10 things I know for sure about my children

Written by Lian Brook-Tyler

This crazy modern world is constantly conspiring to make me forget these 10 things about my children, so this list is a reminder for me as much as anything…

1. When I feel annoyed with them it says nothing about them and everything about my thoughts about them in that moment. No-one can make me feel anything (although it’s a very powerful illusion that they can… especially when they leave damp towels on my bed). Only my own thoughts can create my feelings.

2. Supporting them to come up with solutions works a whole lot better than when I tell them what to do. The more I stick to just asking questions (“Oh, what could you do now?” “What do you know about this?” “What’s worked well before?” “What could you try?” “How could you find that out?”) the more I see they’re perfectly brilliant at figuring out answers for themselves. In fact, I’m noticing that even my questions are becoming redundant.

3. Expecting them to sit still, to sit up straight, to focus, and to stop fidgeting means I’ve forgotten how unnatural that is. A couple of moments spent watching any young animal in nature is a great reminder of how children are designed to move, to play and to explore too.

3. Telling my children what to do makes a lot less sense than modelling it. This means it’s crazy to shout at my children for shouting. It’s illogical to get angry at my son for losing his temper. Here more than ever it’s a case of Ghandi’s multi-purpose advice to ‘Be the change you want to see in the world.’ If I want a happy, kind and creative household then it makes sense for me to enjoy life, to help others, to tread lightly on this earth, to make things (and yes, baking cakes totally counts!) and to find things to laugh my cheeks off over.

5. They’re not here for me to coerce into the behaviour that I want. Looking for ways I can punish and bribe them to do what I want means I’ve lost sight of the fact that that is no way to relate to any human being. If I don’t want to be manipulated, monitored and managed via time outs, stickers, star charts and the withdrawal of things that I love then it’s a pretty safe bet that my children won’t appreciate that either. Interestingly, the kind of praise/punishment parenting we often consider to be ‘normal’ isn’t actually natural at all, it’s something we short-sightedly adopted from the field of behaviourism (basically: give a rat this and he’ll do that) and it doesn’t tend to work with humans in the long term.

6. They want human connection because they’re… well, human. Expecting them to want to sleep alone, to sit alone, to eat alone, and to be alone is expecting them not to be human. Snuggling together, cooking and enjoying food together, kisses, warm greetings (“Good morning, angel! How did you sleep?”) and expressions of love are the fuel to the human fire.

7. If I get hung up on their behaviour then I’m completely missing what’s creating the behaviour. When I’m judging their behaviour, I’ve forgotten that what they’re doing makes complete sense to them according to their thoughts in the moment. I get a chance to see my children’s needs when I put myself in their shoes and ask “How does the world look to my child right now? How does he feel? Does she need some space, to be heard, a cuddle or something else?”

8. They need space to wander and to wonder. In today’s modern world, the pressure’s on to fill my children’s diaries with clubs, classes and social events. To make sure my children’s schedules are as jam-packed as their peers’ (or the average blue chip CEO’s). But with a diary like that when will they have time to play, run free, find bugs, make dens, climb trees, look for fairies, and to imagine whole new worlds? If their every waking hour is filled with ‘stuff’ when will they learn the art of moving from boredom to creation? Freedom is the medium through which they’ll become resourceful and self-sufficient… there’s no class in the world that can teach them that.

9. I don’t need to try to control them for fear that they’ll ‘go bad’. For any of us living in a community, there are some things that are important to understand: what’s safe and unsafe, what will p*ss other people off and what won’t. (Although there’s actually surprisingly few things that fall into the ‘Important’ category when I stop to really think about the ‘why’ behind something that seems SO important!) The few truly important things such as ‘It’s not OK to hurt ourselves or others.’ will form the values that my children will grow to understand and to choose to live by… long after they’ve left home and any control that I could attempt to exert.

