Harmony in the Home

If you’ve followed my recent episodes, we’ve been talking about your blueprint for love which you absorbed as a child, as well as why you might want to alter your blueprint and how to do that. Sometimes, when you become a parent yourself, you feel lost because you don’t have that framework. So, in this episode, I’d like to offer some tips for reparenting yourself — giving yourself that missing framework of a healthy parent-child dynamic as a reference for parenting your children.

In this context I’m focusing specifically on healing your old wounds in the present by modeling good parenting for yourself and talking to your inner child in your capacity as a parent. Reparenting is not about becoming someone different; it’s about going back to how you were before unhealthy programming got superimposed onto your mind.

I found a guide at https://hopefulpanda.com/how-to-reparent-yourself/ complete with a lovely infographic about some steps to take, which I loved. There are a lot of ways to reparent yourself, and you may need to try a lot of things consistently over time and record the results (write down what you tried and what happened) to get a feel for your needs, but you will feel better as you do.

Most importantly: when in doubt, look to your child’s throbbing spirit — because your child will remind you of your inner child.

If you’re worried about messing up your kids, don’t worry. You aren’t as powerful as you think. You aren’t powerful enough to mess this parenting gig up. That is so liberating! It allows you to start parenting from love instead of pressure, and when you parent from love, you can reparent yourself as well.

Remember: you’ve got this!

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In this episode, you’re going to learn a few important truths that made a big difference in my parenting journey. I hope that, as you learn from my experiences, you will be able to stress less and lean into the joy of being a conscious parent more.

Imagine a ceramic piggy bank full of coins. These coins represent your perception of your worthiness, a small stream of day-to-day psychological rewards, and you receive one each time you feel good about yourself. (You can imagine that the power of the psychological reward lies in saving the coins in the piggy bank, or getting the coins dispensed to you from the bank, whichever you prefer.)

When I was unconscious, I tethered the behavior of my children to my worthiness. They were my metric for “am I good enough,” and they held the piggy bank. When my kids met my expectations — when they were well-behaved or polite or didn’t cry when something bothered them — I got a coin from the bank. Boom, a little hit of dopamine. But when their behavior didn’t match my expectations — when they fought over toys or made a mess at Chuck E. Cheese or threw a tantrum in Publix — I allowed those moments to mean something about me and my worthiness as a parent and as a person. It was like they were denying me my worthiness, and I often freaked the flip out. But no surprise there! I was handing my worthiness piggy bank over to a one- and three-year-old. I was giving people with literally no life experience full control over my life. That’s crazy nutty nuts!

Yours is the blessing and responsibility of controlling your own piggy bank. Your worthiness was given to you the day you were born and will remain with you as long as you exist. On top of that, you get to set your personal metrics for success based on what you do, not based on what your kids do. Hold your own piggy bank! Don’t pass it to your kids, your spouse, your boss, nobody. It’s not their job, it’s not their responsibility, don’t do it.

Starting today, you can recognize your inherent worthiness. You get to hold your piggy bank. We are all flaw-some, flawed and awesome; so every moment is a blank slate, a new chance to try again. Isn’t that empowering?

As you internalize your worth and worthiness, and as you practice managing your own worthiness piggy bank, I promise on a stack of Bibles that you will see results. You will feel lighter and happier, you will find joy in managing “your side of the street,” and most importantly, you will not feel weighed down if your kids do something you don’t like — because whatever they do, it’s literally not about you!

Remember: you’ve got this!

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How can I combine the “blueprint for love” I had growing up with the one I want for my family now?

Children often forget the exact words used, but they don’t usually forget how their parents and teachers made them FEEL.

What happens when, in stressful parenting situations, you find yourself resorting to tactics your caregivers used on you in your four walls as a child? How much of putting Tabasco sauce on the tongue, spanking, name-calling, and so on renders authentically good results? How much of it is rooted in compassion, empathy, and grace, and how much of it is driven by ego and pride? Perhaps you feel racked with “parent guilt” because of this. There has to be another way, you say to yourself, but this is the way it’s always been done. This is the only way I know. Do you feel chained down by this kind of thinking?

