The Christmas weekend is only 5 days away and I’ve experienced first hand how crazy this time of year can get. (that is of course if you let it)

Are you one of those people that tries to make everything absolutely “perfect?”.I put perfect in quotations because perfect is different for absolutely everyone. Do you take on more than you want to, because you feel you need to entertain ALL your friends and family at this time of year? Do you create more stress than you need to? Do you spend more money than you know you should? Do you decorate more than is necessary? ALL of these things have one thing in common, they take time and energy. If you are not fully LOVING all those activities you can generate a lot of really negative energy. And this energy can and will be felt by everyone around you.

Here is my take on it. Over time, Christmas has become the most commercialized holiday of the year. I personally do not agree with this thought process. A few gifts, fine. But really, I believe the gift purchasing has gotten out of hand and everyone worries that the person they are buying for will not like their gift, so you may buy a bigger or more expensive gift and on and on and on. (It’s Just Stuff)

I, unfortunately, have spent many a Christmas away from home due to work and have missed much of the family hoopla.  Crazy and weird it sounds, thought, I look forward to that every year. Michael Bublé put it best in his Christmas special last week when he said “Christmas is when we get together, put our petty differences aside and create new petty differences.” This made me laugh out loud, because seriously, this is true for many people.

NOW, it is more important than ever to slow down, take a step(or two) back and really look at what you have to appreciate this year. NOT the Stuff. Look at your relationship with your spouse, your kids, all your other family and friends and most importantly your relationship with yourself. Really look at the fun you have had this past year. Stay away from the negative stuff, it doesn’t matter right now. And please DO NOT subscribe to the craziness that people put on themselves and then they end up not enjoying and not really remembering the holiday season.

Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year to all our readers.

Bryan Rachfall is the CEO of Fresh Perspective Works. His creativity and magical computer skills keep things rolling smoothly. He’s also an empowered dad and a true visionary that’s forging the path for parents around the world to empower their kids.

The Elephant In The Room Series: Making the Uncomfortable Comfortable is a series of articles that bring you expert knowledge on uncomfortable topics that you may be avoiding.  Our intention is to bring light to these topics and make them more approachable to talk about.  Awareness, not avoidance, is the only way change for the better will take place within you, your family, your community and the world.

Without a doubt, suddenly the most important thing in a rookie mom’s life is BABY. It’s her new love, infatuation, project, job and hobby all rolled into one. Does this new obsession get in the way of established relationships? Quite often, yes it does. Those who were used to being the focus of Mom’s affection and attention now have to take a back seat, at least while she becomes accustomed to a new role and gets to grips with how to juggle priorities. Number one on this list is most likely the man in her life. I’m not suggesting that new parents’ relationships are about to fall apart or be less happy than before, but there are bound to be some ups and downs and big changes ahead while you readjust to being a family. Most moms admit that relationship issues and arguments with their man increased once a new baby was around.

Let’s face it ladies: we have little choice when it comes to bearing the brunt of the parenting experience in the early days. For a start giving birth and breastfeeding are obviously down to us. It’s our bodies (and minds) that change; change again; then refuse to change back the way we want them to. It’s us that develop the hearing of bats; sense of smell of a bloodhound; eyes in the backs of our heads; and as many arms as an octopus (we wished). In most cases it’s also us that will provide the lion’s (sorry, lioness’s) share of the care giving, at least for the first year. As hard as dads might try, they can’t fight nature and it is women whose “Spidey Senses” will be on full alert for the foreseeable future to nurture and protect the baby no matter what. But this sudden shift in the allocation of duties can cause a rift. Mom can resent that Dad is able to resume a more normal way of life whereas she is literally left ‘holding the baby’.

If strains are starting to show in your relationship now that you are rookie parents, rest assured you aren’t the only ones. In “The Audacity of Hope” even the Obamas admit to problems after the arrival of their babies. They were both tired and stressed, but while Barack pursued his (admittedly very important) career, the child rearing fell mostly on Michelle’s shoulders. As a career woman herself, attempting to juggle a part time job and the children raised resentment and the complaint: “I never thought I’d have to raise a family alone”.

Here are just a few ways to address any discontent and keep those feelings of jealousy and resentment at bay:

• It’s extremely important to keep the lines of communication open. You may be resenting how much work is falling on your shoulders, but don’t assume your partner can read your mind. Keeping dissatisfaction bottled up will lead your partner to assume everything is progressing perfectly as you fume silently.
• Let Dad take the reigns as often as possible. Make sure to include your partner in the everyday running of the new family. He can’t appreciate how tough motherhood is if he’s not fully aware.

