When our kitten died suddenly in a freak accident last week, I thought I did all the right things. I grieved. I mourned. I encouraged my kids to grieve and mourn. We buried him. And still, I found myself filled with a tension I simply could not release. It took me days of active soul searching to realize I was tightly wound up in an agonizing spiral of motherhood and fear.
You see, as time went by after we buried Loki outside under a pomegranate tree, I grew increasingly angry. Just pissy.
I was snapping at my children, sniping at my husband, and grasping for reasons to be frustrated and annoyed by everything.
But why?
I had processed my feelings, I had allowed myself to feel sad, I had done all the things I was supposed to do.
Motherhood and Fear
One of the first things I learned at the beginning of my spiritual journey a few years back is that humans are born with two very basic, foundational emotions: love and fear.
All other emotions stem from those two, and they are opposite sides of the spectrum. There exists, in theory, an emotional scale. We climb from the very very bottom and most vulnerable, fear, to the very very top and most empowered and free, love.
It seems counterintuitive, right?
We love our children so much that we find ourselves afraid for them.
At least, I did.
Fear and Motherhood
I began having anxiety attacks for the first time in more than thirty years on earth after my oldest was born.
They increased to the point of paralysis after my second was born.
The almost instant leap from love to fear is one of the most profound experiences I have ever had.
Sociologist and author Brene Brown talks a lot about this concept of waiting for the other shoe to drop.
It consumed me. I could not feel joy without instantly worrying that I would lose that joy in some freak accident. My joy as a mother seemed so fragile.
Climbing the Ladder
To climb the ladder from fear back to love, though, is not as instantaneous as the drop from love to fear.
We move from fear through a range of angry emotions, because anger makes us feel more powerful, less vulnerable, than fear.
We move into indifference and boredom, more neutral emotions.
Then, finally, we begin the ascent to contentment, cautious happiness, joy, and finally all the way up to love, the most pure and free emotion.
Unconditional love allows us to allow others to experience their own journeys, even our very own children.
I Fell
Well, I finally realized that this process is the one I had been going through after our kitten died.
I blamed myself for his death. If only I had paid better attention to the drawer. If only I hadn’t taken the dog for a walk. If only I hadn’t let the kittens out of my room before I left. If only if only if only.
I felt guilty.
Then, I dropped all the way down to fear.
If it could happen to the kitten, it could happen to my kids.
A freak accident. And he’s gone.
It could happen at any time to my kids for any reason.
I was that terrified anxious mother I had left behind so long ago once more.
But fear makes me feel so weak, and I hate to feel weak, so I switched almost immediately to anger.
Fear to anger is my go to strong space.
I began to get frustrated when my kids wanted my attention, I started to feel put upon and and overwhelmed by their attention.
I realized I was pushing them away. Closing myself off to them. Not tuning in to their faces. Not looking them in the eyes.
I suppose, subconsciously, a part of me reasoned that since I could not protect them from everything at all times, I should simply not get to close, because I could lose them at any time.
I fell completely and helplessly into fear and anger to protect myself out of some sense that it would somehow protect my children, and act as a buffer for me when something inevitably did happen to them.
The Blind Motherhood Fear
But, you see, the problem with all of this, really, wasn’t that I was going through it. I believe this is all perfectly normal and healthy. We are humans after all.
The problem was that I had no idea I was going through it.
I kept chalking it up to grief. To being busy. To having family in town. To… to… to…
I was completely blind to what I was doing. I just knew everything was pissing me off, I was irritable, and I felt removed from my husband and children, the most important people in the world to me.
A wall was up between us, and I had no idea how it had gotten there. And I was so blinded by my fear and anger that I just kept putting up bricks between us, going through the motions.
My mind would spin out into violent images of myself. I played out scenarios in my head where I became some sort of revolutionary burning the world down. Or getting caught up in mob mentality and going into a blind rage. My energy was as dark as midnight, and it felt all consuming inside.
Returning to Love
Fortunately, I now know what to do when I feel out of sorts, even if I don’t know exactly why I am out of sorts.
I also know that I just have to be patient as I work through it.
By Sunday night, four days after Loki died, my entire body felt like jelly. I felt rubbery and exhausted by the girls’ bedtime, barely able to move or think. I was holding so much in and blocking so much out.
I knew I would have to do something to get myself back, the Shanna I’ve been working towards fully becoming. A Shanna who turned to love for answers instead of fear and anger.
Logically, I knew what to do, but emotionally, I was adrift in a sea of inky blackness. Motherhood and Fear.
I woke up Monday and began the slow, arduous journey back to love.
I did yoga, gently loving my body awake. I meditated, working toward a presence I had forgotten to prioritize. I took the girls out to play in the sunshine and soaked up as much vitamin D as I could. I took the dog for a walk, reaching for all the endorphins my body would take. And I drank lots of water and fed myself good food.
Monday night, as we lay in bed, my husband reassured me that I was doing all the right things, returning to my healthy habits, rediscovering my best self, and that I would get there.
