Peas and Anger

I'm going to write about food, but this is not really about food, so bear with me.

If we're at a formal dinner with people we barely know, we wouldn't mention if we didn't like the food.

If we're at a more casual dinner with acquaintances, we still probably wouldn't mention it, but if the hostess noticed we weren't eating the pork, we'd tell her why.

If we're at dinner with good friends, we might gently mention that it was a little heavy on the salt.  We'd talk about favorite cookbooks and recipes, and how we feel so much better with a daily smoothie.  One of us would discover that the other really dislikes tomatoes, and she'd file that information away in her mind and try to never serve tomatoes to that friend again, out of love.

If we're at a dinner with very close friends or family, we'd already know who doesn't eat spinach and who absolutely loves green beans.  My mom is very good at this.  When my parents and my sister and her husband and six kids and me and my husband and four kids all get together, my mom is the one who can come up with a meal plan.  She takes into account the kid who doesn't like mayo, the one who won't eat tomatoes and the one who hardly eats anything at all.  She reads ingredient labels for the ones with sensitivities.  She thinks up meals where everyone can pick and choose their own ingredients or she comes up with an alternative for the odd person out.  She remembers so many family member's preferences, it blows me away. 

Why can't we do the same with emotions, love languages, and the way we speak to one another?

I've learned a lot of healthier communication skills in the last few years, but I hardly ever get a chance to practice them.  Most of the people in my life don't say anything if I have offended them.  If I know I was out of line, I'll take the initiative to go apologize, but if I don't know, I don't know.

It's like serving someone you love the same food over and over that they don't like, but they never tell you they don't like it.  You'd much rather them just tell you, then find them slipping it under the table to the dog.

Sometimes I try to tell the people in my life that I don't like what they are serving.  Sometimes I've reverted back to childhood habits of throwing it on the floor and spitting it out and stomping away from the table.  But then I apologize and go back and try again.  For some people, discussing food (emotions) is off the table.

It's much easier for my kids.  If they hurt each other, they are much quicker with an apology.  They learn from what they did.  Their relationship is closer after one has blundered and apologized and been forgiven.  They know each other better.  They can say, "I'm sad," or "I'm hurt," or "I'm angry."  I've worked really hard to make our home a safe place to say those things.

They get my best efforts in communication.  With my children, I've learned how to say "I'm sorry," without qualifiers or excuses.  I've learned how to say "I felt sad when you did that," without laying on a guilt trip.  I mess those up to sometimes, but I'm getting better. 

But with others in my life, it's more difficult, because they don't speak the language, and I'm still learning with a long way to go.

I imagine a world or at least a close circle where we could say "When you did that, I felt angry, because I need to be respected," as easily as we say, "I wasn't fond of the soup, because I don't like peas."

 

Calming the Raging Storm Part 2

A few weeks ago, I figured it out! I knew that feeling overwhelmed and disconnected were the main triggers for her to rage that way. Other things like being tired or hungry definitely exasperated it, but were never the main cause. I have struggled so much over the last few years to work on my own feelings of anger surrounding her anger. I am finally in a place where I can usually stop taking things personally and focus on helping her, instead of using all my energy to keep my cool.

One of the things that has helped me with her the most is *seeing past her behavior and recognizing the underlying needs.* I thought I understood it, but I now get it at a whole new level. I forget what she was raging over that day (again something with her sister), but as soon as she started I thought this time don't try to DO things to calm her down. She's feeling disconnected, so CONNECT. I had noticed that she never looks at me when she's raging, so as gently as I could while stopping her from going after her sister's stuff, I put my hand on the side of her face and said in a real quite voice "Look at me, E, look at me."

I don't like restraining her, but I held her like a baby on my lap, keeping her from kicking and hitting me and starting say things like "It's ok, you're ok, you're safe, I know you're overwhelmed, just sit with me, I'll just hold you, I'll cuddle you." I spoke very softly and made shushing sounds, like she was a crying infant instead of a raging 4 year old. She screamed that she wanted to go to her room, so I immediately let her go. Of course, she went straight after her sister again, which I knew she would, but I wanted her to know that I really didn't *want* to restrain her and I would let her go if I could still keep L safe. Before she got to L, I put my arms around her again, letting her know that I wouldn't let her get to L, and started gently talking to her again. I used slow, comforting words.

She has always liked back rubs and almost every night I massage her back and arms and legs before she falls asleep. So, as much as I could while restraining her, I did that and let her know that was what I was trying to do. She screamed to go to her room or go get something to eat a few times and every time I would let her go, but then get her again when she went towards her sister.

