Staying centered when your child is on an emotional roller coaster can be a challenge. It is like a mine field. As they travel through their emotional cycle, expressing their emotions, you may get triggered at any point depending on your beliefs or conditioning.

Until I was really able to work through my own rage issues, every time my daughter would express hers, I would quickly leave my center and join her in the field of rage. When this happened there was no anchor and we would both act out toward each other. I wanted to control her rage because of my own history.

Staying centered means I am willing to separate myself from my daughter’s rage and to continue to hold my center in the face of hers. So, the focus, in the moment, is on my connection with myself instead of trying to get my daughter to do anything. When I’m able to stay centered, and not take it personally, she is able to express the rage and then quickly move back into a state of love. I know it may sound impossible, and yet it is amazing to witness.

Practice: Today, when your child expresses emotions that cause you discomfort, see if you can stay focused internally on what is going on with you. Instead of joining their emotional roller coaster, see if you can focus on staying centered inside, releasing your personal agenda and showing up for the ride.

Experiencing the power of our child’s “wants” can trigger our deep seated beliefs about the “rightness or wrongness” of wanting what we want and wanting it now.

Every time we go to Target, my daughter is glued to the dollar bin.  All of her desires come up and making a decision becomes almost impossible.  I’m often tickled, when not judging her, with what she decides on.  When judging her, for wanting something, that I know will quickly end in the trash, I am hitting into my own need to suppress her joy.

For, to tell the truth, I feel the same way when I walk by the dollar bin.  I’m like a little kid that feels like there is some special treasure waiting just for me.  Of course, I defend and justify my purchase while sneaking it into my basket, looking around to see if I know anyone.  For I don’t want to be seen as a consumerist!  Oh the power of suppressing joy!

Knowing that our child’s “wants” have very little to do with the “thing” is tricky.  For we all get caught on our  beliefs around consumerism and plastic and China and raising entitled children, on and on the list goes.  Remember, the desire is an expression of joy and if you meet it with your own joy the judgment about the “thing” will fall away.  My experience is that when I let go, my daughter finds her own natural limit without me suppressing her pure joy!

Practice:  Today make note of your “wants” and what you tell yourself when they arise.  Also, become aware of how you respond to your child’s “wants today.  Just take note!

Disappointment

How many of us feel burdened and afraid of disappointing someone we love?  The weight of disappointment is heavy and covers the inherent joy that we are!  When feeling our disappointment, in relation to our child, we must explore our expectation on them to meet our needs.  When they don’t we may feel our disappointment.  Feeling it is one thing, and yet telling our child they disappointed us is laying our burden on them.

Remember, our children are not purposely trying to thwart our needs.  They are doing the best they can to get their own needs met and often those needs are very different than ours.  When we strong arm them, through disappointment, to make our needs MORE important than theirs it creates confusion inside.  They begin to usurp their own needs to get the love they depend on.  Over time, they may create a false belief which mask their pure joy.    Believing they are a disappointment they may begin to reject their  needs in favor of ours.  Trying to get their needs met, they may become passive aggressive or self-reliant, all ways of separating from joy.

Today, be aware  when you feel your disappointment in relation to your child.  Instead of telling your child they disappointed you, see if you can sit with yourself and truly see that your child is not responsible for your happiness.  Give them the gift of releasing them from your disappointment and feel the weight lift revealing true joy!

One of the most common themes I see with parents is the need for respect.  So often, a parent will tell me their child was disrespectful and then wait for me to agree and justify how their child needs to respect them.  I’ve felt the same way, and yet when I delve a bit deeper into this need, in myself, and recognize that my child isn’t responsible for filling it I have a chance to respect myself.

For the minute I view my daughter’s behavior as disrespectful, I’m triggered into a stance that needs her to respect me.  In that moment, I’ve switched the attention onto my needs instead of hers.  How quickly this happens and what’s even crazier is I can stand there and justify my need as being more important than hers.  From this stance, all I can focus on is having her take care of my need to be respected.  I lose sight of her message behind the delivery and instantly put my daughter in the adult role as the caretaker of my needs.

Example:  Imagine your child screaming she hates you because you didn’t give her what she wanted.  In her outrage at hearing “no” she lashes out, since you are the one who has thwarted her need.  In that moment you can either move to a place inside that believes she is disrespectful because she is screaming at you, or you can breathe deeply and see that your child is in distress.  Remember, in this moment, she doesn’t have the capacity to show you respect.  So, try respecting yourself by not taking her outburst as a personal attack.  Show her the respect you feel inside by “showing up” for her deep need to have you be a safe emotional container that can allow her expression so she can move through her emotional cycle back to love.

The path to joy can often be filled with many obstacles and booby traps along the way.  For, as children, our joy expressed itself as “who” we truly were in our essential nature not how we behaved.   It was natural and came easy until our caretakers, perceived us as disruptive, noisy, over-exuberant or causing them discomfort.  Due to their own separation from joy, they began to teach us to separate from our own.

I find myself doing this all the time with my daughter.  My separation began with getting in “trouble” for my exuberance, so when I start to feel discomfort in relation to my daughter’s exuberance, I put a damper on it.  In a distorted way, I think I’m trying to help her and yet I am passing on my belief that experiencing her joy will lead to pain.  The belief that I am “trouble” as my essential being is the false belief that has me control myself and my daughter.

So, as I return to my true nature, joy, I meet my old belief along the way.  I may create someone judging me for my exuberance, someone shaming me for my playfulness or telling me that I need to “control” my daughter and her joy.  All along the way, as I meet these obstacles, I work with smiling at them and taking the power out of any external force that I’ve given the power to separate me from joy!

Today, have fun watching your child and seeing how joyful their play is.  As there joy increases become aware when you feel your discomfort especially if other people are around.  See if instead of  putting a “damper” on your child you can turn inside and lift the “damper” off yourself.  Then see if you can move toward joining in the “joy” instead of shutting it down!