Burn out! The hidden epidemic.

Please check out my video's on my Youtube channel or like my Facebook Page for parenting support and information XX 

What is burn out?

Most of us know this term and have a basic understanding of the impact 'burning out' from work can have. I want to create some awareness today based on my own experiences of this predicament. I also want to highlight that burn out can occur in any situation, not just at work. You don't need to be a therapist or paramedic to experience it. You don't even need to be doing anything society would deem as high risk work. Burn out is more about you than your environment. 

Burn out occurs when you become triggered and overwhelmed consistently. I believe it creeps in gradually and grows as you continue to brush aside the warning signs. The less support you receive, the worse it becomes. The more toxic your environment, the worse it seems to impact you. 

Imagine a Pressure Cooker:

The way I would describe it would be to imagine a pressure cooker. All the ingredients inside the cooker are representative of your responsibilities and stress. They are all added as separate ingredients. You start off with control, cutting, peeling, preparing, tasting, seasoning and adding as you go along. You have an idea of what you would like this stew to turn into. You have an idea of what you like, what you don't like and take other stews you have made before into account. You also aspire to create a stew you have experienced someone else make before. You may even be following a recipe. Similarly to your life stresses, responsibilities and experiences, you can identify each part and it feels manageable as you add it into the pot of your life. You make an educated guess as to how much you can fit into the pot and you keep adding, keep adding, until you have cram packed as much as you can into the pot. You attempt to give it a stir to blend it but feel satisfied that if you leave it simmering, it will reduce and become cohesive. You secure on a lid and leave it simmering below the surface. 

This is a metaphor for what so many of us do with all the little stresses, problems, emotions and pressures in our own lives. We are all so busy and the world expects us to put one foot in front of the other at a growing pace. I hear the saying 'I can't afford to dwell on this' over and over again. We take on board so much information. We repress emotion after emotion. We get angry but hold it in. We 'can't afford to' get angry with our manager/boss/colleague. We feel tired but we 'can't afford to' rest, the kids need feeding, I have to do the shopping, I'm running out of clean underwear, my friends want to see me, I am behind at work... The list goes on. We push down our resentments, our hurt feelings, our fears, our irritations, our jealousy, our annoyance, our grief, our pride. We ignore our gut feelings and opt for things that we think we 'should' be doing. We criticise ourselves when we don't meet our own expectations or those of other people. We berate ourselves for how we look, mistakes we make and just about anything that we feel is 'not good enough. These are all ingredients we unknowingly add to the pressure cooker.

The steam starts to whistle:

The pressure is on, the lid is sealed and the heat starts rising. The pot is like our bodies and the lid is like the walls we put up to lock all our internal pressure inside us. It starts to feel explosive. The pot starts to feel too small, too constricting. The biggest indicator of burn out is a feeling of pressure. This pressure becomes harder and harder to bare. Steam is released violently through the tiniest hole and keeps the pot from exploding. 

When we are starting to burn out, we also release small amounts of pressure each time we reach exploding point. This can come out in many different ways. We may snap at our loved ones, scream at the TV, burst into tears over the smallest thing or throw something against the wall. We may find we feel certain emotions at the drop of a hat and feel really sensitive, taking so much personally. We may start finding tasks that once seemed easy have started to feel like a hike up Everest. We may start losing interest in things we once considered fun and don't feel much like socialising. We may feel drained and fatigued, even at the thought of doing things.We may struggle to sleep at night or find ourselves restless and waking up regularly. The pressure feels so overwhelming, the best way I can describe it is a 'feeling of wanting to run away, avoid it or escape in some way'. People who aren't able to literally run away may find escape in substances and addictions. It is ALL consuming, this pressure sits with you day and night.

Why does it get so bad?

This is easy to answer but not so easy to do. We are scared to take the lid off the pressure cooker. We fear an internal explosion as much as we fear the rush of burning steam in our face if we take the lid off when it feels this way. It feels like a lose lose situation. You want relief but you don't feel the release will be a relief. You feel trapped, desperately clinging to keep the lid on. The best way to keep the lid on but reduce the pressure...stop adding anything more in. You seem to come to this conclusion unconsciously while you consciously beat yourself up for not being able to handle the pressure. Your body, mind and emotional experiences SLOW DOWN. You are simply unable to cope with too many tasks. Many people have no choice but to stop working altogether. This is not a choice, it is a necessity. Your body and mind go into a state of survival. Your physical and mental presentation forces you into respite whether you like it or not. Your emotions are in control, emotions you don't understand and feel at the mercy of.

Survival = Fear

When you look more deeply at this survival reaction and state of being, you can see the core emotion 'fear' at the heart of it. Overwhelm, worry, stress, anxiety, jealousy, pressure, insecurity etc, are all associated emotions of fear. The heart of burn out must therefore have a base line of fear. The one associated emotion I didn't mention, that is not as obvious, is safety. Emotional safety. When I said burn out is more about you than your environment, that is what I meant. It is about safety. People who have had fear regulated in childhood will cope better with external stress. Whether it means resigning from a toxic job, asking for help, standing up for yourself, or taking care of yourself better, those people who have a healthy relationship with the emotional experience of fear will open that pressure cooker lid and release the steam and pressure. They will find a way to lower the heat. They will be able to find a way to see the situation as separate from who they fundamentally are. The only thing standing between you and the release is a fear of fear itself. Go figure!

Put your needs first, always!

Many people will cringe at this heading and think I have lost my marbles. I am talking about emotional needs. These should never be compromised. Emotional needs are not the same as your expectations on other people to make you feel good. No, emotional needs are from your childhood. They come from your inner child who has been emotionally neglected in some areas. You have unprocessed emotional trauma's and these come out in the form of triggers and reactions. When something in your current environment triggers you emotionally, your child self reacts to that original trauma. As you are unconscious of this, it feels too large, you want to bury it back inside. Put it back in the pot and hope it boils away on it's own.

Burn out happens when you can no longer hold in all the pressure.  It takes so long to recuperate from because you are dealing with layers of trauma, past and present. The more you stay in a place of external blame (as a victim), the longer it will take. The more you ignore your reactions to the pressure and continue to plough ahead anyway, the more of an impact it will have on you. To identify your needs you have to get real with yourself. You have to ask yourself some difficult questions. You need to be willing to feel the burn of the steam. You need to find a way to trust your own inner resources to cope with your own difficult emotions. You are stronger than you may think. The fact that you think you will crumble is a lie you have told yourself because no-one has told you otherwise in your childhood. Fear is not your enemy. No emotion is harmful.

Stop the stigma, Burn out is MASSIVE!

