I am enough

The past week has been a time of highs and lows. For many, there was a growing anticipation and excitement as the England football team progressed through to the final of the Euro 2020 on Sunday 11th July 2021. This was swiftly followed by the disappointment of loss, and more profoundly, dismay and anger at the racial abuse levelled at the young England players who had failed to successfully to take their penalty.

One of these young players is Marcus Rashford, a man who has become known for the way in which he has spoken out about child food poverty. In recognition of Rashford’s contribution, a mural was painted on the side of a café with a portrait of Rashford and the words: ‘Take pride in knowing that your struggle will play the biggest role in your purpose.’ Powerful words indeed.

In the night following England’s defeat, this mural was defaced and then transformed as many people placed messages of support and hope on the wall. When I awoke and saw this changed image, I felt physically moved. As one local person said: “something beautiful has been created out of something negative” https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-57832402 . For me, the mural is even more powerful as Rashford is joined by his local community as they stand alongside him.

In a Twitter, Rashford reflects:

“The communities that always wrapped their arms around me continue to hold me up. I’m Marcus Rashford, 23 year old, black man from Withington and Wythenshawe, South Manchester. If I have nothing else, I have that.”

Wow! What makes it possible for a young man to say this?

Where does he find his identity, his security?

 As a Circle of Security Parenting facilitator, I cannot help but return to the circle graphic which is at the heart of this programme to find meaning in what Rashford is saying. As Rashford speaks of being ‘wrapped in the arms’ of those who support him, I see this as a safe haven - arms and hands outstretched ready to welcome him home; to provide comfort and protection. Equally, the idea of Rashford having people to ‘hold him up’ brings to mind ideas of strength and confidence for me. Like a bird held in the palm of someone’s hands ready to take flight once more. A community, a secure base, that allows Rashford to go out once more into the world and thrive, rather than survive.

I wonder, how might I, as a parent help my children to grow up knowing they have a safe haven to which they can return?

How might I help them to have an experience of a secure base, that watches over them and delights in them?

 The answer I think lies in being the hands, which you can see on the circle graphic. As a parent, we are to be the hands for our children, to stay on the circle. That is, to be there for them in all of their emotions, in the highs and lows of their every day. It means staying emotionally connected, available for them. It means loving them for who they are, not for what they do.

As I write this, I realise it sounds like hard work. It is hard work. It is relentless and demanding. I return to Rashford’s comment that it is the “communities” that have been there for him; it does not fall to one person. May we find family, friends, neighbours, groups, who can be there to help uphold our children. To help uphold ourselves.

In Rashford’s twitter he offers himself and says that if nothing else, he has this. I wonder how able I am to say:

 “I’m Helen Bell, 47 years old white woman from South Yorkshire. If I have nothing else, I have that.”

That is enough.

I am enough.

You are enough.

Hit the Restart

“I feel safe with you”                                                                        “You’re awesome”

These are comments two young children said to their parents after they had attended a Circle of Security-Parenting Group. What wonderful comments! What an amazing testament to all the hard work these families have put into making a change in their relationships with their children.

Change is not just a possibility for these families, but is possible for ALL of us, even amidst the daily grind of parenthood.

So how can we make a change? To find a way to connect with our children?

This can be so hard, especially when our energy levels are low and we have so many demands on our time. The last 16 months have taken its toll on many of us and our relationships. We can get into unhelpful patterns of relating and thinking about our children. Perhaps viewing them as being ‘difficult’ or failing to see them as they really are.  

This is certainly true for me, as I realised the enjoyment of being with my child was hard to find. “Time to do something different!” I thought. In the words of the band Newsboys, time for me to hit the restart!

 Here’s my story.

I waited outside the school gate for my child to appear. The first time I had seen them at their new ‘big school’ since Covid began. I waited and waited. Streams of big children poured out of the gates, making me feel small in comparison! Finally, they appeared, swamped in their new uniform, looking small beside many of the students surrounding them. I felt a new wave of love wash over me; a desire to protect them and a sense of pride: “this is my child”. We met and went to have a drink in a local café. Just the two of us. Face to face, in a different place. My child talked. I listened. We went home.

My intention in meeting my child was to have some one-to-one time, uninterrupted, in a different space to where we spend most of our time together, that is, at home! All this was good and yes it helped to set us on a new path of connecting. But what surprised me the most was the shift in me when I saw my child at the school gate. In my mind my child had grown in size and age; displaying arrogance and bravado like an older adolescent. Yet in reality when I saw them, I thought, “wow, I’d forgotten how little you are, you have a lot to get used to, and maybe sometimes you need my help.”

It is so easy to stop seeing our children for who they actually are; to miss how they might be feeling underneath the behaviour they show us. 

In this moment of me stopping, standing back and watching my child afresh I caught a glimpse of perhaps the anxious new kid on the block; someone trying to find their way in the world and negotiating lots of novel things.

When we wake in the morning, I believe that we do have a new opportunity to start over, to see our children for who they truly are and what they need from us. I am not denying this is hard work and we have to start over many times. But it is worth it!

As I saw my child walk through the school gate, it felt like the restart button had been pressed once more.

 If you are interested in attending a Circle of Security-Parenting Group, check out our website for groups coming up in your area.

Being-with: a gift of relationship

“It’s important to stop and do nothing sometimes.”

 How many of us have heard this? How many of us manage to ‘do nothing’?  This certainly isn’t something that comes easily to me. I wonder what unexpected things might open up for us when we are able to ‘be’, rather than to ‘do’?

The other day I was sitting in my garden waiting for someone to arrive at the door, so yes, I was doing something! I was waiting. The visitor was late to arrive and so I had the chance to sit and be. I put my legs up on a chair opposite me and enjoyed the sun. In this moment my pre-teen came up and sat on the chair where my feet were positioned and proceeded to put his legs up on mine. We sat like this for almost an hour, as he told me all about life at school – the most I have heard since he started at his new secondary school last September. I said virtually nothing. I listened. I was present.

