This has been a difficult post to write.  Usually when I write, the words flow freely, tumbling out of my head and through my fingers onto the keyboard and then up onto the screen in front of me.  Not so today.  This post is about something that I’ve been wrestling with for some time.  I’m not great at making decisions, and I’ve gone backwards and forwards with this one for several weeks.  Should I write about it or not?  Will other people find it helpful or is it just me needing to let everyone out there know that at the moment, I’m not ok?  As a result the words have been unwilling to emerge.  Defiant, almost.  And yet I know that this is important.  That there are so many other people out there struggling with the same thing that it would be wrong not to write it.  Because sharing my journey, as well as being a form of therapy for me, is also designed to help other people along the way.  So here it is…

When I was ill, my Mum used to say that it was like I had a big black cloud following me around all the time that I couldn’t get rid of.  As I slowly started to get better, that cloud changed into being dark grey, and then shifted again into a lighter grey.  After a while, rays of light started breaking through the gloom and depression, and then the cloud transformed into one of those fluffy white cumulonimbus ones that look like cotton wool floating in the sky.  Eventually the clouds disappeared altogether, and for the vast majority of the time, my world was sunny and bright.

However, on rare occasions over the last ten years there have been periods of time where my sky has darkened again, and I’ve felt the presence of that big black cloud looming ominously and oppressively over my shoulder once more.  Unexpectedly, I’m going through one of those times now.  That’s the thing with this cloud – it sneaks up on me without me even realising and then envelopes me in it’s inky blackness without warning.  I know I’m not the only one – chances are there are several of you out there reading this right now who are feeling the same as me.  It’s a difficult feeling to describe.  Everything seems heavy in an I-don’t-want-to-get-up-in-the-morning kind of way.  You switch off your feelings and tune out those around you, listening only to that voice in your head.  You know - the negative one that hisses in your ear all of the things you do that make you a bad person, reminding you of how ugly you are, and how you should just disappear because no-one would even notice that you’ve gone. 

Truth be told, I’ve had enough of having that voice in my life.  It drags me down, and that drags down everyone else around me (including my girls), which just isn’t fair.  The good news is, I know I can do something about it, which is something that a lot of my clients don’t believe when they first come to see me.  Gradually I work together with them to help them see that they don’t have to listen to that voice any more, and that they can get rid of the cloud and be happy again.  I also work on myself alongside them.  This post is meant to be a message of hope to you all - an attempt at letting you know that it won’t last forever, and that you can do lots of things to let the light back into your world again.  

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out what connects the different stretches of darkness in my life, and I can’t single out one thing in particular, or even a chain of things.  In a way, this bothers me.  I like to know why things are happening.  And yet at the same time I’m kind of ok with it, uncomfortable as it is.  I know that I’ve felt like this before.  I know that no matter how bad things got, and how awful I let myself feel, I still made it out the other side – bruised, battered and probably blinking a little in the sunlight as my eyes got used to the new way of seeing things. 

That’s the good thing about stumbling around in the dark for a while.  When you eventually find your way out to the light again, everything looks different.  All the questioning and doubting and learning and thinking and feeling and consolidating and processing and analysing and soul-searching that you do while you are, in effect, blinded by the darkness, heightens your other senses, and will eventually lead to a moment of enlightenment, a breakthrough, like a flash of lightning splitting the storm cloud in half, when you suddenly realise what it’s all about and why it’s happening, and what you are supposed to take from it that means you can move forwards on to the next part of your journey.

This is comforting to me.  I know that this too shall pass, and I will learn and grow and change yet again.  I’m not just going to sit around and wait for that to happen though.  There are a couple of things I’ve learnt from my experiences along the way that I now use to help myself helf things along a bit.  I thought I’d share them with you, just in case they help you as well. 

Three Positives:  I know I keep mentioning this.  That’s because it works.  Every evening, sit comfortably and write down three positive things that have happened during that day.  Anything that had made you feel good.  It could be as small as seeing a butterfly, or sharing coffee with a friend, or it could be something bigger, like finishing a task you’ve been trying to do for months, or getting a new job.

Fresh Air:  Go out.  Get yourself out of the house into the fresh air and go for a walk.  Even if it’s only for 10 minutes.  Even if it’s raining.  It helps.  Trust me.

