Many of us have discovered by now that we medicate our emotions instead of
manage them.
I went on a diet last year, an extreme diet and people kept saying, "Aren't you hungry? Aren't you hungry?"
And I'm like, "No! I'm angry!"
And course that had uncovered the fact that I had been medicating my anger with
food for years and years and years.
Subsequently now I've discovered that
I medicate my anxiety with working. I'm a workaholic. I medicate my
sadness with television,
I'm reality show freak.
And I medicate
all of them to some degree, not excessively, but I can take a
drink now and then. Cheers
to everyone watching.
And, the downside of this is three things. Three things are guaranteed
when you medicate your emotions instead of manage them. One,
you will be addicted to something
now that something could be socially acceptable like work
but you're going to be addicted to something.
Two, we will act out
our emotions on others
and you know this, we act the worst with the people we love the most.
And what happens then, is we feel the sense of guilt that we've hurt others
that we love. That we've actually hurt ourselves, or damaged the relationship,
damaged colleagues whatever the case may be we blanket the emotions with a
layer of guilt
and then we spend the rest of our lives managing guilt
instead of trying to manage
ourselves
or even our children.
Third we pass this unconscious system down to our children through our parenting
practice and educational uh... institutions through teaching and through parenting.
We want to do it differently,
we just don't know how.
So the first step to any change is conscious awareness. Now in my book,
"Managing Emotional Mayhem" you cannot manage children's emotional mayhem
until you start learning to manage your own, you can't manage your own unless you become
conscious of what the tendency is
for you to do and that comes from how you were raised. So let me read you a
teeny tiny bit.
"Think back to when you were a child
what were your parents responses to your emotions? Did they name, acknowledge, and use
them as a teaching tool? "You seem angry you were hoping you could stay up later." or
did they punish, ignore, bribe, dismiss? "Go to bed now!
Don't make me have to get up."
Our relationship with our emotions starts early and can last a lifetime.
if we're to foster the emotional well-being within children we must make
the necessary changes to tune up our own system."
Part of this book too is a wonderful exercise that has you look at each emotion
and see how they were responded to in your family origin.
Let's take a look at anger right now.
Ignore
"Mom! Mom!
That's it! I hate my teacher! I hate my teacher!
"Mmm. Yeah." "You wouldn't believe what she did today! You would not! Mom! Look Mom!" "I'm listening.
I'm listening. I'm listening."
"She picks on everyone, everyone!" "Yeah. I'm listening.
You know what, could you-" "You wanna know what she did?!"
"Uh... Honey-" "What about Marcus?!"
"Uh." "Remember the other day?" "I remember Marcus. Here take this one, here just, here go ahead, just
start drying.
What?
What? What are you-" "Whatever."
"We don't need to have that, honey?
Just give me the dish then. Give me the dish.
Alright good."
Punish
Mom!
I hate my teacher!" "You do not come in here this way!" "I hate my teacher!"
"You do not come in here yelling at me!
What do you think you're doing?! Pick that up!"
"Hang that up! Hang that up right now!
This is ridiculous.
I've had it with your mouth."
"But mom!"
"You want to do this again?
You pick that up! You pick that up now!"
"NO!"
"You pick this up!"
Dismiss
"Mom! Mom! I hate my teacher! I hate my teacher!"
"Listen-" "You would not believe what she did to Marcus. You would not believe what she did to me!" "Listen, honey. You like your teacher. She's nice honey. You like your teacher."
"Do know what she did to Marcus? Do you even know?
Do you care what she did to Marcus?" "It doesn't matter what she did to Marcus, you know.
You're a good student. You're good at school. You're a good student.
You like her.
And you're good at school. You're a nice person sweetheart. You're a nice person.
So you just have to remember that
remember how you're a nice person and you like people. Yeah. Yeah? Yeah.
Ok, do you want a little snack? You want me to get a snack?
Let's just." "Okay." "Okay. Let's just. I'm sure I've got some ice cream in the fridge."
"Thank you mom."
"Here you go sweetie.
