The rides at Disneyland are so fun! And what I noticed about them is that getting to the ride is as much fun and exciting – if not more – than the ride itself. The Indiana Jones ride, for example, is so realistic! You get to walk through underground dungeons and pathways, creepy tombs, and jungle-like forests. Then you get in a jeep and it rattles you around for 45 seconds while you escape bandits and snakes. I actually came out of that ride feeling a little sick to my stomach from all the rattling around.

But I was really profoundly moved by the whole experience – and unexpectedly so. Here I was having crazy fun with the family and taking in all the surroundings and my unconscious mind was taking it all in at a whole other level. I realized that I really enjoyed having fun and that it wasn’t hard at all! I don’t know why I forgot to have fun in the first place.

Enjoying the “getting there” and not just the ride was only one of my realizations. After spending 6 hours drawing in the sand and playing in the waves at Laguna Beach I realized that fun can be so simple. It doesn’t require fancy anything really.

I really connected with the kids and with myself on our trip – and I had so been longing for more connection.

Now we are having conversations about how we keep that relaxation and fun at home. Sure I would love to move to the beach and spend the next two years sitting there and listening to the waves beat the shore. But I don’t believe that I should have to uproot everything just to relax and have fun. So we’re making a family plan for fun. I’m really excited!

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

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.

Most people today understand that our childhood shapes how we see, experience and respond to the world around us. So much so, it’s easy to assume someone who’s subjected to a challenging upbringing is at risk for carrying unwanted protective “baggage” into adulthood. And yet, we now know that a design flaw of the brain can easily misinterpret even the most benign of childhood experiences into scary memories that can hold us captive for a lifetime.  As parents, you should understand how this works.

In the simplest terms, this phenomena is tied to a design flaw of the brain.  Children are born with a fully functional old brain at birth, which contains the primitive hardwiring for self-protection and safety. In other words, things seem scarier for little brains.  This will subside as they mature, but won’t be fully resolved until a child’s ability to rationalize is fully developed in their early twenties.

So, this natural wiring causes little ones to translate benign experiences into significant events. For a small child, a stern warning on the dangers of snakes can easily morph into an uncontrollable snake phobia by adulthood — as was the case for one of my clients. And, it makes scary events even scarier. A locked door at naptime in the child’s eye is a devastating sentence of trapped. And as the child moves into adulthood, she is inclined to make a series of decisions meant to keep her safe from ever being trapped again. I know this because another client brought this scenario to my office a few months ago, which is probably why an abrupt awakening in my hotel room just one day later seemed so poignant.

It was just 6:52 a.m. when the blood curdling screams made their way through my hotel door, “Mommy! I…WANT… MY.. MOMMY!!”

A minute passed with escalating volumes and intensity, and I knew this wasn’t an ordinary tantrum. I entered the hallway and saw a frightened little girl who couldn’t have been more than three. It appeared she had somehow been locked out of her room, which is what I surmised from her huddling body in the doorway. Her face was red with fear as she attempted to catch her breath in-between cries for her mother.

A minute or two later her mother made her way down the hallway. Her approach was nonchalant and her explanation irreverent, “I left her in the hallway to give her a timeout. Sorry if it woke you up.”

Though I didn’t ask and she didn’t volunteer, I’m sure she had some rationalization for the decision she made to momentarily leave the child: her sanity, exhaustion, ill-advice given to her. After all, I had a million “excuses” for all the poor choices I’d made, but that didn’t stop me from voicing my opinion. I was mortified, and said just as much.

After all, I was now fully aware of the potential repercussions of how this event could impact her adult life. Just like the woman in my office this week who’d spent half of her life trying to avoid being abandoned or trapped again in incredibly well-intentioned ways, the experience of this little girl has the potential to change the trajectory of her life. The chances she won’t surrender to the protective inclinations seared into her unconscious mind created in that small five-minute window will be dependent on conscious choices that will feel totally foreign and contradictory to her instincts. It could happen, but it is equally probable that she will move through life making limiting decisions meant to keep her safe from similar circumstances.

So, you see anyone who experienced a childhood is at risk for having baggage. If words of caution can grow into a phobia, then making fun of a small child for coloring outside the lines can translate into a lifetime in search of perfection. Being reprimanded for crying on your first day at school becomes an unconscious prompt to avoid any situation that could feel emotional. A brief experience of feeling abandoned or trapped becomes a charter to stay in control at any cost, because the old brain makes the scary…scarier.

This Week’s Elephant Topic Expert:

Susan Crampton Davis

Awakening Works, LLC (www.awakeningworks.com) was founded by Susan Crampton Davis.  Throughout Susan’s career she always had an unrelenting sense of curiosity about why people self-sabotage or get in their own way, give up on their dreams so easily, or struggle to embrace personal change even though it held the potential for greater success.  She even had the same thoughts about herself.

