Seeking self, dropping anchor

I taught a teenage client this morning the very simple practice of box breathing. I find this so helpful when I catch myself feeling the telltale signs of a dysregulated nervous system! It can be a simple way of adding a pause in before we continue on with whatever task we’re working through or before responding to someone in a reactive way. You can trace the box on your hand, doodle it on some paper or even find a window/door to follow with your eyes. It’s helpful to repeat it until you’re able to extend the breath for at least 5 seconds & you can observe your body starting to calm down. Question for you: Do you have helpful little strategies you can use in the day to day to manage stress in the moment?

I’ve been working with quite a few couples at the moment around the challenges of co-parenting. It’s caused me to reflect on the concept of triangles & how this pattern can be so complex in scenarios where parental separation has occurred. A triangle is when a third party is pulled into a strained dyad in an attempt to manage & calm the stress within the dyad. So in co-parenting situations this is often a strained parent relationship, pulling a third (a child) in. Two examples I often see are: a child witnessing parent conflict/tension & responding with symptoms of illness or big behaviours which can unite the parents temporarily as they focus on supporting the child. a parent criticising the other parent to the child or pulling them into choosing a side, again temporarily relieving the parents stress as they feel validation or a sense of an ‘inside position’ with the child, putting the other parent on the ‘outer’. What can happen for the child over time is a hyper sensitiv...

The fourth factor impacting our capacity to regulate is relationships. This is the last one of this little series & potentially the most important! Most would say that this one is all about feeling understood, accepted & valued by those we care about & that this calms us down… which is not untrue! However this type of thinking can lead to dependency on others for our ability to remain calm. I have a slightly different focus on this one which comes from a Bowen family systems concept called ‘differentiation of self’. This concept refers to our ability to stay connected but autonomous in the face of relationship stress. A well differentiated person “can stay calm and clear headed enough in the face of conflict, criticism, & rejection to distinguish thinking rooted in a careful assessment of the facts from thinking clouded by emotionality.” In contrast “people with a poorly differentiated self depend so heavily on the acceptance and approval of others that they either quic...