Burn out affects you on just about all levels. Not just in your body, mind and emotions but it gets into your relationships, your ability to function, your health, your self perception, your parenting, your focus and your dreams. It is a serious condition and is minimised in many work situations and circles. People who have not experienced it do not understand how bad it can get. It almost wears a label of 'weakness'. I believe this occurs in the same way triggers do. It is seen as an overreaction and this is seen in a negative way. People are judged because of their inability to cope with otherwise 'easy' or manageable tasks. This further compounds the problem.

When I experienced burn out, I was working at an organisation that understood the risk of burn out on paper. As an individual, however, I was treated as the problem. I was making mistakes and failing to keep up with tasks I would normally be able to do. I was not met with support. I was met with criticism. At one point I was being called into my manager's office once or twice a week to be reprimanded. I would have walked out and run a mile if it hadn't been for my client's. I didn't listen to my gut and pushed through extreme levels of anxiety in order to complete tasks and close my cases (I worked right up until the end of my contract). That is probably why people in my industry or any industry that works with vulnerable people experience higher levels of burn out. We find it hard to walk away or put our own needs first. 

Looking back:

Looking back, I needed to leave and heal my own trauma. I was being triggered every single day. I was unable to process what was going on for me and was using all my energy on my clients and the families I was supporting. I was becoming a shell of myself. I was extremely angry, especially when I was being criticised for something I was unable to help. I was angry at the lack of support, compassion and understanding I received. I was, and needed to be for a time, seeing myself as a victim.

As I healed, I learn't a lot about my own responsibilities. I realised I was cut off from myself. I placed the job ahead of my health. I didn't look after myself enough and I judged myself more than anyone was judging me. I had fast become my own abuser. It took me a long time to heal and I have made a number of changes because of this. I no longer see this as a bad experience, rather I see it as a very powerful learning experience. I will never allow myself to reach this point of burn out again and you guys don't have to either. Put your needs first, always! Life is too short to put yourself at risk in this way. The earlier you recognize the signs, the more time you have to get yourself out safely and with minimal impact. 

Take Care,

Paula XX  

My Evolving Relationship with 'Fear'

Please check out my video's on my Youtube channel or like my Facebook Page for parenting support and information XX 

I have felt a need to share some of my own experiences with the emotion 'Fear' today. It has been something that I have been actively processing, working on and making sense of for a number of months now. There are many experiences and variations of this emotion in my own life and in the lives of those closest to me and it is certainly not an easy emotion to get my head around. That said, which ones are!

We struggle to admit to our deep set fears:

One common theme I am starting to see more of is a fear of fear itself. Anyone who has read some of my earlier writing will know that I have lived with Anxiety for most of my life. I am pleased to say that I have healed from this in so many ways and I am at a point in my life where I am able to use my own experiences to conceptualise how I would like to work as a psychotherapist and practitioner but also in my personal life. 

Anxiety is a fear based disorder. I have unpacked so many of my deep set fears and this has been a gradual and difficult process. Fear comes out in the form of instability, insecurity and worry amongst other things. We do not live in a world that accepts these traits, let alone help you with them. Many of you, like me, will have shame attached to your fear. This is because we were shamed for feeling fear as children. We were either dismissed, ignored, left to soothe ourselves or our emotions were unintentionally unattended to.

We may have had parents that tried to change how we were feeling and would say things like 'you have nothing to be afraid of' or would distract us from our emotional experience. The very act of our fear being stomped out and not processed often creates shame. The way the world seems to repress emotions shows me that unless something changes, we will continue down this path without realising it. This is shown to me time and time again. Unfortunately we seldom get our needs met by other people when we are feeling scared, insecure or unstable. We often don't meet other people's needs when they feel that way too. The shame associated with our fear means that we often feel like fear is a weakness or embarrassing. We feel that we are going to be seen in a negative light for admitting to our vulnerability and insecurity. The truth is though, this often is the case! So many of us have an unhealthy and avoidant relationship with fear. This stems from childhood.

My personal discovery:

Throughout my healing journey I have been piecing things together. I have been trying to make sense of my patterns, behaviours, feelings, reactions, memories and triggers. I have been exploring and re-experiencing my emotions predominantly through inner child work processes. I have had to admit that I, like most people, have fallen prey to childhood emotional neglect. This is something that has run through many generations in my family. Emotional regulation continues to be a rather foreign concept and was certainly not known in my childhood growing up in South Africa. My mother had much of her own emotional trauma, so did my grandparents. No one taught any of us how to cope with difficult emotions such as fear. Strength and courage were applauded traits in my family, which is not a bad thing in the slightest. The problem comes in when the interpretation of strength comes to mean an 'absence' of fear. This is a false belief and one many people hold. This belief, in my opinion, is one of the most destructive forms of thinking we have. It creates an unhealthy relationship with this emotion and people develop a deep set shame because fear is unavoidable. It is one of our core emotions, we all experience it!

Fear builds up and is experienced in many different ways!

Well intentioned deception: 

I personally had a mother who liked to tell me that everything was OK and I had nothing to worry about. Looking back, I knew full well that this was not the case. I have been remembering many occasions where I have picked up on the stress and hardship in the home. I knew we had financial struggles. I knew my mother found it difficult to cope. I knew that my mother felt bad about herself. I knew that my uncle had gone missing on a sailing trip to Portugal and that my mother was staying up all hours of the night calling the Red Cross in various parts of the world. I could hear my mother and grandmother cry. I knew something was horribly wrong. I knew so much more then my mother could possibly have imagined. If I tried to express my worry, I was 'reassured' that everything was OK and there was nothing to worry about. This seemed to be a trend.

This continued throughout my childhood and into my teenage years. My mother continued to deteriorate under a pressure she refused to acknowledge to me. Our financial situation was dire and it was extremely obvious. There is nothing like no petrol in the car to drive this point home (excuse the pun). My mother was unemployed and shutting herself off from the world. Instead of attending to my fears and providing reassurance, validation and inclusion, she hid from the world. She taught me how to do the same in so many ways. This was her shame. She was frightened and was too embarrassed to ask for help, especially from my grandparents.  My grandmother refused acknowledge how bad things were for us and tried to motivate my mother by being critical. Thus my mothers' fears were punished due to my grandmothers fears. No one had any control, least of all me. It was no wonder I developed an Anxiety disorder that manifested in the form of needing to control my environment and struggling to trust other people. My environment was riddled in a survival based fear from the get go. I was never taught how to process my fear, I carried it inside me and it started to grow and permeate all aspects of my being as the years went on.

