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Archive for Personal Growth

When Parental Authority is Undermined

Posted on November 30, 2018
by Lisa Marchiano, LCSW
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For many women, learning to step into our genuine, inner authority will be a major piece of psychological work. The challenges of parenting can be part of what helps us find our firm stance, as we discern what values matter most to us, and become used to inhabiting our own “no” in the face of pressures from both our children and the culture. We may decide, for example, to go against the collective grain, and keep video games out of our home as our children’s friends all begin to play them. Standing up for our values will take courage and an integrated sense of our own deep knowing about what matters most to us.

Recently, I have heard stories in my practice of a mother’s authority being challenged on a different level. As our children grow older, we may find that our authority as parents is challenged by those around us, including other parents. As our children pass through the perilous terrain of adolescence, it is natural that they look outside the family for mentors to guide them to adulthood. At this stage, children need to separate from their family of origin psychologically, a process that requires discernment about what parental values will be kept, and which will be jettisoned. It is normal for there to be some friction between parents and children at this time. But when forces outside the family work to undermine parental authority at this point in a child’s development, a normal stage of negotiating separation can become a wedge inappropriately driven between parent and child. At such a time, it may be important for parents to stand up and reassert their authority in the interest of protecting their child.

My client Emily gave me permission to share the following story. Names and details have been altered to protect privacy. When Emily’s daughter Clara was 13, she made friends with a girl slightly older than her named Gretchen. Emily took an immediate liking to Gretchen and Gretchen’s mom Andrea. According to Emily, Gretchen’s family was artistic, eccentric, and interesting. Andrea and Gretchen welcomed Clara into their lives, and it wasn’t long before she was spending part of almost every day at their house. At first, Emily was pleased to see that Andrea and Gretchen were exposing Clara to new and interesting things. Emily gave permission for Clara to accompany them on occasional weekend camping trip with other families.

But Emily started to notice some changes in Clara. After spending time at Gretchen’s house, Clara would return home sullen and irritable, looking for any excuse to pick a fight with her parents. She became withdrawn, and spent most of her time alone in her room. She had always enjoyed accompanying her parents in their occasional attendance at a Unitarian church, but now she flatly refused, and became angry when asked whether she wanted to go. Emily was perplexed. Probing her daughter to understand what was going on, she asked Clara whether spending time with Gretchen made her unhappy. “No!” Clara responded with great heat. “You’re the ones who make me unhappy!”

Fortunately, Emily was now alert to the fact that something was amiss. She began doing some research into the “camping trips” that Clara had attended, and learned more about the values and beliefs of Andrea and her family. It turns out that Clara’s friend and her parents were part of a new age cult. They had effectively been indoctrinating Clara into their belief system, and while doing so, had undermined Clara’s attachment and connection with her mom and dad – and Emily’s parental authority. Once Emily realized what was going on, she moved deftly to re-establish her role in her daughter’s life, while helping her daughter get some healthy distance from Gretchen and her family.

When Emily told me about this incident, I could sense her fear. Had Clara been older, had things gone a little further, Clara might have estranged herself from her parents under the undue influence of Andrea and the cult. Emily also felt angry – at Andrea, but also at herself. She could see that she had been taken in by the charm of Andrea and her family, and that it had been convenient for her to let Clara become so attached to them.

Most parents won’t face a situation as extreme as Emily’s. However, many of us can relate to a time when someone outside the family came to have an inappropriate amount of influence over our child. At such a time, it can be important to be honest with ourselves about the need to take the time to reconnect with our children. It is our responsibility to make sure that we are the primary influence in our children’s lives. Afterall, it is likely that no one cares for or knows our children as well as we do.

In speaking about this incident, Emily and I referenced the fairy tale “The Pied Piper of Hamelin.” In the tale, the town of Hamelin is overrun by rats. The townspeople hire a piper with the magical ability to lure rats to their death with his music. When the townspeople neglect to pay the piper his fee, he lures the town’s children away. Interestingly, this tale is, as far as I can determine, the only Grimm’s fairy tale that is based on an actual event. The earliest written record from the town of Hamelin in Lower Saxony is a 1384 document that states, “It is 100 years since our children left.” According to historical records, a large number of the town's children disappeared or perished sometime in the 13th century, though the cause remains a mystery. The fairy tale is a fitting metaphor for those times when we may have allowed someone to exercise an inappropriate degree of influence over our child.

Reconnecting with our child in the aftermath of a disruption in our connection will require time and careful attention. Spending time with our child engaging in fun activities of his or her choice is a good way to cultivate a renewed attachment. We will also need to assert our parental authority in a loving and caring way. Re-establishing sensible boundaries and making our expectations clear will be important ways that we do this.

