How did we get here?

If I told you to walk across a tightrope, I’d even give you one of those long poles for balance, would you do it?  No, you don’t get to practice.  Yes, it might start raining.  Yes, objects could be flying around while you are going across.  Ready, set, go!  What?  Does it seem like it would be impossible to keep your balance through all those obstacles?  You’re probably right.  What if I rephrased it to say, as a parent you should be able to achieve balance - are you ready to walk the tight rope now?  Here’s the thing, if you don’t find balance you’ll be followed around by the guilt that there is more that you could be or should be doing.

How did we get here?  Research has shown that parents are more involved with their kids today than any other generation.  No, that is not a typo; we are MORE involved with our children.  So why do we have these expectations that there should be more that we are doing.  Pinterest has upped the ante that having chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream is no longer enough for a birthday party.  No, you have to have a specially decorated cake that matches your table-scape, which goes along with your theme, games and party bags.  Do anything less and the guilt starts to creep in.

We strive for balance that we know is impossible, but yet we drive for it anyway.  We feel as if we are the only one who is unable to do it.  You look around and think that they have done it, why can’t I?  But in reality none of us are doing it, no one is achieving the perfect balance that we all perceive we should be.  Where did this definition of balance come from anyway?  The next time you find yourself feeling guilty about how you are spending your time take a minute to figure out where that expectation came from.  What is it that is making you feel guilty?  Don’t stop at the first answer that comes to your head, really think about it and get to the root of the belief.    

Balance is something that only you know what it truly means for you.  There is no right answer, only the definition you create for yourself.  The challenge is that many of us don’t take the time to create that definition for ourselves.  We let life happen and by doing so we accept whatever definition comes our way.  Trust me it’s not as daunting as it sounds.  If you take the time to decide what is really important to you using your heart as your guide, you will never go wrong.  It will help you prioritize the things that really matter.  It will help you see the value in taking time to do the things that fill you up and bring you joy.

Achieving balance is something that may change day by day or even hour by hour.  What looks like balance today, may be the complete opposite of what balance looks like tomorrow.  And you know what, that’s ok!  It will never be perfect and will never look exactly like someone else’s balance, so give yourself a break J. 

Heart-FULLy Yours, 

Kacey

It Starts Within Your Heart - Revisited

About two years ago, my daughter and I had a conversation that eventually led to me to start writing this blog.  I wanted to take a minute to retell the story of that conversation and follow it up with something that happened last week.

“It starts within your heart” began as a phrase I started using with my then 8 year old. Her 5 year old brother had gotten angry, yelled at her for something she didn’t do and she was mad. When I went in to ask her something, she got angry with me.  It would have been easy to get mad back, and in many previous situations I had, but on this day I didn’t.  I took a deep breath and tried something new.  I put the back of my hand on her chest with my fingers pinched together.  I explained she had all these feelings in her heart, and I started wiggling my fingers.  Sometimes those feelings are so strong that they stretch out through your body, fly through the air and hit the people around you.  In this case, her brother’s anger had hit her, made her angry and now that anger was coming out to me.  I asked her if she was really mad at me.  She thought about it for a beat and said “No”. 

I knew at the time that this was not a one time, set it and forget it, miracle cure.  However it did establish a visual context within which we could talk about her feelings.  (The thumbnail of the heart with the different colored lines that you see associated with the blog was a painting I did to further help visualize the concept.)  I started asking her if those were the feelings from her heart or was she bouncing off someone else’s feelings.  We were able to start a dialogue on common ground that made her stop and think twice before reacting to an emotion.

Over time the analogy and description has grown and transformed.  In addition to those feelings “flying” through the air, I also like the image of your heart being like a still pond.  When different emotions are “dropped” in the center of your heart, they create a ripple outward.  Bigger emotions create bigger ripples that are felt by more people.  Smaller emotions may create smaller ripples, but the impact can still be felt throughout your body.  The important thing was that we kept talking about emotions, how we were feeling and how those feelings were making those around us feel.  Don’t get me wrong, we still had many days where flying emotions landed everyone in a bad mood.  But on the flip side we also had days where we were able to talk about the real reason they were upset and getting mad at each other.  Needless to say it’s a process - an hour by hour, day by day, process of just trying to handle things a little bit better each time.

Fast forward to last weekend.  It was Sunday afternoon and the kids were playing nicely together in the back yard (or so I thought).  My now 10 year old daughter came in the house and said to me “Mommy I need your help.  I’m about to get really frustrated and I don’t know what to do.”  In short, her brother was getting frustrated because he couldn’t do something as well as she could and that frustration was causing him to get mad at her.  She was trying hard to get mad back at him but as his anger mounted it was getting harder for her to hold back.  Wow!  It took everything I had to hold my smile back (because obviously this was not something to be happy about from her perspective).  I said to her “First I want to tell you how proud I am that you came in here to ask for my help in fixing this before you got mad.  It makes me so happy that you did that and I’m so proud of you.  Now, let’s think of a good way to handle this.”  We came up with an idea where she could help him to a point, but then hand it over to him so he would feel like he completed it on his own.  She went back outside and told him about her idea.  A few minutes later, she came back in with a smile from ear to ear.  “Mommy that was a great idea!  It really worked!” 

