Creating Calm Connections

Worries

Everybody worries from time to time.

Sometimes you’ll go through periods where life feels good, but other times worries may persistently enter your thoughts.

While everyone’s worries will be slightly different often the common themes are:

Financial
Employment
Relationship
Health

It is important to remember children worry too. As parents we need to acknowledge these worries even if they don’t seem big to us.

A good strategy is to keep track of your worries in a diary. Consider your feelings and key factors:

How have you slept?
Have you exercised/ had fresh air?
What have you eaten/ have you eaten?
What is the worry about?
When did the worry happen?
What happened before?

This will support with noticing patterns or any triggers to your worries.

Maybe look at scaling your worries from 1-10 (10 being the worst/ most difficult)

I hope this helps 🙏🏻

Thursday Thoughts 💭

Worries

We all experience worry from time to time. Sometimes this can be helpful as encourages you to take action and get something done. But equally it can impact and disrupt our emotional well-being.

When we worry our minds are often in a repetitive cycle of thoughts, feelings and possibilities in relation to something future based. Thinking about the future provides a level of uncertainty as this is unclear and unknown. Therefore our inner script and the stories we tell ourselves in relation to the worry often have negative outcomes.

There will always be things in life to worry about and the severity of these will vary.

Without a doubt worrying can impact on our happiness but we can easily change how we engage with our worries and get out of the worry trap!

Unhelpful patterns can be unlearnt over time with patience and commitment.

In order to prevent worries taking over your whole day why not write them down then try to dedicate a time to think about your worries instead.

Also remember you are not your thoughts and you might want to challenge them.

I will share some resources and other ideas to support managing worries this week.

Sending love and light to you all ✨🧡🙏🏻

Well-being Wednesday

Big emotions such as feeling anxious, scared, angry or disconnected can be really overwhelming, even for grounded adults to manage.

Children’s feelings often present in their behaviour. Everyone struggles from time to time and this can be scary. Sometimes we just need some guidance and support from someone we trust.

Being fully present and looking for clues along the way can help us to recognise these emotions in order for us to support our children.

Consider the questions your children are asking to identify what it is they are seeking. We can validate, listen, contain and empathise to show that their feelings matter. This will also show that they matter, are completely accepted and are loved unconditionally.

Well-being Wednesday

When a child dysregulates they need adult support. When we view behaviour as communication we respond to the feelings they are experiencing.

Here are some top tips:

1. Notice and name the feeling. This lets them know you totally understand and get what’s going on for them. Naming how you think they are feeling gives an opportunity to be corrected also. Don’t worry about getting it wrong as being heard and understood is what’s most important here.

2. Make safe and soothe - decide what might help support them in order to return to that state of calm. Do they need you to sit beside them quietly, hold them, stroke them. Try not to ask questions at this point and they will not be operating from their thinking brain.

3. Model regulation activities - be creative, play, colour, be still, spend time in nature, use sand/ play dough/ materials, go for a walk etc. Talk about what you are doing and why. This supports moving on from what’s happened and promotes emotional regulation by being present and focused on a sensory activity.

4. Stay curious - remembering that something might work one day and not the next and that ok. This might be due to different interactions, difference in situation, developmental stage, well-being of child/ adult, the environment etc. Try and stay consistent with the first 3 steps as best you can.

I hope this helps.

Have a lovely day 💕

Mindful Monday 💕

After an emotional few weeks i have taken some time this weekend to reflect on how this has impacted me in my parenting.

It is important that we are aware that when children act out those actions can bring about emotions in us adults. Given all the pressures of every day life, you may already feel stressed or emotional. So it’s normal to take children’s behaviours personally because of your own feelings and needs in the moment.

It is therefore important to recognise your own emotional triggers and how emotionallly full you are. If you are overwhelmed and completely full then you will have less tolerance and capacity to support others.

Taking children’s behaviour personally can be hard to avoid. It can also impact on your relationships with them making it harder to focus on what’s behind the behaviour.

How can you respond to your child and not the behaviour?

One way is to try to understand the experiences that may be surfacing. Due to different experience some children can be wary initially. They may also be hypervigilant and with a heightened stress system where they easily slip into fight or flight mode. This may seem they are prone to what looks like overreactions to simple things.

Being reflective and always looking to understand the need behind the behaviour is helpful. Asking yourself right here right now what do they need? If they are in fight or flight mode they need to feel safe.

