The year 2020 was a very pivotal period for a lot of us. A major event for me began on February 11th when Daniel and I found out I was pregnant. A month after that…the world shut down right on our eldest daughter’s birthday! A lot of major shifts that year had given me the chance to slow down at a generally rapid pace of life. I got to learn more about my inner identity of what mattered and what never did.  

A time of trying to heal past fears and traumas during this new journey of pregnancy, came with so much uncertainty at the same time during the quarantine.

As I go through my own personal development, I realized that there is a lot of deconditioning that must be done to hone in on a better mind, body and spirit. Since I was in elementary school I always felt like I could truly understand people the way I wished someone could understand me. I’ve always wanted that kind of friend, but it wasn’t until my late 20s that I’ve had it within me all along. It was just a matter of being kinder and working on better self talk.

My bachelor’s degree in child development may not have gotten me a job in the working field but my years in that program became therapy that I didn’t know I needed. I was able to understand myself and heal parts of me that were still stinging through. One of the fundamental teachings that I learned was that who we are today, started with a blueprint of how our childhood was like. So we need to dive deeper into this.

This blog is to support millennial parents so they can feel seen, heard, and loved. I want you to feel abundant with what you currently have, your unique gifts and your ability to overcome past and present adversities. It is time to re-parent and heal your inner child so we can be our best selves for our families and those around us. This may not have been the case before so let’s get through this together. 

Come join me as I document and share my own personal journey and I hope that along the way, I can support you through the following:

1. Empower millennial parents with the “strength-based” approach

The strength-based approach is doing the best you can, with the circumstances that are given to you. You do this with the skills that you currently have and your own unique way of persevering. It is a practice we use in family studies where educators must understand the parent-child relationship with a more compassionate approach. 

For example,I was 20 years old dealing with some kind of depression after giving birth to my first child. I felt like a failure because she was only 26 weeks gestation when I had her. She got extremely sick and I was a new mom who went home from the hospital without my baby. 

Everybody probably saw me as a young, naive and helpless girl but there were many things that I did in efforts to be there for her. I may not have had the perfect skills to ask doctors the right questions or understood any medical terminology, but I always showed up. I couldn’t hold her or do any of the “newborn” things that I wish I could have done but I sat near her incubator and prayed for her. 

I remember pumping breast milk even though she was too sick to take it. I remember commuting all the way downtown Toronto to visit her in the NICU and reaching to touch her. I remember buying baby books from Indigo before my visit and reading to her while she slept. I also remember walking to St. Patrick’s church to pray for her and asking the priest to help me, spiritually. 

Try and think about a moment in your life where you felt the most alone. A time where you felt like you hit rock bottom. Are you ready to relive this? Because sometimes we dissociate and close that chapter without understanding why in the universe were we meant to go through such a thing, and to see if we really healed from it. Sometimes we are left angry and sad and those around us wouldn’t get it.

The strength-based approach is a game changer and we should look less on the sorrow of difficult times and more about what we did to battle through the waves, roll with the punches, and overcome it. 

2. Supporting millennial parents to heal their past traumas

Looking back at past obstacles in life, we definitely have physically got through it. I mean, we’re alive right now, right? I say this because oftentimes, the mental and emotional piece of overcoming something does not always move on from the trauma. 

Trauma is a strong word but we all have them. Big or small. There can be so much repair that has to be done, especially when the root of the trauma began during childhood. 

Was there something in your home or family life that you have experienced negatively that could be the reason why it is harder to be in relationships? There are always answers to behaviours if we look deeper in what we absorbed or was taught at a younger age. 

Sometimes it doesn’t have to be rooted from childhood but could be a past experience that withdrew you from looking at positive outcomes or newer, better experiences.

Audrina is 10 years old now. She is such a beautiful soul and doing fantastic. It was not until I gave birth to my second daughter, full term at 39 weeks, that I overcame my fear of pregnancy. Before that, I was scared of ever getting pregnant again or wanting more children. My birth trauma and post traumatic stress scared me so much that I kept replaying thoughts of losing my baby. 

This is where a lot of work comes in when we condition ourselves in believing in something that is only in “theory”. However,  the trauma that happens to you had made such an impact, that your body and brain was pushed to believe it. 

