Swan Mothers

Discovering Ourselves through Parenting

Good Enough Parenting

This is the curious paradox: when we accept ourselves as we are, then we change. (Carl Rogers)

Mothering is Our Job

In our work as parents, we strive for an ideal. We know how we want our parenting to look:  joyful connection with our children, preparation of healthy meals, living in a clean and beautiful environment, reading and playing together, gently supporting our children in times of need. As these tasks become impossibly difficult, we push and struggle and wonder why we can’t make it work. We beat ourselves up, blame situations or people or our history or situation.

Hating Parenting

A group of friends has been discussing some painful realizations:

  • I don’t want to play with my children.
  • There’s nothing I want more than time away from the kids.
  • I’m angry that he doesn’t talk.
  • I hate that she’s not potty trained.

Astute parents try to shift out of these feelings by feeling gratitude for the things they do like about their children, situations and themselves. Gratitude is a lovely practice, but faking it isn’t gratitude. It becomes another should (I should be grateful for my children. Why aren’t I?) The idea that we should be grateful becomes another reason for guilt and sorrow.

Radical Acceptance

When you experience such feelings, acknowledge them and love yourself anyway.  Try some meridian tapping with phrases like those below. Modify the words so that they feel right. (If you don’t want to click the link, simply tap on your fingertips with the index finger of the other hand while saying the following.)

  • Even though I don’t want to play with my children, I can love myself anyway.
  • Even though I want to get away from my children, I am a good enough mother.
  • Even though I hate things about my child, I can consider forgiving myself.

Tap using those phrases for three rounds. Finish with a round of tapping “I have enough. I do enough. I am enough.”

The purpose of the tapping exercise is not to cheer up, but to love, accept and forgive yourself no matter what.

Keep Tapping

If you tapping on these phrases – or even just say them – you may be surprised one day to discover that you really do accept yourself as you are. Perhaps you will then be even more astonished that the ways and means for more satisfactory parenting and living show up for you.

Enoughness is the container of self-kindness. (Jennifer Louden)

Getting There

More quick ideas for reaching peace and acceptance:

1.       Join the Swan Mothers’ Circle and learn to Love Life with Atypical Children

2.       Soften your belly and breathe.

3.       Lay on the couch for five minutes. Put an eye pillow scented with lavender on your eyes.

4.       Have self-mercy and awareness in scared times.

5.       Go outside. Walk. Dig. Lay on the Earth.

6.       Gaze into the distance. Look up and out for a few minutes. See the big picture.

Several of the Getting There suggestions were inspired by Jennifer Louden’s words during an interview with Pace Smith. I highly recommend reading Jennifer Louden’s The Life Organizer: A Woman’s Guide to a Mindful Year and joining the Connection Revolution.

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Self-Care for Mothers: Be Your Own Top Priority for a Few Minutes a Day

Why is it so easy to be smart about other people and so difficult to be smart for ourselves? 

My upper foot arm has been hurting since May. I waited two months before seeking healing assistance or doing anything about it.

If my children or husband announce a pain, I immediately pull out homeopathic remedies and research the symptoms. I suggest a visit to the chiropractor or a healer. For myself? I ignore symptoms and wait.  Yikes!

 

 

Taking Yourself Off the Back Burner

On an airplane, we are directed to put on our own oxygen mask before assisting others. We cannot help our children if we are not breathing. How often to you forget to metaphorically breathe? 

The list of things we have to do is long. We cook, shop, drive, bath, conflict-mediate, drive some more, clean, coach, cuddle, coddle. We volunteer at school and scouts and soccer and do our day jobs.

Taking care of ourselves falls to the bottom of the list.

When we do not care for ourselves, resentment builds. We wonder why no one is taking care of us. Why should they when we demonstrate our Wonder Woman-ness all the time, subtly declaring, “I’ve got it! I can do that for you. I’m not important. I don’t need anything .”

Victim to Creator in 10-minutes per Day

You can do all of these exercises in one 10-minute stretch or do them one at a time throughout the day.

1 Minute:  Do the Thymus Thump.

Using your fingers, tap gently on the middle of your chest, directly on your sternum. While you tap, breathe slowly and deeply.

This exercise will stimulate your energies, boost your immune system, and release stress.

It really works. Try it now for 30 – 60 seconds and feel yourself come alive.

2 Minutes:  Breathe

Over-recommended and under-utilized, breath is the surest, easiest way to center and calm yourself.  Breath takes you out of the stressful fight or flight mode we live in much of the time and shifts the physiological processes in the body. Conscious breathing

  • increases ability to digest/absorb nutrients
  • releases hormones to balance the endocrine system
  • promotes healing

Imagine that your abdomen is a cylindrical container. Breathe in through your nose. For a count of three, feel the bottom of the cylinder pushing down. Continue to breathe in for a count of three more as you feel the sides of the cylinder expand. Continue to breathe in for a count of three more as you feel the top of the cylinder push up. Reverse for the exhale: top pushes down, sides push in, bottom pushes up. Continue for two minutes or at least until you have completed three full breaths in and out.

3 Minutes:  Connect with the World

In Women Who Run with the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D., writes, “…many times it is the things of nature that are the most healing, especially the very accessible and the very simple ones. The medicines of nature and powerful and straightforward…”

Take three minutes to go outside. Gaze at the stars or the clouds. Lay down on the grass. Sniff the air. Feel the warmth of the sun or the chill of the night.

