Free to Breathe: Confident Parents SIGH.

On a cold rainy Saturday afternoon when my husband was on a business trip, I was trying to get a handle on the laundry. My boys were running around the house yelling at each other: “Stupidhead! Dumbhead!” I hoped it would blow over. But when I heard “You’re a poopyface!” I knew things were about to escalate. It was time for me to get in there. I did not want to.

I did what I naturally do. I felt myself withdrawing. “I do not want to be here,” I thought to myself as I started cringing away from the drama. So, being a responsible mom, I used willpower to force myself to do something I did not want to do. But now I felt angry. A stuffed rabbit flew past my head. So I pulled a Marge Simpson.

“It doesn't matter how you feel inside, you know. It's what shows up on the outside that counts. Take all your bad feelings and push them down, all the way down past your knees, until you're almost walking on them.”—Marge Simpson to Lisa.

Now I felt irritable and sick, and had no interest in why those wild animals I gave birth to were fighting. I could care less about finding a skillful solution. I just wanted to yell at them and make them stop fighting so I could get the laundry done.

Can you relate?

For a split second I caught myself. I knew that I was doing the usual thing. I remembered to STOP and SIGH. As I sighed deeply, I felt myself moving into my body with that breath, as though I had been away somewhere else and was returning. I felt my chest loosen up and feeling come back into my arms and legs. I remembered where I was right now. I felt all my feelings come online, and I let the anger come back up from the place where I stuffed it. Feelings of loving my kids showed up too.

THE 4S’s: When you feel a SHOULD, STOP, SIGH and SEE. Then do SOMETHING.

When you feel a SHOULD coming on, STOP. Just pause. Don’t act instantly.

SIGH. Take a deep breath. A long slow one. Imagine it’s a sigh of relief, as if everything is OK. And if you can, remember that you are enough. You are what your child needs.

SEE. Look at your child. Ask yourself what your child needs right now. Do they need you to do something, or do they need to figure it out for themselves?

Then (and only then) do SOMETHING. Even if that something is nothing.

I don’t care what you do next. It really doesn’t matter. It does not matter if you get it wrong. Because if you STOP, SIGH & SEE before you do SOMETHING, you will build skills quickly. You will get to know your child. ©Alison Escalante MD/The Primary Carer

Let’s focus on The SIGH. Here is what step 2 of the 4S’s is all about:

SIGH is for I & MY.

Let’s break it down. When I’m in a moment with my kids first I STOP. I catch myself and stop doing the usual parenting stuff moment. Then I SIGH.

When I SIGH a breath deep into my lower belly I start to notice MY body. How am I doing? How do I feel? Where am I right now? SIGH is about presence, it is so I can breathe MYSELF back into MY body and the space where I am right now. I become present to MY feelings.

The SIGH step is crucial because it brings my leadership back online. Let’s look at three things that SIGH does for us.

SIGH to see how I am doing.

I’ve been acting like Marge Simpson since I was a kid. It is how most of us were raised. We were told our feelings mattered, but only up to a certain point. If we went on too long we were told life was tough and to stuff it. Often we were told this by example, sometimes with words.

I have heard so many mothers say something like this over the years: “I love my kids so much. But I feel like I’m losing myself a little bit more every day.” Having kids doesn’t have to mean we lose ourselves.

There are three big problems with regularly suppressing our feelings: 1. They may come exploding out. 2. When we disconnect from our genuine feelings we lose our connection to our selves. 3. When we shut down our feelings we shut down our thinking.

What? Didn’t we grow up watching people calling each other irrational for having too many feelings?

It turns out that emotion is actually what drives our thinking. Dr. Elaine Arons has shown that those with the deepest emotions also tend to be the deepest thinkers, and often have the richest ideas. We only think about what we care about. If it doesn’t matter to us, we don’t bother to think about it. So if we stuff our emotions, we stuff our thinking. Our thinking becomes more rigid. We don’t solve problems effectively.

SIGH says I matter. How I feel matters. I have value and something to offer in this place and moment.

This is a tough one for me. Like so many parents, I have been taught that what I need does not matter if someone else has a need. But it turns out that noticing our own needs actually makes us available to care for the needs of others in a way that shutting ourselves down does not. Why is that?

It’s about something called PRESENCE. So I SIGH into MY BODY.

I admit it. I kind of thought my therapist colleague was a wierdo when she said this: “I think it’s all about getting people back into their bodies.” What was she talking about? By definition people who are alive are IN their bodies.

