When You're Feeling Disconnected From Your Child- 4 things you can do today to help

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"I'm here to bring hope," said my 10 year-old

I spent the weekend thinking deeply about my life’s purpose, immersed in Oprah’s Live the Life You Want weekend in Miami. I came home and was sharing some of my experiences with a friend on the phone when I noticed my son was listening intently. He’ll be 11 next month and has always been a deep and sensitive soul, especially with me.  

I was sharing that Oprah began with the words, “Why are you here? What are you here to do in this life?”

My son looked into my eyes and said, “I know why I’m here.”

I stopped my conversation. That’s the kind of thing that completely gets your full attention as a parent.  I paused and said, “You do? Tell me why you are here.”

“I’m here to bring hope.”

 My heart swelled. What a statement for anyone, let alone a 10 year-old. I waited and he continued.

“When Jacob died, you needed hope. And when I was born, I gave you hope. So I know I’m here to bring hope.”

He was right.  He was conceived 5 months after my baby, Jacob, had died from a fatal birth defect. I was ready to try again and I felt confident that things would be ok this time around, yet I was still grieving. My whole world was shaken to the core. I didn’t know how anyone could really recover from such a loss. I felt like there would always be a giant gaping hole in my heart that would never be better. I continued to do my own work before and during (and well after) the pregnancy with him, but he certainly grew in the sadness I was experiencing, along with the waves of fear that things might not be all right.

We’ve talked about his birth. We’ve talked about the baby brother he never knew who came before him.  We’ve talked about how much I wanted to have him and how loved he was and always will be. But I had forgotten the story I had told him about hope. But he hadn’t.

I believe it was Oprah this weekend who said, “Hope is the simple belief that things can change. Despair is that tomorrow will be another version of today.”

I needed things to change. I needed to believe my body could have a healthy baby. I needed to know in my heart that I wouldn’t always be shrouded in a cloud of grief. I needed to see the beauty in every day moments. Honestly, it would have been easy to just have thrown my hands up in the air, curled into a ball and never look up again- except that I had another child already, a little boy who was 3 1/2 who needed me. And so I got up and made breakfast instead of staying in bed on those cold Indiana winter days while it rained or snowed or was just dark and grey outside. And, true to my nature, I searched for answers so that tomorrow wouldn’t be the same as today.

These moments always contain choices. We can be defined by the sadness of the story or the hope. We can allow something that happens to us to be the reason we stop trying or the reason why we must propel ourselves forward. Every situation, no matter how dire it seems, contains the opportunity for defining ourselves and our path forward. And we have the opportunity with our children to help them define their own stories as a hero’s journey, no matter what happened by the stories we tell to them.

We can rewrite those stories so that we are the hero. We can rewrite those stories so that they define us in ways that help us to grow. And we can begin doing that today.

I’m here to bring you hope. Hope for you. Hope for your family. 

"Because it is always darkest before the dawn and the sun always rises." Oprah

Sunrise pictures courtesy from my Facebook friends. Thanks all!

Sunrise in Satellite Beach, FL, courtesy Kim Bannister

Sunrise over Albuquerque, NM, courtesy of Deborah Barkoff

Sunrise in Clearwater (entitled, When You Wake Up on Red!) courtesy of Susan Stroemel Graham

Sunrise in NY from a bus, courtesy Clare Uppenbrink

Sunrise Satellite Beach, FL, courtesy of Kim Bannister

Sunrise Punta Gorda, FL, courtesy of Cecilia Wilhelm

South Nevada in August, courtesy Teresa Lewis Lass

Want to connect more with me:

Phone, Skype or in-person sessions in Palm Harbor, FL (email me at rebecca @ consciouslyparenting (dot) com without spaces and putting a period for the dot to make it a real email address.

You can also join my new Academy, where you can find relationship-focused ways of solving your biggest parenting and relationship challenges, from couples to conception to teens, as well as those other decisions you need to make consciously for your family like alternative health, conscious living- schooling, minimalism, food, etc., and special circumstances, like loss, divorce, etc. Join us here. 