For example, you may have a trauma from being broken hearted and a fear of not being loved again. Yes, anyone can say that that is just a theory in our head. Remember when our parents would say “it’s just in your head!” There is truth to that but it is so much deeper than that. 

Our traumas prevent us from pushing through because our inner child is still broken. Any past situations that have not been nurtured or healed yet, typically gets neglected because we have always been taught to just forget about it and move on.

3. Open conversations through story-telling and research

We all have a story to tell and while I’m still new (not really) in figuring my blog out; for right now,  I want to share what I know and the wisdom I developed from experiences that crushed and had hurt me. Our stories make us unique and if we look at them differently, they can be turned into tools that better equip us for the life ahead. Starting with reprogramming our inner thoughts that can greatly impact how we raise stronger and better versions of ourselves. When we do this, we can quite frankly, save our children from the paradigm that we were once taught. 

As you may already know, I have a background in early childhood education and child development. I feel confident in my knowledge of family, health and education but even more so because I’ve applied and practiced those teachings in my personal life. 

There are reasons behind how things work and came to be, and there are floods of research that can back that up. It is also in my blood to be an avid “Google-er” and  get quite obsessed with finding answers and learning more. It is very exhausting being this way but it all happened for a reason so I can help others.

When I was finishing my bachelors, we did a lot of studies using research-based evidence. Learning legitimate facts. It has helped open my eyes to many topics that can give reasons as to why we do what we do.

4. Make millennial parents feel loved

As millennials, a lot of us are on overdrive. We were labeled by Huffington Post as “the most stressed generation” and I believe it! The millennial generation had been brought up (and conditioned!) by past generations where a lot of us were taught old school and traditional ways that don’t really apply anymore. I’m not saying they were wrong but were passed down knowledge of what was considered “right” in previous generations and what they knew at the time. These can be more strict, disciplinary, authoritarian practices that lacked a sense of nurturing and emotional safety in the millennial generation. 

We were taught and programmed a mix of “old school” ways into an era where we are taught more self love and better self talk that was not practiced before. And that requires deconditioning. Being taught something in childhood and now learning how to normalize taboo topics and conversations take a lot of bravery.

A lot of what our inner-child has taught us was by our parents that only knew what they knew from their generation of parents. This was a hardcore, “factory” approach of living life, which was basically to survive at that time. Back then, there was no “mental health this”, and “let’s advocate for” that and now we are being pulled to rediscover ourselves into acceptance. 

Away from traditional approaches, we are now given the opportunity to live our lives authentically. This all sounds great but when things were deeply rooted in us in childhood, it becomes difficult to relearn new practices and mindsets at this stage in our lives without feeling a bit of discomfort. It can be done! But it takes work.

5. Support millennial parents on their journey 

We were all greatly impacted during the COVID-19 pandemic and for many of us, it shifted a lot of perspectives…because we were home and had no choice.  As we all experience this “new normal” together, I am hopeful that we can pick ourselves up and find ourselves again. We were stripped away from a lot of what we were made of and what we were used to. We were stripped away from our work, social settings, and our daily routines. We were pushed to look at our lives with “less” and all we had were ourselves and our immediate environment. 

If we were able to get through this pandemic, we can get through our personal traumas and embrace the journey that comes with that. Just like the pandemic, we had to look deeper into what was important and value everything we had in our homes and families. Now, it is time to look deep within ourselves and value that inner-child with what they have gone through and what they have been told in the past. We can make new shifts in our mindset and heal that child inside all of us. 

Let’s forget about all the materialistics and our motives to feel accepted in today’s society and nourish our inner souls so we can be free to live better and authentically. 

Conclusion

You have more than you think and a lot to offer than what you give yourself credit for.

We are all adults caring for others and a lot of us with children. You do not necessarily have to be a parent to a biological child but you are parenting your inner child. We must repair any damages that were done and save ourselves. Write a new narrative. We all have some of those intergenerational teachings and traumas that we are slowly trying to de-condition during stages of our lives. The 2020 lockdown has probably given you insights into your true and authentic self like it did for me. We now live in a society where we can speak the hell out of anything, unapologetically. Measures we were never allowed to do before. 

Our younger selves need us more than ever now!