[Editor’s Note: Today’s guest post is from a Warrior Mom who endured a traumatic childhood and wants other moms to know they don’t have to end up like their own parents. When you feel triggered, you can choose how to react. You can choose to breathe. -Jenna]

I see you. I see you milling thru another day as someone’s mom. A little human being’s teacher, his guide thru this world.

Maybe you’re pushing a fire truck around with your son and pretending to put out a fire. Maybe you’re changing a diaper and making a funny face at your child as you wipe their bottom for the 17293728th time.

Maybe you’re just going thru the motions while your mind processes something completely different: another time, another place, another child.

Growing up in an abusive household, you often don’t realize that your life is not the norm. You are accustomed to being hit, cut down, bullied, taken advantage of, etc. You begin to brick up your heart and your emotions. You build your wall and before you know it, no one can hurt you. No one can get to you.

The tears become less about being sad and more of an automatic, robotic even, reaction. The yelling becomes less about making a point and more about survival.

Maybe you’re like me: You grow up, move out and in from your childhood, you get married, and you start your own big girl life. You’re in love, and you don’t care who knows it!

Along with marriage comes highs and lows. Though the highs may carry you thru the lows, you enjoy them with discretion, because history has taught you that behind every joy, animosity lurks not far.

“Don’t get too happy,” your subconscious reminds you. “This peace of mind is not what we do!” So you get used to feeling most of the way happy, but never letting yourself 100% feel it.

Then you meet the human that has been growing in your body for nine months (or maybe you adopted, but either way, you’re a mama now.) Then that wall, it begins to sway, like a hurricane is beating down on one side of it. Now you’re a little scared.

What is this sorcery? Excuse me, little bald person, but who are you to waltz in and take over my thoughts like this? Wall demolished. Gone.

Fast forward a few years. The little bald person has turned into a slightly taller, slightly hairier person and today, he wakes up in a mood. Nothing you mention does he want for breakfast. He doesn’t want to get dressed. He refuses to brush his teeth. You hand him a toy and he throws it at you.

You feel your gears starting grind. That feeling of beginning to lose your cool.

Logically, you know that you are trying to reason with a toddler. But at this point, you have learned that logic and toddler do not belong in the same sentence. That toy he hurled at you earlier? That you calmly picked up and handed back to him four times? Here it comes again. This time, your blood boils.

It’s time for limits to be set and bad habits to start being curbed. But then… you freeze.

You see your face in your child’s face. You’re both scared. He, because he can sense that you’re upset. You, because you remember the feeling of being trapped. You break down and cry while your child comforts you and pats your shoulder.

“Why am I crying?!,” you wonder.

Dig a little deeper and you’ll feel it. You are terrified of becoming what you once feared.

This is where you breathe.

You are a compassionate, feeling, caring, nurturing woman. You lived that chapter. It’s over. You lived that book. It’s over. Time for the sequel.

Breathe in your child’s adoration of his mother. Breathe out your self-doubt. Breathe in the freedom of loving and raising your child to be a kind human being. Breathe out the unkindness and animosity of your childhood.

Breathe, mama. You are not your parents. You are not your abusers. You are not them.

~A.S.