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Tantrums... not just for tots (Free call tonight) and NEW I Heart Parenting community

I'm excited. Super excited.

Tonight, I'm hosting a free call about handling tantrums and emotional upsets. And on Wednesday, I'm launching my new I Heart Parenting community!

www.iheartparenting.com

I'm over the moon excited.

I haven't gotten much sleep lately getting this all ready for you. Really, it is a dream I've had for many years that is finally taking form. And the super cool thing is that even I could afford to join this. And recently, money has been incredibly tight for me as a new single mom. (You can read about that here if you missed that story...)

While I've always been somewhat frugal, I had an experience recently that made me feel even more dedicated to getting some resources up that everyone can enjoy and still supports the work that I'm doing. A few months ago, when I couldn't afford to buy toilet paper (I did get it worked out, so don't worry), I didn't go into a place of despair. I knew that this was a very temporary place as I adjusted to being the sole income provider for myself and my boys. But I really began to appreciate every little thing that I did have. When I could put gas in my car, I rejoiced. When I had a little extra money and could do something nice for my boys, I cherished it in a way that's hard to describe.

I began to think even more about all the parents who are scraping by every month, just trying to feed their kids and wanted to do more to offer help. After all, I couldn't afford anything other than the most basic of things and if I needed parenting support, it wasn't going to happen no matter how valuable I felt the information was or how much I valued my relationship with my kids. I've always had lots of free resources on my website and blog. I regularly offer good sales and discounts. But those periodic things aren't enough when you're really struggling. Or even if you just want it to be better than it is.

I made a deal with myself about 7 years back when I was really struggling and someone supported me at no charge. Since then, I'm always trying to find ways to pay it forward.

And this feels really good.

So tonight, I'm hosting a free call about an alternative view of tantrums and emotional upsets. This call isn't just about toddlers. Every day, I hear from parents with toddlers to teens (and yes, many times the parents) who are having emotional outbursts or upsets and aren't sure what to do that feels loving when we just want it to STOP. When it is us, we may beat ourselves up because we should know better or we're sounding just like our parents did with us. When it is our kids, we may resort to bribing them or maybe we just shut them out. How can we find our way into handling these emotionally charged moments the way we want? How can we handle these times in a way that helps our children have fewer of these moments as they grow older? And how can we grow ourselves up if we're still having more of those moments ourselves than we'd like to admit?

This is a huge topic and I've chosen it to launch the very first month of my new intentional community. I'll be sharing information and resources with you and we'll be getting to know each other, to support one another on the journey that sometimes feels really lonely as a conscious parent.

I hope you'll consider joining us to play in this new playground. Let's find some joy together! Let's inspire each other to be the best we can be without judgments as we find our way on our own unique path of parenting consciously. Let's learn together and create a community of support. It does take a village, even if it is virtual.

There's something powerful for me to hear parents from every corner of the globe are all feeling the same way. I want you to see that, too. There is magic in the common ground, how we are all more alike than different, and in watching families move from struggle to deep connection. I want you to have a window into that and learn from each other.

Have a question for me for tonight's call? Please comment below. Excited about the new community? Have ideas to make it a better place? I'd love to have you comment below. Or email me directly. I'll try to get back to you soon.

Hope to hear from you on the call tonight! And I can't wait to meet you in our new parenting playground, I Heart Parenting. You can check it out by following the link. We're still under construction, but we'll be up and running completely on Wednesday, May 1, 2013!

Navigating by Inner Guidance in Parenting (book excerpt)

Consciously Parenting: What It Really Takes to Raise an Emotionally Healthy Family by Rebecca Thompson, MS

The following is an excerpt from Consciously Parenting book, Part I, Foundation of Relationships, to be released March 2012. For more information and to continue reading, visit: http://consciouslyparenting.com/book to sign up for more free excerpts and the first 3 chapters of the book at no cost to you.