10. My children are gifts (but not my personal property). Time passes fast and each moment is precious drop of life flowing on by… I can’t contain, stop or control any of it. Sometimes life gets busy and tough but when I pause to remember that this whole thing is an incredibly unlikely, jaw-droppingly beautiful miracle, it suddenly gets a whole tonne easier to feel grateful for these fleeting, glorious gifts with their rooms strewn with Lego and socks, sticky hands and heart-stopping smiles.

The #1 reason your paleo diet won’t get you results

(…and what you can do about it).

So you’re rocking the paleo lifestyle… you’ve given up grains and you can barely remember life before coconut oil.

Paleo is a return to a simpler, more natural way of living. It’s about reclaiming that connection to your primal self and being in sync with what feels good for your body.

First, you start eating more primally and then the next thing you know, you’re getting into natural movement and spending more time in the great outdoors.

Ultimately, the real power of the paleo lifestyle is that it gets you asking the question of “What’s natural for the human animal?” (which is the last thing the rest of society is thinking about!) It’s a brilliant question!

And that question means that any primal devotee worth their Himalayan salt can tell you that we weren’t designed to slump in chairs for hours on end, chowing down on Oreos and KFC.

But for all the ‘standing desks’ in the world… we’re just not living in an environment that’s natural for us humans…

The modern world in which we find ourselves is crazy!

Today’s world is a place that’s filled with a constant stream of stress triggers… moving house, divorce, money (or the lack of it), ridiculously long work days, wars and that stupid bleeping way that other people drive.

And just as we aren’t meant to fill our bodies with junk food, we also weren’t designed to have our minds filled with noise of this non-stop stress.

Think about it…

Way back when we lived in a more natural environment, we’d be in the stress response a tiny amount of the time. Only real threats from real things like bear-size hyenas and sabre-toothed cats would trigger our stress response and get us primed to sting like Ali or bolt like Bolt.

STRESS RESPONSE 101

Your brain interprets a situation as threatening your safety.
Your brain activates the fight or flight response, flooding your body with the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline.
Your heart pumps faster, your blood pressure rises, blood is diverted from your organs to your major muscles, your brain gets more oxygen, and your liver produces extra sugar.
Non-essential bodily functions (e.g. your digestion, saliva production and parts of your immune system) are shut down to some degree.
You are now primed to fight or flee.

And then when we’d fought the predator off (or more likely… run off screaming), we’d drop back into our natural state – at ease, in flow and resourceful.

However in today’s crazy modern world, our feelings of stress aren’t triggered by being chased by a scary, hairy animal. Nowadays, there’s rarely anything ‘out there’ that’s putting us in any real danger… instead we’re conditioned to be triggered by things such as overflowing inboxes, running late and social expectations.

Our brains are interpreting non-life-threatening situations as being life-threatening. This means our heads are constantly filled with stressful thoughts of “I need to do this now!”, “I can’t do that.”, “I’m not good enough for that.”, “I should do this.”

So our stress is simply created by our thinking. I’ll say that again because it’s so easy to miss the implications of this… Our stress is created by our stressful thoughts in the moment.

And this means that in today’s crazy modern world, most people are in the stress response a huge proportion of the time.

We get stressed and then we stay stressed

So what happens to the human body when we’re stuck in the stress response? It can…

Cause weight gain or loss.
Create digestive issues like diarrhea or constipation, reducing the absorption of nutrients.
Increase your risk of diabetes.
Compromise your immune system, making you more susceptible to viruses, diseases and infections.
Cause chronic headaches and back pain.
Increase your risk of having a stroke or heart attack.
Cause insomnia, irritability, anxiety, and depression.
Diminish your sex drive and affect the reproductive system, including issues with the menstrual cycle, fertility, erectile dysfunction or impotence.

All of the paleo pancakes in the world ain’t gonna fix that!

So now you know the reason you’re not getting the results you want from your paleo lifestyle, let’s get into what you can do about it (and don’t worry, this isn’t any of the usual stress management techniques like ‘Sit down and meditate for hours’).

