I’ll Be Your Mirror

I used to think parenting was all about raising my kids. Teaching them values, guiding them through life, making sure they didn’t fall apart. What I didn’t expect was how much they would end up raising me.

Kids are mirrors. 

Every tantrum, every meltdown, every moment they reflected back my own behavior… it was like they were holding up a spotlight to all the parts of myself I’d worked really hard to avoid. The anger I never dealt with. The exhaustion I pretended wasn’t there. The overreactive patterns I thought I had outgrown.

And the truth is, I was too busy to deal with it. Too busy taking care of them, taking care of the house, taking care of everything but myself. It was all a distraction so I wouldn’t have to look at my own stuff.

But eventually, all that “stuff” came spilling out anyway.

That’s when I started doing yoga again. Practice was like an old friend who knew me better than I knew myself.

Hatha yoga was my first outlet. 

On the mat, moving my body, I could let my anger have a safe place to breathe. Anger about money and how hard it is just to survive. Anger about the social boxes we all get shoved into — women, men, mothers, fathers — roles that don’t always fit. Anger about the fact that sometimes I just wanted to be creative and free, but instead I was weighed down by responsibility. In those strong poses, I could push and pull and sweat until my body released some of the things my mind refused to.

Then restorative yoga taught me the harder lesson.

Slowing down. Stopping. Resting. Instead of fighting off my feelings like they were infiltrating my peace, I had to sit with them. Invite them in. Make room on the couch. Validate their presence, even when I didn’t like what they were saying. That’s not easy for someone who’s used to outrunning their emotions — but it was exactly what I needed.

Breathwork became the thread that wove it all together. 

No matter what I was practicing — strong Hatha flows, quiet restorative poses, or just living life in between — my breath was the anchor. It could take me from panic to presence in a few minutes. It gave me a way to see things clearly, instead of through the haze of my emotional reactions.

And visualization. 

That was like rewriting the story in my own head. Even if nothing in real life had changed yet, if I could imagine myself handling things differently, choosing a different path, I was already paving the way for a new pattern to take root. Sometimes the imagination is the rehearsal space for real life.

But maybe the most underrated practice for me was journaling. 

Getting the words out of my head and onto paper felt like setting down a backpack I didn’t realize I was carrying. All that anger, grief, confusion, frustration — it didn’t have to live inside me anymore. It could rest somewhere else. Over time, those pages became a collection of little stories: about being a new mom, a tired mom, a frustrated creative, a human just trying to hold it all together.

Looking back now, I can see it more clearly. My kids weren’t just “acting out.” They were teaching me. They were showing me the parts of myself I had buried under busyness. And while it wasn’t comfortable, it was necessary.

Healing, I’ve learned, isn’t about pushing trauma away. It’s about sitting with it, learning from it, and choosing — breath by breath, story by story — how to move forward.