How I Felt When My Dad Yelled | Wednesday Waffles 5th Edition
Ok, this one is a big one. I feel like it’s the entire synopsis of my life lesson in being an empathic people pleaser who needs to understand emotional wellness.
I love talking about spirituality, human design, signs from the universe, and intuition… but emotional wellness. This is my bread and butter. This is the root of my work, both professionally in this space as a spiritual mentor, but also personally in who I am and how I live my life. I can’t say much else without actually sharing the conversation I had recently with my mom. So let’s just jump right in.
Let’s dive into the fifth edition of Wednesday Waffles!
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Back to the blog - How I Felt When My Dad Yelled | Wednesday Waffles 5th Ed.
Conversations I’m Having Lately…
This past weekend I was helping my brother and his girlfriend move into their new home. Things didn’t go to plan when they got the keys and arrived at the house for the first time of it being theirs. Emotions were heightened for many reasons. Days were long leading up to move in day and in the days that followed. There was one particular moment that stands out to me (among many other positive and happy moments), and my mom and I had a quick conversation about it afterwards.
The moment in question.
My dad had lost the keys. My brother was clearly frustrated (for obvious reasons). My dad was feeling all the blame, shame, and self-judgment (I’m assuming because I’m not in his mind… but I am an empath so I have a pretty good guess).
It had already been hours of my dad searching and trying to remember where he placed them, when I gave a couple more suggestions. As a recovering people pleaser my natural trait is to jump in and try to solve the problem so I don’t have to see the people around me suffering in their emotional experience. The moment I gave some suggestions (most likely things my dad had already thought of) my dad yelled “IT’S MY FAULT OKAY. I LOST THE KEYS. I KNOW IT’S MY FAULT.” To which I responded sheepishly with “okay, I won’t talk about it anymore”.
The shame I felt. The pain. The guilt. So many emotions built up within me in that moment, questioning my own worth. As a recovering people pleaser, my pattern is to take on someone else’s emotions and believe I’m the problem. (there are a lot of steps I had to take in this moment to calm myself, cleanse myself of his emotions, and re-ground myself into a calm state - I could talk about all of this stuff for lifetimes, but it’s not the point of what I want to share today).
Fast forward a few hours to when I had a moment alone with my mom. I said to her “it’s crazy how different I feel as an adult who has been working on my own growth and how I can witness dad in his emotional expression versus when I was younger, unaware of emotional wellness.” My mom immediately started talking about how dad is from a different generation, one that isn’t aware of emotional intelligence and one that was never taught how to express their emotions in a healthy way, they were taught to bottle them up… which will almost always lead to some type of explosion like I witnessed earlier.
My dad is not an overly emotional guy. At least he doesn’t outwardly show his emotions often. I believe he is extremely sensitive (like me) but he was never taught to see his sensitivity as a strength, so he has a different relationship with his emotions than what I have today. I’ve only seen him cry a couple of times in my life, and I’ve only witnessed him emotionally lash out like this a handful of times.
My mom made a clear point that she has worked hard to understand her emotions from a different perspective and it’s through the work she and I have done. Nothing against my dad at all, I love him with every fiber of my being, but this type of emotional wellness work is not something that he is interested in learning. I think maybe through osmosis of being around my mom and I when we talk about this kind of stuff he has learned a lot, but he just isn’t the self-reflective kind of guy. At least not openly - I could very much be judging him right now which is uncalled for - it’s possible for him to change and I would never want to limit his journey or anyone else's… but this is not the point of the conversation.
The point…
Your parents' emotional expression means nothing about you.
Those were his emotions being expressed in the only way he knows how to express them when they come boiling up and spill out of him.
The younger version of me would’ve internalized that situation for decades, believing I was in the wrong for trying to help solve the issue. My internal monologue would’ve sounded like “I’m such a bad daughter. I made him angry. I need to not share my ideas or thoughts. I need to be quiet. Why did I have to try and step in? He hates me. He is so mad at me. I’m always causing everyone to be upset.”
But this just isn’t true.
The truth? He was frustrated with himself and he probably felt like everyone was blaming him for this problem. He probably internalized that everyone was mad at him for losing the keys, which only made him more mad at himself.
I’ll say it again - your parents’ emotional expression means nothing about you.
This is a lesson that took me a long time to learn. This past weekend gave me an experience to witness how my old perspectives would’ve been triggered. I was able to lean into my soul care practices IN THE MOMENT to guide myself without taking ownership for someone else’s emotional expression.