Talk to someone:  Keeping everything inside is a sure-fire way to self-destruction.  Letting all those negative thoughts whirl round and round in your head is not useful.  I’ve found that getting them out of my head by talking to a friend or loved one really helps put those thoughts into perspective, and makes me realise that they are just that:  thoughts.  They don’t have to be real.  Then I counteract every negative thought I have with a positive alternative.  There is a positive opportunity in every single challenge we face.  Figuring out that positive makes everything seem so much lighter and brighter.  If there is no-one available to listen to you, write them down on a piece of paper – it works just as well.

Even having written this post has cleared my head a bit.  It feels better to have put my thoughts down on (metaphorical) paper.  Now it feels like there is more space in my head to put the positives, those glimmers of sunshine that I know are hidden behind the clouds, waiting for me to find them.

Thanks for listening

“You can curse the darkness, or you can light a candle” (Unknown)

I have mixed feelings about rain.  As I type this, I’m curled up on my sofa wearing fluffy slipper socks, watching the rain steadily fall from the sky.  The sky is that flat, sickly, grey-white colour that lets you know that the rain isn’t going to stop anytime soon.  Maybe not for days.  The pavements and roads are shiny wet, reflecting the dullness of the clouds above.  Heavy drops punctuate the puddles sharply, and rattle and rage against the windows in sheets, driven by the whims of the wind.  The soft yellow-and-red glows from car headlights and brake lights stretch out like the beacons on a lighthouse, searching their way through the gloom, while passers-by hurry along with their heads bent low under their sodden umbrellas, seeking shelter from the weather.

Today, I don’t mind the weather.  Today I have nothing to do but paperwork and admin and that is how I will spend my time – answering emails, making telephone calls, and writing.  Today I feel comforted by the rain, cocooned in it’s dreary dampness from behind the warm safety of my windows.  I’m briefly reminded of teenage bus journeys to college, when I used to climb aboard after waiting for what seemed like hours, dripping everywhere, before making my way right to the back where I’d sit in the corner with the side of my forehead resting against the steamed up windows, enjoying the anonymity, the solitude of being lost in my music and watching the world go by from the damp warmth of the noisy, dirty, fume-filled journey.  I also remember walking in the rain along one of the many beaches I visited in Australia, eating ice cream, not even noticing the drips running in rivulets down my face, or the weight of my heavy feet as they struggled to trudge through the darkened sand.  It didn’t matter, because I had nothing else to do, and nowhere else to be. 

On other days, I hate the rain.  The cold somehow seems to soak through your clothes along with the water, before being absorbed into your skin and chilling you to your very core.  It’s inconvenient and irritating, stopping me from going to the places I want to go to and doing the things that I want to do.  I feel angry and resentful.   Bored and restless.  Like a tiger in captivity relentlessly pacing up and down the edges of it’s enclosure just for something to keep it occupied, even though it knows that it’s not actually getting anywhere.

So what is the difference?  After all, it’s just rain.  Why on some days do I just get on with things, and on other days let it get the better of me?  The difference is me.  My mood.  How I choose to let myself feel about the rain on that day.  And this is something I’ve only just realised.  I mean, having led the life I’ve lived so far, having experienced what I’ve experienced, and having learnt what I’ve learnt, I now know that I can choose how I want to feel in any given situation.  That I have the power to decide what mood I want to be in.  I just never thought to apply this principle to the weather before.  My thinking and logic in the past has always been along the lines of “Well, you can’t change the weather, that’s out of your control”, and that was as far as it went.  What I’m now beginning to realise is that yes, the weather is out of my control, but my feelings and thoughts are in my control, and I can change them if I want to.  It’s a bit of a revelation if I’m honest. 

The girls are always begging me to let them wear their wellies so they can go splashing in the puddles, and I pretty much always say no, preferring instead to stay inside in the warm and dry, even though I know I’ll be going crazy within 10 minutes.  I think I’ve learnt my lesson now.  The next time it rains (probably tomorrow!), I’m going to choose how I want to feel about it.  Am I going to let it get me down?  No.  I’m going to pull on some wellies (actually, thinking about it, I don’t as yet own any, so perhaps my first task needs to be to go and buy a pair!) and go splashing in puddles, hand-in-hand with my girls.  We might even twirl our umbrellas

And so, with this in mind, my challenge to you is this:  have a go at deciding how you want to feel.  I’m not just talking about the rain here, because this is bigger than that.  No matter where you are, or who you are with, or what you are doing, decide how you want to feel and then feel it.  It might take a minute or two, but I promise it’s worth it.  Just making the decision means that you’re halfway there.  What would your life be like if you had the ability to make even the darkest, most drizzly of days seem filled with sunshine?  Imagine that.  Go on, I dare you.  Give it a try.  You might be surprised at how much easier things can seem to be when you switch on your internal sunshine.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and feelings about this, so feel free to leave a comment below or to contact me directly via email or phone.  I look forward to hearing from you soon. 

