Shadow Work For Parents

Our children need us to see, hear, and accept them for who they are. Instead, we often react to their behavior out of our own wounding. In this powerful and intimate shadow work journey, Catherine guides you in lovingly integrating the part of you that is triggered by your children's behavior. Using the portal of feeling and body sensation that arises when you experience the trigger, you will journey back to a memory in which you felt similarly and compassionately witness your young self.

Transcript

This is a shadow work healing meditation for parents.

And the purpose,

My highest intention for you is that it will help you to see,

Hear,

And accept your children exactly as they are instead of reacting to the wounds from your own past that you project onto them.

And everyone does it.

It doesn't make you a terrible person.

In fact,

We can't help but respond to our kids based on how we learned to be human in our own upbringing.

It's just that we need a process like shadow work to see exactly what the root causes are of our current patterns of reaction because we've often repressed the pain of our past into the unconscious.

And that's what this meditation is all about,

To help you discover within yourself the hidden pain that wasn't witnessed,

That wasn't compassionately held when you were small so that you won't be triggered as much by your kids because that's what a trigger is from the perspective of shadow work.

It's like a beautiful pointer to exactly what needs integrating in our own psyches,

Exactly that in our unconscious that needs to be brought to light in order that we become whole in all of what we are,

In order that we meet our kids for exactly who they are and can love and accept them even in the ways and actually especially in the ways that they are that we couldn't be when we were small because the fact is is that we're often triggered by a behavior in our kids that exactly mirrors that which we could not be when we were small.

So you can take this experience today in one of two directions depending on what feels resonant to you.

The first direction you can take it is to work with a trigger like I've mentioned before.

So if there's a behavior in your child such as whining,

Crying,

Anything really,

Refusing to eat,

Whatever really gets on your nerves and irritates you in a way that you might think,

Oh,

This is really over the top.

That's what I mean by a trigger and that will be a great portal for you today to really get to the root cause of that triggering in your own past so that you won't react to your kids in that way anymore.

The second direction you can take this in if there perhaps isn't a trigger that is obvious to you is you can take something about your kid that you just admire and maybe in over the top kind of way that you think is just so incredibly amazing about them.

Like with my daughter,

I just can't stop talking sometimes about how incredibly expressive she is.

But you know what?

It's because that expressiveness is in my own shadow.

I was an expressive kid who wasn't allowed to be expressive when I was little.

And thus I'm projecting onto her that it's an incredible quality,

Which it is,

But it's just a little too much cause it's about me and not about her.

Do you see what I mean?

So again,

You can either use a trigger as a portal today with your child or you can use something that you just really,

Really admire about them and maybe a little too much of a way.

All right.

So with that in mind,

We'll settle down now for about 15 to 20 minutes of this experience.

So find a place where you can be child free,

I know,

Right?

Child free for about that long or longer in privacy,

Where you can be very comfortable.

You might want some water,

Some tissue by you somewhere because chances are you'll be experiencing some pretty strong emotion or maybe a little bit or maybe a resurfacing of a memory.

So just be prepared for that.

Once you arrive in a comfortable seat,

Perhaps lying down,

Start to take some very deep breaths.

Breathing into your abdomen,

Noticing where your breath is,

Just naturally right now without any judgment at all.

Has it been a stressful day with your kids?

Are you breathing shallowly in your chest perhaps?

Is it a stressful day with your kids?

Are you breathing shallowly in your chest perhaps?

Can you soften the belly just a little bit,

Inviting a deepening breath lower in the body?

Can you imagine breathing into your feet and the pelvic floor with every exhale,

Allowing the body to become heavier here,

Feeling supported by the weight of the body?

Allowing the body to become heavier here,

Feeling supported by the surface you're on.

Imagining that your ancestors who are also parents are supporting you right now as well to heal yourself,

To meet your children exactly as they are,

To create in this way a more compassionate world.

So keep breathing,

Knowing that you are so supported on this journey.

So many ancestors before you were triggered by their children and didn't know how to heal it.

You're different.

You're choosing with great courage to use your experience to heal yourself and future generations.

So just let yourself feel the immensity of that for a moment.

The gift you're giving not only to yourself,

But to humanity.

From this place of support and relaxation,

I invite you now to bring to mind that behavior of your child or children that really irritates you,

That triggers you,

Or again,

That which you really look up to.

See,

Feel,

Sense yourself with them as they're doing what they're doing here.

And notice now sensations in your own body as you're with them.

What's your chest feel like here?

Is there a tightness,

Constriction perhaps?

Something else?

What's your belly feel like?

What's your belly feel like?

Simply name whatever is arising for you in your body and accept it.