You can reclaim your primal state of ease, flow, and resourcefulness, here in this modern world, without disabling your facebook account and throwing away your iPhone to go live in a shack in the middle of nowhere. Here’s one of the antidotes to the modern world that our tribe loves…

3 steps to reclaiming your primal state…

1. Notice when you’re feeling stressed
Simply notice that stress in your body. Notice where you’re feeling stress and notice how it feels.

2. Notice your thoughts
Simply recognise what you’re thinking about. That isn’t judging or critiquing your thoughts, it’s simply noticing what you’re thinking about in this moment.

3. Notice that your stress is being created by your thinking
See that your stress is a DIRECT RESULT of what you’re thinking, not the circumstances. Notice that a different thought would cause an entirely different feeling.

When you see the truth of this for yourself, you’ll be recognising that situations and other people – ridiculous politicians, running out of coconut oil, your boss’s sh*tty emails – aren’t creating your stress at all, your own thoughts are!

That recognition by itself, is a huge step towards dropping into the awareness behind our thoughts. And then our thoughts cease to appear like a stress-triggering threat, because we see them for what they are, as ‘just thought’.

Threat over… we drop back into our primal state.

And just to be clear – this isn’t a technique, positive psychology or positive thinking. This is simply how the human animal works. It’s the way we’re designed to experience life.

How cool is that?!

Can it really be that simple?

It certainly is. We’ve seen this work for many thousands of people in all kinds of situations, including high-powered jobs, areas affected by natural disasters and in some of the most violent places in the U.S.

But there’s zero need to take my word for it! Try these steps the next time you feel stressed and see what happens for yourself…

When did you last love yourself?

By Phil Goddard

When did you last love yourself?

No, this question is not meant as an invasion into your intimate private life. When did you truly feel connected to the love you have for yourself?

Many people considering this question will see self-love as an activity, as something ‘to do.’ Some will also believe it’s something we need to ‘do more of and more often.’ Pondering the self-love question, we often think of it as something to undertake to balance out some unkind acts against ourselves, such as when we are less than complimentary to ourselves, when we ignore or play down our own needs, feel angry at ourselves for supposed failures or mistakes, or beat ourselves up and run ourselves down.

Self-love becomes yet another burdensome activity for us to fit in our to-do list, some ‘me-time’ we might reluctantly add to our schedule.

Yet there is an alternative way of seeing self-love that requires you to do absolutely nothing. (My favourite kind of realisation!)

Whenever I talk to people about self-love they often talk about activities they undertake to ‘make up for’ what they have put themselves through, or some kind of reward for what ‘life has thrown at them.’ A congratulatory self-hug for managing to get through a tiring day getting the kids back to school, or an extra special treat for eating healthy all week. Just as a lack of self-love manifests in many ways, there’s at least as many activities we are willing to embark upon to offer ourselves some ‘much needed’ affection, congratulation and approval.

But approval is not acceptance. Most acts of self-love are tokens of approval, gifts of deservedness. Yet if I approve of something (or someone) I am still making a judgment against some standard, which infers that should it not be met, I would disapprove. Approval and disapproval are two sides of the same coin.

Approval isn’t love. Approval is another judgment.

So often we run from one end of the seesaw of judgment to the other, playing a drama game within our self-image of trying to balance out times when we are hard on ourselves with times when we are less so. Reward becomes just the other side of the coin of judgment and deservedness. We may be harsh on ourselves on one side, and so reward ourselves on the other. Reward becomes part of a negotiation, often a kind of contractual, conditional remuneration.

Yet when we are in touch with love there is a natural equilibrium, an acceptance beyond judgment.

By all means, have the dark Belgium chocolates, buy yourself red roses, treat yourself to a massage, get down to the gym and feast on spinach soup for lunch. Allow yourself some quiet time, say f**k it and book that holiday, have a sit-down with a cup of tea, get a manicure and buy the not-from-concentrate juice. Wear cashmere, go walk bare-foot on the sand, take a candle-lit bath with your favourite novel, even stay in bed an extra hour and forgive yourself of all ills.