I learnt that the only person I could rely on was myself:

I developed a severe and unconscious problem with trust. I over compensated for this in ways that made me out to be overly trusting. This was such a good deception I even had myself fooled. It was a coping mechanism for my shame as we seem to do everything in our power to hide the truth when coming from a place of not feeling worthy or as if we are different from everyone else. The truth was though, I was let down again and again, particularly in my personal relationships. The love I experienced always felt extremely conditional. In many ways it was but this was partly due to the fact that I was not being true to myself. The self love I had was almost non existent. What love I did feel towards myself was the most conditional of all.

I let people down too. I valued honesty on the surface but deep down my inner child laughed at this concept. The world is unsafe she said to me. People will abandon you, they will dismiss you, you need to act a certain way in order to keep people in your life and on your side. Due to this childhood trauma around my fear, I developed the belief that people only liked me for what I could do for them in their lives. I had no money or nice things. I did, however, have a real knack for helping people with their personal problems. I was an excellent shoulder to cry on and ear to listen. I became the resident Agony Aunt. Good thing I love this role, in fact I chose to make this my profession. The problem was though, I never felt as if people liked me for me. In certain friendships and many romantic relationships, this was certainly the case. This was one of the hardest realisations I have had to face up to. The more I learn about myself,the more I realise that people couldn't have liked me for me because the real me was very lost. I didn't even know who I was outside of my practical identity (student, daughter, female, loves cats, has a sense of humour etc). The fear was so ingrained and I was so conditioned to act a certain way or I feared I would be ostracised or lose my sense of belonging in the world. It felt like the only person I could truly rely on in the world was myself. I struggled to trust anyone and still do if I am to be honest. I find it very hard to let people truly help me, especially emotionally. 

Fear is not and has never been the enemy:

I have called this blog 'My Evolving Relationship with Fear' because my understanding of my fear is continuously evolving and transforming. If I had to go into all my childhood issues we would be here for a year. From fear of the dark to fear of snakes to fear of being alone...I had many. We all do. Children are experiencing the world for the first time and fear is a natural part of this. Fear is not a bad emotion at all. Our reactions and resistances to fear are what cause us hardship and struggle. It is our experience in the world that determines what we find threatening and frightening. The less we are attended to emotionally, the more we will struggle to feel safe in the world. The more our emotional needs are not met, the less skills we will have to cope with life's challenges and the less self esteem and self trust we will have.

One thing I have recently thought about is my fear around very real danger. Living in South Africa with an extremely high crime rate means that safety is a very physical reality to this day. My house was not very safe and we didn't have much security in place. My mother had a responsibility to keep me physically safe and in this area she was unable to, predominantly for financial reasons. I lived with a high level of genuine and relevant Anxiety on a daily basis and in the end, my worst fear came true and my mother was murdered in our home. One could argue that the fact that my mother dismissed my fears and ignored her own had tragic consequences. Fear is often there to alert us to harm and danger. That is how it has been designed. As a child we are powerless to gain control in terms of our living environment. This feeling of powerlessness is where the link to shame comes in.

Emotions are here to benefit us, not make us suffer!

We become so cut off from our difficult emotions that we lose touch with the benefits of them. We turn off our internal guidance system that is really the basis of our authenticity. We cannot be our true selves without having a relationship with our emotions. We can't pick and choose what emotions we feel, this creates a mask that will end up making us sick and impacting our relationships. Most importantly though, we cannot have a positive relationship with ourselves and who we genuinely are without having a relationship with our emotions.

Most of the time we are really fearing the shadows from our past!

Lots of love

XX Paula

Emotional Triggers: What are they and how do they affect us?

Please check out my video's on my Youtube channel or like my Facebook Page for parenting support and information XX 

Most people will have heard of the term 'being triggered'. How many of us actual understand what that really means? This blog is for everyone as we ALL have emotional triggers to varying degrees. It is especially important for parents to understand what these are as they will influence how you parent. The number one area triggers seem to emerge for us is within our relationships, particularly our romantic relationships. Today I am going to explain what triggers are, how they work, the impact they have on our lives and how we can recognise them so that we can gain control back.

What are 'triggers'?

Triggers can also be called 'overreactions'. This has a negative connotation though and doesn't do any justice to the impact these triggers can have on us. This goes a lot deeper than simply 'being dramatic' or'seeking attention'.  We have an overreaction to something in the present, absolutely, but the reason for this overreaction or trigger is very much in proportion to the feelings and associations in our unconscious that have been brought about by past emotional trauma. In other words: Something in the present that we have become upset about is unconsciously reminding us of an emotional trauma in our past. Rather than seeking attention,we are seeking to get our emotional needs met that have otherwise not been met in childhood.

Childhood Emotional Trauma:

Childhood emotional trauma is actually unavoidable, I hate to be the bearer of bad news. This is because children do not have the brain development to make sense of their worlds outside of feelings and emotions. The thinking part of their brain develops later on. If children do not understand certain emotions and are not taught how to handle difficult emotional experiences, they are unable to understand and work through what they are going through. This means that they have not been able to get their emotional needs met and the experience becomes traumatic. When our emotional needs are not met we unconsciously develop ways to cope with this difficult emotional experience. As children we are not equipped to find healthy ways to do this for ourselves so the behaviours and unconscious strategies we adopt to cope with our difficult feelings will often become hindering and even harmful to our well-being later on. We bury these experiences deep down in our psyche and are often completely unaware of the impact they are having on our lives. Things go wrong, relationships break down, we develop low-self esteem, become very hard on ourselves etc. and will often ask ourselves: What is wrong with me or why do I keep doing this?

Most parents do their best to meet their children's needs but it is impossible to fully meet every need as the child does not have words to explain what is wrong or what they want. Emotional needs are often far more difficult to identify as they are not commonly known. Most people know about physical needs and do a great job with these. It is. however, very important for parents to understand the concept of emotional needs too as this will determine how we see ourselves, the world and other people. Many people find it very difficult to view their parents in a negative light and I was one of those people too. It is one of the hardest things to admit this to yourself, that your emotional needs may not always have been met. By being an adult who makes mistakes it is actually unreasonable to presume your parents did not make some mistakes too. That is normal and human. That doesn't mean you have not been affected by them though and to turn things around and gain back control you will need to honestly look at yourself, how you react and behave and where this all began.

An example of an emotional trauma:

As a baby you were scared in your cot at night by yourself. You did not have the brain development to understand that your parents were in the next room and you started screaming and crying because you were afraid that you were all alone. Your parents may have believed in the technique of leaving a baby to 'cry it out'and self soothe - this was and still is a popular strategy and is seldom done with the intent to create harm. In fact parents often struggle with it but persist as they believe it is the right thing to do.
Babies run on survival instinct and they will instinctively know that they need someone to keep them alive. If no-one attends to their fear by coming into the room and comforting them, anxiety will be created. If parents are inconsistent and the child is not regularly attended to, this may create an emotional trauma around fear and their sense of safety in the world.