In 2005, everything changed.  Susan came to understand the power of the unconscious mind and the detrimental effects of deeply engrained disempowering beliefs and patterns of fear-based behavior born from our life experiences.  Today, Susan contributes to the growing dialog and paradigm shift that change and transformation can happen more easily.  In addition to leading Awakening Works, she speaks regularly on the topic of change, conducts workshops, and works with individuals who want more from life – faster.  She is a master-level NLP practitioner, registered hypnotherapist and uses various healing modalities to complement her coaching practice.

Prior to starting Awakening Works, Susan held various senior leadership roles in human resources at some amazing organizations, to include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Getty Images, Staples, Amazon, and W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc.

Photo Credit: Pink Sherbet Photography

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

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

My kids aren’t usually the snuggly type – sometimes I have to steal hugs.  Actually, I think they play a game with me because they make it pretty easy for me to catch them and hug them to pieces.   They’ve always been active and squirmy kids even as babies and I’m not sure what the snuggle factor depends on. 

I make it a point to hug them as often as I can during the day and say “I love you” to them.  And I LOVE it when they do it back to me – sometimes I will feel two little arms around me out of the blue and my heart just melts!

My son told me once that they were talking about hugs in class at school and that everyone needs to get 10 hugs during the day.  He gives them to me all at once when he remembers.  I wonder if there is an expert opinion on the required or recommended number of hugs and snuggles for kids? And for mommies and daddies?

How do much do your kids hug? Does it depend on the age? And I would love to know your ideas on how to increase the snuggle factor from kids?

I’m amazed at the fear I feel every time I feel like I want to be vulnerable with the world.  My first automatic thought is that “they’ll” think I’m some whiner.  The truth is, I’m allowed to be a whiner! I’ve finally accepted the fact that I have crappy days and I’m allowed to feel my emotions. I don’t have to have it all figured out and I don’t have to have all the answers – not instantly.  Sometimes not at all. 

I don’t expect perfection from my clients, my kids, or my husband – then why do I keep expecting it from myself? Hmmm…

So today as I was experiencing one of “those days” I decided to take a different approach.  Yes, I cried and I even thought “Why me? I want a happily ever after and I want it now!” for a few minutes. 

Then I got really mad. 

I got mad and I started taking action like never before on stuff that’s been on the back burner.  I didn’t feel like doing the usual to-do list so I looked at that back burner.  And you know what…? It felt good!

In fact, it fired up emotions, conviction, and the drive to do things differently.  It got me thinking outside the box.

I’m still mad and a little part of me still feels like it’s not fair.  But I’m actually really grateful that I took my anger and channeled it into moving myself forward instead of into chocolate or those really yummy chocolate chip bars I baked for the kids. 

I feel really empowered that I got the courage to share this too.  I know all moms have days and experience stuff that seems not fair.  Even those moms who pretend they don’t and those moms who don’t allow themselves to admit it. (I used to be one).

It’s liberating! Do it! Come clean with yourself and that alone will make you feel better!

For all moms (and dads) out there…what’s the biggest insight you’ve ever gotten out of one of “those days?”

We all have gifts that we can share with the world- we tell our kids they’re talented, and intelligent.  Parents tend to share their kids abilities and discount their own sometimes.

We also have a lot of baggage and tend not to discount this. In fact, I’m sure many of you know people who freely share their baggage with everyone they meet.

 Think about all the conversations you have with others, what do most of them consist of? “I could have done this, but here are all the reasons why I couldn’t, wouldn’t, didn’t, shouldn’t, etc.” 

 How many of you know someone like that or have even said those words yourself? Have you ever been around someone who just complains? Does their energy bring you down? Do you find yourself dreading a meeting with them because you just don’t want to hear it anymore?  There are people who are so negative that their energy just threatens to overwhelm us. 

 We all deal with stuff as we go through our lives. Our society here in the West doesn’t really teach us how to let go of this stuff.  As a kid and even as an adult, were you ever told to get over it and move on?  Do you ever hear yourself saying that to your children? 

 You may be thinking it’s easier said than done to “just get over it,” so why do we even say it?  The truth is, it is easy if you know how.

 There is nothing wrong with having stuff. After all, we’re all emotional beings and we experience loss, pain, frustration, and stress in different ways.  What’s important is how you deal with these emotional states once you experience them.  And how do you teach your kids to express their emotions safely and responsibly?

 You can make one of several choices. One, let the emotions go and learn from the situation. Two, bottle it up. Or Three, hold a grudge and share it with others. 

 Only one of these choices will free you from letting the past have a hold on you and allow you to live life in a positive state.  Be aware, though, that the choices you make are what your kids learn from you. 

 Bottling it up inside can have serious physiological side effects such as stress, dis-ease, or physical pain.  Sharing it with others is really just complaining and making excuses. If your listener is willing and wants to you then it’s definitely ok to talk about your stuff. But if you’re talking about it just to put it on the table and not actually do anything about it, then you’re just using the listener as a dumping ground. 

