When I was a kid, my parents didn’t worry themselves into a frenzy about me, like we parents do today. They were not hovering around and leaping at me just as I was about to fall or pick up a sharp object. My mom loved me and cared for me, but she did not prepare craft activities for me and she did not micromanage my play time. She told me to go outside and didn’t expect to see me again until dinner was cooking. I’m not sure my parents ever knew that I spent many hours roaming through sewer tunnels with my friends or even rummaging through the dump with my sister. Even if I told them, I’m sure they barely heard me. I turned out just fine.
What has happened to parenting between then and now that I find myself purposefully holding back from helicopter parenting my five year old? Parents today feel pressured to get their kids to music lessons, to have the healthiest meals, to have play dates and trips to the museum, and the best education beginning at age two. We are trying too hard to force their childhoods to perfection. The crazy thing is, our kids would just like to be allowed to just be, and they would like most for their parents to be relaxed and happy. Most of us are running on fumes. It isn’t of much use to read even one parenting book if we haven’t the energy to apply the advice. In truth, the best parenting advice is to let go a little of our grip and to remember to love ourselves too. Regularly we must relax the hyper focus on our kids, and look at ourselves. They are reflecting us. If we let ourselves become drained, they will become anxious. If we let ourselves be our whole selves again, they will beam with joy.
Here are three simple self care practices that you could easily add to your day. They are free and they will leave you feeling better in your body and more at ease mentally:
- Stretch and Breathe Well:
I’m not going to advise everyone to go to a yoga class. You don’t have to wear spandex. You don’t even need to buy a mat. Simply use the floor and your bed, and passively stretch the body every day for at least ten minutes.
We are all habitually holding ourselves in a constant state of tension. The diaphragm and ribs are constricted. Shoulders are carrying stress. Blood flow and energy flow are stuck and excess in some areas and absent in other areas. Stagnation is creating pain. It is keeping us from a deep sleep and smooth digestion. And among other things, it keeps us moody and quick to react.
An easy passive stretch that everyone can do is to lie face up on the floor with calves resting on a chair, low bed, or couch. Lengthen the spine along the floor and rest the arms above the head along the floor, palms open, shoulder blades flat. Find the center of the back of your head on the ground and then gradually let go of all muscles starting from the scalp and forehead down to the toes.
Do this while slowly lengthening the inhale and the exhale. The more the muscles relax, the more the breath will slow down and become easeful. Then the nervous system will shift into a parasympathetic mode and the body will be able to restore itself.
- Self Massage:
Massage does the same thing as stretching or acupuncture – it frees up stagnation.
One very effective place to self massage is the abdomen. According to Eastern Medicine, the area below the navel is the sea of Qi, the energetic center of the whole body. We are like trees – if the trunk is healthy, then the branches will be healthy.
The following is a Qi Gong practice of abdominal massage:
Lie on the back with knees bent or on a bolster. Massage gently down the midline beginning at the xiphoid process (where the ribs meet in the center below the sternum) down to the navel. Then come back up to the xiphoid process and repeat six more times for a total of seven passes, always top down. After seven times, find the free end of the eleventh rib, at the center of the right ribcage and massage from there to the navel, seven times. Then the left ribcage center at the end of the eleventh rib to the navel seven times. The three lines should form an arrow pointing at the navel.
Next place palms flat on the belly above the navel and begin to massage in a clockwise circle (right to left) around the navel, 37 times. Finish with the hands resting below the navel at the energy center. Consciously and ease-fully direct strength there through your hands.
- Self-Loving Kindness:
Once a day, lying or sitting, take a few minutes to imagine taking a seat all the way in the rear of your mind’s movie theater and observe the images and sounds that are appearing on the screen. You most likely will notice at first that there is a lot of negative stuff. The negativity is sometimes directed outward and probably often directed inward.
Try an experiment to often consciously take this back seat and interrupt the images by saying to yourself with a sincere wish ‘may you be free from harm… may you be healthy… may you be happy… may you live with ease.’ Or you can alter that phrase to make it something meaningful to you.
Notice how it shifts you toward feeling peace.
Make it a daily practice to be kind to yourself, as habitual as brushing your teeth. Your kids will be relieved.
Nancy Allen is a healer, an acupuncturist, a yoga teacher, and mom who brings to all roles the intention of uplifting lives.