Have you ever felt really happy to see someone and felt knocked off-balance by their response? Do the needs for predictability and a sense of care in relationships come up in your day-to-day life? These are very familiar needs for me, along with wanting to live with a sense of congruence and ability to make meaning in the midst of those 'off-balance' moments. 

I have been pondering how we are interconnected, and intentionally seeking a way to have solid grounding in my life, for resiliency, wanting to be present in such a way that I am creating meaning and finding purpose in each moment, especially as a parent. Because when I am able to perceive, make sense of, and respond to my child's needs, I am co-creating with him an internal working model of safety and security he can rely on. 

I remember noticing my son was eating and sleeping a lot while going through a really big growth spurt. My guess was it was a really big stimulus for him, and I imagined that his nerve endings...

What do you want in a given moment? Do you know? Do you consciously consider what you want on a moment-to-moment basis? Or do you just tell people what you don't want? This is a concept my son and I worked with for some time about 10-years ago. 

Knowing what you want requires your prefrontal cortex to be available so you can imagine and dream. If you function from a state of fear/anxiety, your emotional alarm system tends to hijack your ability to stay regulated and present; you might easily get knocked off balance by the occurrence of things you don't want to happen. 

I remember when my older son's family came over for a barbeque at our home to celebrate my birthday. This was during the time we were in the process of moving to the Spokane area. It was such fun to play with my grandchildren while my older son barbequed my favorite food, and to visit with my daughter-in-law. My most special gift was that Richard, my husband, was able to be here too. 

When the weekend...

Transitioning - this word sounds like a fairly simple thing to do; to transition from one place to another place, from doing one task to another task, to even just move from one focus to another focus. Yet how often do we acknowledge just how many skills it takes us human beings to complete a transition? Transitioning, especially with ease, requires multiple skills working in unison. Without self-regulation, our internal systems may become overwhelmed, and we can lose our ability to be present even to ourselves. Often our implicit experiences (nonverbal memories that form below the level of our conscious awareness and form our expectations of the world) hijack us into familiar "fight, fight, or freeze" reactions, rather than supporting us to show up in congruence with our deeply held values. 

I have observed that when my son is hijacked, his implicit template automatically triggers his emotional alarm system into the fight response, and my alarm system oftentimes responds by...