What happens when we see ourselves in our children

What happens when we see ourselves in our children. When they awaken the dragon that has been lying asleep inside of us. The one that has haunted us but we kept it down - hidden in the recesses of our brain. What happens when our children raise the dragon from its sleep and we come face to face with it again through the innocence of our children. When they become the dragon we had carefully put to sleep. Thinking we had ridden ourselves of it but knowing now that unless we deal with it, it begins to breathe fire. consuming us. Consuming them.
What happens when our children become the dragon. Showing us our vulnerabilities, insecurities and hidden aspects of who we are and were. What happens when we come face to face with ourselves through the innocence of our children. When they show us that part of us that no one else knows about except us. What happens when the dragon is awoken? What happens to us and to them?
When happens when it rears its ugly head through our children and our children have no idea they have become us and we have become them. Our two halves blending becoming one. Mighty and strong but yet fragile at the same time because we are too afraid and ashamed to tell our children they are revealing an aspect of who we are. That we have become one. That their behaviour, they are not mature enough to understand, is really our behaviour and not theirs.
What happens when we are teaching our children to be one way when the way they are displaying is the person we once were. The child that did not learn. The child that did not grow. The child that remains waiting for us to meet and take her hand and guide him through the wilderness. How do we get through it together? How do we do so without hurting the other? What happens when the dragon becomes so powerful that it threatens to destroy the relationship we enjoy with our children because we cannot admit to ourselves that our children are displaying our inner most secrets. When they become our inner most secrets and play out what we thought we had hidden. What we thought we had outgrown.
The only way out is to confront ourselves by being honest with our children about how we got to this place. How we came face to face with ourselves through them. How we don't want them to go down the same road as we did. How they have come to show us the way out. The way to amend and reroute the path we once took. To be honest with them and that way we can be honest with ourselves about who we are and were.
It is the woken dragon that teaches us our children are mirrors of who we are. Reflections of our inner most selves such that when we don't heal ourselves, our children become the pain that needs to be healed. The hurt that needs to be addressed and nurtured. And this can only be achieved when we are brave enough to admit that the hurt reflected in their eyes is the hurt we carry deep deep down inside. Allowing us to open our hearts to heal and to love.
That's why we come face to face with our dragons through the innocence of our children because it is then that we truly see what we need to work on to forgive ourselves for not facing our own vulnerabilities. For not addressing our own fears and insecurities. Allowing us to become whole in our own right so that we can be whole for our children and guide them through to the other side. The other side where we both can stand hand in hand watching the dragon we have tamed and let go as it happily flies away releasing us from its fire. Allowing us to move to the next lesson that will come when we are open and honest with our children - some of our greatest teachers on this journey called life.