The Impact: If inconsistency persists in the home and fear is not properly regulated, the impact of this early experience will be greater. People are all unique and how this under regulated fear will present and become triggered later on will be dependent on many factors. These factors are likely to include things like: Your personality, gender, other past experiences, your home life and environment, your insight and awareness and many more.
Perhaps the person will become either extremely clingy and dependent or become so used to self-soothing that they become emotionally distant and unable to rely on other people. This baby may grow up to realise that she 'overreacts' when her boyfriend does not come home when he said he would. This original fear will often come out in the form of other emotions such as anger, frustration, jealousy etc. The reaction is actually happening because the unconscious mind is making an association between the fear from childhood and the triggered fear of her boyfriend not coming home (fear of abandonment). Regardless of how each individual reacts, deep down they do not feel not secure and trust was therefore not developed between child and parent around emotional and/or physical safety. Thus a deep set anxiety or avoidance is developed within us unconsciously.

 Triggers and abuse:

I have clearly stated that we all have triggers and will have struggles from time to time in certain areas. It is up to each individual to decide whether they are happy with how they feel, regardless of the hiccups along the way, or whether these patterns and reactions are creating problems and require change. Awareness of what triggers are and that they are linked to deeper set beliefs and experiences may be enough for some people to create some changes if desired.

There are many people who are very affected by their triggers and are at the mercy of their reactions. Often this comes in the form of blame. This can be to the point where their triggers are having a negative impact on their life and their ability to function and be happy and healthy,particularly within relationships. In other words these triggers may be causing harm or have become destructive. This is when we need to look a little deeper as this often comes from a place of  child abuse and/or childhood emotional neglect. The impact of emotional trauma is much greater when their are other forms of abuse and neglect occurring. This is often cyclic and parents who have been abused and have unmet emotional needs parent children based on their capabilities and what they have been taught.

Triggers play a large role in this as people who have abusive pasts will be triggered by their own trauma more regularly and extensively. This is due to the lack of trust in their past caregivers, the world and inherently themselves later on. The world becomes a frightening place deep down and life seems to be all about survival. Becoming a parent increases the risk of being triggered for many people and there will be regular reminders of their own emotional needs and childhood trauma.You will often find this with a reaction of anger and physical aggression. The child may bring on a sense of powerlessness and overwhelm to the parent. This trigger's the parents shame and in order to regain that sense of power, the parent lashes out in anger. This is one of many examples. Parents who have not been taught love will have a hard time showing love. Parents who have been shamed or put down or violated will  often have a hard time creating boundaries and structure. They may also have a hard time being fully present. Some parents create too much structure and become almost Draconian in their parenting styles out of fear of losing control.
Often triggers and the pain and discomfort they arouse will become too much for people and they will find a way to escape or self-medicate (substance abuse, addictions, dissociation etc.). It is not hard to see why people who have been abused often go on to abuse later on. Some children bully other children for the same reasons, they are desperately trying to gain back a sense of power and control.

How do we recognise a trigger?

We are all different and the best way to recognise a trigger is to look at your reactions in relation to the situation. I have put together a few key points to assist you with this (there are many more and these are some guidelines to get you started):

• Look at how upset you have become and honestly ask yourself if this is proportionate.
• Look at who or what has made you upset and ask yourself if this has happened before in a similar situation
• Are you having physical reactions, if so, what are they and what emotion are they associated with
• Are you under-reacting or feeling 'numb' or apathetic when you feel you 'should' be upset
• Are you unable to let this go
• Are you thinking negatively about yourself or other people
• Are you feeling emotional or fragile
• Do you want to withdraw or hide away from the world
• Are you so angry you can think of nothing else
• Are you struggling to calm down
• Do you feel resentment towards someone for 'making you feel a certain way'
• Are you feeling threatened despite no immediate threat
• Do you feel as if this reaction is 'taking over'
• Do you feel panic when thinking of a potential outcome
• Do you feel disgust to the point of feeling sick in the stomach
• Do you feel you need to fight hard to get your point across and be right
• Are you worried about what people think of you

Making changes:

The best way to tackle a trigger is to recognize when it is happening and be brave enough to explore your feelings around this. The key to change lies in understanding where it has come from and how it is impacting you. Some people don't like the idea of looking back into the past and that is ok too. It will mean that although you will not be attending to the trigger and meeting those emotional needs (healing), you can still gain back a sense of control through recognition and awareness. 

Ask yourself: When have I felt this way before. Go as far back as you can remember. Learn about the emotions behind your triggers and make a point of meeting your own emotional needs. Allow the emotions to come. Soothe yourself instead of beating yourself up. If fear is at the heart of it, deliberately create safety and comfort yourself. If you are angry, find healthy ways to release this emotion (creatively or physically). If you feel shame and disgust towards yourself, be mindful or how you are thinking and treating yourself. Focus on your strengths and do things that make you feel good. If you are feeling sadness and sorrow or even despair, comfort yourself and be gentle and loving towards yourself. Take active and deliberate steps to attend to your own needs. Sometimes this means asking for help. Work on your communication skills. Be honest with yourself about what you need and start making plans to achieve this. Get some therapeutic support if you need to. You have the power to take the power back without causing destruction or harm to yourself or others.  

Remind yourself that when you are being triggered it is about YOU and your needs, not the situation. Therefore you will not find comfort in 'fixing' the situation, the answers to feeling better lie within XX

Take care,

Paula

You deserve peace of mind! 

    

Anxiety! My experiences with healing my own Childhood Emotional Neglect.

Please check out my video's on my Youtube channel or like my Facebook Page for parenting support and information XX 

Anxiety is very common and nothing to be ashamed of!

Most people will experience a level of anxiety at some point. Most of us know this to be 'stress'. Whether you have an anxiety disorder or whether life has gotten the better of you and you are struggling with the feelings of stress and anxiety, it can be very hard to deal with.

I could come at this from a more clinical perspective and tell you that Anxiety is a fear based disorder classified as 'excessive worry' by the DSM-V (Diagnostic and statistical Manual used to categorize and label mental health illnesses). Instead I would like to talk about this in a more real, experiential way, sharing my experiences and how I have worked through and with my own anxiety. As with all illnesses, there are some common symptoms but every person is unique and will have their own experiences. I am no different. Hopefully this will help you to view anxiety a bit differently and approach your own stress in a slightly different frame of mind.

