How To Create a Healthy Household Culture: Find Balance in the Energy.
Being a mother has been the most rewarding and challenging job that I have ever had. Over the years, I have held many different types of employment including hustling it in fast food, babysitting kiddos (for $2.00 dollars an hour in my early teens), serving tables for tips, catering and working in undergrad college cafeterias, teaching CPI- Non-Violent Crisis Intervention Techniques to staff members, working as a Case Manager for awesome children who were dual diagnosed with developmental disabilities and mental health disorders, and of course being a Psychotherapist (both in the private and non-private sectors). Out of all these jobs, parenting has challenged me to my core due to my desire to keep a balanced household. No matter the mood I am in on any given day or the stress I am feeling, I strive to practice the art of creating a culture of healthy in my home. Creating a culture of healthy includes finding balance in the energy of my home. This can be vital to the family system running efficiently and also necessary for managing our overall health. I view energy being balanced in the household when there is a consistent source of positive (healthy) energy being created while also negative energy being released and let go, in order to help bring balance to the force so to speak. 😊
Even if you are not a parent of children, per se, that does not mean that 1) You are not a mother or nurturer to some sort of being who needs your love (including yourself) which can be draining of your energy or 2) That you have not experienced the stress of life/trauma/or experience mental health struggles of your own and have a desire to create a more balanced household. We all deserve to experience balanced energy within ourselves and in our external environment. it is not always easy to create it for ourselves.
Finding our rhythm with creating a culture of healthy in our lives is a skill, something that takes practice, and something worth working towards. Whatever role or job you hold in life, please know that it has meaning and that you have purpose! I have been re-reading Bessel van der Kolk's book, The Body Keeps The Score, which is an excellent book on trauma. In this book, Van der Kolk discussed the last major study that Ivan Pavlov did towards the end of his life. The name Pavlov might ring a bell 😊 because his study of classical conditioning is well known. However, in the study that Van der Kolk focused on Pavlov’s, “Reflex of Purpose” which he proposed, “was the most important factor of life." In this study, Pavlov acknowledged the idea that all "creatures need a purpose and need to organize themselves in order to make their way in this world." Just like the animals that need to build shelters, or seek food sources for the winter months, or attract potential mates for procreation; we as beings need to have the tools and energy to find our way in this world. We need to find our purpose and doing so can be an incredibly moving experience in our journey with finding our healthy.
Bessel van der Kolk identified that Pavlov argued the importance of "Emotions and Movement" with being successful in participating in life and reflected that one of the most "devastating effects of trauma is that it often damages this Reflex of Purpose and our ability to regain our energy to engage with life." Hence, the importance I place in my own household with creating a culture of healthy/balanced energy for myself and those in my care.
If you are someone who has experienced trauma or debilitating mental health symptoms, then I am pretty sure you have experienced that wave of no energy, where it is hard to create any sort of movement in our body. Sometimes the best we can do is to just exist in the moment. Survive it-however it presents in our body. Where just breathing and being a part of the moment takes so much effort that laying down and staring at the wall and breathing is about all we can give. If you have experienced something like this then know you are not alone!! Trauma and emotional pain in life can impact us in this way and deplete our energy to this capacity.
When I think of energy, I think of something that is always present and in constant motion. Energy is always being released or exchanged when we interact with others and our environment. So, when we do not purposefully release our energy, it can build up. If we are not mindful of our energy building, we can explode when angry, throw tantrums, or abuse substances to help us manage the excess energy in our body when we feel overloaded and uncomfortable. We can also be depleted of energy where we are unable to move, feel stuck, and creating movement feels unbearable. So, what can we do when we want to create a culture of healthy in our home and bring balance to the force in our home environments? How can we be a positive source of energy for others in ways that are not too taxing or take too much time or energy when we are struggling? How can we be mindful of the importance of our emotions and movement when managing the many ongoing outcomes of trauma? I want to share with you some quick go to exercises which have helped keep the energy balanced in my household on my busiest of days.
