Thank you all for your insights and sharing. For me the very act of posting seems to have allowed me to say the words “I forgive myself” and for the first time not feel inauthentic. I was in my happy place running on Friday night and suddenly said to myself “I forgive myself” repeatedly and it felt so freeing. Genevieve, I finally ‘heard’ you when you told me it’s not my fault but it is my responsibility. All my life I’ve thought that if I forgive myself it in some way excuses my behaviour and “let’s me away” with it, which is not what I want for myself when I get angry and say hurtful words to my precious boys. I also hear that I need to give them a model of self-forgiveness. Although I forgive myself for all that I have done in the past, I wonder if I can do it in the future? I do know that the last three days have been very peaceful despite having very broken sleep. I’ve woken in the mornings thinking ‘this could be a day where I lose it’ because of lack of sleep, but I haven’t lost it and haven’t needed to be hypervigilant about it either. I do have my amazing 2.5 year old Max to thank. I was very frazzled searching for a missing marble to keep out of reach of 6 month old Hugo. I started to get terse with Max, asking him to help me find it and he asked for a cuddle – instant diffusion of all anger. Sara, I have cried so much since starting the peaceful parenting journey. I had no idea how much pain I had inside but the tears help it go away. Thank you all.