 Looking back on this encounter – which I must say happens rarely with my twelve-year-old son – I began to wonder what had made this special moment possible. Revd Dr Samuel Wells describes such an encounter as ‘being-with’[1]. Wells says that ‘being-with’ involves showing up and paying attention. It doesn’t sound too difficult, does it?! Yet in the busyness of our lives, filled with our many thoughts, things that ‘have to be done’ and the pull of social media, the simplicity of presence and attention can be very difficult to achieve. Unusually, in fact very unusually, my mobile phone was not next to me and wasn’t even in the same place as me. Wells talks powerfully that in our world where being immediately contactable is a given, putting our mobile phone away is actually a way of saying “I love you.” [2]

 Similarly, the idea of ‘being-with’ is at the heart of the parenting group we run at Connected Lives - Circle of Security Parenting [3]. One of the things we reflect on during the group is to consider how able we are to ‘be-with’ our children in all of their feelings. This can depend on how able our own parents were to ‘be-with’ us in these emotions. As a facilitator, I find this exercise profound and for many parents this can be the starting point in a shift from thinking about parenting as a role to be done, and rather more as a relationship to be entered into.

 Many years ago, I went to live alongside people with learning disabilities in a L’Arche Community [4]. There I met a man whom I will call John who transformed my view of relationships. John did not speak, yet he taught me what ‘being-with’ looks like from the inside-out. John liked to spend time ‘being-with’ me. In his silence, in his presence, I came to know I was loved. Deeply loved. Loved in a way I had never known before.

Thanks to my visitor running late, I was given the opportunity to ‘be-with’ my son. This was not something I did to fill the time, but the real reason for being in the moment.

[1] A Nazareth Manifesto: Being with God. Samuel Wells. (2015).

[2] https://www.larche.org.uk/news/sam-wells-on-being-with-and-belonging-in-a-time-of-loneliness

[3] https://www.circleofsecurityinternational.com/ 

[4] https://www.larche.org.uk/

Helen Bell

Asking for Help

As we pass one year since the start of the first National Lockdown, I am reminded of a blog I wrote this time last year.

Much of the struggles and learnings I discovered then are still relevant now, so I wish to share it here...

It is week three of lockdown and I’ve been finding it tough.

Yes, it’s difficult not being able to go out freely, to meet friends, to greet someone with a handshake or a hug. These were things I enjoyed pre-Covid 19; things I took for granted.

I’m not the only one that has been finding it difficult in my house.

 My youngest child has been raging; shouting at me, getting angry at anything and anyone that might listen. To begin with I found myself thinking she was the problem, that “she’s just being difficult” and asking, “why can’t she be her happy, outgoing self?”

Then one day at the end of one of her rages, she shouted: “I’M LONELY, I’M MISSING MY FRIENDS! It’s alright for you, you don’t know what it’s like being 9 and being stuck inside!”

She is right. I don’t know what it is like to be her. In that moment of honesty, she helped me stand back and reflect. Reflection can be so difficult to find in the every day. And this is not the every day.

My daughter is old enough to be able to tell me something of her sadness, her frustration. Sometimes. For those of us with much younger children in our homes, we don’t often have this privilege. At times, when we find ourselves thinking negatively about our children, perhaps we need to ask “What is their behaviour communicating; what are they really trying to say?”

In that moment of honesty, my daughter taught me something else. Something about being vulnerable. She dared to show me how she was really feeling and that takes courage.

Often, conversations with friends turn to how much we want our children to grow up to find solutions to problems themselves, versus when they need to ask for help. Finding the right balance between the two is part of encouraging a secure attachment.

As an adult, I find this balance difficult. Growing up I relied on myself. A lot. Too much. To ask for help perhaps suggests weakness. We strive to be in control of ourselves, of others, of the world around us. Self-reliance and independence are positively encouraged in our society. Or at least they were, pre-Covid 19. Now I’m not so sure.

Henri Nouwen writes:

“Life is precious. Not because it is unchangeable, like a diamond, but because it is vulnerable, like a little bird. To love life means to love its vulnerability, asking for care, attention, guidance and support. Life and death are connected by vulnerability.” 

 I do think that if we are to flourish, to survive at these times and beyond this crisis, perhaps we need to be willing to take the risk of being vulnerable. To say “I’m struggling, I need help.”

Reference:

Henri J. M. Nouwen (2009). “Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith”

The Image is from Charlie Mackesy’s book The Boy, The Mole, The Fox, and The Horse

Helen Bell

Breathing in Delight

I have been thinking a lot about delight recently. But what is it? And how does it differ from enjoying being with someone? Delight is a need that our children want us to experience with them when they are happy and exploring things as well as when they want to come back into us and express a feeling that is difficult or just want a hug. Obviously, you are not delighting in the fact that they are sad or frightened but more in the knowledge that they have come to you for help.

During a training day with Kent Hoffman, one of the originators of COS-P, he said that the two most important things we can do for our children in the first year of life is to:

1)    delight in them

2)    soothe them

What wonderful gifts to give to our little ones!  

Delight is gratitude

I am currently reading Gregory Boyle’s inspiring book, ‘Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion’ and in it I am discovering some beautiful examples of delight in personal encounters. Gregory Boyle is a Jesuit Priest and founder of Homeboy Industries in a neighbourhood of Los Angeles. Homeboy Industries is a gang-intervention programme.

I’d like to share two stories from his book with you.

The first, is a conversation between himself and an eighteen-year-old dad of two, Spider. A young man whose parents abandoned him and his sister during childhood and they were left to bring themselves up. Gregory is giving him a lift home when Spider says:

“You know what I’m gonna do when I get home right now? I’m gonna sit down to eat with my lady and my two morritos. But, well…I don’t eat. I just watch them eat. My lady she gets crazy with me, but I don’t care. I just watch ‘em eat. They eat and eat and I just look at ‘em and thank God they’re in my life. When they’re done eating and I know they’re full, THEN I eat. And the truth…sometimes there’s food left and sometimes there isn’t.”

Gregory Boyle’s reflects on what Spider has to say:

‘The duty to delight is to stare at your family as they eat, anchored in the surest kind of gratitude – the sort that erases sacrifice and hardship and absorbs everything else….In the utter simplicity of breathing, we find how naturally inclined we are to delight and to stay dedicated to gladness.’

Isn’t that wonderful?! In the simple act of breathing, being in another’s presence, we can delight and be glad.

