 This blog was originally posted in June 2014 and it's still just as relevant today....enjoy!
Our kids have been with family out of town for the last ten days and I have to admit, it’s been a nice break. No running from one activity to another, having only one person to get ready in the morning and the nights seemed a lot longer. It’s been a chance to relax and do a couple things I haven’t been able to do in a while. What’s weird though is that it is so quiet in the house. You never realize how the background chatter, playing, and even arguing, blends into what becomes “normal”. So normal in fact that when it’s not there the silence is magnified. What is it about silence that is so uncomfortable? Think about that for a minute. Why is it that we feel that we have to fill every moment with sound? What’s do when you get in the car? Turn on the radio or switch the channel to a song you want to listen to. Why is it that driving in silence is rarely, if ever, considered as an option? Leaders across all disciplines and walks of life talk about the importance of these quiet moments. The CEO of Whole Foods, hip hop mogul Russell Simmons and Oprah, just to name a few, talk about how quiet moments in their day are key to their ability to succeed and achieve. Some call it meditation, some call it prayer and some go out into nature for some quiet time. Regardless of what you call it the message is the same - in order to maintain a mentally healthy, balanced life, you need to take those moments to just sit. You need to put the phone down, step away from the computer, and just sit and breathe. Chances are your thoughts will start racing thinking about all the things you could or should be doing instead of just sitting there. That’s normal. The next step is to try to let some that go. Many people recommend focusing on your breath, counting every inhale and exhale to quiet your thoughts. At first I thought it was something for people to do who weren’t busy, that didn’t work or have kids. I don’t have time is an easy thing to say, but actually it’s the busiest people who need these quiet moments the most. Once you start to make the time, you realize how helpful it can be. It could be 30 seconds in between meetings to take a deep breath or driving in silence with the radio off. It’s giving yourself that brief moment to stop running from one thing to the next, refocus and remember what is important. Heart-FULLy Yours, Kacey Don’t miss a post – sign up to receive the blog in your inbox every week. Scroll to the top of the page and you’ll see a box to enter your email in the upper right side of the page.
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 Today in the blog I’m going to do something I don’t normally do….I’m going to go on a bit of a rant. You see earlier this week, maybe like many of you, I went to a local drugstore to look for Father’s Day cards. I found the aisle and started walking down scanning the pictures and words on the cards. I quickly realized I had passed the Father’s Day section and was looking at graduation cards. Weird, I only took a couple steps down the aisle. I retreated back to the section clearly labeled “Father’s Day” and was shocked at how small the section of cards was. Being the numbers girl that I am (thanks Dad!), I did a quick count – 8 cards in a row, 6 rows x 2 sections = 96 cards. Not even 100 cards to choose from, what is going on? Some could argue that I waited until the week before and so there were fewer cards to choose from. I suppose that’s possible, but really? What are all the other last minute shoppers like me going to do? I also suppose that compared to Mother’s Day, one of the biggest Hallmark holidays of the year, Father’s Day is a drop in the bucket and only sells a fraction of the cards they sell on Mother’s Day. But come on, this is it?
