Why it’s ok not be ok..
So the past two weeks I’ve introduced you to peer orientation which is when your teen daughter goes to her friends for answers for absolutely everything but of course if her friends are all the same age as her, then those friends haven’t got the awareness of being able to take a step back, being able to look at the bigger picture, as we do as their Mums.
Now I’m going to talk about you, I’m going to talk about how you’re feeling within the situation and how sometimes it feels like one thing, after another, after another goes wrong, and it just feels like your whole world is collapsing around and you just feel overwhelmed, stressed, out of your depth, full and you can’t deal with it any more.
I just want to say I'm here for you, I get it and yes we all have those days, even me I still get those days now. We think we have to be strong all the time, we think we’re not allowed to cry and we think it’s not ok to admit we’re not ok.
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Some days you just have nothing in you to be able to give anything to your teen daughter, to be able to give anything to yourself, no motivation, no creativity and all of a sudden you’re plagued with self doubt, is it me that’s done this to my daughter?, ooh maybe it’s something in my childhood? It’s so easy to go down this deep dark tunnel where you just think the world is lost and you can’t manage it.
It was only through a conversation with a really good friend of mine that I reached out to and went help and I realised through talking to her that it’s grief that’s driving this. So as you may or may not have known, my mother-in-law died the middle of September, I’ve known her for nearly 30 years and she had been my rock, she’d been a light at the end of the tunnel and she’d been someone who was always there for me and after my own Mum died, then my Dad died, family friends died, she was the one who was there and she’s also the one who said to my teen daughter ‘I’m never going to leave you, as far as I am aware I’m not going anywhere’.
What I want to know is why do we always feel the need to be so strong? Why do we feel guilty when we take some time out? When I took a step back as I say on Sunday after this conversation I went ahhh ok I can do this now. When I realised it was grief driving the way I was feeling, it was so much easier for me to take a step back but there are those thoughts when you haven’t got grief driving the process and you think how can I sit here and cry and feel sorry for myself, when I have so much to be thankful for and there’s so much work i need to do. I don’t see anyone else making excuses for themselves but if we do that for ourselves, can you see that the pattern that we are creating for our teenage daughters is exactly the same? They can’t be themselves, they can’t sit down and rest when they need to like during their period or when they’re having a bad day, or when their energy cycle is low and do you know what? When they’re frigging tired and they’re just too knackered, exhausted to do anything.
I’m going to introduce you to simple tools to help yourself in the heat of the moment; when you’re feeling argh and you can’t see a way out.
Simple tool 1: So your behaviours are a reflection of your need so if you don’t tune into your needs then we can’t help ourselves to manage those behaviours.
Simple tool 2: Learn to be patient with yourself, allow yourself to heal. Think of those bad days like a passing cloud; you can’t see the sun but you know it’s there. You know eventually it will come out.
Simple tool 3: So think of those thoughts when they’re whirring their way round your head like the waves on a beach, so you can see them building and building as the wave gets bigger as it approaches the beach and then as it breaks, it’s gone. That’s quite an interesting visualisation in itself.
Simple tool 4: Another way is to think of your thoughts as a train coming into the station. You’re standing on the platform and the train doesn’t stop but as it comes in it slows down and then it’ll go through the platform and out the other side and that’s ok. Those are your thoughts, so they’re big as they come towards you and then they go away.
Simple tool 5: Another way is to think of your thoughts as a train coming into the station. You’re standing on the platform and the train doesn’t stop but as it comes in it slows down and then it’ll go through the platform and out the other side and that’s ok. Those are your thoughts, so they’re big as they come towards you and then they go away.
Simple tool 6: Lastly do a brain dump or brain fart as people also call it, where you write down all your thoughts, get it all down on paper. Forget about grammar, forget about punctuation and just write. It’s like written diarrhoea and if you don’t know what yo write, just write ‘I don’t know what to write, I need to do a brain dump’ and from that you’ll come out with everything you need to write. If you can’t write anything, it’s not your time right now and that’s ok.
Then once you’ve written that, it’s up to you what you do with it. I normally burn it and watch the shards of ash rise up into the air though don’t burn it on a wooden deck as I have done in the past; it burns a hole.
We don’t need to be strong all the time and we need to know it’s ok not to feel ok. Don’t resist that feeling that you feel bad because it seems like you’re the only one feeling like this, lost or lonely or unmotivated - you’re not and this is why I am building this community of like minded Mums for this new community membership starting in January.
Don’t worry about what everyone else is doing and remember that we all know what it’s like not to be ok, even if most of us do not talk about it. That’s why creating a safe space for us all to be in the same space online means you don’t have to feel lost, lonely, feel like no one else is talking about this, these behaviours your teen daughter is showing you.
Remember those behaviours are not her, those behaviours are her way of expressing how she is feeling inside because we are not taught to understand our emotions from a young age therefore all these angst, anger, frustration, this sadness within them, comes out as a behaviour because they don’t know how else to do it and they don’t know how to talk about it.
Talking about your feelings is a huge thing, it’s an adult thing I hasten to add and our teen girls just don’t have it. They don’t understand that feeling of what it it; there are thousands of emotions and yeh you can know every one but do you know how they are making you feel? It’s the feeling that’s important not the word that’s attached to it.
So if there’s one thing I’ve learnt in the past few days since this amazing friend of mine (yes you know who you are) said to me it’s the grief behind everything else, made me realise it wasn’t me, made me realise that we’re allowed to feel like this.
The more we resist feeling ‘bad’ the worse you’re gonna feel. Yes we need to keep working through these feelings, keep processing them, keep understanding where they’re coming from, keep understanding it’s not us. As I just said your teen daughter’s behaviours are a reflection of her needs so just think of that.
It’s ok to take a duvet day and the best bit? Saying it out loud to your teenage daughter that you don’t feel ok today allows her to see you’re not super human, allows her to see you’re not on a pedestal, allows her to see that if she’s feeling shite, she doesn’t have to pretend and that’s HUGE. That’s what we want to do for our teen daughters.
This new community membership that I’ll be starting in January is launching on the 12th December with a FREE masterclass where you learn the 3 mistakes that are stopping you from connecting to your teen daughter and the 4 keys to build a relationship based on trust and respect.
Come along and join me.
Take care
Rachel x
Let’s build a community of like minded Mums together
So if you are interested and you want to find out more, sign up for the masterclass happening on Monday 12th December at 1pm. If you want to talk to me, book in a connection call via my website which is www.positivetouch.net
I’m on insta at teen.whisperer.nature
I’m also opening a slot in my diary for a Teen Whisperer 90mins Power Call where you can tell me what’s happening for your teenage daughter so click the link
If you would love to reconnect with your teen daughter and have the relationship you’ve always dreamt of, check out my programmes:
Teen Whisperer FREE Masterclass
Teen Whisperer Community Space
The Ripple Effect Joint Programme with your Teen Daughter
Teen Whisperer Individual Mentoring
Teen Whisperer 90mins Power Call
Feel free to get in touch or book in a call to talk more.
I look forward to connecting with you and working with you, take care Rachel x
