4 Ways To Recognize And Transmute Your Parenting Triggers
Written by: Tanya Milano, Guest Writer Brainz Magazine
Going from reactive to relaxed requires mindfulness and embodiment. This doesn’t mean rolling your mat or stopping to go for a jog. In the activated moments of parenting, you can create pause and build your own capacity to feel vulnerable so your kids can feel it all without shame.
The way we were parented had a profound impact on our life and how we parent our own kids. Parenting has a way of illuminating our pain. Our children hold a mirror up to the parts of us that we found unsafe to fully express.
When a behavior is presented to us, we often have an internal response--or a trigger. We often skip the internal process and instead react externally.
For years, I was reacting to my children from my childhood strategies. I never had a chance to build emotional safety and boundaries growing up. When stressed, I would enter my primitive brain, the fight, flight, and freeze response. My tendency would be to fight, which would look like lots of yelling and out of control body movements like stomping or slamming doors. Other people may access the flight response just to leave the situation or freeze doing nothing.
Our role as parents is to mirror healthy emotional responses and provide a healthy boundary for our children. Hard to do when we haven’t developed these skills ourselves!!
There are 4 parts of the trigger to recognize and transmute your reaction to it to prevent the cycle of shame and guilt. When we can disrupt this behavioral pattern, we build new adult capacities and our reaction to these triggers can transform.
Try these 4 things next time your child exhibits a behavior that causes a trigger (ie. talking back, complaining/crying, having lots of desires, being on the computer a long time, not coming to dinner when called, etc).
Pick one behavior and sit in a comfy place. Look at the behavior as separate from you but with curiosity and empathy. This is a behavior that you yourself have had in the past or may have wanted to have, but you were made to feel bad or unsafe in your own childhood.
Then, check in with your body sensations, breathe into the chest, feel the weight of your body in the chair, and feel the rise and fall of the chest. Think of that triggering behavior and sit with it for a few breaths, noticing any new sensations in the body maybe tightness in the jaw or chest, a stomachache, heat, shallow breathing, etc. Get curious and really allow the sensations some time and space to be here.
Ask yourself what belief or thought arises with this sensation. What story are you telling yourself? For example, “I’m not important, or I’m not a good enough parent.” Just let it come without judgment.
Finally, what feeling is there? Often anger or frustration will be first. This is a secondary emotion though. Let’s keep sitting in awareness to find out what may be underneath. Do you feel fear, powerless, abandoned, rejected? The more you practice, the more this becomes easier to access.
This process can be quite painful, but it’s so worth the healing that comes. My work is to end generational stress response and I’m here to do just that!
Want to break the stress response cycle with your kids?
There are several ways to work with me. I love helping parents relocate their inner wisdom.
I have a free challenge Reactive to Relaxed in 90 Days in my FB group.