Begrudgingly, I accepted this was my selection to choose from and started scanning the cards. If you eliminate the cards that reference taking a nap and/or controlling the remote, having the perfect golf game, beer or power tools, you are left with only a handful of cards. Then there are a couple of cards with heart-felt poems that act like you haven’t spoken to your father in a year and even if you have talked to him, you don’t talk to him in this way. So remove the poems with phrases that you would never say and I was left with a couple of lone stragglers. The picture above it the one I chose – a piece of toast with a smile on it, inside it says “A toast to you on Father’s Day!” It’s silly, but will bring a smile to my dad’s face because he has a piece of toast every morning. It’s a stretch I know, but it was between that and a goofy picture of an old man in front of a dam, inside it read “This is the best dam Father’s Day card you’ll get.” Clearly you can see I was grasping at straws. Don’t we owe more to our Dads on Father’s Day than a lame card with a message that doesn’t even come close to saying what you want to say? It’s interesting that this experience came on the heels of last week’s blog about feelings. Is it possible that there are so few cards because culturally it’s difficult to express our feelings for our fathers in an acceptable way? In fairness, most of our father’s grew up in a very different time. Phrases like “be a man” and “toughen up” were the norm. Men were taught that they needed to provide for their families and your work defined you as a man. Talking about feelings was not normal. Emotional Intelligence was not a thing that was discussed around the dinner table. As a result, most men of their generation grew up tough and stoic versus soft and emotional. It’s no wonder that the card companies struggle to come up with cards that say what we want to say to our dads. It also makes me think about how we can do things different with our boys. For many of us, our default is to parrot the phrases we’ve heard all our lives, including “boys don’t cry”. It’s easy to think that once our sons have reached a certain age, they need to toughen up. But do they really? Instead I think that we need to do a better job giving our sons the words to describe how they are feeling. In February, I wrote about an online class I took hosted by Brene’ Brown around how to help your kids define, describe and understand different emotions. These conversations with our kids are so important. In the beginning, it may be difficult for us to explain the difference between sadness and disappointment or frustrated and angry. But until we start talking openly about our emotions with our kids, especially with our boys, they won’t understand either. They will be left to create their own definition. Like all kids, my son has his moments of acting out. Over the last couple years, I’ve started to ask deeper questions as to why he is upset, most of the time his answer is “I don’t know”. I suggest “are you mad because I said no to this earlier?” Or “are you sad that we are going to have to leave in a little while and you don’t want to?” Or “are you angry at me or are you angry at your sister because you don’t think she wasn’t playing the game fairly?” Sometimes he will admit to feeling something I’ve suggested. Sometimes it could be hours later, he’ll bring up the situation and say, the reason I was mad was because of this reason, not that. Then we have a conversation about it, digging deeper into the emotion he was having on the surface, to identify the root of the problem. Helping our kids, especially out boys, get in touch with their emotions to the point where they can talk about them is our responsibility in raising compassionate human citizens. This year more than ever, I realize that choosing a Father’s Day card, no matter how terrible I think they are, is a blessing. We shouldn’t be waiting to find the perfect card to tell these amazing men in our lives how we feel one day out of the year. It may be hard to put how you feel into words, but if that’s the case, then let your actions speak for themselves. I will keep it simple and raise my glass to toast all the best dam dads out there reading this, Happy Father’s Day! Heart-FULLy Yours, Kacey Don’t miss a post – sign up to receive the blog in your inbox every week. Scroll to the top of the page and you’ll see a box to enter your email in the upper right side of the page.  If you have gone through the process of buying a house, you know it is both exhilarating and nerve wracking. When we got the call our offer on our first house was accepted, we were so excited. We were hugging, laughing and then out of nowhere, I started crying. It was involuntary, the tears just started rolling down my face. My husband was worried, what could possibly be wrong? Nothing was wrong, for me it was just a buildup of intense emotions finally releasing and letting go.
Too often we don’t allow that pure release. Before tears can flow freely, we put up our guard. We are taught at an early age that we need to “suck it up” or “put on our big girl pants”. In order to do this, we gloss over the feeling in the moment and get busy doing whatever is next. In more extreme circumstances we over eat, shop to much or drink to numb the pain. We try to ignore the feeling all together and move on. Somewhere along the line, it’s become taboo for us to show our emotions. This mindset bleeds over into our parenting style. If your child is crying, how quick are we to tell them “it’s ok, you don’t have to cry,” instead of letting them take the time that they need to cry it out? We may start out by comforting them, but if the situation feels like it is going on too long, we feel like we need to “fix” it. Sometimes we do that by bribing “if you stop crying, then you can watch a video, have a cookie or special treat”. Sometimes, if we think they are over-reacting, we say “stop crying” and push them to move on (which often leads to more crying because they can’t figure out how to stop). Emotions are energy. The word emotion comes from the Latin word “emotere”, which means energy in motion. Your body has physical reactions depending on the emotion. Happiness, laughter and joy are easy to express. Sadness, stress, disappointment and anger are more difficult and more likely to be suppressed. We must talk about them and to release them. If we don’t, they don’t go away, they simply simmer below the surface. It’s never too soon to start talking about emotions with your kids. Having an open and honest dialogue after an emotional outburst can help both of you to understand what happened. It’s not only about your child’s outbursts, it could be talking through why you reacted the way you did and the other factors that were involved. And let’s face it, it may not always be that simple. We need to remind our kids, and ourselves, that feelings can be confusing and hard to understand and that’s ok. Those are the feelings we need to pay the most attention to, not the least. Talk about it. Write about it. Get it out in some way because until you do, you will carry it with you whether you realize it or not. Heart-FULLy Yours, Kacey Don’t miss a post – sign up to receive the blog in your inbox every week. Scroll to the top of the page and you’ll see a box to enter your email in the upper right side of the page.  This week, Dr. Shefali’s wonderful book, The Awakened Family: How to Raise Empowered, Resilient and Conscious Children, was released in paperback. As most of you know, this book has been transformational in my approach to parenting and I’ve quoted it many times in this blog. My copy of the book is highlighted with notes in the margin and sticky notes colorfully flagging sections that demand to be read over and over again.
