I recently took Susan’s fantastic course on Scream Free Parenting.
One of the perspective of the course that truly resonated with me was that the work of parenting is really about working on yourself as a parent. Taking the effort you need to care for yourself, so you can be a parent and model for your children, is of top priority– though far too often, moms put their own self care last on the list.
For me, my number one struggle is managing the stress in my life in a healthy way. I was simply not prepared for the intensity of raising little ones, and the day to day stresses of motherhood quickly overwhelmed me.
I became really convicted of this a while ago when I began to reflect on what was happening within the dynamic between me and my oldest (3 yr old) son. I sometimes found ourselves locked in a struggle where I was expressing my anger through raising my voice and escalating the tension when I was disciplining him and he was not responding the way I wanted him to.
After these incidents, when I had calmed down, I thought about what was really happening. It occurred to me that I was interacting with him from a total stress response…and worst of all, my reaction to stress was putting my son in a stress response as well. I wasn’t calming the situation and then clearly and decisively handling the discipline– instead I was adding to the fiery energy and my son was reacting from a fight or flight response. And, of course, this just firmly entrenched us in a downward spiral.
It was my first huge aha moment that kids are our mirrors. I was “seeing” myself in his reactions and it was not pretty. Not at all the parent I wanted to be.
I believe that getting a handle on how we respond to stress in our lives is essential to good parenting. Really, it is essential to good living. It’s why I took this so seriously once I recognized the pattern creeping into my life.
As a holistic health coach, I knew ways to manage stress and live more calmly, I just wasn’t applying it. I was allowing my busy mom lifestyle to become an excuse for taking excellent care of myself, and it was backfiring.
I know other moms feel the same way I do and struggle with the same thing. So, I’ve created a no-fee course for busy moms who want to learn skills on how to live with less stress and more calm. Parenting from a calm, centered place is a much more enjoyable experience all around.
I can not recommend Susan’s down to earth, balanced and inspiring course on Scream Free Parenting more. The material is top notch, but so is her seasoned, compassionate and approachable manner.
And if you find that self care, and in particular, managing your stress in healthy ways, is something you could use more support and tools around, I invite you to join my upcoming course, or read more details here.
Lisa Byrne is a health coach who helps busy moms take great care of themselves. She blogs at The WellGrounded Life, teaches course and leads workshops when she is not burping a baby or chasing a toddler around.