 So how do you choose to let your stuff go?  There are wonderful tools out there that help to do this and you can choose the one you feel is right for you.  Here are some ideas:

• Everything happens for a reason. When you find yourself in an emotionally charged stated think about what you can learn from the situation. Instead of focusing on the emotion focus on the learning.  Once you have the learning the emotion diffuses.
• Before you decide to share your stuff with someone think about why you’re sharing it. Is it because you want advise on how to solve a problem or just to complain? If you just want to complain, think about how your complaint and negativity will affect them. Will it make their day better?  What are some of your positive gifts that you could share instead?
• Write it down.  Putting negative emotions and thoughts on paper purges them from your mind. You can then do whatever you want with them like recycle them or bury them.
• Ask yourself how holding on to the baggage is serving you. Is it bringing positive things into your life? Is it moving you forward in the direction you want your life to go? If not, how would you rather think and feel about what happened in the past instead that would allow you to bring more positive change in your life?

 It’s good to share with others. We learn to share from our earliest years of life and we teach that to our children.  The key is to know what types of stuff we want to share and that is a life skill that your children would be lucky to learn.  What are some of the things you have taught your kids to share (other than toys)?

Have you ever witnessed your child(ren) say or do something that you don’t agree with?  A situation comes up and they react to it almost by instinct – and it’s not the best possible reaction they could have chosen.  I’ve seen and heard it happen in my own family.

Where did they learn to talk like that?  Where did that behavior come from?  School? Sports? TV?  It’s possible the kids learned it from one of those places.  However, the more probable answer is that they learned it from the parent.  That’s right, from us!

As parents we do the best we can with the resources and knowledge we have.  Our own reactions, responses and behaviours form our comfort zone we fall back on them especially when under stress.  They’re also very much unconscious which means we don’t realize we’re responding or behaving a certain way until it’s usually too late.  Or until we see someone else behaving that way and we don’t like it.  Especially if it’s our kids.

You may have heard that if there is something that you don’t like about another person it’s because you don’t like that same trait in yourself.  When our children learn our traits – the good and the bad, and we notice that they are behaving/responding in a way that we disagree with , it’s the perfect opportunity to look at ourselves and notice how we contributed to their learning this. 

What’s written at the subconscious level is not set in stone and can be changed.  This is good news for bad habits and beliefs.  As parents we want our children to learn the best things – and the best way to do that is to teach them by example. 

An important skill to teach our kids is how to deal with stress in a healthy way.  Now you may think that stress is a fact of life and they just have to deal with it because there is nothing that can be done.  (That’s a belief that may be causing you pain and dis-ease, by the way).  Yes, stress does tend to crop up in modern lifestyles – so how do we teach our kids to deal with it in a healthy way?

One way is to allow them to express emotions.  Bottling up negative emotions because we believe something like big boys/girls shouldn’t cry, yell, pout, or have other reactions when angry, sad, etc, causes our minds and bodies to become overloaded over time.  Teaching children that it’s ok to feel and express emotions in a responsible and safe way is an essential life skill. 

It’s also important to teach kids that their emotions are their choices – no one can really hurt our feelings or make us angry.  We choose to react in an angry or hurt way to situations and people.  When we have an abundance of negative emotions that we feel regularly it’s easier to get caught up in feeling even more negative.  By safely expressing or releasing of negativity we let go of stress and teach our children to do the same. 

By teaching and showing your kids that you handle stress and emotions in a balanced way, you are giving your kids a life skill for how to deal with adversity and challenge in life.

Successful people make decisions quickly even if they don’t have all the information.  Unsuccessful people tend to want to research more and know everything before they make a decision.  My coach Fabienne Fredrickson, underlines this every time we speak.  The reason successful people are able to make decisions so quickly is because they know what they want. They have clearly defined their vision and goals and are able to, in an instant, ascertain if a given decision will bring them closer or further away from that vision.

Imagine you have two weeks to have fun and relax on holidays.   You decided to get in your car and drive somewhere.  Without knowing where you are going on holidays you will spend the two weeks driving around, wasting energy and gas, and getting very frustrated. 

The unfortunate phenomenon is that some parents go through life like this – and create frustration for themselves and their family.  The kids learn this and end up repeating the same cycles in their own lives.

I’m not saying you need to write down goals for absolutely everything in your family life.  I do think that it’s good for parents to be on the same page and to know what types of life skills, values, and beliefs they want children to learn from them.  There are many important things to learn that are not necessarily taught in school. 

This is simple to do – have a conversation with your partner or with whoever is an influencer in your children’s lives and talk about what type of family dynamic you want to create.  What type of relationship do you want to have with your children?  How do you want to communicate with them? How do you want to help them have the best shot at success in life?

We’ve done this in our family and we can steer through situations and decisions easily because we know what we want.  Even with the things we can’t necessarily control, it’s easier to act or respond because we have a foundation from which we’re working together. 

Teaching your children about creating a vision and goals for your family will give them an incredible gift to do the same in all areas of their life.  Knowing where you’re going will make it easy for you to know when you get there.  I hear parents say all the time “I just want to be happy.” Well, if happiness hit you in the face, would you know it?  Of course, happiness is what we all want for our children and for ourselves – and we need to know what that means to us so that we don’t miss it when we get it.