Navigating by Inner Guidance

Now, as then, so many families are still struggling, and parents don’t know what to do. Many parents have gone from expert to expert only to find themselves back in the same place or in a worse place than they were before they followed the “expert” advice. At a very early age, most of us learned that the answers are outside of ourselves, and so we seek external solutions to our problems. We think that someone else is going to come and save us.

Part of the problem is that we’re afraid to not follow the advice of someone who seems to know what they’re talking about. Even when something about a piece of “expert” advice doesn’t feel right to us, we disregard that still, small voice within us, and things get worse. Or while we may know intuitively that something isn’t right or makes no sense, we don’t know what to do instead. In the past, much of the parenting information out there has been conflicting at best and misleading and damaging to relationships at worst. We’ve all heard so much information about parenting that we don’t know what is really correct anymore.

That’s where I found myself as a parent. I was listening to my heart and doing the best I could with the information I had, but it wasn’t working. I simply didn’t know where else to turn or what else to do to help my family out of the rut we were in on all levels.

Eventually, I realized the solutions to all the things we struggle with personally and as parents can be found inside us. Like the way back to Kansas was for Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, what we’re seeking can be found within. The difficulties our children present to us are opportunities for us to grow beyond where we are in this moment. My child wasn’t trying to manipulate me, but he was providing me with an opportunity to grow and learn. Parenting our own children provides a unique opportunity to learn about our early experiences. It puts a magnifying glass on those things that worked well for our own parents and those that didn’t. It allows us to understand how we feel about our own needs and the needs of our children, but only if we allow ourselves to be aware and see the parent-child relationship with new eyes.

Truly connecting with our children takes waking up, stepping into full consciousness, and reconnecting with ourselves and our own inner wisdom. It will probably be one of the most difficult things we will ever do, but it is also one of the most rewarding. I know firsthand that finding your own voice can feel daunting. Like stepping off the shore into the ocean, we must first go through the crashing surf before we reach the calmer, gently rolling waves on the other side. Everything becomes easier when we have passed through the rough water and found that we can handle what floats our way. However, it isn’t always an easy journey. Storms are bound to come up and test our ability to stay connected to ourselves in this new way. Indeed, parenting in this manner is a journey, not a tropical island destination at which we arrive with our luggage and simply  unpack and settle in with a frosty tropical beverage, happy kids in tow.

We’re going to start with you, and you will be modeling what it looks like to stay connected to yourself. By doing so, your children will learn to connect to their own inner guidance rather than looking at external sources to find answers. Your children are going to be on their own at some point, out in the big, wide world without you. Helping them find their own internal compass is one of the best things you can do to help them prepare for the real world. We’ll take a look at what navigating by the internal compass looks like at each developmental stage. (And these developmental stages are based on a child’s emotional or developmental age, rather than chronological age.)

With our parenting decisions, we have the power to create connection instead of disconnection, love instead of fear, peace instead of discord. Then we can return to our natural “perfect” state of harmony, peace, and joy.

Like what you see? Sign up for more at no cost to you! http://consciouslyparenting.com/book

Is it too late to fix this relationship? Start with TODAY.

"I feel like I've messed up this relationship beyond repair," said Jewel, mother of a precocious 4 year-old.  "I know I'm not where I want to be in my relationship with my daughter. I've made all sorts of wrong decisions and mistakes. What can I possibly do from here? Is it too late?"

Try as we might, many times we find that we're not where we want to be in our relationships with our children. Maybe we're snapping at them a little too often. Perhaps we're frustrated because they "should" be able to do more on their own by now, or maybe their temperament or behaviors just push us right over the edge.

We feel like we're failing. We feel hopeless. We wonder if it is possible to ever make this right. We wonder if we've ruined our children forever with our parenting mistakes and missteps. We feel trapped and responsible.


I was just reading a book called, In the Flow of Life, by Eric Butterworth this morning. It is a book I have often turned to when I'm feeling challenged on my own life journey. This is what I read:

"You cannot really make a wrong choice, a bad decision. Any step you take will lead eventually to your good, because a negative experience encountered will produce a sort of challenge in which to outgrow the kind of consciousness from which the choice was made, leading to a higher consciousness from which more constructive steps can be taken. So a wrong choice is a right choice at that particular time. Knowing this, you are free from the fear of bad decisions. You can stand still and believe that there is no decision to be made, only a direction to discover."

