Why your emotions spill over onto your child.

The number one challenge parents face that come to see me is their emotions spilling over onto their child.

Maybe it’s impatience

Maybe it's overwhelm

Maybe it’s frustration

Maybe it’s resentment

Maybe it’s anger

Maybe it’s apathy

Maybe it’s fear

There is no emotion that makes you a bad parent, including anger.

Today, I truly believe this, but there was a time when I felt like a bad parent when I reacted the way I did towards my children. I would say things I regret or feel like I was stuck and withdraw. Sometimes, this would look like me pushing down the emotions and carrying on as if everything was fine. Other times, I’d turn towards food and eat my emotions as a way to avoid feeling them.

When I first learned the technique to allow me to feel my emotions and not allow them to spill onto my child, it changed my life. Quite literally, I felt liberated.

Up until that point, my emotions were in control of me. I felt like I had no choice, therefore no control over them. Today, I call this technique the Emotional Diffuser and I teach it to every client.

Victor Frankl says, “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

Some of the growth and freedom that has come for me from being able to create this space includes responding to my children in a way that’s healthy for them and me, tuning into my intuition more, having more space to deliberately nurture their unique qualities, being more present with them and enjoying our time together, working better together with my husband as parents, lovers, and friends.

And it's impacted me beyond my home life.. I have better relationships with colleagues at work. Better driver. Better customer.

And a better relationship with food (not perfect, but better).

Emotions are what make you human, Mirian Tan. When you allow yourself to feel all of your emotions (a skill most of us have not been taught), they no longer have the power over you that they once did. When you can allow yourself to feel frustration or anger, you can also allow yourself to feel joy and peace. When you limit certain emotions, to some degree, you limit them all.

Emotions make you feel alive, and allowing yourself the gift of feeling the full range of them and still being at choice in how you respond is the gateway to being the best parent you can be.

I recently got to chat with Paul (Mitch) Mitchell on his Leaders for Life Radio podcast. We spoke about the guilt and shame we feel as parents and how we can lead our children to be their best. Here’s a link to the episode if you’d like to listen.

You deserve to feel ALIVE.

Much love,

Dina xx