Make sure you get time off from being a mommy. From the start, try to take at least an hour a week to yourself to relax and unwind. Also, try to swing a date night at least once a month to remind yourselves you both still exist as a couple rather than ‘Mommy and Daddy’.

This Week’s Elephant Topic Experts:

Erica Wells and Lorraine Regal

Authors Erica Wells and Lorraine Regel are real moms who have experienced the everyday ups and downs of new motherhood. Fed up with parenting resources that only provided basic information on what Mommy and Baby “should” be doing, in The Survival Guide for Rookie Moms the two Vancouver moms have provided information, tips and reassuring answers to every new mom’s questions with warmth, humour, and unflinching honesty.

 The Survival Guide for Rookie Moms (John Wiley, Canada, 2010) spills the dark and dirty beans on what it’s really like to survive that first incredible year of motherhood – available now in book stores across Canada and the USA or online at on Amazon.ca, ChaptersIndigo.ca and Amazon.com

We didn’t express gratitude in the family when I was younger. I don’t remember ever sitting around at dinner and talking about things we are thankful for.

In fact, one of my earliest memories is of me expressing how grateful I was to have a healthy body and mind and my father scoffing at me and telling me that’s a stupid thing to say. I think I was 4 years old at the time.

As a child one of the most important gifts in life is to have the approval of your parents – of anyone in the family. If you don’t have it, it doesn’t matter what else you have, deep down you feel inadequate.

This is how I felt for many years of my life. Until very recently, actually, when a dear colleague of mine took me out for coffee after notcing how overwhelmed I appeared to him. During our conversation it became clear to me that I still looked to people and things outside of myself for approval. Even as a highly educated adult, a mother, a wife, a published author and speaker, and all those other accolades that I have collected – I felt inadequate in the eyes of the world.

I cried when I realized this.

And then I expressed gratitude: to  my colleague for his powerful questions and his patience. To myself for being willing to look in places inside where these old beliefs are hidden. And to my dad for teaching me this important lesson about how it all starts in the family.

My husband, Bryan, and I openly talk with our children about how grateful we are for them and for our lives. With our kids it’s been easy to say “I’m grateful for you.” But when I tried expressing these same words to Bryan, it took me two weeks to muster up the courage because I felt inadequate. And when I finally did I was terrified that he would reject my gratitude…just like my dad had rejected it. I cried when I told Bryan how grateful I am to have him in my life. Bryan beamed at me.

So now I am practicing gratitude in the family and in my every day – especially for myself and all the things I do. This is my way of feeling adequate and allowing that adequacy to shine from the inside out.

I’m grateful for all the nuts in my family – especially my kids and Bryan.  

I’m grateful that we can have fun and laugh and that my kids feel safe talking to me about anything.

I’m grateful for all their random hugs and “I love yous.”

I’m grateful for all the love and support I have of colleagues, friends, and my whole family as I take steps on this journey that I’m on. You all mean the world to me!

It’s Thanksgiving in Canada today – but we don’t need to wait for this special day to have gratitude in the family. I wish that all parents would tell their children all the time how grateful they are for their children. And I wish that all people would spend more time forcusing on being grateful for what they have and are, instead of what they aren’t and don’t have.

Mind reading is NOT an accurate way for moms to know what others are thinking. So it’s NOT an accurate way for others to know what moms are thinking, wanting or needing. Yet so many moms do it and expect others to do it too!

Just like in the first mistake (get your free report 5 Mistakes Moms Make) where moms assume their kids should know better, assuming that others know exactly what we want and need is not a good strategy!

Until the day telepathy is an everyday human skill, moms will have to verbally communicate our wants and needs so that everyone involved is clear and understands.

We all perceive the world differently because we all have different conditioning.

Our beliefs shape everything about us including our behaviours, emotional responses, expectations, and values. We cannot assume that anyone else in our life – not even those we love most – can know exactly how we perceive the world or what we need and want at any point in time. Our family may have a pretty good idea based on the past they share with us – but again, their perception is only as good as what we’ve communicated to them.

Everyone has their own set of subconscious filters through which they perceive the world. These filters delete, distort, and generalize those perceptions based on what you’ve been conditioned to focus on. It’s like having your very own windshield to look through at the world. As you live and grow this windshield gets smudged with negativity, other peoples ideas and expectations, and your experiences. And everyone has their own dirt on their own windshield.

And your kids’ windshields are being smudged and dirtied up by everything that they are exposed to.

