inquiring parent

Okay, here’s yet another post about those little things we love to hate – and I don’t mean the kids, I mean feelings!  There’s a saying that probably has a teensy bit of truth in it – we teach what we need to learn! 

 LB was feeling miserable a couple of nights ago. (This isn’t her real name by the way: I’m using aliases for the girls. This may change as I get more used to blogging. She suggested I call her Petal or Clover, but LB at least is a family nickname.) She has a cold – again – and she’d hurt her foot. I’d looked at it, her dad had looked at it, her friend’s mum had looked at it, her piano teacher had looked at it. We all agreed: there were a couple of bruises but no swelling so it was probably sprained. 

But when your sister’s broken arm and your auntie’s broken arms weren’t picked up till the next day…  if you’re LB you panic even if it is the next day. She had broken a bone. She was sure of it. She needed to go to Accident and Emergency. She might have managed to walk home from school, she might have managed to climb the stairs, but she couldn’t manage to do the breathing exercises both girls do at bedtime. (The Buteyko Method and for children the exercises involve walking.) 

I was, shall we say, a tad frustrated. Usually I understand LB pretty well, having a similar sort of joyful, relaxed, bouncy, light-hearted personality.  But strangely that night, nothing I said made it any better. I felt like I couldn’t connect with her at all. And okay yes – nothing I said to myself made it any better: she should listen to me, she shouldn’t get herself in such a state, I don’t know what to do, if she’d just listen to me she’d see how ridiculous she’s being, yabber, yabber, yabber…

“Come on angel, you can do it.” Kind words maybe, but said in an exasperated voice they didn’t inspire much confidence. I was irritated. She knew it. She wailed. I used the exasperated voice again. 

She sat down the floor and cried. “You’re horrible. It’s not fair. Everybody is being horrible to me.” 

I told her I knew I was believing things that weren’t true – I wouldn’t have been feeling stressed otherwise.  Lolo and I told her we loved her. We hugged her. I told her I didn’t want to make her feel wrong or bad, and that I was struggling to deal with my own thoughts. We read a story together, got her exercises done. 

I still felt rotten. I knew I was believing thoughts that left me feeling inadequate, and I could still feel the urge to make it her fault, so that I could feel ‘good.’ Being aware of that helped a bit, helped me to keep the words in my head instead of going off into the rant I so, so wanted to. (And this isn’t the same as repressing the feelings: I was well aware of my uncomfortable feelings, but knew that acting on them would only make me feel worse. Now, if only I could always remember that!!!)

LB got into bed, and then she started to panic again. We studied her foot, and it looked the same as it had before – a couple of bruises, no swelling. This didn’t reassure her. Now I was starting to panic. Then I thought about how I can often feel helpless in the face of another person’s misery, as if I ’should’ be able to help, but can’t. I realised I was thinking, “I need to find a way to stop her doing this or something terrible will happen.” 

Instead of trying to get LB to change it was time to look at my own thought. I told her what I’d been believing, and thanked her for giving me the opportunity to see it. Once the thought was out in the open it was easy to see it wasn’t true – I can’t see into the future!

LB snuggled into me, smiled and said, “How do you treat others when you believe that thought?” (If you aren’t familiar with The Work, this is a sub-question of the third question in the process: “How do you react when you think that thought?”)

I smiled too. “I get annoyed at them, raise my voice. I try to make them change, try to make them wrong.”

“And how would you treat people without that thought?” she asked. (A variation on the fourth question: “Who would you be without the thought?”)

“I’d listen to them, not feel scared of them or what they might do. I’d be more relaxed, able to hear them, be with them, and see a bit more of how it was for them.”

The last part in the process of The Work is to turn the statement around, so my statement became: “I don’t need to stop her because nothing terrible will happen.” And: “I don’t need to stop her because something wonderful will happen. ” It did – for a start we got to look at what happens when you believe a thought that’s not true! That’s pretty good. We got to snuggle up together, to reach understanding together.

This doesn’t end there. 

Later I go back to check on LB.  She’s still awake, still fretting about her foot.  I start to feel irritated again. 

“I want Betsy back,” she whines. (Betsy is a friend of hers who has gone away for a few months – again not her real name.) 

Oh, boy, so now I’m supposed to get her back to am I? What do you think I am some kind of magician?  I’m supposed to solve everything am I? Mothers are supposed to have all the answers are they? 

Hey, wait a minute, I’m making this all up, she hasn’t said any of it. Oops. 

 I tell her I can see my irritation comes because  I’m thinking she wants me to do something about it and that makes me feel useless because there’s nothing I can do to make it better for her. I tell her it’s up to me to deal with my thoughts about that, and in the meantime maybe she could help by not saying she wants her friend back. “Because it’s not true is it?” I ask. “You don’t really want her to leave her family and come back do you, or for them all to come back from their big holiday just because of you? “

“No,” she agreed. “I don’t.”

“Maybe instead you say, ‘I miss Betsy, and I feel sad because of that.’ Then we can hug and I can let you know I understand. I often miss friends too, so I know how it feels.”

As we hug, we notice that when she believes she wants her friend back it creates conflict inside her because it’s not true. 

Then LB smiles and says, “I miss my old foot.” I tell her she’ll get that foot back soon. She closes her eyes. 

I sit there as she falls asleep. I hadn’t planned to say any of that, but now, not only does it make sense, I wonder what things I believe I want but don’t really want at all? What conflict do I create in myself by believing that I do?

PS Just as I finished this post a newsletter arrived from Carol Skolnick at Soul Surgery with a pertinent article about accepting depression and finding the benefits in it. You can read the article here  http://soulsurgery.blogspot.com/2008/05/depression-or-correction.html

Her latest article is also well worth a look:

http://soulsurgery.blogspot.com/2008/05/on-not-minimizing-human-suffering.html

To find out more about The Work go to:http://www.thework.com/index.asp