Life is unpredictable. It changes like the weather. It is a series of moments. Moments that can make us feel more joy than we thought possible and others more pain than we think we can bear. Sometimes life feels boring, other times scary. We can feel annoyed or overwhelmed in one moment and the next inspired. It is the challenging moments though that I’ve found we seem to be ill prepared to manage. The ones that carry grief or intense fear or controversy where we often use phrases like “it’s not fair”, “this shouldn’t be happening”, “I or we don’t deserve this”. This can lead to overwhelming feelings of anger or defeat which can leave us feeling stuck. 

I was definitely a person who used those phrases frequently. It left me feeling defeated and stuck. Often times sending me into a spiral of negative thoughts that made the entire situation even worse than the actual disappointing thing that had happened. When I first started this journey of self reflection, this was an area I wanted to explore. Not just for me but for my daughter. I wanted to change the pattern of thoughts around negative experiences in life for they are destined to happen. As I mentioned in my first blog post, the idea of things, positive and negative experiences are part of our collective destiny. If we know that to be true and that is without a doubt out of our control then what we are left with is how we respond which will determine the affect it has on our life. What I’ve learned is an important piece of this process includes recognizing and processing our emotions about the situation.

When I was faced with the reality that I was unable to have a second child, I was gutted. I was stuck in that place of “this isn’t fair”. It left me feeling like I was in an endless cycle of disappointment and grief. It was preventing me from being present. I needed to process this through this new framework of what I refer to as yes, and thinking. The yes part of the framework allows us to process the emotions attached to the reality. For me that was grief, disappointment, sadness and frustration. The and part is the actionable piece that allows us to come to terms with the reality and address how we want to move forward with the emotions that we are feeling. And I do not want this to prevent me from living a fulfilled life with the child I do have. While this can seem overly simplistic given the intense emotions that can come with facing some of these tough realities, it actually works. It’s not overriding the emotions which would look something like this, “I can’t have another baby and it’s fine”.  We love to it’s fine our way through life. However, when we do this we are really just shelving the emotions we have for another time. That time could be when your husband doesn’t clean the dishes like he said he was going to and you’re suddenly so upset you feel like you could explode. It’s not about the dishes, it’s about the second baby. 

We all desperately want to feel seen and heard. Our ability to process the emotions that arise when things “don’t go our way” can allow us to stay more present in our lives and stop misdirecting our emotions. I have implemented this strategy in my parenting and when I say it can feel like a miraculous “parenting hack”, I mean it. I was skeptical at first. I had been exploring the yes, and framework in my own work with my therapist when parenting guru Dr. Becky started talking about it in relation to child meltdowns. I originally thought it was too advanced for a small child to understand but boy was I wrong. It’s now a staple in our home that allows my daughter to process her emotions and build resiliency in how to handle the disappointing things that happen in life. 

The typical way this plays out is something she doesn’t want to happen, happens. It can be something big or super small but if you’re a parent you know that disappointment lurks around every corner for our little’s. In our family we have implemented a no screen time rule during the school week after a certain time. It allows us to be together as a family and for my daughter to wind down before bed more easily. It’s for her benefit of course but as a 5 year old, it’s just cruel. Mean and cruel parenting. The conversation goes like this, “I want to watch a show”. The yes “I understand you want to watch a show really badly” followed by the and “and we are not using screens during this time before bed.” I then follow up with “It’s ok to feel disappointed and even maybe angry about that and we do not use the phone, iPad or tv during this time”. I am not kidding you that the difference in how long the tantrum around this lasts diminishes 10x. Before I would say something like “knock it off, you know the rule” and if she continued “you better stop or you won’t have any tv time tomorrow.” This approach only escalated the negative emotions often resulting in tears and frustration. I realized that just like anyone she just wanted to feel seen and heard. This framework allows her to feel her feelings of disappointment, anger and frustration while also allowing things to stay the same. It’s a way to hold my boundary and allow her to have feelings about it. 

We recently used this framework to help my daughter work through a difficult challenge she was facing at school. 

She has a group of friends that she plays with regularly on the playground. She shared with me that sometimes she wanted to play with other kids and more specifically that she wanted to swing on the swings. I asked her “well then why don’t you do that?” “Well because I’m worried that if I do the kids I usually play with won’t be my friend anymore.” I took a deep breath recognizing this as a teachable moment especially important with girl friendship dynamics that I’ve seen play out in my own life for decades. “Hmmm, that’s a really hard thing.”, she responded “yeah and there are times I’ve tried to do it and someone said if I leave the group to play something else, then I’m not in the group anymore.” Ouch, that definitely doesn’t feel good. The fear of being kicked out of a group feels bad to me and I’m 30 years older than my sweet girl. “That feels really tricky and even a bit scary and I know you can do the thing that your heart is telling you to do. What would make you the happiest?” She quickly responded “it would make me really happy to be able to swing on the swings when that’s what I want to do and then also play with the group when I want to do that.” Perfectly reasonable answer to me. “So do that babe. Even though I know it can be hard, when your heart tells you to swing – go swing. When it says you want to play with the group, do that.” She thought for a second and then responded “but what if that means I can’t be part of the group?” “Well that would really stink and it would be good that you are following your heart of what you want to do. You have to make sure that you make yourself happy first. And if that does happen then we can talk about it and figure out what to do.”

Then last week, she followed her heart and did the brave thing. When I picked her up from carpool she shared a huge victory. “How was your day baby?”. She sat up in her carseat and said the following “I swung on the swings today.”, I felt tears start to fill my eyes. “You did?”, “Yup, I told my friend that is what’s in my heart. I said I want to swing on the swings today and if that’s what is in my heart then that’s what I need to do.” The joy that filled my body made me feel like I was going to explode. “That’s amazing Juliette, I’m really happy for you.”. She smiled so big “and it was fine, after I was done swinging, I played with the group and it was ok. I felt so happy when I was swinging.” A few tears dripped down my face. “I’m really happy for you.”

Yes, parenting is the hardest job on planet earth and it is the most rewarding. I had no clue at my daughter’s age how to process my emotions like that and honor myself. I just started to figure out how to do that a few years ago! I do not always get it right. Often times I get it super wrong. Like when I yelled the other night because I didn’t feel well and I had asked my daughter to do something for the 10th time. Or when I told her to just stop it and she cried because I used my “mean mommy voice again”. I’m not sharing this because I’m raising a magical unicorn or because I implement things perfectly all the time but rather because I think as mom’s it’s important to share when we have found something that works. Something that allows our children to be emotionally healthy so that we can raise a generation that is more compassionate, resilient, and requires a bit less therapy than we do. 

Life is hard and its worth living. It’s beautiful and ugly. Magical and painful. There are times we can move mountains and others where it feels like we are sinking beneath the undercurrent. For me is has helped to move through life with the understanding that both good and bad things will happen and it is my job to navigate my emotions to respond based on what is in my heart. This framework has allowed me to exhibit greater kindness to myself and others, be more patient and most importantly more present. 

Yes, life is messy and it’s the only one we get. So what are we going to do with the one we have? I’m enjoying figuring this out for myself and helping guide my daughter as she charts her own path. 

Sending love to you today and always