In this episode, I hope you will be inspired and motivated to break those chains.

Yes, it’s how you grew up — and how did it make you feel then? How does it make you feel remembering what was done to you? The best part of parenting is: YOU make the rules now. Take the parts of your old blueprint that made you feel seen and heard and loved, discard the parts that were unkind or harmful, and fill in the gaps with as much love, grace, and compassion as you can pour out of your little love cup.

You have a unique position while in your second iteration of the parent-child dynamic (this time as the parent) to alter the trajectory of your family line. Yours is the stewardship — the blessing and the responsibility — to break cycles of unconsciousness, ego-driven parenting, and manipulation and abuse of all kinds. What a wonderful opportunity to heal yourself and the generations that follow!

Remember: you’ve got this!

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How can I design my own blueprint for love?

Last week we talked about the formation of your own “blueprint” for love, which is derived from the way you experienced life as a child and teenager. Most of the components of your blueprint come from the interactions you had with your parents and other family members.

In this episode, I want to talk in more detail about the new and exciting opportunity offered to you (now that you’ve become the care-giver) to form a blueprint for love to pass on to your children.

I’d like to emphasize his point, because I know before I “awoke” and learned to chill out a little, I was constantly stressing about teaching them everything they needed to know. The fact is, if you pay attention, your kids are going to teach you more than you’ll teach them. By nature, children only know how to give love unconditionally. They do not know how to have ill intent or hold grudges. When you need a reminder of true, pure love … look to your kids.

Remember: you’ve got this!

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How can I have a loving family without falling into bad patterns? — Well, here are some of my thoughts.

Think about your childhood family environment — not just your parents, but your siblings, your aunts and uncles, your cousins, your grandparents, friends of the family. You had a totally different “Saturn” growing up, with different people and different power dynamics orbiting your family. As a child you learned what love means, what it feels like to give and receive; you had some positive experiences, and some negative experiences. The brain started to form patterns very young — certain sights, smells, or tastes can bring you right back to your grandma’s kitchen or your childhood home.

And trauma doesn’t have to come from parents. A sibling, a teacher, an illness, infertility, an ex-spouse: you may have experienced trauma in many situations. I’ll discuss how persistent negative emotions affect the brain, and how your unconscious mind might organize your life around those emotions as it comes to expect them. I’ll also ask an important question: how do you heal from this?

First, remember that you are not broken. You don’t need to do anything to deserve love. As you internalize your inherent self-worth, you will have fewer expectations for other people to make you feel whole. You will not seek validation from other people (including spouse and children) who are NOT tasked with validating you and couldn’t do it even if they were supposed to — that validation must come from inside your own heart, and nothing anybody else says or does will be an adequate substitute.

The best part of being an adult is that you get to draw up the blueprint for your family dynamic. YOU have control now, and you can retain the good parts of your childhood while not practicing the harmful parts.

As you make it your prerogative to consistently practice techniques of mind management, exercise self-love, give yourself grace and compassion, and heal your old wounds without using other people as proxies for your childhood relationship dynamics, I promise on a stack of Bibles, you will feel better about yourself and you and your family will enjoy each other’s company. It is a joyous way to live.

Remember: you’ve got this!

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How can you clear the clutter of your inner voice?

Do you feel like the voice inside your head is preventing you from being your best self? Well, I have some tools that you can use to take control of your thoughts.

First, let’s talk about junk thoughts. I also like to call them ANTs, Automatic Negative Thoughts, because most of the time these debilitating thought patterns come completely automatically. You see, the “animal” part of the brain, the part with the triple directive to (1) seek pleasure, (2) avoid pain, and (3) maximize its efficiency in doing these, was evolved specifically to keep us in our comfort zone. The “unconscious” brain will often deter you from doing things that make you uncomfortable, like adopting conscious parenting routines, starting that small business, or working toward a health and fitness goal.

The good news is that these thoughts are NORMAL. It is part of the human experience to get major pushback from your brain when you want to leave your comfort zone. Now, listen. This title is not what it seems to be at first glance, because junk thoughts are like junk mail in that you’re going to get them every day. Again, it’s normal, it’s part of the human experience, it’s nothing to worry about. I might be worried if you actually never had junk thoughts! But you’re not going to permanently rid yourself of them.

