Holding space

R. started to plummet right around the end of dinner. I have no idea what flipped her switch, but it was flipped and she ended up lying down and screaming long, piercing screams. Fun times. This has never boded well for the rest of the night. At one point, she seemed to call my name after J. had left her room, so I headed in. (I'll take whatever small effort on her part to want me near, as this is still an issue. More often than not I cannot even kiss her good-night.)

Here is when I decided to try an experiment and its success is why I'm able to sit down and write tonight. In my EFL class, we have been doing a lot of work with grounding exercises... purposefully breathing deeply while focusing on relaxing any tension in your body. This is because being in such a calm state communicates itself to the horses and encourages connection with them. I have certainly seen it work with Java because she is highly attuned to the state of people around her and mirrors them almost immediately. I figured if I can calm a 1000 pound nutty horse with this process, then certainly it should be able to work on my child. 

So that's what I did. She lay in my lap and screamed while I sat on her bed and breathed, focusing on keeping myself relaxed. That's all I did. I didn't talk to her or touch her, I just breathed. Now, we have done a lot of breathing together in the past year or so, her and I. By doing so, I can usually help her to head off a psychogenic seizure. But when we do this, there are usually a lot of words and my main focus is getting her calm so I can go and do whatever it is that needs doing. 

Tonight I decided just to let her scream. I breathed, she screamed... for quite a while. It actually took a bit of effort to not say anything. I noticed that my inclination when faced with a screaming child is to focus on getting them to stop making that noise. ShhhShhhShhh Hush Hush Hush It's okay It's okay It's okay. All the while the person crying or screaming is clearly not okay and is not really bothered by the noise they are making. It made me wonder how much we do this for our own benefit and not really for the person we are trying to comfort. So I bit my tongue and kept breathing. 

Well, I bit my tongue except to point out that she sounded as though she was very angry, to which she nodded her head in agreement. She doesn't always have the vocabulary for what she is feeling, so I wanted to give her a word for it. I also told her I loved her even when she was angry.

More breathing, more screaming. And then something started to change. First, R. had the smell of fear emanating from her. (Yes, it's a real thing, and I am hypersensitive to the smell now.) This confirmed my initial theory that the anger I was hearing was really a mask to avoid sadness and grief. Many of my hurt children have been so afraid to come close to those emotions that anger was always the easier emotion. After the fear came sobbing. Those deep gasping sobs where you feel as though you can't make noise because the air has been sucked out of your lungs. And I kept my mouth shut and just sat and breathed. After a while she was able to choke out, "I feel sad."

"It is okay to feel sad," I replied. 

There was more sobbing followed by, "Do you love me?"

"I love you very much, R. Even when you're sad." 

After a while longer, I asked if she would like to sit up so she could blow her nose and breath more easily. She nodded and sat herself up while I went and brought tissues. R. was significantly calmer by this time, so I had her stand up so I could fix her bed. She got in and I tucked her in, followed by her letting me kiss her goodnight.

I had a lot of time to think while I was doing all that breathing. First, as with Java, it was remarkably effective. It was definitely the easiest time I've had with calming her and the most peaceful, least anxious bedtime after such an upset. Second, by constantly regulating myself, I did not feel wrung out or at the edge of my own regulation. Sometimes I will leave such an evening shaken and exhausted. I am not either of those things at the moment. Third, it has caused me to rethink my own approach to perceived negative emotions in others. Why do I feel the need to stop them? It's an interesting question I'll be pondering.

But here is the big take away. While I was sitting there breathing with a disregulated screaming child laying on my lap, I felt more connected to R. than I usually do. It made me wonder if I have been looking at things from the wrong end of the lens. So often I see my children's struggles, especially those with whom I have had difficulties with attaching, as episodes that are a hindrance to getting our relationship right. If things were always good and happy and calm, then surely it would be faster and easier to get this attachment-thing figured out, right? But is that really the case? I don't know about you, but happy, peaceful, and calm in reality mean that I can go about my own agenda and not have to worry overly much about how well I'm attaching to a child because they are not in my face having troubles. What if times such was the one tonight are what we need to really learn to love and attach to our children? What if we saw them as opportunities to calm ourselves in order to calm them and reap the connection benefits as we do so? What if we saw these times as opportunities instead of hindrances? 

Lots to ponder from a evening of sitting and breathing.