Choose connection. Your brain give meaning to facts
The level of quality you experience in your life is equal to the quality of the feelings you experience. If you’ve followed my blog you know that I believe that the meaning of life is to enjoy this human experience and using your focus will really impact how you feel about being a human. Your brain give meaning to facts and situations in your life.
Let me share a typical situation from my everyday life:
It’s a weekday around five o’clock. I step in the door to our apartment. I put the grocery bag and my back-pack, with my very non-portable computer, down on the floor. My mind busy with thoughts of what to cook for dinner, the clothes in the washing machine that needs hanging, plans for the evening – to get homework and chores done, reminding myself to return the missed phone call from my sister when I get the time. My thoughts stubbornly wandering back to a disagreement from earlier today – could I have said something different, why did the things he said get to me like that?
I see the garbage bag sitting on the floor by the door where I left it this morning, the unpacked gym bag that I know contains a wet towel, I glance into the kitchen and see the table with pieces of paper, scissors and glue stick strewn over it. The floor glittering in a yellow tint.
I hear a Youtuber-feed from behind a closed door to one daughter’s room and a shout from the other “Is that you mum!?”
My world is full of facts – My brain gives them meaning
The situation above, or very similar ones, are ones that I’ve lived through many many times. I’ve had the opportunity to try different approaches to managing them with very different results. Let me give you two examples from my life. Maybe you’ll get a feeling for the results by just reading about them. Maybe you can relate to these scenarios and the impact it will have on the connection you have with your children.
So the situation above is the same in these two scenarios.
Scenario 1 – “I have the RIGHT to get cooperation and help!”
My thoughts fall into a routine that I’ve been running enough times to become really efficient with it. “Haven’t I taught them better than this? She should know how her towel is going to stink if she doesn’t hang it up to dry when she gets home. Euw that garbage is going to start to smell bad! Is it too much to ask that they take some initiative – do I have to do everything? I’m SO tired.. can’t they see that just because you’re tired you can’t just give in to the lust to chill and do nothing.”
I call to my daughter “Yes it’s me! Hey you haven’t unpacked your gym bag!”
Then I walk into the kitchen and start unpacking the food and getting everything into the pantry and fridge. I set a pan on the stove to bring water for spaghetti to the boil, place some meatballs from the freezer on defrost in the micro and start cutting vegetables.
My daughter comes into the kitchen with a present for me. She’s created a painting with the words “Worlds best mother”, set it into a frame filled with yellow glitter and wrapped it into a gift. I somewhat reluctantly set the vegetable knife down to open her gift, thank her for the beautiful gift and then tell her to please take care of the mess on the kitchen table because dinner’s ready soon. She complies, cleans the table and quietly go into her room and closes her door.
Dinner is ready, I’ve set the table and lit some candles to make it cozy. I shout to my daughters to tell them “Dinner time!”. My Youtube-daughter doesn’t respond and I angrily call her again. I think “Does she have to be so into that blogger?! Why can’t she be a little more interested to help out at home more and why does she isolate herself in her room so often?”
My other daughter is not responding at all and when I go to find her she’s up in her bunk bed watching a series on the IPad. “I just wanna finish this episode, I’ll be there soon”.
So I go into the kitchen and sit myself down. For every 20 seconds that passes without my kids joining me I get more and more irritated – “What kind of family are we? We can’t even eat dinner together?! Why don’t they appreciate my efforts? Why can’t they take responsibility for contributing to this family and our time together”.
When my eldest (Youtube watching) girl comes into the kitchen sits down and drops the comment that “oh we had meatballs for lunch in school today” I just snap “How was I supposed to know – I really can’t keep everything in my head”.
Calling to my youngest that “Dinner is getting cold, get here!”
I’ve forgotten to lay out knives and forks and when one of my girls gets some for herself and not for her sister a fight starts. Angry voices and irritated body languages, that look that says “you suck!” with all the clarity in the world. “Why couldn’t she get some for me while she was on her feet?!”, “Why do you have to get so angry with me?!”, “I wasn’t angry” ….
We eat our food quickly and mostly silently. My nerves are rattled by the rapid chewing.. “does she have to eat so fast, she can’t possibly taste the food. She’s not going to listen to her own body in terms of feeling full. What kinda bad parent am I who hasn’t been able to create an environment where eating together is something cozy, safe and something that builds connection?”