My Journey with Anxiety:

I have experienced 'stress' for as long as I can remember. I feel my anxiety in my body more than anything. Anxiety is a very physical disorder for many people due to the inability to relax and the high levels of worry that you may experience. Your body starts to react which I found increased my worry and made me feel trapped in this state of hypersensitivity. When I am anxious I tend to feel a great deal of pressure. The feelings of anxiety will latch on to relevant issues in my life that deserve a bit of stress but my reactions far outweigh the problem. Much of the time I manage this without people being aware. One of the worst mental pitfalls of anxiety that I experience is rumination. Thoughts that go round and round. Playing conversations in my head over and over. Having imaginary fights with people, even strangers, often based on me lashing out in defence to perceived threats or insults. None of this is warranted, none of it worthy of the amount of energy I expend. I end up mentally exhausted and angry. I become frustrated and angry with myself and often feel ashamed at my inability to control this. The negative, judgemental self talk starts. I feel defeated and want to escape, run away and start again. The light at the end of the anxiety attack seems very distant and at times I can't imagine it being there.

For me, mental exercises such as stopping thoughts and re-framing thoughts is difficult. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy works well for some people but for me, it added to my mental exhaustion and didn't fit. I never went to a CBT therapist, I did a group when in the UK and found the whole process to be a great learning opportunity (budding psychotherapist that I am) but in no way helpful or applicable. In fact one of the members was clearly grieving and had been lumped in this group without being fully assessed. The mental health system can be like this at times. We are so hell bent on finding a quick fix, evidence based solution that the government will fund that individual experiences and the acknowledgement of people having complex life experiences falls by the wayside.

The impact of Childhood Emotional Neglect:

Anxiety is often a product of emotional neglect in childhood. I have learnt a great deal in my own healing journey and would very much like to share this with you all. Emotional neglect is a bit different from emotional abuse, which we associate with emotionally manipulating people in order to control them or put them down. Childhood emotional neglect is a bit different and possibly one of the most damaging forms of abuse. It is often not deliberate at all and I hesitated calling it abuse. It occurs when parents or carers fail to effectively meet their child's emotional needs. Children are not attended to emotionally and they are not taught how to manage their emotions. Often this is because parents have not had their own emotional needs met. It is generational. Fear stems from instability and a lack of safety in the world. When needs are consistently not met in childhood this creates anxiety from an early age. Anxiety is a tough one to identify though as stress is such a common state. I remember being in a pharmacy looking for a vitamins and chose one that was good for stress. The pharmacist asked me if I was stressed and I replied 'Who isn't?' She said to me that she wasn't and looked taken aback by my response. I started to wonder if my stress was unusual.

The Key to my healing lay in my emotions:

I learn't in therapy and through my own personal growth and professional knowledge that instead of trying to change my thinking patterns, I needed to understand my emotions. I needed to understand what my child self went through on a feeling level. I had become so cut off from my felt sense, from how I experience things in my body. I was unable to connect to many of my feelings, I stayed in the realm of thinking and intellectualising. I inherently had to learn how to do this again. Meditation was key for me. I struggled a great deal at first. I find doing this whilst being open to exploring your true feelings and experiences in a safe and guided manner is the most helpful. I needed to work on some deep set beliefs I had been holding for most of my life. I have had a lot of shame and am still muddling through this aspect of myself.

People don't just develop Anxiety for no reason:

The release for me has been confronting my anxiety and the reasons for it head on. I do not believe some people 'just develop it'. This is a myth and centred around our denial and resistance to looking at how we have been parented. This is not a criticism at all. I know first hand how guilty you can feel seeing the people who gave you so much as being the people who hurt you emotionally. Let me tell you though, once I worked through my attachment issues with my mother, I realised one day that my memories of her had changed for the better. The very memories that induced so much pain have been re-framed in my mind and I was seeing them more fondly. I understood her, I saw her for who she was and loved her more deeply than I was ever able to. In working on my childhood pain with a therapist that I trusted I was able to release the intense emotions attached to my trauma. I learnt how to be the parent to myself and identify my own needs and meet them for myself. This process is tough and so much comes to the surface before it can be released. This means the intensity heightens and you have to be aware of the process or you may just want to retreat back into your shell (believe me, that's normal). Should you persist, you WILL overcome it and come out so much stronger. Each challenge becomes that little bit easier. You find strength to work on yourself in ways which you never thought possible. You look at patterns in your life that no longer serve you. You start feeling a sense of self love you never thought was possible. This takes time but something I always felt was that although there is pain, it's NEW pain. It sure beats the same old ruminations and stress.

Learning how to trust my true feelings:

Not all therapist's believe in this. Working on your childhood attachment trauma when suffering from anxiety or any mental illness is the key. It allows you to release and purge this unwanted baggage and change in a way that you can't possibly go backwards from. You learn HOW to work on yourself and WHY you are feeling the way you do. You learn how to feel and trust your feelings. You learn about who you are. I no longer struggle in the same way. I get triggered at times but I allow those triggers to surface and I observe them, my behaviour and work through my emotions. Like I said, you learn how to work on yourself, on your shadow self.

Don't lose hope!

Anxiety is not a life sentence and you don't need to stop your thoughts or change anything. On the contrary you need to observe them, accept them and reflect on them. Let them guide you. Focus on your feelings, really work hard at being in the present and with whatever you are experiencing. Be kind to yourself and hang in there!

Take care,
Paula X

Shame on me, Shame on you

Please check out my video's on my Youtube channel or like my Facebook Page for parenting support and information XX

Hi folks,

This was always going to be a tricky blog to write because of the vast impact the emotion SHAME has on pretty much all cultures and groups of people. And to be the bearer of bad news, the links to the negative impact of this emotion stem from childhood and how this emotion is misunderstood, under regulated or even inflicted by parents and/or guardians of the child. This topic can be triggering for people who have experienced trauma in the form of shame and I urge you to notice how you feel and pay attention to any resistances that emerge for you. Treat yourself with love and compassion when tackling shame.

What is Shame?

