“We’re co-dysregulating,” I said to my husband. It was time to start getting ready for bed and as usual, the boys were being a little wild-yelling, hitting each other with their clothes, etc. We had been here before but this is the first time I could see that my husband and I were getting dysregulated, agitated, and frustrated along with the kids.
Maybe you’ve experienced something similar where it seems like everyone is feeding off of chaotic energy.
I don’t know about you, but co-regulating wasn’t really modeled to me. My parents got divorced when I was pretty young and my mom did her best raising 3 girls alone but she really didn’t have the tools, support or resources to manage stress and coregulate.
As a mama to 2 boys, yoga teacher and soon to be yoga therapist I’ve had to learn a lot about stress. Here’s what I know:
self care is essential
we need tools, support and resources
compassion and grace for ourselves and our children are necessary
just as we can co-dysregulate, we can co-regulate.
So let’s talk about what we can do to prevent co dysregulation, in the moment it’s happening and after it happens.
- Prevention. This can happen once we have awareness and tools for self regulation.
- In the moment. At this stage, you’re noticing that you’re getting dysregulated and you have 2 choices: continue down the dysregulated sh*t show or take a moment to ground and regulate so that you can begin to co regulate.
- After the moment. After we have already gotten dysregulated, maybe lost our cool and showed up in ways we didn’t love, we need to repair and reflect.
Prevention.
Awareness is this case is knowing that this sort of situation triggers me and I may not be able to show up in a way that is beneficial if I’m not well resourced.
What are the moments that tend to be really stressful?
What are your needs?
Self regulation happens if we’re taking care of our needs. How can you ensure that you’re getting enough sleep/rest, nourishing foods, self care, time to yourself, positive social interactions, and whatever else you personally need so that your cup isn’t empty and your resilience is a bit higher?
Tend to your needs:
Eat at regular meal times.
Make sure you’re getting enough sleep/rest. I created a free sleep guide that is full of practices, tools and tips to help improve your sleep, you can download it here
Time to yourself and positive social interactions. The balance here is unique. Do you need more time to yourself or more time with friends and/or your significant other or maybe both?
Tools:
Awareness practices like yoga. It never ceases to amaze me that when I work with clients, a natural benefit is that they begin to become more aware of what’s contributing to whatever it is they’re dealing with and possible solutions. Yoga increases your awareness and while it starts with what’s happening ‘on the mat’ it extends into your life.
Daily rituals can ground and nourish you. These rituals can include: a yoga practice (that includes any elements that suit you such as devotion/prayer, yoga nidra, pranayama, meditation, chanting, asana), abhyanga (self massage with oil), blessing your food and eating with presence, making and enjoying a cup of coffee or tea, watching the sunrise/sunset. These things all need to be considered and planned for before the moment that tends to be stressful AF.
Can you pad the stressful moments with some self care before it happens? Some ideas:
- Taking 5 minutes to rest in a quiet room.
- Self massage. Grab your favorite oil and gently massage your face, neck, shoulders and feet. My favorite is Paavani Pitta Serum* on my face and Banyan Botanicals Shirodhara Oil with a couple drops of frankincense and a drop of Spikenard essential oils to support the nervous system on my body.
- a cup of warm tea
- a short yoga practice
In the moment.
Even when life is chaotic, I can find calm.
According to the yoga tradition, your true Self is light, joy and untouched by the chaos and changeable reality. Maybe you’re thinking okay Tammy, that sounds great and it feels good to know, but how on earth can I access that when it feels like I’m neck deep in chaos?
Here are some practical ways to tap into the calm that is untouched by the chaos:
- Tune in to your breath. If you can, lay down and close your eyes. Feel your body laying on the floor. Put one hand on your belly and one hand on your chest and just feel your breath moving in and out of your body. Feel how your body moves as you breath in and out.
- Have a go to yoga practice to shift your energy and thoughts
- If it’s bedtime and you’re trying to get the kids to sleep, this isn’t the best choice unless you have someone who can take over but going for a walk can shift your energy
- s l o w d o w n. Slow down your movement, your speech, your breath. Your thoughts will also slow down and you’ll have a little more space to respond instead of react.
- Hugging your significant other or a loved one (this is coregulation :))
- Some form of bouncing, shaking, moving, loud exhales. Don’t be afraid to get weird with it
Once you are feeling more regulated, then maybe you can co regulate. This is specifically for children, if you experience this with a partner, a break and a walk together or separately can be great.
Match them first then slowly wind it down.
Turn the chaos into fun chaos with dancing, clapping, jumping/jumping jacks, making a game out of getting ready (I’m going to turn around and close my eyes, when I turn around who’s going to magically be changed?).
Gently, progressively slow your voice and movement down, lower the pitch of your voice until all is calm and you’re ready for the next step of bedtime or whatever is coming next.
After the moment
Repair is apologizing to your child or loved one-hey, I lost my cool and that didn’t feel good, you didn’t deserve that. In the future I’m going to let you know I’m going down the hall to my room and take a moment for myself so that I can come back calmer.
Reflection. First, validate: this shiz is hard and I’m doing my best. Then decide what you can do in the future in the prevention and in the moment stages.
Self care. What do you need? Are you tired? hungry? stressed? When in doubt, a warm bath is always comforting.
This is a lot. I shared a lot of ideas and tools. My suggestion is always to start small and simple. Choose 1 thing-either the 1 thing that will make the most impact (this is probably self care for most of us) or the easiest thing to begin doing and just do that until you feel like you have it down then maybe you add somelthing else.
P.S. it’s okay that we don’t get it right all the time. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krsna tells Arjuna that is better to do one’s own svadharma imperfectly than to do another’s perfectly. My teacher says your fundamental dharma is to be happy and that if you have children that’s your svadharma (or one aspect of it).
PPS: I once heard Danielle LaPorte talk about how we need gentleness. Instead the self blame and shame album of what’s wrong with you, why are you struggling, we need the gentleness that says of course you’re struggling, this is really hard. This had such a big impact for me, maybe it does for you as well.
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