‘I absolutely love the water, being in the sea or in the swimming pool. It represents for me a celebration of life and reminds me of precious moments spent with my dad as a child during the summer. I was so excited to start swimming with my son Ayden. As a baby, I would take him in the water daily, be it in the pool or in the sea, and as he slowly got more comfortable, I also began to feel more at ease.
These were joyful moments for me, and yet what I hadn’t realised at the time is that I was unconsciously watching and safeguarding to an extreme that was almost uncomfortable. When Ayden began to swim properly, I noticed that he would not put his head under water. I was concerned and wanted him to be at liberty and free without fear.
It soon dawned on me that of course he would not put his head under
water because I was not putting my head under water! My mother grew up
with fear of water and while I still went swimming with my dad very
often, the impact of my mother’s feelings were deeply engrained and had
affected my sense of self and my relationship to the water.
This might have created cognitive dissonance, which is when we hold
two opposite feelings in our mind at the same time. To explain the
theory of cognitive dissonance, you might say you love to swim but hate
the water. It’s possible to love the water and hate to swim, but the
opposite would make no sense. While I loved the water and to swim, my
mother’s fears had still affected me.
As a solution, Ayden and I both went for swimming lessons and learnt
to swim underwater. Lo and behold, my son and I began to happily swim
underwater, and he is now very much a fish in water.
I am hoping that the above story is a useful metaphor for
understanding the affect your childhood may have on your parenting. In
this instance, it was a very simple fear of water that was not
necessarily talked about, but absorbed, nonetheless – even though it
wasn’t absorbed as an active fear. It demonstrates how every word, every
tone, every facial expression has a consequence that carries through to
the next generation – unless we become aware and commit to
understanding ourselves to prevent any of our ancestral scarring being
transferred to our children.
The funny thing is that any pain we may feel from our parents gets
shifted and reframed the moment we begin to ask ourselves the right
questions. We can put ourselves in the shoes of our parents to consider
the context that surrounded them and what they were going through at the
time we were children. I am not suggesting making any excuses for any
behaviours or overlooking them. Untangling unresolved questions allows
you to relive your childhood again with your children, without any
blemishes that you may harbor or still carry.
Becoming the best version of yourself as a parent is about stepping
up to it consciously and conscientiously. This happens when we can
examine and consider the way we were raised. We question our family map
and see if our experiences are in fact what we would like to replicate
with our children. Are the emotions we felt as children what we would
like them to feel? What we would choose to do differently in our own family as our children grow?
Sometimes revisiting the past is uncomfortable and we wish to simply
enjoy the present. But our children replicate everything that we are and
do: we can’t hide anything from them as whatever we are hiding or not
saying is felt by them, even if they may not fully understand it. If we
can come to terms with our own past experiences, we can reframe any
negative aspects of our own childhood leaving our own children to enjoy a
loving, aligned and empathetic parent.
About the author
Sukaiyna Gokal established Garden of Ayden in 2012, the first
self-healing platform available in 28 languages. She is the
international best-selling author of The Human TOUCH. Enter the
Garden and Looking at the I with a Deeper Eye are free programs on
www.gardenofayden.com and on all podcast channels. They are also
pre-requisites for the Purposeful Parenting program coming soon.