I invite you to enjoy all physical pleasures available to us in this wonderful world. Indulge your senses.

Yet if you listen to your judgments of yourself you are not in touch with what you already are – Love.

Love does not judge. Love does not condemn and hence love does not ever need to forgive or reward. Self-Love is an unconditional, absolute acceptance of all of you.

You don’t need to reward yourself as part of some negotiation of affection for yourself. Any act of self-reward to counterbalance judgment is not an act of love. Love needs no action or negotiation of judgment. Love is the absence of judgment.

That part of us – love – is ever-present, obscured only by the image we create of ourselves that tries to dictate whether we deserve something or not. Love is only ever obscured by a self image. Without self-image, there is only love.

And as for the question, ‘When did you last love yourself?’ – You have never not loved yourself, because you are love. You are it, the lover and the loved.

Self-love is not so much an activity as a recognition of who you really are.

If you’re willing to allow the self-critic to fade and feel yourself drop down into your heart, you may recognise love as the true you. That part of you is not only available atop a misty Indian mountain; it is with you always. Even in the supermarket as you fight back a scream because you left your shopping list at home.

I’d like to extent an invitation to you that one of my mentors, Robert Holden, offered to me. I invite you to allow yourself to notice the judgments without choosing to be the judge. Simply notice them pass through without adding yet another layer of judgment about them. And in simply noticing them, in allowing them without resistance, you may find some acceptance of who you are, and feel the self-love that is already you, Belgium chocolates optional.

Note from Lian: If you enjoyed this article then you’ll love The Born Happy Show I did with Phil on the same topic! Have a listen here.

What is the true nature of children (and us)?

Written by Angela Dawson

As I sat on the bus, all scrunched up and kneeslammed, my thoughts turned towards my youngest son. Immediately, a flood of adrenaline squeezed terror through my bloodstream – from belly’s pit to finger tips. Searching my supposedly smart phone for an answer to my worries only served to panic me further. In no space of time, I was tearing up, about to break into wild sobbing. On. The. Bus.

Thankfully, before I made a public spectacle of myself, calm descended; I settled down.

My son is superbendy, gifted as he is with an extra chromosome that gives him the ability to scratch his head with his toes. The previous evening, as I was feeding him in bed, I heard a disconcertingly loud crack and looked down, only to find his kneecap sitting … well … not quite where a kneecap should.

“Can you come and have a look at this, please?!” I called to my husband, stomach churning. Due to rise for an early morning dash to London, I was on the verge of talking myself out of the whole thing once I heard the bones crunch (and saw them move). In my wisdom, though, I knew my son was fine.

When I looked closely at him, it was clear that the poppingout kneecap was of no concern. He was cool as. No tears. No fears. There was no evidence of pain. Minor inflammation and redness turned out to be, on closer inspection by torchlight, just my imagination running away with me. My husband concurred that our son was fine, kindly reassured me, and encouraged me to go ahead with my trip.

I settled down, for an unsettled night’s sleep and gave this situation little thought until the bus journey. After my self-induced fright, once the momentum of my thinking slowed, I had pause to give thanks for the illumination. For having the chance to see, once again, that we are not feeling what we think we are feeling, we are feeling what we think.

I was momentarily awe struck by the simplicity and sophistication of a system that dishes up a smorgasbord of thought, each with its own accompanying flavour of feeling brought to life by the gift of awareness (Consciousness).

It is in perfect working order, whether we pick up a delicious or disgusting morsel to feast on.

My fearful thinking had, in a flash, given rise to fearful feelings, replete with the corresponding neurochemical rush. You’ve got to admire a system like that. When I saw that I’d got caught up again, my wheels stopped spinning. I settled down, as is our nature. The climate was then ripe for a sea of clear thinking and fresh ideas to wash over me.

