We wondered if our mothers felt the same as we do right now. We felt a longing to be loved that way again. This opening of the heart sometimes permits hurt feelings from the past to surface, to clamor for our attention. We remember losing our innocence, after something hurt us terribly. Our unconscious could no longer hold these buried memories, these secrets. We felt a fog waft over us, mixed with fear and for some even terror. We hoped and prayed those feelings would soon go away and not develop into something more serious. We allowed ourselves some stolen tears but were careful to control them.
Once I went to visit a client who had just had a cesarean. Laden with bags full of groceries, I set to making her a vegetarian feast. She had an overactive let down and was producing a lot of milk. As a consequence, her baby spit up a lot. I saw that her baby was very fussy and that she was at the end of her rope. Showing her a few tricks to calm her baby down, I placed the now-sleepy bundle in her arms and invited her to sit down in the kitchen and tell me about her birthing experience.
Feeling safe, she proceeded to tell me how lonely she felt, and how having her baby spit up all over everything made her feel inadequate. When she was told that the baby had acid reflux she concluded that she was doing everything wrong. She asked me to, “please, just listen,” for she had so much information swimming in her mind that she just couldn’t hold anymore. She began to pour her heart out, tickled by the scent coming from my cooking pots.
Towards the end of the day and after a good meal she said, “today I was driving with my boy and thought, maybe I can just drive myself off a cliff and all this would be over ... mind you,” she added with a forced smile, “I’d never do such a thing. But I just thought about it.” I asked for her permission to embrace her, and told her that, “I think it’s time you talk to someone.” I explained the opening of the heart concept and asked her to consider making an appointment with a professional. She smiled; someone finally had given her permission to express and even feel, her feelings.
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