In a way I guess I have every reason to be looking forward to it.  After all, at one point I didn’t think I’d even make it to my 18th birthday, let alone my thirtieth.  Looking back now that part of my journey seems like a whole lifetime ago.  And in a way I suppose it was.  I’ve grown and changed and loved and lost since then, and I feel so much more ‘me’ now than I ever have been before.  That doesn’t mean I’m embracing getting older in it’s entirety though.  I’m certainly not particularly enjoying the wrinkles that seem to have appeared on my forehead over the last year or so.  My eldest daughter ever-so-kindly pointed them out to me one morning the other week as she watched me putting on my make-up:  “Mummy, what are those lines on your face?”, accompanied by a smile so innocent and charming that I couldn’t help but forgive her.

Anyway, my thirtieth feels important to me, and I want to mark it with something significant.  So I’ve decided to start a project.  It’s called ’30 Things Before I’m 30′, and, as you’ve probably already figured out, it’s a list of thirty things that I want to have done / achieved / completed / tried before my thirtieth birthday in exactly one year’s time. 

I had a bit of trouble deciding what to put on it.  Decisions have never been my strong point to be honest and because this list is so important to me it’s taken me many hours of working on it before it felt ‘right’.  The thing is you see, I’ve already done quite a lot in my life.  I’ve had several clients come to see me in the past who were panicking about having not ticked off everything on their ‘must do by 30′ lists, which almost always included getting married, having children, buying their own house, getting a decent salary in a career they enjoy etc… 

I’m very lucky - I’ve already ticked off a lot of the ‘traditional’ wish list.  I own my own home, I have my own car, I have three gorgeous daughters, I run my own business doing what I love.  I’ve been travelling, done a bungee jump, skydived, climbed Ayre’s Rock, seen a shooting star.  What else is there to achieve?       

Anyway, after much deliberation, here it is.  The final list (in no particular order):

1.  Get a tattoo (another one I mean) – this one is going to be my 30th birthday present to myself  I already have two tattoos that are very meaningful to me, and my third is going be a butterfly to symbolise all the changes I’ve been through. 

2.  Start running.  Partly for my health, fitness and wellbeing, and partly to create space where I can be by myself and think.  However, the main reason is…

3.  …so I can take part in a 5k (or maybe even a 10k!) run for charity.  It’s got to be Cancer Research UK, for my Grandad.

4.  Join a yoga class.  Whenever I’ve done yoga in the past I’ve felt so calm and so serene afterwards that I know it’s something I definitely want more of in my life.  And I feel I owe it to Oz, who followed her dream (you can read more about her here:  http://www.openmindhypnotherapy.co.uk/blog/for-oz/ and here:  http://www.bubbleofhappiness.co.uk/

5.  Grow sunflowers.  This one is actually already in progress.  The girls and I planted the seeds 3 weeks ago:

Planting the sunflower seeds

6.  Go to New York City.  I’ve always, always, always wanted to go to New York.  I can’t explain why – I just want to see it, to feel it, to experience it (and to photograph what I interpret to be the essence of it).  Which brings me nicely on to…

7.  …Have some lessons in photography.  I love taking photos.  For me there’s something completely magical about capturing a moment in time and preserving it forever.  I want to get better at doing it.  At the moment I’m an enthusiastic amateur - I want to become more of a professional because there is so much more I want to do with my photography. 

8.  Treat myself to a full body massage.  Because I deserve it

9.  In fact, forget that.  I want to spend the whole day at a spa.  Facial, massage, manicure, pedicure, swimming, white fluffy dressing gown – the works.

10.  Pay off my overdraft.  Enough said.

11.  Write more.  I realise this one is a bit vague.  I’m ok with that.  I have no idea how this is going to manifest itself yet, and that’s exciting.  I’m just going to go with it and see where it takes me.

12.  Learn to dance.  I don’t care what kind, as long as I can have fun while I’m doing it and won’t embarress myself at weddings. 

13.  Go and see live comedy.  I want to laugh until my belly hurts and I can’t see because of the tears streaming down my face.  

14.  Upgrade to the modern world and get myself a smartphone.

15.  Buy myself a beautiful pair of shoes.  (If I can successfully walk in them without falling over, that will be an added bonus)

16.  Give red lipstick a try.  I don’t really wear much make-up, so this is a biggie for me.  I might need someone to show me how to apply it *looking sheepishly down at the ground and shuffling feet*

17.  Read more.  I have a stack of books that have been slowly piling up since I had the girls.  It’s time I made a start on them. 

