Vulnerability Takes Courage
Opening yourself to another person renders you vulnerable and invites you to soften even when you’re afraid. Sometimes in relationships, your defense mechanisms kick in and you may selectively choose what you want to share to stay safe and when people get close you push them away. Vulnerability takes courage.
In our Rare Mothers in Relationship Workshop, we explored what makes us feel vulnerable, how we defend against vulnerability and how to be compassionate with ourselves and set healthy boundaries. As a Rare mother, you are familiar with the territory of vulnerability. If you have contemplated whether or not to have another child, you have experienced a specific flavor of vulnerability.
Avoid Comparison
Perhaps you feel vulnerable when your family sends photos of the cousins who don’t have a rare disease? It can be hard not to compare. Having a child with a Rare disease for which there is no cure creates tremendous vulnerability.
Maybe early on in your Rare child’s life you thought a diagnosis would be the answer to your prayers, only to discover you were just beginning a long, rich and arduous journey. All you can do is walk by your child’s side and hold them close. Sometimes you might even have an aching back from bending over and holding them up because their own legs won’t.
Take Care of Yourself
It’s important to be strong and tend to yourself. See if you can release any idea that you are in charge of keeping your kid alive. What if you could trust and accept that this is the path you are walking together. What would it take for you to surrender to what is?
You need to take care of yourself like a fox in a den in the wintertime. If the fox does not retreat into the den and get warm, she will freeze to death. Take time to nurture and nourish yourself even if it’s for a few minutes here and there. It adds up.
Acceptance
How do you accept that this is your path in life? Do a daily practice. Take time to fill the coffers of acceptance.
A Practice to Support Acceptance
Memorize the good moments. When you are having an uplifting moment with your Rare child, watching a sunset, walking barefoot on the earth, laughing with a friend, or resting into a warm embrace with your partner, pause. Open all your senses to the moment and receive it fully. By doing this, you fill your coffers and as Rick Hanson, PhD says, “hardwiring your brain for happiness.”
And remember, happy and sad don’t cancel each other out. They coexist.
You can cushion your experience of the sad moments. Perhaps as a child you raked the leaves in your yard and created a huge pile, then you took a running start and fell into the leaves. They cushioned your fall. The positive moments are like a cushion. Take time to let them hold you.
Coming up this week: Rupture & Repair
An intimate relationship is a dance of coming close and moving apart--inevitably, being in a relationship dance will include occasional fights or ruptures, and making up or repair. This week we will discuss how to make swift repairs and what gets in the way of being the one to initiate a repair.
Join us
Our next meeting is on Tuesday at 10 AM PST. We would love to have you there. Being together in this way is an opportunity for you to share your heart and have authentic connections with other Rare mothers who know what your life is like and understand you.
Come as you are. Your presence is a contribution.
