When Accusations Fly

The other day I was driving with one of my children to an appointment, and from out of nowhere, an accusation flew into the space between us.  It felt like a slap, an indictment on my character and my heart.  Not to mention, it was simply not true.  Within moments I felt myself escalating from calm and happy to enraged.  How dare you accuse me of this?  Do you even know me?  I felt the emotion simmering in my belly, moving toward boiling.  My stomach turned to knots, my heart sped up, my body stiffened, my jaw set, and my mind went on high alert.  Suddenly I found myself in fight mode.  I entered the ring with my angry child and we both felt totally justified to be there.  We were now on level ground -- both upset, frustrated, defensive, and ready to argue.  Sadly, this never ends well. It didn't that day.

I have done a lot of reflecting and processing since that time, trying to understand what happened, and how I can do better the next time (there's always a next time, right around the corner).  Conflict is inevitable.  As much as we all hate it, it's impossible to have a relationship and not experience conflict at some point.  And in a family, especially a large family, we can expect to multiply that possibility a few times over.  This isn't something to run away from, but it's also not something to fight.  I think what it comes down to is control.

This is different than being controlling.   A controlling person attempts to get someone else to do what they think is right, or think they way they think.  It usually involves tactics such as demanding, manipulating, ignoring, yelling, cajoling, nagging, accusing, blaming, and pouting.  These are all immature and unhealthy things we resort to when faced with conflict.  And they never work.  Our attempts to control usually end up achieving the opposite - we quickly spiral out of control, wreaking havoc and speaking and acting in ways we never intended.

The key is maintaining or regaining control of myself before the situation spirals.  This is so hard when emotions start boiling!  But if I truly care about my relationships, and know that conflict will happen, then this is important enough to try.  I know I cannot change (control) anyone else -- but I can change me.

I've come up with three reminders, based on a Bible passage I read recently, to help me navigate the beginning, middle, and end of conflict.

Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of malice.  Instead, be kind to each other, compassionate, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ forgave you.  Ephesians 4:31-32

1.  Be kind. This seems like a difficult thing to start with when you are boiling mad.  But think about it along these lines: Don't retaliate. Don't fight fire with fire. Be the first one to stay kind.  When the accusations fly and I start feeling all the emotions, this is my cue to pause, take a deep breath (or many) and be quiet.  Slow down, don't engage (yet), and take a minute to think.  When I'm feeling more in control, I can say something like, "I'm going to take a minute to calm down, because I feel myself getting angry, and I want to stay calm." And then take that time.  Not too long -- because that will frustrate the other person, but enough time that you're not retaliating and retorting out of anger.  "A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger." Proverbs 15:1

 2.  Be compassionate.  If the first one is hard, this one is nearly impossible.  But it is doable. If I'm committed to this relationship, then the ultimate goal is connection and healing.  As much as I want to defend myself and argue my case in those first moments, what I need to do is try to understand.  If I continue in a state of calm, instead of getting defensive, I'm able to be curious instead of combative. I can say, "I wonder why that makes you feel worried when I ask you about that."  or  "I wonder why it bothers you to have shoes that are old."  (Yes, this was a real thing in our house, and a huge source of conflict.)  Be honest, be open, be curious.  Ask, don't tell, them how to feel.  As we move through the conversation, and as I can stay calm, usually the anger diffuses somewhat and we are able to get to some sort of understanding.  I say usually, but not always.  Sometimes there's no understanding, and that other person is not able to connect to what they are feeling.  But I can still make guesses, try to understand, and affirm them as they try to make sense of their emotions. If I feel that the other person is able to receive it and the situation is calm, this is the time to explain my heart, to express my intentions, and frame my perspective.  It's really important that I do this in an effort to bring healing and growth, not for the purpose of proving myself.

3.  Forgive.  This is the final step, and the path towards our own healing.  When words are spent, it's time to mend and move on.  Even if the other person isn't ready to admit any wrong, I can say something like, "The way you treated me was hurtful, but I want to forgive you, because you are important to me."  I almost always  have something I need to apologize for too: "I'm sorry that my words/ actions made you feel worried. That was not my intention.  I'm on your side."  And then I need to truly release it, and not store up any bitterness in my own heart.  I can forgive, because I know that I have been forgiven too.

In a perfect world, we fly through numbers 1, 2, and 3, and both go on our merry way.  But we all know emotions are unpredictable, and even with the best of intentions, things can go awry.  So we leave room for mistakes, and we expect to do this imperfectly.  But at least we try.  And we practice.  Each time, we grow a little bit, and our capacity enlarges, and we stay a little calmer than we did the time before. And even if we are the only one changing, it's a win. 

