Dr Alex George: Why We Struggle With Our Children’s Emotions - And How to Change It

0:01Hello my love and welcome to Motherkind. It is me your host Zoe. This is the show for you, the woman behind the mother. A moment to take an exhale, take a moment for yourself, hopefully hear some wisdom that is going to help you along your day. It is a Monday which means it is a Motherkind moment. This moment is with the incredible Dr Alex George and it is about what resilience really means. It is about how feeling our feelings, far from meaning that there's something wrong actually means that when we are in emotion we are doing everything right and only then once we can attach to our own feelings and process them can we help our children do the same I love this clip it really inspired me this week to just focus on allowing whatever is present for me to come through and that will then allow me to do it for my girls this week so I hope it inspires you two.

0:53Here it is. What's fascinating is that it's a particular challenge of our generation, of us kind of millennial parents, because we really were taught in the 80s, late 70s, 80s, that resilience and strength was pushing through. And I know for me, and it'd be interesting to get your perspective, I've had to completely rewire and relearn that resilience is actually feeling my feelings. Resilience is being really messy. And only when I could do that for myself, could I then have the capacity to do that with my children. I remember when mine were little and they would tantrum, I couldn't handle it.

1:37And then I had this light bulb moment. The reason I couldn't handle it is because I couldn't handle my own emotions. So how the hell was this? So I went away and I actually learned how to feel my feelings because no one had ever taught me that and now interestingly I do exactly what you know you talk about in the book and what my psychologists have told you where I can my my little girls can come home crying and I don't fix it that sounds really sad it makes so much sense to mommy that you're sad I'd be sad if that happened to me. Yeah, but it's so difficult to do that when our wiring is to don't be sad, you know, we'll fix it like you say, or don't be silly.

2:18It's just a friend in the playground. It's not a big deal. It's so easy to bat those things away. What's your experience been like with processing and learning how to feel your feelings? Is that something that you have to learn? How did you learn it? And how would you coach your parents through learning that? It was brilliant that you do that. And it's kind of, yeah, I mean, your children are very fortunate to have someone that's a mom that is kind of so introspective and able to kind of work on that stuff. Because ultimately, I don't know if I'm the exact same, but the stuff that you don't work on, you just pass on to the next generation, right?

2:49So we've got to deal with our own stuff. And even if it's not our fault necessarily, we've got to deal with it so that we don't pass it on so we pass on the right stuff. So it's brilliant. And you're right. I mean, I like the resilience idea, kind of image I try and have is like, if you think of a storm coming through, if you've got a tree that's really stiff and rigid and the branches won't bend, the likelihood is that they might snap and break. Whereas when you look out the window and there's a tree that is able to kind of bend and flex in the wind, it survives fine. It returns to its normal shape afterwards.

3:18And that's what's important. We don't need to be rigid and stiff. We can allow and understand, hey, I'm under pressure, there's a storm happening. I can bend and flex. I can bring support and I can ask for help. I can talk about things. And by being movable, I guess, in that situation and flexible, we're able to return to our state. We are wired as children, you know, so much of what we learn about how to face the world and our emotional intelligence is developed in our first kind of five years. I know the Princess of Wales does a lot of work on this early years stuff. It is huge. And then if you've kind of given and you've grown up with this way of seeing the world and dealing things, then if you want to change it, you have to like unwire and rewire it, which is kind of what you talked about, right and the fortunate thing is we have neuroplasticity which is this idea that our brain can adapt and change to different circumstances so if we decide that you know if i if i come home from work and i walk in the flat and uh the place is a mess and i kind of knock over my cup of tea and i forgot to buy stuff for to cook dinner that night it's like if my wiring is just to get really annoyed and angry at the world then that's like the natural loop.

4:32And then if you go, well, I'm going to come home and say, hey, it is what it is. Life, there's actually so much to be grateful for. It's been a brilliant day. 10 minutes, I can have this all in shape and actually be good for me to go out for a walk and grab what I need for dinner. You're changing that loop of response. And the more that you repeat that action, the more that you kind of respond in a certain way, it becomes hardwired. It's like the idea of like, if you've got snow on a mountain, the first people to climb the mountain create the paths. And then everyone else probably just follows that, you know.

4:59And then if you want to create a new path, it's kind of hard work at first because you have to go off piece onto an uncharted territory. But eventually you can create that new path. And as there's new snowfalls, it'll cover the old path over. And that's the kind of way that I kind of see it. But yeah, there's been many times in life where I guess that's been shown at me and I've gone, oh gosh, I need to look at how to deal with this. You know, a good example would be when my brother died. It was kind of like, I naturally went to this kind of way that Brits seem to deal with grief, which is to shut down, not talk about it, try and move on very quickly.

5:31Within days, I was like, I need to get back to work. And I didn't. But my brain was naturally wanting to try and do that. Whereas what I needed to do was kind of genuinely process what had happened, accept the state of shock and the sense of turbulence that I felt. And it took me a long time. It's taken me a long time to learn to grieve in a way that is more open, to understand that you don't have to kind of be silent with it all. and it is hard it is difficult especially when you've grown up with a certain way and it's been affirmed in that way and you see that's how lots of people react to things it's it's not easy but just because it's not easy doesn't mean it's not worthwhile

6:11that was the episode i hoped you loved it if you did please make sure you subscribe and i will see you next time