A little story:
When my middle child, who is now 6, is out of balance it starts as seemingly innocent hearing loss. He gets more and more defiant, until all of a sudden, he's throwing punches at the nearest family member.
This, by the way, is quite different from how his older brother acts when HE'S out of balance, which is definitely a topic for another post. I find this all very frustrating (I need to find a new parenting strategy!) but also fascinating.
Through my own trials and errors with this, I've noticed some interesting things (backed up by neurobiology and psychology research, yes, but life is a more authentic teacher sometimes):
Our personal nature influences how we react to stress. Each of my kids has their own DNA (obviously), and they definitely each have their own MO for being out of balance.
Despite our natural patterns, we can change. Environment (and parenting) can totally make things better... worse!
To some degree, parenting, just like self-discovery, has to be trial and error, because no Google search, podcast, or book can give us the answer that works for us. Luckily, we can get inspiration and practices from others. With the holidays upon us, there's naturally a lot more time spent with family, and I've been leaning into a powerful practice that I want to share with you, for finding humor and patience (or whatever you or your kid needs) in the most unlikely of places.
How It Works (General Concept):
If we can feel our breath...
We can feel our energy in our body.
If we can feel where/how our energy is showing up in our body...
We can identify (and name) our emotion.
If we can name our emotion...
We can shift from suppressing or ignoring to actually feeling our emotion.
If we can ride our emotional waves, we open our hearts, and access what we really need.....Which for me, with my son, is patience and humor. Turns out, those are his personal magic ingredients.
If that feels like a lot of steps, think about it like building a new set muscle for your emotional intelligence (EQ), or a training guide for something big, like hiking to Machu Pichu. Not sure if those metaphors work, but we're going to go with it for now!
If you want a guided meditation for getting started, I recorded one the other day here. Please share if you find it helpful.
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