings, I could finally let go of those judgments and realise that actually I was scared, and that laughing to release fear is a natural thing.
 

I’m so passionate about this too, because I hear from so many parents that their child is doing something like biting them or being rough with their sibling or the parent sets an angry limit and the child laughs in these situations.

So many times parents come to me saying, “they clearly think it’s funny.”

And of course, if a parent thinks that their child is finding the thing that they find serious, something funny, then we are so much more likely to get frustrated and angry.

Parents also often feel really relieved, and also sad, when they realise that their child isn’t laughing AT them, but is actually feeling scared in those situations.

Knowing our child is scared means we are so much more likely to respond in compassionate and effective ways rather than in harsh ways.