I sat with my feet in the water, watching them and enjoying the sounds of their laughter as they played King of the Hill. Eventually, my mind drifted from the game that my children were playing to some of the trainings and containers that I had been in

Of all of my children, he was the most likely to be impacted by other people’s opinions. So, I took the opportunity to discuss that more deeply with him. We spoke about how this was one of the most important lessons that he would ever learn

I had made plans to wake up early and get out on the ocean to watch the sunrise as we only have 2 mornings and the second morning we would be leaving shortly after sunrise. As we got ready for bed, I pulled out my phone and went to set the alarm clock but for some reason I simply couldn’t do it.

Question after question, thought after thought, rolled through my mind. There was an endless supply of thoughts and there didn’t seem to be a shortage of things that my mind could throw at me.

“HEY!”  I yelled at my mind trying to disrupt the loop that I was caught in. 

I was full of fiery energy and feisty AF. I spent 2 days turbo marching around the house, stomping up the stairs, kicking my blankets off my legs because they were just so annoying, dropping things only to growl and swear, clenching my jaw almost continuously. I was absolutely full of piss and vinegar. It was more anger than I had accessed in a very long time and I wasn’t about to stop the process.

I felt small bubbles of excitement begin to move and cern in my stomach and my chest. I wiggled a little in my chair as I reached for my purse and grabbed my debit card. I began typing my information into the website to book the hotel and simultaneously allowed the excitement that I was feeling inside of my body to be as loud as it wanted to be.

He wiped tears from his cheeks and looked up at me. I smiled gently at him, knowing that he was just orienting back into time and space after coming out of our somatic session. 

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

“I have been in therapy for years and have never felt a release like that” he responded. 

“I think that my answer was fair and reasonable. I openly set and communicated a boundary with you and it feels really yucky to me to have you try to pressure me into bending on this boundary. If you want to have an open discussion with me, you know that I will always do that but I don’t like it when you try to pressure or manipulate me.” 

I recognized that my nervous system had been in a freeze response, which meant that something was really overstimulating for me. I had two choices, I could continue to avoid whatever was happening in my nervous system and emotionally, or I could take the time and space to really BE with whatever was coming up for me.

Additionally, my body was reacting to the way that he was pressuring me. I didn’t like it. If I am being fully transparent, someone trying to control me never lands well. It didn’t land well when I was a small child and it absolutely doesn’t land well as an adult.