|
FAMILY MATTERS
Rick Hanson, Ph.D. and Jan Hanson, L.Ac., © 2005
Self-Awareness:
An Essential Inner Skill for Parents and Kids
As we discussed in our previous column, grown-ups and kids alike need inner skills as well as outer ones.
The essential inner skills are self-awareness, letting go of painful experiences, insight into yourself, taking in positive experiences, and staying motivated.
In order to see some of the ways they could be really helpful, let's imagine a rambunctious 2nd-grader who's charming and full of life yet has a hard time settling down and doing his work in school without distracting others, and who is starting to get irritated at all the criticism that keeps coming his way. It would make a big difference if his parents would help him learn to:
Notice when he is starting to get revved up before it gets extreme (Self-awareness)
Relax his body; release his irritation (Letting Go)
Understand that his temperament is both perfectly normal and can easily get over-excited (Insight)
Pay special attention to nice moments of feeling liked and appreciated by others, instead of whizzing pass them to move on to the next thing, so they sink in and help counter-balance his experiences of being criticized (Taking In)
Find reasons that make sense to him to keep learning how to settle down and stay in control of himself (Staying Motivated)
Of course, as parents, we are more able to teach skills when we are good at them ourselves. Therefore, in every column in this series, we'll start with the adult version of each essential skill and then offer ideas for how to encourage its development in children; please adapt our suggestions to the age of your child.
What Is Self-Awareness?
These are the central features of self-awareness; use this list as a kind of checklist to assess you and your co-parent, as well as your child(ren):
Wanting to be in reality, to know what is objectively true both inside oneself and in the outer world.
Being able to observe inner experience and external events exactly as they are; able to stand back and separate oneself from reactions to things; able to rest in an inner sanctuary of peaceful, interested, benign awareness.
Accepting the entire spectrum of experience, including body sensations, emotions, desires, thoughts, memories, and images.
Seeing one's temperament, personality, and the dynamic interactions among the parts of the self.
Deepening self-awareness is a lifelong process, whether this is the first time you've ever thought of it or you've been meditating for thirty years. Each moment you practice it, you will be getting better at it.
And please note that self-awareness is NOT self-indulgence: just because you see and accept some dark desire or aspect of yourself does not mean that you act it out; actually, separating from it in order to observe it helps you control it better.
Cultivating Awareness of the Outer World
The ultimate standard of self-awareness is perhaps encapsulated in the advice traditionally given to Buddhist monks that they know whether they are inhaling or exhaling at the moment they awaken from sleep. While that standard is wildly out of reach for us, nonetheless, every day offers dozens of opportunities for anyone to calmly observe the inner and outer worlds. Here are some of the ways:
Become more aware of the "voice in the back of your head," that ongoing murmur of opinion, worry, planning, and evaluation -- the voice that just said, "What voice?!" Start noticing its major recurring themes, like worry about the children, resentment of a spouse, or simply endless revisiting of your daily to-do list.
Every so often, see if you can simply observe some aspect of the world without a positive or negative reaction to it. You are just noting its factual features, almost like a robot, or someone taking an inventory that is completely indifferent to what she is counting. This is especially powerful to do with regard to things that normally evoke strong reactions, whether positive (e.g., attractive people, chocolate (!), praise) or negative (e.g., traffic jams, being criticized, children squabbling).
Do an honest self-assessment of your commitment to see EVERY aspect of the outer world clearly, without positive or negative shading. What do you tend to kid/spin/BS yourself about? What would others who know you well say about you in this regard? What do you find hard to bear about the real world as it is? What opportunities, good news, or loving regard for yourself do you tend to overlook or downplay? Do you err on the side of seeing the glass half full or half empty?
Cultivating Awareness of the Inner World
The inner world has its own reality, and you can become a very skillful observer of it as well:
Take a minute or two at least once a day to check in with yourself and assess the full spectrum of your experience:
Notice your perceptions; quickly run through each of the five senses.
Sweep your attention through your body to see where it is tense and where it is relaxed and comfortable; notice both pleasure and pain dispassionately.
Sense your emotional state, both specific feelings as well as your deeper underlying mood (e.g., contentment, anxiety, depression); often, a multiplicity of feelings and moods are swirling around.
Notice your desires, the goals and plans that are running at the time, and the feelings of frustration, longing, or satisfaction associated with them.
Track the thoughts you've had in last minute or so, both the ones on the surface and the quieter, stiller ones down below.
