YOU WILL BREAK

Dear Mama Healing Trauma,

You were born to become the cycle breaker - your children's greatest source of love and not their greatest source of pain. 

The one who breaks generational curses. The one who sets themself on fire to burn brighter than the world around them. The one who looks back at all the pain that came before them and proudly declares, "This shit ends here with me.”

The one who refuses to inherit family dysfunction.

The one who changes family patterns.

The one who rises from the ashes again, and again, and again. 

You were created to become the one who does the insanely difficult work it takes to heal, but I have to be honest, the insanely difficult work it takes to heal is going to be the greatest battle you will ever fight.

It’s going to take you longer, push you further, and cost you more than you could ever possibly imagine. It’s going to require every. single. ounce. of strength, courage, and tenacity you’ve got to keep on fighting while the world around will tell you, “that it’s making you crazy. That you should get over it. That you should let it go. That you should just give up.”

But you won’t get over it. 

You won’t set it down. 

You won’t let it go. 

You were born to become the cycle breaker, and your becoming is the most profound act of love you have to give to the world.

I can promise you all of this because I have become - and become - and become.

I have felt what you feel, I have lost what you lost, and I have hidden the things you hope no one can see. I have hurt people I love, and I have protected people who cut me because the people who cut me the deepest were the ones who were supposed to protect me the most.

I love and adore my children the same way you love and adore your children, and I know how terrifying it is to love and need anything the way you love and need your children.

I know there is nothing you want more in this life than to protect your children from all the pain you’ve gone through, but I how insanely difficult it is to mother small children when your own inner-child still desperately needs to be loved and nurtured.

I know how challenging it is to navigate pregnancy when your mother was your first heartbreak - how triggering it is when your children reach the same age you were when your traumas began - and how hard it is to form healthy attachments to our children when love equals fear. 

I know how overstimulating tantrums can be when your nervous system is already shot - how much guilt and shame you bear every time one of your children is in any kind of pain - how your body panics when your babies cry.

I know what it takes to swallow your feelings, ignore your needs, and hide your pain behind a smile while you make the pancakes, do the laundry, and carry the mental load of everything.  

I know how much you hate yourself when all the anger, resentment, and rage you’ve been swallowing for too long finally comes exploding out of you because you are drowning and no one can show up for you.

I know how devastating it is when you finally throw a monstrous, raging fit and just need someone to come hold you and comfort you, but instead, unwittingly push everyone away because they interpret your inner child’s temper tantrum as an attack on them, instead of the wounded child inside you crying out, "for the love of God, can someone - anyone - please, please, please come meet my unmet needs?” 

But let me tell you what else I know…

I know that you are capable of mothering, nurturing, and attuning to every single one of your children's needs, even if your most primal needs for safety, security, and belonging were never met - even if you were never protected or nurtured, - even if you've been so busy surviving, providing, and fighting to survive that you still haven't healed no matter how hard you've tried.

I know you are capable of becoming the person your children turn to for protection, safety, and comfort—and that you are capable of responding to every one of their needs, instilling a belief within them that they are precious, perfect, enough, loved, magical, capable, delightful, and worthy - not because of what they do, earn, or achieve, but simply for existing - even if you still don't believe these things about yourself.

Even if you are downing.

Even if you are bleeding.

Even if you're breaking.

I know you don't have to heal to become a mother who is capable of setting themselves on fire for as long as it takes to ensure that everyone around you is okay - and that you can and will make sure everyone is okay, at the utter expense of your own mental health.

But the one thing I know above all else, the one thing I want you to know more than anything else is this:

You don't have to heal to break the cycle, but you do have to heal to be the person you were born to become.

You don't have to heal to break the cycle, but you do have to heal to find the joy and delight inside of your life that your children need the most.

You don't have to heal to break the cycle….

But if you don’t heal, you will eventually f*cking break.