Consider the thoughts that maybe surfacing for them, their beliefs but also the hidden feelings. When we respond to the feelings rather than the behaviour the child will feel understood and you will be able to gain a sense of what’s really going on for them. Children don’t want to display angry or challenging behaviour but that is how they communicate what they are experiencing and feeling. They need to understand this, feel understood, contained and safe before they start to become more regulated.

Remember to not react to or correct the behaviour itself instead respond to the emotional need. Above all let them know you absolutely get what is going on for them. 😊

Well-being Wednesday

Today I wanted to share some information about our stress regulation system.

This is what determines how we respond to the challenges life throws at us. If we have an effective stress regulatory system we have the resources and tools built in that supports us to find solutions to problems or request help to do this. If not then small issues can trigger overwhelming feelings of big emotions such as anger and anxiety. This also puts us in high alert ready to fight, flight or freeze.

How our system is built depends on how our needs have been and continue to be met.

In order to develop a healthy stress regulatory system children need opportunities for:

Physiological regulation: good eye contact, holding, stroking, talking, reassurance and being present.

Emotional regulation through positive relationships: when overwhelmed a supportive adult recognises this and help provide support. Children need adults to recognise their emotions and understand how this feels for them.

Cognitive regulation: being able to identify body cues and linking these to their feelings, thoughts and behaviours in order to make appropriate responses and choices.

Children need to know that they will receive nurturing support at the right time in order to process and manage their emotions and respond to stress. If this does not happen it is likely that they will experience levels of complete dysregulation through anxiety and anger or even emotionally shut down.

Take a moment today to consider your child’s stress responses and how you can ensure physiological, emotional and cognitive regulation opportunities 🧡

I hope you all have had a wonderful Christmas.

I haven’t posted for a while as I have been poorly 😷 definitely feeling more human now.

Thank you for following and sharing my content. I look forward to getting more out in the New Year

Sending love and light as always 🙏🏻✨💕

Friday feelings 💕

Let’s consider that the most important emotional needs of children that adults should support are their self-worth and self-esteem.

When children have a healthy self-worth this ensures the children believe they are worthy and a positive self-belief is how they deserve to be treated.

Children learn their beliefs from their experiences and this then determines whether they have healthy self-worth and self-esteem.

If children receive genuine love and respect they will believe they matter and if they receive warmth and connection they will feel loved and learn to love themselves

Today I invite you to actively promote and encourage self-worth and self-esteem through your communication and connection.

What is it that you can do today to boost/ support this.

Enjoy being together 🧡

Behaviour as communication

Here are some top tips:

✨It is important that we regulate the feelings that are driving the behaviours

✨Wonder what the behaviour might be telling you

✨Imagine the child’s experience and what might be going on for them

✨What might their thoughts be?

✨What are their possible feelings?

✨Make this experience survivable for them

✨Let them know you get it.

✨Remember children need empathy, compassion and understanding 💕

Today I invite you to really get curious about your child’s behaviour and what could be going on for them 🧐

Behaviour as communication

Discharge behaviours are those that are used by children (and adults) to get rid of emotional tension or difficult feelings.

Observing a child’s discharge behaviours gives us clues as to what they might need from us. It shows that they are unable to emotionally regulate and soothe themselves therefore they need an adult to help them.

Some of the behaviours you may see:

Aggression - this can be towards themselves, others or their surroundings.

Agitation - this is usually physical behaviours that are repetitive such as tapping feet, drumming fingers or making noises

Adaption - the child will try to get the adults care, attention and recognition they need by doing what they think the adult wants/ needs

Doing nothing - this can also be observed as stubborn, unwilling to move, ignoring requests or wandering off. The child is unable to deal with whatever is happening for them so they just stop themselves from responding

Incapacitation - feeling ill or having an accident/ problem that distracts them from the difficult situation

In all of these behaviours the child does not have other healthier strategies to manage difficult situations. It is up to us as adults to notice them, understand what is going on for them in order to support them with emotional regulation.

I hope this helps 🙏🏻

Well-being Wednesday

Today I invite you to consider the power of a pause to create space between you and your thoughts.

Sending love and light as always 💕✨🙏🏻

Tuesdays thoughts 💭

When we gain an understanding that our beliefs are purely thoughts that have been repeated and practised over time we recognise that we are in control of these. So in order to create a new belief you need to practise a new thought.

