How much can we hold? Our collective nervous systems in California are out of balance. We all have a certain amount we can tolerate. We use self-care, time with friends & family, and time off to help us regulate our emotions and be within “our window” so we can practice kindness and compassion. I have struggled lately to feel grounded given all the scary events happening around us. When we are in our window of tolerance, we are less likely to “flip our lids” and much less likely to sweat the small stuff. Right now we need lots of self-compassion because our window has closed some, and we are less likely to be in “optimal arousal”. We need to breathe more, laugh more, cry more, drink healthy water, and rest. I don’t know about you, but for me practicing kindness and compassion for myself and others is a moment to moment practice. Honestly, some moments go better than others.
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What to do: To expand our windows of tolerance and bring ourselves back into a tolerable place where we are not experiencing intense waves of emotion, we need to do what brings us joy. We might need to visualize our safe/ happy place. Even if we can’t go outside, we can imagine being in our favorite place. As long as we are physically safe at this very moment, we can tap into all the beauty around us. We can remember what feels good and practice it. Even if it is only in our minds. We can breath in all who love us and all we love. We can draw on this resource to help us regulate our nervous systems.
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To help our kids have less cortisol surges ( often in the form of tantrums), we teach them elmo belly breathing when they are toddlers (check it out on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mZbzDOpylA) or we teach them starfish breathing. My children, Sam and Will demonstrated on this video to help all of us learn some fun, cool hacks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANITKi0D2B8 . We as parents offer quiet attention to our children to help them down-regulate their nervous systems. If we are in an aroused state or outside our window of tolerance, we need to bite our tongues and step away so that we are not inadvertently causing more distress to our children and impairing their nervous systems further. And when we do flip our lids, we go back and repair the situation by calmly talking about what we would have liked to have said instead. We can go slow and show what we would have like to have done/ said. This repair is essential to help our kids see we make mistakes and so do they. It is ok and it’s important to own and talk about our mistakes.