Heart Connection Parenting's Blog - Amy Weber, Parenting Coach and Educator in New Zealand
I'm excited to announce my upcoming series of parenting classes, "8 Weeks To More Peace In Your Family." This is a life-changing course, which will have you look at your parenting from a different perspective.
We're going to laugh, play, and get to the heart of how you can find transformation in your family life for more ease, calm and connection.
Begins Saturday, 21 October 2017 at the Motueka Rudolf Steiner School.
Contact me to sign up.
"We must put children first because we are all children first. The children we were, the children we have now, and the children they may have in the future are not our possessions or burdens: they are all of us. Children's well-being is the key to a society that is good for everyone, so ensuring it is everybody's responsibility and in everybody's interests." - Mindful Policy Group 2014
“If we do not know how to transform and heal the wounds in ourselves, we are going to transmit them to our children and grandchildren.”
-- Thich Nhat Hahn
In this pre-election madness, and on the eve of the election for the next President of the United States, I must say I'm feeling worried about the outcome.
A few election cycles back, my husband and I were also concerned and decided to make a radical shift in our lives. We had been contemplating a big move for quite some time, and the election results were the tipping point for us. It was the catalyst we needed to move from Colorado to New Zealand.
We had given careful consideration to the kind of environment we wanted to raise our children in, and the fear-based and materialistic society we found ourselves in didn't feel like a good fit. Ideally, we would live in a down-to-earth place with a slower pace of life, beautiful nature, and kind people.
We sold our home, packed everything into storage, and came to New Zealand to try it on for size. For the first 4 1/2 month we toured all around the country in a caravan to determine where to put down roots.
This was how life looked for us when we first made our big shift:
http://theworldwidewebers.blogspot.co.nz/2007/11/
Not only did our lifestyle change, but we had a complete shift in mindset. For the better, I'd say!
if you're contemplating a big shift in your life, particularly in your parenting, let me help you make a change. I'm happy to be of support.
What are you choosing for yourself and your family?
My perspective of Halloween is much different as a parent than it was as a child. Halloween in my youth was spent canvassing the neighborhood, most often with a coat covering my costume against the chill in the air of autumn nights in Colorado. My feet traversed the streets, with the earthy smell of decaying leaves underfoot. Sometimes we had to tread carefully so as not to slip and spill the evening’s loot in the steadily mounting snow.
And now, as an adult, everything has been turned upside down. I walk along in the light, as Halloween is in spring, not autumn, in New Zealand and the days are markedly lengthening. Will I ever grow accustomed to the fragrant scents of jasmine and wisteria gently wafting through the air on this night set aside for haunting? And now rather than trying to fit in ‘just one more house’, and another ‘just one more house’, my mind considers how much sugar my children actually need, what are these individually wrapped packages doing to the environment, and will my children get a good enough night’s sleep tonight to be able to tolerate each other tomorrow? It was so much more fun as a child, leaving practicalities aside!
Trick or treating looks different from my adult sidewalk vantage point than it did from my childhood porch step view. I observe the group of children I’m accompanying. Some feel scared, some feel shy, some feel emboldened to try on a false bravado in the quest for candy.
I wonder… is it easier to be in this world wearing a mask?
I ponder how can we as parents be emotional coaches for our children? How can we teach our children to stand firmly as themselves, and not mask their true feelings? From early on in our children’s lives we can model for them how to cope with emotions. They observe and take in how we handle our feelings – especially the big ones like anger, sadness, and fear. This modeling goes a long way in shaping how our children will cope with their own emotions, and teaches them to become more self-regulating.
I notice my own daughter, who is now the ring-leader of her trick-or-treating group. She is the one who confidently knocks on the door. She is the one performing the tricks on request. And it wasn’t always like this for her. I remember Halloweens past when she felt too shy to approach the strangers' doors. She clutched my hand in terror, begging me to not leave her side. It was all so scary and overwhelming. And gradually she found her courage, as we were there by her side to let her know it was okay.
As parents we must model for our children how we would like them to be in this world, we must show them what our values are by living them ourselves. Our children take their biggest cues from us, their parents, as to how to behave and react in this world.
