meditation – APtly Said

Why self-care may not be working for you

Among API’s Eight Principles of Parenting is #8 – Strive for balance in your personal and family life.

This, many parents agree, may be the hardest principle of all to follow. It’s not that we don’t want to. Sometimes, balance seems impossible to attain in our child’s current developmental stage or a particular calendar season.

Other times, we may really be trying…giving a list of ideas a fighting chance…but it just doesn’t seem to be making any difference. You’re drained, stressed, and it’s spilling over into your family life.

Paces Connection recently shared about what may be happening when it seems that self-care isn’t working. Here are some take-aways from the article:

Self-care is not the same as self-improvement. Self-improvement is about changing who you are. Self-care is about restoring yourself to who you currently are. Self-care has no agenda. It may look like a hobby, spending time out in nature, alone or with other people, but the common denominator is that the goal is not self-improvement and no real goal other than to re-center the self.

Related: The self-care challenge

Self-care is most nurturing when it combines physical care with emotional/spiritual care.
People with a history of trauma need to give themselves extra time and gentleness with discovering what works best for their self-care. Those who have experienced physical abuse, for example, may have difficulty with a massage.

Some classic self-care techniques to try:

Mindful meditation – sitting in the quiet, allow yourself to identify and feel your emotions without holding them back or acting on them. Warning: This may trigger panic attacks in some people. What then? Try looking out the window for a few minutes and simply observe what you see and hear. Absorbing handwork, such as sewing or gardening or carpentry, can also serve as a meditation alternative.

Yoga or Dance – movement is often soothing to a stressed body. Warning: This is not time to focus on using exercise to improve your body image! Instead, combine this non-competitive physical activity with mindful meditation and emotion processing.
Journaling – writing allows the brain to connect new ideas, explore feelings, and philosophize. Warning: Do not let yourself fall into the trap of confusing journaling with writing! The end goal with journaling is not to get published or even be read by anyone. It’s to let your thoughts out of your head. Also, remember how the most nurturing self-care is both physical and emotional/spiritual? Typing may not yield the same restoration as handwriting.

Self-empathy – this piece of self-care can be done anytime, anywhere. Just as you empathize with your children or others, it’s important that you empathize with yourself. Basically it means not dismissing the feelings you have about yourself, but rather understanding that whatever your feelings, they are OK to have and have a reason. Warning: Don’t be hard on yourself if you are in the habit of dismissing your feelings. Acknowledge the habit and try again. The more you practice, the more solid those new brain connections become to change your habit of dismissing or self-empathizing.

Living a life of gratitude, a ‘walking meditation’

I’m trying to learn not to take anything for granted by feeling grateful for the little things of life, by living and appreciating each moment. It’s not easy to do and it takes a diligent and conscious daily effort — similar to meditation.

In mediation, our minds tend to wander. We could call it “monkey mind,” because we are constantly jumping from one thought to another. The act and discipline of meditation is training your mind to refocus on your breathing.

Learning to live a life of gratitude is like a “walking meditation,” being present in the moment, not worrying about the past or the future but really living in the now, feeling intensely grateful for the many blessing we have in our lives.

That doesn’t mean we don’t struggle, that doesn’t mean hurtful things won’t happen, but we can change how we react and perhaps even glean some valuable spiritual lessons.

The holidays always remind us of what is important — our family, our children, the welfare of others, and the beauty of the human spirit. Let’s continue our work together toward a more peaceful and compassionate world by creating peace in our own hearts and families. We may need to forgive ourselves or forgive others in order to begin to move forward. Maybe we need to begin by learning to live a life of gratitude.

May you always stay Attached at the Heart,

Lysa Parker, cofounder of Attachment Parenting International and coauthor of Attached at the Heart

Cultivating a peaceful family: 5 effective ways to tend to one’s inner harmony

There’s that saying you’ve probably heard — “If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” I first saw it, framed, in the kitchen of my high school friend and it made me slightly afraid of her mom. It seemed like it had been hung there as a warning.

But parents, let’s be honest: We wake up a little sleep deprived from a late-night session catching up on a project, and the tension during breakfast is going to be thick.

On such mornings, I recognize this possibility looming in our kitchen when I notice how my daughter is looking at me. Just the other day, I caught that look and said with spatula in hand, “OK, yeah, I admit that I am too tired to be reliably nice this morning. Sorry in advance.”

“Breathe, Mama,” she reminds me, “I won’t fight today when you braid my hair.”

Here’s the thing: Our children are keenly tuned in to us. They know very well how to read the signs that serve as the early warning system indicating the likelihood of an impending mom-meltdown. Over time, they have become skilled at rating the level of threat like rangers adjusting those Smokey the Bear fire danger signs in the national forests: “Today’s Mom-fire threat level is Green.” (Whew, we’re OK.)

Your Brain on Stress

Researchers in the field of neuroscience are making exciting discoveries these days about the ways the body and mind are intimately connected. This gives us more insight into how it is that what we think and what thoughts we rehearse over and over actually change our brains. As our biochemistry is so changed, this has the power to affect the expression of our genes.

These findings also give us insight to why it is that when stress starts generating pressure and heat inside of us, our best intentions get vaporized.

The physiological responses that kept our ancestors safe do not help us in modern situations when we are not required to jump out of the way of a charging animal. What we perceive today as the danger that switches on our stress response is much different. Nonetheless, the nervous system still responds by shutting off the thinking and planning part of the brain — the prefrontal cortex — in order to send blood to the body so we can fight or run away.

But that is not a helpful response when it’s getting late in the morning and someone whines about losing their shoe or the garbage truck is blocking the driveway. While it might sharpen our reflexes so that we can deftly speed through traffic to get the kids to school, it is likely why the road rage happens since the part of our brains that inhibit undignified behavior is offline. (“Mom, you said a bad word to that guy!”)

