MP3: Tantrums as an Opportunity for Growth – A Conversation with Intuitive Mumma, Carla Wood

This recording explores how we can use tantrums as an opportunity to grow, connect with children and become a more expanded version of ourselves. 

Melissa and Sandi are joined by Intuitive Mumma, Carla Wood, who shares her own parenting journey and how she embraces the challenging moments with her young daughter. After Sandi read an email (pasted below) she asked Carla if she would be a guest on our program to speak more about her experience.

Learn more about Carla and sign up for her emails at www.theintuitivemumma.com and fb.com/theinuitivemumma

Here is the email that inspired this conversation: “Hello Beautiful,

Recently we have had a few “tantrums” in our house. I say “tantrums” because they looked like tantrums, they smell like tantrums but they feel like something else.

I am happy for my child to loose it emotionally. I get that she is learning to be with all the energies and ways of the world and some of that can be intense and overwhelming. And sometimes I get we’re just tired and have too much sugar.

But then there comes the day where you just have to call bullshit.

I was observing the said tantrums and realised that if I pay attention there is no sugar or tired or overwhelm involved that they are in fact actually being instigated by her. She is whipping those things up all off her own bat. Being a bit of a sucker at times I can fall into putting my blinkers on around my child’s capacity to use energies that are manipulative or controlling or flat out nasty. Who my “nice” child?

I confess when it comes to my child I sometimes want to put my head in the sand and pretend she is the nicest most caring person on the planet and then I come out of my mumma ego coma and realise a/ that’s a load of rubbish and b/ I actually don’t want that for her or me.

The truth is she and I and you are of the universe we have with in all the potential of the universe and that includes shit that smells. That includes the things that make this world awful – controls, manipulations, using others, attack and a bunch of other pleasantries.

My unwillingness to look at her as a soul with her own history and story who is needs to master all potentials not just the nice ones has gotten me in trouble before. You simply can not work with manipulation if your not willing to look at the fact there is manipulation going on.

So back to the tantrums.

One of my girl’s life lessons is learning to be grounded in herself and not others, she has lots of stories about being alone and scared. Out of her fear of aloneness she gets over responsible with other peoples stuff and makes it her own, loosing herself in the process. And yet she is 4 wanting to get out in the world, wanting to be independent, wanting to do this by herself. It’s a divine soul conundrum to have what she desires she must grow bend her fears.

So anytime she hits this challenge that is a bit scary, a bit oh god do i grow or do i not have what i want, she is creating a whopping cyclone proportionate to her soul’s drama and challenge not in relation to anything external. She is essentially creating drama to avoid her growth challenge and it looks like a tantrum. She pulls out all her controls and manipulations in that moment.

My initial response was a bit edgy, when i was ranting off my stress at these continuing events I even said to my husband “if she was anyone else i reckon I would punch her in the face”. On our parent side they were sudden, they were random events and both my husband and i were feeling the effects of her instant manipulations and controls.

So I stopped, I watched, I breathed, I followed the energies. I felt beyond her fire and I understood the key issue was being alone. Once I had this awareness drop in I simply began taking opportunities to discuss and experience the concepts of aloneness verse lonely, personal fears and overcoming them.

We developed a daggy family dance about new things in our lives and dinner talk to celebrate our personal wins. We used the Christmas bike to practice learning and self discipline to do some physically challenging skills. I instigated an extra rest time for me during the day where she does “self” time. Simple easy solutions that allow her to explore the topics that are currently unbalanced for her soul. Life is not all just fluff here, I also told her to pull her head in a few times too and learn to direct your fire appropriately. Ie lets yell together or hit pillows together not directing the fire at me.

I know I cannot teach what to do with out being what to be, so I looked at my own stories about being alone, my own approach to overcoming fears, where I create drama rather than stepping through and expanding. And yes they were all there glaring at me.

I bless my child for being my mirror and again showing me my potential and I get on with my essential work of releasing the old and cultivating the new.

The tantrums become opportunities for growth, they die off naturally and we return back to balance – for now.”