Remember we hold beliefs about ourselves, others and the world we are living in.

The most important thing is to notice your beliefs and how they make you feel. When you feel uncomfortable these are the ones you should consider changing. How would you like to feel instead and how could you change this thought to get nearer to that better feeling?

Remember to be kind to yourself through your words and thoughts. You should repeat these so they become cemented and validated. The more we repeat the more we believe.

Mindset Monday is upon us again.

Did you know we have about 60-80,000 thoughts a day and the majority can be unhelpful to us.

It is important to understand that most of our thoughts are automatic processes and are linked to our own experiences. We form habits of thinking that can often be unhelpful. These come from our parents, societal beliefs, rules etc.

Most negative ways of thinking are habits not necessarily facts, but these thoughts can cause us to feel blocked.

Top tips for changing this pattern:

1. Acknowledge the thought and identify it being there
2. Stop and create some space between you and the thought. Use your breathe as an anchor to this pause. Be the observer of your thoughts.
3. Look for evidence to support and challenge the thought
4. Let go of the unhelpful thought. If it doesn’t serve you well you don’t need it.

When you stop these patterns you will have clearer thought processes, improved decision making, calmer mind and improved mood.

Today I invite you to notice your thoughts and the impact they can have upon your mood and motivation throughout the day.

Have a mindful Monday 🙏🏻✨💕

We often get caught up in past events that no longer serve us in the here and now.

When we live in the present moment we let go of the past and don’t wait for the future. Recognising the only important moment is the present moment.

Top tips for managing the past:

✨ be kind to yourself and acknowledge whatever happened is over now

✨ replaying the event achieves nothing and instead keeps you stuck. Recognise this thought and acknowledge it as a past memory.

✨Ground yourself in the present moment using your senses to become aware of what you can see, hear, smell, taste and touch.

✨ remember past events can not be changed and you deserve a happier future. Let go and choose to be in the moment instead

Focussing on the past can make us feel anxious but living in the present moment can deactivate the brains threat centre reducing anxiety.

Don’t let your past impact your future

Today I invite you to recognise times you are ruminating and thinking about the past, acknowledge the thought and let it go grounding yourself in the here and now.

Have a wonderful day 🙏🏻💕

Well-being Wednesday 💕

When we as parents are able to manage difficult emotions in a positive way we support our children.

Children learn through observation and experience and constantly watch your example. If they see their adult being able to recognise that they are feeling difficult emotions but then manage this experience through healthy strategies, they will learn to do the same. If you want to nurture and promote emotional health then you must demonstrate positive coping techniques.

Taking care and prioritising your own emotional health will teach your children to do the same.

✨ go for a walk/ exercise
✨ take a deep breath
✨ journal and write down your feelings
✨ take a break
✨ talk about it
✨ meditate
✨ have a bubble bath
✨ read
✨ just be

Today I invite you to consider the healthy strategies you use and your favourite practices.

I hope you have a peaceful day. Sending love and light to you all 🙏🏻✨🧡

Mindset Monday

Monday is upon us again and WE decide how we want our day to go.

Mindfulness exercises can support us on a daily basis and help us regulate throughout the day. This helps us balance and reset our emotions. One of the most common exercises is learning how to focus on our breath.

Noticing our breath helps us connect with sensations in our body. By learning how to regulate our breath, we can feel calmer and more grounded in the present moment.

Mindfulness can support both adults and children to learn how to balance their busy lives, manage their emotions and make good choices.

Today make sure you give yourself a moment and take a breath

Have a great day 🧡

Today’s affirmation - “I will have a great Monday. I can handle anything that comes my way. I have got this 🙌🏻”

Friday Feels 💕

When a situation occurs and we get emotionally triggered we need to understand what is behind that:

- old wounds resurfacing
- similar experience/ trauma
- core beliefs
- values

We need to notice our body cues, the script that is playing out in our head and recognise how we respond through our behaviour and actions.

We need to identify and work through this in order for our own healing 🙏🏻

Today I invite you to notice your emotions and how were they triggered. What happened? What is going on behind that.

Sending love and light and always ✨🥰

Well-being Wednesday 💕

Your thoughts directly influence your feelings as well as your actions.

For children negative thoughts will therefore have an impact on their behaviour due to the unhelpful and overwhelming feelings that are surfacing as a result.