Healthy Ways To Manifest Positive Energy While Releasing Negative Energy:
Practice Opposite Action and Release Positive Energy into the World: Releasing happy energy into the world is beneficial to change our mood when we are feeling overwhelmed and it often works like a charm for changing the mood of my children when they are struggling with managing their own emotions. Keep in mind, our emotions want to stick around which is why it can be so hard to let ourselves move or do something opposite of how we are feeling, such as laugh, when we just don’t feel like it. We cannot change our mood on cue, but we can work to do the opposite of what our emotions are urging us to do, especially if we are experiencing negative emotions.
What I tend to do and prompt my children to do is the following: Rub the palms of your hands back and forth until your hands get warm and then throw them up in the air and say very loudly, “HA, HA, HA, HA” until I feel utterly silly doing so. Sometimes I even think of positive thoughts to send out to the world with the hopes that it will find its way back to me. Or you even say the word, “Release” and imagine releasing all of your negative energy out of your body and letting it go. It may sound silly but sometimes silliness can be beneficial in the moment and children tend to jump on board when things seem silly. Before you know it they are laughing and I am able to notice the smiles and joy of others. Even if I am not able to experience the change in my mood, witnessing the change in others can be beneficial. A plus, is that I know I have helped create it for others and that reinforces my purpose.
Practice Mindful Gratitude in Times of Emotional Pain
We are all aware that stress can have a major impact on our physical and emotional health. Stress can impact our ability to concentrate, can increase our blood pressure, increase inflammation, decrease our immune system, even cause hair loss. This list can go on. No matter how big or small the stressor can be, it can take us down a path where our energy is depleted, and we may lose sight of our purpose and the ‘healthy’ we are trying to create in our daily lives. Finding things to be grateful for and expressing gratitude can be beneficial to our emotional health. Studies indicate, such as one completed by Prathik Kini and colleagues at Indiana University in 2015, that practicing gratitude can alter brain function in depressed individuals and “induce structural changes in our brains” which provides us the ability to alter and re-wire our own brain! How amazing that by practicing mindful gratitude that we can create change at such a biological level and doing so does not have to take much time out of our day AND we can model and teach this to those around us.
Open the Windows and Surround Yourself with Nature
Open the windows of your home space and welcome the fresh air in. It can be renewing and feel cleansing in the moment. Take time to breathe and notice the change in temperature around you. It can impact our mood and overload our senses when we can experience this moment in a different way. Often times, increasing our connection with nature can bring about change. Give and release your negative energy to the earth and universe. Go for a walk outside, bring a plant inside your house to take care of, and open windows (even for short periods of time) can be beneficial to our health and help us create positive energy in our lives. If you do not have the energy to create movement yourself, then walk outside a let the external world create the movement for you. Notice the breeze blowing, the different sounds around you, the different smells of the seasons, and the air creating change around you. Let something else do the work for you while you just breathe, notice, and work to regain your energy with the life around you.
Take Your Attention Inward and Take Control of the Negative Energy Within:
Focus your attention on what is happening inside your body. Locate the stress in your body or where the negative energy has settled in your body. Typically, it is where you are feeling a lot of pressure, heaviness, or even pain. Imagine bringing that negativity outside of your body and hold it in your hands. Then take time to manipulate it. Assign it a color, a shape, a weight, a texture. Does it have a temperature? Make it yours. Take time to control it and change it. It can feel good in the moment to be able to feel like we have control over something that maybe has been controlling our mood for a period of time. Then, imagine throwing it as far as you can or imagine placing it on the ground next to you and run away from it. How freeing it can feel to be creating distance with something that feels so heavy. Doing this may make it a more bearable experience when acknowledging that this energy has existed internally. Check back in with yourself internally and see if you notice any change or shift in your body internally. Over time, if you practice this often, it does not have to take up much of your time. This exercise can take 3 to 5 minutes and make a big difference in your mood, with how your holding energy in your body, and even in the mood of those around you.
I am often reminded that we have the ability to create and change our own energy and the energy of others. As stated in the words of Dr. Laurie Santos, a Yale Professor, whose podcast The Happiness Lab is one I highly recommend, “Our energy and mood is contagious to those around us.” So why not work hard to tap into positive energy when we can, be mindful of releasing negative energy (even if it feels silly), and work to model these practices for those around us. These are ways to create positive change with finding some balance in our households no matter how small it may seem in the moment. Finding a purpose, creating movement, connecting with nature, and cultivating balanced energy are all important things to be mindful of on your journey of healing.