EP 368: Owning How You May Have Hurt or Traumatized Your Children as the Parent with Carrie

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">This episode is about being the parent you always wanted and wanted to be. Today’s caller, Carrie, wants to repair a strained relationship with her children. She feels shame about her past behaviors and wants guidance on how to build a connection with them and their children. There is a lot of vulnerability and courage in this honest conversation.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">It can be scary to be a generational pattern breaker and it takes a lot of courage to follow through but it can transform our relationships.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">[For show notes, go here:</span> <a href="http://christinehassler.com/episode368"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Christinehassler.com/episode368</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">]</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Many parents carry around a silent shame about some of the choices they made as parents. Parenting is hard. It doesn’t come with a manual. Creating a healthy environment for our children is challenging when we don’t have good parenting ourselves. We are still impacted by our trauma and our hurt; it can feel impossible not to pass it on.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The hard part about trauma, or behavior we categorize as hurtful or bad, is that it is not due to anyone setting out to hurt another person. People who have unprocessed trauma and don’t know how to deal with it. People who are hurt and sad all the time haven’t gotten to their anger. People who are angry and explosive haven’t gotten to their hurt and sadness.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">What happens with parent-child relationships is the hurt parent wants a two-way street. Meaning, the hurt parent wants the child to make it okay for them as well, but that is not the child’s job. It is the parent’s job to make it okay for the child.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Give your children the opportunity to hear the thin