Three minutes immersed in the enormity and continuance of the world will connect you to a force that will sustain and inspire you when you return to your ordinary busyness.

4 Minutes:  Write a List of Positive Aspects

Most days, we do a lot of things right. Most days our children and partners and those around us do something that uplifts us. In every day, there is something good.

Oprah and a hundred other people extol the value of gratitude lists and journals. This is because we find what we seek. If you look for the good in your children and those around you, you will see it.

Buy a journal and label it “Book of Positive Aspects.”  Each day, take four minutes to write down a few satisfactory things about you day. Can’t think of anything? Take a minute to breathe in and out of your heart and try again. ♥

  • What you did well.
  • Things you appreciate about your children and your partner.
  • Great features of your home or work life.

If you prefer group support, visit My Everyday Magic, a daily gratitude blogs hosted and visited by beautiful people. 

That’s it! By doing these four simple exercises, you will be your own top priority for at least ten minutes each day.  The good feelings you generate will overflow into the rest of the day.

In matters of health and healing, be fanatical about self-responsibility. Check facts and carefully evaluate if suggestions are right for you and your children.

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Talking plus Tapping equals Healing

All summer I watched a cygnet swimming with his parents. At first, he was a tiny thing and the parents swam very close to him, pecking at turtles that came near. As he grew, they swam farther and showed him how to fish. They brought him to shore where he copied their grooming habits and practiced stretching his little wings. Today when I arrived at the beach, I witnessed the father swan teaching his rather grown-up cygnet to fly. The cygnet ran on the water, beating its wings. When it stopped, the father repeated the running sequence and finished by lifting his great body into a glide over the surface of the lake. Before the swans fly south for the winter, the cygnet will have learned to fly too. He’s been watching his parents all summer.

Like the cygnet, our children learn by watching and mimicking us. What we do will have a much greater impact on them then what we say. While helping our children find balance with homeopathic remedies and other natural health science methods is important, demonstrating our own commitment to heal and balance ourselves is the greater gift. When we claim responsibility for our own health and well-being, we encourage our children to do the same. If we can teach our children a simple technique for getting calm and centered, we give them a skill that will serve them throughout their lives.

Tapping + Talking = Healing

Think about a traumatic event from your past. Maybe a teacher humiliated you for not understanding something. Maybe your child had a tantrum at church and all eyes were on you. Maybe you were in a car crash or witnessed a terrible accident.Take a moment to really think about one such event. Close your eyes and notice how you feel. Is your heart beating faster? Is your throat constricting? Are you cringing? Can you feel yourself getting angry or scared or sad?

Traumatic events elicit a physical response. They cause the body to contract and harden. This tension prevents energy from circulating freely in the body.

Healing Trauma

Energy is the invisible foundation for health in the body. The body is composed of energy pathways and energy centers that are in a dynamic interplay with the cells, organs, moods, and thoughts. This is why we feel sadness and joy and fear in our bodies.

When a traumatic event disrupts the flow of energy, physical ailments and emotional imbalances may result. Sometimes, these last long after the event is over and injuries have healed.

Homeopathic remedies, acupuncture balance the flow of energy and restore harmony. Using these energetic healing techniques, we influence our health, emotions and state of mind.

When you consider the many small and BIG traumas we experience, it is easy to understand why it is necessary to dedicate time to healing for ourselves and our children. Accidents, teasing, bullying, and loss all leave their marks on us. By supporting ourselves with homeopathy and EFT, we can learn and grow from these experiences instead of being squashed and crippled by them.

What Happens When You Tap Acupoints

Most therapies address the cognitive and emotional aspects of trauma. Stimulating the meridian points using EFT or acupressure addresses the physiological component, leading to deep, lasting healing.

Learning and using EFT, a meridian tapping technique, enables you to participate actively in your own growth and healing. EFT can rebalance your body and enable you to cope with the demands of living with autistic and other uniquely magnificent children.

Background and History

More than 5000 years ago, the Chinese discovered that by applying pressure to specific points (acupoints) on the body, they could

  1. alleviate physical symptoms,
  2. improve functioning of internal organs, and
  3. balance emotions.

Acupoints have significantly lower electrical resistance than other areas of the skin and are sensitive to mechanical stimulation. In the 1980s, John Diamond and Roger Callahan began to apply acupuncture to psychological issues. A decade later, Gary Craig developed EFT.

Tension and pain accumulate at acupoints. By tapping the standard points used in EFT, you will bring balance to all of the major energy pathways in your body. As you tap, your emotions will shift. Often, old memories will surface. In this way, EFT offers a way to bring energetic disturbances to the surface to be healed. Just as blood vessels nourish the body physically, meridians circulate healing energy to all systems of the body.

Expect Results

Begin now to gently and permanently heal your own old wounds. This will make you a more effective parent, partner, and person.  For most people, working with a professional produces the quickest results.  I offer free 15-minute consultations if you would like to talk before determining if I am the right practitioner for you.  (I will happily refer you to another practitioner if we are not a match).

You can also use EFT for yourself anytime, anywhere.  All that is required is the most basic knowledge of the technique which I describe here.

As you empower yourself by actively participating in your own healing experience, you will be modeling self-responsibility and empowerment for your children.  What a gift!

In matters of health and healing, be fanatical about self-responsibility. Check facts and carefully evaluate if suggestions are right for you and your children.

 

 

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