From out of the blue, a quiet voice inside whispered, “Just call the physio.” I remembered her saying that, for some people, popping their joints out at will was a prized party piece. Maybe there was nothing to fear after all.

I have come to realise that what helps me most in raising my children is not the stacks of parenting books and magazines, nor the well meaning advice. It isn’t even a tried and tested talisman that has worked its magic before. Neither lucky outfit, nor spellbinding words. No single routine that works like a charm.

What helps me most is recognising that we each have an intelligent energy running through us that allows us to know what to do and how to do it. Our parenting instinct is inbuilt. We are born to raise young just like all the other animals in the jungle. The difference between us and them is that the animals just do what they do, no questions asked, no dramatic narrative added.

Our parenting power rests quietly in this presence of Mind.

This infinite creative intelligence behind all living things is the ultimate security blanket. It lets us off the hook, catches us when we’re flailing around, or on our knees. It gifts us with straight up solutions to the toughest parenting challenges. It means that we don’t have to figure things out. There is always this solid ground that we stand on, even when it feels as if the sand is shifting beneath our feet.

Presence of Mind allows us to see our children with Real Eyes. We see the innocence in them. We see the health in them. We see the heart of them. We see all this too, in ourselves. Without a tidal wave of superfluous story swimming around in our heads, it is easier to see the true nature of ourselves and our children.

When we realise that we are all enough as parents, we can trust ourselves. There is real freedom in truly seeing and being seen. We can all, especially our children, feel the difference in connecting in this way. It warms our cockles. Swells our spirit. Feeds us.

I still stumble around at times, half asleep, blind to what is in plain sight. I make up compelling tales about why my children are behaving the way they are, then react from that which I have written on the walls of my mind. It is easy to stop seeing them. It is even easier to fall awake.

When did you stop…?

Written by Lian Brook-Tyler.
The painting is ‘Flow’ by the ridiculously talented Samantha Hurst of I Am Om Art

When did you stop?

When did you stop writing?
Those words that flowed from your soul like a river dappled with the light of innocence. Did the river run dry?

When did you stop drawing?
From soft graphite hearts, and the infinite curves of consciousness to boardroom doodles to a blank white page. Did the pencil lead blunt?

When did you stop making your music?
The made-up melodies, the lucid lyrics, the banging beats, the soundtrack to your life. From making to hearing to not even listening. Did the needle lose its groove?

When did you stop moving?
Skipping, stretching, sprinting, asanas, six-hour sex sessions and somersaults. Dancing like no-one is watching to dancing only if the moves are right to not dancing at all. Did you do all the possible moves?

When did you stop exploring?
Exploring for the excitement of exploring? Learning for the love of learning? Playing for the pleasure of playing. Seeking for the sake of seeking? No goal, no prize, no acclaim – just because there’s a wide open space full of wonders which no-one has yet chartered. Did you reach the end?

I stopped at 15…

…when I realised that people didn’t want or need my ideas, my creations, my moves, my freedom, my laughter, my questions or my differences. That stuff wouldn’t fit in the box that had my name on it. So I stopped. I neatly folded my limitlessness and I climbed into that tiny box.

For years I worked hard at fitting shiny cars, pretty clothes and expensive houses neatly into the box with me.

Then one day, I started unfolding.

Quietly. Slowly. Softly.

Allowing small lines, shapes and ideas flow from my mind, body, mouth and fingers and escape from the box. Carefully in case they were seen. No… In case I was seen. Seen wasting my time, shamefully, in a place where only real artists create art and only real explorers explore.

There is no box

And then in a single moment I realised there is no box. I’d simply fallen into a delirium of hallucinations about the importance of fitting into a box.

Then it was clear… we are all artists and we are all explorers. It’s why we are here. And we are all limitless.

So now I create art and I explore.

How about you?

Love,
Lian xo