“Get outside” to put out the fire. That one’s the best for me. You’re 100% on point there. Second choice: ask (as politely as possible, which is always hard for me in those nerve-shred moments) for someone else to drop whatever they’re doing and take the little one for 20 minutes, so they can go do together the one thing that always makes the babe happy — for my daughter, it was a warm bath. For others, maybe a banana with nut butter, or a walk in the stroller, or whatever that one thing is that never fails. Whatever it takes to keep the wee one from crying for you for just a few minutes so you can get your nervous system back online.
I echo and honor your feelings here. I know just how it feels to feel your nerves all light up at once just like the buzz of that old Operation game! Up in flames, whoosh! Mama 💚
"Get outside to put the fire out" That feels like the nervous system equivalent of "stop, drop and roll". Love it! Imprinting that one in my brain for the next time the "whoosh" comes...
I relate to the singing. I sing my way through everything - parodies reworded with current woes included. My other survival tactics include stepping outside - even if it’s only for a few breaths - and moving my whole body - which often produces spontaneous, quite theatrical, dance parties.
What a beautiful and authentic description of the fire that lights up all the nervous system! My daughter just turned 5 and I have felt that so many times during these years. Love your remedies… I love physiological sighs and horse lips and breath of fire too, which she’s always found silly and that always helps for coregulation! 💗
I created a class years ago, when my youngest was 4, called Into the Fire, and it was about exactly this. I leaned heavily on non-violent communication with my loved ones, and myself. Learning how to feel my own needs beneath all of the reactivity from overwhelm, and then express those needs, became my foundation. The needs changed. Sometimes it was the need for silence. Sometimes if was the need to not be touched by anyone for any reason for a period of time. Sometimes it was the need to hyper focus on some creative flow. Sometimes it was the need to laugh at something raunchy and vulgar 😂. Going into the huge sensations with a compass pointed toward the true need was what got me though it. My youngest is 8 1/2 now, and I can feel the fire reduced to a smoulder most days. Your description of this is absolutely perfect!! Sending you so much love, as I remember those days so well 💚
This giving me hope to hear about your smolder Eryn! Thank you for all you shared here, including the changing nature of what we truly need (isn't that the most interesting compass to learn to follow? I swear children are here to teach us to be absolute masters as recognizing our own needs). Grateful for you and the fire tender that you are.
Oh how I feel the burning of the nerves - often. I haven't figured out always how to calm myself, but what works best is if I get some me crafting time. It might be sewing/knitting or what ever else and I tend to need quiet during that. I also take baths which help regulate my nervous systems and on particular bad days I take of my classes (I do have 4/6 diopter short sight) which means I get a lot less input. But that works only for 'save' environments I know and feel save in.
I also should take walks more often, Yoga helps too. (I'm the classic couch potato ;D )
^^' I just wanted to write about crafting but suddenly I remembered a lot of other calming techniques I already have in my tool belt. Good to (actively) know :)
Thank you Asia for sharing your experience, it feels a lot more valid what I'm feeling day to day without having other mothers to talk about this in my live.
I feel this Asia! I'm in a later stage of my parenting, my biys being 9 and 12 now, but I truly still resonate with the two-year-old stage. My younger boy is sensitive too and has meltdowns and moments like when he was 2, though thankfully not as often, and sometimes we get a day where he doesn't have one at all and I find myself also not looking too hard at it incase it goes away! What was true for me back then is true for me now in that getting outside for a breath (and often a cry) on the doorstep and looking at the sky, is my greatest help. Sending loads of love for the relentlessness of it all, some days I just count down the time until the boys go to their dad's or to school so that I can bring myself back from the edge. So resonate with the feeling of being on fire.
I remember in those truly tender first weeks when my son had just arrived earth-side, he had his first howl, in my arms, where nothing could calm him down. As I felt my nervous system ignite, I intuitively let out a loud tone that harmonized with his cry. The sound washed over us, he stopped wailing, and I felt as held as he did. Toning, singing, humming— anything to pierce the veil of overwhelm (while stimulating the vagus nerve)— is my absolute go-to. Luckily, I’m an emotional-catharsis-inclined singer-songwriter, so my heart/body often remembers this practice even when my mind’s trapped in a circle of flames.
Oh this describes it so so perfectly… and I wrote similar a few weeks ago about self regulating when you are alone and overwhelmed because I almost needed to remind myself of all the tools I have… it’s not always easy to access them though. This is going to stay with me though… I think getting outside is probably the best… and singing… I sing so much now!!!! And hum!! In the mornings when it’s been intense already by 7am, and I can’t actually get outside, I open my window and take three breaths looking up to the sky… that always soothes my fire enough for a little while. Beautiful as always xxxx
I just add water. A shower, bath, wet flannel, the beach, even the garden hose. My boys love it and when one is particularly challenging a warm or cool bath (we live in a hot climate of extreme heat in summer so it’s hard to cool him) really soothes him.
"Just add water"... gonna remember that one! It's honestly a game changer. I once had a Cherokee herbalist tell me that the first medicine in his lineage was always "just take it to the water," no matter what it is...including howling babies! That always stuck with me.
I do not have children, but I have a puppy! I had two old dogs, one passed away around Thanksgiving. One day my other boy plopped down on the couch next to me and looked at me like, what are we going to do now? That look made my decision very clear, I needed new life in my house! We were both getting too comfortable…. Hence the puppy! Now when I am tired and on fire at the end of the day or just am not feeling it, I go outside with both of them and or remind myself of the new life I am grateful for. He makes me laugh, he makes the “old boy” bark and chase him and he snuggles and loves me so much! Life is precious and I realize it all the more after my loss. The outdoors is my saving grace!