To delight in someone’s being

Boyle continues the theme of finding delight in a second more personal story of visiting his father in hospital after he has been diagnosed with a brain tumour. One thing his father had asked to be brought in is a pillow from his wife’s side of the bed. Boyle continues the story:

‘..I am at the window of his room, just north of the head of his bed. I’m about to make small talk about the view from up here, but I turn and see that my father has placed the flowery pillow over his face. He breathes in so deeply and then exhales, as he places the pillow behind his head. For the rest of the morning, I catch him turning and savouring again the scent of the woman whose bed he’s shared for nearly half a century. We breathe in the spirit that delights in our being – the fragrance of it. And it works on us.’

To delight in someone’s being – it sounds simple doesn’t it? Yet it can be so difficult.

Stand back and watch

Reading these two encounters, I am struck by the place that observation plays; Spider watches his family eat, Boyle watches his dad inhale his mum’s scent left on the pillow. Learning to observe our children, to truly stand back and notice them, is a key skill we encourage parents and carers to do when they attend a Circle of Security Parenting Group.

I remember a Health Professional suggesting to me to stand back and watch my child. To be curious about who they are, how they spend their time. Not to intervene or to put my interpretation on it. At first, I thought I couldn’t possibly do this! I didn’t want to do this! I was having a hard time with my child and the last thing I felt like doing was spending more time with them. But I did it. I stood back. I breathed and for a while I looked, I really looked at my child and who they are, not what I thought they were. And it was wonderful. My child was wonderful. I was able to experience a delight in their being. A delight that had got lost in the problems, the worries, the busyness of life.

So, let’s try standing back sometimes, taking a breath and perhaps we can once again delight in the being of those closest to us.

 Helen Bell, 18th March 2021

Reference: Tattoos on the heart: the power of boundless compassion. Gregory Boyle. 2010

Home: A Safe Haven

For many of us, this week has been the first time in 2021 that we have been apart from our children for any length of time. Children are returning to schools after a break that is much longer than the usual 6-week summer holidays. We have been dropping off our children at school, or saying goodbye to them at home. Moments of separation (‘going out’) and return (‘coming in’) bring with them a host of emotions, both for us and for them.

So, how might we welcome our children home at the end of a school day?

The first thing to say is that although all children are different, we need to, in the language of Circle of Security Parenting, whenever possible, follow our child’s lead.

For some children this might mean some quiet time by themselves to do what they want to do.

I used to struggle with this when my child was younger; I’m one of these people that likes to get back from a place and sit down and talk to someone, to think out loud and work things out. I’ve come to realise my child isn’t like that. For them my constant bombardment of questions, “So how’s your day? Who did you play with? What did you have for lunch?...” was experienced as intrusive.

My first child had always enjoyed coming home and having a chat about their day. Number two was different and this was an important lesson to me. Each of my children has a mind of their own; they are their own person with their own unique character.

Even though my child didn’t want a full inquisition on their arrival home, what they did need was for me to be emotionally available – that is, just to be there, not being preoccupied about other stuff – so that when they did want to talk or just to get alongside me, they knew I was there just for them.

Copyright 2016 Cooper, Hoffman & Powell, Circle of Security International

As adults, when we get home having someone else to work things out with, can be helpful and it’s no different for children. Having the presence of another caring person to help organise our feelings is a valuable task.

Helping our children work out their thoughts and feelings when they are young will help them as they grow, enable them to make sense of things for themselves, and to look for trusted others to help them carry on with this ‘stuff of life’.

Homecoming - a place of familiarity

Whenever I have been away, what I love about coming home are the familiar smells, sounds and objects that are precious only to me. For our children, familiarity is important too. My youngest child used to come home and the first thing that they would do would be to go to their room and make sure that their teddy was waiting for them. A favourite food or song might be other ways that our children know they have returned to their safe haven, and that ‘everything is ok.’ 

Returning and returning again

It is not unusual for children to behave in ways younger than their age after they have made a step of exploration. For example, some children might asked to be “cuddled like a baby” or to seek out toys they have not played with for many months.

This is nothing to be concerned about; we all at times like to revisit places inside of us that make us feel safe and nurtured. Allow your child to return to these places and to move on when they feel ready.

If your child has returned home knowing a younger sibling has not been away from the hands on the circle, feelings of envy and needing to be the little one might be more pronounced. If possible, try and find some time with your older child alone, for example when your younger one is sleeping.

“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity” Simone Weil

So, where do I struggle with my emotions?

For some of us, letting our children go out into the ‘big wide world’ is a daunting prospect – letting them ‘go out’ to explore makes us feel nervous and uncomfortable.

For others, comforting our child on their return when they want to ‘come in’ for a cuddle or reassurance leaves us feeling uneasy.

Reflecting on our own feelings will help with this. ‘Going out’ strugglers might find saying goodbye tough, whilst ‘Coming in’ strugglers feel uneasy at the point of reunion. Knowing what makes us uncomfortable is a good starting place.

Being able to sit with our own discomfort whilst we meet the needs of our child is the best we can give, sometimes easier than at other times, as this builds the most important thing we have with our children - our relationship with them.

If you are parenting as a couple, it might be worth working out with each other where your struggles are, and if it differs, and is practically possible, share the task. Or book onto a Circle of Security Parenting Course to help figure out these things a bit more.

I wish you well as you welcome your children home.

Helen Bell, 12th March 2021

Mind the Gap

This week I’ve been pondering the gap. Not the gap between the station platform and tube train (which at some stations on some lines really requires attention) but the gap between how we want to behave towards loved ones and how things often play out in real time.

I have worked with hundreds of parents and partners in the last 26 years. All of them wanted to be good parents and loving partners. And nearly all of them struggled to a greater or lesser extent in achieving that. What’s going on? Why is there this gap and is there any way of stepping over it?

Many of us stuck in perpetual lockdown have lamented the kinds of parents or partners we’ve become as we juggle work, family, school, sanity etc. But leaving aside the pandemic for one moment (and won’t it be nice to do that FOR EVER), in ‘normal’ or ‘new normal life’ we can also find that intentionality simply isn’t enough.

