Mama, You Are Enough by Claire Nicogossian

Mama, You Are Enough by Claire Nicogossian

Author:Claire Nicogossian [Claire Nicogossian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Page Street Publishing
Published: 2020-06-18T00:00:00+00:00


chapter 12

fear is a great teacher

how embracing what you are afraid of helps you to develop trust and calm

Being a mother is learning about strengths you didn’t know you had, and dealing with fears you didn’t know existed.

—Linda Wooten

Motherhood is filled with many moments of uncertainty, from the first night at home with your child, to the first fever and the cries that you can’t seem to soothe. Over time we adjust to the uncertainty of motherhood, finding a new rhythm and confidence and knowing what our child needs by going through a decision tree to problem-solve until they are safe, content, and calm. Then there are the shadow emotions that take anxiety and fear to a whole new level, catching us as moms off guard. We experience these shadow emotions on a continuum of intensity, from being afraid, on the mild end of the continuum, to becoming scared and frightened, in the middle of the continuum, to feeling terrified, on the severe end of the continuum.

In motherhood, being afraid is feeling fear in the form of apprehension regarding something that hasn’t happened yet (such as being afraid the first time your child rides the bus to school). An example of being scared—a state of nervousness, fear, anxiety, or panic—is when your child is riding a bike and falls, and you just know their cries mean they’re really hurt. Until you can get to them to help, you’re feeling scared. Feeling frightened is a fearful response to something sudden that happens. For example, the first time you go to your child’s room in the morning, only to find they’re not in the crib, they’ve learned to crawl, but much to your surprise, looking into an empty crib creates an incredible fear response! When frightened, your adrenaline surges until you realize your baby has just learned how to climb out of the crib! Feeling terrified is an intense fearful response to a situation or imagined scenario or thought; for every parent, terror is losing your child in a store (even for a minute) or seeing something horrible in the news about a child.

Moms I’ve supported have shared some of the reasons for feeling these shadow emotions:

• They are afraid harm could happen to their child (or them).

• They are scared of being separated from their child.

• They are frightened by the intensity of love and responsibility that comes with being a mom.

• They are afraid of turning into their mothers.

• They are frightened when their baby sleeps through the night for the first time.

• They are scared of their child growing up and blaming them for something they did or didn’t do.

• They are afraid of a situation, person, or event.

• They are scared of making mistakes or “messing up” as parents.

• They are terrified of getting a disease or illness that has afflicted other family members (e.g., Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, or cancer).

• They are afraid of losing themselves and who they once were now that they are mothers.

• They are scared that something will happen to them and they won’t be able to raise their child.



Download



Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.