In 2006, Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Mate published their important and bestselling book Hold onto Your Kids in which they discuss the importance of parents being the most important and influential people in their children’s lives. There is much in this book relevant to the topic covered in this blog. Readers can also watch a lecture on the same subject by Dr. Mate.

Photo by Andrik Langfield on Unsplash

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Article

Parenting is a Journey, Not a Destination

Posted on November 15, 2018
by Lisa Marchiano, LCSW
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As my previously delightful daughter became sullen, surly, and withdrawn as she approached adolescence, I asked an older and wiser friend if the fun part of parenting lasted only a scant dozen years, and then was all downhill. Her response was elucidating. “It’s hard for a few years when they’re teens,” she said. “And then they start doing things that make you proud of them.”

Thankfully, my own kids are passing through the difficult teen years, and they are indeed beginning to do things that amaze me and make me proud. I can imagine how delightful it will be to see them spread their wings in young adulthood and begin to live their own lives.

Yet I know there is no guarantee that I will continue to feel pride or pleasure in my kids once they are adults.

Although we rarely speak about such things in our culture, it can’t be taken for granted that a relationship with our adult children will be mutually satisfying. Indeed, research suggests that tensions between adult children and their parents are the norm. This research corroborates my own experience as a therapist.

In some cases, adult children and their parents become estranged. Estrangement is often initiated by the adult child. This can be a bewildering experience for a parent. In other cases, adult children may struggle with addiction or serious mental health issues. In many cases, such struggles may extend the caretaking period, as parents help adult children navigate these difficulties. Both estrangement and mental health issues are extreme cases where the relationship with the adult child may be a difficult or fraught one.

In addition to these more serious concerns, many relationships with adult children may suffer for more mundane reasons. Our child marries someone whom we don’t respect, or have difficulty getting along with. Or perhaps he espouses values that are inimical to ours, and we find ourselves feeling disappointed or distant. Perhaps our adult daughter makes one poor decision after another, and then inconsiderately expects us to bail her out.

It can be lonely and confusing to find ourselves disappointed, frustrated, or angry with our adult children on a regular basis. And yet it isn’t uncommon. Some parents of adult children take these vicissitudes in stride, accepting what is good in the relationship, without burdening their children with their disappointments. For others though, learning to let go of bright expectations for that relationship can be more difficult. Some parents have a hard time releasing their children to their own fate, allowing them to live their life even though it is not the one they would have wanted for them.

Stan and his wife Alison had adopted Meghan at birth after finding that they were unable to conceive. Meghan seemed like the answer to their prayers when she arrived, and Stan tells me that she was always an easy-going and pleasant child. But as Meghan finished college and set out on her own, tensions increased. Stan and Alison are highly educated, and value scholarship and knowledge. Meghan was not particularly studious, and struggled throughout high school and college. Stan and Alison had always hoped that Meghan would go on for a PhD or at least a master’s, but that was not a goal that made sense to her. When Meghan became a nursery school teacher, Stan had to manage his disappointment that his daughter’s career trajectory would be very different than the one he imagined for her.

Stan did eventually come to terms with this disappointment, but as he and his wife aged, a new unmet expectation surfaced. In my work with Stan, it became clear that there had always been an unconscious assumption that Meghan would bring meaning to his and Alison’s life. They were quite demanding of her, expecting her to spend much time visiting them, and hoping to see their own worth and value reflected back to them in Meghan’s choices as well as her loving care of them. Meghan, of course, could not live up to these super human expectations. As Stan and Alison put increasing pressure on her, she began to try to distance herself from them.

In his work with me, Stan was able eventually to identify the unrealistic hopes he had pinned on his daughter. He came to see how he had unconsciously assumed that being a parent would assuage all kinds of desires, and make up for many previous hurts and disappointments. A turning point in our work occurred when Stan was able to identify that parenting Meghan had indeed been the most meaningful thing he had ever done, even though Meghan herself could not be the source of all meaning and purpose in his life.

Together we arrived at the image of a sand mandala, a beautiful, intricate creation that takes hours and hours of work, only to be swept away upon completion. He arrived at a new sense of satisfaction when he began to appreciate that he had been the very best father he could have been. With me, he reviewed the parts of parenting Meghan that had been most meaningful and pleasurable to him. Knowing that he had shared these moments with her, and given the best of himself to this important project became enough for him. He no longer needed the adult Meghan to be the ongoing source of meaning in his life.

In time, the new attitude he brought to relationship allowed father and daughter to find new footing together. The new relationship did not live up to the picture that Stan had once had, but it had its own unique pleasures.

Stan’s reappraisal of his parenting experience and his relationship with his adult daughter calls to mind for me the poem Ithaka by Constantin Cavafy. The poem encourages us to find joy in the journey, rather than the goal – advice parents would be wise to take to heart.