There are many theories as to why this is the case – the one that works best for me will come as no surprise to anyone who’s read pretty much anything I’ve ever written is attachment theory. The fundamental drive for connection and attachment was first developed by Bowlby and has more recently been ‘backed up’ by neuroscience. Babies are born with immature brains, particularly vulnerable during their first three years of life whilst neuronal development takes place. The emotional responsiveness of their parents ‘builds’ healthy brains. For example, babies as young as 9 months know which emotions their parents are comfortable or uncomfortable with. Babies are incredibly sensitive to their parent’s cues and effectively learn how relationships work from an early age. Because this ‘knowing’ is picked up at such a young age (and because of where in our brain we store the information) we have instinctive responses to situations and emotions without knowing why. This knowing turns out to be pretty persistent and consistent e.g. if our parent was uncomfortable with anger, we may struggle when our partner is angry; we are also likely to struggle with angry children too. If we find it hard to deal with sadness and disappointment with our small children, this is likely to persist into their teenage years.

These and later ‘lessons in love’ can go on to affect and sometimes harm our current relationships with spouses and children. So what we need is a way of helping parents and partners understand the lessons in love that they have picked up and that have an on-going impact on them. This involves being brave enough to search and know ourselves at a slightly deeper emotional level which will then help all our family relationships across the board.

In my experience of running attachment-based parenting groups over the last 11 years I have seen many well-intentioned parents missing huge areas of need in their children (be it taking charge in a kind way or helping make sense of tough emotions). They don’t intend to dismiss or ignore these needs but their own ‘lessons in love’ have been wired in at such a level that until they take time to think and reflect they simply don’t know what they are doing. We need spaces where we are helped to see our children’s need and then understand why they find it so hard to meet some of them. Without this time and insight parents often repeat the patterns of their parents.

There are three steps across the gap:

• Firstly we need a way of decoding behaviour, to see what our children need from us and when (again the map created by attachment theory seems to be the most user friendly to me).

• Secondly we need to step back and start to see the patterns that play out – some people can do this simply by reading a well-written book or article, and applying it to their life. The vast majority of us cannot do this because these things are wired so deep that we can’t get perspective on our own. We need other relationships, other people to walk with us and help us take that step back.

• Finally we need to be able to reflect in a blame free, shame free space as to what is going on.

So for anyone reading this who is thinking ‘why did I just do that?’ or ‘what the heck is going on with them?’ I’d encourage you to seek out a group, a space where the gap can be seen and you’ll get the help you need to take the steps over it.

Jenny Peters

4.3.21

Seeing in the moment

I wish to share a conversation I had with a mum some time ago whose first language is not English. I was reminded of this recently as we commemorate ‘International Mother Language Day’ (21st February). This day was started by UNESCO in 1999 to promote linguistic and cultural diversity, as well as multilingualism. Circle of Security Parenting is a way of being-with our children that crosses language and cultural divides. The programme has already been translated into 13 languages and is available in many countries worldwide.

A moment of connection

What might be seen as a ‘chance encounter’, was for me a moment I paid close attention to; a moment of connection with another mum. Travelling on the same train, journeying along the same path, trying to figure out what it means to be a parent.

 My eldest daughter sat doodling on her phone, my youngest, practising her drawing skills out of a book she had just got. I sat trying to sketch my daughter in the style of Picasso (and failing!).

Fellow traveller: “I suppose they like drawing because you like drawing. They are like you. My child is angry every day, she doesn’t listen to me.”

In this brief moment, from the outside, you might have mistaken us as a harmonious family - perfectly in synch with each other’s likes and needs.

 Such danger in comparisons! They can leave us feeling rubbish, inadequate. Yes, for a brief moment the three of us were in synchrony, but that is far from the whole story. A glimpse like this into how a family works is never the full picture.

Me: “Yes I suppose they do like drawing, like I do.”

In that moment I caught myself unexpectedly feeling proud, proud that they shared something in common with me! Perhaps I have passed on something to them, something that is good. All too often I think we are worried that we will pass on things from our upbringing that we are less proud of.

We can choose to parent differently to how we were parented

 That’s what I love about Circle of Security Parenting; whilst we bring our experiences with us, there are times when we have a choice point – a time to choose to do it ‘the way it’s always been done’, or a time to do it differently.

The wonderful Kent Hoffman writes:

‘It’s never too late. Our identity is deeper than our history. New options abound when we begin to recognise them.’

Fellow traveller: “My daughter refuses to read. She won’t sit there like that. She just watches TV with her grandmother.”

 We talked some more, the mum told me her daughter is three – much younger than my children.

Me: “Three-year-olds can be hard work. They have so much energy, they cannot concentrate for long.”

We can spend so much time worrying about our children’s future that we miss the present moment. 

Richard Rohr¹, Franciscan Priest and founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation, New Mexico, writes:

‘We determine what we will see and what we won’t see, what we pay attention to and what we don’t. That’s why we have to clean the lens: we have to get our ego-agenda out of the way, so we can see things as they are.’

I am grateful I had the space to journey with this mum; to see in the moment.

As parents we need to ‘wipe the mirror’ every day so that we can see our children for who they are, not what we expect them to be.

And along the way, let’s be kind to ourselves.

References

1. Richard Rohr quote from Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer

 Helen Bell

26/02/21

Valentine's Day

Roses, are red, violets are blue, lockdown Valentine’s Day 2021 stinks for me and for you.

Valentine’s Day is often a bit of a mixed bag. We love it if a new crush emerges or we use it to celebrate our relationship. We hate it if we detest the commercialisation, don’t like being made to express love on a particular day in a particular way or, at that particular time, don’t have anyone to celebrate with. Valentine’s Day in the middle of a pandemic when we’ve all been locked in for months, is something else. For the 40% of the UK population who don’t live in a couple there haven’t been hurdles to overcome to find love and connection there have been enormous great walls. Valentine’s Day 2021 – all the pain and none of the fun. So what do to? Ignore and move on or salvage what we can?

As you might guess (otherwise what would there be to write about) how about trying to salvage what we can and mark the day to help get us all through this perpetual, never ending and ceaseless lockdown.

Reach Out – Right here right now we all need a bit of TLC. So let’s use this day to reach out to those we love (friends, family, romantic partners) and tell them they matter, they are important to us, that we have kept them in mind. Emotional closeness at a time of physical distancing sure isn’t easy but it’s worth a try. A friend sent me a tea bag at the start of last century’s lockdown to say ‘can’t wait until we can sit and have a cup of tea together’. It was thoughtful, kind, cost very little and made me feel loved. Presents don’t have to be expensive, the best ones are often the thoughtful and personal ones. Get creative.

