Hello!
Yesterday I went to give my yearly free talk to the local pregnancy group on Aware Parenting, and last night I was reflecting on how different my thoughts and feelings are now, compared to ten years ago when I first started giving talks there.
Before I share about that, I’d love to tell you one of the main exercises I give in all of my Aware Parenting workshops, because, yet again, I could see that that exercise was like a light bulb moment for so many of the women there.
In the exercise, we get into pairs and one of us shares a recent experience where we felt mildly upset. The other person in the pair does everything they can to stop the feeler from expressing those feelings. That includes offering water, food, jiggling toys, telling them not to cry, patting them on the back, jiggling them, and so on.
Then I ask how they felt when they were doing that, and receiving that.
The responses usually are, “I felt incredibly frustrated”, or, “I just gave up and disconnected from them and looked away,” or, “I found it really hard to stay connected to what I was feeling.”
Then, in the next exercise, we get a chance to listen with presence and compassion instead. What people often find is that they feel MORE upset when they are given that loving presence.
Many people find these two things REALLY helpful when thinking about babies (and children) and feelings – that they also have painful feelings, and if we consistently distract them from those feelings, we might find that they feel frustrated, or start avoiding eye contact, or disconnect from themselves when they are upset.
And conversely, we might find that when we give them loving attention when they are upset, that they start crying MORE.
It’s so easy at times to forget that babies and children have big feelings, and have a strong need to have those feelings heard in loving and compassionate ways. Just like us.
I also said I’d share about my reflections afterwards.
Ten years ago, after giving a talk or workshop, on the drive home I would be full of judgment about what I said and didn’t say, and I’d be consumed with shame.
I’d also have been so scared during the talk, and would have tensed up my muscles to protect me from the fear, and would have come home with a huge headache from the tensing-up.
What was different this time? Well, there was not a shred of self-judgment on the way home. Over the years I’ve learnt to set loving limits with self-judgment and be compassionate with myself.
For me, feelings come from three sources:
1. From what we are telling ourselves – often the self-judgment that leads to shame, the ‘should’ that leads to guilt, and so on.
2. From our body telling us about our needs – a sensation of hunger, or thirst, or tiredness.
3. From old feelings that we are being reminded of in the present situation that are still stored in our bodies – I call those sweet spots.
In order to respond to our feelings in the most helpful ways, we need compassionate awareness.
I need compassionate awareness so that if a judgmental thought floats my way to tempt me, I can set a loving limit with it (they rarely do tempt me nowadays!);
I need compassionate awareness so that I can hear when my body is telling me that I have an immediate need;
I need compassionate awareness so that I can listen lovingly to feelings that are trying to be heard from the past.
For me, the fear is fear from the past coming up to be healed.
Nowadays, when this happens, I invite my Inner Loving Mother to be with me, to listen to me. She says, “I’m here with you. I hear that you feel scared. I’m right here. I’m listening. I’ll be with you.”
She came to be with me when I felt some fear beforehand, and usually if I feel scared during a talk, I keep connecting in with her during the talk, and then I find that I stay connected with myself, and I don’t tense up against the feeling.
(In the more distant past, I didn’t have a connection with my ILM, and I would be feeling a lot of fear, which I would be tensing up against so I didn’t feel it, and then afterwards I would had a headache from all the tensing up I did.)
This time, I was enjoying it so much, and the fear felt so mild, that I didn’t connect in with her during the talk. And afterwards I didn’t feel any tension.
But later on, I did feel quite a lot of tension in my thighs. Which helped me realise that there WAS still fear from the past coming up, and that I hadn’t stayed compassionately present with it during the talk.
I find it so interesting, that relationship between feelings and awareness, and feelings and tension.
If we’re not giving compassionate awareness to our feelings, we either need to distract our attention away to something else, or we need to tense up our body, to stop ourselves from feeling the feeling and letting it move.
When we tense up, it prevents the feeling from flowing out of us.
When we give the feeling compassionate awareness, it is heard, and can flow.
And our children are just the same.
Have you noticed that if your child is holding in feelings, that he might have tense fists?
You might notice the tension in his body when he is sleeping, or when you cuddle him.
Tension is one way babies and children stop themselves from feeling uncomfortable feelings.
They need our compassionate awareness to help those feelings flow, so that they can release that tension and feel a relaxed awareness in their bodies again.
I wonder if you’ve noticed yourself tense up to prevent yourself feeling a feeling? Common places we do that are around the eyes, the jaw, the neck and shoulders, the pelvis, and the thighs.
If you’ve done any body psychotherapy, or have trained in modalities like that, you will have seen in detail how this happens!
Some invitations:
Would you like to notice when you judge yourself and feel shame, and would you enjoy to set loving limits there and be compassionate with yourself instead?
Would you like to notice when you are tensing up to prevent yourself feeling a feeling, and would you like to invite compassionate awareness of the feeling instead?
Would you like to notice when your baby or child is tensing up to prevent themselves feeling a feeling, and would you like to give them compassionate connection?
Compassionate listening and loving limits with self judgment are a big part of my Inner Loving Presence Process Course.
And the free taster; the first 5 parts of the course, is still available!
Love,
Marion
xxx