Have Ithaka always in your mind.
Your arrival there is what you are destined for.
But don't in the least hurry the journey.
Better it last for years,
so that when you reach the island you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to give you wealth.
Ithaka gave you a splendid journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She hasn't anything else to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka hasn't deceived you.
So wise you have become, of such experience,
that already you'll have understood what these Ithakas mean.

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Article

When Parents Get Angry

Posted on October 23, 2018
by Lisa Marchiano, LCSW
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Most parents get angry with their children frequently, and when we do, we often feel badly about it. While unrestrained parental rage can be damaging to a child, in recent posts, (see here and here) I’ve been taking a look at the potential positive side of getting angry with our kids. While this might seem counter intuitive, it’s important to remember that our children learn about how to handle emotions in part through our modeling. If we never get angry, our children won’t get practice in learning to deal with this difficult but important emotion. On the other hand, when we get angry but take care to reconnect with our child and make a repair for any hurt we might have caused, our children learn that anger is survivable. They learn that people who love each other sometimes disagree and may even have strong feelings about these disagreements, but that doesn’t mean they don’t still love each other.

Psychologists have noted that relational ruptures are commonplace between parent and child. Even when we try our hardest to be attuned to our child and his needs, there will always be times when we are distracted, busy – or irritable. At these times, our child may have the momentary experience of knowing we are “out of sync” with him. We don’t understand him, or are not attending to his needs. “Good enough” parents have frequent moments of empathic rupture, but they do their best to repair these momentary mis attunements. We might apologize for losing our temper, and take extra time to reconnect through a playful tickle.

Last week, I suggested that the normal parental rhythm of rupture and repair served as a kind of “emotional annealing,” helping kids to become more resilient to different emotions – including their own. One of the most important jobs we have as parents is to teach our children how to manage their feelings – how to experience and value emotions, while not becoming overwhelmed by them. The experience of rupture and repair that occurs when there is an angry exchange can be a part of this important lesson.

A story from Ancient Greece can serve as a poignant illustration of how the right kind of challenging emotional experiences can help a child build resilience. The myth of Demeter and Persephone is one that is likely familiar to most readers, but many may not know the story of Demeter and Demphon as described in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. After her daughter’s abduction, Demeter looked everywhere for her, but could not find her. In her grief, Demeter disguised herself and hired herself out as a nanny to a wealthy family. There she cared for the infant boy Demophon. She grew so fond of the child that she decided that she would make him immortal. Every night, after other members of the family went to bed, Demeter would bank the boy in the fire as if he were a log, burning away those parts of him that were mortal. This process needed several nights. She was almost done with it when the boy’s mother wandered into the room, and shrieked in horror to see her son baking in the fire. Demeter then revealed herself in her full goddess glory, and Demophon’s mother was shocked to know she had been honored by the goddess in this way.

This part of the myth is both beautiful and strange, and the meaning of it is complex. It does, however, provide an image of something we somehow sense to be true – that burning in life’s fires in a controlled way where we do not become overwhelmed and are protected and cared for can bring about greater resilience.

My purpose with these recent posts on anger is to encourage parents to feel more compassion toward themselves when they do find that they have lost their temper with their child. I hope these posts will give parents permission to forgive themselves, because only in doing so can we ensure that we will remain emotionally available to our kids. We can always strive to do better next time, but when we slip up and become angry, we can hopefully appreciate that even when we are not perfect, we may be offering our children valuable lessons.

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Photo by Paul Schafer on Unsplash

Article

When We Are Ashamed of Our Kids

Posted on January 5, 2018
by Lisa Marchiano, LCSW
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What an uncomfortable feeling to become aware that we are disappointed with or ashamed of our child, even momentarily. I knew a mom who had one child who was bright, attractive, and well-liked. Her other daughter, however, was awkward and overweight, and was frequently teased as a result. This mother’s disappointment in this child was at times thinly veiled, as she tried many different “treatments” to help her child lose weight or be more attractive.

If we are honest, we have likely all had moments of feeling dissatisfied, embarrassed, or ashamed of our kids. The prick of irritation that she isn’t as motivated or talented as some of her peers, the stomach-flipping flash of shame and anger when we hear that he wasn’t selected for the team.

What Part of Ourselves Are We Ashamed Of?

Usually, those aspects of our children that we find difficult to like are akin to those aspects of ourselves that we have longed despised. Knowing this can open the door to greater self-acceptance and compassion, which in turn can reduce those uncomfortable feelings about our kids.

Given the richness of this psychological situation, it isn’t surprising that that are many fairy tales about feeling embarrassed or disappointed by one’s child. The Slavic fairy tale “The Little Singing Frog” is one particularly charming version.

The Little Singing Frog

There was once a poor laborer and his wife who had no children. Every day the woman would sigh and say: “If only we had a child!” Then the man would sigh, too, and say: “It would be pleasant to have a little daughter, wouldn’t it?” At last they went on a pilgrimage to a holy shrine and there they prayed God to give them a child. “Any kind of a child!” the woman prayed. “I’d be thankful for a child of our own even if it were a frog!”

