the kids in a hammock up the holler yesterday

This sums up the vibe I want in my home—in my relationships with my partner, my kids, and myself: support instead of pressure.

If I want my husband or my kids to do something, hassling and pressuring them not only doesn’t work (they just dig in their heels), but it also just makes things worse. It adds conflict and raises all of our stress levels.

What works instead is to support them: ask what they need; give reminders that are gentle and non-threatening; and lead by example and collaboration.

It’s a top-down vs. bottom-up approach, like this:

Crucially, the person I most need to relate to this way is—can you guess?—me.

Hassling myself to do things, shaming and blaming myself, operating by force—that’s the pressure mode, based in anxiety, that perpetuates stress and leads into burnout.

I want to build habits of relating to myself supportively. Ask what I need; seek ways to accommodate myself (eg., use strategic reminders instead of expecting I’ll just remember things); and most of all, give myself lots of compassion for all the ways in which I feel inadequate and all the things I haven’t been able to get done.

Who’s with me? 💗

River Roundup

Section posts from the past week

🌀Divergence Deeps

Reflections on the importance of agency for the autistic nervous system

“The common thread is that we feel like our autonomy has been taken away—our consent has been railroaded over—and we are powerless, helpless, and trapped in an unaccommodating situation.”

🪷Serenity Splashes

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There's a kind of enduring
  hard moments and tasks
    that’s not the same at all
as the kind of enduring—
  helpless and alone—
    we did when we were small.

I learned to suppress
  my feelings and needs
    and pretend everything was fine.
You learned that there
  was no one anywhere
    who cared about your cries.

Now we’re grown
  and in the grind,
    but we have points of choice—
to recognize our options
  and respond 
    to our own voice. 💗

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Maybe I don't even know
what strength my power pack holds within--
I'm accustomed to it running low
from letting everyone else plug in.

a reminder to myself

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It literally does not matter
what anyone else may think
about the story of your life.
Don't write it with their ink.

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This life did not come with a map
   (they gave me one;
   it turned out wrong)--
so I have to make it up,
updating it as I go,
sometimes just throwing 
it out and starting fresh.
With time and courage, less
and less my map leads
   me into pits; 
more and more to what I need,
   to what fits
for this life
to feel like mine.

Anna’s River

🌊 Support vs. Pressure