Climbing Out of the Trench

In April we celebrated one year since Samri and Abel joined our family.  We look back at this past year and can't believe how fast it's gone.  We've witnessed so much growth in all of us.  We've adjusted to so many new things: new sports, new schedules, new ideas,new personalities, new foods, new cultures, new parenting strategies, and new relationships.  We've rejoiced over bonds being formed and explosions of learning. We've had so much fun learning about Ethiopian culture and have mastered the art of cooking a darn good shiro.  We've laughed our way through some misunderstandings due to language barriers.  Our family has been a family and all that comes with that - vacations, inside jokes, family game nights, cheering for each other at sporting events, getting a puppy, and so much more.  I look back and am proud of us.

April 23, 2015 - First day in America

April 23, 2016 - Celebrating one year at the Ethiopian restaurant

But I also look back and think, "How did we survive that year?"  That was one of my hardest years of life by far.  In many ways, it was a year of survival mode.  Survival mode = doing the bare minimum of what needs to be done just to make it through one more day.

Although we prepared and prayed and read books and took classes and talked to many, many adoptive parents, none of us were prepared for that first year, especially me. I thought I was prepared for two teens who would be grieving all that they'd lost, but I didn't know that it would spill over into every single area of their lives, and by default, into the life of our family. I read the books and knew that when attachment is interrupted in the early years, it impacts trust and bonding for the rest of life.  I had learned a lot about trauma and how it affects development in a child, and interrupts learning and development.  I knew that every adoption involves trauma, and sometimes trauma trumps forming trust in the closest relationships.  I thought I knew, and I thought I was strong enough to love them through it.  But when it happened in our house, day after day, over and over, the rejection stung. The burden of grief was crippling. And I didn't know that our love might not be enough.    I had no idea how hard it would be, that every night I'd fall into bed emotionally and physically drained, and think, "Oh my gosh, how am I going to get up and do this again tomorrow?" I was in survival mode.

My mental picture of survival mode is someone who has fallen into a deep trench.  They're stuck down there, without any hope.  They are literally going to die without intervention.  All they can think about is getting out.  All they can manage is living one more day. They aren't thinking about anyone else but themselves.  It is a lonely, scary place to be.

Most children from hard places live in this trench.  Fear rules every interaction.  Self-protection is necessary for survival. There is little room for compassion, forgiveness, patience, gentleness, joy, and many times, LOVE, when you are in survival mode.  All you care about is living one more day.  Understanding this has given me greater compassion for my children, and all children who have come from a hard place.  I continually pray that God will fill my heart with understanding and compassion.

I also realized the other day that I hate living in survival mode.  Functioning in survival mode makes you a survivor by definition, but it's not a healthy place to be.  I don't want to be the one in the trench, grasping for one more day.  I want to climb out and be the one at the top, offering a hand to  help someone else out  (most of all, my children).  One of the ways I can do this is by taking care of myself so that I don't fall back into the trench. This is called practicing self-care.

Self-care is a huge buzzword in adoption circles, with good reason.  Self-care involves finding those things that fill you up so that you can pour yourself back out.  This has become the number one way for me to climb out of the trench of survival mode.  These are the things that give me energy, make me happy, and help me cope. Here are some of the ways I practice self-care:

• Setting my alarm for fifty minutes before my children get up.  This gives me time to pour a cup of coffee and sit in the quiet with my Bible and a journal.  Spending time with Jesus every day is not a luxury for me; it's a necessity.  It sets me up for the rest of the day and helps me focus my heart and my mind.
• Journaling.  I am a writer; it's how I process my constant menagerie of thoughts.  As I write in my journal I'm able to sift through the craziness and figure out what I'm thinking and feeling.
• Time alone with my husband.  He's my best (guy) friend and he's going to be here long after the kids have moved out.  It's really important to us to keep our relationship strong and grow together.  Many nights after the kids are settled into their own activities (teens don't go to bed early -- so we had to find creative ways to find alone time), we will sit on the couch or outside, have a glass of wine, and debrief with each other.  We also try to find one day a month to go out alone, and try to go away once or twice a year together.
  

  

  
  

• Coffee.  Oh, did I already mention that?  Two cups every morning, and sometimes I'll make myself an iced coffee in the afternoon as an extra treat.
• Time with girlfriends.  As my life has gotten [way] busier, I've had to be very intentional about this one.  I have a group of girls I meet with once a month for dinner, and then I try to sprinkle in some coffee or lunch dates throughout the month in order to catch up with other friends.  There are also a few adoptive mama friends who have been there/done that and they are an invaluable encouragement to me as well.
• Family time.  (Can you hear the groaning coming from my teens -ha!)  I'm a quality time girl, and one thing that fills my love tank is having my whole family together and engaged in some fun activity.  Again, if we're not intentional, this doesn't happen.  There's usually a lot of complaining from certain people beforehand, and it's very challenging to find activities to entertain 7 through 16 year olds, but we usually manage to have fun.  Some fun things we do: hike, go to amusement parks, play Bingo or spoons or charades, have family movie nights, go  to museums and aquariums and zoos, cook Ethiopian or other themed dinners, swim, and visit new places.
  
