5 ways you can heal while raising children

Healing while parenting, parenting while healing isn’t easy but it is possible.

The first Personal Development workshop I went to I was in my mid-30s and was a single Mum of 5 children. I was still searching for happiness and peace and while I know I’d gotten so much closer than I used to be, I still felt so far away from where I wanted to be.

So when a workshop for women to learn more about stepping into their power, creating happiness and finding their joy in life was advertised in my local area I didn’t hesitate to buy a ticket.

The speaker was quite obviously passionate about wanting to support other women on their healing journeys by teaching and sharing what she’d learned along hers. I got a lot out of it but I didn’t completely resonate. The speaker had once held a corporate corporate. No longer satisfied, she left that to find herself, visited Peru and several places of spiritual significance, spent a bunch of money on flights, accommodation and experiences and had an amazing time along the way discovering her purpose.

Which is absolutely beautiful….but what was I supposed to do with the 5 kids at home while I was doing all of that? And who was paying for it??

I was 16 when I became a Mum. Healing while parenting is a whole other level because at the same time you’re trying to tend to your own needs, there are actual other humans, needy little humans who you are also responsible for providing for.

Parenting while healing can be extremely challenging. Particularly when you’re triggered by something your children did or didn’t do or said or didn’t say. Because you’ve got to learn how to deal with that, soothe yourself and get yourself back to homeostasis (baseline) while also tending to the needs of the other little humans who have their own emotions, reactions and level of (mis)understanding.

Here are 5 practices that will helpful as you continue healing while parenting and parenting while healing. It’s not easy but it’s possible to make some headway. And you can start doing them all today.

1. Identify your triggers

Being a parent will be triggering at times especially if you experienced trauma in your own childhood. The trick is to identify what they are so you can work with them.

The easiest way to identify a trigger is to remember a time you reacted in a big way. This could be yelling/arguing (fight response) or jumping in your car to leave or going to another room (flight) or going numb, disassociating, not being able to respond (freeze) or going into people pleasing mode and desperately trying to calm the situation, ease the mood, change the energy by doing everything and anything you can think of (fawn).

Your trauma response is your reaction a trigger. So what had happened before your reaction?

Did someone say something? Did any particular words or tone bother you? Did someone not do something they were supposed to or said they would?

Whatever happened before your trauma response is your trigger.

You may have multiple triggers and that’s ok. You just need to know what they are so you can move beyond them. Give yourself lots of kindness with triggers because you deserve it.

2. Reset your nervous system

The moment you become triggered is the moment your body instantly and automatically goes into survival mode. You’ve been knocked out of balance. You’re either above your baseline or below your baseline and the only thing you can do is to stop and attempt to reset your nervous system otherwise you’re headed for a trauma response.

• Slow deep belly breaths is always my first go to
• Splashing your face with cold water or having a cold shower
• Yoga
• Meditation or prayer
• Laugh out loud
• Move your body, dance, shake it off

Any of these will help you to reset your nervous system which is your first priority when you’re aware you’ve been triggered.

3. Work through it, name your feeling and think of some different choices

When your trauma response has passed. When your breathing and heart rate have returned to its normal rate. When you’re back to baseline or in homeostasis or your ‘normal’. Once you’re able to think about the event in a loving and logical sense then you can start asking yourself questions.

What did your body feel like as soon as you were triggered? Did you clench your fists, feel the rage rising? Did you shut down? Have a mental blank? Forget where you were?

What was it about the word/phrase or the tone or the action that caused a reaction inside you? What kind of way did it make you feel? Angry, frustrated, scared, hurt, unimportant? That’s the emotion that’s underneath the trigger.

What is it about that particular emotion that potentially causes you to respond that way? Have you felt that way before? When you were a child perhaps at home or at school? What was happening at the time? Maybe you felt helpless, maybe you felt insignificant and this feeling is being triggered again in you as if you were right back there in the situation.

While we can’t always avoid triggers, we can learn to identify them, recognise them before they’re full blown, acknowledge them and consciously make a different choice.

Different choices include saying “I’m feeling triggered right now, I need a time out.” Or “Woah I need to stop and take a few slow deep breaths right now so I don’t scream my head off.”

4. Use any and all of the tools that you know work for you or try something new

There are a range of different professionals, books, strategies and healing modalities out there to help you work through your trauma, triggers, negative self talk

Psychologists, counsellors, group therapy, retreats, personal development books, workshops, teachers, healers, sound therapy, inner child work,  meditation, lifestyle choices, mindfulness, physical movement, breath work, emotional regulation, coaching and many more support options are out there if you’re interested. And make it part of your daily or weekly practice to get the most benefit along your healing journey.

I’ve tried a number of different tools, most of the list I just wrote, and I’ve taken something from every single experience I’ve had. Go with the ones that resonate the most, try something new, listen to someone new, read a book by someone you’ve never heard of and you may just find another piece of your puzzle.

The key is to not force anything. If it’s not for you, that’s ok. If your best friend did it and it worked amazingly or your favourite spiritual teacher does it every morning but it doesn’t feel natural for you, that’s ok.

It has to feel right. If it does feel right, do more of it. If you doesn’t feel right, do less of it. Let yourself be led.

5. Learn to love you

Seems to be the most difficult one. I have asked many, many women if they can look in the mirror at their reflections and say I love you. I’ve heard everything from No way! to looks of horror to swear words to laughing nervously but I’ve never heard anyone say yes. I get it. I was there too. It’s taken me years to be able to lovingly look at my reflection and say out loud I love you. You are enough. And believe it. Without having a physical reaction and without my mind responding with Why would she love you? What’s there to love about you?

It will be uncomfortable at first. It may even be unbearable. Your mind will try to convince of all the reasons you are unlovable and why you don’t really deserve to be loved. Keep pushing through that anyway because the more you say it the more your brain begins to co-operate and begin to let it in. If you can begin to love who you are, you’ll begin to see incredible things happen in your existence.

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Lisa speaks and writes of her healing journey from Child Abuse and Domestic Violence to show others that there can be Life After Trauma. Search Lisa’s Sanctuary on the web and socials to discover how Lisa can help you along your healing journey using hypnosis, emotional regulation and inner child work.