Negative thoughts are often automatic and can be a default setting. These thoughts can feel really strong and are most unpleasant.

With negative automatic thoughts we can become trapped into negative cycles of thinking, feelings and behaviours that ultimately make us feel worse.

Today I invite you to notice your thoughts and become aware of them. It is important you acknowledge them and get to know them in order to manage them effectively. It is only then you can break the negative cycle.

Listen to your children’s words and start to notice their negative inner voice and automatic thoughts too

Have a wonderful Wednesday 🥰

Sending love and light to you all 🙏🏻🧡

Tuesday Thoughts

Thoughts 💭 Feelings ❤️ Behaviour/ Actions

A situation occurs and we experience it. Thoughts pop into our head as a direct result of the situation that has taken place. These thoughts can sometimes stick and play repeatedly.

It is helpful to remember that sometimes our thoughts are triggered by past experiences so if a memory pops up we can instantly return right back in that moment.

Our thoughts can be negative, feel uncomfortable and can quickly spiral.

Next a feeling occurs because of the thought. Therefore the feeling is directly linked to the thought.

In order to identify how you are feeling it is helpful to tune in to your body sensations for clues.

Finally you respond as a result of the thought and emotion. This will show in your
behaviour and actions.

I hope this is helpful ❤️

Have a good day x

Mindset Monday 💕

Awareness and connection is your super power!

Being in tune with yourself is so powerful. When we are completely connected and aware of ourselves we can be alarmed to thoughts and feelings early so we manage and respond better.

Your body alerts you with sensations and your thoughts constantly flow but it is only when we stop and listen that we will hear and notice what is going on.

Our thoughts and feelings come from an experience. Something happens and we develop feelings and thoughts around this. It is only when we listen carefully we can start to recognise if we are surfacing feelings and thoughts automatically from a past experience.

We get so busy sometimes we don’t recognise our thoughts or our feelings we just see the result after we have responded. This can be positive but also negative.

Today I invite you to stop and tune in at various points throughout the day. Notice and listen to your thoughts and identify body sensations. It is only when we tune in we are completely aware. Then and only then can we start to respond better.

Wishing you all a marvellous Monday 🙏🏻✨

Thursday Thoughts 💭

Make sure your thoughts support your self-belief, confidence and bring you a level of tranquillity. They should be:

🧡 loving
🧡 peaceful
🧡 hopeful
🧡 kind
🧡 serene
🧡 empathic
🧡 generous

Remember we all have the voice within us that can talk us down the road of negative thinking but when you have faith in yourself you will succeed.

Today I invite you to identify and release all your limiting thoughts and beliefs and be kind to your mind.

Well-being Wednesday-
Coping with stress

Life can be stressful and bring us challenges along the way. When life is difficult, it can be hard to to recognise the signs of stress in ourselves. It is during these times we might feel anxious, angry, powerless, unmotivated, distracted etc. When we are feeling overwhelmed it is important we recognise this and manage it. Remember we handle difficult situations better when we are looking after ourselves well, so when we are feeling stressed that’s a huge cue and indication that we need to nurture ourselves more.

Children and young people struggle to tell us how they are feeling in words however they show us in their behaviour. It is helpful we learn to identify their signs of stress and cues in order to best support them. We can’t prevent things happening but we can make difficult situations easier to cope with and more survivable.

We can be sensitive to the indication of stress in ourselves and others. We can help relieve overwhelming difficult emotions and find what works for us/ them. Finding ways to take care of ourselves will help us to cope better, reduce stress and feel better.

Today I invite you to consider what helps you when you feel stressed and overwhelmed. Do you like quiet time, to talk it out, exercise etc…….. I would also like you to consider how you nurture and take care of yourself. Remember we are so important and therefore we need to prioritise our own self care 💕

Mindset Monday

It is often so easy to slip into a negative mindset and think about all of the things we don’t have or miss. Negative thoughts can often form a script that repeats in our minds. This is definitely something that is heightened during these uncertain times.

What is going on around us we can’t change right now and therefore we have to accept the things that are out of our control. But we can control our mindset and how we respond.

With this in mind I invite you to take a moment to consider what you are thankful for and shift and direct your thoughts towards gratitude.

Gratitude is something that we have to purposefully teach our children and although this is always important to do, now seems like a really perfect time to directly focus on this.

