Parent Self-care

Connection Tool

Parenting is difficult and draining work, and as a parents you need to replenish your resources in order to stay healthy, happy and be able to respond well to your kids. Self-care can take many forms, from a bubble bath, to reading a good book, to a night out with friends, to a long meditation retreat! We're fans of all types of self-care that feel replenishing and nurturing to you, and indeed two essential parts of self-care are:

It is your choice and it feels good to you
You give yourself full permission to step back from your many duties and demands and refill your own tank

In addition to 'treats' that lift your body, mind and spirit, parenting offers the opportunity (and sometimes requires) another kind of self-care: reparenting yourself and healing wounds from your own past. Parenting shows us, perhaps like nothing else, where we still have buttons to push and triggers to trip. While the initial motivation to undertake this kind of self-care may be to be a better parent or have a more harmonious home life, healing these old wounds is often the most lasting, most freeing, most satisfying kind of self-care you can do.

There are also many avenues for this kind of self-care, including therapy, listening partnership, meditation and reflection, journaling, to name a few. It is frequently very helpful to get support from another person or group.

HOW TO DO IT

There are a variety of practices that can be helpful in making you feel seen, validated, and keeping you in a positive state of mind. You are the expert on you, and the best to understand what you need and what works for you. The following practices have been verified by research to make measurable differences for people.

Anxiety causes us to breathe shallowly or hold our breath. Consciously breathing deep into your belly or into your sides will lower your anxiety response. You can try counting slowly as you inhale and exhale, or putting your hands on your ribs or your belly to feel them expand, or other breathing methods you have found helpful.

Moving our bodies helps rid them of the anxiety response. Try whatever movement feels good, whether a few stretches at your desk, a 10-minute walk, or an intense run.

Spending time outside in the natural world has been proven to reduce stress and alleviate anxiety and depression. Even small patches of green have been shown to have benefits, but the more you can get away and be engulfed in nature, the better.

Start with a deep breath and a long exhalation. Genuinely ask yourself the question: how are you? Wait to see what comes up.

First focus on your body – what do you feel in your body? Where are you holding tension, and what kind of sensation is it?

Next notice your thoughts with curiosity and without self-judgment. What is your internal monologue saying? If you do find that you are judging yourself (e.g. “I’m not good at this”) or judging the activity (e.g. “This is stupid.”), that’s OK. Just take another deep breath and sigh it out.

Next move on to notice your feelings with curiosity and without self-judgment. Sometimes, checking in this is enough to get the tears flowing. If you need to cry, cry. If you feel like you need to cry, but the tears are stuck or go away quickly, that’s OK too. If anger, or overwhelm, or anxiety, or anything else is the primary feeling, allow yourself to feel it.

Focus all your attention on the feeling and just be in it. Gently notice what happens in your body if you focus on the feeling, actively trying to feel it. Imagine the feeling is a cloud, and try to walk into it. Like a cloud, it can seem solid from far away, but airy once you are inside. Dive in and float on the feeling. Try to stay in that feeling, experiencing it wholly, for a minute or so. Often it will gradually dissipate on its own, and leave you with great relief.

That's all. Resume your activities with a bit more compassion for yourself.

Try grounding yourself in your present place and time, to make you less focused on your worries and what-ifs. Objects and ritual activities can both work - try a few and see what works for you to bring your focus into the present moment. Some examples:

Keep a small stone in your pocket to run your fingers over when feeling anxious, noting how smooth/rough or cold/hot it is
Do a body scan, or tune in your feet or another body part for a few moments.
Look around and notice 3 things in your environment that you see, a hear, and smell. (This may also encourage gratitude as you notice something positive that you would have otherwise overlooked.)

Just as we recommend listening to, empathizing with, and validating your child’s emotions, you need to experience feeling heard and understood. Talking with someone (or a few people) who can listen, empathize, and validate helps you process the feelings and feel less alone.

Potential listeners could be: a close friend; a group of parents on the playground or at kids' activities; a counselor, clergy person, or therapist; or another parent with whom you regularly exchange listening time.

When telling stories with your child about events from your lives, look to guide them into a “redemptive” or “oscillating” story structure.

Redemptive stories tell about confronting bad events and turning them around to be positive. Eg:

“Remember that time we went camping, and there was that terrible microburst storm that flattened our tent… but at least we had a fun adventure together and all got out alive!”

Oscillating narratives track the ups and downs of life episodes over a longer time horizon. Eg:

“Well our family has had its victories and challenges. Things don’t always go according to plan – like that time we planned the great camping trip, only to have our tent flattened by a microburst! – but we always make the best of it and come out with great stories!”

Both these story structures teach kids that events do not always have to go “right” for there to be an overall positive arc to life. They help kids remain positive when the chips are down, and stay tuned for the silver lining to appear.

Feelings are meant to inform, but not dictate, how we behave - we can decide what to do with them. You do not have to be reactive to your anxiety, nor do you have to avoid or ignore it.

Set a timer for five minutes, and sit and feel your anxiety. Purposefully try to think only anxiety-provoking thoughts without trying to calm yourself. Close your eyes and imagine yourself diving into the experience of anxiety, and focus all your attention on how it looks and feels in your mind. Breathe deeply.

