When Gratitude Feels Out of Reach: A Mother’s Day Reflection

I Want to Feel Grateful... But How?

I want to feel grateful for being a mother. I really do. But how?

Every Mother’s Day, I feel this pressure to think of all the positives and be grateful for my child and the true gift that he is, and how he made me a mother… and how much I am learning from my child, how much I am growing, and how much I am opening up to being a more grounded, present, more regulated and authentic person who is grateful for all the little things in life… BUT…

Yup, it’s a very big BUT….

I can only seem to think it in my head and not in my heart right now.

A Blocked Heart

Sure, I have many moments when I actually feel this gratitude for being a mother and how much I am learning to love unconditionally (something I was never taught or mirrored in my upbringing, which was more about being loved for being a certain way)... but today, right now, I don’t feel it. It’s blocked.

My heart feels blocked today.

As I contemplate this block, there is a closing off from all my feelings… a numbness of some sort, preventing me from feeling not just gratitude and love for being the mother of a hypersensitive, high needs beautiful boy (now teen), but also all the more vulnerable feelings that have accumulated over the years of parenting a child with such high needs, where none of the expectations I had of being a mother actually came to fruition.

When Grief Visits

Grief often joins me on Mother’s Day. It’s complex. It’s the grief of unmet expectations over the years: from not being able to breastfeed with ease, or travel freely with my baby in a sling, to not being able to spend time with friends and family like I thought I would or just enjoy a day out in a public place. 

It’s the grief of my bids for connection not always landing. Of realizing that the motherhood I imagined didn’t unfold.

So how am I supposed to feel grateful for being a mother?

To my conditioned mind and parts of me, this has all been a hell of a rollercoaster with a lot of negative to see... The lens through which this part of me looks is a lens of glass half empty, and hardship, hardship and more hardship.

Shame Lurks Beneath

As I sit here and further contemplate on this block on my heart that is protecting me from feeling, I feel another vulnerable emotion lurking underneath... shame.

You see, yesterday I was baking in the kitchen and my son kept asking for my attention (with his PDA and OCD he needs me to constantly give him attention and attend to the needs of his OCD, which is for me to repeat back things he says every 2 minutes). I was trying to make some new foods for him as he loves novelty and loves when I make yummy new recipes. But yesterday, I had a hard time multitasking and focusing on following the recipe and getting it right (perfectionist chef part at play here wanting things to turn out perfect!) and also being able to repeat back what he was saying every 2 minutes.

As I write this, I can feel a “defending” part of me coming up, asking me to explain to you that I am on a detox protocol for healing my gut and so my nervous system is challenged right now. This part also wants me to tell you that I was calm and okay for the 3 hours, but after 3 hours and with this baking task at hand, my nervous system went into overwhelm and my brain and nerves felt fried. This part of me doesn’t like me to feel this shame so it feels the need for me to explain and defend myself. I’m sure you can relate to this! Shame is a hard and awful emotion to feel, especially when I’m sharing it with others.

Rupture and Repair

Back to the baking episode... So, as I was trying to manage my own activation internally (but was inadvertently just holding it in), and at the same time trying to focus on the recipe and getting it right, I ended up dropping something and got so startled that I got really angry at the object I dropped. Then all the activation energy I was holding in just came bursting out in flames, unleashed and uninhibited and only able to see things in one way—it’s his fault! I subsequently got frustrated with my son and told him I cannot focus on answering his OCD every 2 minutes and focus on making these recipes for him... maybe next time I just won’t make anything and just focus on him instead. This caused my son to activate and now he was running around the house yelling, banging and throwing things.

So my defender is chiming in again here wanting me to tell you that although I lost my cool, this was actually so much better than in the past... I did not rage, I did not say really mean things, I did not drop into a depressive pit of despair (I have grown!)... I just got frustrated and with intensity said what in reality was the truth—that I didn’t have the capacity to give him what he needed and focus on making something new for him at the same time. But the delivery ignited shame in him and now we were in a full-blown rupture. (Okay, thanks defender part for trying to protect me from feeling too much shame—now let’s get back to talking about how not feeling the shame is actually not allowing me to feel gratitude either).

The Conundrum of Motherhood

This is the other conundrum of Mother’s Day... the lurking shame that a part of me feels for not being the perfectly calm mother all the time that my child so desperately needs. A mother who can accept ALL of him and all of his intense emotions and behaviors. A mother who can always regulate her own activation in order to regulate her child's. Even though I know in my mind and in my expertise that it’s not about being perfect, a part of me still feels bad, guilty... and shameful for losing my cool and then goes down the rabbit hole of all the times I hurt him by losing my cool and not allowing and accepting him for how he is showing up.

My defender part is now saying “But you only have to get it right 30% of the time! And it’s better to have rupture and repair than no rupture at all—this is what builds a nervous system that can handle stress because it knows it can repair from it!”... Thank you again, defender part, for trying to protect me from feeling the shame.

But not feeling the shame and allowing it to be witnessed and released is actually getting in the way of feeling the higher frequency emotion of gratitude because the block on my heart feels it needs to protect me from feeling anything now. The block on my heart is not allowing me to feel gratitude because it doesn’t want me to feel the shame either. If I open up my heart to feeling true gratitude and love in my body, then my body will want to bring up the vulnerable emotions of shame to be processed and released too. And right now, this just feels like too much.

The Source of the Pain

What causes this grief and shame to accumulate and build up in my system? I feel like I am always on a cycle of repeatedly healing another boatload of grief and shame in the face of mothering a hypersensitive high needs child, and it never seems to end. Where does this all come from?

Conditioning.

The challenge of why it’s so hard to be truly happy and grateful on Mother’s Day is because it is so filled to the brim with expectations of what it means to be a happy mother and be grateful for our kids.