Let me start off by explaining shame a bit as it can often be confused with 'guilt'. Guilt is when you feel you have done something wrong. Shame is when you feel that your being or who you are is fundamentally wrong. Still confused?
Shame basically makes you feel inadequate or lacking in some way (or all ways) on a deep, personality/character, fundamental level. People who feel this way spend their lives attempting to hide this from the world. It becomes so ingrained that you begin to hide your shame from yourself unconsciously. Like me, many of you will be completely unaware of your shame but well aware of your insecurities and fears. So many of us have insecurities it actually becomes unusual not to have them. Some cultures, like mine, celebrate a level of humility and look down on over confidence and high self esteem. A certain level of shame is almost expected and considered normal in some Western cultures.
Have a think about yourself and your levels of self esteem, I have described a few,what I call 'shame bombs' below:
Perhaps you hate getting in a swimming costume in front of others or have issues with you body or the way you look. Perhaps you get intimidated really easily and feel your opinion will be laughed at or put down. Perhaps you struggle to trust your significant other or friends. Perhaps you have a fiery temper and are unable to control it and your reactions. Perhaps you have an addiction of some sort or battle with substance abuse (Some of you may be familiar with the term 'Dutch courage',which is fondly used to describe how alcohol frees your inhibitions and makes you brave). Perhaps you have a phobia or suffer from a mental illness (eg depression, anxiety, bi-polar, borderline personality disorder, narcissism etc). Perhaps you are either the perpetrator or victim of domestic violence. Think of the impact of low self - esteem, what kinds of feelings associate with this way of being.What does shame FEEL like?

I have discovered my own shame in my journey of self discovery. Perhaps to ease the blow of your own shame being identified, it may help you to hear about mine.

My Journey of self discovery:

I had no idea I was sitting on a bed of shame. What I knew is that I had something big inside that was unprocessed and frightened me. If you start to study psychology and counselling, you develop a theoretical knowledge about things like shame. You know that to work with shame therapeutically you work in a similar way to trauma, carefully and gently. Despite having a real interest in this emotion, I did not make the links to my own experiences and reactions. Those who have read my previous blog will know I lost my mother when I was 17. I always attributed my unexplored pain or what I called my 'vault' to unprocessed grief and some issues I had with my mother as a teenager that were not resolved when she was killed. I am a person who reflects and is not afraid to work on herself. I believe in this process and feel it is vital to understand my way of being and experiences in order to help other's understand theirs. I never ask anyone to go anywhere I wouldn't go myself.

The problem was, I had no idea what I was up against and despite numerous efforts to resolve my grief I was struggling with anxiety and feeling like I was losing myself more and more, the closer I moved into my profession. This was actually quite the opposite. I was starting to grow frustrated with how I was reacting to things. The more I worked with children and families, the more I started to burn out. It was my eventual burn out at the end of the year that pushed me into therapy with someone I chose specifically. My therapist is also my mentor and I absolutely love how he works and thinks. This is important.The relationship between you and your therapist is fundamental. Why you may ask, because this process requires trust and vulnerability. You need to work up to a level of trust to allow yourself to revisit your childhood or perhaps a better way of looking at this is 'inner child work'.

My mum was empathic, loving and warm. Not a day went by that she didn't tell me she loved me when she was alive. Anyone who knew her would be shocked to hear me speaking like this. I did not accept any of this easily either. Week after week I tried to resist this concept, this shame. In terms of attachment (relationship bond, critical to healthy childhood development) I am not secure. To be specific, I have an 'insecure preoccupied' attachment style from an 'anxious ambivalent attachment' [John Bowlby's attachment theory - for those wanting to know more]. What this means in non clinical terms is that my mum was inconsistent at times and I lacked boundaries. My mum struggled to say no and despite very early childhood discipline such as spanking and enforcing rules, I was often given far too much control and say in my upbringing as my childhood progressed. If my mum was unhappy about something, she placed the decision on my shoulders but made me feel guilty for 'wrong' decisions. I lacked guidance in the form of structure and routine. My mum lacked conviction and confidence in her rules. I ruled the roost. My attachment style means that my mum and I were very expressive and close but our emotions were far too entangled and volatile. I was always mature for my age, due to being given too much responsibility too early on, which encouraged the belief that I was able to hear things that were not always appropriate for my age. This was not limited to my mother, most adults forget my age and still do. The role of child and parent was often confused and not clearly defined. I have always been pretty good with my brain and learnt how to manipulate situations into my favour from very early on. We all create defence mechanisms and these are dependent on many things, namely our personality and family culture I believe.

My Shame started as a baby:

Unfortunately this did not all begin in childhood. It started earlier than that. And this is difficult to convey because I do not have clear memories. My shame started as a baby. Shame may occur when needs are neglected. I want to stress that none of this was intentional in my case although I am aware that this is not true for everyone. I have discovered that I wasn't consistently attended to. I had to piece bits of memories together like a puzzle. I wont go into detail but will share a few. I remember my mother saying things like she was lucky if I slept 20 minutes at a time. I remember her suggesting to a young mum to leave her baby to'cry it out' at night. I have seen a photo of my extreme distress when having a bath. I have temperature issues now which suggest I was not attended to in terms of being too hot or too cold. My mother believed that babies don't feel the cold like adults do. So as you can see, there are little things, often based on beliefs from that era, that show neglect but not intentionally. I also needed to take into account the fact that my mum was a single parent, we struggled financially, my mum had her own past trauma's and had health issues (osteoporosis). I have a suspicion she may have suffered from Post Natal Depression, but not much was known back then and support certainly wouldn't have been free in South Africa.

I want to highlight the most important part in this - inconsistency. As a little baby, without thoughts or brain development outside of instincts and drives, I was completely dependent on my single mother to keep me alive. If I needed something, I would have cried or cooed and attempted to get attention. As a baby, my instinct would have been one of extreme fear and anxiety if my needs were not met. This is because on an instinctual level I knew I would literally die if not attended to or left alone in the world. Thus if you leave a baby to cry and cry and ignore them, this creates fear and anxiety due to survival needs. This can be true for children in their formative years too (under 4 or 5 years old). When the child is hungry but does not get fed, or feeling pain but does not get comforted and looked after, or is cold but does not get given something to keep them warm etc, the child becomes insecure. The world does not feel like a safe place. They are not able to understand the complex reasons for why the parent is not attending to them. When a baby is unable to see or sense their parent or an adult, they do not have the brain development to understand that the parent still exists and will come back. They learn that they are not worthy of this attention or the attention is conditional if parents are continuously inconsistent in meeting needs and this creates 'shame'. Even babies will start adapting their behaviour to attempt to get their needs met, thus learning they have to be something else in order to receive love. They live with a fundamental fear and as the years go on this fear and belief that they are unworthy becomes completely embedded and internalised. They learn that being who they are and acting on how they feel is not acceptable.

