Whose love did you crave the most as a child?

On Friday evening, as part of The Confident Mother online conference, I had the pleasure of interviewing the fabulous Toni Brodelle of Incredible Me.

“Whose love did you crave the most as a child?” is the question that Toni asks her clients. And the follow up question is “In order to have that love, what did you have to do or be?”.  I now understand my drive to be ‘perfect’ and why I don’t like to do anything if there is the possibility of failure. As a child, I thought I had to be clever to be loved. And clever people don’t mess up!

How we are parented and loved as children, and how we learned to behave in order to be loved, has an enormous impact on how we grow up. It affects our emotional well being which in turn can affect the way that we parent. We already learned about that with Maxine Harley earlier in the week. As Toni points out, all behaviour is communication. So if our children are ‘misbehaving’, then that in itself is a form of communication and we need to look beyond the “misbehaviour” to understand what is underneath.

In the interview Toni explains how emotional well-being is partly self-esteem, partly emotional resilience, and partly self-care. Taking care of ourselves as mothers is an essential part of nurturing the emotional well-being of our own children. We all have different needs.

As a result of listening to Toni, I pondered on this and the other points she raised all over the weekend. As a result, I did something quite different for me this morning. I visited a local client site this morning. There was a heavy frost on the ground and on the windscreen, and once I had defrosted it, it turned out that the car had a flat battery so I had to walk – briskly in order to arrive on time. When it came to walking home, I remembered what Toni Brodelle had said on Friday about taking time for ourselves. I usually march briskly everywhere. Today I decided to slow down, take time and enjoy the walk. It’s a footpath that runs between a golf course and an open field – so lots of birds and squirrels in the trees and bushes; bird song; dogs out with their owners; frozen ice on a pond. I enjoyed the moments. It’s a 20-25 minute walk but it was so nice just to “be”.

So … whose love did you crave most as a child? And what did you need to do or be to ‘earn’ that love?

Do join me in The Confident Mother – this week is crammed full of interviews with amazing and inspirational people who will share their thoughts and ideas on teenagers, career change, using your voice to project confidence, being a single mum, managing that work life balance and so much more. Even better, it’s all FREE!

p.s. the event is over but you can grab yourself a full copy of the boxset here