When our children (or us) are feeling low, fed up, unmotivated or feel just like things are difficult the quickest way out of these feelings is to focus on what we do have. What we are grateful and thankful for or what makes our lives great.

During unpredictable times that we continue to face, focusing on what we’re thankful for is even more essential. So much has changed for us and if we focus on negatives (missed time with family, school, socialising with friends, celebrations/ events cancelled) we can easily spiral into unhappiness and feeling really sad.

In our house we always save a pumpkin and in November we start our gratitude pumpkin. Every day we sit together and talk about and write down all of the things that we are grateful for and think about the things that bring us the most happiness. We keep it real and really consider the little everyday things that make us smile and content.

By doing this our focus is always brought back to brighter and more helpful thoughts and feelings.

I am really looking forward to completing our pumpkin this year because I know we are so fortunate 🙏🏻🎃✨

Have a great start to your week and a lovely day 😊

Feel Good Friday 💕

After a busy few days I have been thinking about night time habits and routines.

It is really important to end our day by acknowledging we have done our best and that is good enough.

A positive night time routine is extremely beneficial to promote our wellbeing. A routine should be repeated and consistent so that it becomes a habit and a ritual. It should be relaxing to help you wind down and conclude your day, preparing you for some well deserved rest and for the following day ahead.

Here are some top tips for a good night time routine:

✨ limit screen time and turn off phone an hour before you go to bed

✨ reflect on your day and consider 3 things that went well or your achieved

✨ write down what you are grateful for

✨ meditate or have some quiet time to process your day

✨ set an intention of how you want to wake

What do you already do and which one of these would you like to implement into your routines?

Have a fabulous Friday ☺️✨

Thursday Thoughts 💭

Gratitude practice really does work! This is something I do daily and I also encourage the adults and children that I support to start.

It’s a really helpful strategy that we can all learn and implement. It brings our mind back to the present moment, it can feel calming, it can shift our mood and also boosts the feel good hormones.

I am aware that seeing the good in life at the moment can be difficult and we might have to search that little harder but, if we search we will always find.

Looking for things to be thankful for is easier when you are in a positive mindset but looking for gratitude when we are foggy, sad, anxious, angry is much harder. But it is in these moments when we really need to dig deep and search (not just within ourselves but outside of ourselves too) for all the things to be grateful for.

Looking for the smallest of things to be thankful for each day really does make a difference. Because all those small things soon add up.

Today I invite you to give this a go 💗 Take a moment to reflect on what you are thankful for. For me today it is: my breath, the fresh food available in my fridge, fresh water, the sound of my children laughing and my health 🙏🏻

Good morning. I hope you have all had a lovely weekend and a good start to your week.

This weekend I took a complete social media break from Friday until Sunday evening and found it so helpful. This will become a regular habit of mine.

Today I would like to talk about mindset and how it is so important that we get off to a good positive start.

Remember our thoughts determine our feelings and actions so we need to feed ourselves with hope, belief, gratitude, determination and confidence daily.

Staying in a positive growth mindset can be difficult but remember the more we practice something the more it becomes a habit and eventually it’s just what we do.

When you first open your eyes on a morning smile and start to recognise and identify the things that you are grateful for in your life. Then consider how this goodness will impact and bring light to your day. At the end of your day, do the same ritual and identify the things that have served you well and made your day better.

This is a habit that we can share with our children too both on a morning and an evening.

Sometimes we do have to look a little harder but that’s alright.

So today I invite you to consider what you can identify that brings goodness to your life and how do you want to show up today?

The more we tell ourself something the more we believe it to be true, so by taking that into consideration be kind to yourself with your words and thoughts!

Have a magnificent Tuesday and remember you really are amazing 😊✨🙏🏻💕

Feel good Friday 💕

Today I wanted to discuss the power of a pause. I know I’ve talked about this before but it is such a good habit to adopt.

Often when we respond instantly this can be an emotional response. When we respond in this way we haven’t had time to really consider and internalise what has been communicated to us. Learning to pause, take a deep breath and count in our heads to 5 gives us a processing opportunity. During this time we can accept, understand and clarify. We can then respond from our thinking brain without reacting, judging or accusing.

This is a good habit to try and form. It is also a great strategy for parents and professionals working with children.

It can be used to support children to understand that space and time helps them access their thinking brain not just their emotional brain, enabling difference responses.

Have a wonderful Friday 🙏🏻🥰