Finally, I let her go and she didn't get off my lap. She collapsed into me and started to cry and released all the stress and tension and feelings of being overwhelmed. She cuddled into me and asked me to rub her back so I did. Then we sat on the couch and snuggled for a long time.

Typing it out seems like it lasted a long time, but really it was about 5 minutes from the time she started to the point where she stopped fighting and started crying. As much as I dislike restraining her, 5 minutes was worlds better than up to half an hour of fighting, getting hurt and eventually collapsing and crying.

In the last few weeks, this has happened a few more times and the last time, she seemed relieved as soon as I picked her up. She still fought me for a minute, but it was more like needing a physical outlet instead of desperation to get away or get what she wanted.

If you've read my other posts, you know that this is a complete 180 from the way I handled any emotional outburst from her a few years ago. It's taken that long for me to heal enough to be able to figure out how to help her. From her perspective, she is probably always unsure of how I am going to react, which exasperates her fight or flight response. My reactions have gotten better and better, but I have still made plenty of recent mistakes. I think now it's more important than ever that I respond consistently in a comforting, calm and reassuring way, so I don't lose the ground I've gained with her trusting that I'm here to be the safe place during her storm. And of course, it's better if I can help her avoid getting that overwhelmed and disconnected in the first place.

Calming the Raging Storm Part 1

In June I posted the following (though I've edited it so it's not so long) on the Always Learning unschooling group.

E and L were playing in the wagon. It has a little door and E wanted it closed and her sister wanted it open so they were fighting
over it. I intervened and tried talking about ways we could solve the problem.
Set a timer? Take turns? I asked her if she had any ideas too. But she could
hardly hear my suggestions because the whole time she is trying to push me out
of the way to get to the door to close it. I am trying to keep her away from it
so the girls aren't fighting while we find a solution. She would NOT stop for
even a second to try to figure something else out. She got more and more intent
on closing the door to the point where she is pushing me, running into me,
hitting me, just fighting with everything she has to get the door.

By that point, it knew it wasn't about the door. It's about the FIGHT. She
does this every day over random things. So I quit trying to give her ideas to
solve the door problem and instead said, "Right now I need to keep you away from
you sister until you calm down." And I tried to help her calm down. But
nothing worked!

After trying to get her some water, holding her in a bear hug, seeing if she
wanted to push on my hands (helps with frustration sometimes) or throw a stuffed
animal, tried to let her have some space in her room, I finally ended up just
sitting on the floor between her and her sister with my hands out to stop her
from getting to her sister. She kept running into me and I kept pushing her
back (not hard, just away from me) because the only other option was to hold her
and restrain her. By that point I was angry and I ended up pushing her too hard
and she fell and got hurt.

Then she stopped.

I held her and comforted her while she cried and apologized for pushing her.
When she calmed down, her sister was done with the wagon and I said, "There you
go, it's your turn now!" She said, "No, I don't want to play with it."

I wanted to scream YOU JUST FOUGHT ME OVER IT FOR LIKE 20 MINUTES AND NOW YOU
DON'T WANT IT?!



This type of thing was happening every day for a while and even though it is not always that frequent, it is something that she has done since she was very little. She gets stuck on something and will. not. give. up. At the moment I posted that, I was feeling very much like she just likes to fight me, because the things she fights about seem so pointless to me and by the time the fight is over, she doesn't even want whatever she was fighting over anymore.

Along with other good advice (such as not taking it personally), the thing they told me that I really needed to hear was watch, pay attention, be aware, look for patterns of when she is doing this kind of thing. I already knew that she tends to get this way when she is feeling disconnected from me, but I needed that reminder.

So, I watched more and played more and connected more. And when I do that, this issue mostly just goes away. She won't do it at all for days, maybe a week. But then suddenly, without warning (or more accurately, I didn't pay attention to the warnings), I would find myself in another physical battle with her. While she is normally pretty open to reason and working together to find solutions, when she gets in this mood, I don't think she can even hear me, let alone consider what I'm saying to her. She doesn't look at me and doesn't respond except to say NO or repeat what she wants that she's fighting for. She doesn't see anything except her goal and I'm just an obstacle in her way.