Actually, a lot of us are not spending much time in our bodies. We learn from brain science that we are partially dissociated. This is when we pull away from the present to focus on something. Like ignoring your neighbor’s annoying sniffles to focus on your math test. Or ignoring your kids’ whining so you can pay attention to your driving. Pretty useful.

But there is also a dissociation that is not as useful. That’s when we pull away from our discomfort in a more ongoing way. Say under the constant pressure of anxiety and perfectionistic criticism we are subjected to as parents. Besides the way it impacts our own health leading to stress related symptoms like headaches and fatigue, it makes us feel lonely.

Its often leads our kids behavior to actually become worse because they are not getting the attention they need. (I am not talking about the attention they don’t need, because they really can wait a second or two.) When we are dissociated we are a little bit, but not all the way there. A little bit distracted and preoccupied.

When this happens in a romantic relationship the usual story is that the partner that feels ignored becomes increasingly clingy and demanding OR starts to pull out of the relationship and no longer considers what the other person would want. When this happens with our kids they do the same thing. We call it bad behavior. But really it’s relationship behavior.

PRESENCE is being aware of what’s happening as it’s happening. If we can stay aware of what’s happening in our world AND in our own feelings/bodies we have access to all of our information. Our kids know we are right there with them. They feel more secure. It doesn’t change their behavior right away, but it changes the feeling in the relationship. Because if we can be present in a reliable way, they know they have us. And it starts by being in our own bodies and in the moment.

Finally, presence brings out our natural creativity. When we can really be with the situation, we can engage with all our resources. All of our brain power is active, instead of part of it being used to not feel unpleasant things.

This is the place where we start to get ourselves back…

SIGH to engage MY leadership.

Every human being is a leader. Yes, our middle school teachers were wrong. It is not true that some people are leaders who get sent to leadership camp and some are followers. We are all leaders who lead in different ways, and sometimes follow.

Our inner world is complex. We experience many things at the same time, often feeling like we have different parts of us that want different things. Simply to survive in our own lives, we must be leaders, because we must lead ourselves. And we do.

When we are not able to lead ourselves well, we become confused and anxious. When we are able to lead ourselves well, we find creative solutions in the present.

From a species perspective, all humans are prepared to be leaders because most of us will have children. We must be effective leaders of our children, if they are to survive to adulthood.

OK, so we all have the ability to be leaders. But how?

To answer this I have to point out the difference between parenting and leadership. Most of us are parenting our kids. Parenting is something I do to my kid to change my kid or their behavior. Parenting also means I have to be different from how I am. I have to use a certain set of skills.

Leadership feels different. That word always seems to be about the identity of the person who is the leader. Sure, there are leadership skills, but great leaders always seem to be the people who are really there to us.

If we do not want our children suppressed into a well behaved mold like Marge would do to Lisa, we need to engage leadership by being present.

You do not need to be different. You need to open up who you already are and bring that to your child. Sigh is about I and MY. Sigh gets us connected with our own self, so that we can be present to our child. Just showing up is enough to start the leading process. People respond. When you are really present with people, they show up too.

So when I’m leading my kids I trust that they have what they need to grow and do well. I guide them. I can be flexible even while holding the limits because I know they have the inner resources do deal with the frustration of being told no. But when I parent I tend to end up all over them applying principles and we all get frustrated.

The wording I’ve chosen does not actually matter. I just want to help you find this experience.

SIGH to get our selves back.

Do you remember the women who’ve told me they feel like they are losing themselves? The 4S method IS a way to manage a tense moment with our kids. But it is more than that. It is a process where we bring ourselves to our kids, our kids in turn start to bring themselves to us. When this happens our families start to shift. People start to find more space for themselves.

Our needs are not in competition. Our value as people are not in competition. Each person in the family is essential to that family. It stops being about always putting my needs second for my kids. It becomes more playful, more like a dance. When swing dancing sometimes my partner needs to support my weight, sometimes I need to pivot so he can move best. Our needs are not competing: we meet each others needs to flow together well.

The Sigh is not an action step. We WILL get to the part where we do something.

The next two posts will focus on the SEE and do SOMETHING of the 4S’s. The first post was Stop Parenting!. Enjoying reading? Subscribe here.

Let’s start a conversation! Please leave your thoughts in the comments.

Disclaimer: This article represents general education and does not constitute medical advice. My ideas are mine alone.