Withholding Joy

‘The best situation for a child is to have their mother’s physical and emotional presence for much of the time in the first three years.’ 

‘If infants or very young children don’t have their emotional needs consistently met they develop what psychologists call defensive, or stress inoculated, independence as a survival mechanism. As these children get older they are more likely to experience anxiety and depression.’

I messed up. I made a life altering, devastating mistake that affects my whole family. I feel extremely guilty and I want to crawl in a hole and never come out. I deserve to suffer. I don’t deserve forgiveness. 

And yet living under the weight of what I did and punishing myself will actually do more devastation to my family. I must choose presence. I must choose joy. I don’t deserve to sit on the floor with my daughter and play like nothing happened, but even greater than that, my daughter doesn’t deserve my absence or my emptiness. 

Tidbits from Erica Komisar’s book Being There