God heard their prayer and sent them a little daughter—not a little girl daughter, however, but a little frog daughter. They loved their little frog child dearly and played with her and laughed and clapped their hands as they watched her hopping about the house. But when the neighbors came in and whispered: “Why, that child of theirs is nothing but a frog!” they were ashamed and they decided that when people were about they had better keep their child hidden in a closet.

The parents loved their daughter, but were ashamed of her. The story tells us that because she was confined to the closet, she grew up without any friends. She went with her father to work in the fields every day, and while there, she would climb a tree and sing. One day, the czar’s son rode by and was stuck by the lovely singing. He demanded to know where the maiden was with the beautiful voice.

But the old man who, as I told you before, was ashamed of his frog daughter before strangers, at first pretended not to hear and then, when the young Prince repeated his question, answered gruffly: “There’s no one singing!” But the next day at the same hour when the Prince was again riding by he heard the same sweet voice and he stopped again and listened. “Surely, old man,” he said, “there is some one singing! It is a lovely girl, I know it is! Why, if I could find her, I’d be willing to marry her at once and take her home to my father, the Tsar!” “Don’t be rash, young man,” the laborer said. “I mean what I say!” the Prince declared. “I’d marry her in a minute!” “Are you sure you would?” “Yes, I’m sure!” “Very well, then, we’ll see.” The old man looked up into the tree and called: “Come down, Little Singing Frog! A Prince wants to marry you!” So the little frog girl hopped down from among the branches and stood before the Prince. “She’s my own daughter,” the laborer said, “even if she does look like a frog.”

This story of parental shame ends happily. The prince agrees to marry the little singing frog, who it turns out, knows how to transform herself into a beautiful maiden.

Inherited Shame

I once worked with a young woman whom I’ll call Maria. Maria’s parents had immigrated to the United States from Mexico. They worked as live-in staff for a wealthy family, and therefore lived in an affluent community where Maria attended the first-rate public school. Maria was academically talented. When it came time to apply for college, Maria was in the top of her class and guidance counselors were steering her toward the most prestigious schools.

Instead of feeling proud of their daughter, Maria’s academic aspirations were a source of worry for her parents. They were afraid she was shooting too high, and would be disappointed and hurt. The shame they felt about their low social status relative to most of the other people in the town got projected onto Maria to an extent. Like the laborer who didn’t believe the prince would really want to marry his daughter, Maria’s parents had difficulty believing that she could really be welcomed into her own “royal” future.

Maria’s fate and that of the singing frog overlapped in other ways as well. Having all of her life been exposed to her parents’ self-consciousness and lowered expectations for her, Maria found that could tend to sell herself short. In professional situations and dating relationships, her first impulse was often to assume she wasn’t good enough. Like the frog, however, her talents couldn’t remain hidden for long, and when the opportunity did present itself, she was able to reach inside of herself and reveal her beauty.

If we find ourselves ashamed of our children, it can be useful to ask what part of ourselves we have rejected as ugly or deficient. This can be an invitation to heal our own deep wounds around shame and inadequacy.

The frog girl’s eventual happy ending may be explained, in part, by the fact that her parents loved her and cared for her, even though they were ashamed of her – and of themselves. There is a Grimm’s fairy tale that begins in a similar manner that does not have quite such a happy ending that I will write about next time.

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Photo by David Clode on Unsplash

 

Article

Humble Gifts: On Knowing We’re Enough

Posted on December 15, 2017
by Lisa Marchiano, LCSW
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I had a conversation with a mother in my practice this week that brought up something important. As usual, I tried to find a fairy tale that captured the essence of what this mother was struggling with. The right tale did come to mind – it’s a 12th century French legend – and it just so happens to have an association with Christmas, so consider this my holiday offering!

The mother I was speaking with is going through something very difficult with one of her children. On the day that we spoke, she was feeling very badly about herself, and how she has been handling the challenges she is facing. She has seen other mothers who, she thinks, have managed similar difficulties much better. She was berating herself for not being as gentle, wise, and confident as she has seen other mothers be.

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Gifts From Our Mothers

Posted on November 30, 2017
by Lisa Marchiano, LCSW
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When my client Rose was around nine or ten years old, she and her family were camping. With her parents’ permission, Rose set off on a walk through to woods to join up with friends at the lake. Rose remembers being suddenly startled by a large black bear rearing up in front of her. Frozen in fear, she didn’t know what to do. Then she heard her mother from behind shouting at the bear. Her mother pelted it with stones, and rushed at it brandishing a stick. The bear soon retreated.

