The Meaning of a Moment
Written by Alecs Kakon
Photos by Jen Fellegi
A child’s mind experiences things differently than a grown up. Limited vocabulary and restricted knowledge of the world, kids see and feel their reality filtered through the lens of childhood. It’s the laws of nature, even the most precocious child doesn’t have the tools needed to make sense of some of the most mundane events. As adults, we can journey back into our past and revisit our history; we can grab hold of the first stitch to see how the thread carried us to our present state, our behaviours, our perceptions, feelings and triggers. We can learn where some of the knots were made and see how it changed the pattern of our lives. Going the other way around, even if we unspool the wool completely, all the way to its original seam, what we will find are the vestiges of our experiences, imprinted into the fabric of our being. Defusing our reactivity, we can tend to our inner child and console her, we can unpack our issues with the major players involved and resolve misunderstandings. We can logically know with our adult minds what was really going on, what was truly at stake and explain it away, but the feeling, hasn’t it already left its trace? Regardless of the answer, I do strongly believe that the more we pull at that thread, the more slack we create: we can free ourselves from limiting narratives that have unconsciously dictated our actions, reactions, beliefs and values, because we control the tension with which we hold on. Sitting with Mandy, we talked about everything from magical thinking to intuitive mothering and how the two are more connected than she had once thought. Keeping her parenting ethos pure, Mandy borrows from her past to inform her role today as she instils lessons of resilience, empowerment and positive, open communication to her children.
Some memories have an effect on us bigger than we can explain. Leaving invisible wounds on our spirit, the effects spiral into behaviours which then manifest into our character. Eventually, fusing together, we can no longer tell which is the wound and which are the symptoms. When Mandy’s family settled in Toronto, after a decade of moving around, a lot changed for her. “When we moved to Toronto, my mother and I went out to a video store to rent a movie one day. The store didn’t have the movie I wanted, so we went to another video store,” Mandy recalls. “Along the way, someone T-boned us. We got into a huge car accident and my mom got seriously injured. It might be magical thinking to believe that I could’ve caused the accident, but all I know is that I blamed myself. I thought the accident was my fault and so to then see my mother’s recovery take shape and watch her walk with a cane and feel so much pain… no one could tell me differently; it was all my fault.” Reflecting back on the memory, Mandy ascertains that her adult self is well aware that she could not have caused the accident, she didn’t have that kind of control. But, the 10-year-old her was hurt. The sadness struck her deeply, and in time, that sadness turned to guilt and anger. “No one really validated how real I thought it was that I was at fault. So all the pain I felt eventually turned to anger and frustration. I guess the pain needed to be channeled somehow. Either way, the lesson I learned was that I can make one little choice and something catastrophic could happen. That stuck with me for a long time.” Throughout her teenage years, the after-effects of the accident paralyzed Mandy’s ability to make decisions, governing so much of how she led her life. “I held onto that accident for far too long and I bottled it all up. If I could go back and give kid-me a hug, I would tell myself it wasn’t my fault. I want my kids to be more resilient than I was. I don’t want them to give negative thoughts free rent in their minds.”
When Mandy became a mother, something shifted in her that she couldn’t have anticipated. “It was like all of a sudden, I make all the decisions,” Mandy says. “I would never have known that I would respond this positively to motherhood.” Extremely hands-on in her conscious approach to parenting, she takes no concessions when it comes to instilling a strong sense of self in both her kids. Following her intuition and allowing her inner voice to guide her, Mandy teaches her children to tap into their strength. “I always seek to validate my children and acknowledge their fears and beliefs. If they think there is a monster in our house, then we hold a monster exodus,” Mandy explains. “I want my kids to feel empowered and heard and I want them to know themselves, know their bodies, know what feels right and what feels wrong.” Taking her cues from her past experiences and her present understanding, Mandy can live out all the little moments of her children’s lives through their eyes, gaining new perspective. “I feel so blessed and happy that I get to watch them navigate life.”
There is nothing we live that we can’t in some way or another rewrite. As adults, we can lend forgiveness to those who have hurt us and absolve our self-condemnation allowing us to abandon limiting beliefs that act as obstacles to our growth. As we unpack memories and experiences that we were once too young to fully understand, we can slowly squeeze out the impact our bodies and minds absorbed along the way. In a powerful revisit on her walk down memory lane, Mandy unbottled a memory that had long-been contained. As a mother, fully conscious of how her younger self once viewed the world, Mandy engages in a new kind of magical thinking as she suspends disbelief for what is not plausible, validating for her children, and herself, the things that sometimes feel all too real to a child.
