17 Dec 2025 · 3 min
Carrie Contey coaches a parent whose child is rejecting them. She walks through noticing the physical hurt in your body, breathing to slow down before you react, and offering yourself tenderness instead of spinning stories about what the rejection means.
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In regards to. At this stage, perhaps it's normal when they sort of reject you. You know, it's the walking away is the not interested. They want to hear it. Da, da, da, da. But how do you then transform that and not let that hurt your, you.
Know, come to your heart? You know, the thing that I tell myself and others is learning how to, you know, handle the emotional kick in the gut. Like, so that's what it feels like at times, right? Like you're like.
Cause it's your kid.
Right? Of course. And so, you know, the thought usually what we do is we want to get mad at them or we want to go, you know, we want to. It's like we feel it and then we want to put it out there. But if you can almost slow motion, like, oh, wow, I just got that feeling. Like they didn't even create it, they're just evoking it. It's in there. And so it's like, how do you parent that tiny, tender little one? Right? That's. That's the work. And it's not easy. It's really challenging, actually, because part of you is like you're. That feels like your heart's being ripped open.
Exactly.
So let it rip open, but give it. Give you what you want want. Give you what you need in that moment, which is tenderness and slowing down and catching your breath, even literally, like, don't race ahead and don't let it go up here into all the stories of what might be going on for them or how you need to be different or they need to be different but bring it down into the body. Feel those sensations. Even though they feel awful, they're not as awful as we think. It just feels that way when we try to get away from them and try to really hold and care for yourself and see what that brings. I don't know, but it might bring a little opening of something a little different. And you know, just take care of yourself right now. It's really important.
I will do so. Thank you so much for having us.
You're welcome. Thank you.
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