My current pile of 'books to read'...

18.  See a magic show.  Or Derren Brown.  I’m not fussy.

19.  Learn to juggle (because it’s cool)

20.  Start a savings account (and actually put some money into it).  My savings disappeared when I went travelling (totally worth it!) and have never re-appeared.  Having some financial back-up is important to me, so it’s about time I put a bit more effort into creating it.

21.  Ride on the back of a motorbike.  Preferably a Harley.  I want to feel like Kelly McGillis in Top Gun.

22.  Get the back garden looking pretty.  My Grandad always took great pride in his beautiful garden, and I have fond memories of pottering about in the back garden with my Mum when I was little, helping her sweep up the autumn leaves and water the plants in summer.  I want to continue the tradition of being green-fingered and do them proud.  This will be a big project, because at the moment my garden looks like this: 

My untidy weed-infested garden

23.  Bake a cake.  All by myself.  That actually looks appetising and is edible.

24.  Write down three positives every single day.  A task that I set for virtually every single client I see, because it can make such a massive difference to their emotional wellbeing, and yet it’s something I don’t do myself.  

25.  Buy an ipod (or similar).  I’m going to be doing quite a lot of train journeys backwards and forwards to London between now and next year, and music will help pass the time.  This one will also be useful when I’m out running/training for number 3.  This means I need to…

26.  …Update my music collection.  I’m thinking Lana del Rey, The Hurts, James Morrison, and Jason Mraz for starters.  All other recommendations/suggestions appreciated.

27.  Give up my dependency on drinking hot chocolate.  Every day for the last 10 years I’ve had 2 (strong) hot chocolates every single day.  It was part of how I got better from being ill and I’m still struggling to let go of it as a habit.  I’d love to just be able to have one when I fancied it

28.  Take a risk. 

29.  Do more of what makes me happy, as per the picture below:

Do more of what makes you happy

30.  Make peace with / let go of the rest of my demons.

So there you have it.  I’ll post again on my birthday next year with an update on how I’ve got on. 

(And by the way, if anyone out there can help me with any of these, or knows anyone who can, please please please get in touch.  all offers of assistance and support will be gratefully received.  Thank you)

After a seemingly endless week of dull and heavy grey skies, relentless rain battering the house and the evident boredom of three increasingly frustrated children, everyone’s tempers have been running extremely high.  I have to admit that I broke my ‘no shouting’ pledge many times over the weekend.  There have been tantrums, screaming fits, outbursts of tears and arguing.  (And that was just me).  I’ve been feeling horribly guilty, and so ashamed that I actually feel sick.  And most of all I feel like I’ve let everyone down. 

Then I found this:

“The things that piss you off about your kids are the things you haven’t learned to love and embrace about yourself.  Once you heal that part of you and accept it, your kids change – or their behaviour no longer bothers you.  The universe is constantly reflecting back to us where we have the opportunity to grow, learn more, love more.”  (James Ray)

It made such perfect, complete and utter sense to me that I cried again.  With relief this time.  I gathered my three girls around me, hugged them as hard as I could and looked at every single one of them in turn, right into the depths of their eyes.  And I said sorry.  I apologised for being so grumpy.  I apologised for shouting at them, and for crying when it all got too much.  I told them that I love them and that I’d start over and that it wasn’t their fault.  As I breathed in the warm scent from their soft necks and felt their arms tighten around me I remembered everything that’s important to me about how I want them to remember their childhood – full of love, acceptence and happiness.   

So often in life the way we react to situations is as a result of stuff that’s happened in our past.  By recognising that, and working on that part of ourselves, it enables us to find a better balance in our present.  I still have a lot of ‘stuff’ to work on, I know that now.  And it’s kind of hard to admit that - because of the work I do, and the history I’ve had.  But this blog has become my therapy.  This is me – the good, the bad and all the bits in between where I try to figure out what the hell I’m doing.  So, in the midst of building a business, running a home and trying to bring up three gorgeous little girls so that they know they are loved for who they are,  I’m doing my best to clear away all the ‘stuff’ that I still carry around with me that I no longer need, and to remember that I too am a work in progress.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on all of this, so please feel free to message me directly or leave a comment below.  Thank you.