When we’re done I ask who’s responsible for taking out the trash this week with the intention to remind whoever it is and one of the girls says “I was going to do it after dinner, don’t nag me!”
I’m left at the table with a sinking feeling of being alone, unappreciated and not being enough.
Time from entering the apartment to having had dinner: 50 minutes
Level of energy: 3/10
Level of life satisfaction: 2/10
Scenario 2 – “I’ve missed my little monsters today!”
I step out of my shoes drop my jacket on the floor and shout back to my girl that “NOOOO, it’s not mum, it’s the Cuddling police and you’re going to be arrested for not showering your mum with hugs and kisses when she walks in the door! I’m coming to get you!”
I hear a yell of glee from her room when she throws herself up into her bed to get away from me. I run into her room and climb into her bunk bed, pretend not to see her under the cover, laying down on top of her to get “some nice rest”. When she squeals I untangle her and attack her with tickling and kisses. We laugh and eventually settle down. I ask about her day. She lights up and tells me she’s made me a gift!
I unwrap the painting and I thank her and ask her about it. “Did it take long, what gave her the idea, did she have fun?” She tells me she tried twice before she got it exactly the way she wanted it and that she chose yellow glitter since she knows how it’s my favorite color.
I hug her and tell her how grateful I am to be her mum and that I love to watch her create stuff.
I ask if she’s hungry and if she would like to come help out in the kitchen and keep me company and tell me more about today. She follows me into the kitchen and I say; “Ah, I can see you were creating your painting in here. Is the table here better than the one in your room?” She says yes and I tell her that I understand that, that I feel that way too. Then I ask her if she can help clear and set the table which she agrees to.
I kiss her head and tell her I’ll be right there with her.
I go knock on my Youtube-watching girl’s door and wait for the “come in”. She’s sitting in her bed writing something on her phone. I sit down next to her, kiss her on the neck and ask her how she’s doing. She hugs me and tells me she’s writing a list of things that she wants to experience in her life. She got the idea from a Youtuber and she wanted to create her own “bucket list”. I say “Wow how cool! What a great idea! Do you want to share some of your items over dinner?”
We walk into the kitchen and I ask the big one to unpack the groceries while she tells us about the idea about the bucket list and I start with dinner. I give the younger one a cutting board, a knife and some vegetables so she can sit at the table and start cutting. We talk about the possibility of each having a list and about having a shared one for the family. We start dreaming and planning for how we can combine each other’s items and experience these things together.
I ask if they think we should have lit candles for our dinner and they get some candles out and divide them up between themselves so they both get to use the matches to light them.
We have dinner and the conversation turns from long term bucket list goals to how our days have been. We finish the meal together. Afterwards I ask them if they’re done with their chores which reminds my eldest to go take out the garbage.
Time from entering the apartment to having had dinner: 50 minutes
Level of energy: 7/10
Level of life satisfaction: 8/10
Ask from a “Yes” – Connection is actually the quicker way
The primary difference between these two scenarios is not in the time spent or saved. I believe the big difference lies in the amount of energy you get/loose and in the quality of your feelings. However I will still argue that you will actually save time as well. Think of the time you spend on nagging or managing fights today. I bet you could reduce that by at least 50% by focusing on improving you connection.
A good and reliable proof that you’re connecting is when you hear affirmative answers/comments from your child. Writer, therapist and teacher Susan Stiffelman describes the theory of Asking from a yes. She talks about using this theory not as manipulation but as a focus that will promote connection instead of efficiency.
When you focus on the connection between you and your children you will realize that they want to help, they want to participate and be an important part of your family. They want to spend time with you. If you work on your connection you will be able to influence your children towards cooperation and taking initiative for contributing to the family that is as much their safe haven as it is yours.
Action for today
So what can you do today to learn about yourself and the connection between focus and feelings? Primarily just stay curious and play the game of – “What else could this mean?” Whenever you find yourself in a negative feeling today take a mental step back. Look at the situation and see what other focus and meaning you can find. When you find a different meaning then pay attention to how your feelings change. I also recommend you to write your observations down in a journal.