Every individual is different:

Each individual person will react differently to this and develop their own ways of coping. These coping mechanisms are often valuable in childhood but become maladaptive later on. For instance I developed a temper. If I felt someone was attacking me in some way, I fought back. I developed structures and things in my life to 'prove myself' and I like control.In fact I need control and even as a child I was extremely bossy and battled to share. I don't take to authority well. I become overly familiar with people quickly and my close friends are like family to me, yet I always feel this is conditional. Underneath I often feel like I have to give something in order to receive. I question people who love me for me and for years accepted that people like me for certain parts of me but would not like me if I expressed what I really felt or what I really needed. I wasn't dishonest, I just showed people parts of myself depending on what I thought they would respect and like. I am lucky because I am extremely good at reading people and have made this way of life something almost innate- but not quite. This, I believe, is the reason people say that you can feel lonely even though you have so many people in your life that love you. This sentence is another shame bomb. You feel lonely because you are alone. No one is seeing you. No one is hearing you. No one truly knows or understands you. You don't even know or understand yourself.

Shame creates a feeling of emptiness:

People with shame often feel an emptiness inside that cannot seem to be filled. It's that feeling of lacking, of not belonging. This is shame. Many of us have learnt to repress certain emotions such as anger or sadness. A good example is gender stereotypes where men are discouraged from the more 'feminine' emotions such as sadness and fear. Thus my culture is full of men who suffer in silence and are unable to even talk to their friends about their pain. Shame is a powerful emotion and is bigger that most people know. We use every trick in the book to avoid feeling it and often these include destructive or harmful behaviours.

Why punishment creates shame:

Understanding what shame is and how it operates is extremely important for all people. Punishment is often our first port of call for pretty much most 'bad' behaviours. Punishment, without understanding and help for the person, exacerbates problems. Look at the prison system or issues with substance abuse for a good example of this. We need to be tackling shame and helping people find ways of healing this. Teaching people why they feel the way they do and helping them to find healthier ways to react. Bringing shame out to the surface releases it's power on you. Punishment creates more shame. This is why I am completely against spanking. This is one of the most shaming strategies a parent can use. If you have already done this, it is important to spend some time building on your child's self esteem and teaching them about emotions and how to better react to them. I know this is hard to hear, but spanking a child for a bad behaviour is like punishing them for your lack of ability to teach them the correct behaviour. I always find it ironic that parents will spank their child in order to teach them not to hit, or bite, or push etc. You are not modelling the correct behaviour when you do this, rather they can see that you hit, so the problem must not be the hitting,it must be them, they are the problem...shame bomb! Children are resilient, you can completely turn this around! Teach your children about emotions and give them appropriate ways to cope with how they are feeling.

There is always hope!

All is not lost for adults too. The trick is to re-parent, soothe and nurture yourself. For those who struggle, my best suggestion is to make use of a therapist that understands and works with attachment trauma (most experienced practitioners do). Always be kind to yourself and notice when you are being your own abuser. Actively aim to stop this. Cut yourself some slack and start honestly asking yourself what you really need.

XX
Paula

Tackling MY feelings Before MY Behaviour

Wow, it's been a while since I took finger to keypad and typed out a blog! Where do I begin...

It has been a journey, I'll tell you that. The kind of journey where you thought you had most big things figured out. Then BAM you learn the harsh reality of the term 'false belief system'. I was running blind, swallowed up by my own rules and nonsense. Riddled in defence mechanisms and holding on for dear life to people and things that made me feel some semblance of safe. I mean, where the hell did all this anxiety in the big wide world come from?

LOOKING BACK...

I remember thinking certain things when in my early teens and struggling my way through hormones and heartache. I remember noticing that some days I felt on top of the world and others I felt as if no one liked me and the world was against me. I managed though. I more than managed, I wore the biggest mask around. So big was my mask that even those closest to me had no idea what I really went through. The shame, humiliation, embarrassment, fear, insecurity and anger that stewed inside me and had no healthy outlet. I am a loud, extroverted presence and I was never invisible physically (I made sure of that). Love me or hate me, you notice me. This mask bit me in the ass because people were so busy seeing the loud, falsely confident Paula, they had no idea that a scared, insecure little girl was crying out for help.

This damn defence mechanism got misread to my disadvantage again and again. I was seen as a bully because I was always the spokesperson for the group, or I was acting out. To me it was a get them or they will get me thing. I was seen as strong. I was seen as someone who didn't feel very much. I was seen as happy and cheerful. I was seen as whatever mask I chose to wear really. Most teenagers go through this in some way, it's a time when difference is feared more than anything else. It got so bad that I didn't know any other way to be.I desperately wanted to be liked, desperately wanted to be helped and blocked the very things I needed with my behaviour.  I became a people pleaser. I suppressed my needs and found it easier to do the things my friends enjoyed. This got out of hand too and I found myself in crowds I didn't fit into, at places I couldn't afford, wearing clothes I had had to borrow. I gave in to peer pressure and had so much freedom and zero structure. I got drunk, walked the streets at night, smoked cigarettes, hooked up with boys, got into verbal fights etc. During the day I captained the tennis team, sang in choir, visited my grandparents, turned pages for my piano teacher at charity concerts, spent time with friends, worked hard in school etc. I changed like the tides, trying to find myself, trying to fit in, trying to be accepted and feel loved. My shame was growing. Shame in myself, in my mum and her lack of control in the situation (I have learnt that she did it really tough and there were so many reasons for this). The real shame though, is the shame I turned inward. The shame I had in myself. To be honest this is still a work in progress.

I WAS NEVER A STRANGER TO EMOTIONS...

I am highly empathic and understand emotional experiencing better than I do any other sense or system. I am able to read shifts in people, the mood and atmosphere, people's deeper pain. Other people have always been easy, what I could never master was my own emotional experiencing. I felt like my control over my emotions was paper thin and the hard ones were deeper than I could conceive. As I delved into psychology and counselling I developed a name for this part of myself that held all my deeper emotions and pain. I called this my vault or squishy middle. I spent a lot of energy and time fearing this unknown entity inside me. So much went into the vault that I lost sight of what had gone in there. It became overwhelming. But I ploughed on.

I ploughed through incredible adversity, grief and trauma. I have always recognized my teenage years as difficult. My mother struggled and I became more of a parent then a child. I had no idea what my mother was growing through, I had no words, no support and no one to talk to. I was programmed to hide things from my grandmother and the world. I think my mum always wanted my Granny to be proud of her. My lovely Granny loved us more then anything but love was not expressed verbally. She was very critical but meant it in love. Needless to say I kept my mums secret, it became my secret, we were drowning. Financial, physical, emotional...you name it, we were in strife. I started to resent my mum and rebel in a way. At the time I would never have seen it as rebellion. Awful part of my rebellion, I was always guilt ridden and overly sensitive to my mum's feelings. I could never bare to hurt her, or worry her. I confessed almost all sins. I soon learnt that I was unguided. I was so convincing that I was in control that my own mother did not see how out of my depth I was. How much I needed her to take over and let me be a child. This way of life may have been what saved me in years to come...or the very thing that undid me.

