Posts tagged relationships
Showing UP for Sophia: What is Resilience?
Showing UP for Sophia: What is Resilience?

“Kids are resilient — they can bounce back from anything.”

I’ve heard these words often. I’ve repeated them myself, especially to myself. I meant them without question. Until I started having conversations about healthy relationships with youth who were kept in cages.

Our society refers to these structures as juvenile detention centers — a facility in which inmates are forcibly confined and denied a variety of freedoms under the authority of the state as a form of punishment after being convicted of crimes. Quite a sentence for youth who don’t have fully developed brains until the age of 25 — the development of the prefrontal cortex affects how to regulate emotions, control impulsive behavior, assess risk and make long-term plans. In addition, the cerebellum affects cognitive maturity, but unlike the prefrontal cortex, the development of the cerebellum appears to largely depend on environment, as Dr. Jay Giedd at Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego told PBS.

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generational trauma, healthy relationships, prevention education, mentor, relationships, resiliency, unhealthy relationshipsMarcella MaggioACEs, trauma, child abuse, accountability, childhood trauma, relationships, resiliency, break the pattern, inner child, inside kid Comments
Showing UP for Sophia: And Like That, She's Gone
Showing UP for Sophia: And Like That, She's Gone

I have work to do, but I can’t stop crying. I have to get it out first. I have to be with this. I have to feel it all. Even when my breath tightens, even when my legs can’t stop shaking, even when I have to pause typing for every word to cry. I have to understand why I feel like such a failure. I have to know to go forward. Deep down I already know what it is, I’ve just never named it. Only shamed and blamed it in others.

This is my mid-life crisis. This is where I see all of my shit. Where I face my shadows, the darker parts of myself that I don’t want you to know. So why am I telling you now? Because I’m done hiding.

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child abuse, co-parenting, family, generational trauma, healthy relationships, mentor, parenting, prevention education, relationships, resiliency, transgenerational trauma, unhealthy relationshipsMarcella MaggioIt's My Liferelationships, resiliency, trauma, trust, trusted adult, transgenerational trauma, storytelling, family, family issues, guardian, ignorance, parenting, parenthood, prevention education, aces, awareness, survivor, depression, identity, healthy relationship, healing, thriver, break the pattern, breakup, love, communication, boundaries, mental health, adverse childhood experiences, mentor Comment
Showing UP for Sophia: Good Thing
Showing UP for Sophia: Good Thing

I knew next to nothing about the fathers of my children. All three of them. Third times the charm? In the sense that I‘m certain I’ll never have another baby with a man I barely know? Absolutely. Not only because I’m 44, but because I’m over the concept that I need to be with the father to be there for our child. We are. We will be. I’m trusting that John and I will show up for Sophia in the ways she needs, since we weren’t showing up for each other, which was unfair to us all.

I’ve been here before. I know what usually happens... I get the kid and he and I hate each other, forever. As if that tactic worked with my first two children who have since confessed that I regularly crossed their boundaries by sharing too much, and rarely got consent from their fathers for making choices that concerned our children. Not this time.

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co-parenting, family, generational trauma, healthy relationships, parenting, relationships, resiliency, transgenerational trauma, unhealthy relationshipsMarcella MaggioIt's My Lifeaccountability, awareness, resiliency, relationships, trauma, transgenerational trauma, family, family issues, survivor, identity, divorce, parenting, parenthood, prevention education, empathy, support, adverse childhood experiences, family dispute, guardian, healthy relationship, communication, co-parenting, breakupComment
Showing UP for Sophia: Fitting into Fantasies
Showing UP for Sophia: Fitting into Fantasies

You know how you know something, but you don’t know how you know it? 

That’s my life in a nutshell right now. A total shit show. I’m about to lose the only home I’ve known for the past four years. The longest I’ve lived with a man since my father. Ironic considering I began to see John as my father... secretive, aloof, unavailable.

Is it inevitable? Do we end up with people like our parents?

Maybe. Or maybe we settle for the stories they showed us.

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co-parenting, family, generational trauma, healthy relationships, parenting, relationships, resiliency, transgenerational trauma, unhealthy relationshipsMarcella MaggioIt's My Liferelationships, family issues, family, family dispute, parenting, co-parentingComment
Showing UP for Sophia: Dear John,
Showing UP for Sophia: Dear John,

Dear John,

Watching Marriage Story on New Year’s Eve was the ending I needed to witness in order to understand our own. Like Charlie and Nicole, we have history, we share a child, and we both want our child to be raised in an environment where she can thrive. While our similarities don’t stop there, the difference in how their ending started inspired me to follow suit. A mediator encouraged them to write a note of positivity to remember why they got married (together) in the first place. Here is mine:

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co-parenting, family, generational trauma, healthy relationships, parenting, relationships, resiliency, transgenerational trauma, unhealthy relationshipsMarcella MaggioIt's My Liferelationships, breakupComment