1. Glam up – We all have ‘going out’ clothes that we can’t go out in. Those clothes are just hanging around our wardrobes Speaking personally I’ve worn nothing but leggings, sweatshirts, slippers and wellies since August. So how about we decide whatever our situation that we will glam up for this Valentine’s Day. There’s something about dressing up that makes the day a little bit less mundane. On Christmas Eve bereft of friends and wider family my family decided to (well I told them they had to) dress up black tie smart for Christmas Eve. To be strictly honest, my son, dressed exactly how he always dresses but did manage to put a tie around his neck, we let it go, it was a big effort for him. Did it bring our friends and family around, no it did not, was a meal with the same 5 people that have spent way more time together than any of us had ever planned? Yes it was, but it made the occasion a touch more fun. And I don’t know about you but small increments are about all I can manage right now.

2. Dance, dance, dance – As Louise Bomber reminded us all in a Connected Lives Seminar this week, moving and music are good for dialling down our stress systems and making us feel calmer and happier. So put on your favourite dance along, sing along tracks and dance like no one is watching.

This Valentine’s Day may not be anything like ideal but we can be intentional about choosing to add a little glamour and fun to this day in the middle of this seemingly never ending time.

Jenny Peters

12th February 2021

Taking up space: unashamedly

Recently I came across the poem Unashamed performed by the amazing poet and artist Harry Baker.

I have seen Harry perform live several times and hearing him again brought back good memories. I am always struck by Harry’s ease in using words. He is often funny, clever and at times the poems really stir my spirit. Harry’s poem Unashamed is one such poem that moves my heart and soul.

Harry writes that he wrote the poem Unashamed for a friend during lockdown and that it has now become a New Year’s Resolution to himself. I think I am going to follow Harry’s lead and make this poem a guiding light for me at the start of this challenging year!

‘Home is where you can be open-hearted’

Unashamed got me thinking about what it has been like for me, for so many of us, during these periods of lockdown. Spending more time at home with our families, maybe a partner, our children. For some they have found themselves with someone they perhaps would not choose to be with. For me, yes, I love my family very much, but on the whole, I am not usually with them 24/7!

During the first lockdown I realised my children were seeing me do things, be things they hadn’t really ever seen before, or certainly not since they were much younger children, before they started school. As I carried out routine everyday tasks that form part of running a household and a family, such as cleaning and washing, one of my children reflected that being an adult must be “so boring!”

Spending more time at home my children also see me in different ‘hats’; for example, the way I might speak to others on a call whilst I am working, the time I spend at the computer, the time I spend ironing their clothes. At times I find their gaze intrusive. I realise that they are perhaps seeing more of me than I am immediately comfortable with. This got me wondering. How much of myself do I show to others? To myself? How truly ‘open-hearted’ am I really? Over the years I think I have become quite adept at hiding away parts of myself; for others to see, in Harry’s words, ‘the small of me.’ Why might this be?

Watching our children does not sound much, but it is huge

Circle of Security Parenting has formed part of my journey that helps me understand this better. COS-P offers a user-friendly map of attachment theory. It describes the different needs our children, in fact all of us have, and the importance of these needs to be met.

Children love us to watch them, don’t they? Maybe you have been at the park with your child and they are on the swing, swinging higher and higher. Your child calls out, “Look at me, look at me!” Often times they don’t want us to do anything, but ‘just’ watch them. Watching our child does not sound much, but it is huge. For our children to know that we delight in them, that we want to know them, to see the all of them is crucial. It helps them to grow in the knowledge that they are worth knowing, that they are amazing. In the words of the poet, that they are adored for who they are, not for what is adorning them.

What does it mean to be seen, truly seen?

Like our children, we are amazing!

For some of us being seen, truly seen, might make us feel uncomfortable. To show the flawed broken parts of ourselves, the foolish bits as well as the wise can make us feel vulnerable. Becoming a parent is for me a new way of learning to share more of myself; to open up enough to let my children see beneath the surface. And this is wonderful, and at times scary!

My hope this year is that, like in Unashamed, instead of building up a fort around myself I can make a rocket ship; a big, wonderful, adventure-filled creation with endless possibilities.

Perhaps you would like to listen to Harry’s poem and see what stands out for you?

Helen Bell

8/2/21

Raising resilient children in difficult times

If the last year has taught us anything it should be that we are all more interconnected than we ever knew and that we are not always able to control things. Now, depending on the levels of privilege you enjoy, the control bit comes as more or less of a shock. For people privileged enough to be able to actively choose: their health and wellbeing, the job they do, where their children are educated, when they socialise and see their friends and where to go on the holidays etc. the last year may have come as quite a shock. Reading about the negative impact on baby, child and teenage mental health this week has been tough. We predicted it would happen, we saw it happening and tried to do what we could to mitigate it but now we have ‘proof’ that many of our fears and predictions did indeed come to pass. So what can we are parents, carers, professionals, human beings do about it?

As is so often the case, the answer is both horribly simple and yet very hard to do. It’s all about Lego. By which I do not mean construct your own car, house, castle or robot (although go ahead if you enjoy it), but I do mean focus on: Lament, Energy, Gratitude and One.

Lament is important because it helps us grieve what has been lost. Lost experiences, opportunities, relationships, people etc. It’s good to acknowledge ourselves, and be able to help our children acknowledge that the restrictions they are experiencing due to the pandemic (struggling to stay motivated to learn from home, being cut of from friends, not being able to go to clubs, never getting away from your parents) is rubbish. Depending on our own comfortableness with sadness and struggle, we may find this hard to do. If we as children didn’t have parents who could accept these emotions, and help us make sense of them, dwelling on these emotions for any length of time can feel really uncomfortable. So we find ourselves coming out with phrases like ‘look on the bright side’ or ‘at least you… ’ or  ‘so many other children have it way worse than you’. There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of those phrases although I have genuinely never understood why getting a child to think about children whose suffering is significantly worse than theirs helps them feel better. Overall those encouragements are okay, they just need to come a while after we acknowledged their feelings, their pain and their struggle (and helped them make sense of some of their behaviour). Accepting struggle is the fastest way for children to feel better, but that doesn’t necessarily make it easy for us to do.