Let me just get you a spoon.
Let me get a spoon. Here you go. Enjoy." "Can I have the whole thing?" "Of course." "Okay, thank you." "Of course, of course."
"It's better now isn't it. It feels better now doesn't it?" "Yeah. Yeah."
Save
"Mom! Mom!"
"What?
What happened?" "I... I... I hate my
teacher!" "What did she do?!" "You wouldn't believe what she did! She did it to Marcus first! She wrote his name on the board
and sent him out of the room. And you know what she did to me? She humiliated me in front of the whole class!"
"She will not be getting away with this." "No." "She is not getting away with this." "She shouldn't!"
"You know what? I'm calling her right now!" "You call her! Can you get her
fired?
Mom, do something!
She was horrible!
"You know what she said to me? She said I'm stupid.
She-" "No I can't wait!"
"She said I was stupid." "She said... You know what?" "She made fun of me in front of the class!"
"I'm going to call. No we are getting you out of that school! We are going
to make this a better for you.
Nobody treats my girl that way."
"Oh. Mom. Thank you. Thank you."
"Your welcome." "Thank you."
"I'm the one that you love.
I'm the one that takes care of you." "Your the best mom."
"We have a test tomorrow."
"Oh, I'll help you. I'll help you do it." "What if I don't have to go? I don't have to do it."
"Oh, that's right.
Yeah. We don't even need her."
Coach
"Mom! Mom!
"You wouldn't believe it!
I hate my teacher! I hate my teacher!
You would not believe what she did to me today. You wouldn't believe what she did
to Marcus!" "Yes, you'll tell me." "Mom." "Yeah." "Mom. Okay." "Yeah."
"Okay but I gotta tell you. Okay.
Okay. She calls us up in front of the school
right up at the front of the board
and she has to do these problems.
Marcus goes up first, of course everybody laughs,
they always laugh at Marcus. So they walk up there, he left. And I'm like, "I'm not
going. I'm not going.
I put my head down. You know what she did? She called on me anyway. She calls on me, I go up there.
I work the problem. Right in front of everybody. She says "Well, you didn't get
it right.
You're not working hard enough."" "And you were hoping she would
really understand how hard that was for you. You were hoping that she would
understand that you were really taking a risk to go up there."
"Yeah." "Yeah." "That was really scary to walk up in front of everybody." "Yeah. That is scary."
"And you know math isn't my strong thing." "Yeah and
it would've been so much more helpful
if she had been able to really give you that encouragement that confidence and yet
you did handle it." "Yeah, yeah. Yeah." "You got through it." "And nobody laughed.
At least Marcus."
"And we'll work on that too. We'll work on how you might be helpful to Marcus too.
Right now what might be helpful to you?
What might be helpful to you right now and then work on what might be helpful
to you the next time she calls on you and you don't know what to do."
"Right now I just kinda wanna go
outside and walk around a little bit." "Okay.
Because that is one of the ways-" "But I do need help with math." "Cause I can feel your hands, that you're really tense."
"I need. I need. Yeah." "You're still frustrated, you're still feeling frustrated.
So take a walk outside.
We'll work on the math.
Sounds like a plan.
And then you know what we're going to do. When that moment comes when you're sitting at your
desk.
What is it
that will help you?
We'll find that."
"Okay." "Yeah." "Alright.
I'm going outside.
See you mom!" "Oh. Honey
your pack." "Oh. I'm going to
drop that over here. See you later."
As funny as the previous scenes have been
it's a serious problem.
We can't do
differently
unless we know differently,
unless we become consciously aware.
I hope this information guides you in a journey
so that you have a new,
inspired relationship with your own emotions
and in turn can help the next generation of children
find emotional well-being
that we didn't even dream could be possible.
I wish you well.
Give yourself the gift of Conscious Discipline
"Managing Emotional Mayhem" is available now
ConsciousDiscipline.com
For hilarious videos going through each emotional state and starring Dr. Becky Bailey as the child, visit us at www.youtube.com/lovingguidance