By my Tuesday afternoon walk, it finally came to me as a sort of divine intervention.
(This happens to me a lot. When I’m seeking answers to some big questions, or working through something, I find incredible inspiration and guidance during long walks alone.)
“Ah.” I felt it hit me. “I’ve been feeling guilty for Loki’s death, so I transferred that guilt to my feelings about myself as a mother. I determined that if I let Loki die, I must be a terrible mother. Therefore, I concluded, my children are not safe with me. Therefore, I concluded further, I should keep my distance from them while also never leaving them alone.”
Cards on the Table
Now that all my motherhood and fear cards were on the table, I could spread them out, examine them, and untangle myself from this deeply fear based web I had woven.
Now I could work my way back up the emotional scale.
I got home to find my husband asleep on the couch, exhausted from a really long day at work, while my kids sat next to him watching a movie.
I walked into the kitchen to see a fold up chair next to a tall cabinet.
Matilda was eating a banana on the couch.
The bananas were on top of the cabinet where Carlos kept them for his smoothies.
And all of my pent up, unspent rage spilled out of me and on to him.
I remained calm on the outside while I boiled on the inside.
Later, while I was making dinner and he sat at the kitchen table, with the girls in the other room playing, I unloaded.
I explained all of my fears and anxieties, the realizations I had come to. How I was afraid to leave them but also overwhelmed by the responsibility for their every single breath I was taking on.
“Maybe I should just stay home tomorrow.” I said. “I feel like I can’t even leave for my self care day. I can’t even leave them alone. I left for a walk, you fell asleep, and Matilda climbed up on a chair to get a banana. While you were asleep!”
“Maybe you should stay home tomorrow. Then you will see that they’re fine and nothing will happen to them.” He responded, calmly. Infuriatingly calmly.
“What?! That makes no sense! I should just give in to my fears?!” I was losing my calm demeanor.
Was he reverse psychologizing me?
“No. I should not give in to my fears. I need the time alone. I will go crazy if I don’t get time to myself. I need to go.” I told him, obstinate.
“Then you should go, Shanna.” He said. Still. Super calm.
“But what if something happens to them!? What if you all asleep again?! What if our child climbs up, slips, hits her head, and dies?! And it’s all my fault!”
“Shanna, then stay here. Go to the bedroom. Get your time there. You’ll be home and the kids can play and I’ll be with them. And you’ll know that they’re fine.” He reasoned with me.
“What?! No I can’t do that. They don’t leave me alone. You can go out to the garage and work on shit for hours and they leave you alone. You can take a fucking nap on the couch and they leave you alone. They don’t even let me poop in peace!” I had completely lost it by this point.
Also: men. They just don’t get it.
He laughed at me.
The man had the gall to laugh at me at the height of my insanity.
“Do you just want a punching bag? Is that it? Do you want me to just sit here and be your punching bag?” He asked, shaking his head in utter bemusement.
Finally, my anger/anxiety balloon was deflated.
“Yes. I guess so. I just needed to vomit out all my fears and worries. I needed to come to terms with them and look them in the mirror and confront them. And you’re my best mirror.” I acknowledged.
Motherhood and Fear: The Learning Gets Quicker, Easier
I have noticed each time I work through one of my issues on a deeper level, I can move through it more quickly.
From height of anxiety and fear to realization and deflation, back to my zen loving space took less than a week.
I went to bed last night finally emptied out and free again, having returned to a place of grateful love.
I noted this morning as I did yoga and meditation that it is not my job to hold on to my children so tightly they can never get away and come to harm, nor is it my job to push them away so I won’t be hurt if something does happen.
My job is to love them loosely.
To sit in this moment and this moment and this moment, taking each one as it comes, on its own terms.
My job is to love my children with no conditions or limits on them or on myself.
Because, if something does happen, and it may, I will have had no control over it anyway. I cannot create perfect circumstances to eliminate all risk and danger. Likewise, if I hold myself away, block them out with a wall, out of fear of feeling too much, and something does happen, I will have wasted all those precious moments I could have lived freely and joyfully. I will have squandered the opportunity to love deeply and thoroughly.
And that may be the worst possible thing I could do to myself and to my children.
Our kitten is dead. And it is indescribably sad. I will never know all the what ifs, and I certainly will not know why it had to happen. But I know one thing for sure: Loki lived his short life well. He was happy and wild and free and fun.
And he was loved. We loved him with everything we had.
The lesson of his death, and my personal lesson that I apparently had to revisit once again, was not to never get attached or to minimize all risk of danger.
The lesson is to live wild and free.
The lesson is to love hard and love true with an open heart and open arms.
These lessons seem to be the pervading lessons of my life, lessons I must learn and relearn over and over again in myriad ways on ever deeper levels.
Today, I am able to once again look my children in the eyes, to listen to their senseless babble with joy in my heart, to be patient through their fights and calm through their troubles.
Today, I can be here, present, in this moment, the mother I want to be.
And tomorrow? Well… who knows? If I am learning anything, it is that I am not in the business of tomorrow.
I am in the business of today.