Energy – choose to expend your energy on what you can change. Right here right now you can continue to provide the ‘bigger, stronger, wiser and kind’ parenting that we’d all love to do. In a seminar last week Dr Kathryn Hollins talked about aspiring to get it right 1% more of the time a day, of all the great things she said I love that one. Your relationship with your child remains of fundamental importance. You are the secure base they are doing their (very limited) exploration from and the safe haven they come back to when they need help and comfort and their feelings are too overwhelming. Even when you realise you don’t control so many things, you do control how you tune into your child and how you respond to them.

Gratitude – being thankful for what we can is incredibly good for us. There are times when this is extremely difficult and I’m not advocating summoning ‘fake gratitude’ for the sake of it. But choosing to focus on things that we can be thankful for, helps us and helps our children.  You can be creative in how you do it, draw a big thankfulness trees or decorate a jam jar and turn it into your gratitude jar. On days no one can think of anything good, go into the jar and read out one of them.

One minute or hour or day at a time. When things are stressful and difficult the large future expanses of days and weeks make the now seem terrifying and unmanageable. In her truly brilliant way Caitlin Moran writes:

“Here is a promise and a fact: you will never, in your life, ever have to deal with anything more than the next minute. However much it feels like you are approaching an event – an exam, a conversation, a decision, a kiss – where if you screw it up, the entire future will just burn to hell in front of you and you will end, you are not… You will never, ever have to deal with more than the next 60 seconds.”

Caitlin Moran – Letter to teenage girls

So while future planning is important, getting fixated and anxious about the future can rob us of our ability to live in the now. One maths worksheet, one more meal, one more cuddle, one more ‘it’s not fair’ at a time.

As is the way with most things in parenting LEGO can feel repetitive, never ending and not the ‘quick fix’ we’d like. But studies show that this way of relating and being does help build resilience. Let’s encourage one another to get the LEGO out and keep using it.

Jenny Peters

written 5.2.21

In the present moment

“Hurry is an unpleasant thing in itself but also very unpleasant for whoever is around it. Some people came into my room and rushed in and rushed out and even when they were there they were not there - they were in the moment ahead or the moment behind. Some people who came in just for a moment were all there, completely in that moment.

Live from day to day, just from day to day. If you do so, you worry less and live more richly. If you let yourself be absorbed completely, if you surrender completely to the moments as they pass, you live more richly those moments.”

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

HonC! , like many stay and play groups, is usually a busy place to be! I arrived one time to set up as usual and my mind was in overdrive. I found myself rushing, rushing to thoughts ahead, rushing to thoughts behind. A friend stopped me and said "you look like you need to just take a few deep breaths", I tried, it didn't help. I was struggling to be in the moment.

And then a new family arrived, with a 7-week-old baby and a two year old who was needing time with her mummy that was all hers, away from the presence of her sister, whom had arrived abruptly, changing her world forever.

So I took Freda* in my arms and sat down. What to do? Well of course I needed to be in the moment, to be fully present. Freda was asking nothing from me, other than to be there, holding her safely, with no expectations, worries or rushed thoughts. I surrendered. I sat. Thoughts vanished from my mind and I was able to live more richly in this moment.

Freda, someone whom we might think is helpless and totally dependent, was able to show me my 'unique call' in this moment. Henri Nouwen writes that the most 'healing response to the illnesses of our time' is 'our faithfulness to a small task'.

Parenting is full of small tasks.  Most go unnoticed, unseen and are unremarkable in themselves. May we surrender completely to these moments as they pass, so that we might live more richly in them.

* name changed to protect confidentiality

Helen Bell

I Don't Know

“Why can’t the school just say they don’t know when we will be going back, rather than keep changing the date?”

This was my teenager’s question when we received yet another email from their school about when they are to return in the new year. A question that got me thinking; why couldn’t they say “I don’t know”?

Why is it that for so many of us these three words, “I don’t know,” are so hard to say?

There has been so much not knowing in 2020. A year marked by uncertainty, changed plans, disappointment, unexpected events, a feeling of being out of control. For most of us I think we seek certainty. This is true for one of my children. “What time is dinner?”, “When will we be going out?”, “How many minutes till bedtime?” Many questions all with the underlying wish for certainty, that the world is a predictable and safe place.

Certainty helps us feel secure, it gives us a sense of what is to come. If we say we don’t know, perhaps we fear looking stupid, maybe we worry about showing our weaknesses. Where do we find our security? In what do we put our trust?

Young children look to their parents for answers

For very young children, they look to their parents for the answers. They believe that we know it all. That we can answer any question that starts with “why?” and perhaps for a time we can. However, they reach an age, or perhaps something happens in their little life, when they realise that we do not have all the answers. For me, trying to home-school during the first lockdown I think was one such moment of revelation for my child! 

“Mum doesn’t have all the answers.”

I might not have the answer. Often times I don’t. But what I do try to be for my children is to stay connected, to be the hands for them. ‘Being the Hands’ is an idea we explore during Circle of Security Parenting groups. How can I as a parent, stay on the circle? How can I be someone whom they know will still be there for them when they try out new things (a ‘secure base’) and a place for them to come home to when they need to rage or seek comfort (a ‘safe haven’)?

Connection helps us feel secure

The Circle of Security Parenting group is a safe space to say, “I am struggling”, “I don’t know”. A place for us to show our weaknesses and to know that it is okay because we are not alone. We are in it together. A chance to explore how we might stay connected through times of uncertainty, which let’s face it, is all the time. For our children to know that they have something, someone they can trust.

I am proud of my teenager to be okay with the not knowing when they will return to school. I hope I can be there with them on the circle, whatever 2021 brings. As we walk through 2021, I hope that I can continue to trust in the not knowing. To be okay with the uncertainty, certain that I am not alone.

Helen Bell

Written 31/12/20

REFLECTIONS ON CONNECTIONS

As I write this piece London has just fallen into Tier 4 and Christmas celebrations are now severely restricted. The name of our charity is Connected Lives and at the end of this year of years I’m reflecting on connections, 2020 style.

