Sometimes you don’t know why you are going through a certain experience until you are at the other end of it. I just had that happen. I watched a litter of kittens being born and grow up in a foster home near me thinking I might get kittens from there. But what it really brought me was a healing experience through watching the kittens.
I am just now realizing that watching those kittens being born in safety in her foster home and being able to grow up with mom has been a very healing experience for me.
I realized that I still had trauma from the experience with my own cats Holly and Artemis. And memories came back to me of the day I first saw them in that little cage in the office at the shelter. At that time I was not aware of it. Today I think that this is no way to keep kittens. I also don’t remember the kittens playing much in that room in the cat house where they were after that. Looking back and comparing it to what I’ve seen in the last few weeks, it was good for our cats Holly and Artemis to come to us at the early age of 7,5 weeks. All of a sudden they had room to play and toys to play with and we were taking care of them, cuddling with them, helping them sleep. I’m sure they didn’t have that before. And that explains to me again how traumatic the experience before was for them, and how bad the shelter was back then.
Seeing the cat mom and her kittens in the past weeks, well cared for and loved in the foster home, did me an incredible amount of good. To see the little ones and all their developmental steps, with mama always by their side, did me incredible good. The fact that they can still suckle at over 8 weeks, I found totally beautiful to see. And that they have so many toys and scratching posts and cuddly blankets. And also that the foster mom lovingly takes care of them and cradles and cuddles and acts them every day so they are used to it too.
Our cats Holly and Artemis in their early weeks only received that care occasionally during the day and at night. After the first few weeks they were alone with their siblings in the cat house in a room without much care. I also see with @kittenxlady (on Instagram), a well known foster mum, how it runs differently and how much more love and care her motherless kittens get. She is their surrogate mother and there for them. Our cats Holly and Artemis didn’t have that until I and my ex-husband took them home.
And the resonance to Holly and Artemis through my own mother bonding trauma also became clear to me.
The mother cat Paola also showed me what was important in the first few weeks, because she did it naturally: lying down with the little ones, nursing almost around the clock, getting up in between times, eating, drinking, and then lying down again and nursing. And I realized it’s the same with humans, and there are those who know and do it that way, and there are those who don’t know and run around again right after birth and do everything like before, and then there’s some kind of problems.
I see how the trauma of my mother and everyone involved in the birth, caused my birth and bonding trauma. And I see how my mother’s and aunt’s and other family members’ trauma still leads to behaviors and communication today that totally irritate me.
I also see how my trauma today still leads to self-isolation and difficulty connecting with other people I don’t know. And the pandemic has significantly exacerbated both.
I feel like I see the trauma of mothers and children in our society even more now, and my own. And I feel like it’s taking me even deeper into my healing work with the angel symbols and with Reiki. And I realize how much more women and children I want to teach Reiki to and how much more clients I want to do trauma healing with.