Hello again,
How are you? What’s been going on for you?
I’m sending so much love and compassion to you in these big times we’re living through.
Here in Northern NSW we have been affected by massive flooding which has deeply impacted our community.
My mum lives in a granny flat in my back garden, and her place was flooded.
Our neighbour knocked on the front door at 5.30am to tell us about the flood. I ran downstairs and saved our bunnies before the water went over them, and then to my mum’s place, which was a couple of feet under water, to help her out. My son helped her gather photos and papers to take them up to my place.
What a shock for my mum, to get out of her bed, and put her feet into water.
What a shock for us all.
The rain kept coming and coming, but my place is a lot higher up and didn’t flood.
However, the whole area had no internet and either no phone reception or just one bar for a whole week.
We also had no running water for a couple of days, and some of our electrical circuits weren’t working.
There was a massive clear up operation, with huge amounts of toxic mud everywhere.
Not only that, but over time we started to realise how much devastation had spread through our community. Thousands of people’s homes flooded, and many people lost everything they owned.
So many people stuck up in the hills, affected by landslides, houses literally falling down hillsides.
In amongst all the devastation, something amazing happened.
The local community came together, setting up centres where people could come for food, shelter, water, and information.
Then, thousands of people came to help, bringing supplies and also going to people’s homes and helping clear out all the sludge.
I went through several days of cleaning, cleaning, mostly alone, and then a dear friend put my address up on the local board and 8 people came along to help. When they arrived, I cried!
I found this crying once support came happened a lot, and understanding the balance of attention really helped me know why.
In that situation where big energy was required, my system mobilised to go and get the 7 bunnies and my mum and then clean up for days.
Yet, all those stress hormones need to be released from my body.
Each time I received support, love, empathy, offers of help, gifts, I cried.
Those were the times of balance of attention where the loving presence helped me express the painful feelings.
I wonder if you’ve noticed that with yourself, or with your child/ren?
Something stressful has happened, and you can clearly see that there are feelings there to be expressed (because there’s reactivity clearly there), but the healing tears don’t come until that loving presence and compassion arrives?
If we’re wanting healing tears for ourselves, we can find that balance of attention by receiving loving empathy. This is why empathy buddies, or a mentor or other listener are so important.
We might find the balance of attention in other ways. For example, when I wanted to release the tension through crying, I not only asked friends for listening, I also found that seeing a video of an animal being saved helped me cry in healing ways.
With that balance of attention, we also are called to notice what just adds more stress.
I saw that I had no extra room to take in any information about the painful things that are going on in the world. My feelings cup was already full and connecting with even more feelings was too much.
With our children, the balance of attention is central. We may see that our child is stressed and has accumulated feelings – they might be having really big reactions to small things, for example.
Here’s where our loving presence is so important.
First, we can move in with loving presence and connection.
Then, we can offer either attachment play, to help the stress be released through laugher;
Or we can offer a loving limit, to help the feelings flow out through crying and raging.
Our presence is vital. And if we are really agitated, we often won’t be able to offer the quality of presence that they need for them to move into the healing laughter or tears.
Which is why, as always, attending to ourselves is so vital in parenting.
How are you feeling at the moment?
Are you feeling stressed, overwhelmed, upset?
Are you noticing yourself being reactive? Responding to your child, partner or other family member in ways that you don’t want?
Are you wiling to receive some empathy and listening?
Are you willing to find healthy ways to have a healing cry?
I’m sending loving support to you to find ways to do that.
Lael and I recorded a podcast which was all about healing from big events. You can find it on all the usual podcast channels and on our new YouTube channel.
So much love to you in these big times!