I guess for me, this means that I am consciously aware of my parenting decisions, yet I am not going to beat myself up when things haven't gone the way I'd hoped or planned. I can see those decisions as a part of my journey to a higher consciousness, rather than as a horrible mistake.

I've done plenty of things on my parenting journey that have created disconnection in my relationship with my kids. There have been lots of overwhelming and even traumatic events in my family that have left me breathless and directionless, feeling hopelessly lost. Yet, as I find my way out of the dense overgrown forest, I see that I am no longer in the same place. I can see more clearly where I am and where I'm going, knowing I am no longer where I once was. Thankfully.

We can't go back in time and change the past. But I know, and I see in my clients, that healing is always possible by starting with TODAY. This moment. Sometimes this moment means that we need to acknowledge events from our past that are still unfinished. Our past created the present moment and we can't simply wish it away. You know, just move on, keep on going, trying to forget the negative events in our lives. We are who we are because of what has happened in our lives until this moment. We are showing parts of our story in this moment. And so is our child. Maybe it doesn't make sense to us right now because we're only thinking about this moment and not the pivotal moments that have come before. In fact, the clues we need to move forward are always there in our stories, even if we can't readily see them.

We don't have to go on some long expedition to find our stuck points. They're showing up right now in the way we handle our stressful moments, the way we reach out (or not), what we feel in this moment, and how you express what you feel (or perhaps in what you don't express). The past isn't separate from the now. The past isn't something that you just forget about, setting your sights on what you'd like to create in the future. The past is living in today. But we can change our direction and our future course by being present in this moment. Healing past hurts and disconnections can only happen in this moment. By paying attention to the signs showing up in our lives pointing the way to those old wounds that need nurtured, for the places lacking connection in our current relationships that need healing, we create the possibility of a new relationship with ourselves and with others. We have a chance to create a new experience right now. To heal. To create love and connection with our partner, our children, our family, our friends.

Healing starts today. Are you open to that possibility?

Next week, I'll explore how we can use our present moment experiences to work through our stuck points from the past, particularly in our relationship with our child. I've been so blessed to support many parents on this journey into connecting with their child deeply through Integrative Story Sharing, based on the work of Ray Castellino and Mary Jackson of www.aboutconnections.com and www.beba.org.

As you enter into this new year, remember that it is full of infinite opportunities and possibilities for healing. And that healing can begin today! Here's to a fabulous New Year ahead!

If you're like many parents and are looking for additional resources to begin the new year, check out my New Year's sale. I'm clearing out inventory to make way for many new resources next year. When they're gone, they're gone! Best wishes for healing connection for you and your family in 2012!

A Simple Shift in the Parent-Child Dance

My son bared his teeth and moved his head in toward mine so that our foreheads nearly touched. For a split second, I thought he was going to bang into my head. With that realization dawning, I decided he was being playful and just moving in to kiss me. I reached toward him and kissed him. He then smiled and told me how much he loved me. A few minutes later, after he had gone back off to the other room to play, it occurred to me how differently that situation would have gone if I had decided that his action was a threat to me. How many times do our interpretations of our child’s behavior lead us down the path to more disconnection? Or toward connection?

            We interpret our child’s behaviors hundreds of times per day, mostly unconsciously. If things are generally going well with our child and with us, we’re more likely to have the patience and the wherewithal to interpret our child’s behaviors in a positive light. If we’re feeling overwhelmed for any reason, or if our relationship with our child is generally not going so well, we’re more likely to interpret our child’s behaviors in a negative light, regardless of the intention of the child. I’m not saying that our children are always completely innocent or that they don’t need to learn to communicate with us effectively to get their needs met. Rather, I’m pointing out that sometimes just a simple shift in our interpretation of what our child is saying or doing can make things go in a positive direction.