There's no way to do this wrong and there's no feeling that's wrong.

Checking in with yourself now and naming the emotions or emotion that this behavior brings up for you.

And really allowing that feeling or feelings to amplify now,

To take up space so that you can feel the change that's coming to you.

And then,

Just let yourself feel the change that's coming to you.

And then,

Just let yourself feel the change that's coming to you.

Filling the room with them.

No shame here.

If these are challenging feelings,

It's so normal to feel parent guilt about feeling this way toward our kids.

If we're angry,

Frustrated,

Upset,

About feeling this way toward our kids,

If we're angry,

Frustrated,

But it's completely normal and we need to feel this to heal it.

Remember that these feelings that arise are about you and not them.

They're about your own past.

So when you've named the emotions that are here,

Really allow yourself to feel,

See,

Sense this whole constellation of feeling and sensation that is your reaction to their behavior,

The body sensation,

The emotions.

And now,

All of these emotions are about you and not them.

And now,

I will invite you to allow your mind to show you the experience in your past where you felt this similar feeling constellation,

Something from your own childhood.

Whatever arises as your first impression is the right thing.

Try not to think about what makes sense because it might not.

What experience in your childhood felt like this?

When you arrive there,

Really drop into that time and place.

If it's difficult for you to come up with a memory,

Which is very normal by the way,

Especially when our childhood is difficult,

We didn't feel safe,

We often don't remember.

So if that's the case for you,

Just allow your mind to take you to an age that you felt that way.

And really allow your imagination to create that version of you at that age.

Wherever you are now,

Imagine that the strongest version of your current adult parent's life or your parent's self is standing at a respectful distance away from your child's self and looking at him,

Her,

Them.

Just looking.

Witnessing what's happening and breathing,

Allowing your mind to really show you the reality of this time and place.

It might be very difficult to see.

Keep breathing here,

Knowing that if at any point it becomes too difficult,

Simply disengage from this process.

Do whatever you need to comfort yourself and you may or may not be able to do so.

Do whatever you need to comfort yourself and you may or may not return to it.

Deep breath as you see,

Sense and feel yourself at that age.

Notice the body language of your young self.

How would you describe it?

And now notice if your child self naturally is inclined to look into your eyes,

If they notice you or not.

If so,

That's great and if not,

That's also great.

Just allowing them to be exactly as they are throughout this process.

We have no intentions of changing them or making them any certain way.

Pure witnessing here.

So look now into your child's self's eyes or if they're not making eye contact,

Just look at them and name what you see,

The feelings that are there.

What do you really see behind those eyes?

Name the emotions.

Take just another few moments to name what you see in your child's self's eyes.

What do you see behind those eyes?

What do you see behind those eyes?

Name what you see in your child's self's eyes.

And now I invite you to begin to mirror back to them what they feel.

This is called validation.

And it's very likely to be the thing that you didn't receive at that time in your history.

The famed trauma therapist,

Peter Levine once said that trauma isn't the thing that we experience,

It's the pain that we hold inside in the absence of an empathic witness.

So we are now that empathic witness.

And we're going to validate exactly the pain that wasn't seen.

Or if you're doing the second direction,

Validating perhaps the joy that wasn't fully seen that you experienced.

For example,

Sense,

Hear yourself telling your child self,

I see that you're all alone.

I see that you're sad.

And I'm going to tell you that you're all alone.

I'm going to tell you that you're sad.

I'm going to tell you that you're sad.

I see that you're full of joy.

There's no one to share it with.

I see that you feel worthless.

Whatever it is,

Mirror it back to them now for another couple of moments.

Really feeling that this is from your heart directly to theirs.

I see that you're all alone.

I see that you're full of joy.

And if it's difficult for you to feel a heart connection to your child self,

Know that that's also very normal.

And approach this like,

If I did feel a heart connection to my child self,

How might that feel right now?

When you've mirrored back to them what really feels needed,

Then really look at them again and ask them a very sincere question.

What do you really need?

What do you really need?

If they don't know what they need,

Then that's completely okay.

And just mirror back that it's okay to not know what you need,

Keeping your heart open to them however they are.

If they've told you what they need,

See,

Sense and feel yourself meeting that need.

As long as they're open to you being the one to meet it,

They may prefer another person or perhaps an animal.

So just be open to that and let your intuition guide you here.

If they say something like,

I need love,

That's more general,

You can ask them,

For example,

How would you love to experience that love right now?

Or if they say,

I need safety,

You can ask,

What would feel really safe to you right now?

And then see yourself meeting that need for them.

Taking a few more moments here to meet their needs.

Also being open that they may need space or to run away.

And that's perfect too.

