Be inspired and empowered as Live Inspired reveals the brave and deep work of self-discovery. Through living it, Laura has cultivated an ability to look in the mirror to recognize the part of her that notices her thoughts, that senses her feelings, and opens a door to her quiet observer. With greater compassion for herself she can bear witness and create empowered and quality interactions with other people... and she shares how you can do it as well.
Learn more in this Q&A.
How did your childhood experiences shape who you became as a mother? I grew up in an unpredictable chaotic environment. I experienced extremely difficult interactions with my mother who engaged in a rat-a-tat-tat type of criticism/shaming and annihilating rage storms which created trauma for me. With an older sister and younger brother, I was, for whatever reason, split “all bad.” Being the target, I became quite good at observing the whole of my mother-her body movements, her energy vibe, her facial expressions, tone of voice. In addition, there were other tortured soul adults who interacted with me in ways that created trauma. Like a hypervigilant scientist, I learned to tune in to what most people would dismiss or not even notice. I turned to nature, books, and my internal world for respite. I began forming a connection to what I describe as the Fly on the Wall, the witness consciousness or Seat of the Soul as a little girl.
This witness consciousness recorded all the DVR’s that remain vivid inside of me-like scenes from a movie. Even in the midst of all the heinous experiences I had as I child I continued to have a deep, soul calling to become a loving mother. I also knew I’d need to breakthrough toxic patterns. I carried a deep passion to support my own children being their genuine selves. I wanted my children to know that they were loved and accepted for who they were and not what I wanted them to be or become. Those powers of observation continued as I parented my children. I felt passionate about listening and being present for the unique and distinct people they were and are today as best as I could. I knew that they could feel all their feelings, but I could place limits on behaviors and direct them to safe expressions for their anger and frustrations. I learned with support to do this for myself, too.
What did you do to support your healings and transformations in becoming a healthier mother?
In Live Inspired, I share a story about my own rage in the essay, The Importance of Unravelling. I called my rage, Lois. Naming my rage helped me see that it was trauma and not the essential me. I also experienced much shame for the ways I’d explode for I intellectually knew this wasn’t healthy for me or my family. Mental affirmations, intellectual conversations about these episodes and what I felt like inside did not create healing. I couldn’t just “shift my mindset.” As one health professional stated it, “You cannot use positive affirmations for a condition that lives in your body. You must go to your body to heal the traumas.”
While I found it useful to be able to describe exactly what happened inside of me when I had episodes, I desperately wanted them to come to an end. Trauma lives in the body, the entire nervous system. Until this trapped energy finds safe exit, and the body/nervous system struggles to shift naturally from the parasympathetic to the sympathetic systems. The amygdala (fight, flight, freeze reactions) remains quite active rather than the prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain that can think through consequences and process information in a more sophisticated manner). Finding dynamic equilibrium and a more peaceful centered place to pause becomes an aspiration.
After the veil lifted and I actually saw the terrified faces of my two small children one afternoon, I sought professional help from two gifted therapists who focused on the body as well as discharging the emotions surrounding all the traumas I had experienced over the years. Many hours of Somatic Trauma Resolution, Cranio-Sacral therapy, transformational workshops, inspirational and psychological book reading, yoga practice, exercise, speaking and listening to other women who were healing similar traumas, and journaling all supported my healing and transformations.
The skills I gained while tracking my mother and other adults became similar skills that I used to observe myself-my emotional state, body sensations, breathing, body postures, words I spoke and the tone in which I spoke them. I learned how to pause, to place myself in “time out.” to dispel the emotional charge of feelings in safe ways as soon as I’d notice the body sensation that my internal pot was beginning to heat up. Emotions require safe release. I had to find practical ways to release the built-up traumas that had been lodged in my body-like trapped energy that needed to dissipate. Screaming cuss words into a bed, punching a pillow while screaming, crying buckets of tears all helped me release this energy. Biking, running, swimming, dancing, power walking continue to be some of my favorite ways to experience emotional balanced. Breaking a sweat has so many benefits for being a physically, mentally, and emotionally healthy parent.
