Breaking Free from the Parenting Matrix

I was so excited and nervous to start this new parenting program. 28 days seemed like a long time, though. Would I manage to keep up with the work that might be set? What should I expect? It seemed like Bryan was building a community, an army even, of "Posties," he called us. He was being goofy about it and even had a picture of himself in the black coat and glasses from *The Matrix* movie, asking if we wanted the blue pill or the red pill before signing up.

He posted videos on his Facebook and hyped it up. As people signed up, we were all added to a new Facebook group called "The Post Lovalution." I was buzzing with anticipation.

Each morning, Bryan went live in the group. He made short videos with tasks. At first, he told us to spend a day reflecting on our own parents' experiences of parenting and our grandparents' experiences. Then he told us to curl up in the fetal position on our bed and try to remember anything we could about our own in-utero experience. Another time, we were to sit in our child's bedroom while they were out and imagine their internal world. These tasks seemed odd. Not what I had expected at all. They were focused on me, not my child. Some mornings I could watch them live and even get a chance to interact with Bryan; other times I would watch the replay. The more I worked through this daily, the more lightbulbs went off in my brain.

Then the tasks shifted more toward our relationship with the child. We were to list 20 different ways we could respond in those worst moments. Then, we were to purposely mess up and cause a drama. It was madness at times, but so incredibly effective. He told us to go three times each day and just sit beside our child and breathe. We could message Bryan with our sticking points, and he would get back to us with his feedback. It was brilliant. In the group, others were sharing how they were finding it. A community was forming. He asked us to memorize his stress model, video ourselves saying it, and post it. It took me ages to memorize this:

"All behaviors arise from a state of stress and fear. In between the behavior and the stress is the presence of a primary emotion. There are only two primary emotions: love and fear. So, it’s all coming from fear. It’s through expressing, processing, and understanding the fear that we calm the stress and diminish the behavior."

But in doing this, a deeper understanding of what these words really meant emerged. I had no idea at this stage that I would one day be saying this over and over each week during workshops I would deliver.

The program transformed our home. Steven started to see that there was something to this. Each day, I reported the details of the session and what I was learning. He could see that things in our home were changing. Meltdowns were reducing, not just with my wee guy, but even my autistic child's meltdowns had stopped. My own meltdowns weren’t happening either. Within our marriage, things had changed. We were learning to see each other’s fear, to come back, repair, and hold space to listen. The more I validated Steven’s fear, the more he started to see that he didn’t need to jump in and fix everything. He began supporting me so that I could support them. He wasn’t always great at staying calm or seeing the fear in the moment, but he was able to reflect afterward and recognize when he had been triggered.

Even when I told him about the regressed state—after I had first offered to hold and soothe my wee guy like a baby—and we witnessed how healing this could be. I suggested that I might even offer him a bottle. Steven was horrified. Surely I wasn’t serious. That was just too far. We had some harsh words over it. I was so frustrated at his shutdown of this idea as we had come so far. But later that evening, he came to me with an apology. He had spent some time googling it, obviously expecting validation for his belief that this was messed up, and learning that, actually, it was a thing? It did work. He apologized for his reaction and owned that it had freaked him out and seemed really wrong. Big changes were taking place in our home.

These changes were taking place in me most of all. In these worst moments, I was becoming aware of my triggers. In reflection afterward, I could see the moments from my own past that were coming up for me. Like wormholes in time, I was being sucked back into them—there were so many. I became acutely, painfully aware of how our parenting had affected our children through the years. In my mind’s eye, I could see flashes of my children as infants, toddlers, even babies, and recognize all of these moments filled with overwhelming stress and fear. It was horrific to start to recognize this. So much trauma. But I hadn’t known. I hadn’t understood. No one had told me there was another way.

Looking back, I feel so fortunate to have been part of those live sessions with Bryan. The content is still available through The Post Institute via the recordings, but no other group got to experience it live with access to Bryan in that way. It feels like fate put me there, exactly in the right place at the right time.

Social work could also see the difference. They agreed to cover the cost of the monthly subscription for two months. I had noticed on the website there were other courses. Part of signing up meant that I could work through these and become certified in Bryan’s model. "Why not?" I thought. I had no idea what use it might ever be to me.

No idea that this was about to become my call to arms.

The Post Institute-Parenting Matrix/ lovaolution Programme

https://www.newparentingloveolution.com/loveolution-program-review24717065

Read my next blog post-Finding my voice