So when you mind read that your partner, friend or coworker needs or wants something or is behaving a certain way, that’s only your perception of what’s going on. Their reality may be completely different than your perception. Until they clearly communicate to you what’s going on you cannot ever be certain just by observing the situation and mind reading.

Clear communication is a key to overcoming this mistake. If you don’t voice your needs, wants, or concerns then you cannot ever expect others to clearly know what’s going with you. This is why others may not always give you what they think you need – because they don’t know. They can only guess based on their own perceptions.

Communicate! It will change your life.

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image credit: deflam

The Elephant In The Room Series: Making the Uncomfortable Comfortable is a series of articles that bring you expert knowledge on uncomfortable topics that you may be avoiding.  Our intention is to bring light to these topics and make them more approachable to talk about.  Awareness, not avoidance, is the only way change for the better will take place within you, your family, your community and the world.

We all make mistakes!  We can and do hurt the people we love—sometimes innocently, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose.  Regardless of the cause of the hurt—intentional or unintentional—the damage is done.  As a relationship counsellor, one thing I know is that heartfelt apologies are essential to healing.

Unfortunately, many of us don’t know how to make an apology.  Absent apologies leave scars on relationships.  Over time, scars restrict the flow of love in any relationship—just like in flesh where the blood flow is restricted— the tissues of a relationship die over time.

So here’s the 7 Apology Essentials that restore “love” flow to hurt relationships!

1. Name the hurt you caused—give a detailed account of your hurtful behaviours and legitimate your partner’s feelings.  They’re not “crazy” for feeling this way—and you know it.  When you ‘fess up to what you did, you validate them.
2. Acknowledge your impact and the damage done—this way, you validate their resulting emotions.  The hurt person can see you understand the situation as it pertains to them—even if someone else might have reacted differently, you acknowledge your partner’s hurt.
3. Take responsibility for the situation and recognize your role in the harm—Don’t make excuses, rationalize away your behaviour, defend or justify your behaviours to try to avoid blame.  The intent of an apology is to repair the hurt heart of the other person, not to get you off the hook.
4. Care deeply about the hurt you caused—it should matter that you hurt someone you care about.  Twinges of guilt and remorse exist because we care, so experience them and the apologies will naturally flow.  However, acting like you care when you don’t will be sensed and render the apology ineffective.  Worse, a lack of empathy leaves you prone to repeat the behaviour in the future.  If you are truly unable to care, then get some professional help to access your compassion.
5. Know thyself–Your partner says, “How could you hurt me this way?”  Know your initial answer, “I don’t know,” isn’t sufficient!  You must look inside and figure out why you did what you did.  If you can’t explain your actions and have no insight as to why, how can your partner ever trust again?  You must face the truth about yourself—no matter how ugly!  You may not be able to undo the past, but you can seek to understand it.  If you have trouble understanding why or telling the truth, seek professional help.
6. Express your regret and ask for forgiveness—Slowly, sincerely, and succinctly say, “I’m sorry” somewhere in the apology.  You can ask for forgiveness but know the other is not required to forgive you, nor does apologizing imply your right to be forgiven.
7. Work to Earn Trust Back—Don’t repeat the hurtful behaviour again.  Back up your words of remorse or regret with action.  Keep your commitments to the hurt person.  Follow through with behaviours you promised to keep.

Remember, apologies heal the other’s hurt and restore connection.  But more importantly, when we hurt someone carelessly or purposely, we effectively debase our own humanity.  When we sincerely work to restore the other person’s love and forgiveness by confronting and correcting the damage we’ve caused, we restore our own honour and dignity.  The final outcome of apologizing, then, is repairing our relationship to self—becoming more fully human again!

Diane Anderson, MA, is a Registered Clinical Counsellor and Vancouver’s Love Coach.  A therapist, teacher, researcher, and speaker, Diane has worked with individuals and couples—aged 16-86—to create the healthy, vibrant, passionate love relationships they desire!

Diane addresses the surface symptoms of relationship problems but really alleviates the true root causes of people’s love difficulties.  Her post-graduate studies and ongoing clinical training honed the precise skills required to zero in on the barriers to intimacy we create—sometimes coaxing them aside, sometimes blasting them to bits (whatever it takes!)—to get to the truth about ourselves and to free us to love fully and deeply.  “The healing is in the feelings!” she says.

Diane authored 21 Ways to Win at Love–-a free 21-page downloadable booklet available at www.DianeAndersonCounselling.com.

Image credit: mozzercork

We have a great new complimentary audio available for a download called 5 Mistakes Moms Make & How To Avoid Them.