Rose’s mother told her later that she had had a sixth sense that Rose might meet with danger, and had decided to follow her daughter to the lake. Rose admitted to me that she is not sure what would have happened if her mother had not been there when she met that bear.

Now Rose is an adult with a teenage son who is struggling with a debilitating and mysterious medical condition. Over the last few years, Rose has spent many hours at the local children’s hospital advocating on his behalf. She says that the memory of her mother shouting and hurling stones at the bear often comes to her when she finds herself needing to stand up to doctors or insurance companies as she oversees his care.

The Gifts of “Good Enough” Mothering

If we were lucky enough to have “good enough” mothering, we will likely find that that experience left behind a deep well of strength and courage that we can draw upon when we face parenting challenges. (Sometimes, good enough mothering doesn’t come from our own mother, but we may have gotten it from somewhere just the same.) We might not even realize that these resources are there until we need them.

The gifts given to us by our mothers often come to us in surprising ways. I read one story about a mother who had just given birth to her first child. As she held her newborn daughter in her arms, she was surprised to notice that she was singing to her in French, her own mother’s native tongue, which she had not realized she even remembered.

Vasilissa the Beautiful

The Russian fairy tale “Vasilissa the Beautiful” contains a poignant image of the way a mother’s gifts can serve as inner resources.

Once upon a time, a merchant lived with his wife and daughter in a forest. One day, when the little girl was eight years old, her mother fell ill, and it was clear that she would soon die. She drew her daughter to her, placed a small wooden doll in her hands, and said:

“Listen carefully and don’t forget what I am about to say. With my blessing, I leave to you this doll. Whenever you are sorrowful or distressed, give the doll something to eat and drink, and then tell it your troubles, and ask for its advice.”

So saying, the mother kissed the little girl and died.

Little Vasilissa grieved greatly for her mother, and her sorrow was so deep that when the dark night came, she lay in her bed and wept and did not sleep. At length she be thought herself of the tiny doll, so she rose and took it from the pocket of her gown and finding a piece of wheat bread and a cup of kvass, she set them before it, and said: “There, my little doll, take it. Eat a little, and drink a little, and listen to my grief. My dear mother is dead and I am lonely for her.”

Then the doll’s eyes began to shine like fireflies, and suddenly it became alive. It ate a morsel of the bread and took a sip of the kvass, and when it had eaten and drunk, it said:

“Don’t weep, little Vasilissa. Grief is worst at night. Lie down, shut thine eyes, comfort thyself and go to sleep. The morning is wiser than the evening.” So Vasilissa the Beautiful lay down, comforted herself and went to sleep, and the next day her grieving was not so deep and her tears were less bitter.

Here and throughout the rest of the tale, Vasilissa’s magical doll functions very much like a “good enough” mother’s psychological inheritance. “Good enough” mothering leaves us with a comforting inner voice that we can turn to in times of distress. Such inner resources help us find compassion for ourselves, and allows us to keep our problems in perspective so that we don’t become overwhelmed. They can be surprising sources of strength, resilience and courage.

As Rose struggles with her son’s illness, she has the gifts her mother passed on to her. These have allowed her to face adversity fearlessly and tenaciously. And she sees that she is passing such gifts on to her own children.

Photo by Rhendi Rukmana on Unsplash

Originally published on PsychCentral.com

Article

Listening to Our Instincts

Posted on October 14, 2017
by Lisa Marchiano, LCSW
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I suspect that parenting is more difficult than ever because of the proliferation of expert advice everywhere one turns. Advice can certainly be helpful. There are those who have done this before, who figured out things that can be helpful. There are scientists who have studied children and their behavior. There are therapists who have spoken with dozens of parents, so have an enriched context for understanding.

However, sometimes sources are untrustworthy. There are political agendas that drive the way we see certain issues, such as the impact of daycare on a child, or the benefits of preschool. Older parents or even therapists have their own biases, or may simply never have seen a situation quite like ours. Research often creates an incomplete picture, and in any case, the population level information that research yields may not be relevant to the unique person that is our child.

As a therapist, it can be easy to assume you know the right thing for someone else. When I work with parents, my orienting goal is to help my client attend better to her own intuitions about her child. “What do you think is going on?” I’ll ask. “What do you think you ought to do? What is your gut telling you?”

There is an exception to this, however. Most of us judge our children with the same overly harsh lens with which we judge ourselves. If a mother comes to me despairing that her child can’t seem to manage himself, I often try to help her see the strengths the child is manifesting in his unruliness. Whatever the problem, there are usually a number of ways of coming to understand it. Some of these are going to be more pathologizing, and some less. In the case of our kids, often our negative assessment of ourselves – and them – can override our intuition.

The Scottish fairy tale “The Stolen Bairn and the Sidh” can be instructive about how precious our own knowledge and instincts are when it comes to mothering our children.