Learning these kinds of lessons, as a sensitive soul and an empath, has been integral on my journey. This is exactly why I talk about meditation and journaling all the time, because you have to take the time to process, understand and express your thoughts and emotions in a HEALTHY way. The old way of shoving those emotions to the side is outdated. The old way of people pleasing in every situation to avoid someone else expressing their emotions is also outdated. The old way of taking ownership of someone else’s emotions is outdated.
The new way is emotional wellness.
It’s not about being in a state of peace all of the time. It’s not about being positive all of the time. It’s about having healthy, supportive practices to express your emotions and to witness someone else’s emotional expression.
Your parents’ emotional expression (or anyone else’s emotional expression) means nothing about you.
3 Tips I’m Remembering…
1 - It’s okay to push through, hustle and work hard for something, as long as it’s not your every day.
Talking about helping my brother move into his new place, I witnessed my mom go hard all weekend to help out! She is in her mid-60’s and at times I felt like I wanted to tap out because it was non-stop work… but I couldn’t let my mom go harder than me, as a mid-30 year old. So I took a moment to acknowledge her persistence, her resilience, and her effort. The amount of cleaning and painting this woman did, with a strained ligament in her forearm, and no amount of complaining, watching her work hard is what kept me going. After I acknowledged her she made a comment about how pushing that hard probably isn’t healthy. I agree and disagree. I think if you are pushing that hard ALL of the time, then it’s definitely not healthy. On the other hand, sometimes you do have to push yourself and work hard for something, and the satisfaction you feel afterwards is well worth it. This topic is very nuanced and I don’t want to leave it as black and white. But, it was a great reminder for me that sometimes it is okay to push through, hustle and work hard for something, as long as it’s not your every day.
2 - Grounding myself is necessary when I feel triggered by someone else’s words, actions or decisions.
I’ve had a couple instances recently where I felt triggered by someone else’s words, actions or decisions. My old pattern as an empath and sensitive soul would leave me feeling overwhelmed and emotionally exhausted in these moments. Witnessing my own emotional reaction and the emotions of the other person all became too much. Learning how to ground myself as a way to cleanse my energy and root back into my soul truth in these moments has been life changing. Now when I feel triggered I don’t experience the pattern of becoming emotionally exhausted because I have steps and practices to detach from the other person’s energy and gracefully hold space for my own emotional experience.
3 - Saying no when something feels misaligned is always the right answer for yourself.
Saying no is challenging as a people pleaser because for my entire life my self identity and worthiness was tied to how other people perceived me. This is NOT healthy. If I said no to someone then I was letting them down and that made me a bad person. Why was this my belief? What if doing something for someone else resulted in me doing wrong to myself? Who wins? No one. This has been a challenging lesson to move through and I’ve had to practice it a lot, no matter how uncomfortable it has made me feel. Now I’m at a place where I can say no to someone else’s request because I know what my gut instinct is telling me. Learning the difference between what feels aligned and what feels misaligned has been a journey, and it’s led me to create a life that fulfills me. Last week I had to say no to someone, and it triggered those old people pleasing patterns within me. I had to take the time to ground myself again, listen to the voice of my soul, process the emotions I was feeling, and remember what it means to build a life that feels aligned to me.
All of this week’s shares come after the weight of the Full Moon in Scorpio on May 1st. It was a doozy for me, but all in all I’ve come out stronger.
If you’ve been feeling triggered from different experiences over the past week and a half I strongly encourage you to grab a journal and reflect on what you’re feeling, what you’re thinking, and what feels most aligned for you.
As an empath soul you will always feel energetically and emotionally influenced by the world around you. This doesn’t stop. Taking the time to understand your energy and emotions can help you live in an aligned and peaceful way.
Do you know you need support on your journey of mastering your energy and emotions? This is exactly what my membership The Soul Care Space is for. Every week I share new resources that are 5-25 minutes that will help you cleanse your energy, ground yourself, and feel more connected to your soul.
It’s exactly these practices that have helped me go from the exhausted and emotional people pleaser into the empowered and peaceful empath. This isn’t a one time thing… this is a lifestyle shift.
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As you start including these practices into your regular routine you will start feeling more vibrant, peaceful, and free in your life.
Don’t let the world block the magic of your soul from shining through!
Much love,
Sydney Smith
Spiritual Mentor
Founder of Adventuring with Poseidon Wellness
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