A couple of days ago my eldest daughter (aged 5) shyly approached me whilst I was quietly trying to get a bit of work done, and asked me if I could play with her.  I put my laptop to one side, followed her into the bedroom and asked her what she wanted to play with.  She instantly pointed at the dolls house, her eager face lit up like sunlight, with a mixture of hope and expectation.  So we sat down on the floor together, cross-legged, side by side, and emptied the dolls house of it’s jumbled mixture of furniture and colourful tangle of miniature figurines.  Once the house was an empty shell, we proceeded to put everything back in it’s rightful place one item and one room at a time - bedroom, lounge, bathroom, dining room, kitchen.  

After ten or fifteen minutes everything was neatly set up and I stood up, ready to go and carry on with what I’d been doing before.  Ella looked up at me with a little frown on her face, evidently confused, and asked “Where are you going Mummy?  I thought you were going to play with me?”.  The look of hurt in her eyes and the sadness in her voice was unmistakeable – it stopped me in my tracks.  Yet the truth was, I thought I’d already done exactly what she’d asked me – I thought I’d ‘played’.  So I came back and gave her a hug and asked her what she wanted to do next.  “I want you to play with me and the dolls house Mummy” she replied, insistently. 

I still didn’t get it. 

In the end, I think there was a knock at the door or the phone rang or something, and my attention was momentarily diverted while I dealt with the interruption.  When I came back to her a few minutes later one of her sisters had wandered over to her to see what she was doing and they were playing with the dolls house together.  I leaned against the doorframe for a moment or two, just watching them.  They were completely absorbed in what they were doing – making up voices for each of the dolls, creating imaginary scenarios for them to encounter, re-arranging the furniture that we’d so carefully set out just minutes before.  I’m ashamed to say that I left them to it and tiptoed away, feeling like the worst mummy in the world.

The tragic thing is, this has become quite a regular occurence in our house over the last few months.  I’m sure I’m not the only one either (at least, I hope I’m not).  I’m going to call it ‘reverse Peter Pan syndrome’.  I’m the opposite to the boy who never grew up.  I’m the girl who grew up way before her time.  Somewhere along my journey I’ve forgotton how to have fun.  I’ve forgotton how to play.  I’ve forgotton how to laugh.  Sometimes I occasionally even have the fleeting thought that I might have forgotton how to smile. 

I’m not really sure when I forgot how to do all of these things.  I remember from the age of about 10 being teased about having had a “sense of humour failure”.  At that age you take on board and believe the vast majority of stuff you get told.  Perhaps I unconsciously absorbed it and then went about making it my reality?  Perhaps it’s because I was an only child?  I’d spend as much time playing by myself as I did playing with my Mum (or, when she was working, the childminder).  Maybe I never really learnt how to play with other people?  I don’t think I really believe that though, because I remember playing with my friends when we went to each other’s houses, and I remember making up all sorts of games to play in the playground at school. 

The truth is, whatever the reason is behind this (current) inability to play, to interact, to connect with my girls at their most basic level of communication, it doesn’t matter.  What matters is that I’ve recognised it, and that means that I can do something about it.  I can change it.

About six weeks ago I took something called the Authentic Happiness “Signature Strengths” test.  This 240-statement questionnaire works out your personal ”Signature Strengths”, which are the key to experiencing your life positively.  Signature Strengths are characteristics we have within us that require feeding - nourish them and we are rewarded with the life that we want, starve them and life feels empty.  My top five strengths were stunningly accurate.  So were my lowest five, with “humour and playfulness” ranking second from the bottom.  So, by working to incorporate more humour and playfulness into my life it means that my overall state of happiness will increase.  And a happy mummy = happy girlies.  

I’m fairly sure that even just half an hour a day would do it.  Just half an hour of unplugging from the computer, turning the mobile onto silent and saying to my girls that from x until y I am all theirs, and we can do whatever they want to do (within reason!) during that time – be it doing a jigsaw together, drawing or colouring in, dressing up, painting, baking, playing catch, play doh, the dolls house, playing picnics, pretend shop, tea parties, hairdressers, mums and dads, football in the garden… the list is endless.  I think it’s always good to have a back up in place too – my girls rarely agree on anything because all three of them are so individual and independent.  In this instance I reckon a good old tickle fight will do the job nicely – tickle fights never fail to get everyone involved giggling

It’ll be interesting to see just how much of a difference this difference will make.  Hopefully it’ll start to fix the balance within my little family, which at the moment feels slightly lopsided and a tiny bit broken.  I’ll keep you posted.    

I’d love to hear your  thoughts and ideas on the matter too, so please feel free to leave a comment below and/or email me directly at chloe@openmindhypnotherapy.co.uk.  And if you want to find out more about the Signature Strengths test, please do get in touch and I’ll direct you to the right place. 

