She’s Watching Me: Breaking Cycles, One Conscious Moment at a Time

There’s something about becoming a mother twice that rearranges your soul.

Since having my son Zion last year, my heart has been walking around in more than one body—and so has my guilt. Not the kind that nags for no reason, but the quiet ache that whispers, “Am I showing up enough for her?”

Her.

My first baby.

My daughter, Fawx.

Becoming a big sister is such a monumental shift. It’s not just gaining a sibling—it’s losing something, too. A version of life they once knew. A version of us. And while we adults are fumbling our way through sleepless nights and healing bodies, our older children are quietly navigating their own kind of postpartum—an emotional rebirth.

And if I’m honest, I’ve felt the weight of that more than once.

Lately, I’ve been reflecting a lot on the way I speak to her. The way I show up. Or don’t. I catch myself snapping when I’m tired, or tuning out when she’s trying to tell me something that feels important to her, but my mind is elsewhere.

But here’s the thing that keeps hitting me like a wave:

This is her childhood. It’s happening right now.

Not next week. Not when things calm down. Not when I finally feel “healed” or “balanced.”

Right now.

And one day, she’ll look back on these moments and remember.

Not just the events—but the energy of it all.

The tone in my voice. The way I held her. Whether she felt safe to be herself. Whether I really saw her.

That realization has changed everything.

I don’t want Fawx to carry the same emotional debris I’ve spent years trying to sift through. I don’t want her to spend her adulthood learning how to unlearn the way she speaks to herself, because of how she was spoken to.

I want to break that cycle.

And that starts with me.

So I’ve been trying something new.

I’ve started telling her when I’m struggling.

I tell her when I’m wrong.

I tell her I’m sorry—and I mean it.

I let her see that I’m still learning. That I don’t have it all together. That sometimes I raise my voice not because of her, but because of my own overwhelm. My own wounds. My own shadows that still ask to be seen.

I let her in, because I want her to know that imperfection doesn’t mean unloveable. That adults mess up too. That repair is sacred. And that humility is a strength, not a flaw.

And while I’m doing all this for her, I’m also doing it for me. For the little girl inside who just wanted to be heard. The one who internalized silence as shame. The one who learned to be good so she wouldn’t be too much.

I'm trying to mother both of us now.

Because here’s the truth:

If we don’t consciously heal ourselves, we unconsciously pass down the pain.

And our children deserve more than our survival mode. They deserve our presence, our softness, our truth.

So I’m choosing to show up different—even when it's hard. Even when I don’t have the answers. Even when I fail, and have to try again.

Because she’s watching me.

Not for perfection.

But for permission.

To be human. To be whole. To be loved as she is.

And that is the most sacred legacy I could ever hope to leave.