Taking one more moment here to meet their need or to just continue to validate and mirror back to them what they experience.

Check in with yourself about whether anything else is needed here for this process to feel complete.

Is there anything else that they need?

You can ask them.

Really breathing into your heart and experiencing the feeling of your younger self having their needs met,

How does that really feel?

Is that something that you want to do?

Is that something that you want to do?

Is that something that you want to do?

Is that something that you want to do?

How does that really feel?

Allowing that feeling to fill you up from the inside out.

And when that process feels complete enough for now,

Knowing that you might be doing this a lot and returning a lot,

Feel yourself with great sincerity connecting heart to heart with your younger self and telling them that in a few moments it will appear as if your consciousness will shift away from them.

But really you can never leave them because they live in you and you live in them.

You are one with them.

Really check in to make sure that they understand that.

And if they're having difficulty,

Just really ask them,

What do you need?

What do you need to be comfortable with this?

What do you need to be comfortable with this and meet that need?

When it feels like they understand that you're not really leaving them at all,

That you're with them forever,

With great gratitude and compassion for your child self,

Slowly begin to imagine the room that your present day self is in.

The walls,

The surface you're on.

And begin to deepen the breath in your body here.

Allowing your inhales to begin to draw you back into the present moment right here.

In this present moment where you are now a parent,

A parent to a child or children who mirror yourself back to you so that you may heal and so that you may heal the world.

So just breathing deeply here,

Arriving again.

And my hope is that this experience is something that's helpful for you to do often.

And maybe one day you won't even need to be guided through it.

It will just be second nature to ask yourself,

Even quite casually in a moment,

For example of being triggered or of holding your child on a pedestal,

Just ask yourself,

What is this connected to in my past?

What part of me needs to be brought back,

To be brought to light here?

I thank you so very much from the bottom of my heart for this courageous and important work that you're doing as a parent in this very challenging role that is also the most rewarding thing we could ever do.

Reviews

Thank you for the beautiful, heart-enriching practice ♥️🙏

With tears in my eyes, thank you so much for this profound inner Journey! I feel like this will help me so much in healing the wounds of my inner child and feel more connected with my young children. Thank you!🙏✨️

I found this very helpful for me being an auntie! Thank you Catherine 🙏✨✨✨❤️

This is what I needed. My inner child was heard today .

This is a safe, loving focused experience. Thank you🧡

Wow! This was exactly what I needed to experience today. I have been struggling with my triggers and parenting my six year old through some tough behaviors and this brought me right to the root of it all. This practice will definitely be a go to for me, thank you so much!

I did this meditation because I knew I was being called to do some shadow work. After I journaled about what was coming up, it was my 20 year old daughter and the triggers that I have when I’m with her. This mediation was key to me seeing my own needs as a child to feel empowered and not given up on. To be given tools and help instead of assume I can do it on my own. I have been responding that way to my daughter. Not showing her I believe in her but stepping back and just getting frustrating that she isn’t pulling herself up by her bootstraps. Just like I needed help when my highschool grades took a dump and I needed someone to believe in me and sit beside me to help me get back on track, I need to do the same for my daughter (who hasn’t driven a car since her accident in April). I am being passive and hoping she will figure it out- when I need to be empowering and show her I believe that she can overcome these hard things. And sit with her as she practice driving again. Be with her- even through the fear and frustrations. Letting her know she is strong and I believe that about her. Thank you soooo much for this meditation. It has come at a critical time in my life with my daughter. So incredibly grateful for your gift to help others heal through this sort of work 🙏

Definitely needed this! I am babysitting our grandkids and they are a handful. I really need this! Thank you kindly for this meditation! 🤗🤗🤗🤗🤗🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

An absolutely incredible guided experience for all parents! Thank you for this 🫶💓✨

It’s a good one if you are willing to be honest with yourself.

Wow. Incredible meditation! Never looked at my triggers this way.

Absolutely beautiful and painful and healing. I will be back.

Thank you 🙏🏼 what an incredibly therapeutic meditation. It has been very impactful. Thank you again ✨💛✨

Absolutely beautiful. Catherine’s work is so profound. I’m so glad I found her.

This was a very difficult meditation in an emotional sense. But I am so glad I did it. I learned a lot about myself. 💖

Wow. Thank you for creating this. So powerful. Helped me gain insight into some of my triggers, but also more fundamentally grappling with what my childhood really was like.

Wow. This was beautiful and painful. Ending Generational trauma is hard but I will continue to do the work. Thank you!

Extremely powerful. I can see using this many times and getting many insights. Thank you.

Amazing. Thank you very much for this opportunity to explore the challenges of today from this honest and reflective perspective ❤️.

That was so healing. Thank you.