I have figured out her triggers and can mostly help her avoid feeling this way. But I was still stuck on what to do when it happens. I felt like the only thing I could do was be a physical barrier until she inevitably got hurt and would calm down. (Oh and if you're reading thinking "just spank her or give her a time out," I am literally rolling on the floor laughing. She is one of those kids that if you spanked, you would have to keep doing it until you beat her unconscious, and a time out would likely result in a broken down door.)

Shame

I have been thinking about shame the last few days. I have a lot of thoughts on the subject and I am just going to get them all out sort of randomly, but hopefully coherently.

Shame is so prevalent in Christianity. I was thinking about the origins and it really comes down to the belief that people need to feel bad enough about themselves that they realize they need a Savior. The belief goes that once they realize that they are inherently evil, the vile scum of the earth, then they will fall down and confess their sins and get saved. Which, under the same belief system, supposedly "washes all your sins away," which would logically follow that it would wash away the shame for the sins too, and yet Christians are probably the most shame filled group of people I have ever met. Why is that?

I should clarify what I mean by "shame" and how that is different from guilt. Guilt is our natural reaction to doing something wrong. And by wrong, I don't mean developmentally appropriate childish behavior, mistakes or having a different opinion than your parents. I mean, in it`s simplest terms, "hurting someone." It is totally natural and healthy to feel guilt if we hurt someone. That feeling is like a guide, showing us the way towards making amends. I would even say it's an extension of love, because if we love someone, we care if they are hurt. If we caused it, we feel guilt. Guilt is an internal process, between us and the Holy Spirit.

Shame on the other hand is externally imposed and is used to control another person`s behavior. It is yet another chapter of the Bible of Behaviorism: Christian Child Rearing Practices by B.F. Skinner and Ivan Pavlov. When a parent shames a child they are essentially saying, "If I can make you feel bad enough, you will stop that behavior, thereby making parenting you more convenient for me and making me look better to those around us." Things like "don't act like a baby," "how could you do something so stupid," and "can't you do better than that?" cut to a child's heart, but do work in the short run for changing or stopping behavior.

For Christians, it is too often one of the primary tools for making kids (and adults) realize that they are sinful and need a savior. I was just told a story about a mom who went trick or treating with her kids and her six year old was given a tract. The tract went into great detail about how Jesus suffered and died for her sins, and the mom was concerned that some kids would believe that doing normal childish things were deserving of not only a man's death, but the death of God himself. I don't know exactly what the tract she saw said, but I remember handing out those tracts myself at Halloween when I was around 10-12. Some of them were pretty intense and scary!

Those tracts and the shaming parenting methods are designed to show kids just how bad they are, out of the belief that we are all inherently bad, in order to get them saved. And it works! Lots of people are saved out of fear of hell. Fear is a great motivator, but not a good relationship builder. I know people who have "gotten saved" multiple times out of fear that they somehow messed up the first time. I did that a few times myself as a kid, but never had a real relationship with Yeshua until I started dropping the shame.

I am not saying not to tell kids about sin, but I think the definition of sin needs to be challenged as well. Torah is God's directions for how to live and love and serve. It is "the way" and to deviate from that way is to be like an arrow missing it's mark. We all miss the mark every day, and therefore all feel some level of natural guilt. Even those who know nothing intellectually about how God wants us to live, have Torah (love) written on their hearts, and feel guilt when they have missed the mark and not acted as loving as they could have.

Shame does nothing but cloud up those natural feelings. It turns something very loving, into something very self centered. Shame makes a person feel worthless, hopeless and scared. Fear drives people to be people pleasers, always trying to prove that they can be good and that they are worth something. Shame makes people feel like if only they can follow a certain set of rules well enough, *then* God will love them.

YHVH wants a relationship with us based in love, not fearful groveling. Yeshua provides a way for us to have that relationship and *then* out of love, we can strive live out loving actions.

Handling Emotions

In my last post I said:
"However, I was still not being very open to allowing her to express those emotions, sending her to her room or getting angry about "temper tantrums." (That is another whole post in itself!)"
So here's that post!

I remember one time very vividly, when E was right around 2 years old, that she was screaming and crying over something. I don't remember what started it, but I was convinced that allowing that kind of temper tantrum would turn her into a complete brat for the rest of her life. It was completely unacceptable to me for her to scream when she was angry or really for her to be angry at all. I would say "she can do it, but not around me. If she wants to scream, she can go in her room." I played that parenting card called "consistency" and every time she would scream about something I would put her in her room and tell her she could come out when she was done. Well, this time that I remember so well, she was far from being "done." In fact, she just kept getting more and more upset and the screaming turned to hysterical crying. She kept trying to come out of her room and I kept putting her back in. Finally at some point I realized that she was not going to be able to stop on her own. It was no longer about whatever had made her angry in the first place. Now she was so hysterical that she couldn't stop even though she wanted to.

