Aware Parenting and Listening to Emotions is Not Spoiling

Was calmer today. Woke up early to seize the day, and because I was so tired that I fell asleep in a hurry last night. After crying for a while after watching Where Are My Children, I came to realize that the trauma I go through is indeed from my pain of being adopted even though it is not conscious, and I need to connect it more in order to be a whole person. I felt like I would be struggling inside until I do something about it, like get therapy and accept it, like the mother in the movie who lost her children to human social services and never gave up to find them. When she said that nobody understands her and most people stay away and think she is crazy, because of the obsessiveness about her lost children, it hit me like a lightening bolt that my life was the same in some ways. However, I never had the pre-trauma personality, so I am forever feeling crazy with no reason to trace it to. I admired when she found a man who actually respected her pain and held her through it, not calling her crazy like the others. It was possible.

I brought it up with husband, and said that he doesn't notice my pain, and aids me feeling crazy. He was defensive, but finally admitted to not getting through his own issues and the need to work on them in order to be more "alive." I realized what our pain from our ptsd was doing to our baby, preventing us from seeing how we love her and living in the moment with happiness and gratitude. That is a big reason for us to get emotionally healthy.

Finally, I feel like life will never get passed this bump if I don't acknowledge my pain, no matter how difficult. I will never let myself succeed and accept outside love and reassurance. I know how good it feels, but it is fleeting until I develop it inside.

Today was a good day. Listened to my needs to get out, even though I felt like a loser and unspiritual hypocrite for enjoying myself, and went to the neighborhood next to ours in order to see new things. Walked pretty far just to feel accomplished and get pictures to send my birth father, even though it was not my biggest desire. I guessed that sometimes you have to go through hard times in order to get the happiness and accomplished feeling, even though it is not so fun for the moment. Remind yourself what is important to you. It helped because I was able to be more present with my daughter with a goal in mind. Not feel like an aimless bum. She enjoyed seeing me happy, and I let her run freely in the store. Until she cried for me when she lost sight of me. I was pretty sure she would not get away due to The Continuum Concept, which reads that toddlers have survival instincts that need to be honed in order for them to feel confident. A store keeper carried her to me, saying she was lost, and I apologized to them. I think maybe she was trying to gain attention from me, or recreating a trauma of losing me so she can cry it out. I held her and listened.

I see that when I listen to myself she calms down, such as putting her to sleep and she was crying and I just was on my phone because my nerves where racing. She calmed down herself.

I do not think that giving in to babies to calm them is bad, if it is not running from their feelings and you truly feeling like giving to them with your whole heart. She whines a lot when doesn't feel good, but I don't call it being spoiled... I see an aware baby expressing her feelings. At least she shows feelings. I allow her to have them. Then try to do what I can to help. Not to shut her up.

God made man not to be alone, so we do not need to be above what He wants. We must pay attention to our human needs. I love this teaching, because it shows that spiritual bypassing is not what we need to do to be spiritual. We cannot be our true selves if we ignore our bodily emotions and needs. We are on this earth to bring our bodies up to spiritual level, as we can.