So here’s to all things joyful, silly, and so full of laughter that your belly hurts and tears come pouring out of your eyes.  Now go and play, and have fun!

Mimi, Lola and Ella with their dolls house

Since I wrote the first part of this Positive Parenting blog three weeks ago, I’ve launched myself head first into travelling along a pretty steep learning curve.  It’s been interesting and I’ve learnt a lot along the way.  Mostly about myself, but also about my girls.  It hasn’t been easy  – there have been tears and tantrums galore – and I am very aware that I still have a huge amount to learn.  And yet in the middle of all of this, I think we’ve turned a corner.  There is now a tiny spark of light at the end of the tunnel, a glimmer of hope that perhaps I’m not screwing my kids up as much as I thought I was. 

Of all the lessons I’ve learnt so far I think the most important one is actually one that I already knew, but up until now hadn’t applied to this part of my world.  It was a bit of a lightbulb moment actually, because I’m really good at remembering it in pretty much every other aspect of my life and work.  So why had I forgotton it so easily when it came to caring for the three people most important to me? 

That lesson is that all behaviour has a positive intention. 

Everything my girls do has a positive intention behind it (yep, even the ‘bad’ behaviour).  And every response I give has a positive intention too (yep, even the shouting). 

It’s been said that parenting is 10% what your child does, and 90% how you react to it.

I’ve found that to be fairly accurate so far.  Even when my girls are behaving horribly – to each other, to me, or just because they can, there is a reason driving that behaviour.  I’ve noticed that it’s usually a need that they have that is not being met.  It might be as simple as thirst or hunger (a need for food/water and an energy boost), it might be tiredness (a need to sleep, to rest and re-charge), or it might be that they feel they aren’t being listened to or played with or loved (a need for attention).  If that need isn’t being met, they behave in a way that they think might result in that need being met.  Sometimes that behaviour takes the form of asking politely for a drink or snack, or for me to do a jigsaw or some colouring with them, or climbing on to my lap for a quiet cuddle.  And sometimes it ends up with one (or all) of them lying on the floor kicking, screaming, crying, wailing, hitting, biting, kicking, pulling hair, pushing, pinching, spitting and generally trying to make it known to me that they are not happy with the situation.  

I said earlier that my responses have positive intentions too, even the shouting.  I believe that every action that we as parents take is driven by fear or love.  Fear that our children are going to get hurt, fear that they are going to grow up to be disruptive, fear that they won’t do as well in life as we want them to.  And I guess, in essence, that fear is driven by love.  We all love our children so much – we want them to be happy, we want them to be intelligent and successful.  We want them to be safe.  We want them to behave appropriately.  We want them to feel loved.  So I decided to cut out the fear part and choose a loving response, every time.

I’ve learnt that by taking a moment to try and understand what need they have that isn’t being met before reacting to their ‘bad’ behaviour by shouting back/getting angry/threatening them with punishment (delete as applicable) is a far more positive way of dealing with the tantrums than my previous method.  Before I made the commitment to my girls to be a better parent, I dealt with tantrums by losing my temper.  I’d shout, I’d scream, I’d cry.  I’d say mean things to them.  In short, I’d behave exactly as they were behaving.  And guess what?  It didn’t work.  All that happened was that everything would escalate, the atmosphere between us and the volume of our battle increasing rapidly and dramatically until it reached an impressive crescendo.  Eventually it would get to a point at which I’d sink to the floor feeling utterly defeated, and still nothing had been resolved. 

Since making a pledge to stop shouting, life has been so much calmer...

Now I stay calm.  I keep my voice level, and low.  I talk to them.  I ask them what they are thinking and feeling.  I explain what I’m thinking and feeling.  Even when they shout back at me, I stay quiet and gentle, trying to understand what they are trying to communicate to me.  I’ve committed myself to not shouting.  

It’s working! 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a saint – not by any means.  There have been many, many times over the last three weeks I’ve felt the heat start to rise, my breathing quicken, the thoughts develop in my head and a shout form in my throat.  It has taken every single ounce of self control that I have to swallow it.  But I have.  Because I made that promise to my girls, and I’m sticking to it. 

