Healing the Matriarch: From Kindergarten Tears to Cap & Gown

I’ve been digging deeper into my healing practice this month. As you know, I like to use the seasons of astrology as part of my healing practice. It’s no surprise that themes of security, self worth and legacy have been coming up for me this Taurus season, and Pluto retrograde in Aquarius is hitting my IC/4th house which is all about home/ancestral themes.

With the state of the US right now and immigration, there is definitely some trauma coming up for me that I know is not mine. The patterns are repeating. My parents (and grandparents, aunts/uncles, some cousins) have lived through the Trujillo regime. My mom, as the baby of 8, was 17 when he was unalived. We have spoken about Trujillo, Balaguer as well as American politics at length growing up so I’m pretty well versed as to what happened during that era. I’ve also read up on books throughout my years of researching Dominican history. So I know enough to know that what I have been feeling is very ancestral and not my own. Of course I carry my own fears, but I hear them whispering in my ear with theirs.

So I’ve been taking it to the altar, and I’ve been journaling around these fears. Fears around limited resources, safety and security, etc. I’ve been meditating and doing reiki around these fears as well and I’ve been feeling such a difference. Such a level of peace and understanding around these fears. 

Sometimes we want to hide from our triggers, but it’s so much easier to just face them head on. The best way out is through otherwise it can feel like you’re stuck in quicksand fighting to get out. I say that also because I’ve noticed that the Marianismo posts are not as popular as others, and I’m wondering if this is a case where we are fighting that trigger. We all understand decolonizing (I hope!) and machismo in Latine culture, but marianismo is something that escapes us. I feel like we know the feeling of marianismo, but to name it feels a little out of reach. We have to name it to heal it. Marianismo is part of decolonizing.

One thing came up for me earlier today, as I was at my oldest son’s school. He’s a senior this year and we are having our last senior moments as we wrap up this school year and prepare for graduation. For some reason, as I watched the video montage slide through the screen, I remembered something from my youth. As I mentioned previously, I’m doing deep reiki and meditation work this month, and when I’m doing that, things like this will come up for me randomly throughout the day. And this is something I didn’t pay any mind to before.

I was thinking how excited my oldest was when he started kindergarten. And how fast we’ve gotten to senior year! But my mind wandered to how I acted when I started kindergarten. My son took a school bus to school and I cried and followed the school bus from daycare all the way to school the first day. My mom used to walk me to school when I began kindergarten, and I used to cry so bad the entire way there that I would make myself sick. This went on for a few weeks! I never paid any mind to it more than that, but today I began to realize that hey, was this my concern and separation anxiety or was I feeling my mother’s anxiety even though she wasn’t showing it? My mother has experienced pregnancy and infant loss, which I feel has impacted the way she shows up as a mother. Although we are no contact, and have been for over a decade, she was a helicopter parent, always keeping me close growing up, not allowing me to go to hang out with friends, even as a teenager. She was scared of something happening to me, especially since there was a horrible death that happened in our circle. I was still in grade school and I heard the adults talking. I was a nosy kid who knew if I stayed quiet and pretended not to hear I could get all the chisme! 

Now, as an adult, I’ve realized that my crying and my body physically rejecting going to school was the projection of my mother’s fears. And how our fears can be absorbed by our kids in the same way. I definitely don’t want that for my own kids. I want my kids to feel loved and know that I trust them to make good choices. That I trust that my spirit team, their spirit team and our ancestors are watching out for them making sure they are safe. That they can come to me with anything because I’m their safe space.

I was watching my son do his final presentation as part of his senior project today, and was so proud when he said he picked the university that he chose because it’s an hour away, and will challenge him to get out of his shell. He wouldn’t be too close, but knows that if he needs my husband and I, we are only an hour away. And that’s all I ask for. He knows he can fly high because if he falls we will be right here to catch him. We are his safety net. His safe space. And he knows that. Just like he trusts in us, I trust in our guides to keep him safe. The anxiety and helicopter parenting that my mother experienced has healed with me. I still have healing work to do, but I’m proud of the work I’ve done to date.

So beautiful to me that the scared little kindergartener during her first few weeks of school was healed by my senior son wrapping up his last few weeks of school.