It starts within your heart has become a reminder that every mood, attitude and reaction is within our power to influence.  It’s easy to let surrounding emotions bounce off of us and impact our own feelings.  With practice we can be more aware and stay true to the feelings that make us unique.  In the beginning I wasn’t sure if the concept was too complex for a child to grasp.  Happily I can say I was wrong, they totally get it.  Not only that, but they are also mature enough to apply it and use it to make a difference.  Never underestimate the power of the heart!

Heart-FULLy Yours, 

Kacey

I don't know

On the way home from Target, and their fantastically cheap dollar bin, I heard the following from the back seat: “Look Mom if you hold the two badminton racquets like this they make a Venn diagram…….. why do they call it a Venn diagram anyway?”  (The fact that my children, 7 and 10, bring up Venn diagrams in conversation as if it’s as common as 1+1=2, is not the point.) My instinct was to reply with my best guess, since I didn’t know the answer for sure, but instead I said “I don’t know, let’s look it up and try to find out.”

“I don’t know” is such a simple phrase, but one that can carry such weight and emotion.  At times we can say it without really thinking to dismiss a question and move on.  In some situations it’s easier to say I don’t know than to really think about what answer may lie under the surface. Other times we try avoid saying it, afraid that by admitting we don't know something we should is a sign of weakness. 

Children are curious and naturally ask a lot of questions.  They think we have all the answers and often we try to live up to that expectation.  But at what point is it better to admit that we don’t know, or at the very least encourage your children to come up with the answer themselves?  In The Conscious Parent by Dr. Shefali Tsabary, she explains it in this way:

When our children have questions, we believe we must have a neat and tidy answer, ready to bestow on them a well-packaged response.  However, what if we were to simply respond, “I don’t know”?  This sounds counterintuitive, but here’s how it works: When we present our children with our theories, well-laid-out thoughts, and already-formulated answers, we teach them to be passive recipients of our knowledge.  When we confide that we don’t know the answers, we invite them to allow the universe to give them the answers.
Each of us has witnessed our child’s delight when they hit on an answer mom and dad hadn’t thought of.  This nurtures the seeds of initiative and resourcefulness.  The smallest, “I don’t know, but let’s find out together,” has the power to evoke the most profound of life qualities.  It begins with our willingness as parents to step off our pedestal of “knowing” and enter into not knowing.

I love that idea of “I don’t know, but let’s find out together”.  It is naturally encouraging and makes you both feel like you are on a quest to discover something new.  In attempting to find an answer, you’ll go through the steps of problem solving that your children will be able to apply in so many different ways throughout their lives.  You’ll also be showing them that it’s ok not to know the answer.  Along the way you’ll explore and talk about things that wouldn't have been talked about if you had rattled off the first answer that came to your mind.  These conversations are more valuable than any answer that could ever be found.

Let’s face it, the questions are going to get harder (or maybe they already have).  The questions will come where there is no clear cut answer or there may be multiple answers to choose from.  Starting now might not make the answers to the questions any easier, but at least it won’t feel like uncharted territory.

Heart-FULLy Yours, 

Kacey

Are you listening?

Are you listening?  Can you hear me?  Do you remember when I asked you to ____?  Any of these sound familiar?  Depending on the day you may feel like these, or a similar phrase, are the only words that come out of your mouth. 

Getting children to listen is a universal struggle for parents.  Why do you think that is?  I wonder if some of it is because children have not yet figured out how to multi-task (which is a good thing).  If they are in the middle of an activity and we start talking to them, they just don’t have the capacity to do/process two things at once.  I also wonder if it is because we never really teach them how to listen.  I think back and it seems like listening is something that we start talking about with our kids at a very young age.  We use it in the context of the situation and often before they can even comprehend all the words.  Listen, do you hear the airplane?  This question automatically triggers the eyes to search the sky for the source of the noise.  At some point we move from listening for noises to listening to noises, namely those words coming out of our mouths.  But when we start to make this transition with our children, do we ever give them any explanation?  I remember dropping my kids off in the morning and saying “Be a good listener” but I don’t recall ever really explaining to them what that meant.  (For me that meant listen to the teacher, follow her direction and stay out of trouble.)

I went online and typed in “how to listen”.  The first link was to a TED talk by Julian Treasure.  He believes that with all the noise and messages that we are surrounded by on a daily basis, we are losing our ability to listen.  He emphasizes that listening is the true way for everyone to stay connected and to develop an understanding of each other.  He makes a great statement, “listening creates understanding” and his mission is to get conscious listening taught in schools.    

As a busy parent, listening is too often linked to an action that has or has not been completed.  We listen to get things done.  It’s as if we live on the surface.  We rarely take the time to dive deeper, to sit down and have a conversation to gain a deeper understanding.  Are we exemplifying what it means to be a good listener?  Listening sounds like something that is really easy, but truly listening to gain understanding is hard and takes a lot of practice.  This weekend, I challenge you to listen.  It doesn’t matter what it is – you could be outside, in a crowd, in your house or having a conversation with a friend, neighbor, child or stranger.  Try to make a conscious effort to try to hear something you haven’t heard before.  Or maybe you have heard it; you just haven’t fully appreciated or understood it until now. 

Heart-FULLy Yours, 

Kacey