Let’s talk about calmness and agitation. And I don’t know, I almost want to call it the rush—the rush of life that’s going through them. So it gives them time to create that calmness, to give them space to create their own calmness. And what I also like about it is that it is also teaching them how to self regulate. There’s a way that we’re like, “Wow, my body is actually doing this. My thoughts are controlling my body right now.That’s why I’m in this anxiety.” So as much as your body can control that, your mind can control that, and your mind can also control calming it down and giving it certainty.
One of the things that I do with my clients when they’re having a panic attack, even though I’ve taught this to them, is to activate their five senses. Like, what’s five things you can see right now? What’s four things that you can touch, what’s three things you can smell like, stuff like that? Number one, it redirects their mind from what they were having that panic attack about. And some kids don’t even know. They’re like, “I was sitting there and all of a sudden this happened.” But there’s something that their conscious mind was thinking of to put them in that fight or flight moment. And so to get them out of it, it’s to activate the five senses so they can have something tangible that they’re doing, and their mind is actually processing the information through the senses. And I’ve had amazing results with my clients with that, especially the ones that are in high school.
The high school kids would love that. And another one that I used, because I was diagnosed with anxiety years ago, and I used to take medication for it, but I got myself off of it. And one of the things that I would do is, because I knew it was caused by the uncertainty of whatever was going on, I created what was certain. So I’d ask myself, “What’s great?” And I would answer it like, “What’s great is that I can breathe; what’s great is that I can see; what’s great is that I have full control. I’m driving. What’s great is I have a house.” Just little things at the moment. The next thing I knew, I was fine. It totally diverted the whole panic attack.
I think we forget how much control we have over how we feel. Our minds can switch. If you start thinking about something like someone passing away, that’s going to start making you feel very sad. And you can get yourself to a place of even crying, but then you can also flip that and think of a place that you absolutely love to go, like a trip, and really start focusing on that, and then it’ll make you happy. So I think we’re making a great point about how we have the ability to really change how we’re feeling, and we forget that it has so much power.
Listen to the full episode here:
“Mindful Parenting: Nurturing Calmness in Children” with Anastasia Arauz
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