Eeek!!!!!
That seems like an appropriate way to start my first post on a blog that has everything to do with feelings and the way they can take over our lives and the people we love most. Don’t get me wrong… I’m a feelings advocate. I’ve kinda got to be as a psychologist, you know what I mean? But I’m not always so good at practicing what I preach. So sometimes, despite my better intentions, my feelings take over and I become a crazy person. Ok, ok. Not actually crazy. Everything BUT crazy , in fact 🙂
Anyways, where me and my feelings were at in any given moment wasn’t all that big of a deal for a long time. Not until a few years ago, when my daughter Boo was born. You see, prior to that, I could float between my familiar places of calm, stress, excitement, reflection, sadness, and anxiety with not too much impact on those around me. Sure, people preferred the calm, excited, reflective versions of me to the stressed, sad, and anxious ones, but at the end of the day, they could walk away with not too much skin off their backs.
But when Boo was born, I realized that those moods, that channeled into my actions, and accrued over time, were the building blocks to making her HER. Of course there were things outside of my control, like her genetic foundation, her temperament, and her cognitive and physical capabilities, but at the end of the day I was going to play a MAJOR role in shaping who she would become. Hows that for pressure?! But before your stress level rises too high, I’ll also point out the incredible power this offers us in shaping our children. Let me explain.
In my career as a psychologist, I have worked with people across the lifespan, beginning at around 2 years old and up until around 70. It has been intense, awe-inspiring work and I have felt honored to have people share some of their most vulnerable parts of themselves with me.
But, the older my clients were, the deeper were the roots of all their unhelpful habits, beliefs, and expectations. So there was always a lot of “un-doing” that had to happen before they could develop new ways of “doing.” Ultimately, this is why people usually end up in my office— their old ways of doing things no longer work for them, and they need help to figure out how to change that.
But now let me shift back to this newborn baby I had in front of me just a few years ago. On her first day of life, she had never been lied to, never been disappointed, never been abandoned. She had never been told she was worthless, and never been criticized for being her. So when I wanted to help her develop trust in me, there just wasn’t a lot of baggage she had to work through in order to allow that to happen. There was a fresh path available for us to walk. And that realization is what led me to shift my focus from teenagers and adults to babies and their parents.
Because babies, despite all their needs and demands and challenges, give us this amazing opportunity to significantly shape the mental foundation we want them to have, without having to go through all the work of “un-doing.” It is the time when we have the most influence on them that we will ever have, and therefore it is our best chance at changing the world through them.
So that brings me to this blog. I hope you find a place here to get support, feel validated, and maybe learn a few tips or tricks along the way. Parenthood is hard, believe me I know, but it is full of wonder and awe, if we only stop to notice.
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Dana Basu, PsyD is a licensed clinical psychologist at EverGROW therapy and founder of Everything But Crazy, an online resource for parents. She provides individual therapy, support groups, and online resources for parents in Orange County and throughout the state of California via online therapy. She specializes in working with the highly sensitive person and people with difficult childhood experiences, trauma, parenting stress, and chronic guilt.