Stress makes it more likely we will yell at our kids in spite of our best intentions to be the Zen-Mommy who guides her children serenely through the morning routine as if her mind is naturally infused with calming lavender essential oil. No parent wants to be the source of stress or bad times in the family, no matter how much responsibility, worry, or fatigue we are grappling with. But the truth is: When we get triggered, it affects our children. When that happens, we feel regret and add a black mark to our list of our failures.

Creating Stress Resilience

What if there is a way to naturally achieve resilience to stress and to be easily able to access our inner resources? The good news is, it is not that hard to achieve the Sugar Land Integrated Counseling and Wellness teaches you how to take steps to give your inner life the attention required. Your family life will improve in delicious ways if you do.

We show up to the parenting journey carrying the baggage of our own histories: the fears, traumas, limiting beliefs, self-doubt, and those less-than-elegant, knee-jerk reaction tendencies. When the time comes to settle down, we unpack all that and then go about our business of creating a family.

If physical clutter in the home produces stress, how about all the emotional clutter of past regrets, hurts, sorrows, and traumas that we stuffed into the overfilled drawers of our minds? Imagine what a relief it would be to have the inner spaciousness that would allow us to breathe before we speak, or to listen mindfully so we can perceive the heart of the matter instead of reacting to what triggers us.

Fortunately, there are now several highly effective self-help techniques that are great tools to eliminate the internal clutter and create more emotional freedom and space, including these 5 effective ways to tend to one’s inner harmony for a happier home:

Meditation — Research is finally catching up to the wisdom traditions that have long known the value of sitting quietly. Owing to the brain’s capacity to form new neural pathways, called neuroplasticity, scientists have found measurable differences in the brains of meditators. Higher brain functioning in the prefrontal cortex is enhanced, cortical tissue is made thicker — that’s really good — and parts of the brain that engender calm also become larger and more active. The good news for busy people is that according to the research, it is better to practice just a little each day versus half an hour every once in a while. Even taking just 1 minute every day to calm your physiology by taking mindful, slow breaths is going to help you. A dedicated meditation practice has the power to help you release burdens and create real calm.
Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) and Tapas Acupressure Technique (TAT) — Also known as Meridian Tapping, EFT is a form of counseling intervention. It is a powerful way you can dramatically reduce your suffering quickly. It consists of tapping with your fingers on specific acupuncture points on the head and torso. Research has shown that EFT causes lasting improvements by alleviating trauma physiology. Tapping has even been shown to cause immediate changes to blood chemistry, which is truly remarkable. There are many resources on line to help you learn how to do EFT. TAT also engages the energy system of the body to release strong feelings, negative beliefs, and trauma. Unlike EFT, TAT does not require you to talk about what is bothering you.
Yoga — It’s not just exercise. According to trauma researcher Bessel Van der Kolk, PhD, when practiced regularly, yoga can profoundly help heal trauma and stress, especially when practiced along with mindfulness meditation.
The Forgiveness Challenge/Opportunity — Psychologist Jack Kornfield, PhD, describes how, when he was training to become a Buddhist monk, his teacher gave him the practice of spending 5 minutes forgiving someone, 2 times a day for 6 months. In my experience, this has been helpful to effectively get through all the emotions that an episode of forgiving requires. This powerful practice liberates one from the need to keep inventory of past betrayals and disappointments.

When we do the inner work of unburdening ourselves, we can show up for our families in a whole new way with more resilience to face the traffic and noise of daily life and better able to “be the peace” that makes home a safe haven where our children can thrive.

Mirroring

“I see your hand is squeezing his toy. Your face is getting very red. Your feet are stomping the ground.”

There’s something very reassuring about being seen and affirmed like this.

Describing what you observe is happening in a non-dramatic, non-judgmental tone of voice is called mirroring, and can be used as a positive discipline technique as well as an attunement exercise in learning how to respond with sensitivity.

The simple act of mirroring can be very helpful to prompt someone out of their “reptilian” midbrain and into more rational thinking and behavior.

We can also mirror what our child says: “So you’re extremely angry because he got a bigger bowl? I heard you say that you want the same size as he gets. Is that right? You feel he always gets better things.”

Reflecting back to someone what they’ve said is a quick way to help them feel heard and understood. And when we feel that way, we have less reason to do big, disruptive things to get our needs met.

Like any positive discipline technique, mirroring shouldn’t be the only tool in the parenting toolbox and it shouldn’t be used too early during a meltdown, or too often. After all, we want our children to fully feel their feelings and process them. But at a certain point — discerned by a connected parent — mirroring can really de-escalate a blow-up.

Mirroring works so well in my family, that I even appreciate it when my spouse does it for me! I probably wouldn’t appreciate it very much if a stranger or mere acquaintance began giving me their view of my play-by-play, but in an intimate, trusting relationship, one or two observations can generate just enough of a pause for calmness to get a foot in edgewise. Or it might prompt the last explosive outburst and then calmness.

Mirroring also encourages self-reflection. Self-reflection could be described as mirroring for oneself.

I sometimes forget to do it, but I’m training myself to remember: When I’m feeling big, bad feelings, I need to stop. And access the feeling. And name the feeling. And acknowledge the feeling. Then go on. It’s like the feelings are trapped inside, zinging and pinging around, but naming them gives them an escape route. Very cool.

As someone who has practiced meditation for a long time — another excellent parenting tool! — I’ve always benefited from attempting to become a “witness” or “observer” to my life. I think mirroring is helping my kids develop this mentally healthy ability, too.

Emotions and feelings can get very big and amorphous. Getting grounded in our bodies is a “state-regulating” tool that will help me and my children for our lifetimes.