I‘ve been on this healing path for nearly two decades and it wasn’t until my system reorganized through growing and birthing Solomon that I had the capacity and energetic strength to honor my boundaries with my family and begin this next layer of work. It has been incredibly messy. Yet somewhere through the discomfort, grief, and exhaustion of Solomon’s first year, I am connecting to an untapped inner resource of vitality and strength that has taken me by surprise.

There is so much potency in my body and in my system just waiting for me to untangle the layers of my history and lineage, waiting for me to decide that the trauma stops with me, waiting for me to integrate all the women who came before me and all they endured without the resources that I have to do this work. Changing the trauma patterns in my family began when I got sober all those years ago and it continues today each time I set clearer boundaries with my family around what I will and won’t accept in our relationships. Changing the trauma patterns in my family this week has looked like expressing healthy aggression, showing up as my full adult self, and differentiating from my history one breath at a time.

If you asked me last year what I thought it meant to be a conscious parent I would have said something along the lines of a parent that does their work, knows how to differentiate from their child, and who is aware when they are not in their adult self. Today that still stands true though it has more nuance and subtly to it as well as a fierceness to protect my little one (both my inner child and baby Solomon) from anyone who isn’t willing to support the growth of us as individuals and as a family.

While I know I will and already have made mistakes as a parent, my work today is to keep reparenting myself so that I can show up as an adult parent for Solomon. I am grateful today that Solomon will never have to experience me drunk or high. I am also grateful today that Solomon will grow up with a mama who doesn’t want him to be her parent.

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