For me, it is important to live this life as my authentic self, to be who I really am, not who I'm guessing others are expecting me to be. I want my children to feel safe in letting their true colors shine through too. When I let my children see my emotions, all of them – the joyful, the scared, the exuberant, the angry, they learn to stand with their emotions as well. In being emotional coaches for our children, we teach them to interact in the world without the mask, and teach them to unfold into their true selves.
Though I must say, taking time for play and dressing up is important too. That's something I want to model for my children for certain!
The scariest part of Halloween is knocking on stranger’s doors, and talking to unknown people, isn't it, sweet child?
You never know what you’ll get… pure untapped potential.
Trick or treat, frightening or sweet?
So much easier to muster the courage to knock while hiding behind a mask.
The real feelings of terror stay hidden inside, obscured.
My child, I'll wait at the curb as you venture forth, stretching your wings each time.
Then come back to me. I will be there… waiting, watching, keeping you safe.
My children, come home to me. I'll help you find yourselves again as we unzip your costumes, fold them up, and put them away for another year.
Return to your authentic selves. Ah, the true you.
Come, I will hold the bowl of warm water to wash the paint from your face. Together we'll wipe away the last traces that disguise you.
I will help you find your true colors again.
I imagine these golden childhood moments will live in their hearts for a long time.
It's so true, we never can repay our mothers...
Here's a lovely poem to honour mothers, which a friend recently introduced to me. It brings me tears and laughter all at the same time. Happy Mother's Day!
The Lanyard – by Billy Collins
The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.
No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.
I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.
She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light
and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.
Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth
that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.
Home is where the heart is... and we had joyful and playful hearts around here over the past weekend.
Enjoy your family time this Easter...
"My secret... It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
~The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint Exupery
Wishing you a very Merry Christmas - may it be full of joyful connection with your children.
Yesterday marked the 8-year anniversary of our move to New Zealand. It was the beginning of a complete life overhaul, and a beautiful journey of growth - physical, emotional, and spiritual. Here's a photo from our last night in Colorado.
Recently my son and I were talking about empathy and what it means. I told him it's like trying to imagine yourself in someone else's shoes. As the conversation continued, I asked him how he thought it might feel to be in his older sister's shoes.
His response: "it would probably be clumsy because her shoes would be too big for me, and they might be stinky too."
Is it possible to shift a limiting belief? That depends on whether or not one really wants to and is committed to the shift. Yes, it is absolutely within the realm of possibility to shift a limiting belief, and it takes more than just willpower.
The first step is to acknowledge when a limiting belief is running the show. Often we are operating from our limiting beliefs, without the awareness that they are even there. It is once we can highlight and notice the limiting belief for ourselves that we can begin making steps toward changing that belief.
Amazing creatures that we humans are, our brains have the capacity to grow and change throughout our lives. If we have developed the limiting belief, for example, that we are ‘worthless,’ we will continue to tell ourselves that story repeatedly, and etch it more deeply into our minds. However, if we begin to tell ourselves a different story, we can form a new neural pathway. And though that pathway may be tentative at first, the more we travel it, the more we gain the ability to travel that pathway with ease and to reinforce it.
The crucial aspect to achieve in shifting a limiting belief is persuading the subconscious mind to work in concert with the conscious mind. If the conscious mind and the subconscious mind are operating with opposing beliefs, the subconscious mind will always dominate. This is because the subconscious mind is consistently functioning in the background, and when the conscious mind becomes distracted, the subconscious is still working away.
Lately, in an effort to reprogram my subconscious mind so that it can shift and hold beliefs that empower me, I have been meditating. When in meditation, the frequency of our brain waves slows down from the higher frequency beta waves present when we are active and alert, through the lower frequency relaxation waves of alpha, and on to even lower frequency waves of delta. And it is in the delta phase that we have access to our subconscious minds, and to the possibility to shift our limiting beliefs.
I was fascinated to read in Bruce Lipton’s book, The Biology of Belief, that children in specific developmental phases operate primarily in one range of brain waves. From the ages of two to six, human brains principally function within the delta frequencies. It is at this time of life that we ingest immense amounts of information from our parents and our environments, which we integrate into our subconscious minds, and which in turn becomes our basic patterning throughout our lives. That is, unless we make an effort to slow our brains to their delta frequencies to access our subconscious minds and to re-write some of our deeply ingrained patterns.
