Life Banged Me On the Chin

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“Turn your wounds into wisdom.” – Oprah Winfrey

The other day my 6-year-old daughter and my mom were climbing into my car when my daughter said, “Mom, I hurt my chin.” I scanned the car to see how and she explained that she’d hit it the evening before when she was having an overnight with her aunt and uncle. Then they’d taken her to drama camp, my mom had picked her up so I hadn’t seen her all day and she was reporting something that had happened almost 24 hours prior.

It is unusual that we spend that long apart so of all the things she had to tell me from her many adventures that day, it’s funny that was the one she picked. She didn’t need any extra hug or even an after-the-fact ice pack, she just wanted me to know.

I’ve had to think about it for a couple of weeks to piece together why she told me. Then I happened upon a book about parenting I read a couple of years ago. The Whole-Brained Child by neuropsychiatrist Dr. Dan Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson, PhD. In it they explain the different parts of the brain – the logical left part of the brain, the emotional right part of the brain, the upstairs brain, which makes decisions and balances emotions and a downstairs brain that is in charge of automatic processes, innate reactions (fight or flight) and strong feelings (anger and fear).

They explain that the work of parenting is to help kids wire the parts of the brain together. By letting kids tell stories, they wire the words of the left brain to the emotions of the right. And by helping them calm the downstairs brain of fight or flight, we can then engage the upstairs brain to “think” about it.

But I don’t think this is just the work of parents. I think as friends, partners and bloggers, we are continually helping ourselves and others to make sense of experiences. We all need help interpreting, finding perspective, extracting the “lessons learned” from life.

I remember a particular friend in college whose long-time boyfriend had cheated on her and then broken up with her. She told the story over and over again to anyone that would listen. She was trying to figure out why it happened. It was a perfect example of this quote from The Whole-Brained Child, “The drive to understand why things happen to us is so strong that the brain will continue to try making sense of an experience until it succeeds. As parents, we can help this process along through storytelling.”

The reactions from our college-aged friends tended toward the sympathetic “What a jerk.” and “You were better than him anyways.” As momentarily comforting as those were, it wasn’t until someone pointed out that breaking up was always messy but she had faith in other parts of her life and she had to have faith about this too that my friend started to see the bigger picture and heal. Helping her see the mystery of life was just what she needed to become unstuck from the mire of life not being fair.

So we tell our stories to each other and the process hopefully helps us turn our wounds into wisdom. Because sometimes life bangs you on the chin and then you need to understand why it happened and what to learn.

(featured photo from Pexels)

20 thoughts on “Life Banged Me On the Chin”

  1. My grandkids do that too. They fill me in on any injuries they may have had while we were apart. I see that as them wanting to include me in their day-to-day lives even though we are mostly apart. I find it precious to have them recount those minutiae because I know they want to “catch me up” with anything I missed in their lives. I see it as their way of integrating me into their lives. They know how deeply I love them and want only the best for them, so revealing a past injury is for them a bonding moment when they see the look of concern in my eyes. I think it’s reassuring for them that even though we are apart, my care for them doesn’t diminish!

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  4. Thank you for sharing these wise insights. I will have to take a look at that book.

    Writing and blogging certainly helps me reflect and make connections and find a path forward. And what a privilege and duty it is for us parents to help our kids to build the skills to do the same for themselves.

    Way to go for Miss O to be able to do the same. She can definitely hold her chin up – mom too!

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    1. What a lovely and fun comment, Ab! Thank you! And you are right – it is a privilege and duty to do it for our young ones.

      And I think you’d really like the book. It talks about how we can build connections with the upstairs brain that contains things like executive function – even though that part is still under construction before the 20’s.

      Hope you all have a great week!

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  5. “By letting kids tell stories, they wire the words of the left brain to the emotions of the right. And by helping them calm the downstairs brain of fight or flight, we can then engage the upstairs brain to “think” about it.” Telling stories helps us connect and heal. Universal mantra for living. I love this, Wynne!

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  7. I think it’s not only important to tell the stories in some way, rather verbally or written and perhaps many times over. Rather our truth is deemed correct or not by those who hear the stories, I think we also find a sense of validation in the telling. It seems to be human nature to want to be heard and acknowledged.

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    1. Oh my goodness – what an amazing insight. You’ve named something that I hadn’t identified – that there’s no way to be seen unless we tell our stories. Of course!

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  9. “Hurt my chin.” Just got back from drama camp. I’ll admit, I assumed there was a correlation there until you said she wasn’t making a big deal out of it and didn’t want anything in return!

    God, I’m jaded…

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  10. I think that’s why I blog about the topics that I do—productivity, writing, and fitness—because there are so many challenges involved, and so I mask my pain in the form of self-help posts to try and decipher what I want to do myself. You, Wynne, may just be a genius for uncovering my true motivations that I was previously unaware of, lol. Thanks for this post!

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