Meditation supports the expansion of this Quiet One or Inner Fly on the Wall who notices the thoughts, feels the body sensations, and observes what my body is doing and what’s happening with other people and my environment. Being grateful continues to be another beneficial practice for wellbeing and emotional health.
What wisdom did you glean from your interactions with your mother and other toxic people and from your choice to walk away, to go silent with these individuals?
One of the most important pieces of wisdom I gleaned is that I was not responsible for my mother’s or other people’s cruel words and ways with me. Quite simply, their reactions were theirs, and a reflection of their own self-loathing, unresolved pains and traumas of their past. I was not responsible for their happiness or sanity. I could only be responsible for my life, words, deeds, healings, and transformations.
This took many years for me to recognize because I engaged in addictive behavior patterns with my mother, especially. A trauma bond had formed. This trauma bond needed to be broken for me to live free, clear, and sober. I had lived addicted to the yearning for her approval mixed with the trauma/drama impact of her abuse, the intense emotional fearshame hangovers. When I got older and began standing up for myself, I shifted from the freeze mode to fight mode. Fight mode escalated our encounters to a roaring blaze as she persisted in rewriting, denying, or claiming she had only been “joking” when she had been intentionally cruel.
After I became a parent, I became motivated to break ties from a profound commitment to the well-being of my children. I did not want them to see me be abused by their grandmother. I no longer wanted to be putting my hands on a hot stove that others kept saying wasn’t burning hot. I did not want my children to become the targets of my mother’s cruel words and ways. Eventually, I realized I was choosing to be free for me and not just because of the emotional safety of my own children.
My healing work deepened in the space of some safety. My mother continued to struggle to honor my privacy and my boundaries. Since my parents lived close by, they still persisted in showing up in unexpected and “you cannot make this stuff up” ways.
When I moved to the mountains of North Carolina after my children became adults and my second marriage ended, I finally, am right now experiencing the most profound sense of safety that I’ve ever had in my whole life. Uncoiling and more transforming has taken place by leaps and bounds. I’m incredibly grateful.
You discuss the practice of patience in your book. Share with us some of the benefits of patience you’ve discovered while mothering your young children.
I share a story about a person in my daughter’s life who had no bandwidth for her toddler learning process with a shape sorter. This individual walked over, grabbed the shapes from her hands, pulled off the lid, threw the shapes into the yellow cylinder container, and slammed the lid back on. Thank goodness my daughter, being a keen observer herself, just looked perplexed after this happened. This incident got me thinking about the importance of patience, not just in the world of parenting, but in life. We live in a “now” “now” “now” culture that seems to demand answers and replies immediately. Some answers to complex problems require time and deep reflection. Our growth as human beings takes time, focus, and many mistakes along the way. Human beings, especially children, have all different learning styles and pathways they take to gain understanding or skills, or make a developmental leap. A three-year-old cannot process the world or their environment like an eight-year-old. For instance, young children are concrete thinkers so the topic of death can only be processed at their ability to grasp it-the dead squirrel can no longer eat or poop or climb trees. A young child will likely grasp those facts. The existential or spiritual or religious contexts of death take years to begin to understand and even, then for some of us death still remains this unspeakable looming reality and yet, questions about energy, consciousness, soul- a mystery for some mature adults.
As stated in Live Inspired, “Likely the interplay among the rush from experiences or immediate actions, thoughtful introspection, and the deliberate, meaningful integration and application of recent learnings allow patience to serve as a foundation of your process as all these are important for growth.”
What inspired you about your full-time parenting years with your two children?
Many experiences with my two children inspired me as I have rich and wonderful memories of our interactions and time together. I especially loved seeing how they grew and matured. I savored our Sunday special time switch off in which we created a time block for one on one time to engage an activity with each child one at a time. I’d be with my daughter and she could choose the activity we did together. My son would be with his dad. We placed limits around technology when the children were young so the activity would be imaginative play, an outside activity, a board game or puzzle. We also had family time on Sundays when my children became old enough to enjoy these activities. We’d regularly laugh so hard while playing board games such as Apples to Apples or Cranium.
loved listening to them and learning about their different perspectives on the experiences they were having at school, with friends, teachers, and coaches. I felt inspired attending their track meets and Cross-Country races and would consistently cheer for all the team members. Our house became a home that my daughter’s and son’s friends would want to be. I enjoyed cooking meals and being a sounding board, a loving, and accepting presence in these young people’s lives.
