Parenting as an Invitation to Heal

by on February 27, 2025

“Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness.” – Peter Levine

Parenting is a phenomenal gift, privilege and honor. Parenting can also be triggering and exposing of our more fragile, broken and traumatized parts. It’s an ongoing and ever evolving invitation to grow and to heal and to mend.

When my daughter Evie was four months old, she got her very first cold.* She started running a pretty high fever in the middle of the night. As I held her close, she curled her little body into mine, moaning and shivering. It was absolutely heartbreaking, let alone terrifying. I wanted to offer her comfort (and alleviate some of my fear) so I got out the infant Tylenol and set about gently squirting some into her mouth with the syringe. ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE. At least it felt that way in the moment. My fierce, tiny girl was NOT a fan of the Tylenol or the syringe and arched her tiny body away, spitting out all the sticky Tylenol into her hair, her clothes and our bed. She went from moaning and shivering to kicking and screaming with the rage of a thousand burning suns. Whatever comfort I had imagined for her had only intensified her suffering.

I would love to tell you that in this moment, I stayed calm and understanding, but in truth I panicked and could feel my fight/flight/freeze response kicking in and I’m mostly a fighter. I had enough wisdom to wake my husband up and hand Evie to him while I tried to calm down, to breathe, and to let the rage and terror move through my body safely, for all of us. I was sleep deprived and battling some postpartum anxiety**, but my primal reaction to a pretty normal infant response deeply troubled me. It felt too familiar, too overwhelming, and too exposing. It was a trauma response. It felt en-storied. 

When I became a parent at 37, a stepmother to be exact, I had already spent more than a decade pursuing intentional healing through body care, spiritual care and therapeutic care, especially story work which incorporates all three. I felt I had reached a place of pretty solid awareness, secure attachment and had a plethora of resources at my disposal. I had always wanted to be a mother and had watched so many of my friends and siblings become parents. I didn’t feel naive to the challenges, but knowing them and living them are two different things.

The myriad of ways in which parenting two beautiful boys exposed such terrified and ashamed,  developmental parts of me was humbling and at times disturbing. I was more insecure than I thought. I was more hungry for care than I thought. I was more afraid than I thought. And bringing Evie into this world at 40 only intensified the exposure. Please don’t mishear me, most of my experience parenting has been amazing and life giving and more than I could have ever imagined, but at every turn there are moments that trigger my fear and evoke shame. And it’s particular, en-storied and embodied. 

My husband and I do not bear the same trauma, though sometimes similarities exist, nor do we get triggered in the same way by our children. We have different stories and different bodies. But the invitation remains the same. There will be at every stage of parenting (infants, toddlers, children, teenagers, young adults and adults) a need for compassionate and courageous re-parenting of our more fragile, broken and traumatized parts. We need support.

Story work can be an excellent form of support – an intentional place of empathetic (suffering with) witness that helps us heal our traumatic wounds. When I mentioned earlier that my reaction to my infant when she refused medicine felt traumatic and felt en-storied, it’s because that feeling of powerlessness in the midst of offering good care was stored in my body (in story and memory) – thematic stories of harm from my childhood. Stories worth engaging so I have more capacity and choice in moments that will continue to demand more of me, the best of me.

Story work, especially in a group setting, is one way to grow deeper awareness of how our story has shaped our personhood, our bodies, our ways of relating (especially under stress or perceived threat), and our capacity to mend and repair. In the presence of many empathetic witnesses, we are invited to step into some of the core places where we’ve been afraid or where we’ve born shame, and to taste something different – grief, righteous anger, comfort, honor, and a kind of blessing and welcome that creates new neural pathways in our body and brain and allows for more connection to our bodies and more choice in our capacity to be compassionate and courageous. 

The goal of healing is not to be a perfect parent or to not be triggered or exposed; the goal of healing is to have more resourcing and different choices when we do get triggered or feel exposed or even fail. This healing work moves in multiple directions, inward to the core of our being, and outward to the core of our relationships – like a well nourished root system in a grove of restorative flourishing – a bit like the prophet Isaiah’s vision of those “oaks of righteousness” who will “rebuild ancient ruins and restore places long devastated” for generations to come.*** May it be so.

 

Author’s Notes:

*Of course we took her to the pediatrician to rule out anything serious and to get support on a care plan.

**I was in the good care of a physician to treat my postpartum anxiety, including medicine. I share this because I think it’s important to highlight that support comes in a variety of ways.

*** Isaiah 61

 

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