Cultural and societal conditioning tells us that being grateful for being a mother is more about how great our kids turn out (according to the way society and culture deems success) and how perfect we can parent them and keep them in our control.

Conditioning is all the ways in which we learned to feel safe, loved, belonging and successful in life, and we look at our kids through these lenses and project it onto them. These early learnings and meanings we took on are what create our expectations, our dreams of how our kids should be and how we should be as a family and a parent.

This conditioning rears its ugly head over and over, especially when we choose to watch social media which makes us compare and feel like we are failing and everyone else is winning! It is this conditioning that causes us to have expectations of our kids, and only when those expectations are met, can we be happy and grateful.

But this is like wearing handcuffs or even like being in jail.

Because if you have a hypersensitive, high needs child, and you remain a victim to your conditioning, your expectations will never be met and you will always suffer.

Rewriting the Meaning of Motherhood

So the other aspect to being able to feel gratitude for all that is and all that your child is, is to change your subconscious and conscious definitions of what it means to be safe, lovable, belonging and successful in this life. We learn most of this when we are young. The conditioning becomes deeply wired into us, coloring the way we see our kids.

For example, when I was young my brain learned that I was safe, lovable, belonging and successful if I did well in school, looked perfect and pretty, was responsible, cared for others and was selfless, kind and giving at the expense of my own needs. My brain learned I had to be good at many things and be perfect to gain approval and love. It also learned that I should be more like others so I can belong, and that my child should be more like others and fit into cultural norms so that I can feel safe, loved and successful in life.

Now, I have a child that hasn’t gone to school in 6 years and has no interest in any sort of school-based learning. He has not yet gained the skills of being responsible for himself in many ways, he is so stuck in anxiety that he often cannot be kind or selfless. He needs so much control of others and his environment that we cannot have friends and family over (there goes belonging out the window!).

I have had to work on all the conditioning that gets triggered every day, telling me that because of my son’s behaviors and challenges that I am not safe, loved, belonging and successful and I am a bad mom (cue grief again, and self-criticism... and shame).

Conditioning, and how it makes us think how life “should be” and what a good life looks like, is what keeps us constantly triggered and reacting and piling up a boatload of grief and shame under the radar that then bubbles up so high on days like this that the part that blocks us from feeling any of it has no choice but to step in.

Allowing All That Is

I decided to go for a walk, since today I did have some time to myself, which was rare only one year ago. I went to the forest that I love which helps my body to regulate and for me to come back to my true Self. As I walked through the forest, I was not able to be as present at first, with my mind going strong with thoughts of feeling bad, then defending it, then thinking of other things unrelated. I became the watcher of all this and then I became aware of the practice that I am embodying more and more daily...

The practice of allowing all that is.

I allowed the thoughts to come and I just watched them curiously. Then I moved into feeling what was present in my body and I felt the sadness and grief... I allowed it to be there... I brought my hand to my heart to offer it some care and love. "This all makes sense and is understandable," I said to myself inside. As I allowed space for this grief, I felt some tears surface and I just allowed them to be there. 

I started to feel more in my heart... I was feeling again, and this felt good, even though it was vulnerable. Then I allowed myself to feel the "I feel bad/shame" feeling in my gut. "I just want to be a better mom," I heard inside. "I know...you’re doing the best you can, and all is okay," I said to myself inside. This brought in a greater feeling of warmth and love that began to envelop me.

As I walked, I became so present now to all the beauty around me in this forest... the beautiful budding leaves on the trees in this spring season... the bright purple flowers springing up from the ground... the glistening sun on the river along the forest path... and the warmth of the sun on my face. I felt so grateful to have this little haven to appreciate.

Then I became curious to notice how I felt about being a mother to my son, whom I love with all of my heart and soul. And then I felt it... immense love and immense gratitude. Tears welled up in my eyes... I was grateful for being able to feel this again.

Coming Back to Gratitude

As I walked, I began to think of all the things I am grateful for as a mother of a child who is so challenged in life, but has taught me so much. It is through the pain and suffering that I was able to find the path to learning and growing... a path I would not have found without him mirroring to me what I needed to heal.

There are many things I am grateful for today (finally!). I am grateful for learning how all the things I thought mattered before (like intellectual and material success) just do not hold the same weight anymore. I can see past this and know deeply that success is truly about learning who you really are and loving yourself for it, and not about what you do, how you’re perceived, or what you achieve. 

There is such a freedom that comes with letting go of being attached to these kinds of outcomes in life.

I am grateful for learning how to allow all that is, and when I do this, I can regulate, come back to the present, and it is only in the present moment when I ALLOW ALL THAT IS (i.e., my feelings, my son’s feelings, and even my husband’s feelings—still working on that one to be honest!) that I come back to who I truly am—a present and peaceful being with immense capacity for unconditional love and compassion for all, including myself. It is only from allowing all that is that I can find peace in the present moment and even joy and gratitude.

I am also grateful for having the time and space I needed today (thank you husband!), and to be able to have a wonderful dinner out with my mom and celebrate both of us.

Letting Gratitude Find You

Being a mom is probably the hardest job you will ever have. I know it is for me. This becomes especially true when you are tasked to raise a child who defies all the norms and expectations of society and your conditioning.

So, my message to you is to truly understand this—it’s not easy, and it’s okay if you’re not perfect or anywhere close to it. None of us were truly taught how to handle these intensities. But if your child chose you to be their mother (and I believe this on a higher level), then the truth is that you do have the capacity to handle this journey, and to learn and grow from the challenges.

You don’t have to force gratitude. Just let yourself begin by allowing all that is. Let it unfold.

Because it is through this practice of doing it for yourself that you become more of the calm, present, and resilient mother you want to be—and the one your child truly needs.

With love, Afshan