I don't know if I realized it right then or soon after, but it dawned on me that her own anger and sadness were scary for her. They were SO BIG and taking over her whole body and she didn't know what they were or what they were called or what to do with them. And I was telling her that I didn't know either! Her feelings were too big for me to handle! Me, the grownup, the person in her life who was supposed to protect her and help her was just as scared of her feelings as she was. On top of that, I was basically saying that I only wanted to be around her if she was happy. That my love and acceptance was contingent on her behavior and emotions.

Right around that time I joined the Gentle Christian Mothers message board, and started learning about age appropriate behavior and normal childhood development and what might be going on in her 2 year old mind. I realized then and it has become more and more clear to me since then that my desire, my NEED to push her away when she was upset was more about my feelings than hers. Watching someone else's emotions is extremely uncomfortable for someone who doesn't know how to handle their own. I had all these messages that I had told myself "suck it up," "don't be weak," "only girly girls cry" running around in my head and I projected them onto her. I masked it with some vague discipline philosophy about not letting kids get their way or they would be disobedient brats. But really, it was about my own comfort levels, fear and insecurity. And I had set up such an adversarial relationship that once I had made a decision I had to "win." It was a battleground and I could not accept defeat.

After doing a lot of reading, learning and praying, I started changing how I view her emotions. I slowly started dealing with her tantrums better and better and started learning to deal with my own as well. I remember another time not long after L was born, when E was 2 1/2. I was at DMV with both girls and we had been waiting a long time. Again, I don't remember exactly what started it (besides being tired, bored and maybe hungry), but E started melting down. I had L in the wrap, sleeping on my chest and I was trying to calm down a kicking, screaming toddler. For the first time ever, I didn't feel that flash of rage (which of course is really just fear) wash over me. Even though everyone in the place was looking at me, probably thinking what a brat my kid was or what a bad mom I was, I didn't care. My priority was my child.

She kept trying to get out of my arms and I couldn't hold her with L on my chest, so I took us all to the bathroom. I sat down on the floor and let her go. She raged and raged. She screamed that she wanted out, that she wanted daddy. She kept hitting the door and trying to hit me. For the first time, I was just present with her, feeling her pain with her. Not trying to fight her or win a battle or keep up appearances. I offered to hold her and nurse her when she was ready. I let her know I understood how she felt, I *heard* what she was saying. I was bigger than her fear and anger and sadness. We were in there for 10 or 15 minutes before she finally let me nurse her and calmed down. When we came out of the bathroom, I knew that everyone in the room had heard her screaming and of course they had all seen me take her to the bathroom. I don't know if they thought I was spanking her in there or what, but I got plenty of dirty looks. I didn't care, because it was my first success at not letting my own fear dictate my response to her.

E has always been a very emotional, intense child. She was colicky as a newborn, fussy as a baby, and threw frequent temper tantrums as a toddler. Now at 4, she still feels everything to the extreme. When she's happy, she's overjoyed, blissful, on cloud 9 over the slightest things. When she's sad or angry, she plummets to the depths of this dark, deep pit and looks like she's fighting dragons trying finding her way out. I didn't realize just how intense she is until L was born. In a lot of ways they are similar, but L is the much more laid back version. Part of it is personality, but part of it is that L has not had to go through the things E went through as a baby, like the nursing issues I talked about in the last post or having an emotionally unavailable and often angry mother like I was for E's first 2 years. Or the stress of moving several times and other situations.

Since that day at DMV I have had complete successes, complete failures and everything in between with how I have handled E's emotions. I'm getting better and better every day at learning how to just BE with her and see *her* not the behavior. I'm learning how help her identify her emotions and find healthy ways to work through them. I'm learning to balance that with helping her learn what is socially acceptable and not letting her emotional expression cross other people's boundaries. I am giving her tools (usually right as I learn them myself!) to work through emotions. Deep breathing, prayer, meditation, throwing stuffed animals since they won't break like toys, screaming into a pillow, identifying and acknowledging feelings, accepting them and holding them with care until they inevitably pass.