Attend to any imagery that's been streaming along, perhaps associated with memories that have been triggered by recent perceptions or thoughts, feelings, or desires.
Whenever you feel at all upset, do a quick check through the full spectrum of experience described just above.
Do another honest self-assessment about the aspects of your inner world that you tend to ignore, suppress, deny, disown, or push to the sidelines. Again, people who know you well can help with this. Remember that resisting your experience just makes it persist. The fastest way to help it move on is to open the door wide to it; otherwise, it keeps on knocking!
Occasionally (and when appropriate), communicate the stream of your experience for a few minutes to another person without censoring it at all; this is a great way to become more self-aware.
Cultivate a daily practice in SOMETHING that centers you in an inner sanctuary of peaceful, interested, kind awareness. Meditation and yoga are the preeminent methods for this, but you could also get a lot out of very consciously cooking, gardening, walking, playing music, or making art or crafts. Then, from time to time during the day, take a moment to re-center yourself in this inner sanctuary of simply being.
Try to remain aware of your breath as much as possible throughout the day. It's very rewarding, but quite challenging, and an awareness of even just one percent of a day's breaths would be an impressive accomplishment.
Imagine that your personality is like a large country, with a central capitol (the "ego/I") and a variety of provinces. Ask yourself - or others who know and love you - what the relationship is between the capitol and the provinces. What are your major provinces? Which are the sunny ones? Or the dark and smelly ones? What does each of the major provinces want? What are their legitimate yet unfulfilled needs? Are any provinces in conflict with each other - and if so, could a healthy compromise be negotiated? Do some provinces need to be more controlled by the capitol? Or, truth to tell, less controlled?
You might also try this exercise by imagining your personality to be a committee with the ego/I as its chair, or a village with the ego/I as its mayor.
Imagine that your experience is a kind of layered parfait, with adult levels on top and younger parts underneath, reaching all the way back to earliest childhood.
Notice your attitudes toward your younger parts; these are often an internalization of your parents' messages. Do you accept those younger parts or push them away? Do you bring kindness to them or meanness? Experiment with being especially kind to them, and see what that's like.
Whenever you're upset, try to sense into the younger layers beneath the surface of frustration, loss, or anger.
As you work with your younger parts, remember that, for good reasons, humans have the longest childhood of any animal on earth. Of course we learn from the experiences in childhood - for better or worse - and it is natural for that learning to be embedded in our ways of thinking, feeling, wanting, and acting today. Much of that learning - and especially the youngest and often most influential - is encoded in what is called implicit memory: there is no specific recollection of an event, but the patterns of reactions and ways of coping acquired in early childhood can live on very powerfully today.
For Children
From infancy through adulthood, there are many ways that parents can help children become more known to themselves. Here's a handful:
Adjusting your feedback to the age of the child, mirror back what he or she is experiencing. For example, you could say "Wheee!" exuberantly in tune with an infant breaking into a smile. Or you might sigh in quiet sympathy with a teenage daughter who's frustrated with one of her friends. Children come to see themselves in large part through being mirrored by their parents.
When a child is upset, almost always start with emotional joining, empathy, and comfort. Then, as appropriate, bring in the reality principle: the actual facts of a situation, who actually did what, the significance or relative insignificance of what occurred.
Whether tacitly or explicitly, convey the view that the world is exactly what it is, and the way it is, is absolutely separate from what we might wish it to be. Here's a fairly silly example: "Bobby, I know you want a cookie. I really wish I had a cookie to give you. And there are just no cookies." You can also convey this attitude through your own example, especially if you can emphasize that it is possible to still be happy even if the world ain't perfect. We still remember the comment from a wise friend who had traveled throughout the world: "You know, generally speaking, the poorest people in the world are also the happiest."
Take a moment at meals to be aware of the food before diving in.
When something is bothering a child, try to get him to describe his experience in reasonable detail. Just that alone often helps a child feel better.
* * *
*************************************
(Rick Hanson is a clinical psychologist, Jan Hanson is
an acupuncturist/nutritionist, and they are raising a daughter and
son, ages 12 and 14. With Ricki Pollycove, M.D., they are the
authors of Mother Nurture: A Mother's Guide to Health in Body, Mind,
and Intimate Relationships, published by Penguin. You can see their
website at www.nurturemom.com or email them with questions or
comments at info@nurturemom.com; unfortunately, a personal reply may
not always be possible.)
|