Over the past few years, I have made a concerted effort to unearth some of the subconscious limiting beliefs I have unknowingly squirreled away for years. Hello Pandora’s Box! Straight away I heard, “I don’t have enough. I am not enough. I will be left all alone. I am all alone.” Yikes and ouch!
Wishing to quickly sweep away the negative broken record playing over and over in my mind, I attempted to remove all of those beliefs at once, expecting instant relief. Sadly, it didn’t work like that for me, and upon reflection I discovered that the new empowering beliefs I was keen to replace the old ones with simply weren’t ‘believable.’
Out on a walk by the sea, I was suddenly struck with the idea that while I found the new empowering beliefs to be not ‘believable,’ perhaps I could take the view that they were not believable YET. It dawned on me that releasing and transforming old beliefs is a process, not necessarily to be experienced all at once. And happily, later that day in meditation, a new and believable empowering belief arose for me. In my mind I clearly heard, “the seeds of change are within me.”
That was a new belief that immediately resonated with me. Yes, of course the seeds of change are within me! Great potential for change is alive and quickening internally. Something is stirring.
I began repeating the words, ‘the seeds of change are within me’ as a mantra while out on my daily walks. And I realized that with awareness, in a moment of stress, I can say the words to myself as a way of short-circuiting some of my older patterns.
A while later, while my new belief continues to hold strong, I feel surprised to find myself becoming a bit bored with the new belief that was at first so profound and exciting to discover. One of my support people questioned me as to whether that stagnant feeling is indeed a sign of readiness for growth. A-ha! Lighbulb moment!
Yes, I feel ready now to take on a bigger limiting belief that I stumbled with previously. And now I have the confidence of knowing that the possibility to change and shift is already there inside me. Now it is a matter of re-initiating and sticking with the process. Previously I didn’t think it was conceivable to shift a limiting belief, and now I believe whole-heartedly that it is possible.
A close friend and I were having a conversation about her dad recently. Her dad has a great sense of humor. He is always the life of the party, has a funny joke, or an amusing story to share. He connects with strangers, friends and loved ones with a twinkle in his eye and a broad smile on his face. Growing up, friends liked to be at her house because her Dad was so entertaining. Sometimes she wondered if her friends thought her Dad was cooler than she was. Showing the world that he is an optimist is important to him, and that is his way of being.
But what happens when life’s storm clouds roll through? Inevitably as a child, she would have experiences of discontent, sadness, overwhelm, heartache, fear, or anger. As all people do, right? And his response to her tears was to try to cheer her up or to make her smile. It was like gold to him if he could turn her tears into laughter. He told her that at least she didn’t have it so bad, that it could have been worse. He wanted her to see that the glass was half-full, when all she saw was a broken glass. As long as she was smiling again, he felt better.
Somehow through the years she began to feel a sense of shame for having any so-called ‘negative’ emotions. It seemed like it was not okay to feel anything other than wonderful. If she was feeling bad, she certainly didn’t want to let her Dad know. It wasn’t okay if she was less than ‘perfect,’ and it was probably a sign of weakness anyway. She learned it was important to not let anyone see her cry. And what does she do when she notices those uncomfortable feelings arising? Stuff them down and put a lid on them. Heap extra helpings of positive mental attitude, affirmations, and good cheer on top of that lid to make sure it stays on.
As a parent I have a front row seat to my children’s emotions, and I think about how things were with my friend and her dad. I get to witness the entire spectrum of my children's emotions. Front row seats. And yes, I must admit, internally I sometimes feel uncomfortable when my children are having BIG emotions, and I want to do something to make the unhappiness go away for them. Because really, as a parent, my wish is for my children to have flourishing and happy lives, and it pains me to see them struggle.
