This will steady us in hard times...

Do you remember a recent time when your child was struggling? A time when things were hard?

How did that feel?

I know sometimes in moments like these I can start to feel frustrated, maybe anxious, sad ...even despairing. My mind spirals out of control, thinking the worst possible future outcomes!

But what if we could feel...

...peaceful

...steady

...serene

...composed

When our child is struggling The Heart People tell us to slow down. We take deep breaths to calm ourselves. We use empathy to imagine what our child might be feeling and needing before we try to fix anything and find a good solution.

But there's something else that helps...

For years I used empathy to connect with my children when times got rough, and I could tell they felt seen and heard- they could move on and problem solve. But something was missing.

Sometimes I got stuck there, stuck in the hurt and those awful anxiety-induced thoughts: where will my child end up?! After years of practicing empathy I came to realize I needed something else, something that had been there the whole time-

Trust.

There are so many ways to understand this huge concept, but in the simplest of terms it means we believe our child is whole: she has all the resources, resilience, strength and capabilities within her.

Now we're not looking at our child as a problem needing to be solved, a victim needing saving, a partial human waiting to be formed into a full human.

Now in that same difficult moment, we can validate the big feelings and needs, and at the same time we know our child has all the strengths to get through this.

And so, we have a new formula, one that will always be there for us to help us through anything-

empathy + trust = compassion

Empathy connects us to our child and acknowledges the pain.

Trust connects us to a deep inner-knowing that all is well.

Trust might feel a little bit phony in the beginning but curiosity can help- is it possible that my child has all the strengths within her? How have I seen evidence of this in the past?

These questions are a start, an entry-point to the experience of serenity that is waiting for us.

Our children desperately want us to believe in them, to see their strengths and how hard they're trying, that their heart is good. When we trust, a part of us, our anxious parenting part lets go just a little bit. We don't have to worry so much; all we have to do in the moment is sit patiently with our child's big feelings. That is enough.

It will always be enough.

With so much love,

Vanessa