Parenting With Self-Compassion is Radical and Brave, Especially During the Holidays
5 journaling prompts to help you avoid "shiny object syndrome" and stay centered.
It’s easy to slip into putting your needs last at this time of year.
It’s natural to feel pulled away from your center. The season (in the global North) wants us to hibernate, while the culture wants us to celebrate.
As I prep for time with extended family, I’m also taking space to meditate and rest. My body is calling the shots - it’s pulling me down under the covers. This helps me stay focused on my WHY.
I’m reminding myself: I can’t be everything to everyone at this time of year (or ever).
I’m imprinting this on my inner eyelids:
“If I fall short of my internalized expectations, I’m still worthy.”
Below, I’m sharing 5 questions that help me stay loving and curious. Just asking yourself these questions can help you self-regulate. You don’t have to have answers.
Want More Grace and Joy For Your Family? Care for Yourself Too.
It starts with my own triggers. My underlying “stuff” gets stirred up at this time of year. When my son is reactive, we get into a dysregulated loop, and it becomes harder to act like the parent I want to be. At those times, I’m not at my best. I still deserve self-acceptance.
When I find myself getting rigid with my expectations of how things “should” be, it’s a reminder for me to take time to recharge. That means other things don’t get done.
Not everything can get done, which is why we need to decide what to prioritize.
If you were raised as a helper, it’s so easy to slip into putting your needs last. But what if you turn some of your generosity towards yourself?
How might that impact your ability to be present for your loved ones?
If you want to carry your responsibilities with more grace and joy, the key is to care for yourself before, or at least alongside, everyone else. Mary Oliver’s line from her poem Messenger helps me remember:
“My work is loving the world”
However we do that work, it is honorable. But when we refuse to love ourselves, it isn’t sustainable. Loving the world can begin to feel like a burden.
Parenting with self-compassion is activism. If you’re working on it, please celebrate that. You are doing enough. Keep open, curious, brave, and self-accepting. Give yourself grace, and the space you need to feel. It is a most unselfish act. Our kids can’t learn what they can’t see, so if they see us witnessing our own struggles and shining kindness on ourselves, they will know that it is possible, and even ordinary, to treat themselves with love.
Your Time and Energy Are Precious Resources
It’s helpful to decide in advance how you will allocate them. Here are a few questions I invite you to ask yourself, as we get into the holiday season and our already busy lives fill up with more "shiny objects," FOMO, and responsibilities. The hustle and bustle can be a front for avoidance, so it helps to check in against my values often.
You don't need to have answers to these questions.
Simply asking them can be enough. Really, it’s not an exam. You can’t get it wrong and you don’t have to complete the whole thing. Just be curious about whatever comes up:
What's my WHY? What values and needs deserve my precious attention?
What's my plan to care for myself when comparison, guilt, or “shiny object syndrome” creep in?
Where will I put my focus?
What family triggers come up for me this time of year? How will I work with those?
How can I redistribute the weight of my responsibilities to make them feel less like a burden and more like an honor and a joy?
Whether you are grateful or grieving (or holding both at the same time), I hope rest envelops and supports you, so you can co-regulate with those you love. Give yourself grace, allocate your energy, and embrace joy.
Remember that you are part of this world, so the work of loving the world includes loving yourself. You are inherently worthy.
Messenger by Mary Oliver
My work is loving the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird — equal seekers of sweetness. Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums. Here the clam deep in the speckled sand. Are my boots old? Is my coat torn? Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work, which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished. The phoebe, the delphinium. The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture. Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here, which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart and these body-clothes, a mouth with which to give shouts of joy to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam, telling them all, over and over, how it is that we live forever.