Just like physical fitness, emotional fitness is crucial to our health and well being. As busy parents, self-care often comes last after taking care of everyone else. In fact, the best way to take care of your child is to take care of yourself first! It makes our children feel safer and more secure when they see us taking care of ourselves and frees them to move forward in their own lives rather that feeling like they need to take care of us.
As a dancer, Yogini and personal trainer, I am experienced at practicing the three elements of physical fitness: Aerobics, strength training, and flexibility. These same three elements apply to emotional fitness. Therefore, to become emotionally fit, we need to pay attention to all three.
This month's tip shows you how self-care can increase your FLEXIBILITY and help you "bend over backwards with ease. The dictionary defines flexible as, “responsive to change; adaptable.” When we are flexible physically, our muscles are pliable and stretched out rather than tight and stiff. We can move more easily and feel lighter and freer.
When we are flexible emotionally we are able to stay calm in the midst of the inevitable daily stresses that come our way. This allows us to have more patience and be more present with our kids and even handle unexpected surprises better.
A DEFINITION: WINDOW OF TOLERANCE = how much stress you can handle before getting stressed out or "losing it" ie: become dysregulated. This varies widely between people and even within a person at different times.
Hot tip: Increase your emotional flexibility by expanding your window of tolerance.
How? By taking fabulous care of yourself. Self-care is the key to expanding your window of tolerance. It helps in two ways.
1. It decreases stress and removes the stuff that doesn't need to be taking up space. This makes more room in your window of tolerance.
2. It actually makes your window bigger so it can hold more stress.
Some of my favorite ways to take care of myself and get more flexible
• Submerge myself in a hot bath with essential oils
• Take a mid-day break and walk to my favorite café for a cappuccino
• Yoga class
• Be in nature
• Eat some organic free trade dark chocolate with almonds
• Stop listening to others complain
• Share a hug with someone I love
• Get or give myself a pedicure and foot massage
Your assignment: Start with one baby step. Make a list of 10 things you could do (or stop doing) to take better care of yourself right away. Think in terms of physically, emotionally and spiritually. Now pick ONE of them, as a matter of fact pick the easiest one, decide how many times you will do it this week and make a commitment to yourself to do it. You are worth it.
Then, please comment about what you did. Let’s make a big list together!
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
When Your Child Is In Charge
When our children talk back, have an attitude or act like they are in charge by being demanding or defiant, it is easy as a parent to want to prove we are the adult and to demand respect by attempting to control our child’s behavior. Often we resort to threatening, punishing or demanding that our child may not speak to us “like that!” It’s an “I’ll show you who’s boss” approach.
It’s ironic then, that in our attempt to be the adult from this authoritarian place, we are in a strange way actually giving more power to our child. We are reacting to the situation as if it’s a battle between us and our child. The only option that leaves us is to WIN.
A key misunderstanding in this approach is our interpretation that our child's behavior is something they are doing TO us. Taking this a step further, it defines our "adultness" by our ability to control our child and makes the child our reference point.
I agree that we need to be the adult with our children, and that children need to learn respect. The real question is HOW we are to be the adult. Sometimes we attribute to young children a deliberate desire to be in charge, as if that could actually feel secure to them. If you think about that rationally it’s a little crazy, isn’t it? What I am asking you to try on is this idea: We, as parents, step into our adultness by modeling leadership rather than needing to win. We step into being the adult when we take responsibility as the adult for our children by understanding that when our children are trying to be in charge, what they are craving and what they need is leadership, not control.
We begin to model leadership by learning to manage our own reactivity when our children push our buttons: to pause, breath, notice how we feel and then respond with presence and lead our children to the feeling of safety and connection they need and can't get to on their own in that moment.
It’s ironic then, that in our attempt to be the adult from this authoritarian place, we are in a strange way actually giving more power to our child. We are reacting to the situation as if it’s a battle between us and our child. The only option that leaves us is to WIN.
A key misunderstanding in this approach is our interpretation that our child's behavior is something they are doing TO us. Taking this a step further, it defines our "adultness" by our ability to control our child and makes the child our reference point.
I agree that we need to be the adult with our children, and that children need to learn respect. The real question is HOW we are to be the adult. Sometimes we attribute to young children a deliberate desire to be in charge, as if that could actually feel secure to them. If you think about that rationally it’s a little crazy, isn’t it? What I am asking you to try on is this idea: We, as parents, step into our adultness by modeling leadership rather than needing to win. We step into being the adult when we take responsibility as the adult for our children by understanding that when our children are trying to be in charge, what they are craving and what they need is leadership, not control.
We begin to model leadership by learning to manage our own reactivity when our children push our buttons: to pause, breath, notice how we feel and then respond with presence and lead our children to the feeling of safety and connection they need and can't get to on their own in that moment.
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