A poor young woman was out wandering with her infant son. She laid him down for a moment while she went to fetch him some water, but while she was gone, two members of the fairy folk known as the Sidh came and took the boy away. The mother was distraught. She asked everyone she could what had happened to her child. A wise woman in the village discerned that he had been stolen by the Sidh, and advised the mother to give up her search, for no one ever returns alive from the fairies’ realm.

“I will not stop until I have found my son,” the young mother said. At last, the wise woman told the mother that she might have a chance of gaining back her child if she were to sneak into the fairy realm on a particular night. “Remember, the Sidh cannot produce anything themselves, but must steal and beg everything. They want to own all that is rare and precious.”

“But I am poor, and own nothing!” cried the young mother. “What can I offer them?”

Nevertheless, she did as the old woman suggested. She gathered eider down from ducks at the seaside and made a cloak as soft as a cloud. She found bones along the shore bleached to brightest white, and used these to make a harp. She had nothing to use for strings for the harp, however, so she plucked her own golden hairs and strung the instrument with these.

By stealth, she was able to sneak into the fairy kingdom. The Sidh were so delighted with her cloak that they agreed to take her to their king if she would give it to them. When the fairy king saw the harp, he had to have it. He agreed to give the woman back her child in exchange for it.

When the king played the harp, the Sidh were so spellbound by the beauty of the music that they didn’t even notice the mother escape with her child.

This beautiful tale uses the eloquent language of symbol to show that what our children most need is what we alone can offer them. Our love, our knowledge of them, and our instincts about them are uniquely ours, and cannot be replaced by the dictates of any expert, no matter how wise.

Originally published on PsychCentral.com.

Article

Cultivating Creativity While Mothering

Posted on October 6, 2017
by Lisa Marchiano, LCSW
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Sasha entered treatment with me when her back pain became unmanageable – and nothing else she had tried was working. Sasha was trained as an opera singer, but had stopped performing when pregnant with her daughter. Though she had intended to go back to music in a professional capacity after her child was born, one thing after another got in the way – her husband’s job required them to move; she had difficulty finding reliable childcare; and then another baby came along. It had been more than four years since Sasha had performed, and as she admitted to me tearfully, she had begun to think she never would again.

Being a mother can indeed interrupt a creative life. When others need so much from us daily, it can be difficult to find the time and energy to invest in our creativity. In an article entitled Portrait of the Artist as a Young Mom, the author quotes a photographer, who explains that she has not been able to pursue her art since having kids.

There are moments when I feel like I’m dying a little more every day. I feel like a fish that’s been caught and then abandoned on a dock, lying there, flopping and gasping, each gasp weaker than the last.

Sasha, too, felt as if a part of her were dying. We wondered together whether she could reclaim her deep connection with music while continuing to mother. Is it possible to mother and live a creative life? Could it ever be that motherhood could feed a woman’s creativity?

Sheila grew up the only daughter of an alcoholic single mother. Her mother was harshly critical, and Sheila suffers from crippling doubt. The first time she ever experienced a sense of trust in her own creativity was shortly after her daughter was born.

“The first person who ever gave me any confidence was Crystal, because I could see that what I did by instinct was working,” Sheila told me. Being a mom to Crystal was not a panacea that restored Sheila’s creative self to her once and for all. However, it did begin a process that years later led her to work in a creative field that fed her soul.

The novelist Fay Weldon found that being a mother put her in touch with her own wellspring of creativity. In a 1978 interview, she stated that “the process of being pregnant and then of having the baby and getting up in the night only puts one more in touch with the fecund part of one’s self. …It reminds one that there is always more where that came from and there is never any shortage of ideas or of the ability to create.[i]”

In our work together, Sasha was eventually able to find ways to honor the importance of her creative life. Though it was difficult to hold the tension between investing in herself and being present for her children, she found that doing so paid off. She felt more at home in her body, and capable of accessing joy once again.

What makes the difference between mothering that helps a creative process versus one that hinders it? Might it sometimes be a little of both? I recently explored this topic further in a podcast episode of “Launching Your Daughter.” In it, I discuss some additional case examples, and talk about creativity in motherhood using the fairy tale “Rumpelstiltskin. ” I hope you like it!

[i] Nina Winter, Interview with the Muse, Moon Books, 1978, p. 40.

Originally published on PsychCentral.com.

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Teaching Kids to Value the Inner Life

Posted on July 27, 2017
by Lisa Marchiano, LCSW
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Last time, I wrote about how becoming curious about our inner life – and helping our kids to do the same – can be helpful in managing difficult emotions. Relating creatively to our inner life brings other benefits as well. When we cultivate openness and acceptance toward our thoughts and feelings, we develop a capacity to engage life symbolically.