   
  
  

  

  
  

• Sparkling water.  I discovered this a few years ago.  It makes me happy.  So I drink one a day, either grapefruit or lemon-lime.
• Cheez-its. Again, they make me happy.  Especially the "extra toasty" ones.
• Cooking.  I love to experiment and try new foods and new recipes.  One thing that's been challenging with a big family is finding foods that everyone will eat and that won't blow our food budget.  Usually I cook super simple meals in order to appease everyone, but once in awhile I make something more adventurous and provide chicken nuggets and mac and cheese for the picky ones.
• Sunshine.  This past winter and spring were brutal.  Being stuck inside makes me really grumpy.  Even if it's cold I try to get out and walk for a little while.
• Exercise.  This one I do because it's good for me, not because I particularly enjoy it. When I was in survival mode, I did not exercise.  It was one more hard thing to add to my hard to-do list.  So I let it slide.  But now that I'm emerging from my trench I'm making it a priority.
• Saying Yes and being silly.  Sometimes I take life too seriously  and worry too much about dirt and schedules and all that boring stuff.  I need to remind myself to just say yes to some of the crazy stuff my kids want to do, and  let myself dance and laugh and sing and get dirty and squeeze the joy out of every one of these moments.
  
  
  
  
  
  

I'm sure I'll fall back into the survival mode trench, but I do feel like I'm better prepared for it this go around, and know more about myself and how to start the climb back out.

Are you in survival mode right now?  Try making a list of what makes you happy, what gives you energy, and what helps you cope (or stay healthy).  Write it out and figure out how to work it into your days and weeks.  And let me know what yours are!  Whether you're in the trench, on your way out, or lending a hand from the top, we're all figuring this out together.

Stay.

For the past several years, along with countless others, I've chosen a word to define my year.  In the past I've had words like grace, know, and present. This year my word is STAY.  It started as a joke to a friend: "My word should be stay, as in: I'm not going to run away." It was a hard year last year.  There were many times I did want to run away.  But over time the word took on a different meaning: Stay the course.  Be steady.   Be consistent.  Plant your feet and stand strong.  We have experienced so much change over the past year and a half.  We've been on a roller coaster of emotions, and living with teenagers and a pre-teen and two youngers, there will always be ups and downs.  To be honest, sometimes I ride the emotional roller coaster right along with them.  And although I'm human, and I give myself grace for that, it's not helpful for me or them.

I am working through a study on prayer right now and this is the verse I was journaling about this week:

When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth.  I pray that from His glorious, unlimited resources, He will empower you with inner strength through His Spirit.  Ephesians 3:14-16 NLT

I wanted to explore that phrase: "inner strength."  What does that mean?  Inner strength is different than outer strength.  It's not physical -- it's emotional and spiritual.  It's the ability to stay calm and controlled in the middle of overwhelming, stressful, or frustrating experiences.  It's thinking through your actions and responding with intention, not reacting out of emotion.  It's that person who is steady, consistent, and wise in the middle of crazy circumstances.  We all know people who freak out when they get stressed and create unnecessary drama and tension in an already stressful situation.  To be perfectly honest, I can lean this way sometimes too.  I can only handle so much before I want to run-- bolt out the door and get away from everything.  Or maybe feel like I'm going to explode and I end up saying things I regret later.  It requires incredible inner strength to stay calm.

This is why God tells us we can't do it alone.  The Creator of everything in heaven and earth has unlimited resources at His disposal.  He has power we cannot even fathom.  And in our moment of weakness, He has the power to calm us, steady us, come alongside us.  His power IS made perfect in our weakness.

I see so many parallels between this and parenting.  I'm reading a book right now about  the link between a child's neurological development and the way a parent reacts to misbehavior.  Human brains begin developing before birth, and a child's brain is not fully developed until the mid-20's. That explains a lot, right?  During this time, the brain is constantly changing -- learning and adapting depending on experience.

When an infant or young child experiences trauma during these early developmental years (even in the womb) it enormously impacts brain development.  That child's capacity for handling stress is compromised.  Their ability to think through and make logical decisions is affected.  They are easily overwhelmed and are wired to think only of their own survival.