Let’s start globally. If the Covid-19 pandemic taught us anything useful (other than to learn how to wear face masks and to insert ‘socially distanced of course’ seamlessly into all plans for seeing anyone) it has surely been how connected we are as a global community of human beings. Within weeks a truly terrible virus spread globally (let’s not get into the politics of how different governments responded here) and forced a vast majority of the world to press pause. Travel was banned or severely restricted, those who could were asked to work at home; non-essential shops closed, the hospitality and beauty industries shut, sports venues closed and grass-roots sports halted.

Whatever we think about our place in the world at large, this year taught us we are all intricately connected, with people, goods and services travelling across the globe at astonishing rates. Historians tracking these things calculate that the 1346/7 outbreak of Bubonic Plague, which originated in Mongolia, took approximately 2 years to reach these shores, it came through ships trading goods. The Covid-19 virus took a matter of weeks simply because of the strength and speed of our inter-connectedness. We are a global body and we need to care for one another on a global scale because (to quote from the Bible)

“If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honoured, every part rejoices with it.” (1 Corinthians 12:26)

How we treat one another and our planet matters to us all. This truth should dominate political, climate change, trade and any negotiations ‘nations’ make with each other.

Moving from macro connections to micro connections. 2020 saw us spend significantly more time with some members of our family and significantly less time with wider friends and kinship networks. I have documented in previous blogs how this created huge stress and had at times a devastating impact. As a charity which exists to support these vital family connections we sought to play our part in helping families and couples cope with this extraordinary set of circumstances. At the very beginning of the crisis, in March 2020 I led the prayers for mothers at the (online) Mother’s Day Service of my church. It caused great hilarity amongst my family that I said that we all needed to “mother-up” and that the next season was going to be parenting like we’d never known it. Of course, my slightly flippant March 2020 self didn’t know how long the whole thing would last and “she” thought it would be done by early summer (ha ha). But she was right about one thing, being a parent in 2020 whatever age your children are was incredibly tough and demanded new wisdom and endurance to survive.

Speaking personally this year has shown me the preciousness of family life and the complexity of it. With three adult children forced to return to live at home, one husband and a slightly crazy puppy, life was not dull. Love turned to hate, delight to frustration before you could say ‘tier 2, rule of six, or Covid secure’. I remain hugely grateful for the map of attachment (made so stunningly visual through the work of Circle of Security Parenting) to help guide me through all this craziness. When I was able to take that all important step back and think ‘what’s going on here’ ‘where are they on the Circle?’ ‘What is their behaviour telling me?’ things went significantly better. We also saw in the countless (well 10 actually) online groups that we ran that this way of thinking helped and transformed many other families seeking to connect in the midst of everything.

My desire for 2021 and beyond (aside from us all getting vaccinated) is to get this important insight and understanding to the people who need it most, the parents and partners across the UK. This is not simply a vague hope; we are about to launch 2 new Connected Lives hubs, one in Cambridge and one in South East London. We hope that these will be the start of many more over the next few years. 

So goodbye and good riddance to 2020, come quickly 2021 and huge thanks to you our volunteers, helpers and supporters all for the help, support and generosity you have shown over the past year.

Jenny Peters

23/12/20

IF YOU WANT TO GO FAR

When we established Connected Lives it was always our vision to set up a network of delivery hubs across the UK in order to give more people across the country access to the attachment-based groups and programmes that we run.

We are utterly delighted to be able to announce that from January 2021 there will be a Connected Lives Hub in Cambridgeshire! This is a very exciting development for us as a charity. A brilliant team of people in Trumpington led by Dr Helen Bell have drawn up a plan for delivery across the county and together we have successfully applied for funding to get this up and running. I’m not going to lie, it has been a lot of work, and it hasn’t always been easy to find the time along with all the other things we have been doing as an organisation, supporting families in the middle of a pandemic. But every single zoom planning meeting, logic model draft and conversations with a wider network have brought us to this point. Helen and her co-hubber Kate Logan are both tenacious and courageous people and even if I had wanted to stop pursuing this I’m not sure I’d have been able to!  So I want to take a moment to celebrate this achievement and look forward to all that is to come.

There is an African proverb which says:

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far go together.”

I’ve seen the profound truth in these words this year. At Connected Lives we want to go far, we want to help partners and parents across the UK get the help and support they need at the earliest possible stage. We know we can’t do this alone so we are committed to pursuing partnerships and working with brilliant people and organisations across the country. We commit ourselves to doing it together. Will it take us time to work these things out? Indeed it will! Will I have moments of regret and annoyance, almost certainly!  But going far in this context helps a far greater number of families which makes the striving, and even the occasional times of slowness and frustration completely worth it.

Jenny Peters

16/12/20

QUESTIONS FOR CONNECTION

On the market (especially at Christmas) you can find a number of different 'family relationships' games. In them you get to pick a card and ask a question of a sibling, a partner, a parent or friend. The idea is to get families chatting and it's a great idea but in reality you don't need to fork out on a game, you can actually have these conversations for free.

As you'll know if you've read anything I've written before, at Connected Lives we use attachment theory as one of our main lenses for understanding people. In summary the idea is that we were designed to live from cradle to grave enjoying close, ‘attachment’ relationships with a small group of people. Starting with our relationship with our parents or carers, we were created to live interdependent lives, where we can call on our ‘go to people’ and we know they will respond. So much of the work that we do at Connected Lives is around helping people tune in to and respond to this fundamental need for connection with our go to people. Everyone (babies, children, teens and adults) needs to feel connected to the key people in their lives. We function well when we have this connection but we start to malfunction both emotionally and behaviourally when we start to feel disconnected.

This need is wired into our brains, our very beings. If we are having a problem with a friend, a child or a partner, instead of asking the question ‘why are they doing this to me’ it can be more helpful to ask ‘do they need something from me’.  Wise partners, friends, parents and carers are able to take a step back from the problem and begin to think about responding in a different way from our normal knee-jerk response.  If we are able to take that all important step of reflection we can begin to see the problem in a new way. This involves both thinking about what our loved one might be showing us about what they need and considering what we are bringing to the party.

All too often when we stop to think (in a non-pressured way) we realise that we are particularly sensitive to this kind of behaviour due to our own relationship history. So if we get mad when a friend is clearly struggling but refuses to talk to us; we might want to think, 'why do I hate this so much?' and maybe even 'is there anything I’m doing or not doing that makes this harder for them?' We all have ‘raw spots’ as Sue Johnson calls them, a place on our emotional skin that is particularly sensitive to the touch. Reflective conversations with loved ones can lead us to feel even more closely connected if done well. Because in these conversations we openly acknowledge the importance of the other person to us, and to show our willingness to learn to respond in new ways that leave them feeling safer and more connected.