On 3 December, 2002, I went off to celebrate the end of the school year with an old friend. I said my goodbyes to my mother and said our usual 'I love you'. That was the last time I saw my mum. That night some adolescent boys broke in and gagged her too tightly. They never meant to kill her, only to rob us blind. They came through my bedroom window. It was a blur. I learnt this from my friend the next morning, her mum got a call. My whole world stopped turning. It was like a dream, a horrible,sick dream. No one seemed to be able to comprehend my level of loss. On the second or third night after she died I was still staying at my friend's house (I wasn't ready to face my Gran's pain). I was crying in the middle of the night once again. Every time I shut my eyes I saw my mum's face and my heart broke again. I was terrified. I had no idea what would happen to me,where I belonged, where I wanted to be outside of my own home. I had all this emotion and no where to put it. My tears were gut wrenching, my soul was shattered. It was as if someone had severed off a limb. My friend, who had her own grief, cracked under the pressure and blurted out a conversation she and her mother had planned to have with me the following day. At midnight she told me that she thought I needed to find somewhere else to stay, it was too much for her. My pain was too much for her.

I didn't think I could sink any lower. I was wrong. I learnt some very hard lessons that night. I learnt that I had been 'right', people wont want to be around you if you are yourself. Even if you lose your mother, people will not cut you slack, allow you to sob, allow you to grieve. If only I had known then what I know now. These childhood masks, defences, they keep coming back to bite you. Long after they have been rendered useless. People cant be there for you because they don't know how to be there for themselves. So many of us are running blind.

I PUT A LOT OF EMPHASIS ON MY GRIEF...

I thought it was the reason for pretty much most of my problems. My anxiety namely. I was well known for being stressed. I suffered from bad back pain my whole life which was never diagnosed or treated adequately. I was used to chronic pain and tension (I still am). My energy levels are often a struggle. I couldn't tell where my back began and the anxiety ended. As the years went on my struggles with anxiety, esp the physical tension side of anxiety increased. It started to effect my work. Working with children became my thing but it kept bringing up memories and emotions I had no idea how to process. I moved to Australia and studied Masters in Counselling. This level of training forces you to unpack yourself quite heavily and confront how you tick. I confronted the edge of my inner vault time and time again. After uni I started to work with families. My clients had an array of issues with high levels of risk and trauma. Slowly but surely I became more and more impacted. It was becoming clear, families and child abuse were more than upsetting to me, this was traumatic for me and triggering a trauma I had no idea I had. I burnt out.

IT DIDN'T MAKE SENSE...

The theories didn't fit me. My mum and I were so close. She never ever forgot to tell me she loved me. She would have taken a bullet for me. She did so much for me, encouraged me, watched my tennis games, talked to me about school, always listened. Why, oh why are the signs pointing to neglect? EMOTIONAL NEGLECT!!! It didn't make sense. I started seeing a therapist who was my teacher. I would trust no-one else (I have been through many therapists, I am a tough cookie to counsel). I admire my therapist so much, professionally and personally, and listen when he talks. He identified attachment trauma. I wont go into that here if attachment is a bit foreign (I urge everyone to look it up though). My issues stem from my early childhood - my formative years. My mum, my beautiful childhood, my entire world view...aaahhhh! It was a very very difficult pill to swallow and took many sessions of revisiting this to get my head around it. I finally made peace with it when I allowed myself to start looking back at well known memories. These memories were often the fond ones. That is why I could never see this. My happy memories were still happy, they just held some vital clues to opening my vault. They helped me to finally see the roots of my problems.

CHILDHOOD EMOTIONAL NEGLECT...

It was never what she did to me. What she did to me was nothing but loving. Everything she did was intended to give me love and life lessons. The problems were in what she didn't do. Dr Jonice Webb identifies this as C.E.N - Childhood Emotional Neglect. She feels all abuse has CEN with it but not all CEN accompanies abuse. In fact most families have some degree of this because it is a generational problem. It travels from generation to generation unknown and powerful. We couple this with so many passed down and outdated parenting beliefs and systems and have become so far removed from the reasons why we do things and if they are in line with our intentions.

My mother believed with all her heart that the best way to parent was to give strong discipline like spanking etc in the early years. I remember her telling me that she hit me very early and this is why I am a good girl now. She saw my incessant guilt and obligation that was way beyond what a child my age should have felt as me being special, good and with a good head on my shoulders. I saw it the same way too. I didn't see this as being a problem. I didn't know any other way to be. Hitting me early would have translated to me that I am being punished for trying to communicate my needs. I have had these patterns with people in my life again and again because I gravitate to what I know, mistaking that for what is safe. I have recently discovered that it is not my feelings that are the problem, it is my behaviour. I am so busy trying to be a certain way, to feel in a certain way, I have lost sight of how I actually feel. I have started a new relationship with the real me and have had to confront many demons and unhealthy dynamics in the process. This has been so painful but so necessary.

I REALISED THAT I HAVE A GIFT...

I have a deeper understanding of emotional experience through personality, academia and life experience. I am passionate about parenting and helping children through helping parents. I believe that parents are the very best people to help their children. Trauma, attachment, emotional regulation and strength based work should not be elitist knowledge for the educated and professional. It is not as fancy and complicated as it sounds. It is a way of seeing the world. It is about understanding emotions and how powerful they are. It is about understanding the role parents need to play to tackle these growing societal problems, mental health issues, bullying, youth substance abuse, suicide, crime etc. It is ridiculous that this is something only certain people have access to for various reasons. I want to give this gift out for free. I want to create awareness and empower parents. Break the cycles, end the bad patterns and give people something better and healthier to try. I want the world to 'Tackle the feelings before the Behaviour'. Stop blaming children as if they are not a part of a system. No child is born evil. Some have challenges and disabilities. Some struggle with biological challenges. This does not make them evil. Lets take control back. Have the courage to see your own parents and grandparents as human. Love them through their faults so that you may see them as real and learn how to be real with your own kids.

I hope there is something in my story that is helpful :) I am proposing a parenting approach but I am not a mother. My challenge was always a tricky one. I am not coming from the side of a parent though. I am giving your children a voice because I have built a very strong relationship with and deeper understanding of my own inner child. I am also pretty trained up in this area and am not the type to stop learning. This is me, warts and all. Thank you for reading XXX

I am now helping parents to understand the importance of emotional regulation! Lets work together to prevent C.E.N.