A mother Koala was crossing the road in Australia with her baby, when she got hit by a car. An animal rescue team arrived on the scene quickly, and made an instant decision that saved both lives: they kept the baby with its mother. The veterinarians knew if the two were separated, both would die.
The tiny Koala clutched onto her mother as she was assessed and operated upon. At no point during this harrowing experience were the mother and baby separated. The result was that the mother recovered, her baby survived with her, and together, they were released back into the wild.
Healing happens in connection.
Cheetahs, the fastest animal on our planet, run fast for a short period of time until they completely exhaust themselves.
Apparently, the cheetah’s prey know this and do their best to outrun the cheetah until it collapses. If they are lucky enough to outrun the cat, they prance safely away.
Similarly, humans have developed a tiny part of the prefrontal cortex which enables us to cope with powerful emotions in isolation. But only for a time until it, like the cheetah, collapses in exhaustion.
Neuroscientists have recently discovered that when humans are close to others who are calm and supportive, the whole brain lights up with the capacity to manage emotion.
We are wired for love.
Human babies are born, in comparison to other tiny mammals on the planet, extremely under developed. They can’t walk, talk, or feed themselves and are completely dependent on their caregivers to provide for them.
Human children spend the first 3 years of their lives growing BILLIONS of synapses, and going through intensely sensitive periods of neural pathway development. If those periods are interrupted by trauma, neglect or abuse, important parts of a child’s brain may not develop properly.
More subtly, if caregivers are not attentive, aren’t good at expressing their thoughts and feelings, or manage their emotions with strategies that are not entirely healthy, these things also get wired into the child’s brain at a very early stage.
The good news is we can learn.
Be patient with yourself and your child(ren) in the process.
A study was done on successful, business men in their 60’s after they had suffered a stroke. The men were being taught to read again. These men were definitely motivated to read. The study discovered that no matter how much they wanted it, learning to read again wasn’t easy.
The researchers found that one day a patient could read as well as before the stroke, and the next day not at all, the next day at about 50% and the next day at some other level of capacity. They discovered that new neural pathways develop in more of a chaotic, heartbeat shaped pattern slowly towards recovery. Like hiking up a sand dune.
Healing and change never happens in straight lines.
There is an old story about a woman who cut the ends off her roast before putting it in the oven.
A party guest asked her why, and she said, because that was how her mother always did it.
After considering this for a while, she called her mother and asked why she cut the ends of her roast. Her mother said she learned it from her mother.
Another call was made, the grandmother was asked the secret to the cutting of the ends of the roast, and she replied, “I did it because my pan was too short.”
Family patterns are handed down from generation to generation, often unconsciously.
Get conscious. Interrupt old patterns and build new ones in your lifetime and with your children.
And since healing happens gradually, meet it with compassion and patient repetition of new, healthy, conscious habits.
Build a stronger foundation on affection, connection, empathy, and authenticity.
Believe in your capacity to reclaim these for yourself and your family, so you all can feel whole again, love yourselves, and believe in your own innate goodness.