Hello!

I remember the first women’s circle I went to, when I was in my early twenties.

Each woman had an experience of their feet being bathed lovingly in rose scented water by the other women.

I spent the whole group feeling intense grief and crying.

Why?
 

When we receive what we’ve been longing for, we often also connect with the feelings we experienced when we were longing for that, and DIDN’T receive it.

I wonder if you’ve ever noticed that in yourself?

I imagine you want a loving relationship with your partner, and perhaps your partner touches you lovingly, and you want to move away, because you feel grief or rage bubbling up?

Maybe that’s helping you remember times when you didn’t receive such love.

I imagine you want to have a fun and connected relationship with your child, and perhaps your child wants to play a really fun game with you, and you find yourself finding lots of excuses to actually play with them.

Maybe that’s helping you connect with times when you were a child and wanted to play with your parents or other children, and they wouldn’t play with you.

Maybe you go to a workshop that’s filled with love and connection and you find yourself sobbing?
 

Our psyches are amazing things. 

When we experience something in the present that reminds us of something in the past in some way, those feelings come up for expression, and to be met with loving compassion.

If this resonates with you, perhaps you’d like to reflect on what the present situation might be reminding you of. We don’t need to know that situation for healing to happen, but often it helps us be compassionately loving with the feelings if we understand what they are really about.
 

You may have noticed a similar thing in your child.

One way you might have noticed is if they are upset, they might say, “Don’t look at me,” or, “Go away.”

If you reflect back on your own experience as a child, if you ever said that to your parents, what did you really want to happen?

Often it’s the opposite. They want us to be there, listening, loving them, reflecting back their feelings.

Some of the feelings might be about times that they wanted us to be close and we weren’t around, either physically or emotionally.

Have you noticed something similar in your child?

What can be helpful as a response? 

I find the most helpful thing to remember is just being there with compassion, whether that’s with ourselves, or our child.

I give lots of tangible examples of compassionate responses to ourselves and our children in my Inner Loving Mother, Outer Loving Mother book, if you’re interested in finding out more! 

And there’s a “not quite so early bird” for my Inner Loving Presence Process Course, if you’ve been thinking of finding more compassion for yourself that way!

Here’s to more compassion, for ourselves, and our children!

Love,

Marion

xxx