One of Jung’s great insights was that psychological growth requires that we separate ourselves from thoughts and feelings. Our conflicts, problems, and difficulties are a part of us, but we are not them. When we remain in identity with inner contents, we do not allow them to change and transform.

Identity versus Separation

Identity does not make consciousness possible; it is only separation, detachment, and agonizing confrontation through opposition that produce consciousness and insight (The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, vol. 9i, para 289).

This is partly why the mental health field has encouraged a shift in language when speaking about diagnosis. When we say, “I am depressed,” it gives the sense that depression defines and limits us, whereas “I have depression” underscores that depression is just an aspect of self.

“There are things in the psyche which I do not produce, but which produce themselves and have their own lives,” Jung wrote in his autobiography. “Thoughts [are] like animals in the forest” (Jung, 1989, p. 183). Our conscious self encounters myriad thoughts and feelings that have been spontaneously generated by the unconscious. It is indeed a bit like wandering through a forest and finding various animals there with us. It doesn’t make sense to judge the animals in the forest and determine that they shouldn’t be there. It doesn’t make sense to deny them and pretend they don’t exist. It also doesn’t make sense to overvalue their significance. The thoughts and feelings that inhabit our inner forest are unlikely to represent an ultimate truth, or to have more inherent value than something produced by conscious thought.

Taking Feelings Seriously, Not Literally

When we become too attached to a particular thought or feeling, we overvalue it, and this can lead us to respond too concretely. We fall into the fallacy of emotional reasoning, wherein we conclude that our feelings prove that something is true. This can lead to us trying to fix the immediate problem, which can in turn subtly reinforce a too concrete understanding. When this happens, exploration of our inner experience is prematurely foreclosed.

If our seven-year-old child is beside herself with terror at the thought of sleeping alone in the dark, we can acknowledge the seriousness of the feelings. We can encourage her to take them seriously, even while we help her not to take them literally. One father I knew gave his daughter a “magic pebble” to keep under her pillow that had the power to defeat any monsters. His creative, respectful intervention contrasts markedly with another family I know of who took their son to a psychologist because of their child’s nighttime fears. Unfortunately, the psychologist gave the child a diagnosis, which reified the symptom. This did not help the child to creatively meet the developmental challenge he faced.

The Symbolic Life

Responding concretely to emotional distress closes down opportunities to be curious about the symbolic element in the experience. For example, when our teenager falls into a depression after having a first love relationship end, we may feel pressure to do whatever it takes to help end his suffering, particularly if we sense he is slipping into a genuinely dark place. Before we rush to set him up with someone else or reach for a medicalized solution, we may want to remember that some suffering opens us up to our inner life, orients us toward ultimate meaning, and teaches us wisdom. If we can hold our child’s suffering as an initiatory plunge into the depths, he may be better able to experience it that way, even if we don’t explicitly speak of it in these terms.

A fairy tale image can serve to amplify the distinction between an orientation that is overly concrete, versus one that is more expansive and symbolic. The image comes from the Russian fairy tale “The Frog Princess.” In the tale, the three sons of the Tsar have all been given instructions on how to find a bride. The two older brothers find beautiful noblewomen to wed, but Ivan, the youngest son, is paired with a frog in a swamp. The two older brothers mock Ivan for his homely bride, but she displays some unusual qualities.

The sons and their brides are invited to a ball, and Ivan’s frog wife arrives in the form of a beautiful woman. At dinner, she tucks small bits of food up her sleeve. The two other brides think this is a bit strange, but not wanting to be impolite, and desiring to emulate the beautiful woman, they do likewise.

After dinner, the frog-girl dances with Ivan. As she does so, she occasionally waves arms and lets fall a bit of food. The bits of food turn into a garden with a golden pillar on which sits a tomcat singing and telling fairy tales, and a park with a lake inhabited by swans. When the other brides wave their arms to drop bits of food, bones are flung across the room that hit the tsar in the forehead.

According to Jungian analyst Marie Louise Von Franz, dancing and creating the beautiful fantasy world are…

an aspect of creating the symbolic life, which one lives by following up one’s dreams and day fantasies and the impulses which come up from the unconscious, for fantasy gives life a glow and a color which the too-rational outlook destroys. Fantasy is not just whimsical ego-nonsense but comes really from the depths; it constellates symbolic situations which give life a deeper meaning and a deeper realization….The two other figures take this too concretely (Von Franz, 1996, p. 103).

As parents, we can enrich our own lives – and those of our children – by avoiding responding to distress in a manner that is overly concrete. While of course there are times when concrete action needs to be taken, we can provide our children a more expansive sense of their inner lives by being sure to honor feelings and keep one eye on the symbolic aspect of the experience.

To learn more about how fairy tales help us understand ourselves better, join my mailing list.

References

Jung, C. G., & Jaffe, A. (1989). Memories, dreams, reflections. New York: Vintage Books.

