feelings need a soft place to land
Our daughters learn very early whether it’s safe to expose their feelings to us. Not just their sadness, fears and worries — but also their triumphs, because sharing one’s proud moments is actually the greater risk –
I was working with a young couple awhile back. Though much hurt had happened between them, their love for each other was very clear, reaching through their pain as they struggled to find their way back to it. They had never learned to fully listen to each other and simply accept the experience of the other without judgment, leaving them both feeling alone, not understood; fearing that their raw emotions would be rebuffed.
In my mind’s eye, I imagined reaching outward with cupped hands, as if someone had tossed something precious and fragile to me, my hands lowering just slightly to absorb the force of the landing — and that is how I wanted to teach them to catch each other’s feelings. As well, it was the level of responsibility that I wanted them to feel accompanying the trust that they might extend to each other.
I thought then of the sort of charming uninhibited bliss that even adults can feel — sometimes expressed by a certain juvenile silly grin that tells me they know their feelings are safe — and this is the environment that is required to nurture children’s voices! There’s nothing to be gained and everything to lose if children experience being invalidated by their parents; at least in their own homes if not always in the world at large, their vulnerable selves can be cradled, their sparks of self revealed and gently amplified.
A child’s silence is the poignant evidence that her fragile self cannot withstand the risk of disclosure. She will share her voice when she perceives that it is safe to do so; when she can count on her feelings being provided a soft place to land.