It’s easy to get caught up making these mistakes – especially when you’re not aware that you’re even making them!  Things like communicating what you really need, believing that only you can do it right, and thinking that kids should know better are common mistakes moms make.

Many parenting problems can be avoided when you have the right tools to use in the moment. Kasia coaches you through simple steps to get you connecting better and communicating more clearly with your children, partner, and other family members and friends.  Creating more harmony and minimizing stress can be fun and easy!

Learn how you can figure out if you make these mistakes and what you can do to avoid them.  Put your name and primary email into the blue box with the keyhole on the right of the screen, and get instant access to the free audio.

The Elephant In The Room Series: Making the Uncomfortable Comfortable is a series of articles that bring you expert knowledge on uncomfortable topics that you may be avoiding.  Our intention is to bring light to these topics and make them more approachable to talk about.  Awareness, not avoidance, is the only way change for the better will take place within you, your family, your community and the world.

As a parent of a teen you can expect to have some of the most challenging talks in our child’s life. It goes with the territory as our teen is immersed in a developmental period which is rocky and unpredictable and is only starting to experiment with the ability to reason. Risky behaviour, drugs, alcohol, driving, curfews, and the dreaded sex talk are just a sample of what lies ahead.

Ironically this is the period of time that our communication with a teen often falls flat. Grunts, tirades, and moody withdrawal do not lend themselves to initiating a meaningful dialogue.  As parents we can become frustrated and fearful as our ability to control situations slips through our fingers. The discussions and issues will come; the topics will be wide and varied and often controversial.  To ready ourselves for this, we would be wise to heed the Boy Scout Motto “Be Prepared.”

Here are just a few recommendations to ease into this time:

1) Practice with the easy stuff.

Teach your teen how to have a conversation about daily activities by sharing stories of your daily events. Letting him in to your adult world where you share some of your goals, achievements or disappointments honours them as an individual. Encourage your teen to be a part of the conversation and listen to their contributions. Know that they may have a different perspective and be curious about it.  You are not required to agree but consider that fresh ideas are the seed from which new things grow.

2) Watch your reaction!

The issues teens experience and the daily decisions they make can be loaded with the potential for negative outcomes.   As a parent it is so important to remain calm, breathe, and curb the knee jerk reaction to yell or “freak out”. If they come to you to discuss something it’s because they feel safe in doing so. To ruin your chances of your teen coming to you again, let them know as loudly as possible how disappointed you are in them and comment at length on their stupidity in getting into this situation.

3) Be open

This is a good time to reflect back to our own teenage years and remember some of the antics you experienced.  Did you ever do or say something that got totally out of hand?  Did you ever jump into a situation without thinking it through? Did your parents punish or belittle you for what you did? Bring some of these memories to the current situation. This is another good time to remain calm.  When your anger or frustration levels are high your reasoning and intelligence levels are low. It might be a wise  to admit that you need some time to gather your thoughts. When ready, ask open ended questions to clarify:

• Tell me more about that.
• What happened then?
• What do you think will happen as a result of this?
• What do you think you should do now?

When your teen feels respected and listened to he will be able to move forward feeling supported and start the process of taking responsibility for his actions.  Keep in mind: you are not responsible for his behaviour. You are responsible for providing an environment and opportunity to learn and grow as your teen becomes an adult.

Challenging talks are an opportunity for growth.  Some will be positive and some will fall flat.  You are human and doing the best you can.  Remember: this stage too will pass!

This Week’s Elephant Topic Expert: Susi Vasseur is the founder of HOW2! A coaching company that focuses its attention on empowering teenagers and their parents.  From an early age, Susi discovered her preference for working with young people.  She is the mother of two successful young adults, a private remedial tutor, and brings over 20 years experience working with teens in recreation, public and alternate school settings and mentorship. Susi is a trained Parent and Teen Coach from the Academy for Family Coach Training.  It is her passion to make a difference for the youth of today and the adults who support them. Find out more about Susi’s work at www.heartsopeningwide.ca

photo: C.G.P. Grey

Imagine you’re sitting with your spouse on the sofa, watching a movie. It’s 9:30 pm. Suddenly you hear little little footsteps coming down the hallway accompanied by sobs. Your heart pounds as you hear “Mommy, I can’t sleep! I’m so worried!”

Bryan and I experienced this the night before school started. Our son came upstairs with a list he’d written of all the things he was worried about.

Our son loves to chat about Star Wars and Lego 98% of the time – we didn’t think he worried about anything. So we turned off the movie and gave him our full attention as he read out his list.