What do you think of when you see this picture? What words do you associate with the expression on his face? While some may see a child who is scared, others may see an angry child. Others might see someone who is playful. And this is all just from a two-dimensional image.
We are constantly making observations, judging behaviors, and then interpreting what our children do—all in the blink of an eye. Many of these judgments and interpretations are based upon previous circumstances and how things worked out for us (or our loved ones) in the past. The primitive part of the brain is responsible for screening all things happening around us for possible threats. If I had allowed my amygdala (the primitive part of my brain responsible for the fight, flight, or freeze response) to take over in the situation with my son above, I would have fought back, run away, or frozen. Because I was aware of myself and realized that my five-year-old wasn’t really a threat, I was able to interpret his behavior in a different way that had a positive outcome.

            “My daughter is manipulating me!” “He did that to me on purpose just to make me mad!” “I’m the parent, and he needs to listen to what I say!” Phrases like these are common among parents, and they are remnants of another age in which we did not fully understand brain development and what is really going on in the minds of our young children. We often overlay adult thinking onto what we are seeing from our children, even when they are not capable of this kind of complex thought. These kinds of phrases only create more disconnection in relationships because the interpretation is a judgment that the child is wrong or bad. But what if we asked ourselves what is the best possible interpretation for what our child just did? When we start to shift our interpretations and change our language to give our children the benefit of the doubt, there is then the possibility of change!

            Our children are always doing the best they can do at any given time. This statement is not always readily agreed with when I say it to parents. But let me ask you this: Are you always doing the best you can in any given situation? (Not that you always handle things perfectly, but do you have good intentions?) Do you set out to do a lousy job and make everyone around you upset? I’d be surprised if you said yes. Our children want to please us, even if it doesn’t look like it sometimes. They need us to hold the higher consciousness for them, to know and feel that they are doing their best. They need our support and our guidance, not harsh words and criticism. 

Excerpted from Consciously Parenting: Creating, Nurturing and Repairing Relationships, 

Chapter 6: How We Interpret Our Children's Behavior, Publication date Spring 2012

Connecting When You Don't Have a Magic Wand

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On This Mother's Day

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Risking Love

It has been an emotional weekend here for me after I learned that one of my cousins lost her baby at 20 weeks of pregnancy. I found out early on Sunday morning- one that was particularly busy for me. Normally, I would take news like that and make my world smaller for a little while, but I had to move into my day this time. I found myself crying in the car on the way to church, wondering how I was ever going to make it through the church service. On top of that, I was in the choir and we were performing which meant I'd be right up front. Ironically, this is why I was going. Our choir is very small and they need my voice.

I went up to my minister to say good morning. As she hugged me, I said that I really needed the hug right then and she said that she did, too. I hadn't planned to elaborate, mostly because I didn't want to start crying again, but she stopped me and asked what was going on. I took a deep breath and told her what had happened.

She said that when we become mothers, our heart is then outside of our bodies. Becoming parents is always a risk. We don't know how long we'll have our "babies" with us. But it is worth it. All of the pain. All the uncertainty. It is always a risk, which we take gladly.

Having lost a baby of my own, the news of this loss really hit me hard. It was especially difficult because my cousin's baby was diagnosed with the same fatal condition as my baby was diagnosed with. I knew that I was being pulled back into the vortex of my own pain. Of decisions that I didn't want to have to make. Of knowing that my baby's birth day would also be the end of his life.

The stakes are high when becoming a parent. We risk everything. And it is messy sometimes. And still we show up. And we step outside of our own comfort level to risk love.

This risk can scare us into not stepping out at all. Or it can help us to rise to the occasion and realize how much we really do have in this very moment. I pulled my kids in tighter and embraced this moment- the only moment we ever really have.

I think it is like that for all relationships. There is always a risk. Reaching out to anyone always entails a risk. But not taking the risk means that we miss out on the greatest gifts of all. I simply cannot imagine my life without my children. Has it been hard at times? You bet. I've struggled perhaps more than I would like to admit. Was it worth it? Absolutely. I would not be who I am today without the experiences I have had thanks to my children. All of them.

Risk it all for love. It is worth it!