Your Hands Already Know How to Calm You

Your hands are full of so much strength and grace. Expressing emotions, emphasizing your words, rubbing lotion into your skin, stroking your child’s hair and touching all the wonders of the natural world.

They reach for our dreams and hold onto what’s dear to our hearts.

In so many cultures, hand movements facilitate the flow of energy and tell the stories of the land they live on, like Hindu mudras and the Hawaiian hulas. Picture your ancestors dancing around the bonfires long ago and you’ll see their hands in motion. 

Our hands can also help us in tense parenting moments.

Consider this…Your teenager barely looks at you when they cross the room and, if you say hello or ask a question, you might get an icy silence, a grunt or a volcanic explosion that makes you wish you’d never asked.

You feel upset, mistreated and rejected. And sometimes, you can’t help but ask yourself, “What’s wrong with me?” You look around and other parents seem to have figured it out; it feels like you’re missing some of the ingredients for being a good parent.

When you look underneath “What’s wrong with me?”, you’ll often discover an unmet need, maybe affection, dependability, inclusion, honesty… maybe some unfinished business from your youth…  It has you, on a subconscious level, scanning your family and friends and wondering who’s going to meet that need. It creates an ever-present tension. And when they don’t, you get frustrated and disappointed in them. 

When you’re looking outward for what you need, you might forget to look inward and put effort into meeting your needs yourself.

• When you say to your teenager, “Please use a kinder voice”, you could also be asking, “When do I use an unkind voice toward myself?”

• When we expect our partners to know how to soothe us, we might also ask ourselves, “When do I take the time to soothe myself?”

• When we go looking for instructions: “What should I do when my teenager does ___?”, a better question might be, “What are my ways of attuning to myself and allowing my own wisdom to arise?”

As our kids get older, we fall into the habit of expecting them to be able to see what we need. “She should know by now that I get scared when she talks like that.” We expect them to fill a hole that may be deeper than they're capable of filling or more complex than they can understand.

And then we accuse them of not caring about us. We blame, judge, push them away and detach. Our anxiety is set off and the pattern repeats: What’s wrong with me? 

When an anxious mother comes to work with me, she's usually doubting her ability to be a good mom. She won’t say it like that; she’ll say, “I know I’m a good mom but… I’m not doing these kinds of things well. I’m not ___ enough.” This is still doubting oneself as a mother.

Take a moment, if you will.

Take a breath.

When you think about how you’re parenting your teenager or young adult child, what are you telling yourself that you're not good at or that other parents seem to have but you don't?

I'm not patient enough.

I'm not kind enough.

I'm not fun enough.

I'm not open minded enough.

I’m not flexible enough.

I'm not present enough.

I'm not loving enough. 

Do you look outward for others to fill that gap?

Toward whom are you frustrated and disappointed: “Why aren't they helping me feel more patient (or present or kind)?”

How does this affect your grounding and presence? 

~ 

I talk with anxious mothers almost every day. And I know for certain that when you get to know your particular brand of anxiety intimately, you also come into contact with your particular way of easing it. You learn how to get to your own safe place within yourself.

Anxiety is a state of not feeling safe in yourself and becoming a steadier parent will require you to remember what it feels like to feel safe internally.

But this remembering is not a cognitive process - you can't think yourself out of anxiousness. Because it’s stored in your body. Each time you worry about your teenager’s grades, get distressed in an argument with them or feel terrified about the choices they're making behind your back, anxiousness is happening in your body. It’s being recorded in your muscles, organs, blood, etc.

And that’s where your hands come in. AS part of your body, they know your calm-to-anxious sequence. They’ve experienced it a thousand times. And, quite often, they also know your anxious-to-calm sequence. 

Are you willing to try something?

Find a comfortable spot. 

Relax your shoulders and soften your gaze.

Spend a few moments thinking of a recent interaction with your big kid in which you felt anxious, shaky, or distressed.

When you’re really feeling the tension of it, ask your hands, “Show me the feeling of my anxiety.” Don’t think about it, just allow the natural, instinctive motion of your hands. Do your fingers shake, your fists tighten, your arms shoot up in the air or squeeze down on your chest?

Just notice what happens.

Then ask your hands to show you what more ease would feel like. Again, avoid thinking and presuming, and notice the first move your hands make, that direct message from your body. Do they wrap you in a hug and rub your arms? Do they cover your eyes, rest on your heart or flop down to your sides?

This is your particular way of easing your particular kind of anxiousness. Your hands are saying, “Ohhh, I remember this. This is what it feels like to feel safe.”

And this information is gold for you because it’s a move you can use when you need it. Your hands are always with you. 

We often talk about the Pause and how it gives us the moment we need to shift out of reactivity. If you’ve tried a dozen ways to circumvent, outsmart or vanquish a habitual reaction, like yelling, collapsing or spiraling into fear, you know that mind hacks don’t usually work.

What does work is understanding your current reaction, not just cognitively, but physically as well. The Pause is definitely about interrupting a familiar sequence (the one that always ends up making things worse with your teenager). But there's also something happening on a deeper level when you pause: you’re returning yourself to your natural state of ease.

This is what I mean about looking within ourselves for our own wisdom. Our bodies have the knowledge of what they need.

What is your body asking for?

Will you let it show you?

~

Many of us, when we feel anxious, tighten up against it, try to hold ourselves still and be unsusceptible. But when your teenager is isolating themselves in their bedroom or lashing out at you, it's movement (not spinning or ruminating) that will help you shift from one state of consciousness to another.

It could be a simple movement your hands already know to guide you

From agitated to calm

From rigid to open

From wobbly to balanced

From scared to secure

So you can stay connected with your almost-adult child.

Because the challenge of parenting in this stage isn't just letting go. It's staying close while letting go.

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