In order for us to be great parents, we have to learn more about ourselves, what makes us tick, and what paralyzes us in fear. Otherwise, we repeat these cycles unconsciously, which makes it hard to understand others, let alone the little people that come from us. Sometimes, we continue these cycles unconsciously because we are unaware of them. So how do we break up with these fear-based patterns?

We all have fear-based patterns that vary based on our life experiences. Today, I’m going to share a particular fear that I'm currently navigating. It’s been a pattern that’s taken up a lot of space and energy in my life, even though I didn’t realize just how much. 

This fear-based pattern is around guns. I have a six year old boy named Kai, and like so many other little boys his age, he’s taken on a fascination with guns. He’s seen some form of guns, whether it’s a laser, nerf gun, or other type, in shows, cartoons, commercials, etc. I know that so many little boys around this age become fascinated with them. 

I've always felt that both consciously and unconsciously, I would protect Kai from that fascination and exposure to guns. I’ve always thought that we would avoid shows or toys that involve them. The reason I’ve always thought this is because I have a strong emotion around it. My natural instinct has always been to shut it down and avoid them, thinking that someday when he gets older, it’ll all work itself out and he’ll understand guns from a more mature standpoint. 

I’ve learned though, that it's not until you sit with your emotions that you understand where the potent energy of this fear-based pattern comes from. When I sit with my own emotions around this, I understand that I have valid reasons for wanting to protect him from the exposure to guns. The fact is, I am raising a bi-racial little boy. Half-black males are statistically at a higher risk for being hurt or killed. 

However, you also have to look at how the media perpetuates these situations. When incidents and unfortunate fatalities happen and injustice takes place, the media plays it on a loop. Therefore, most people don't have the space to actually heal or move away from this fear-based pattern because they're constantly being re-traumatized by the incessant loop that’s meant to spark our fears and turn on our limbic brain system that keeps us in fight, flight, or freeze mode. 

This loop causes problems and distance between the people that we are living life with. Another piece of this emotional feeling I have towards guns is the fact that I am a mom. My maternal instinct to protect my babies at all costs is very strong. When you put all of these things together, it turns into a storm of emotional reaction, without a lot of room for that frontal cortex to come online and break through these fear-based patterns. 

I had to sit with this, and I realized that my limbic system, the part of my brain that's responsible for fearful and threatening stimuli, is overactive when it comes to the subject of guns. I feel this in my entire body. It’s a whole body response. 

Simultaneously, Kai is having his own life experience. He’s a six year old boy who is naturally curious about exploring this topic. He sees things. He has friends and goes to school. I can’t and don’t want to shelter him from all the things in life. It's actually really important how I respond to this at this stage in his life. 

At first, I led with resistance around it. I didn’t want to talk about it or allow him to be curious. In reality, I think that added more fuel to the fire. It deepened his curiosity and urged him to push that boundary with me. He could sense that I had a lot of emotion around this and he wanted to find out why and see where that edge really was. So he ended up talking about it all the time to me, asking questions, and wondering more. 

That’s when I had the aha moment that this fear-based pattern kept coming up for me to deal with, not to run from. I'm a big proponent that we have soul contracts with people in this lifetime. I realized that Kai and I had a soul contract around this. He came in with a natural inclination and curiosity to explore things in life that happened to trigger me simultaneously. 

As I sat with and deconditioned this, I looked at how I could support him in this stage.  Chances are, he'll grow out of this, and worst case scenario, if it really is a lifetime fascination, I asked myself how I could support him in being as safe, knowledgeable, and responsible as possible. For all I know, maybe he's inclined and curious about guns because he's going to go on in life to re-engineer a gun that’s more safe and has this new-age technology that we can't even fathom yet. 

However, if I'm constantly resisting, fighting, and shutting it down, I’ll rob us from evolving from these fear-based patterns. It doesn't matter if it’s guns or another fear. If you shut it down and avoid looking at it, you don't only rob yourself, but you rob your children from growing from it. 

Being willing to sit with the fear and deconstruct it is so important. There are always chances that terrible things can happen, but we don’t let fear dictate our lives on a daily basis. Even though we might subconsciously have things that keep us from taking certain risks because we're scared of the worst case scenario, we still live our lives day to day. We don’t think about the worst case scenario 24/7. If we did, that would keep us from living a full life. 

The same goes for other fears that we hold onto, like my fears around guns. We have somehow disabled the frontal cortex, which controls our judgment and logical thinking to break down these massive fears and respond for us before we can actually think about it. We have to break that down. In my case, I have to trust Kai and know that I'm here to guide, support, and empower him. I'm here to provide knowledge and ensure he's safe and responsible. I'm NOT here to shut him down from life or derail his interests and dreams. I have to think about how I can support him in a way that increases his skill and knowledge so he can be safe and responsible. 

This is a big fear-based pattern for me to work through, so I've started with small steps of just having conversations with him about it. I’ve started showing interest in his origami guns and the laser gun he wants. I’ve challenged myself to stop shutting him down and create a safe space for him to communicate with me. He doesn’t understand the statistics or the trauma loop that’s being fed to adults like I do. I’m not going to project the worst case scenarios and fear on him. I will be there to have those conversations as he gets older that will protect him and others. But at six years old, I’m going to keep this proportional and developmentally appropriate. I’m going to let him be a kid and deactivate those parts of my limbic brain that are all doom and gloom. 

My husband, Mike, grew up shooting guns when he was a teenager, so we will train Kai to see the responsibility in shooting and being around guns. He will know that they are weapons first and foremost and that he must understand the repercussions of them in order to be safe. This conversation will be a breakthrough, especially for me. 

Our kids are mirrors for us and they show us where we have healing yet to do. This is a place I definitely have healing to do, because this was never a conversation with me as a child. I’m carrying this fear-based cycle because I didn't grow up with guns or any knowledge around them. I didn’t know how to be safe with guns until I did safety training with Mike and actually learned how to shoot before I had kids. It’s empowering to feel safe with something instead of feeling a massive fear around it. 

We had a beautiful conversation with Kai recently where Mike told him that when he is a teenager and has showcased that he’s responsible enough to be safe and has learned the power of guns, he’ll take him out to practice shooting. Kai made a beautiful comment about how we wanted to wait until he was like 18 or 20, because maybe he wouldn’t be responsible enough when he's 15 or 16. It warmed my heart that a six year old might have that self reflection and it wasn't all about the instant gratification.

He really understood the gravity of what we were talking about and how important it was. Even though he probably doesn’t have a perception of how long it may be, he was willing to delay his timeline if he thought he wasn’t ready, which was a big aha moment for me. It made me think that we really can give our kids a little more trust and lean into their power with the right guidance and support. 

Having this open dialogue and communication can go such a long way in terms of your children being safe, regardless of what the fear is. Can you open up the lines of communication so that there's a chance to transmute and alchemize that fear and grow together? That's ultimately what this is about. 

Fears are hard, but if we want to be our best selves for our children, we have to look at them and be willing to break up with these fear-based patterns, transmute them, and turn them into something better so that our children have tools to access as they grow up. This will help them let love guide them instead of fear. It is not their job to carry the weight of our trauma, fear patterns, and ancestral wounds. 

I want to invite you to look at what subconscious fears are making their way into your conscious reactions or actions. What’s the next thing you can do to break up with these fears? Is it opening up for a conscious conversation with your partner, yourself, and your kids? Is it simply acknowledging that it exists? Is it breaking down the worst case scenario? Let me know your thoughts around this in the comments below!

To dive deeper into the topic of understanding yourself as a parent, watch my Youtube video here.