I will not ever regret all the small moments I savored with both of my children. Sometimes these still feel like the most precious gifts I could have received. Being able to breathe their presence into my lungs and love them so fully and completely, if imperfectly, continues to be the greatest blessing of my life. They are both thriving young adults now. I’m so proud of who both of them have become, who they are becoming, the values they hold dear, the self-awareness, courage, and confidence they exude. Seeing them in their adult lives shows me that I broke the ancestral patterns, that all the countless hours of relentless and courageous work I did and continue to do to heal and transform allowed them to become the exceptional adults that they are.
What practices do you find beneficial to developing self-awareness?
Accessing body wisdom can be incredibly beneficial to self-awareness. Some practices that have supported me in becoming self-aware include interrupting my habituated ways of doing things, to alter my routines including simple things such switching the hand I use to brush my teeth or comb my hair, opening the car door with my opposite hand. I believe many people get swept up into their minds and forget they have a body that moves around, that embodies a breadth of wisdom.
Most information in the outside world enters through our bodies and travels up the vagus nerve to our brains. When we quiet our minds, we learn a great deal about our bodies and our hearts. Courageously dropping into my heart allows me to fully feel whatever might be there, to release what I might have blocked or stored up from the past. Placing my hands on my heart regularly makes such a difference.
Moving my body into a neutral position with my knees slightly bent, my spine lifting up, my eyes soft, mouth slightly open and tongue on the roof of my mouth cues my body into calm. From here I can choose how I want to respond to a situation rather than react. I love this posture practice.
Deep breathing and focusing on the breath calms me and allows me to pay attention to myself and my surroundings, the person talking to me. I like the four-count inhale, four count hold the breath, four count exhale, four count hold the breath and repeat several times. This brings me to the present moment and much self-awareness.
Yoga practice connects me to my body and interoception-the sensed experience of my inner body and organs. I love the journey to feeling and living safely inside of my body, feeling my feet, noticing the spread of my toes, sensing the floor beneath my feet. I find yoga practice to be an effective way to access unresolved emotional content in the heart and to clear my mind, to pay attention.
Listening to other people, who continue to have my best interests at heart, those individuals who want my life to flourish remains another courageous path to self-awareness. Seeking and being receptive to other people’s feedback can be invaluable, especially those who want you to thrive, and are doing their own work, too. The people who hear, see, believe, and value you deserve your full attention. High quality, self-aware, vulnerable, and courageous people can make all the difference on your journey.
Meditation and mindfulness remain foundational practices that have supported my self-awareness. Paying attention to other people, listening closely with rapt attention allows me to see all parts of myself each and every day with much compassion and grace. All those ways they are being all live inside of me. I see myself in other people all the time. This practice keeps me humble and very human. It allows me to shift to nurturing my essential self who loves and continues to be utterly grateful for all that life brings.
Thank you so much for this opportunity to share!
The founder of Cherish Your World, Laura Staley passionately helps people thrive by guiding them to a holistic transformation of space, heart, mind, body, and soul. Laura knows that there’s a relationship between the conditions of our homes or workplaces and the quality of our lives. Trained and certified with the Western School of Feng Shui and seasoned by almost two decades of working with a variety of clients, Laura uses her intuition and expertise to empower her clients to produce remarkable results in their lives. Her trifecta of serving people includes speaking, writing, and compassionate listening.
As a columnist, Laura writes personal essays focused on self-discovery, feng shui, emotional health, and transformations from the inside out. Laura is the published author of three books: Live Inspired, Let Go Courageously and Live with Love: Transform Your Life with Feng Shui, and the Cherish Your World Gift Book of 100 Tips to Enhance Your Home and Life.
Prior to creating her company, Laura worked as a full time parent and an assistant professor at Ohio Wesleyan University. She earned a Ph.D. in political science from The Ohio State University. Her joys in life include laughing with loved ones, dancing, reading, meditating, running, being in nature, and listening to music she loves. She resides in Black Mountain, NC with lovable dog, Layla.
No comments:
Post a Comment