Ups and Downs
These ideas are so much better Shared!!
Ups and Downs.
While I’m happy to report that working on the toolkit with my family has already been transformative, it’s not all sunshine and roses.
I’m enjoying a much deeper, more honest and complete connection with my partner.
As my parenting becomes more and more gentle, I see my 5-year-old blooming in front of me. I am so grateful to have SCRIPTTs to lessen their trauma responses, and help them engage fully in their world rather than reacting to triggers. I love that they’re learning to trust me. We’ve got a long way to grow.
This toolkit has been worth it every single day since I started to take it on, and I’m so excited to see the changes this continues to make in my family, and my heart.
Like everything in life it comes with a cost. Doing this for ourselves has meant having to navigate our extended family differently. We invited them into this transformation with us, and for a variety of reasons, they’ve declined for now.
I’ve experienced push back from some of the most unexpected places, and in those moments I’m still hurt and reactive. Here I want to explain why I’m just as grateful for the resistance as I am for the willing cooperation of my family.
When the push back happened, I was shocked. I was shocked because it came from the last person I expected, and it was much more direct than I had thought this person was capable of.
I let myself feel the rejection and the hurt. I looked at the text of the resistance and did some discourse analysis to understand exactly what was happening in this moment.
I realized that while certainly unpleasant, without ever touching the toolkit, and in rejection of the toolkit, the other person was DOING the toolkit.
They were as gentle as they could be. They represented their interests directly. They spoke from their perspective. They drew boundaries. They were honest about things that I was unaware of before.
While it hurts, and the rejection is still real, it also let me know where I stand, when guessing had been such a weight to carry. I had misunderstood my place, because I had bought into gaslighting that made everyone feel good, but it wasn’t honest. It wasn’t the truth.
These revelations hurt, because they were counter to many things I believed. Knowing better enables me to behave accordingly, and is such a tremendous relief. Letting go of cognitive dissonance is a gift.
My point is that even when the toolkit hurts the most, it’s worth it. The relief I’m feeling about understanding my position is well worth the shock and pain of the resistence.
I’m also grateful that this gave me an opportunity to respond, honestly, and gently, following the rules of the toolkit. I acknowledged boundaries. I indicated miscommunications. I let the person know what’s affected by their choices. I commended them for their use of the tools. Then I let go. I accepted the new information, and reevaluated my place. I mourned the difference, and examined what is effected by the shift. Now I’m planning accordingly.
I was hard, and it certainly didn’t go how I wanted, accepting it is a gift.
How are your adventures with the Toolkit coming along?
Operation **Reclaim** Loveland 
What do you think?