You may find that it dissipates well before the 5 minutes is up. Either way take a deep breath and stretch your body to release the anxious thoughts and feelings. This exercise helps you understand that anxiety is only a feeling, which you can face.

Try picturing your anxiety as if it were a sensitive person or a child, who you are trying to empathize with and validate. You might say,

“Hey Anxiety, you are really strong today. It seems like you want to protect me from something. Are you worried that I’m not keeping my kid safe (or whatever you believe is causing your anxiety to surge)?”

Stop and listen to the anxiety for a moment and see what its purpose might be. Then set a limit with your anxiety, saying something like,

“Thank you so much for wanting to keep everyone safe. I’ve heard you, and I’ll keep their safety in mind. You can stop sending me that message now.”

This may feel odd or hokey at first, but like a child, anxiety gets louder and more insistent until it is heard. This one may take a few rounds to find a comfortable way to do it for you.

Our culture tells the story that we each exist in individual vacuums, and it takes work to counter that narrative. We need to learn to admit, accept, and appreciate that we are all dependent on many people to get through our day and our week—to meet our physical, emotional, material, spiritual needs.

Make a quick mental list of some of the people who make your day possible—maybe the people who grew, picked, packaged, and sold your coffee; your neighbor who took your kiddo to school; the people who made your clothes; the people who paid for your work; and the people who collected your trash and recycling. Take a moment to feel the support of all these people and appreciation for how they touch your life.

Are there people you could thank directly for how they helped you today? Are there people you don’t usually thank who you could find a way to?

The basis of mindfulness is learning to let your thoughts pass by without "getting attached" to them – making too much meaning or getting too invested in them.

Visualize your thoughts as clouds drifting across the sky, as leaves floating down a stream, or filling up bottles that pass by on a conveyor belt. Notice them and watch them go by. For example, “we need milk; it smells nice in here; her outfit is way cooler than mine; did I remember to put the fieldtrip form in my kiddo’s backpack?” and so on. Watch one thought follow the next, and try to watch them pass on without attachment to self-judgment, anxiety, or any other feeling that might arise.

If you find yourself stopping a cloud or a leaf or holding on to them instead of letting them go by, simply redirect yourself to watching them pass. If you have never done this before, it will take practice. But it will get easier and will improve your outlook.

Feeling gratitude for yourself may be the most difficult practice of all. Often we have more stringent standards for ourselves and judge ourselves harshly. It can feel safer to be your own harshest critic – if you get there first, others can't hurt you. Plus you won't be seen as egotistical or narcissistic. But we pay a high price in well-being.

Start small, perhaps by grounding in your physical experience. For example,

“I am grateful that my legs are strong enough to run a mile.”

Move on to expressing gratitude for yourself in certain roles—whether work, parenthood, or another arena. For example,

“I am grateful for my patience with my child today.”

Or, “I am grateful that I was able to think on my feet with that client today.”

Then, try to think more broadly of things you are grateful for about yourself, perhaps extrapolating from the specifics. For example,

“I am a patient person.”

Or, “I’m a flexible thinker.”

If you continue to have a block against finding gratitude for yourself, separate yourself a little by imagining what you would suggest a friend be grateful for about themselves if that friend were you!

Very often we don't notice that one of our boundaries was crossed until well after the fact. Feeling annoyed, aggrieved, resentful, or complaining are all signs that you feel your limits have been violated. If you just yelled at your kid for something that’s not really a big deal, or are feeling angry during what on the surface should be a happy event, ask yourself what limit inside of you might have been crossed.

Work backward to the root of your annoyance, and ask yourself, “What limit did I need there?” For example, if you’re short with your kids at supper because you’re annoyed that the house is a mess because you asked them to clean up and they didn’t, consciously acknowledge that cleaning up is something you need. If you can do something to repair the limit when you realize it, try to make that happen. It can also be helpful to be transparent with your kids about the process:

“I’m sorry I snapped at you just now. I think I was feeling annoyed from before when I asked you to clean up your game, but then allowed you to ignore me and leave the mess out. It really feels bad to me to be ignored when I’m trying to take care of all of our stuff. Let’s all clean up now before we do anything else.”

Did you know that you can enhance the happy-making effects of your special memories?

In addition to recalling them memory, close your eyes and really focus on them, trying to recreate the wonderful details. Try to remember

the sensory sensations
your feelings of connection with other people
your positive emotions int he moment

Locate your good feelings in your body, and try to turn up the volume on those good feelings.

You can do this with any good memories you have. The point is not to live in the past, but to let that "emotional bank account" of good memories fortify and fill your cup in the present.

To a large extent, our narrative about our lives determines our mental health. Together the coherence of our personal narrative (our understanding of who we've been and what's happened to us at every age, and how those flow from one to the next) and the meaning we make of the events of our lives make up most of our subjective experience of life.

Journalling is a way to reveal and shape our personal narratives. Journal can be a completely free writing process, or you can put a structure to it. For example, you can make yourself fill four page every morning ("Morning Pages"), journal about 3 gratitudes per day, or answer a set list of reflections every day.