Jung, C. G., Adler, G., & Hull, R. F. (2014). Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 9 (Part 1). Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Franz, M. V. (1996). The interpretation of fairy tales. Boston: Shambhala.

 

Image by Viktor Vasnetsov – Scanned from A. K. Lazuko Victor Vasnetsov, Leningrad: Khudozhnik RSFSR, 1990, ISBN 5-7370-0107-5, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=215931

Originally published on PsychCentral.com.

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Can Motherhood Make You Badass?

Posted on June 13, 2017
by Lisa Marchiano, LCSW
1 Comment

My mother was never very good at saying “no.” When as I teenager I would ask her for something she needed to deny me, it would tie her in knots. She would get angry at me for having even asked.

When my daughter became a toddler, we began to have battles over TV. She would scream and cry if I turned it off, and beg for me to turn it back on. I remember feeling tied in knots.

One Simple Word

And then one day it hit me like someone throwing a brick through the window. If she asked to watch TV, I could say no. She might scream and throw a fit, but I could still say no. All I had to do was hold firm to that one simple word, “no,” and be prepared to tolerate her reaction.

This was the beginning of a new phase in my learning about how to carry authority.

Like many women, saying “no” in the face of fierce opposition and then tolerating the other’s unhappiness has never come easy for me. In my late 20’s, I achieved a senior management position at a non-profit. A seasoned employee came to my office with an outrageous request. He smiled, chatted me up, and asked nicely. I said yes. Some part of me knew it wasn’t right, but I couldn’t even imagine how to say no.

So having children taught me how to say no. I remember being curious as to whether being able to say “no” to a screaming four year old demanding dessert after consuming no dinner would carry over into “real” life. Would I now begin to feel more firmly rooted in my own authority in all areas of my life?

Dreams of Anger and Aggression

When my kids were small, I had the following dream:

I am in a beautiful boutique, and in a lit glass case is a priceless object carved in black stone. It is a gargoyle-type figure about the size of my fist. I somehow know that it had been carved and used for religious purposes a long time ago. It hangs on a cord. I ask the proprietor if I can see it. When I put it around my neck, its eyes begin to glow red, and it comes to life. It attacks the people I am with, choking off their breath, so that they clutch at their throats. I am frightened, but I fight to control the figure. To do so, I used the same counting technique I used with my strong-willed son when he was a toddler. “That’s one!” I tell the gargoyle firmly. It ceases its attack. My companions are alright. I have controlled this fiery power. I feel a little afraid, but also slightly exhilarated. The others in the shop agree that the totem obviously belongs to me by right.

I couldn’t really figure out how to describe the carved figure until the kids and I were driving past a local college campus and they asked me about the gargoyles on some of the dorm buildings. Then it hit me that the totem in the dream had been just like a gargoyle. “Mom,” my daughter asked. “Are the gargoyles there to scare things away?” “Yes,” I explained. I remembered the Chinese New Year celebration we had been to together, where dragons scare off evil spirits. “Sometimes you need one kind of demon to scare off another,” I found myself saying.

The Legend of the Gargoyle

This discussion gave me a new appreciation for my dream, and made me want to learn more about gargoyles. It turns out that gargoyles originated with a medieval French legend of a fire breathing dragon-like creature called the “gargouille” that inhabited the Seine, devouring boats and terrorizing villages. Saint Romanus subdued and conquered to creature with the help of a convict and brought its remains back to be burned. The head and neck would not burn, however, since they had been long tempered with the creature’s own fire. This head and neck were hung on the cathedral to serve as a water spout.

It’s significant that the saint is able to conquer the gargouille with the help of an outcast and criminal. The convict in the legend would correspond to Jung’s concept of the shadow. This was the name that Jung gave to those aspects of ourselves that we would rather not know were ours. The shadow often contains elements that are truly objectionable, but also those that were unacceptable to our parents or culture, but may be of great value. Anger and aggression are likely to be in the shadow for many women. Certainly, they have been for me. Just as in the legend, accessing disowned parts of ourselves can help us to conquer our demons in a way that produces something of lasting value. The terrifying gargouille becomes a helpful gargoyle. Its energy is no longer destructive, but can be used for scaring off evil spirits, and channeling water.

Motherhood Teaches Us to Hold Authority

My dream is showing me how, as a mother, I had begun to learn to tap into my own aggression and anger in a constructive way. My anger had always been somewhat frightening, but in part through my experiences holding authority with my kids, I was now able to access that side of myself in a way that made this tremendous power available to the conscious part of my personality.

My favorite quote about motherhood comes from the novelist Faye Weldon, who said that “The most wonderful thing about not having children must be that you can go on thinking of yourself as a nice person.” Maybe one of the gifts of motherhood is that we no longer have to be stuck thinking of ourselves as nice people.

Originally published on PsychCentral.com.

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