All adoption involves trauma.  There is profound loss at some level -- loss of a parent, loss of caregivers, loss of stability, loss of nurturing, loss of friends, loss of home.  Some have been through wars.  Some have seen people die in front of them.  Some have lived through disease.  Some have lived through abuse.  Every adopted child is a survivor.  Every one has been impacted in some way by the trauma they lived through.  And because of that, they need us.  They need us to be compassionate.  They need us to lower our expectations.  They need us to remember where they came from and that they may not have the tools that other children have.  They need us to pursue them.  They need unconditional acceptance.  They need loving support as they learn how to live in a new world.  They need someone who is willing to fight for them, especially when they want to give up and when they are pushing us away.  They need people who will be consistent, remain steady, and stay.

Even without any obvious trauma, our children need us. I'm learning that I have sometimes expected too much out of my children.  If their brains are not fully developed until their twenties, why am I surprised when they make bad choices?  Why do I expect them to act like me?  When my youngest son gets angry, he lashes out.  It's an automatic response and he hasn't learned yet how to control his reaction.  Instead of lashing out at him and getting angry at him, he needs me to come alongside of him, empathize with his emotion, and teach him the healthy way to deal with his anger.  This isn't to say he doesn't have boundaries. It is not ever okay to throw and hit things when you're mad.  But within those boundaries I want to come alongside and support and help and train --- not tower over and yell and punish and isolate.

"It is unfair to assume that our children are making decisions using fully formed, perfectly functioning brains and can view the world as we do."  --No Drama Discipline by Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson

In this book, the authors explain that when we discipline with threats (verbal or nonverbal), we "activate defensive circuits" in our children's brains, which almost always lead to escalating emotions.  It sets off an automatic response of survival -- fight, flight, freeze, or faint.  In these situations, our children's brains are programmed to self-protect.  They aren't thinking; they are reacting.  They aren't capable in this moment of producing logical behavior. They need us to not be in a reactive state, but to remain calm, nurture with empathy, remain open, and show them that we are not a threat.  Then they are able to relax and we are able to move towards training.

Last week Jonas (age 7) did his homework and proudly showed it to me.  I told him he did a great job and praised him for his hard work.  But, there was one word that was incorrect and needed to be fixed.  For whatever reason, he went into meltdown mode immediately.  He crumpled his paper.  He threw his pencil and every other writing utensil on the counter. He started screaming: "I already did it!  I'm not fixing it! NO!" He threw himself on the floor.  I stood there dumbfounded. I could feel myself getting instantly angry too.  I wanted him to stop.  His screaming stressed me out.  He was interrupting my dinner making.  And he was totally overreacting.

But...I tried to remember what I had just read that morning.  Jonas needed me.  He needed me to stay calm.  He needed me to try to understand him.  He needed me to empathize with his emotions, however ridiculous they seemed to me.  I got down on one knee and drew him close to me and hugged him.  I rubbed his back as he sobbed, and kept holding him until eventually he stopped crying.  I told him, "I'll help you, hon. I'm here.  I can help you."  He calmed down, I asked him to pick up his pencil off the floor, and then we finished the homework together.  When it was done, I talked to him about anger, and that it is never okay to throw things when we are angry.  I told him I am here to help him, and that I want him to work on taking a deep breath when he feels mad, instead of lashing out.  He listened.  He said sorry.  He said he wants to do better next time.

What if I had reacted out of my own anger?  I probably would have raised my voice at him.  Probably I would've marched him up to his room.  I would have told him in my stern voice to sit on his bed and stop crying.  Calm down.  Come back downstairs when you get control of yourself.  I may have shut the door too hard, and stomped downstairs. I have done all of these things.  And although I may achieve the same result, I believe I also may lose something in the process - the ability to connect with my child in their moment of need. The opportunity to be present with him and help him through his pain (even if it seemed completely illogical to me).

"Our children are human and unpredictable.  They won't always respond well even if we are.  But they will see that we love and respect them, even as we discipline them.  They'll know that when they are upset or acting inappropriately, we'll be there for them.  And with them.  We don't turn our back or reject them when they're upset.  Our love isn't conditional on their behavior.  This kind of predictable, sensitive, loving, relational discipline allows kids to feel safe, and gives them the freedom to become independent and able to think through decisions, comprehend what they feel, consider others' perspectives, and come to sound conclusions on their own." --Dan Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson

In the same way, we are human and unpredictable. And God understands that about us and promises to be the One who is not human and is predictable.  He is consistent.  He is compassionate.  He loves unconditionally and pursues relentlessly.  He has unlimited resources at His disposal and He can make us strong when we feel weak. When we are overemotional and overwhelmed, He promises to come alongside of us and help, to be the strong One.  He will give us inner strength. Just as I am longing to do this for my child, He longs to do this for His children -- us.  He promises to be there always -- with open arms and loving acceptance. No matter how ridiculous our behavior may be, He promises to STAY.

Read more about childhood trauma and brain development: The Amazing Brain 

Listen to this TED talk to learn about the health effects of childhood trauma: Nadine Burke Harris: How childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime