We are instrumental
As more parent coaching websites, books and accounts pop up and grow and more therapists see the wisdom of working with families as a whole, it is indicative that a collective approach to healing and recovery is the most successful. This can be a tough one for us as parents – it is easier to place the focus and perhaps blame on ‘the patient’. We maybe have a whole world of guilt and questions and confusion lodged within us and disrupting our clear sight. It might feel like an admission of defeat or failure to put our hand up and ask for help. However, just as it is for our children, whom we love beyond measure – sometimes beneath the hurt and the anger and the disturbance – when we decide to put our hand up, to reach out, to step into connection and supporting ourselves, we have the power to change the whole dynamic. What we are signaling is that each and every one of us matter in this group dynamic of family and each and every one of us is human and fallible and willing to learn, willing to surrender pride to create a loving nucleus of respect and tolerance. And we are also willing to say NO. To understand where our love and our best intentions are not always supportive – that, as in every other area of life, sometimes we need some training in this, especially when he hit the challenge of loving a child who is struggling. This can mean learning alot about ourselves and about our family going back before us, about the culture and expectations of our family and the beliefs of those we grew up around. It’s also about learning where our reactions and responses to our child’s behaviour & choices are helpful or harmful – for them and for us. Often, in the difficulty and isolation of the situation, we can retreat further and remain stuck. We Thrive is a place where warm, open connection is always possible, where lived & shared experience has real power to heal and where, we as parents, can make great strides towards healing our family situation.
A couple of questions we can ask ourselves today are:
What am I responsible for?
What do I need to let go of?
This book by neuroscientist Hannah Critchlow, recommended to us by one of the We Thrive community (thank you so much) is a wonderful and powerful testament to the impact of collective thinking – ie to the power of the group. When we join hearts and minds and pool our intelligence and insights we can make great waves.
‘Our species’s innate drive to share information and seek out new approaches has evolved as a workaround to cope with the gaps in our individual knowledge and perspective. It means that humanity has been practicing collective intelligence ever since groups of our ancestors worked together to gather in the harvest; arguably since the first compassionate act that prioritized the wellbeing of the collective over an individual’s immediate needs.’
This applies to how we are as a parent community within We Thrive and also to how we operate as a family group, especially when facing challenges.
‘We can all think so much more intelligently about our interactions with one another, and our approaches to our biggest challenges. When we make the shift from ‘me’ to ‘we’ thinking, our worldview changes, our imagination is unleashed and every single one of us is able to contribute our unique viewpoint to humanity’s pool of intelligence.’
With great thanks to
Hector, 21
for his talk to us in June about his experience of growing up and living with ADHD and OCD and his ongoing recovery journey from alcohol addiction.
The power of sharing stories and experience between us as parents and them as our children is really important in creating understanding.
As Hector said: ‘I was thinking, listening to you all [after introductions] that it is easy to see parents as parents, and this shows that we’re all human at the end of the day and we’re all equally lost as each other sometimes. There is a conception of a parent as being in control or knowing what’s going on which isn’t always true.’
This is a 15 minute or so meditation to help us let go of habits of judgement and blame and to help us remember to soften and pay attention to what unites us:
‘We have deep conditioning to judge others and fuel a sense of separation. This guided meditation brings the mindfulness and compassion of RAIN to a relationship where we’ve gotten stuck in habitual blaming, and feel a sense of dividedness. This meditation offers a pathway for growing connection and love in our lives….. We don’t want to feel separate. We all want to feel included in each other’s hearts.’
– Tara Brach –