Luckily I have been fortunate enough to have learned about compassionate communication, and to get a glimpse into what could be possible with allowing all emotions in. It was eye-opening for me to learn that as humans we all want to feel ‘felt.’ I learned that if I can accept my children for their full range of human emotions, they will feel loved for who they are, and not just for who they think they ‘should’ be. And I have also learned that in sharing the wide gamut of my emotions, not only the pretty ones, that I am more open to receive support. As a bonus, I try to model for my children that all emotions are acceptable.
When I observe my children crying, I make the effort to put an arm around them and ask about what they are feeling. Sometimes it is difficult for them to articulate, so I will throw out a few guesses. “Did it hurt your feelings when your sister yelled at you?” “It seemed like that was really scary for you.” “That was frustrating when I was moving around so quickly and I didn’t listen to what you were saying, wasn’t it?” Or when they were very young or when they’re quite upset, a single word can do the trick. “Sad?” And I know when I have gotten close to the emotion they were experiencing by the nod of the head or the exhale. At times the tears flow even more. Sometimes the words flow more. Sometimes we sit in silence just snuggling. But seeing the process all the way through, and not trying to change the emotions that are there, has paid off for us in connection.
Sometimes I have an internal celebration when I see my son cry. Not because he’s sad – no, that part breaks my heart. But I appreciate that he can be himself in all of the feelings that come up for him. I hold hope that as he matures into manhood he maintains his ability to cry and feel all of his feelings. And, I still hope he learns some good jokes along the way.
“NO WAY!!! ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!” was my reaction one night recently when my 11-year old daughter and I were having our bedtime snuggle and she told me that she might like to be homeschooled. At least that was my internal reaction. Thank goodness I had the presence of mind to remember that this week I am holding the intention to practice compassionate listening.
“Really? Why?” was what actually came out of my mouth. Phew, she kept talking. And I kept breathing...and listening without interrupting her. I tried to approach this conversation with curiosity about how she was feeling and tried not to immediately jump in with my ideas about the situation.
She went on to tell me some of the reasons she is drawn to homeschooling. And what I heard surprised me. For one, she feels she doesn't get enough homework from her teacher and is concerned that she won't be prepared for high school. Also, as one of the older children in a composite class of year 4 and year 5 students, she wants more of a challenge in school than the younger ones in her class are ready for. Also, some of her friends are considering pulling out of school to be homeschooled, and she would like to join together with them.
Most of my responses to her were reflective of what she had just told me. “So, are you saying that you want more stimulation from your work at school?'' Or, “it sounds like you and your friends have been talking about this a lot and have already come up with some plans.” Sometimes it was just an “oh” or a “really” or an “uh-huh,” to let her know that I was still right there with her.
By the end of the conversation, she told me that I was the first of the parents from her group of friends to be told about this. That made my heart sing. We'd had a positive snuggle time full of connection, rather than what could have easily turned into 'correction'.
My daughter felt heard. I felt like I was being a good mother. And upon further reflection, it felt good to step out of the role of the mother who so often says, 'no.' I realize that when I am feeling good about myself and my mothering, I am more available and calm with my children. And when I am in that frame of mind, my children are in turn, calmer and share more with me. Self-fulfilling prophecy? Positive feedback loop? I'll certainly be listening carefully for more.
We shall see if the conversation about homeschooling continues, or if it was just ideas she was trying on and needed to air. Should we continue our talk, I will endeavour to remember to use the soothing balm of empathy – for both of us.
Calling all parents who wonder if there’s another way!
From what I hear in the parking lot at school, at the sidelines of the touch rugby and netball games, from the parents I meet everywhere from playgroup to the library, we all could use some help with our parenting. Gazillions of us at it every day know there must be alternatives to yelling, arguing and time-outs. But what are tired and overwhelmed parents to do?
And sibling arguments – please make them stop! Or at least, how can we weather them?
What about a way of parenting that eases your heart, and touches your heart rather than causing heartache (for you and your children)?
I understand the longing for a better way to parent and wishing for some support and guidance (sometimes wishing that many times throughout the day!!!) While I’m not a fairy godmother (most of the time), I am here to help you out with some parenting magic.
I’ve got your back and can offer a listening ear. Especially if you’re looking for a different perspective on raising children.
But for now, this is a quick hello and a welcome aboard.
