“I want to kick my son in the balls.”

Profile views of two women, presented as silhouettes. A vertical line is positioned between the two women. Behind the woman on the left, a stylized, blurred form of a woman is superimposed, with a reddish-purple gradient focused on the stomach area.

Session #1: The Bunch in Her Belly vs. the Wall

A mom I’ll call Susan had written to me that she wanted to get support with having her kids do more chores around the house. But within the first 10 minutes of our coaching session, she said, “I want to kick my son in the balls.” I liked her fearless honesty immediately.

What emerged was that Susan didn’t want to kick her 7-year-old son in the balls ALL the time – only when he shouted that he didn’t care what she wanted – which he had done recently on a school holiday that she’d hoped would be full of family fun. 

We discovered this was because when he said that, he reminded Susan of her husband. And when her husband didn’t seem to care about her needs, she wanted to kick him in the balls too. Bottom line, she was terrified she was raising her son to be like his dad.

I had a strong hunch that her own internal conflicts were fueling the external ones. I asked if there were any sensations in her body as she thought about her rage and fear.

Susan said she could feel a bunch of tight energy in her belly. I asked if her husband reminded her of her father.

She said that she didn’t remember her father. He’d died when she was 15 in an accident. Even though she’d worked with shamanic healers and therapists, she hadn’t been able to grieve his death because whenever she tried, it was like a wall came down. 

I asked her what the wall was protecting her from. That question was like an express train to her unconscious. She blurted out that it was keeping her from remembering the loving parts of him so that she wouldn’t be sad about missing them. If she didn’t grieve, she could focus exclusively on how enraged she felt about the ways that he hadn’t cared about what mattered to her. She said it would be too painful to know that she loved him. It would be easier to hate him.

I asked the bunch in her belly if it had anything it wanted to say to the wall. It said, “I can go away if the wall comes down, my inner child is healed.” Then Susan could feel confident that she could advocate for her needs and she wouldn’t want to kick either her husband or her son in the balls any more.

We concluded the session discussing what sort of ritual Susan could do to grieve her father’s death.

Sessions #2 – #4: Grieving At Long Last

Susan’s mother came and stayed with them for a couple of months. These sessions were about strategizing how to watch videos of Susan’s father with her mother and the kids in a way that would work for everyone and checking in about what it was like for Susan to talk to her mother about her dad. She said that she felt like she was sitting beside a lake of grief.

Session #5: A Broken Elbow and a Huge Breakthrough

Susan’s mom had returned home. Before she’d left, Susan had overstretched and agreed to take her and the kids on a short vacation that completely exhausted her. She’d broken her elbow and was furious with herself about that and also furious with her husband for not cooking breakfast more often. She said, “I feel ashamed because I consider myself a self sufficient and modern woman, but I’m carrying the whole family on my back.”

When she’d tried to talk to her husband about it, he’d sat in silence with his arms crossed. Susan was convinced that meant that he didn’t care about her. We examined this belief closely and all the reasons she believed she couldn’t speak up – her fear that if she pointed out her husband’s lack of capacity he’d explode and that if she tried to actually connect with her husband and it didn’t work, they’d be out of options and get a divorce and it would be all her fault. In the face of these fears, she’d freeze and feel so hopeless and hurt that she’s not getting what she needs, that she’s incapable of saying anything. She said the only recourse she has is to want to kick him in the balls.

But Susan had done so much grieving since our first session that she was able to see for the first time that her belief that her husband’s silence meant he didn’t care about her might not be true. She vowed to talk to him and find out.

A week later she sent me this email:

It has been brilliant. I have had a realisation in my half dream (you were the one telling me this but it took me some days before I had an insight by myself, you know not an intellectual understanding but a “knowing”) that I am fixing the connection between my husband’s behaviour and my unmet need for care. In that half dream what came to me is what if his behaviour has nothing to do with the fact that he cared or not?

Then I have allowed myself to explore with him the specific ways of his behaviour and how that relates to “you don’t care about me”. I was quite specific and descriptive in explaining how I was creating all these stories prompted by his behaviour and I asked him if he would mind if every time I was starting to create the stories, I told him that and asked him if he cares about me? He said it is ok.

What happened additionally is that he admitted that he creates these stories too. However the difference being that he does not indulge in them like me and allow them to grow bigger and bigger but he sort of hushes them away — interesting. Of course when he admitted this, it made me feel really good: loving, cared for and satisfied.

Next thing that came as a surprise from him was that he suggested that when things that we do not find supportive from the other person happen, we should rather than thinking that we ‘hate’ the other person or that s/he is not meeting our needs, think the exact opposite! hahaha sometimes he really surprises me.

Following on from that conversation which was some time ago, I also asked the question about how we divide work between us and I asked if you know that it is not fair that I am preparing breakfast every morning. Why are you not doing anything about it?

He did not answer but we have agreed a way of working where we check in more frequently and he is participating — and what came out of that of course is that I don’t care what he does and does not do as long as he is participating in a capacity to the extent that he can in the family — in a practical way and in a parent way and in a husband way. And actually what it seems so far is that the more he participates, the braver he becomes and participates even more. It seems that he was scared to participate as a parent, as I would always judge him for the way he is with the kids.

What came out of all of that then that I have realised that in the past I was connecting with him through sex, and now that there is not much sex (due to menopause, due to two kids that sleep with us, due to tiredness etc) I am disconnected with him. And then I am unhappy and then I am not content, and then that becomes resentment. Then I approach him for sex and then it is okeyish for a while. I realised that I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO COMMUNICATE WITH HIM and I connected with him and probably previous relationships through physical expression not communication and now that I am learning that I HAVE THE RIGHT TO EXPRESS MY NEEDS AND EMOTIONS — connection is there, there is no such a great need for sex (it would be lovely to have it but not highly necessary, not something without which I cannot live!)

It is so complex the whole thing and without someone who can point towards the right point I think it is almost impossible to stop the constant going around the wheel! Thank you.

And I don’t want to kick my husband or my son in the balls anymore.

So at the moment I am enjoying this practice and am wondering if we wait a little bit till something else arises?

Lots of love