I’ve read a lot of parenting books and this one stands above them all. Why? I think there are two reasons. The first is her use of relatable examples. Not only does she share stories from her patients she has helped throughout the years, but Dr. Shefali also sites experiences she has with her own daughter. Early in the book, she shares a story where she and her 12-year-old daughter had a disagreement. After the incident, Dr. Shefali breaks it down for her daughter in the following way: “When we get upset or afraid we won’t be understood, we turn into a ferocious tiger to protect ourselves. This is what was happening to you. You realized I wasn’t taking the time to understand you, and in your desperation you bared your teeth and showed me your claws. Of course, based on the way I was brought up, I thought to myself, ‘How rude!’ I then bared my own tiger mommy teeth right back at you. I should have known you would never go on the attack unless you were somehow feeling scared or trapped.” “How rude” is such a trigger point for so many parents and to have it broken down in this way, helps us to see it differently. I love this example because it not only helps us as parents to identify what is going on in the heat of the moment, but it gives us the words to speak to our children. We don’t always think to speak to our children with such transparency, but if we can it will only strengthen our relationship. The second reason I believe this book stands apart from the others is because it says what we are all thinking. Here’s a perfect example: “Bringing up children is a scary task, because we are always afraid we’re doing it “wrong”. As parents who are trying our best to do a good job, we don’t realize that it’s precisely our fears for our children, which we think of as concern, that are the problem with most parenting. These fears often take the form of intense anxiety with regard to our children. Whatever its precise manifestation, our fears undermine so many of our good intentions. Fear is the reason our parenting somehow manages to produce results that are the exact opposite of what we were aiming for.” Can you relate to that feeling of “doing it wrong”? I think there are many parents out there that feel this way, yet few of them have ever said it out loud. As the book goes on, Dr. Shefali breaks down seven myths about parenting which detail out more of these unspoken “rules” about what it takes to be a “good” parent. My favorite is #4, “Good Parents Are Naturals” – “Instead of being told that being a parent is second nature, it would be more helpful if we were told that it would feel like entering a foreign country where no one speaks our language.” Ha! It’s funny because it’s true. How many of us have felt like we are stumbling and bumbling our way along in a foreign country without a map? The good news is that in reading this book, the foreign country starts to look more familiar. You learn that the key to learning the language lies in connecting with your child. It’s not always easy, but this book helps break it down in a way that is simple to apply to your everyday situations. As the days of summer get longer, and our patience with our kids gets shorter, it is the perfect time to pick up this book. Heart-FULLy Yours, Kacey In lesson #2 of my class “Parent’s Guide to Preteens: Communicating through Connection”, we expand on Dr. Shefali’s concept of Sand and Stone boundaries and how you can incorporate them to improve your communication and relationship with your preteen. It’s not too late, sign up before June 15th and save $50! Just use coupon code PRET50 at checkout. |
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AuthorI started writing this blog because I wanted to have deeper conversations beyond "How are you?", "Busy", with other parents. Over the years I've shared personal stories, articles, authors and topics to facilitate conversations with parents about the joys and the challenges of parenting. |
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© 2021 Balanced Heart Coaching
Disclaimer: I may receive affiliate compensation from the resources and websites mentioned on this website.
© 2021 Balanced Heart Coaching