A central aspect of supporting healing with aware parenting is offering our children the balance of attention. This means that we are offering emotional safety AND a reminder from the past to reconnect with the feelings from the past stressful experiences, all whilst they experience a deep sense of emotional safety in the present. As Marion Rose explains in her book I'm Here and I'm Listening, "The balance of attention is key to understanding the process of healing from stress or trauma through attachment play and connecting crying and raging. The balance of attention is the exact balance that we create by on the one side, offering our loving presence and creating emotional safety - and on the other, helping our child stay connected with the feelings from the past when they were scared, sad or angry"
Our children experience emotional safety from a connected, safe relationship with us, free of punishments or rewards, blame and shame, where they know it is safe to have feelings and with unconditional love as often as we can offer that. They also need to experience an embodied sense of our capacity and willingness to hold them in their feelings.
Our children experience connection to their feelings from the past when they are reminded in some way of painful experiences and themes which they have not yet been able to integrate and heal. They need to be reminded in some way of the source of the feelings.
If there is too much re-connection to the distress without the emotional safety, they are not able to release and heal. Instead, they are likely to experience overwhelm and be re-triggered back into hyper-arousal. If there is emotional safety but not enough connection to the painful feelings, then they will not be able to shift the feelings or heal either. If there is not sufficient revisiting exposure to create an emotional response in them, then they cannot process their pain and trauma.
So we are invited to keep finding that perfect balance point, where the feelings can flow because our children are connecting with painful feelings whilst also feeling our loving safety. They are then free to use their natural recovery mechanisms, and experience the entire range of their emotions, without feeling threatened or overwhelmed and without feeling that they need to suppress or numb their feelings. Then the trauma is released, the brain is re-programmed, the painful traumatic memories are transformed and healing occurs.
And if the feelings aren't flowing, we can reflect on whether we might be able to bring in more safety for them, (both in what we offer them and in how we are supporting ourselves). Or we might reflect on how we could gently nudge them closer to the feelings by reminding them of the source. Or both.
Balancing these 2 aspects to support healing might include:
- Recognising when our children have experienced something that reminds them of the initial trauma and are experiencing painful feelings in the present or inviting us to play in order to help their healing.
- Encouraging and accepting their natural healing processes so they are able to react freely to these trauma triggers using the innate healing mechanisms. So we support and facilitate them crying with our loving presents, raging, laughter, play and body movements.
- Focussing on connection and safety - offering eye contact, a warm tone of voice and our body presence, trying to attune to them and offer them our love.
- Tending to ourselves - checking in on our internal dialogue to ensure we aren't judging ourselves or them, and instead coming back to compassion, exploring our feelings and needs in the present moment to ensure we aren't feeling frustrated or resentful, exploring our feelings from our past - bringing awareness to our feelings of powerlessness or overwhelm, fear or shame that might be coming up. We need to support ourselves to get to a place where we are really willing to welcome and listen to all their big feelings.
- Tuning in to see if we are dissociated or distracted and, if so, offering ourselves compassion and checking in to see if we have capacity right now to be supporting them at this moment. Asking ourselves are we really willing to listen to their feelings now? Sometimes the answer to that is no, especially if we are feeling overwhelmed and exhausted and in need of support ourselves. In those moments, can you let go and reassure yourself that you will support them when you are willing to listen?
- Supporting them to connect with the painful feelings and be reminded in some way of the past stressful experiences. That might be with our words "Oh sweetheart it was so scary when that dog barked" or "Oh darling I can see things are really feeling hard for you at the moment". It might be through play, where we bring in symbols of something they have found painful and stressful so they can play and laugh in relation to those experiences. It might be lovingly supporting them to cry when they are in a car seat and being reminded of their birth experiences. We can trust that often life will provide opportunities for our children (and ourselves) to connect with painful memories and feelings. We just need tune in and get curious about what might be going on. So if our child becomes really upset when they ask for something and we say a loving "No", we can ask ourselves "I wonder what feelings of powerlessness or pain this is connecting them with and how can I offer my loving presence and safety in this moment to support them to release and heal. How can I gently keep them connected to these feelings?" Or we might ask ourselves "How can I bring in some play now (or follow their lead in the play they are spontaneously going into) that will support them best so that they can make sense of a painful, stressful experience in a way that is not dangerous at all?" Or we might explore where is the exact point when they are crying where they feel safe and still in the feelings at the same time - we might move slightly away from them and observe their response, til we find the perfect spot that supports them best. Or we might gently touch their body or move in with loving connection when they scream "Don't look at me!".
- Ensuring we don't confuse physical safety with emotional safety. The balance of attention requires both but we need to remember that our children will often feel physically safe with us without feeling the necessary emotional safety. E.g. if a baby is not heard when they have feelings and instead we hold them in our arms and breast-feed them when they have feelings to share rather than need for food in that moment, they will feel physically safe in our arms but not enough emotional safety to express the feelings and will therefore dissociate.
This is a difficult, nuanced process and finding the perfect balance for our children to be able to release and heal changes every day. And we need to find this balance in order to healing to occur. We all have many times when we can't quite find the balance, when we feel overwhelmed and stressed ourselves, when we have our own big feelings coming up reducing our capacity to be with our children's feelings, when we mis-judge how to connect them with the feelings or how to stay connected with the feelings. So I am sending you love and compassion for all this in parenting. When we are able to really understand this balance (and it took me many many years to really understand), parenting becomes so much more enjoyable because we feel powerful and confident and clear about how to support our children to heal.
If you would like support to explore this balance of attention with your children, I am here for you.
