"How do you be kind to yourself over past fuck-ups that you ruminate over and over again? I worry I'm inherently fucking up my kids by doing so."

Do Your Mistakes Damage Your Kids?

I want to address the idea of messing up your kids first and foremost. I really wish the person who submitted this question had given more specifics I could speak to, but my more general response will still be helpful.

If you are WORRIED about messing up your kids, you're probably already doing better than you think. It turns out that parents only need to be about 30% "good" to produce securely attached kids.

It's called the Principle of Good Enough (POGE).*

This comes from the concept of "Good Enough Parenting" popularized by pediatrician Dr. Donald Winnicott in the 1950s. Building upon Winnicott's work in the 1970s, researcher Edward Tronick came to the conclusion that roughly one-third of the time, parents are "perfectly" attuned to their kids' needs, one-third of the time parents can't figure out what their kid needs and thus don't meet them and the child has to self-regulate, and one-third of the time, parents start out not understanding a need and then work to become attuned.

According to an article from the American Journal of Psychiatry:

A finding of great significance was that mothers are correctly attuned to their infant’s emotional state only about one-third of the time. The infant’s responses to the frequent misattunements result in appropriate corrections by the mother in another one-third of the occasions. These findings have led to the conclusion that the successful repair of misattunements may be crucial for the infant’s normal development. Tronick and Gianino (15) emphasized that successful repair turns despair into positive emotions.

Conclusion 1: Imperfect parenting is good enough, and actually ideal.

Conclusion 2: The ability to recognize when you fuck up and correct/reattune to your child's needs MATTERS and actually repairs disconnections that could cause attachment wounds.

Thus: Be imperfect, apologize to your kids, do your best.

So we can stop with the perfect mom pressures. Boom, cured. (I joke).

*Also, now that I know this term, y'all better buckle up for a deluge of POGE themed teachings coming your way. I HAVE AN ACRONYM NOW AND I AM UNSTOPPABLE.

Ruminating on Past Mistakes

This part is more complicated, because by the time you're at a point where you repeat your mistakes over and over, those neural pathways are well worn-in.

I can remember cringe stuff I said years ago and forget what I ate for lunch yesterday, and I know logically that the people I said the cringe stuff to probably don't think about it. Hopefully. But when you are rejection sensitive and the memory of that cringey mistake is attached to a big, heavy bowling ball of shame in your stomach every time you think about it, that's gonna stick.

So how do we un-stick it?

This is actually exactly what my coaching certification is based in: self-directed neuroplasticity. The ability to change your neural pathways with intention, create new associations and patterns, and stop putting all your mental eggs into the fucked up basket of your mistakes.

There are infinite ways to approach this concept of neuroplasticity. A lot of them are things you might already do, such as meditation, breathing exercises, or seeing a therapist. Here's the basic formula.

1. Associate into the "problem state." This is whatever feels like shit, whatever makes you ruminate on those mistakes over and over. You want to find the precise moment BEFORE the emotional response kicks in, so that you can interrupt the pattern. (This is why it's easier with a trained coach, therapist, other professional to guide you, but it's not impossible to do yourself).

2. Dissociate out of the activated problem state. Do whatever calms you down or interrupts that emotional loop - laughter works, deep breathing, passing an object back and forth across the center line of your body, EFT tapping, etc.

3. Once you're in a neutral state, now you want to associate into the new, ideal, resource state. How do you want to feel instead? Working with a coach, you'll loop this resource state through several iterations, allowing yourself to be more and more supported in the new neural pathway.

4. Finally, you'll collapse the original problem state under the weight of how supportive and positive the resource state has become. The next time a triggering circumstance arises, you'll find it much easier to find the new belief/thought/pattern as opposed to the old one, because you've literally changed how your brain reacts to the stimulus.

Why does this work? Because brains run on pattern recognition and survival. Your brain is doing a lot, and it's easier to keep you safe by associating into a known protective response. But those known protective responses might really fucking suck. So kick 'em out and teach your brain that it has options and can pick a pathway that actually feels much better.

Bringing It All Together

The question asks, "How can you be kind to yourself over past fuck-ups that you ruminate over and over again?" And again, without more context from the question I am not sure exactly what kinds of mistakes are being ruminated on, but I'm going to make an assumption that the person asking tends to ruminate on past mistakes of all kinds and is worried their kids will emulate that and not know how to recover from mistakes.

So, practice. Practice forgiving yourself for past cringe, mistakes, fuck-ups, awkward moments, and talk it out where they can see and hear you. Kids learn by observation. You can even bring them into the process with you. "I've been so stuck on this thing I did in the past and I'm trying to get over it, because I don't want you to think this is how to handle mistakes. Let's talk it out." They might surprise you with a level of understanding, compassion, and forgiveness that you didn't think you had already taught them.

Take Action

If you're interested in trying out this self-directed neuroplasticity thing, book an Oracle Coaching Session with me! A one-time 90 minute session will let us dig into two or three problems that you think are permanently fucking up your brain, using oracle cards and hypnotic trance work to help you access the unconscious parts of you that both resist and desire big changes to your life.

I'd also love to receive your questions to respond in the Ask Fish blog. Think reddit post, not tweet: give me the drama details!