“Get outside” to put out the fire. That one’s the best for me. You’re 100% on point there. Second choice: ask (as politely as possible, which is always hard for me in those nerve-shred moments) for someone else to drop whatever they’re doing and take the little one for 20 minutes, so they can go do together the one thing that always makes the babe happy — for my daughter, it was a warm bath. For others, maybe a banana with nut butter, or a walk in the stroller, or whatever that one thing is that never fails. Whatever it takes to keep the wee one from crying for you for just a few minutes so you can get your nervous system back online.
I echo and honor your feelings here. I know just how it feels to feel your nerves all light up at once just like the buzz of that old Operation game! Up in flames, whoosh! Mama 💚
"Get outside to put the fire out" That feels like the nervous system equivalent of "stop, drop and roll". Love it! Imprinting that one in my brain for the next time the "whoosh" comes...
I relate to the singing. I sing my way through everything - parodies reworded with current woes included. My other survival tactics include stepping outside - even if it’s only for a few breaths - and moving my whole body - which often produces spontaneous, quite theatrical, dance parties.
What a beautiful and authentic description of the fire that lights up all the nervous system! My daughter just turned 5 and I have felt that so many times during these years. Love your remedies… I love physiological sighs and horse lips and breath of fire too, which she’s always found silly and that always helps for coregulation! 💗
I created a class years ago, when my youngest was 4, called Into the Fire, and it was about exactly this. I leaned heavily on non-violent communication with my loved ones, and myself. Learning how to feel my own needs beneath all of the reactivity from overwhelm, and then express those needs, became my foundation. The needs changed. Sometimes it was the need for silence. Sometimes if was the need to not be touched by anyone for any reason for a period of time. Sometimes it was the need to hyper focus on some creative flow. Sometimes it was the need to laugh at something raunchy and vulgar 😂. Going into the huge sensations with a compass pointed toward the true need was what got me though it. My youngest is 8 1/2 now, and I can feel the fire reduced to a smoulder most days. Your description of this is absolutely perfect!! Sending you so much love, as I remember those days so well 💚
This giving me hope to hear about your smolder Eryn! Thank you for all you shared here, including the changing nature of what we truly need (isn't that the most interesting compass to learn to follow? I swear children are here to teach us to be absolute masters as recognizing our own needs). Grateful for you and the fire tender that you are.
Oh how I feel the burning of the nerves - often. I haven't figured out always how to calm myself, but what works best is if I get some me crafting time. It might be sewing/knitting or what ever else and I tend to need quiet during that. I also take baths which help regulate my nervous systems and on particular bad days I take of my classes (I do have 4/6 diopter short sight) which means I get a lot less input. But that works only for 'save' environments I know and feel save in.
I also should take walks more often, Yoga helps too. (I'm the classic couch potato ;D )
^^' I just wanted to write about crafting but suddenly I remembered a lot of other calming techniques I already have in my tool belt. Good to (actively) know :)
Thank you Asia for sharing your experience, it feels a lot more valid what I'm feeling day to day without having other mothers to talk about this in my live.
I feel this Asia! I'm in a later stage of my parenting, my biys being 9 and 12 now, but I truly still resonate with the two-year-old stage. My younger boy is sensitive too and has meltdowns and moments like when he was 2, though thankfully not as often, and sometimes we get a day where he doesn't have one at all and I find myself also not looking too hard at it incase it goes away! What was true for me back then is true for me now in that getting outside for a breath (and often a cry) on the doorstep and looking at the sky, is my greatest help. Sending loads of love for the relentlessness of it all, some days I just count down the time until the boys go to their dad's or to school so that I can bring myself back from the edge. So resonate with the feeling of being on fire.
A cry and a look at the sky! Oh I feel this Jo.
I remember in those truly tender first weeks when my son had just arrived earth-side, he had his first howl, in my arms, where nothing could calm him down. As I felt my nervous system ignite, I intuitively let out a loud tone that harmonized with his cry. The sound washed over us, he stopped wailing, and I felt as held as he did. Toning, singing, humming— anything to pierce the veil of overwhelm (while stimulating the vagus nerve)— is my absolute go-to. Luckily, I’m an emotional-catharsis-inclined singer-songwriter, so my heart/body often remembers this practice even when my mind’s trapped in a circle of flames.
Oh this describes it so so perfectly… and I wrote similar a few weeks ago about self regulating when you are alone and overwhelmed because I almost needed to remind myself of all the tools I have… it’s not always easy to access them though. This is going to stay with me though… I think getting outside is probably the best… and singing… I sing so much now!!!! And hum!! In the mornings when it’s been intense already by 7am, and I can’t actually get outside, I open my window and take three breaths looking up to the sky… that always soothes my fire enough for a little while. Beautiful as always xxxx
I just add water. A shower, bath, wet flannel, the beach, even the garden hose. My boys love it and when one is particularly challenging a warm or cool bath (we live in a hot climate of extreme heat in summer so it’s hard to cool him) really soothes him.
"Just add water"... gonna remember that one! It's honestly a game changer. I once had a Cherokee herbalist tell me that the first medicine in his lineage was always "just take it to the water," no matter what it is...including howling babies! That always stuck with me.
I do not have children, but I have a puppy! I had two old dogs, one passed away around Thanksgiving. One day my other boy plopped down on the couch next to me and looked at me like, what are we going to do now? That look made my decision very clear, I needed new life in my house! We were both getting too comfortable…. Hence the puppy! Now when I am tired and on fire at the end of the day or just am not feeling it, I go outside with both of them and or remind myself of the new life I am grateful for. He makes me laugh, he makes the “old boy” bark and chase him and he snuggles and loves me so much! Life is precious and I realize it all the more after my loss. The outdoors is my saving grace!