I am so MAD!

Anytime you are in reaction to your kids, having an "unpleasant" emotional response to something they are doing or how you might perceive them to be, you are tapping into your unresolved feelings from your own past.

So if you find yourself being mad, stop and check in with your emotional experience. See if you can locate it in your body. See if any images from your childhood come up around this similar experience. If your child is being free and joyous in a place you might perceive as calling for more restraint, why the emotional response from you? Were you told to be quiet often in your own childhood?

To start the process of integrating these emotions, just notice and feel your feelings. Feel them in the context of the past, not the present. I am so mad at my son for not listening becomes I am so sad. My parents never listened to me. Sadness is too painful so I will be mad instead.