As a mom, my heart broke at some of the things he had written down and at the same time I was SO excited that he was talking to us about them!

Some of the items on his list were being called names by his friends, letter grades (he started grade 4 this year), and how to earn more money for all the Lego he wants to buy.

We had a wonderful conversation about choices, behaviours, opportunities, and other stuff. Stuff that I thought had gone in one ear and out the other in the past. Turns out kids do listen!

I remember my mom telling me when our son was born to always treat all kids’ problems and challenges with respect – no matter how small they may seem to me. I practiced this even with the tiny problems my kids would bring up. Looking back I wasn’t always super patient – but I did my best.

So I was so proud of our son for talking so openly about his worries. And I was so grateful that, even though I sometimes felt like a broken record, our open and clear communication at home had created a safe space for our son to share.

Practicing communication really works – no matter how old your kids are. So keep talking and listening. These are skills your kids will use forever.

photo by elycefeliz

Parents have tantrums too. I recently found myself in an argument with my daughter – except that it was more like a tantrum. And I was the one having the tantrum! Oddly enough, as I was being so impatient with her I found myself thinking “What am I doing? Aren’t I the adult?”

Emotions can be like that – we just feel them as if by instinct and don’t even realize it until we’re in the throes of an argument. I’ve cultivated self awareness for many years and I was grateful that I realized what I was feeling. I felt that my daughter wasn’t focused enough and not doing things fast enough because I had things to do. The question for me was what was the cause of these strong emotions?

I used a Parts Integration process that I often use with clients to uncover the cause of this angry part of myself that was being triggered by these situations with my daughter. I discovered that my emotions had really nothing to do with her and everything to do with my own boundaries. Actually the lack of them.

We all have boundaries in our life to keep us organized and functioning. As I build my practice I realized that I didn’t have a clear boundary defining client time and family time. As much as my clients and my business are very important to me – so are my children. In fact, my children are the most important to me but I wasn’t setting up my time in a way that allowed me to spend quality time with them.

The universe’s frying pan strikes again! I had been told by my business coach and other sources that I need to structure my business to work for me. I could have made more balanced work hours and then I would not have had this meltdown with my daughter. Instead, I had structured my business to monopolize me and this caused me to freak out at my kids when it seemed like their needs took up too much work time. I am definitely not proud of this.

The great things with boundaries is that they can be re-evaluated and changed at any time. I was able to uncover the root cause of my emotions and take action to create more balance in my life. It felt great to prioritize my children and I was grateful for the universe’s frying pan. I’m also committed to noticing clues that my boundaries are out of alignment before I need to be smacked by the frying pan again.

Have you ever thought to yourself or said to your child “you should know better!”

You’re not the only one and it’s easy to assume that our kids should know better because we spend so much time teaching them to know.  But as adults we have the benefit of a rational and logical, mature brain.  They don’t.

We repeat to our kids the things we want them to do, how we want them to behave, and yet they keep either misbehaving or doing something completely opposite to what we want.  We think they should know better – we even tell them they should know better, but why don’t they?

Part of the human brain comes pre-wired with instinctual responses such as the fight or flight response.  This part makes sure we remain safe and protected at all times.  These instinctual responses cannot be unplugged or eliminated in any way.  On the other hand, all beliefs, behaviours, attitudes, and emotional reactions are learned from the information that comes in through our senses.   This information originates from all the people and events that we experience in our life.

The human brain also has a second part that forms our logical and reasoning.  This part doesn’t actually start to mature until we are in our mid teens.  So as kids, we process all information through the lens of instinctual protection that’s hard wired into us.

So we expect children to know better but their brain doesn’t really work that way.

Scientists say that it takes an adult 21-28 days to form a new habit (that is if willpower doesn’t derail us first).  Adults have their rational brain matured and still have trouble learning to do things the new way.  How can we expect a child to know better?

Children learn mainly by modeling what we do and not by listening to what we say.  So if we speak to them about doing something one way, and yet our own behaviour is completely different, the child will be very confused and will most likely follow what we do – not what we say.

For example, if a mom tells the child not to speak a certain way about others and then gossips on the phone to her friend, the child will learn to do as the mother does, not as she says.

Of course children also must find their own place in the world and will misbehave and push our boundaries as a natural part of their growth and development.  But they are more apt to turn out as responsible, ethical and authentic adults if we don’t just assume they know better and be good role models.

As a parent you have to examine your own behaviour in an honest way if you’re having difficulty with your child. Remember, you are the source of it.