This evening, D took her to play outside. After they came in, she was very upset and started screaming and crying. I held her on my lap and she screamed at the top of her lungs. I knew it wasn't at me and I knew it wasn't all about going outside. After a few good stress releasing screams, she relaxed into me and sobbed and sobbed on my chest. She gulped out how she was having fun outside with a friend and she missed that friend and didn't want to stop playing. I didn't try to change her mind or convince her that it was all ok. I just reflected back to her what she was saying. She let out all the stress of the past few busy days and missing her daddy who has been away from home more lately. Then she asked me to rock her, so I stood up, cradled her in my arms, turned out the lights and rocked her back and forth. Then we laid down in bed and she laid on my chest. I told her she used to sleep on my chest like that all the time when she was a baby. We snuggled for a long time.

The myth is that if parents let their kids scream and cry and be dramatic that they will *always* act that way and *never* learn that it's not socially acceptable in public. I don't believe that anymore. She is 4, practically still a baby, and still needs me to be her anchor in the middle of her storm. In fact, who doesn't need someone else to be an anchor now and then?! I am so glad that when I need a good cry, D doesn't tell me to take it somewhere else, he doesn't push me away or scold me or tell me to suck it up. He just holds me and lets me get it all out and lets me know he understands.

I don't want my kids to be in their 20's before they learn that it's ok to cry in front of the people who love you and care about you. I don't want them to have 20 years worth of tears to cry at that point either. In order for something to heal, it has to be acknowledged and accepted and then dealt with. I want them to be able to work through that process on a daily basis over things small and large. I want them to reach for healing as naturally and quickly as they would reach for a salve for a burn. And when they have kids of their own, they won't feel uncomfortable or afraid in the face of their children's fear.

Raw Foods and Emotional Eating

I recently realized that I do a lot of emotional eating. Usually heavy, dense cooked foods and sugary things and also large portions of whatever I'm eating. I often eat until I'm stuffed, but keep going because my brain wants to. I just figured out that I eat to suppress happy emotions as much as I do sad ones. I would be very protective of my food and snap at D or the girls if they asked for a bite, but I would steal food off their plates and finish their leftovers.

I eat a LOT. People have a hard time believing that because I'm 5 foot 9 and weigh 130 lbs. I have never struggled with my weight, so its hard for people to imagine that I have a problem with overeating, but I do.

So, I have been eating a diet much higher in raw foods for the last month. I am not saying that I'm "going raw" or making any commitments to the percentage raw that I eat. I have tried that before and what ends up happening is that I mess up, then feel guilty, then binge on junk because I'm feeling guilty. Now I'm just focused on eating what helps my body feel good, not any particular diet. And if I eat something that doesn't feel good, I make note of that and try to use that info next time.

A few things happened recently that changed my perspective:

I read a book called Willpower is Not Enough and it talked about focusing on your hearts desires rather than your willpower as your motivation. I made a list of my hearts desires, which included having more energy, releasing pent up emotions, feeling good in my body etc.

I realized that I am an emotional eater.

I realized that I can eat a LOT of fruit and still feel great. In fact I *need* to eat a lot of fruit and that's one reason eating raw didn't work for me before. I didn't get enough calories, and when I was still hungry I thought needed protein so I'd go for dairy or peanut butter. Now, if I am still hungry after the first 3 bananas, I have 3 more!

Right now I'm reading a book called Raw Emotions, and I have a friend who does 80/10/10 diet who is on a similar journey. I am realizing just how wrapped up my emotions are in my food. I use food to suppress emotions, but the food just causes more negative emotions like guilt which I then don't know how to deal with so I eat.

This last month I have been feeling really good! Most days my diet looks something like this:

Breakfast: Smoothie and solid fruit (5 oranges or an entire melon for example)
Lunch: Wrap or salad with greens, tomato, avocado, carrots, cucumber, apple (not always all of those things at once, I mix it up)
Snacks: more fruit or sometimes yogurt (other dairy bothers my galbladder, but yogurt has always been fine)
Dinner: This is where I might have cooked food (which I try to keep plant based, like a lightly cooked stir fry) or sometimes I have had 8-10 oranges or another salad or a fruit salad.

I never expected that raw foods would help my emotional journey so much! Releasing the toxins from my body has also cleared my mind. I think so much clearer when I have only had raw foods that day. I'm not as irritable (or I just handle it better when I am) and I don't try to avoid people so much by going on the computer or sleeping. I'm finally releasing a lot of emotions that I've buried, and learning how to identify emotions and deal with them in the moment. That's something that I have been working on for at least a year now, but its much easier when I eat raw.