The trick is to take small, consistent steps toward controlling your reaction to junk thoughts when they come. That is the purpose of today’s episode, and I PROMISE that if you make consistent effort toward dealing with the junk thoughts as they occur, you will see big changes in your life!

Remember: you’ve got this!

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How can you help people in your house put things where they’re supposed to go?

Okay, bear with me here. Remember how all the toys in Toy Story moved and talked when the kids were gone? Well, in my house, sometimes lots of objects talk! When I would leave cabinets open in the kitchen, David used to leave little sticky notes on the cabinet, from the perspective of the cabinet door, that said things like “Hi Kelly! I get kind of scared and lonely when I’m open like this! Can you close me when you’re finished? Love, the cabinet.” It was a cute, funny way to address my habit of leaving cabinets open.

If David left his flip-flops out, I’d write one that said “David, we’re feeling cold and sad outside the warm closet! Can you put us back? Love, the flip-flops.” And then, to reinforce a good habit, we’d write each other congratulatory notes, all from the perspective of the inanimate objects. We still write each other these notes now and again, and now we write them for our kids as well.

Children have a very active imagination. They practically live in Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood of Make-Believe. You can leverage this to your advantage to make reminders to complete a task light and fluffy. You can make a toothbrush or a pair of pajamas talk.

I can already hear somebody saying “well people aren’t going to make these accommodations for them when they’re grownups at school or in professional life!” Okay, let me stop this one before it starts. Remember that kids learn by play! Their prefrontal cortices (the rational, executive-function part of the brain) won’t be developed until age 25 on average. Remember that a child’s world, and their way of perceiving the world, is orders of magnitude different from ours. They will outgrow the need for Mr. Bear to have a sticky note saying “thanks for putting me back in the play bin,” but they will never outgrow being your children. As you strive for compassionate engagement with your little ones, you will find peace and harmony in your home, I promise on a stack o’ Bibles.

Remember: you’ve got this!

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What’s the most demanding workout you’ve ever experienced?

I’ve been through some really grueling physical training, both while playing soccer and for personal fitness purposes. But I think the workout that has kicked my butt the hardest is … drumroll please … MEDITATION.

Yeah. It’s hard stuff — especially for me and my ADHD brain! Why is meditation so difficult?

In this episode, I’ll discuss the motivations you may have for practicing meditation. There are A LOT of good reasons for doing it! I’ll also talk about the obstacles you’ll face, and how to surmount the seemingly insurmountable obstacles that make this workout so hard for me, for you, and for everybody. Finally, I’ll discuss the rewards you’ll feel as you meditate. I promise on a stack of Bibles that, as you cultivate a sincere relationship with the Divine and with yourself, you will feel more in tune with your best self.

Remember: you’ve got this!

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What are your metrics for success as a parent? How do you know when you’re doing a good job?

I’ve had rubrics on the brain. When my kids have school assignments, whether those assignments are projects, written reports, or presentations, the teacher provides a rubric that shows the quality of work necessary to receive a given grade.

I was thinking about this recently because I’ve been taking golf lessons with Grady (I have to unlearn a lot of bad habits from other sports I’ve done over the years, but his young brain is absorbing the correct information very quickly). He made a rubric of sorts, and says I’m in the intermediate section. I was in the beginner area last week, so I’m improving!

I can hear you all now: okay, Kelly … What does this have to do with parenting?!

The thing is that you are in charge of yourself. Ultimately, you are the only person over whom you can exercise absolute control. You will find your life is happier if you set your own targets for success, whether it’s with the cleanliness of your workspace or your house at large, or the way you respond to your children when they make bids for your attention or when they succeed at life — and when they fail too, because they will fail, and that’s NORMAL. Hold yourself accountable with self-compassion and positive reinforcement to work toward meeting those goals.

You get to decide what parts of yourself to improve and by how much, and as you focus on the part you can control (yourself), you will be a healthy example for your kids and the other people around you as well.

Remember: you’ve got this!

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