I have one extremely important caveat to all this. This kind of ‘is it me’ thinking does not apply in situations where our partner is being violent towards us. A victim of partner violence should not be thinking ‘what did I do to provoke this’; rather they need to start thinking ‘I need to stop this happening to me?' If you are in this situation please seek help immediately. A good place to start would be the National Domestic Abuse Helpline: 0808 2000 247.

In general being willing to think about our responses and our loved ones’ needs gives us new options when we are feeling stuck and frustrated and can lead to greater intimacy and connection. Starting off with questions like ‘what do I do that makes you feel most loved’ can be a gentle way in. So what have you got to lose (and where have you got to go)? Give it a try and here’s to happy connecting!

Jenny Peters

9/12/20

GIVING AND RECEIVING

The strange thing was that for every drop he helped put in someone else's bucket, he felt another drop in his own bucket

Tom Rath and Mary Reckmeyer - How full is your bucket?

How full is your bucket? is a great book for getting children to think about how our feelings impact our actions. The idea is that we all have an invisible buckets that we all carry around with us. When our bucket is full we feel great, we can be kind, we can behave well but when it is empty we feel awful and often behave pretty badly too! Felix also learns that if he does a kind act for a friend, not only does his friend's 'bucket' get filled but he notices that his bucket fills up too!

Turns out that Felix has stumbled upon something extremely powerful here. If we go out of our way to help others, it is good for our own mental health and sense of wellbeing. Dr Bettina Hohnen said a similar thing at our Connected Lives First Birthday. She outlined the research which is showing that the act of helping others is incredibly good for teenagers, especially those struggling themselves.

Teenagers have a bit of a reputation for being ego-centric and self absorbed but actually it's not true. For them and for everyone we (almost) get more when we give to other people because we are such social beings it's really good for our mental health when we help others.

Dr Bettina Hohnen, Connected Lives First Birthday

Human beings are social beings, we were designed to be in groups, therefore it makes sense that we feel good when we are able to do something which helps out someone else. How many of us scrambled to try and help 'in some way' in the midst of the pandemic and lockdown? We did it not because we were bored but because we desperately needed to do something to make a difference. I myself tried to volunteer to sew masks. Given my general sewing abilities I think there are medics all over the UK who should be grateful that I wasn't allowed to contribute in this way! I ended up volunteering to give 'check in' calls for vulnerable people and saw again that when you give you receive back more. In fact with one particularly wonderful person my weekly 'check in calls' to her became one of the highlights of my week.

So let's encourage our kids (and ourselves) to look out for each other, to try and spot people who might need a helping hand or a kind word and give it. How about having a family 'day of secret good tasks' where everyone is given another family member to do something nice for? Rules are it needs to be something they'd like and you mustn't let on who did it! Thinking outside of our immediate family, look around you and see who comes to mind, there are many people struggling to cope right now, if we do what we can to help, we will find that we receive a lot more along the way.

Jenny Peters

2/12/20

A REFLECTION ON THE FIRST YEAR OF CONNECTED LIVES

Connected Lives was set up to offer help and support for our closest relationships.  We do this because we know how fundamentally important these relationships are to our wellbeing and we also know how tough it can be at times.

Someone who attended one of our couple’s courses reflected:  

‘Rather than fishing drowning people out of the river, the programme stops them from falling in, in the first place.”

I like that, we are all about prevention, we want to give a helping hand at the earliest possible time to help people understand one another, reconnect and thrive together.

Now rather like the rest of the world I have to tell you that 2020 did not quite pan out the way we’d planned! Relationally as we know the lockdown forced us to live closer together with some people and further apart from others. We were in constant contact with families and partners whilst being separated from friends and wider communities.

All too predictably the worst effects were felt by those already vulnerable. Rates of domestic violence rose (91% of women experiencing partner violence said it had worsened in the period); the number of babies killed by their parents rose by 20%. Adolescent and maternal mental health worsened; relationships stress increased.

As a charity set up to support family relationships we sought to respond to the (okay I’m going to use the word) unprecedented situation. We tried to be a bit of a save haven for parents and partners in the storm. That’s what we’re here for.

We saw a fivefold increase in the numbers of parents referred to our Circle of Security Parenting groups. To meet this need our fantastic team of facilitators (you know who you are) rallied and together we delivered 9 online Circle of Security Groups. In general facilitators used to delivering ‘in person’ groups found the transition to online hard work. Although online life did have it’s advantages, one group was joined by parents from Hawai, Ascension Islands and Australia and the UK.

We also saw a 150% increase in participation in our online Hold Me Tight Course. These courses help partners unpick negative patterns of relating and rebuild trust and connection. The format of the couples courses (presentation then lots of time for couples to do the exercises) works brilliantly online. It makes the course so much more accessible (no baby-sitters, no rushing to the group from work) and we’re likely to continue that format going forward.

We have struggled more to find creative online alternatives to our drop in groups. We have handed out Connection Boxes with crafts for families and delivered Weekly online Toddler Time; Weekly Mammaccino groups. None of these feel like a good enough substitute for having a large, safe place for children to gather and play and parents to chat and connect.

In one sentence covid and the pandemic meant that demand went up while income went down. Two big training events, which are an important source of income for us were cancelled, all income from activities was reduced and grant making bodies were swamped responding to material needs. We are incredibly grateful to the regular givers who gave so generously throughout this time.

Whilst slightly cautious about making any hard and fast predictions our broad plans are to increase our impact through delivering more groups, moving into new areas, expanding support for parents of teens, continue to encourage ‘best practice’ amongst facilitators and to set up a network of hubs offering the attachment-based groups in locations across England.

I think the best thing I can think to say on 2020, is that we survived it and we did what we could to be the hands for families in the storm. As always our staff team and volunteers were amazing and gave selflessly with wisdom and grace. Looking ahead into the next year we are very excited for the birth of our first ‘baby hubs’ and teenage work. Thanks for all your support, stay safe and stay connected.

Jenny Peters

25/11/20