It’s got easier as the days have gone by.  Now it feels more normal for me to stay calm than it does to get angry.  As a result, I’m feeling so much better within myself.  Calmer, stronger, more connected with my girls, and far more like who I really am.  I’d lost her somewhere along the way, and now I finally feel like I’m starting to find her again.  The real Chloe.  It feels good

I’ve also noticed a difference in the girls.  The tantrums (when they arise), are probably just as intense, but they are definitely shorter.  They don’t go on for an hour or more like they used to.  And for the most part, I’m beginning to notice that they’ll try and explain to me what the matter is before they explode in a rage, so a lot of the time we are able to diffuse a tantrum before it even gets started. Just by listening to them, getting down to their level, looking them in the eyes and understanding what they are thinking and feeling.         

Victor Frankl once said “Between stimulus and reponse, there is a space.  In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response.  In our response lies our growth and freedom”.

This sums up everything that I’m trying to say here.  Between the stimulus of an angry daughter, and my response to that anger, is a space for me to choose how to respond, how to react, how to deal with the situation. 

I’m choosing calmness and love.

This is just one of the lessons that I’ve learnt so far.  I’ll be continuing this Positive Parenting series of blogs as the weeks go by, and I’d love to hear back from you with any thoughts, tips, ideas and things that have worked for you, so please get in touch.  I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Do you ever have days where you wake up in the morning and everything is fuzzy?  Your head, your vision, your hearing, your thoughts… everything just seems slightly out of focus and blurred round the edges and not quite as it should be.  I’m having one of those days today.  It’s not due to overindulging on alcohol (I don’t drink), and it’s not simply tiredness.  I can’t really explain it to be honest.  I just know that I don’t like it.  I feel totally disconnected from everyone and everything, like nothing is real.  The best way I can describe it is that it’s as if I’m in a movie, where I’m in slow-motion and everyone else is operating at hyper-speed. 

It’s the Easter holidays at the moment, and we’ve got my step-daughter staying with us for a few days.  The house is over-run with girls.  As they all sat round the table this morning eating their breakfast, their chattering and giggling and happiness filled the air and echoed through the house.  I stood and watched them for several minutes, trying to absorb some of their normally infectious joy.  I can usually soak up their smiles like sunshine on my skin, but today I couldn’t.  It felt like I was standing outside in the cold, looking in through a tiny window, frantically waving and asking to come in but no-one seeing or hearing me.

Yesterday was different.  Yesterday was a good day.  Yesterday everything was in sharp focus – my thoughts were clear and I could see everything with perfect clarity.  I’m short-sighted, and wear glasses to see things that are a certain distance away from me, like when I’m driving, or watching TV, or at the movies.  When I put them on them, the world instantly snaps into place and I can see everything down to the tiniest detail.  Yesterday I walked into town and it was like I was wearing my glasses.  I could see every leaf and every single bud on the trees as if they were in high definition.  When I passed people in the street I could see every single crease in their skin, every tiny alteration in their expressions and movement, every subtle glance they exchanged with someone else and the full meaning and intention behind it.

This clarity isn’t just on the outside though.  On days like yesterday I can see connections between things.  When I’m working with clients, I can see their issue so clearly it’s like a map spread out in front of me.  I can see all their paths, their decisions, their choices merging and crossing over.  Every intersection is a memory, which then links to another feeling, another consequence.  It’s quite astonishing, almost magical, when it happens, and it takes me by surprise.  On days like yesterday I get things done, I’m productive and I feel good.  Everything is effortless.  I’m in flow.  I’m connected.  To the world, and to myself.

I’d love to hear your experiences of connectivity.  Please feel free to leave a comment below if you want to share them with me. 

Are you feeling connected?

Two years ago today, on 28th March 2010, my Grandad passed away after a long battle against cancer.  Grandad was a big influence on me, although I don’t think I realised it while he was alive.  It makes me feel sad to admit that, and I think perhaps there’s a lesson in it somewhere – to appreciate the important people in your life while they are still here. 

My Nana and Grandad were an amazing source of support when I was ill with anorexia – both for me and my Mum.  After having a Cognitive Hypnotherapy session, my Mum and I would travel on to visit them – they lived about half an hour away from where the sessions took place.  Every week my Nana and Grandad would ask me how I was feeling, and they’d talk to me about what had happened in the session.  They gave me endless encouragement and expressed an unwavering belief that I could and would get better.  The overwhelming feeling I get when I think of them is love.

Even though Grandad isn’t here in person any more I still feel his presence.  I’m not particularly spiritual or religious, and I don’t believe in God or heaven or hell, but even so, somehow I know Grandad is watching over me.  He was so strong for me when I was ill, and I really regret not being there more when he was poorly – I was busy with my little family and simply couldn’t fit the 5 hour round-trip into my life at the time.  When I finally realised just how ill he was, we went down to visit them.  My youngest daughter Lola was only 2 months old.  Grandad was in bed when we arrived, so I took Lola upstairs to meet him for the first time.  I walked into the room and stopped - he looked so ill and in that split second I absolutely knew in my heart that it would be the last time I would ever see him.  I gently handed Lola to him and carefully helped him support her.  Even though he was very weak he smiled down at her and she gazed back up at him and give him the biggest smile she could muster.  It was a beautiful moment – one which I will cherish in my memory forever, frozen in time.  The experience drained him, so I took Lola back downstairs and then cried and cried.  He passed away two weeks later.   

Ever since, around this time of year, I see little white feathers everywhere.  Some people believe that white feathers are gifts from angels – signs that they are watching over us.  I’m not so sure.  The logical part of me says that it’s coincidence – it’s Spring and therefore there are lots of ducklings and baby birds around, hence the increase in feathers.  But the totally illogical emotional side of me wants to believe that maybe, just maybe, it is Grandad just letting me know that he is still with me in some way, and that he is still looking out for me. 

I believe he was there when I had the car crash on the motorway – someone even said to me afterwards “There must have been someone watching over you for you to still be alive”.  I believe he is there when I’m going through a tough time in my head.  I often speak to him, and ask him what he thinks I ought to do.  His answer is always the same – “Do what makes you happy”.  

My Nana is now struggling with dementia, and it’s so sad to hear my Mum describing how bit by bit the Nana I know and love is disappearing and fading away as her memory and her life is slowly being robbed from her by this horrible illness. 

I have a friend who lost her Mum around this time last year and I know she still struggles on a daily basis.  She is often in my thoughts.  This poem, below, was read at my Grandad’s funeral and to me it sums up everything I need to believe about my Grandad passing away.  So Laura, this is for you, and anyone else who has ever lost someone they love.     

Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep

Do not stand at my grave and weep,

I am not there;

I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow,

I am the diamond glints on snow,

I am the sun on ripened grain,

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning’s hush

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circling flight.

I am the soft star-shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry,

I am not there;

I did not die.

My wonderful Grandad

I always knew I wanted children.  When I was younger, if I thought about what I wanted my future to look like, and what life would be like when I was grown up, kids were always a part of the picture.  I always imagined girls rather than boys, which is interesting, because that’s exactly what I’ve ended up with.  What the thinker thinks, the prover proves?

Here they are – my gorgeous, funny, clever girls:

Ella, Lola and Mimi

I knew I would love them unconditionally and completely.  I pictured us having cuddles, reading stories together, playing in the park, having picnics, building sandcastles, dressing up, having tickle fights - all smiles and giggles and sunshine.  I was absolutely clear in my mind that I would raise them to be confident and independent, to love themselves and be happy in their own skin. 

I was also 100% certain that I would never shout at them, never get angry with them, and never, ever hit them.

If I’m totally honest, the reality of life with children has been a bit of a shock, and things haven’t quite gone completely to plan.  I anticipated sleepless nights, a degree of challenging behaviour and the occasional doubt that I was doing the right thing.  I was not expecting the constant worrying, the immense guilt, or my own temper being so short that I sometimes scare myself.

I’m finding myself getting angry with my girls more and more often.  I feel like I’m constantly shouting.  They never seem to do what I ask them to do.  If I’m honest, a lot of the time they seem to be pretty unhappy.  And because I work as a Cognitive Hypnotherapist, I know just exactly how much of an effect my words and actions are having on them. 

Now, before you all rally around with cries of “Don’t be silly, you’re doing great”, just hear me out.  I’m not doing great.  I’m doing the best I can with what I’ve got at the moment, but when it comes to my girls, that’s not good enough – for me or for them.  I’m not happy with the way things are, and something needs to change.  I refuse to compromise my girls happiness and wellbeing any more.  I want to become the positive parent that I always imagined myself being.   

As a result of all of this, the subject of Positive Parenting has been on my mind a lot recently.  I’ve been doing quite a bit of research into it, and have come up with some ideas that I’m going to put into practice over the next month or so to see if it makes a difference.  I really hope it does, because things can’t carry on the way they have been up until now.  My next blog on this topic (Positive Parenting part 2) will have more details about it all.

The first step in this next part of my parenting journey is something I did a long time ago in my head, which I now feel like I need to say out loud to make it more real.  So here it is - my commitment to my girls.  I promise that from today I will do everything in my power to be the best parent I can be.

Starting now.